Cognitive dissonance may enhance sympathetic tonus, but attitudes are changed to reduce negative affect rather than arousal

Losch, Mary E.; Cacioppo, John T.

doi:10.1016/0022-1031(90)90040-s

Cited by 114 publications

(105 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…These results may point to an appropriate timing for intervention recruitment as negative emotional states increase motivation to engage in change-related behaviors. 35 In light of these findings, it may not be surprising that some of the DTC companies offer "genetically tailored" nutrition supplements to potentially harness the emotional state of their consumers for marketing purposes. 36 These studies' results also indicate that individuals who learn that they have genetic susceptibility to alcoholism perceive lower personal ability to control alcohol consumption as compared with individuals who learn of no such susceptibility.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of learning about one’s own genetic susceptibility to alcoholism: a randomized experiment

Dar‐Nimrod

Zuckerman

Duberstein

2013

Genetics in Medicine

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of learning about one’s own genetic susceptibility to alcoholism: a randomized experiment

Dar‐Nimrod

Zuckerman

Duberstein

2013

Genetics in Medicine

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“…Although this affect hypothesis may seem at odds with ample evidence showing that cognitive dissonance is associated with negative affect, it is not. Prior dissonance studies explored how dissonance influences affective experiences, such as the build-up of negative affect before dissonance resolution and the return to base-line levels after dissonance reduction (Elliot & Devine, 1994;HarmonJones, 2000HarmonJones, , 2001Losch & Cacioppo, 1990). In contrast, in the present investigation, we explore the reverse causal direction, that is, how induced affect may influence dissonance reduction.…”

Section: Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Although there is some evidence that undifferentiated arousal plays a role in cognitive dissonance (e.g., Cooper, Zanna & Taves, 1978;Croyle & Cooper, 1983;Elkin & Leippe, 1986;Pittman, 1975;Zanna & Cooper, 1974), more recent research stressed the mediating role of negative affect in dissonance reduction (e.g., Elliot & Devine, 1994;Harmon-Jones, 2000, 2001Losch & Cacioppo, 1990; see also Higgins, Rhodewalt & Zanna, 1979;Zanna, Higgins & Taves, 1976). For example, Elliot and Devine (1994) and Harmon-Jones (2000) found that participants reported more psychological discomfort (i.e., felt uncomfortable, uneasy, bothered) and general negative affect after they had just committed themselves to engage in discrepant behaviour, such as writing a counterattitudinal essay, and that affect returned to baseline-levels after changing their attitudes.…”

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confidence: 99%

Cognitive Dissonance and Affect: An Initial Test of a Connectionist Account

Jordens

Overwalle

2005

PSYCHOL BELG

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In their connectionist model of cognitive dissonance, Van Overwalle & Jordens (2002) put forward the hypothesis that positive affect increases behaviour-induced attitudes, while negative affect decreases attitudes. In this article, this hypothesised role of affect was tested for two well-known paradigms in the cognitive dissonance literature: free choice and induced compliance. For the free-choice paradigm, we replicated the findings in the difficult-high choice condition of Shultz, Léveillé and Lepper (1999) and additionally induced negative mood. As predicted, negative mood resulted in a more negative attitude compared to no mood induction. For the induced compliance paradigm, we replicated the Linder, Cooper & Jones (1967) dissonance and reinforcement findings and additionally induced opposite mood in the no-choice (reinforcement) conditions. Specifically, we induced positive mood in the low reward condition and negative mood in the high reward condition. Again as predicted, positive mood increased the attitude and negative mood decreased the attitude, resulting in an elimination of the reinforcement effect. Festinger (1957) defined cognitive dissonance as an aversive state produced by inconsistent cognitions that people have about oneself, others or the environment. The tension or arousal produced by this cognitive discrepancy motivates people to reduce dissonance through behavioural change or cognitive restructuring such as attitude change. Several revisions and advancements of cognitive dissonance theory proposed during the last decades emphasised different affective aspects of this dissonant arousal state (for an overview, see Harmon-Jones & Mills, 1999). One of these theoretical revisions, inspired by the self-perception theory of Bem (1967), was the attributional account proposed by Cooper and Fazio (1984). They suggested that the causal interpretation of the discrepant behaviour motivates dissonance reduction. If a person makes an internal attribution for the aversive consequences of the behaviour, then dissonance arousal will motivate attitude change.

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“…Other misattribution paradigms have created opportunities for subjects to credit the source of the discomfort associated with their dissonance to an overheated room (Fazio, Zanna, & Cooper, 1977), the threat of being shocked in the near future (Pittman, 1975), the disorientation associated with wearing prism goggles (Losch & Cacioppo, 1990), and the potential discomfort of "new lights" (Norton, Monin, Cooper, & Hogg, 2003). Participants in each of these paradigms used dissonance-reduction strategies less often than the participants without similar opportunities to misattribute their dissonance.…”

Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Dangerous Expectations: Breaking Rules to Resolve Cognitive Dissonance

Moore¹,

Wakeman

Gino

2014

SSRN Journal

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When entering task performance contexts we generally have expectations about both the task and how well we will perform on it. When those expectations go unmet, we experience psychological discomfort (cognitive dissonance), which we are then motivated to resolve. Prior research on expectancy disconfirmation in task performance contexts has focused on the dysfunctional consequences of disconfirming low performance expectations (i.e., stereotype threat). In this paper we focus on the dysfunctional consequences of disconfirming high performance expectations. In three studies, we find that individuals are more likely to break rules if they have been led to expect that achieving high levels of performance will be easy rather than difficult, even if breaking rules means behaving unethically. We show that this willingness to break rules is not due to differences in legitimate performance as a function of how easy people expect the task to be, or whether their expectations are set explicitly (by referring to others' performance) or implicitly (as implied by their own prior performance). Instead, using a misattribution paradigm, we show that cognitive dissonance triggered by unmet expectations drives our effects.Words: 181

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Cognitive dissonance may enhance sympathetic tonus, but attitudes are changed to reduce negative affect rather than arousal

Cited by 114 publications

References 23 publications

The effects of learning about one’s own genetic susceptibility to alcoholism: a randomized experiment

The effects of learning about one’s own genetic susceptibility to alcoholism: a randomized experiment

Cognitive Dissonance and Affect: An Initial Test of a Connectionist Account

Dangerous Expectations: Breaking Rules to Resolve Cognitive Dissonance

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