Cognitive Consequences of Forced Compliance

Transcription

1 Cognitive Consequences of Forced Compliance Leon Festinger and James M. Carlsmith Stanford University 1957

2 Outline 1. Research question 2. Previous Research 3. Festinger s Theory 4. Experiment 5. Results and Discussion

3 What happens to one s private opinion when one is forced to do or say something contrary to that opinion?

4 Previous Research Janis & King (1954; 1956) Opinions change (in some situations) so as to correspond to a forced overt behaviour Improvising speech is more effective than passive activities (listening/reading) Self-convincing effect of mental rehearsal and thinking of new arguments Kelman (1953) The larger the reward offered, the less opinion change produced

5 Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger, 1957) A person privately believes X but, due to external pressure, has publicly stated that they believe not X. According to Festinger s theory: 1. This person has two cognitions that are dissonant with each other, the knowledge of their private opinion and the knowledge of their actual statement. 2. The cognition of their statement not X is consonant with those elements that induced them to say it (situation/rewards/threats ).

6 3. The total magnitude of dissonance is the ratio between the dissonances (D) and the consonances (C) The magnitude will be maximal when the C is just sufficient to induce the statement not X and will decrease if the importance of the pressures is increased. 4. The dissonance can be reduced if the person changes their opinion so as to correspond with the overt statement. The pressure to reduce this dissonance is proportional to the magnitude of the dissonance.

7 Hypothesis tested in the experiment There is a tendency to change opinion in correspondence to what one has said or done. The larger the reward used to elicit the overt behaviour, the smaller the consecutive opinion change. Confronting Festinger s theory of cognitive dissonance with Janis & King alternative explanation of the phenomena.

8 Research design Participants: 71 male students. Independent variable: opinion change; self-report measure. Manipulated dependent variable: reward offered, three conditions. Control of extraneous variables: behavioral measure.

9 Procedure -Phase I- Participants volunteered for an experiment listed as Measures of Performance. They were also told that the Department was conducting interviews with the subjects of experiments in order to evaluate the faculty s quality of research (this was to assure the participants honesty in answering). - Participants performed a boring and monotonous task for an hour (having a negative experience). - Fake debriefing: participants were told they were the control group in an experiment comparing their performance with subjects who were previously told that the task was enjoyable.

10 Three conditions: Procedure -Phase II- Control One Dollar Twenty Dollar With the exception of the control group, participants were offered money if they told the next subject that the experiment had been enjoyable. After accepting, the participants tried to convince a girl (who they believed was the next subject, but was actually hired by the experimenter) that the task had been enjoyable. Their conversation was recorded.

11 Procedure -Phase III- All three groups were then interviewed, answering four specific questions: How enjoyable were the tasks? (on a scale from -5 to +5) How much have you learned from the experiment about yourself? (from 0 to 10) Do you believe the experiment is scientifically important? (from 0 to 10) Would you participate in a similar experiment? (from -5 to +5) Then they were asked what they believed the purpose of the experiment was, in case they suspected the real aim.

12 Results and Discussion Of the 71 participants, the data of 11 was excluded from the analysis (they suspected the real aim, they had refused to take the money ). The average responses in the interview were calculated. 20 participants in the Control Condition. They never talked to the other subject so the dissonance was not introduced. 20 participants in the One Dollar Condition. They were offered 1$ to convince the other subject that the task was enjoyable. High pressure to reduce dissonance. 20 participants in the Twenty Dollar Condition. They were offered 20$ for the same task of the One Dollar group, therefore the pressure to reduce dissonance is lower.

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14 How enjoyable the tasks were? The Control group can be seen as the baseline and the other two groups as the changes from the baseline due to the dissonance. The One Dollar average (+1.35) is significantly different from the Control one (-0.45) => strong evidence of dissonance The Twenty Dollar average (-0.05) is instead closer the Control baseline than to the One Dollar one => less evidence of dissonance This evidence supports both the first and second derivations of Festinger s theory.

15 Would you participate in similar experiment? Like the first question, a desire to participate in a similar experiment indicates a change in opinion due to the dissonance. The mean differences are around the same of the first question (Control: -0.62; One Dollar: +1.20; Twenty Dollar: -0.25) and therefore would support Festinger s theory. However the variability in the answers was greater, so the results are less significant.

16 Do you believe the experiment is scientifically important? Viewing the experiment as scientifically important could be an alternative element of consonance to the reward in money; if the task was perceived as an important opportunity to help the research then the total magnitude of dissonance would be lesser. The One Dollar (6.45) is slightly higher than the Control (5.60) and the Twenty Dollar is the lowest (5.18) => the results weakly support this claim.

17 How much have you learned from the experiment about yourself? This question was asked to check if the differences between groups were related to the cognitive dissonance or if they were general. Since no great differences were shown (Control: 3.08; One Dollar: 2.86; Twenty Dollar: 3.15) it can be concluded that the results are specific to the dissonance.

18 Comparing with Janis & King Janis & King theory could explain the results as due to the fact that the One Dollar group improvised more or used more mental rehearsal. The conversation with the girl was recorded, transcribed and rated by two raters (unaware of the condition of the participant) on five dimensions. 1. Positive content before the girl made a remark that a friend told her the task was boring. 2. Positive content after remark 3. Positive content in general 4. How convincing the participant was 5. How long the conversation lasted

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20 Comparing with Janis & King The results show very small differences between the Twenty Dollar (which tends to be higher) and the One Dollar averages. One can conclude that Festinger s theory is able to explain the phenomena better than Janis & King.

21 Conclusion The experiment showed that when a participant was induced, by offer of reward, to say something contrary to his private opinion, this private opinion tended to change so as to correspond more closely with what he had said. The greater the reward offered (beyond what was necessary to elicit the behavior) the smaller was the effect. The results strongly supported the theory of cognitive dissonance.

22 Thank you for your attention!