Dissonance arousal: Physiological evidence.

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted to determine whether cognitive dissonance is accompanied by physiological arousal. In Experiment 1, a standard induced compliance paradigm was replicated and was found to produce the expected pattern of attitude change. In Experiment 2, physiological recordings were obtained within the same paradigm. Subjects who wrote counterattitudinal essays under high-choice conditions displayed significantly more nonspecific skin conductance responses than other subjects, but they did not change their attitudes. The results are interpreted as support for viewing dissonance as an arousal process. The results are also interpreted as indicating that the subjects misattributed their arousal to the physiological recording device. The significance of the findings for dissonance theory, misattribution phenomena, and social psychophysiological research methods is discussed.

Ambivalence and decisional conflict as a cause of psychological discomfort: Feeling tense before jumping off the fence

“…Research evidence indicates that people are motivated to reduce inconsistencies, and assume that this tendency is caused by the unpleasantness of evaluative conflict. Direct evidence for this assumption is provided by research on cognitive dissonance showing a positive relation between dissonance and physiological arousal (Croyle & Cooper, 1983).…”

Cognitive dissonance: Physiological arousal in the performance expectancy paradigm

“…Croyle and Cooper (1983) found a nonsignificant relationship between the two measures, but found results supportive of dissonance as an arousal process. They used the frequency of SCRs as the measure, as opposed to the average percentage of change from the baseline.…”

Developing Creativity: Artificial Barriers in Artificial Intelligence

“…In either case, he could no longer justify such a high evaluation for his prized creation, leading to a dilemma: believe the reduced evaluation, and hence that he's not as good as he thought; or, doubt the new evaluation, and continue to believe he and his work are great. This ''cognitive dissonance'' (Festinger 1957) is distressing enough have physiological correlates (Croyle and Cooper 1983), and can lead us to alter the truth or our memories in order to allay it.…”