chapter 6 the need to justify our actions. chapter outline i. maintaining a stable, positive...

Chapter 6Chapter 6Chapter 6Chapter 6The Need to Justify The Need to Justify

Our ActionsOur Actions

Chapter OutlineChapter Outline

I. Maintaining a Stable, Positive Self-Image

Maintaining a Stable, Positive Self-Image

One of the most powerful determinants of human behavior is the need to preserve a stable, positive self-concept.


• The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance

Leon Festinger originated the concept of cognitive dissonance, defining it as inconsistency between two thoughts. Cognitive dissonance may arise when a person engages in an act that is discrepant from one’s self-concept.



Cognitive dissonance is the feeling of discomfort caused by information that is discrepant from your customary, typically positive, self-concept. Experiencing dissonance motivates an attempt to reduce it.


• Rational Behavior Versus Rationalizing Behavior

The need to reduce dissonance and maintain self-esteem produces thinking that is rationalizing rather than rational.


• Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Postdecision dissonance is aroused after we make any important decision; it is reduced by enhancing the attractiveness of the chosen alternative and devaluating the rejected alternative.



One way to engage in postdecision dissonance reduction is to proselytize, recommending your decision/behavior to others.



The more permanent a decision, the greater the need to reduce dissonance after making it. Feeling that one’s decision is irrevocable may lead to falling prey to a sales technique called lowballing. Lowballing makes the customer feel compelled to pay a higher price for an item after first agreeing to pay a much lower price.



Dissonance reduction following a difficult moral decision can cause people to behave either more or less ethically in the future, because people’s attitudes will polarize in the attempt to justify the ethical choice they made.


• Justify Your Effort

What happens when a person voluntarily works hard and the goal doesn’t seem worth it after all? People are unlikely to change their self-concept to believe they were unskilled or foolish; instead they change their attitude towards the goal and see it positively. This is called the justification of effort.


• Justify Your Effort


• The Psychology of Insufficient Justification

When people attempt to reduce their dissonance by changing something about themselves, for example their attitudes, they are using internal justification. When people attempt to explain their dissonant behaviors by focusing on reasons that reside outside of themselves, for example being paid a large sum of money, they are using external justification.


• The Psychology of Insufficient Justification

Counterattitudinal advocacy is the process by which people are induced to state publicly an attitude that runs counter to their own attitude. If there is no external justification for counterattitudinal advocacy, a person’s attitude may change in accordance with the view that was expressed publicly.


• Counterattitudinal Advocacy, Race Relations, and Preventing AIDS

Harsh punishments teach us to try to avoid getting caught, and thus require constant vigilance to be effective. In contrast, insufficient punishment induces dissonance about why one is not engaging in the behavior, and inspires dissonance reduction by devaluing the forbidden activity or object.



When attitude change occurs due to insufficient reward or punishment, it becomes very enduring. Both insufficient punishment and insufficient justification lead to self-persuasion, a long-term form of attitude change that results from attempts at self-justification.



Insufficient external justification is justification that is sufficient to produce the behavior, but insufficient for people to believe that they were “forced” through external justifications to do it.


• Good and Bad Deeds

Dissonance theory and folk wisdom suggest that we like people not for the favors they have done us but for the favors we have done for them.



If we harm someone, this induces dissonance between our actions and our self-concepts as decent people; to resolve this dissonance, we may derogate or dehumanize our victims.



We are more likely to derogate people we have harmed if they are innocent victims. Derogating victims by dehumanizing them may lead to a continuation or escalation of violence against them.

CCONNECTIONSONNECTIONS


II. Variations on the Theme of Self-Justification

Variations on the Theme of Self-Justification

The basic premise of cognitive dissonance theory is that people have a fundamental need to maintain a stable and positive sense of self.


• Self-Discrepancy Theory

Self-discrepancy theory holds that people are motivated to maintain a sense of consistency among their beliefs and perceptions of themselves, and become distressed when there is a discrepancy between the “actual self” and an “ideal” or “ought” self.


• Maintaining our Self-Image

Self-evaluation maintenance theory holds that one’s self-concept can be threatened by another individual’s behavior, and that the level of threat is determined by both the closeness of the other individual and the personal relevance of the behavior.


• Maintaining our Self-Image

Dissonance arising when a friend outperforms oneself in a cherished domain can be resolved by (1) distancing oneself from the friend; (2) changing how relevant the domain is to one’s self-definition; or (3) improving one’s performance to outshine the friend’s performance.


• Self-Affirmation Theory

Self-affirmation theory suggests that people will reduce the impact of a dissonance arousing threat to their self-concept by focusing on and affirming their competence on some dimension unrelated to the threat.


III. Why Would Anyone Want to Maintain a Poor Self-Image?

Why Would Anyone Want to Maintain a Poor Self-Image?

• Confirming Our Self-Concept or Enhancing It?

Self-verification theory is a theory suggesting that people have a need to seek confirmation of their self-concept, whether the self-concept is positive or negative.


IV. Some Final Thoughts on Dissonance: Learning from our Mistakes

Some Final Thoughts on Dissonance

The rationalization trap is the potential for dissonance reduction to produce a succession of self-justifications that can ultimately result in a chain of unintelligent or immoral actions.


V. Heaven’s Gate Revisited

Heaven’s Gate RevisitedHeaven’s Gate Revisited

Making an important decision and investing heavily in that decision can evoke a high degree of cognitive dissonance and a strong need to justify behavior. One of the most powerful forces influencing the members of the Heaven’s Gate cult was the great amount of cognitive dissonance they experienced.

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