Leon Festinger
Cognitive dissonance was first investigated by Leon Festinger, arising out of a participant observation study of a cult which believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood, and what happened to its members – particularly the really committed ones who had given up their homes and jobs to work for the cult – when the flood did not happen.
While fringe members were more inclined to recognize that they had made fools of themselves and to “put it down to experience,” committed members were more likely to re-interpret the evidence to show that they were right all along. The earth was not destroyed because of the faithfulness of the cult.
Festinger’s (1957) cognitive dissonance theory suggests that we have an inner drive to hold all our attitudes and behavior in harmony and avoid disharmony (or dissonance). This is known as the principle of cognitive consistency. When there is an inconsistency between attitudes or behaviors (dissonance), something must change to eliminate the dissonance.
When someone is forced to do (publicly) something they (privately) really don’t want to do, dissonance is created between their cognition (I didn’t want to do this) and their behavior (I did it).
Forced compliance occurs when an individual performs an action that is inconsistent with his or her beliefs. The behavior can’t be changed, since it was already in the past, so dissonance will need to be reduced by re-evaluating their attitude to what they have done.
This prediction has been tested experimentally: In an intriguing experiment, Festinger and Carlsmith asked participants to perform a series of dull tasks such as turning pegs in a peg board for an hour.
As you can imagine, participant’s attitudes toward this task were highly negative. They were then paid either $1 or $20 to tell a waiting participant (a confederate) that the tasks were really interesting. Almost all of the participants agreed to walk into the waiting room and persuade the confederate that the boring experiment would be fun.
Festinger and Carlsmith investigated if making people perform a dull task would create cognitive dissonance through forced compliance behavior.
When the participants were asked to evaluate the experiment, the participants who were paid only $1 rated the tedious task as more fun and enjoyable than the participants who were paid $20 to lie.
- Being paid only $1 is not sufficient incentive for lying and so those who were paid $1 experienced dissonance. They could only overcome that dissonance by coming to believe that the tasks really were interesting and enjoyable.
- Being paid $20 provides a reason for turning pegs, and there is therefore no dissonance.
Brehm (1956) was the first to investigate the relationship between dissonance and decision-making. People are more likely to increase the attractiveness of the chosen alternative and to decrease the attractiveness of the unchosen alternative. It also seems to be the case that we value most highly those goals or items which have required considerable effort to achieve. If a voluntary experience which has cost a lot of effort turns out badly, dissonance is reduced by redefining the experience as interesting. This justifies the effort made.
There has been a great deal of research into cognitive dissonance, providing some interesting and sometimes unexpected findings. It is a theory with very broad applications, showing that we aim for consistency between attitudes and behaviors, and may not use very rational methods to achieve it.