472SCIENTIFICAMERICAN

Cognitive Dissonanceby Leon Festinger

SCIENTIFICAMERICANOCTOBER 1962VOL. 207, NO. 4 PP. 92-102

PUBLISHED BY W. H. FREEMAN AND COMPANY 660 MARKET STREET, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 94104

Copyright.; 1962 by Scientific American, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. No part of this offprint may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic or electronic process, orin the form of a phonographic recording, nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or otherwise copied for public or private use without written permission of the publisher.

The AuthorLEON FESTINGER is professor of

psychology at Stanford University. Fes-tinger took his B.S. in psychology at theCollege of the City of New York in 1939.He received M.A. and Ph.D. degreesfrom the State University of Iowa, wherehe specialized in the field of child be-havior, in 1940 and 1942 respectively.He remained at Iowa as a research asso-ciate until 1943 - and for the next twoyears served as senior statistician on theCommittee on Selection and Trainingof Aircraft Pilots at the University ofRochester. From 1945 to 1948 he taughtat the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-nology, and he was program director ofthe Research Center for Group Dynam-ics at the University of Michigan until1951. Festinger went to Stanford fromthe University of Minnesota, where hehad been professor of psychology since1951. In 1959 the American Psycho-logical Association awarded Festinger

its Distinguished Scientific ContributionAward.

BibliographyCOGNITIVE CONSEQUENCES OF FORCED

COMPLIANCE. Leon Festinger andJames M. Carlsmith in The Journal ofAbnormal and Social Psychology,Vol. 58, No. 2, pages 203-210;March, 1959.

PREPARATORY ACTION AND BELIEF INTHE PROBABLE OCCURRENCE OFFUTURE EVENTS. Ruby B. Yaryan andLeon Festinger in The Journal of Ab-normal and Social Psychology, Vol.63, No. 3, pages 603-606; November,1961.

A THEORY OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE.Leon Festinger. Row, Peterson &Company, 1957.

WHEN PROPHECY FAILS. Leon FestingerHenry W. Riecken and StanleySchachter. University of MinnesotaPress, 1956.

The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence

Cognitive Dissonance

It is the subject of a new theory based on experiments showing

that the grass is usually not greener on the other side of the

fence and that grapes are sourest when they are in easy reach

by Leon Festinger

There is an experiment in psychol-ogy that you can perform easilyin your own home if you have a

child three or four years old. Buy twotoys that you are fairly sure will beequally attractive to the child. Showthem both to him and say: "Here aretwo nice toys. This one is for you tokeep. The other I must give back to thestore." You then hand the child the toythat is his to keep and ask: "Which ofthe two toys do you like better?" Studieshave shown that in such a situation mostchildren will tell you they prefer thetoy they are to keep.

This response of children seems toconflict with the old saying that the grassis always greener on the other side ofthe fence. Do adults respond in the sameway under similar circumstances or doesthe adage indeed become true as wegrow older? The question is of consider-able interest because the adult worldis filled with choices and alternativecourses of action that are often aboutequally attractive. When they make achoice of .a college or a car or a spouseor a home or a political candidate, domost people remain satisfied with theirchoice or do they tend to wish they hadmade a different one? Naturally anychoice may turn out to be a bad one onthe basis of some objective measure-ment, but the question is: Does somepsychological process come into playimmediately after the making of a choicethat colors one's attitude, either favor-ably or unfavorably, toward the deci-sion?

To illuminate this question there is an-other experiment one can do at home,this time using an adult as a subjectrather than a child. Buy two presents foryour wife, again choosing things youare reasonably sure she will find aboutequally attractive. Find some plausibleexcuse for having both of them in your

possession, show them to your wife andask her to tell you how attractive eachone is to her. After you have obtained agood measurement of attractiveness, tellher that she can have one of them, which-ever she chooses. The other you will re-turn to the store. After she has made herchoice, ask her once more to evaluatethe attractiveness of each of them. If youcompare the evaluations of attractive-ness before and after the choice, you willprobably find that the chosen presenthas increased in attractiveness and therejected one decreased.r Such behavior can be explained by aI new theory concerning "cognitive dis-

sonance." This theory centers aroundthe idea that if a person knows variousthings that are not psychologically con-sistent with one another, he will, in avariety of ways, try to make them moreconsistent. Two items of information

that psychologically do not fit togetherare said to be in a dissonant relation toeach other. The items of informationmay be about behavior, feelings, opin-ions, things in the environment and soon. The word "cognitive" simply em-phasizes that the theory deals with rela-tions among items of information.

Such items can of course be changed.(A person can change his opinion; hecan change his behavior, thereby chang-ing the information he has about it; hecan even distort his perception and hisinformation about the world around him.Changes in items of information that pro-duce or restore consistency are referredto as dissonance-reducing changes.

Cognitive dissonance is a motivatingstate of affairs. Just as hunger impels aperson to eat, so does dissonance impel aperson to change his opinions or his be-havior. The world, however, is much

3

lec

Consequences of making a decision between two reasonably attractive alternatives

RECEIVES430TH RECORDS

1UNCERTAIN

ABOUT OUTCOME j

RECEIVESONE RECORD

I

– 5 0AMOUNT OF DISSONANCE REDUCTION

DISSONANCE REDUCTION is a psychological phenomenon found to occur after a personhas made a choice between two approximately equal alternatives. The effect of the phe-nomenon is to enhance the attractiveness of the chosen object or chosen course of action.The chart summarizes the results of an experiment in which high school girls rated theattractiveness of 12 "hit" records before and after choosing one of them as a gift. Substan-

tial dissonance reduction occurred under only one of three experimental conditions de-scribed in the tact. Under two other conditions no systematic reduction was observed.

1.5

more effectively arranged for hunger1 reduction than it is for dissonance reduc

tion. It is almost always possible to findsomething to eat. It is not always easy toreduce dissonance. Sometimes it may bevery difficult or even impossible tochange behavior or opinions that areinvolved in dissonant relations. Conse-quently there are circumstances in whichappreciable dissonance may persist forlong periods.

To understand cognitive dissonance as a motivating state, it is necessary

to have a clearer conception of the con-ditions that produce it. The simplestdefinition of dissonance can, perhaps,be given in terms of a person's expecta-tions. In the course of our lives we haveall accumulated a large number of ex-pectations about what things go togetherand what things do not. When such anexpectation is not fulfilled, dissonanceoccurs.

For example, a person standing un-protected in the rain would expect to getwet. If he found himself in the rain andhe was not getting wet, there would existdissonance between these two piecesof information. This unlikely example isone where the expectations of differentpeople would all be uniform. There areobviously many instances where dif-ferent people would not share the sameexpectations. Someone who is very self-confident might expect to succeed atwhatever he tried, whereas someonewho had a low opinion of himself mightnormally expect to fail. Under these cir-cumstances what would produce disso-nance for one person might produceconsonance for another. In experimentalinvestigations, of course, an effort ismade to provide situations in which ex-pectations are rather uniform.

Perhaps the best way to explain thetheory of cognitive dissonance is to showits application to specific situations. Therest of this article, therefore, will be de-voted to a discussion of three examplesof cognitive dissonance. I shall discussthe effects of making a decision, of lyingand of temptation. These three exam-ples by no means cover all the situationsin which dissonance can be created. In-deed, it seldom happens that everythinga person knows about an action he hastaken is perfectly consistent with hishaving taken it. The three examples,however, may serve to illustrate therange of situations in which dissonancecan be expected to occur. They will alsoserve to show the kinds of dissonance-reduction effects that are obtained un-der a special circumstance: when dis-sonance involves the person's behavior

4

Further consequences of making a difficult decision

and the action in question is difficult tochange.

Let us consider first the consequencesof making a decision. Imagine the situ-ation of a person who has carefullyweighed two reasonably attractive al-ternatives and then chose one of

them decision that, for our purposes, canbe regarded as irrevocable. All the in-formation this person has concerningthe attractive features of the rejected al-ternative (and the possible unattractivefeatures of the chosen alternative) arenow inconsistent, or dissonant, with theknowledge that he has made the givenchoice. It is true that the person alsoknows many things that are consistentor consonant with the choice he hasmade, which is to say all the attractivefeatures of the chosen alternative andunattractive features of the rejected one.Nevertheless, some dissonance exists andafter the decision the individual will tryto reduce the dissonance.

There are two major ways in whichthe individual can reduce dissonance inthis situation. He can persuade himselfthat the attractive features of the re-jected alternative are not really so attrac-tive as he had originally thought, andthat the unattractive features of thechosen alternative are not really unat-tractive. He can also provide additionaljustification for his choice by exaggerat-ing the attractive features of the chosenalternative and the unattractive featuresof the rejected alternative. In otherwords, according to the theory the proc-ess of dissonance reduction should lead,after the decision, to an increase in thedesirability of the chosen alternativeand a decrease in the desirability of therejected alternative.

This phenomenon has been demon-strated in a variety of experiments. Abrief description of one of these willsuffice to illustrate the precise nature ofthe effect. In an experiment performedby Jon Jecker of Stanford University,high school girls were asked to rate theattractiveness of each of 12 "hit" records.For each girl two records that she hadrated as being only moderately attrac-tive were selected and she was askedwhich of the two she would like as a gift.After having made her choice, the girlagain rated the attractiveness of all therecords. The dissonance created by thedecision could be reduced by increasingthe attractiveness of the chosen recordand decreasing the attractiveness of therejected record. Consequently a meas-urement of dissonance reduction couldbe obtained by summing both of thesekinds of changes in ratings made beforeand after the decision.

Different experimental variationswere employed in this experiment inorder to examine the dynamics of theprocess of dissonance reduction. Let uslook at three of these experimentalvariations. In all three conditions thegirls, when they were making theirchoice, were given to understand therewas a slight possibility that they mightactually be given both records. In onecondition they were asked to rerate the

records after they had made their choicebut before they knew definitely whetherthey would receive both records or onlythe one they chose. The results for thiscondition should indicate whether dis-sonance reduction begins with havingmade the choice or whether it is sus-pended until the uncertainty is resolved.In a second condition the girls wereactually given both records after theirchoice and were then asked to rerate

PAID$20.00

all the records. Since they had receivedboth records and therefore no dissonanceexisted following the decision, thereshould be no evidence of dissonance re-duction in this condition. In a thirdcondition the girls were given only therecord they chose and were then askedto do the rerating. This, of course, re-sembles the normal outcome of a deci-sion and the usual dissonance reductionshould occur.

The chart on page 4 shows theresults for these three conditions. Whenthe girls are uncertain as to the outcome,

or when they receive both records, thereis no dissonance reduction—that is, nosystematic change in attractiveness ofthe chosen and rejected records. Theresults in both conditions are very closeto zero—one slightly positive, the otherslightly negative. When they receiveonly the record they chose, however,there is a large systematic change inrating to reduce dissonance. Since dis-sonance reduction is only observed inthis last experimental condition, it isevident that dissonance reduction doesnot occur during the process of making

PAID

$1.00

PAID

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a decision but only after the decision ismade and the outcome is clear.

Let us turn now to the consequencesof lying. There are many circumstancesin which, for one reason or another, anindividual publicly states something thatis at variance with his private belief.Here again one can expect dissonanceto arise. There is an inconsistency be-tween knowing that one really believesone thing and knowing that one haspublicly stated something quite differ-ent. Again, to be sure, the individualknows things that are consonant with hisovert, public behavior. All the reasonsthat induced him to make the publicstatement are consonant with his havingmade it and provide him with somejustification for his behavior. Neverthe-less, some dissonance exists and, accord-ing to the theory, there will be attemptsto reduce it. The degree to which thedissonance is bothersome for the indivi-dual will depend on two things. Themore deviant his public statement isfrom his private belief, the greater willbe the dissonance. The greater theamount of justification the person has forhaving made the public statement, theless bothersome the dissonance will be.

How can the dissonance be reduced? One method is obvious. The indi-

vidual can remove the dissonance by re-tracting his public statement. But let usconsider only those instances in whichthe public statement, once made, cannotbe changed or withdrawn; in otherwords, in which the behavior is irrevo-cable. Under such circumstances themajor avenue for reduction of the dis-sonance is change of private opinion.That is, if the private opinion werechanged so that it agreed with what waspublicly stated, obviously the dissonancewould be gone. The theory thus leads usto expect that after having made an irrev-ocable public statement at variance withhis private belief, a person will tend tochange his private belief to bring it intoline with his public statement. Further-more, the degree to which he changeshis private belief will depend on theamount of justification or the amount ofpressure for making the public statementinitially. The less the original justifica-tion or pressure, the greater the dis-sonance and the more the person's pri-vate belief can be expected to change.

An experiment recently conducted atStanford University by James M. Carl-smith and me illustrates the nature ofthis effect. In the experiment, collegestudents were induced to make a state-ment at variance with their own belief.It was done by using students who had

PAID $10.001

—1 —.5 0 .5 1.5 UNFAVORABLE— —FAVORABLE

CONSEQUENCES OF LYING are found to vary, depending on whether the justificationfor the lie is large or small. In this experiment students were persuaded to tell others thata boring experience was really fun. Those in one group were paid only $1 for their co-operation; in a second group, $20. The low-paid students, having least justification for lying,experienced most dissonance and reduced it by coming to regard the experience favorably.

CONTROL CONDITION (NO ESSAY)

PAID $5.00

PAID $1.00

2 3 4<—UNFAVORABLE— —FAVORABLE (IN LINE WITH ESSAY)

GRADED CHANGE OF OPINION was produced by paying subjects various sums forwriting essays advocating opinions contrary to their beliefs. When examined later, studentspaid the least bad changed their opinion the most to agree with what they had written. Onlythe highest paid group held to their original opinion more strongly than did a control group.

6

The effect of rewards on lying

is also clear that only in the condition they really believed. Subjects were paidwhere they were paid a dollar is this either $10, $5, $1 or 50 cents to do this.opinion change appreciable. When they To measure the extent to which disso-were paid a lot of money, the justifica- nance was reduced by their changingtion for misrepresenting private belief is their opinion, each subject was thenhigh and there is correspondingly lesschange of opinion to reduce dissonance.

Another way to summarize the result\is to say that those who are highly re-warded for doing something that in-volves dissonance change their opinionless in the direction of agreeing withwhat they did than those who are givenvery little reward. This result may seemsurprising, since we are used to think-ing that reward is effective in creatingchange. It must be remembered, how-ever, that the critical factor here is thatthe reward is being used to induce abehavior that is dissonant with privateopinion. d of resisting temptation. What happens To show that this result is valid and when a person wants something and

(not just a function of the particular discovers that he cannot have it? Doessituation or the particular sums of money he now want it even more or does heused for reward, Arthur R. Cohen of ) persuade himself that it is really notNew York University conducted a simi- I worth having? Sometimes our commonlar experiment in a different context. general understanding of human be-Cohen paid subjects to write essays havior can provide at least crude an-advocating an opinion contrary to what J swers to such questions. In this case,

given a questionnaire, which he left un-signed, to determine his private opinionon the issue. The extent to which thesubjects reduced dissonance by chang-ing their opinion to agree with what theywrote in the essay is shown in the lowerillustration on the opposite page. Onceagain it is clear that the smaller theoriginal justification for engaging in thedissonance-producing action, the greaterthe subsequent change in private opin-ion to bring it into line with the action.

The final set of experiments I shalldiscuss deals with the consequences

volunteered to participate in an experi-ment to measure "motor performance."The purported experiment lasted anhour and was a boring and fatiguingsession. At the end of the hour the ex-perimenter thanked the subject for hisparticipation, indicating that the experi-ment was over. The real purpose of thehour-long session, however, was to pro-vide each subject with an identical ex-perience about which he would have anunfavorable opinion.

At the end of the fatiguing hour theexperimenter enlisted the subject's aidin preparing the next person for the ex-periment. The subject was led to believethat, for experimental purposes, the nextperson was supposed to be given the im-pression that the hour's session was go-ing to be very interesting and lots of fun.The subject was persuaded to help inthis deception by telling the next sub-ject, who was waiting in an adjoiningroom, that he himself had just finishedthe hour and that it had indeed been veryinteresting and lots of fun. The first sub-ject was then interviewed by someoneelse to determine his actual private opin-ion of the experiment.

Two experimental conditions wererun that differed only in the amount ofpressure, or justification given the sub-ject for stating a public opinion at vari-ance with his private belief. All subjects,of course, had the justification of helpingto conduct a scientific experiment. Inaddition to this, half of the subjects werepaid $1 for their help—a relatively smallamount of money; the other subjectswere paid $20—a rather large sum forthe work involved. From the theory wewould expect that the subjects who werepaid only $1, having less justification fortheir action, would have more disso-nance and would change their privatebeliefs more in order to reduce the dis-sonance. In other words, we would ex-pect the greatest change in private opin-ion among the subjects given the leasttangible incentive for changing.

The upper illustration on the oppositepage shows the results of the experiment.The broken line in the chart shows theresults for a control group of subjects.These subjects participated in the hour-long session and then were asked to givetheir private opinion of it. Their gen-erally unfavorable views are to be ex-pected when no dissonance is inducedbetween private belief and public state-ment, It is clear from the chart that intro-ducing such dissonance produced achange of opinion so that the subjectswho were asked to take part in a decep-tion finally came to think better of thesession than did the control subjects. It

MANBCIGARETTES

E

7

Temptation accompanied by a severe threat

Temptation accompanied by a mild threat

however, our common understanding isambiguous, because it supplies two con-tradictory answers. Everyone knows themeaning of the term "sour grapes"; it isthe attitude taken by a person who per-suades himself that he really does notwant what he cannot have. But we arealso familiar with the opposite reaction.The child who is not allowed to eatcandy and hence loves candy passionate-ly; the woman who adores expensiveclothes even though she cannot affordto own them; the man who has a hope-less obsession for a woman who spurnshis attentions. Everyone "understands"the behavior of the person who longs forwhat he cannot have.

Obviously one cannot say one of thesereactions is wrong and the other is right;they both occur. One might at least,however, try to answer the question:Under what circumstances does one re-action take place and not the other? Ifwe examine the question from the pointof view of the theory of dissonance, apartial answer begins to emerge.

Imagine the psychological situationthat exists for an individual who istempted to engage in a certain action butfor one reason or another refrains. Ananalysis of the situation here reveals itssimilarity to the other dissonance-pro-ducing situations. An individual's knowl-edge concerning the attractive aspectsof the activity toward which he wastempted is dissonant with the knowledgethat he has refrained from engaging inthe activity. Once more, of course, theindividual has some knowledge that isconsonant with his behavior in the situ-ation. All the pressures, reasons andjustifications for refraining are consonantwith his actual behavior. Nevertheless,the dissonance does exist, and there willbe psychological activity oriented to-ward reducing this dissonance.

As we have already seen in connectionwith other illustrations, one major wayto reduce dissonance is to change one'sopinions and evaluations in order tobring them closer in line with one'sactual behavior. Therefore when there is

dissonance produced by resisting temp-tation, it can be reduced by derogatingor devaluing the activity toward whichone was tempted. This derivation fromthe theory clearly implies the sour-grapes attitude, but both theory andexperiment tell us that such dissonance-reducing effects will occur only whenthere was insufficient original justifica-tion for the behavior. Where the originaljustification for refraining from the ac-tion was great, little dissonance wouldhave occurred and there would havebeen correspondingly little change ofopinion in order to reduce dissonance.Therefore one might expect that if aperson had resisted temptation in asituation of strong prohibition or strongthreatened punishment, little dissonancewould have been created and one wouldnot observe the sour-grapes effect. Onewould expect this effect only if the per-son resisted temptation under conditionsof weak deterrent.

This line of reasoning leaves open thequestion of when the reverse effect oc-curs—that is, the situation in whichdesire for the "unattainable" object isincreased. Experimentally it is possibleto look at both effects. This was doneby Elliot Aronson and Carlsmith, atStanford University, in an experimentthat sheds considerable light on theproblem. The experiment was performedwith children who were about four yearsold. Each child was individually broughtinto a large playroom in which therewere five toys on a table. After the childhad had an opportunity to play brieflywith each toy, he was asked to rank thefive in order of attractiveness. The toythat the child liked second best was thenleft on the table and the other four toyswere spread around on the floor. The ex-perimenter told the child that he had toleave for a few minutes to do an errandbut would be back soon. The experi-menter then left the room for 10 min-utes. Various techniques were employedto "prohibit" the child from playing withthe particular toy that he liked secondbest while the experimenter was out ofthe room.

For different children this prohibitionwas instituted in three different ways.In one condition there was no tempta-tion at all; the experimenter told thechild he could play with any of the toysin the room and then took the second-best toy with him when he left. In theother two conditions temptation waspresent: the second-best toy was left onthe table in the experimenter's absence.The children were told they could playwith any of the toys in the room except

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Consequences of resisting temptation when deterrence varies

—40 —30 —20 —10

NOTEMPTATION

SEVERETHREAT

70 80 90

NET PER CENT OF SUBJECTS

CONSEQUENCES OF TEMPTATION were explored by prohibiting children from playingwith a desirable toy. Later the children were asked to re-evaluate the attractiveness of theforbidden toy. In one case the prohibition was enforced by removing the toy from the child'spresence. In the second ease the prohibition took the form of a threat of severe punishment;in the third case, a threat of mild punishment. The chart shows the net per cent of childrenwho thought the forbidden toy more attractive after the experiment than before. ("Netper cent" means the per cent who found the toy more attractive minus the per cent whofound it less so.) Evidently only those threatened mildly experienced much dissonance, andthey reduced it by downgrading toy's desirability. Others thought the toy more desirable.

the one on the table. The children in onegroup were threatened with mild pun-ishment if they violated the prohibition,whereas those in the other group werethreatened with more severe punish-ment. ( The actual nature of the punish-ment was left unspecified.)

During his absence from the roomthe experimenter observed each childthrough a one-way mirror. None of thechildren in the temptation conditionsplayed with the prohibited toy. After 10minutes were up the experimenter re-turned to the playroom and each childwas again allowed to play briefly witheach of the five toys. The attractivenessof each toy for the child was againmeasured. By comparing the before andafter measurements of the attractivenessof the toy the child originally liked sec-ond best, one can assess the effects of theprohibition. The results are shown in thechart on page 9.

When there was no temptation—that is, when the prohibited toy was not

physically present—there was of courseno dissonance, and the preponderant re-sult is an increase in the attractiveness ofthe prohibited toy. When the temptationis present but the prohibition is enforcedby means of a severe threat of punish-ment, there is likewise little dissonancecreated by refraining, and again thepreponderant result is an increase in theattractiveness of the prohibited toy. Inother words, it seems clear that a pro-hibition that is enforced in such a wayas not to introduce dissonance results ina greater desire for the prohibited ac-tivity.

The results are quite different, how-ever, when the prohibition is enforcedby only a mild threat of punishment.Here we see the result to be expectedfrom the theory of dissonance. Becausethe justification for refraining from play-ing with the toy is relatively weak, thereis appreciable dissonance between thechild's knowledge that the toy is attrac-tive and his actual behavior. The tend-ency to reduce this dissonance is strongenough to more than overcome the ef-fect apparent in the other two condi-tions. Here, as a result of dissonancereduction, we see an appreciable sour-grapes phenomenon.

The theory of cognitive dissonanceobviously has many implications for ev-eryday life. In addition to throwing lighton one's own behavior, it would seem tocarry useful lessons for everyone con-cerned with understanding human be-havior in a world where everything isnot black and white.

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Study GuidePrepared by JOHN P. J. PINEL,UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

GNITIVE DISSONANCEon Festinger OCTOBER 1962

SCIENTIFICAMERICAN

OFFPRINT 472

SUMMARY

According to the theory of cognitive dissonance, if a personKNOWSvarious things that are not psychologically consistent

th one another, he will try to make them more consistent.cognitive dissonance is thus a motivating state of affairs. Just

as hunger impels a person to eat, dissonance impels him tochange his opinions and his behavior. Perhaps the best way toexplain the theory of cognitive dissonance is by example.Festinger reports examples of three common situations inwhich the effects of cognitive dissonance are clearly present.these three examples illustrate not only how dissonancedevelops, but how it can be reduced.

After a person irrevocably selects one of two attractivealternatives, all the information he has concerning the at-trative features of the rejected alternative are in conflict with

the knowledge that he has rejected it. Such dissonance can bereduced in two ways: he can persuade himself that the at-tractive features of the rejected alternative are really not soattractive; or he can provide additional justification for hischoice by exaggerating the attractive features of the chosenarticle. High-school girls were allowed to select only one rec-ord from a pair they had previously rated as equal. After thechoice, the girls again rated the records; this time the selectedrecord was rated higher than the other.

Cognitive dissonance can be produced by lying; there is aninconsistency between knowing that one really believes one

thing but has said another. When the statement is irrevo-cable, the main avenue for the reduction of this dissonance isa change of private opinion, but the degree to which the dis-sonance motivates the individual to change his opinion de-pends on two factors. First, the more deviant his publicstatement is from his private belief, the greater will be thedissonance. Second, the greater the amount of justificationthe person has for lying, the less bothersome will be thedissonance. In other words, those who are highly rewarded forlying are least likely to change their opinion to coincide withthe lie.

The final example of dissonance deals with the conse-quences of resisting temptation. There are two commonreactions when a person does not obtain something he wants.Everyone is familiar with the "sour grapes" reaction, but theopposite reaction may also occur: sometimes not achieving agoal seems to enhance its value. Under what circumstancesdoes each reaction occur? The evaluation of such situationsin terms of cognitive dissonance may provide a partial answer.When the goal is difficult or impossible to achieve, there islittle dissonance created by not obtaining it, and as a result nodevaluation of the goal is necessary to eliminate the disson-ance. On the other hand, if there is insuf ficient justificationfor resisting temptation, considerable dissonance will be pro-duced and the goal must be degraded to reduce it.

Il. GLOSSARY

cognitive — pertaining to an item of knowledge. sour grapes — debasing a goal that one has failed to achieve.cognitive dissonance— a motivating state of affairs produced by two pieces of

knowledge that are psychologically inconsistent.

III. ESSAY STUDY QUESTIONS

1. In what way is cognitive dissonance like hunger?2. What evidence is there that cognitive dissonance does not occur during the

process of making a decision, but only after the outcome is clear?3. What are the ways of reducing dissonance after a decision?

4. The smaller the original justification for engaging in a dissonance-producingaction, the greater is the subsequent change in private opinion. Explain.

5. When is the "sour grapes" phenomenon most likely to occur?6. Give three experimental examples of cognitive dissonance.