CONSISTENCYI met my friend the test pilot, who had just completed an around-the-world flight by balloon. With the pilot was a little girl of about two. "What's her name?" I asked my friend, whom I hadn't seen in five years and who had married in that time. "Same as her mother," the pilot replied. "Hello, Susan," I said to the little girl. How did I know her name if I never saw the wedding announcement? Take a minute to figure this one out then look at the end of this chapter for the answer. Were you right, or argh! How could you have missed it. So obvious. So simple. So stereotyped. Mental prejudice, right? In a very mild way, this little thought problem demonstrates an
important human quality. We need consistency. Things must hang together
and make sense. And when they don't, we have a problem we must solve. Consistency
theory has been proposed to explain what happens when things happen in
inconsistent and unexpected ways.
PROCESS OF THE THEORYThe Main Point of Consistency Theory is this: People need consistency in their lives. The theory breaks down into three simple steps.Step 1: People expect consistency.
Thus, we have "mental worlds" of our expectancies about the world,
the people in them, and our relationships with the world and other people.
And the glue that holds all these mental relationships together is consistency.
Why should we expect our spouses to love us tomorrow? Because it is consistent.
Consistency becomes like a form of human gravity. It holds everything down
and together. It helps us to understand the world and our place in it.
Step 2: Inconsistencies create a state of dissonance.
The state that arises following inconsistency is called, "dissonance" (pronounced DIS-AH-NENCE). Dissonance is simply a technical term for the cognitive, emotional, physiological, and behavioral state that arises when things do not go the way we expected them to. One thing that almost immediately occurs when we experience dissonance is a mental state of mild confusion and interruption, "What? What? What was that? I don't get it. Wait a minute." We try to figure what we missed. Interestingly, we also begin to feel somewhat jangly and upset, almost like we are nervous or anxious. Finally, the physiology of our bodies changes when we experience dissonance. Our heart rates elevate, blood pressure goes up, and our hands get sweaty. In sum, then, the state of dissonance is not a pleasant one. In
fact, if there was a pill that gave people dissonance, no one would buy
it. Dissonance is uncomfortable, a condition to be avoided if possible.
It arises from inconsistencies.
Step 3: Dissonance drives us to restore consistency.
We have devised a number of different tactics for getting rid of dissonance. All of them essentially involve doing some mental work that permits us to change the way we think about things. That is, to get rid of dissonance, we must change the way we think. Here's a short list of options. First, deny it. Just pretend like it didn't happen. Ignore it. It is not there, never was, and never will be. Next item. Now, some people are better at denial than others and if you are not good at it, it sounds almost unbelievable. For myself, I was not good at denial when I was younger, but as I have gotten older, I find it easier to do and very useful. Second, swamp the dissonance. Sure this time things didn't work out like we expected, but remember all those other times when it did? The goal here is to overload all that bad dissonance with a ton of good memories and thoughts. You can get a rough sense of just how much dissonance you are experiencing by how many "good" thoughts you must think of before you get rid of the dissonance. The longer it takes and the more thinking it requires, the greater the dissonance. Third, change your expectancy. In the example of receiving an electric toothbrush, you could change your expectancy about the anniversary. "Gee whiz, there'll be other days. It's silly to get fired up about one particular day. This anniversary was not that special." Some people would call this a form of rationalizing. With the previous options you did not really change reality. Here you are trying to alter in some real way something that really did happen. Fourth, you could change your evaluation of the event. Again with the toothbrush. "Wow, what a beautiful electric toothbrush! It must of cost a fortune. Think how long my spouse had to shop around to find such a special gift." Now, it is important to realize that this thinking is taken seriously. It is not the public face a person puts on when disappointed. Instead of responding with dissonant thoughts ("I can't believe I got this lousy toothbrush."), you actually change your evaluation and find the best possible outcome. These are just four possible ways that we try to cope with dissonance.
The key point, however, is that we are driven to these mental gymnastics
because the dissonance is such an unpleasant state. No matter the method,
we must lose the dissonance and restore the consistency.
DISSONANCE IN ACTIONSelective Exposure. People who smoke do not usually read anti-smoking literature. Democrats typically will not watch Republican commercials. Generally speaking, we do not seek out information that might be contrary to our existing views.Consistency theory explains this. If you expose yourself to discrepant information (e.g. the smoker reads anti-smoking articles), you will probably produce inconsistencies which will lead to dissonance which will lead to mental work. To avoid all this trouble, people "selectively expose" themselves to information when possible. That is, they will seek out things they agree with, but will avoid things they disagree with. This also explains why many public communication campaigns often have limited success. The people the campaigns are targeted at simply will not listen to them because to do so will create dissonance. This also explain why direct influence and persuasion tactics often don't work. When a source explicitly, openly, and directly confronts a receiver, the receiver will be immediately resistant because of dissonance. Disconfirmation Effects. Recall the thought problem that started this chapter. I met my friend the test pilot. With the pilot was a little girl of about two. I ask my friend, whom I hadn't seen in five years and who had married in that time, "What is the child's name?" "Same as her mother," the pilot replies. "Hello, Susan," I say to the little girl. How did I know her name if I never saw the wedding announcement? Easy, the test pilot is a woman and is Susan's mother. Thus, mother and daughter share the same first name. Some people have trouble getting this problem because we don't expect women to be test pilots and because we don't expect women to name their daughters after themselves. In other words, we have sex role stereotypes. Okay, big deal. We miss this dumb problem because of stereotyped thinking. Well, imagine that the people who missed this problem were militant feminists who strongly believed in the equality of the sexes. A research study did just this to a group of feminists. The researchers had one group of feminists try to solve a sexist thought problem (which they all failed) while another group of feminists worked on a different task. First of all, we can bet that the people who failed must have experienced some serious dissonance. There they are, advocates of equality and, zap!, they fall victim to stereotyped thinking. Klong! A major inconsistency. But, what happens next is the interesting part. The researchers then had both groups of feminists read a transcript about a sex discrimination case. Their task was to decide who was wrong in the case and make an award. How do you think the feminists responded? One might reasonably expect that the ones who failed the thought problem should have "logically" moderated their feminist beliefs. Obviously that failure indicated that they were not as clear thinking and free of bias as their feminist philosophy would demand. They should probably see themselves as less feminist now. Therefore, they should be less likely to see sex discrimination in the transcript and probably give smaller awards in the case. Here's what happened. The dissonant feminists were much more likely to find that sex discrimination had occurred and they gave much larger awards compared to a group of feminists who had not failed the thought problem. In other words, the feminist failures became even more feminist. Follow this carefully. They fail the problem. That is an inconsistency, so dissonance is aroused. They must get rid of the dissonance, but how? I would argue that it would be almost impossible for these people to reduce their feminist beliefs because those beliefs are so important to them. They are "ego-involved" and it is very hard to change our core beliefs. Counter-Attitudinal Behavior. One of the most surprising and interesting outcomes with Consistency Theory involves something called "counter-attitudinal behavior." A counter-attitudinal behavior is a complicated way of describing an event where a person does something they do not really believe. The person behaved in a way that was counter to their true attitude. At first glance, this sounds like nonsense. Nobody behaves in ways that are counter to their true attitudes. Or do they? Think about this simple example. You love your family, don't you? And you have never forgotten a loved ones birthday or missed an important moment or done something that has caused them sorrow or pain, right? We do perform counter-attitudinal behaviors all the time. Usually these actions are apparently unintentional, accidental, and largely beyond our control. But that doesn't matter. Our need for consistency is so strong, that when things like this happen, dissonance is aroused and we must try to change. One of the most common research methods for proving the counter-attitudinal effect is surprisingly simple. First, you survey people's opinions on some topic, say capital punishment. Next you divide them into two groups. Now, both groups are going to write an essay on capital punishment that is against their true views (a counter-attitudinal behavior, right?) One group is "required" to write the essay, while the other group is asked to "volunteer" to write the essay. Both groups are then surveyed again for their opinions on capital punishment. The required group shows almost no change in their attitudes on the topic. Even though they performed a counter-attitudinal behavior, it does not count because they were forced into it. The volunteer group, however, does show a change in attitude. They freely performed a counter-attitudinal behavior (writing an essay defending a position they disagree with). This action is inconsistent with their true beliefs and it therefore produces dissonance. They are then motivated to remove the dissonance. The way many people in this situation get rid of the dissonance is to change their opinion ("Well, I guess capital punishment is a better idea than I thought.") Reverse-Incentive Effects. One of the most outrageous and controversial effects with Consistency Theory concerns an odd prediction it makes about people. Under certain well-defined circumstances this theory predicts that people will show more attitude change when they are given smaller incentives and rewards for performing behaviors than when they are given larger incentives and rewards. Take the essay-writing example we just looked at. We will focus only on the volunteer group and add another dimension. Let's now divide the volunteers who are writing that counter-attitudinal essay into two groups. Both groups are going to be paid for writing the essays. The high incentive group will get paid $20 for their essays. The low incentive group will get paid only 50 cents for writing theirs. Now, when we survey all the writers again for their opinions about capital punishment, what will happen? The quick and common sense reply is this: More incentive, more change. Therefore, the writers who got that nice $20 reward will show more change in their attitudes than the writers who only got a measly 50 cents. Pretty straightforward, right? But that's not what typically happens. What usually happens is that the writers who got the 50 cents show considerably more change while the highly paid writers often show no change in attitude. Let's figure this out. Both groups of writers voluntarily performed a counter-attitudinal task (defending the "wrong" side of an issue). This is an inconsistency and we know it produces dissonance. How does the $20 group react to this? When they try to understand their odd behavior, they have an obvious and immediate explanation: I'm doing it for the money! Of course. Now, if they are only doing it for the money, then it means that this essay-writing stuff really does not represent their true attitudes and, if you think about, they really haven't done a counter-attitudinal behavior. That $20 in a way forced them to write that essay. The dissonance disappears and there is no change. But what about the writers who got 50 cents? Life is more complicated for them. Here they sit, looking at this beautiful essay they just wrote that attacks everything they truly believe. Why would they do such a thing? Good grief, they even volunteered to write this stuff. And how much did they get paid? A whole 50 cents. That's no excuse. Well, it must be, as much as I hate to say it, it must be that my original position on capital punishment was a bit hasty and now I believe . . . DISSONANCE IN ACTIONDissonance and all these many examples of it may seem rather removed from the real world. Sure, it is an interesting idea and it has some rather strange and quirky characteristics, but how does it apply to everyday life? Believe it or not, there are many applications.Learning and Dissonance. If you think about it, the primary goal of teaching will often produce dissonance in many students. Before kids enter the classroom, they have a comfortable set of expectations about the world and how it works. Much of what we do as teachers is designed to try and change those existing expectancies. I want to make two points here. First, inconsistency and dissonance is, in part, a minor explanation of why students sometimes do not want to learn. Learning can mean facing inconsistencies and we know that inconsistencies produce dissonance. When the inconsistencies are large and when the students cannot solve the dissonance with learning, you as the teacher have a problem. Second, I still think a little dissonance is a good thing in the classroom. Dissonance creates attention and interest. It animates an internal drive to solve the dissonance-problem. Thus, artfully employed, dissonance can be an effective teaching tool. Here's an example. One very important aspect of communication is language and how people use words. Whenever I teach about how words have many meanings, I can start the unit off with this Thought Problem. "Jack and Jill are dead. Their bodies are found lying on the carpeted floor of the living room. The carpeting is wet and around their bodies are shards of broken glass. Nearby there is a table under a window. Through the window, just a few feet from the house is a railroad track. My question to you is this: How did Jack and Jill die?" At this point, I allow my students to ask me any question that can be answered with a "Yes" or a "No." This goes on for five or ten minutes. If no one gets close, then I offer hints until the class cracks the Thought Problem. When they hear the solution, they have a vivid experience of how words have many meanings. The instructional unit now has their attention. Now, how did Jack and Jill die? Failed Persuasion. Think about this. Most of the time, when you directly try to persuade somebody to change (stop smoking, always use condoms, wear seat belts, etc.), you are producing inconsistencies in the receiver. The better your arguments, the more inconsistency you produce. Now, here's the real important part. If you do not get the receiver to change you have actually made things worse. You will have produced a state of dissonance, but since you did not get the receiver to change internal attitudes, the receiver must find another way to handle all that dissonance. Do you recall the study with the feminists' failure? They handled it
by becoming more fanatical. They strengthened their feminist beliefs in
the face of their own failures. Our persuasion failures can have the same
effect on our target. If we push too hard and do not get the results we
seek, we may serve only to make the "problem" worse. (We see more evidence
of this when we look at Inoculation Theory, too.)
Answer to the Thought Problem Jack and Jill are fish. Their tank shook off the table under the window
when a train went thundering down the tracks.
REFERENCES AND RECOMMENDED READINGSCotton, J. (1985). Cognitive dissonance in selective exposure. In D. Zillmann & J. Bryant (Eds.), Selective exposure to communication, (pp. 11-33). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Sherman, S., & Gorkin, L. (1980). Attitude bolstering when
behavior is inconsistent with central attitudes. Journal of Experimental
Social Psychology, 16, 388-403.
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The pilot is the little girls mother, Susan. |