Cognitive Dissonance: 50 Years of a Classic Theory

by Joel M. Cooper

This book is fun to read!...Cooper takes care to delineate those studies that were particularly important in their purpose, particularly clever in their design, and most groundbreaking in their results. He makes a gripping story of the inception and march of progress in what could have been simply a long series of interesting research projects. In doing so, he made me nostalgic for a time when the field of psychology was alive with excitement and overrun with research topics that actually made sense to those outside a narrow specialty and that meant something to the citizenry." 

                                                                                                        ― Alan Cheney, PSYCCRITIQUES "Cooper (Princeton) does a superb job summarizing research on the concept of cognitive dissonance since it was first elucidated by Leon Festinger in the 1950s...Cooper brings a much-needed historical perspective to cognitive dissonance, and he peppers his discussion with interesting personal anecdotes. Political analysts as well as psychologists will be interested in the specific conditions that elicit cognitive dissonance."

                                                                                            ―D.J. Winchester, Yeshiva University

"Dr. Joel Cooper has been at the very forefront of research on dissonance theory for decades now. In this book, he provides a brilliant and engagingly-written review of the 50-year history of dissonance research and a masterful account of the ensuing developments in the theory. The book will be an outstanding resource for readers familiar with dissonance research and an enlightening introduction for those who are not"

                                                                    ―Professor Russell H. Fazio, Ohio State University Why is it that people who smoke continue to do so knowing how bad it is for them? What drives people to committing adultery even though they inherently believe this is wrong? What′s the outcome of this contradiction in the mind? Cognitive dissonance has been an important and influential theory since Leon Festinger published his classic work in 1957. It is known by every social psychologist, most psychologists of any stripe, and the lay public, making its way into such mainstream publications as The New York Times with increasing frequency and accuracy. Ultimately, dissonance has become one of the most popularly known expressions of social psychological insights, making its way into the literature in consumer, health and economic behavior, and has become a frequently used explanation of political behavior in the popular press and magazines. In marking the 50th anniversary of the theory′s inception, Joel Cooper - arguably the scholar most associated with dissonance research in the past few decades - has presented a beautiful, modern and comprehensive analysis of the state of dissonance theory. This book charts the progress of dissonance theory, assessing its impact not only within our understanding of psychology but in everyday experiences as well. It should be important reading for students in social psychology, either undergraduate or graduate, but equally relevant to a host of other readers who need to understand or share the same passions for appreciating the significance of cognitive dissonance in the human psyche.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Teo · Rating 3 out of 5]

2019.12.24–2020.11.26

Contents

Cooper J (2007) Cognitive Dissonance - 50 Years of a Classic Theory

List of figures
• 1.1 Attractiveness of the chosen and rejected alternatives following a decision
• 1.2 Evaluation of boring tasks: degree of positive feelings toward a task
• 1.3 Evaluation of interest of discussion by participants
• 2.1 Degree of agreement after writing essay
• 2.2 Changes of attitudes toward speaker ban as a function of choice and incentive
• 2.3 A comparison of ‘actual’ beliefs and interpersonal judgments of beliefs
• 3.1 Attitude change toward position advocated (1)
• 3.2 Attitude change toward position advocated (2)
• 3.3 Attitude toward shock in psychological research
• 3.4 Ratings of attitude change and discomfort
• 3.5 Attitude change as a function of pill condition
• 3.6 Perceived choice as a function of pill condition
• 4.1 Evaluation of the boring task by participants who believed the confederate was convinced or not
• 4.2 Attitudes as a function of whether the listener was convinced
• 4.3 Mean liking as a function of expectancy and choice
• 4.4 The sequence of events leading to dissonance arousal
• 4.5 The sequence of events leading from dissonance arousal to attitude change
• 4.6 Attitudes toward the proposal as a function of consequence and position
• 5.1 Housewives’ willingness to help by assigned community reputation
• 5.2 Spread of decision alternatives following a choice
• 5.3 Interest of participants after compassion task in reading about their compassion levels
• 5.4 Exacerbation of dissonance due to relevant affirmation
• 5.5 The Self-Standard Model of dissonance arousal (1)
• 5.6 The Self-Standard Model of dissonance arousal (2)
• 5.7 Attitudes regarding handicapped facilities as a function of primed standards, level of self-esteem, and choice
• 5.8 Interactions between self-esteem and priming on dissonance magnitude
• 6.1 Attitude change based on vicarious dissonance: in-group vs. out-group speaker
• 6.2 Vicarious dissonance: attitudes toward upfront fees as a function of choice, consequence, and group identification
• 6.3 Vicarious discomfort as a function of choice, consequence, and identification
• 6.4a Information shown to participants to have them believe they were non-prototypical University of Queensland students
• 6.4b Information shown to participants to have them believe they were prototypical University of Queensland students
• 6.5 Effect of self and other prototypicality on attitude change
• 7.1 Spread of alternatives as a function of culture and personality test feedback
• 7.2 Spreading of choice alternatives as a function of reference and culture
• 7.3 Spread of the attractiveness of choice alternatives for European and Asian Canadians when choosing for themselves or for a friend
• 7.4 Attitudes toward a tuition increase at South Korean universities
• 7.5 Attitude change by Black and White participants
• 7.6 Spreading of choice alternatives as a function of educational attainment (social class)
• 8.1 Weight loss as a function of choice to participate in therapy
• 8.2 Improvement in approach to a snake (in inches) as a function of therapy type and choice
• 8.3 Degree of assertiveness after training
• 8.4 Weight loss (in lbs) by effort condition
• 8.5 Change in approach to a snake as a function of choice and effort
• 8.6 Percentage of participants who purchased condoms
• 8.7 Percentage of women redeeming their coupons for sun screen

Acknowledgements

Forward: Or, Why I Wrote This Book

1. Cognitive Dissonance: In the Beginning
• Getting started with dissonance
• Preparing for the end of the world
• The theory of cognitive dissonance: the original
• • Dissonance has a magnitude
• • The many ways to reduce cognitive dissonance
• Liking what you choose: the first experimental verification of the theory of cognitive dissonance
• A summary of dissonance following free choice
• Saying what you do not believe: dissonance arising from induced compliance
• Political attitudes and induced compliance
• Induced compliance: why the controversy?
• Liking what you suffer for
• Threats and expectancies: rounding out the early history
• Expecting success; expecting failure
• Lessons from the early days

2. Criticism Propels the Theory Forward
• A productive criticism: evaluation apprehension
• A demise or an invitation?
• It’s all about freedom
• The beginning of the search for modifiers
• The second wave: the data are right but the theory is wrong
• • The theory of self-perception
• • Self-perception meets induced compliance
• • Research support: the interpersonal simulation

3. The Motivational Property of Dissonance
• Dissonance: reality or metaphor?
• Dissonance as drive: early evidence
• The misattribution studies
• From two-factor theory to dissonance
• Measuring dissonance arousal: is it really there?
• Physiological arousal vs. psychological discomfort: bearing down more closely on the meaning of dissonance
• Why not just ask? The dissonance thermometer and the motivation to reduce dissonance
• A recipe for greater dissonance: add amphetamine and mix well
• Arousal, discomfort, and dissonance: a conclusion

4. Dissonance Is Not What It Used to Be: The New Look Model of Dissonance
• The ‘but-onlys’: the search for modifiers raises theoretical questions
• The role of the aversive consequence
• You can’t say you didn’t know: the role of foreseeability
• • Status of the aversive consequence: a reprise
• • The good consequence
• Vietnam, the draft lottery, and foreseeable consequences: a field experiment
• What causes cognitive dissonance?
• Dissonance begins with behavior
• Who is responsible?
• From arousal to motivation: what is accomplished when attitudes change?
• The function of attitude change
• On the status of the two views of dissonance
• • What happened to inconsistency?
• • A caveat for inconsistency: action orientation
• • The sufficiency of the aversive consequence
• Motivated reasoning: the process of attitude change following dissonance arousal
• Speculations about the ontogeny of dissonance

5. The Self-Standards Model and the Emergence of the Self in Dissonance Theory
• Self-affirmation: dissonance as a part of the self-system
• Self-affirmation meets cognitive dissonance
• Being what you expect to be: self-consistency as the motivation for cognitive dissonance
• Turning the self upside-down
• Differences in approaches using the self
• • Does self-affirmation work? Yes and no
• The ‘duelling banjos’ of the self-concept
• Fitting the pieces together: the Self-Standards Model of dissonance
• Determining the standard to use
• Reducing dissonance with the Self-Standards Model
• • A key question: Is there a default?
• Research on the Self-Standards Model I: priming personal and normative standards of judgment
• Research on Self Standards II: The relevance of self-attributes
• Conclusions about the role of self

6. Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance: Experiencing Dissonance through the Actions of Another
• Cognitive dissonance and the social group
• Social identity creates common bonds
• The theory of social identity and social categorization
• Social identity meets cognitive dissonance
• In-groups, out-groups, and vicarious dissonance
• Does it quack like the proverbial duck?
• The experience of vicarious dissonance
• Vicarious dissonance and the prototype
• What vicarious dissonance is and is not

7. Culture, Race, and Cognitive Dissonance
• Culture and the psychology of cognitive dissonance
• Independence and interdependence
• Dissonance and interdependent selves: a conceptual question
• Dissonance and culture: the research trail
• Do the Japanese experience dissonance? No, yes, and sometimes
• On the other hand: evidence for the existence of dissonance in a collectivist culture
• The return to the Self-Standards Model
• Vicarious dissonance in East and West
• Conclusions about the role of culture in cognitive dissonance
• The effect of race on cognitive dissonance: some new data
• Social class and cognitive dissonance: education makes a difference
• Jack Brehm’s question: a reprise

8. Cognitive Dissonance in Today’s World
• Cognitive dissonance and an American presidency
• The psychology of effort justification: a reprise
• When more of a bad thing is a good thing
• Cognitive dissonance and mental health: what makes psychotherapy work?
• Choosing a therapy
• To touch a snake: effort justification and the reduction of phobia
• • Therapeutic interventions
• • • Implosion
• • • Our own therapy ‘brew’: physical exercise therapy
• • • Becoming assertive
• Losing weight to reduce dissonance
• • The weigh-in
• Combining choice and effort: putting the variables together
• Advocating better health: a role for dissonance induced change
• Hypocrisy as an instance of cognitive dissonance
• From hypocrisy to vicarious hypocrisy

Afterword: Toward a Modern Theory of Dissonance: What Have We Learned?
• The state of play of cognitive dissonance
• The legacy of cognitive dissonance
• The future of dissonance

References
Index

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really good introduction to the paradigm very easy going and straightforward. It's certainly tendentious but always reasonable and mostly even handed (though it certainly comes off as far more impartial than it is).

[Robert Bogue]

We do not like inconsistency.  That’s the fundamental driver behind Cognitive Dissonance: Fifty Years of a Classic Theory.  Joel Cooper provides appropriate nods to Leon Festinger – and those he studied with.  (See A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, Festinger’s book, for his direct perspective.)  Cooper’s perspective is one that isn’t fully embraced across all the research on cognitive dissonance.  However, there is some research supporting his perspectives and lots of confusing results.  Cooper does a good job of summarizing what we’ve learned and acknowledging some of the challenges in the results we’ve seen.

Read more

[Andrew Silvestri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative, well-written, and explains every aspect anyone would need or want to know very thoroughly. The explanations of the specifics of every experiment, while interesting, take up a lot of real estate on the pages - a little unnecessary at some points. Interested in what he would say about the field post-2007.

[Dan Zarfati · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, even the layman will understand the concepts put forward in the book, it is one of the core concepts of social psychology, and cognitive dissonance is one of the most important concepts.

[Milele · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was doubly interesting to me. First, I was interested in cognitive dissonance, commitment consistency and its related phenomenon, how it works and how the cog-psychs know how it works. So that was great. Each experiment described was interesting to read and fun to wrap my mind around how it worked and what it demonstrated.

Second, this book is like a case study of science. A phenomenon is observed which didn't fit with previous theories and had no theory to explain it: people were observed to like something more after they had it, rather than liking it more before they chose it and while coveting it. Initial explanations were rather functional but served to suggest ways to extend the tests. There were problems reproducing initial results until the necessary conditions were identified (e.g. the subject needs to feel free choice in order to demonstrate the effect of that choice). Scientists argued about what it *meant*, and their theories suggested new experiments. And science goes on, and the author Joel Cooper does a good job of documenting a point in time in a field of study, rather than an answer or a solution.

[James Hatton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't really explain this book, other than to say it's a brief, fairly technical overview of fifty years of research about cognitive dissonance. The book is accessible to anyone with patience. It has very good case studies, which highlight the key issues in this very common psychological phenomenon.

[Zhang Chen]

finished the first half