Aaron J. Louie
3/3/97
Psy 458
D. Frisch

The Role of Cognitive Dissonance in Decision Making

Introduction

When making decisions, humans commonly fall victim to errors in logic and reasoning. Since the inception of the study of the mind, psychologists have endeavored to isolate the characteristics and causes of errors in human thinking. Researchers and theorists have developed categories of such errors: representativeness heuristics, availability heuristics, memory and hindsight biases, et cetera. . . . In other words, to err is human. In 1957, Festinger encountered yet another phenomenon in human cognition-cognitive dissonance. Using a series of elaborate experiments, Festinger theorized that humans experience negative emotions when performing behaviors that are contrary to their attitudes. These negative emotions, collectively called "cognitive dissonance," have been shown to influence people's attitudes and behaviors in myriad situations. Is it possible that cognitive dissonance plays an important role in directing the illogical or irrational decisions that people often make? More specifically, can cognitive dissonance be partially responsible for the many common flaws in human thinking? As evidenced by recent research, cognitive dissonance can provide a serious hindrance to proper decision making, and reducing dissonance may significantly improve decision making skills.

Characteristics and effects of cognitive dissonance

A proper discussion of the role of cognitive dissonance in decision making requires a thorough exploration of the research surrounding cognitive dissonance, its characteristics, and examples of its role in life. Festinger & Carlsmith's 1959 experiment explored the effects of dissonance on the subjects' subsequent attitudes concerning an unpleasant task. First, Festinger & Carlsmith required the subjects to complete a tedious and unexciting task. Following completion of the task, the subjects were given the option of convincing a confederate to participate in the task. The subjects were also offered a reward of varying values. Following the completion of this second task, the subjects were given a questionnaire to elicit their opinion of the first task. Festinger & Carlsmith (1959) found that those subjects that, for a small reward, convinced the confederate to complete the tedious task enjoyed the task more than those who received a greater reward. The subjects' negative attitude toward the original task conflicted with their persuasive behavior with the confederate. The subjects were thus forced to choose between changing their attitude about the task and changing their behavior. Since their persuasive behavior was only moderately rewarded, they could not blame money as the cause for their conflicting behavior. As a result, the subjects changed their attitude toward the original tedious task. This phenomenon was termed cognitive dissonance-a result of effort justification (Axsom & Lawless, 1992). In short, cognitive dissonance is a negative emotion that results when a person's behavior conflicts with their attitudes.

Since Festinger's 1957 study, much theoretical and experimental research has been conducted to elaborate the characteristics and effects of cognitive dissonance. For instance, Simon, et al. (1995), explored trivialization, one of the three modes of dissonance reduction (which will be discussed further later): changing one of the dissonant elements, adding consonant cognitions, and decreasing the importance of the dissonant cognitive elements (Festinger, 1957). In the case of Festinger & Carlsmith's 1959 study, the subjects changed the dissonant element-their attitude-to placate the negative emotions aroused by conflicting cognitions. Beauvois, et al. (1995), found that cognitive dissonance can occur in several degrees of intensity, depending on the degree of free choice the subject was given in certain tasks. In the area of psychobiology, Etgen & Rosen (1993) studied the effects of cognitive dissonance on heart rate and skin conductance response.

Plous (1993) describes two types of cognitive dissonance in relation to decision making: PREdecisional dissonance and POSTdecisional dissonance. Predecisional dissonance occurs in response to an event, causing a person to make a decision. Sherman & Gorkin (1980) demonstrated that, when people accidentally act in a sexist way (and are not sexist people), they exhibit exceptionally anti-sexist attitudes to prove to themselves and the people around them that they are not sexist. This is an example of predecisional dissonance. Other examples of predecisional dissonance involve situations where a person's previous behaviors or attitudes cause them to feel an obligation to engage in a certain behavior. As a result, cognitive dissonance results whenever they try to change their behavior (Kantola, et al., 1984; Doob, et al., 1969; Aronson & Mills, 1959).

Postdecisional dissonance occurs in response to a counterattitudinal decision. Gilovich, Medvec, & Chen (1995) explored the differential levels of dissonance experienced following a regrettable decision. Gilovich, Medvec & Chen (1995) set up a "three doors" game-show problem that offered a grand prize in one out of three boxes. After choosing the wrong box first, there was a probability of .5 that they would chooses the grand prize box next. The subjects could then keep their moderate prize (omission) or choose one of the two remaining boxes (commission). Subjects that committed "false alarm" errors (errors of commission) experienced more regret than those that committed "miss" errors (errors of omission), lending credence to the hypothesis that people avoid errors of commission because they cause more dissonance. Similar studies involving voting and betting showed that, once a person actively committed to a candidate by voting or betting, they were more likely to believe that the candidate would win than before commission (Knox & Inkster, 1968; Frenkel & Doob, 1976). It is this last example that demonstrates the power of cognitive dissonance in influencing decision making.

Cognitive dissonance as a cause of common errors in human thinking

It may be reasonable to attribute many errors in human thinking to cognitive dissonance. I will discuss, in purely theoretical terms, three common errors in decision making that can be directly or indirectly caused by cognitive dissonance. First, the representativeness heuristic is defined as the error in which people conjure up generalizations about a population or about the outcome of a scenario based on a small "representative" sample or stimulus (Plous, 1993). People develop attitudes about other groups of people based on individual encounters with members of that group. These attitudes are often difficult to change when negative or emotionally charged. The representativeness heuristic can help people avoid encountering situations that cause cognitive dissonance, and, thus, this "error" in human thinking persists. For example, if an Oregonian is insulted by a person from New York, the Oregonian uses the representativeness heuristic-all New Yorkers are jerks-to avoid further injury by encountering another unfriendly New Yorker. To see how cognitive dissonance can give rise to this error in human thinking, consider the following line of reasoning: Assume that most people, being sentient individuals, view themselves as the most important person in their own minds-the center of their own universe. However, they experience dissonance when they realize that they cannot know everything, and their experience with the world is limited to a small sample. To reduce this dissonance, the representativeness heuristic is applied, thus placing everything into categories. Their small sample of the world is now representative of the whole, and dissonance is reduced.

Second, the availability heuristic is a result of the tendency of people to confuse probability with imaginability (Plous, 1993). For instance, the probability of being killed by electrocution is greater than that of being killed in an airplane crash. However, most people can imagine (from news reports) the tragedy of a plane crash more easily than electrocution while standing in a puddle of water in their bathroom. Thus, they falsely believe, through the availability heuristic, that it is more dangerous to fly to Europe than to use a hairdryer in the bathtub. We can see how dissonance theory can give rise to this error in human reasoning. Again assuming that most people view themselves as the center of the universe, they experience dissonance when they realize that things can happen to them over which they have no control. To reduce this dissonance, they create an availability heuristic that says that things will only happen to them with the probability which they can imagine those events occurring.

Third, the memory and hindsight biases show that humans reconstruct their memories at the time of recall, often embellishing the "facts" with incorrect perceptions and improbable viewpoints (Plous, 1993). This error in human thinking may sometimes influence a witness in a court hearing to add details at the crime scene based on evidence learned after the fact. The ever annoying "I knew it all along" phenomenon is also a result of the hindsight bias, inserting or altering past attitudes based on present interpretations or new information. The role of cognitive dissonance is clearly at work in memory and hindsight biases: Assume once again that most humans are at the center of their own universes. They experience dissonance when their omniscient view of the world is disrupted, and they realize that they cannot remember everything and cannot change past events, past behaviors, or past thoughts. This dissonance is assuaged with the memory and hindsight biases, which allow them to manipulate their memories of past events. They can erase, embellish, or even insert memories to reduce any incongruences.

Positive uses of cognitive dissonance

As was hypothesized concerning the representativeness heuristic, availability heuristic, and memory and hindsight biases, cognitive dissonance may prove to be the real culprit of many more common flaws in decision making. Although cognitive dissonance may be implicated in human errors in reasoning, there are some positive uses of dissonance. Since it is such a powerful force in attitude formation, dissonance can be used in therapy to induce an attitude change in clients (Wright, et al., 1992; Axsom & Lawless, 1992). Mwamwenda (1992) proposes a novel use of cognitive dissonance to foster "higher moral reasoning" in juvenile delinquents. Bohner & Schwarz (1993) found that dissonance can increase creativity in extemporaneous speaking, depending on the mood of the speaker.

Improving decision making through dissonance reduction

As mentioned earlier, people use three methods of dissonance reduction: changing one of the dissonant elements, adding consonant cognitions, and decreasing the importance of the dissonant cognitive elements (Festinger, 1957). The first, and most common, usually involves a change of one of the conflicting attitudes or behaviors. As discussed previously, Gilovich, Medvec, & Chen (1995) examined the attitude changes following commission and omission errors. Wright, et al. (1992), explored the changes of attitude following a misattribution of dissonance. An example of a dissonance-reducing attitude change can be seen in the case of my job as a Resident Assistant. R.A.s are often seen as police officers, keeping the peace in residence halls. A resident who forms the attitude (due to the representativeness heuristic) that all R.A.s are totalitarian militarists would experience dissonance if he met me-a really nice Resident Assistant. The misguided resident would then be induced to change one of his two attitudes-that all R.A.s are Nazi stormtroopers and that I am a nice guy-to reduce this dissonance. Hopefully, he would decide that not R.A.s are evil, thus changing one of the dissonant elements and minimizing the negative emotions associated with cognitive dissonance. This technique may be applied to decision making by recognizing the dissonant elements that would normally induce an attitude change. With this recognition, we are given the option of changing one of those dissonant elements and making a rational decision with a beneficial outcome.

The second mode of dissonance reduction, adding consonant cognitions, is also known as bolstering. Following a counterattitudinal behavior, the pressure to feel consistent with inner attitudes often causes people to reinforce those attitudes with consonant behaviors or attitudes. Sherman & Gorkin (1980) demonstrated this with a riddle involving a sexist assumption-that men are more likely than women to be surgeons. After this attitude was made salient to otherwise anti-sexist subjects, the subjects showed more extreme feminist viewpoints on a questionnaire than the control group. This method of dissonance reduction may be utilized to improve decision making skills as well. This can be seen in the case of my friend. She is faced with deciding whether or not to engage in sexual intercourse with a certain guy. To make this decision, my friend needs to examine her attitudes about her relationship with this guy. Her attitude is that people who have sex are in love. She apparently loves this guy who does not love her, even though they are having sex. The dissonant components are her attitude (people who have sex are in love) and reality (he does not love her). She can reduce the dissonance in this situation by recognizing that he does not love her and by adding cognitions consonant with this fact. She can do this by realizing that he does not share his feelings with her, does not give her flowers, does not take her out to dinner, does not listen to her, and does not seem to enjoy her company except when having sex. By bolstering the realization that this guy does not love my friend, she can make the rational decision to refuse to have sex with him.

The third mode of dissonance reduction, decreasing the importance of the dissonant cognitive elements, is also called trivialization. Simon, Greenberg, and Brehm (1995) explored the utility and commonality of trivialization as a form of dissonance reduction. Trivialization can also be used to improve our skills in decision making. For example, when deciding whether or not to go rock climbing (even though you are afraid of heights), trivialization can reduce the importance of your phobia, allowing you to enjoy the thrill of rock climbing. When the dissonant components, "rock climbing is fun" and "I'm afraid of heights", are recognized, the skillful decision maker can select which component is least important (personal safety or positive experiences) and reduce its importance.

Other methods of dissonance reduction not included in Festinger's theory are emotional expression and distancing. Emotional expression is a form of dissonance reduction often used by psychotherapists. By "getting in touch" with their feelings, clients can begin to make more rational decisions without being clouded by dissonance (Pyszczynski, et al., 1993). If, in the case of rock climbing, the fear of heights was actively dealt with emotionally, Pyszczynski, et al., claim that the dissonance involved would be reduced. Distancing can also provide the same effect in many social situations. Fleming & Rudman (1993) found that subjects placed in a situation where they were required to read a counterattitudinal essay aloud in the presence of another person would "distance" themselves from the ideas in the essay by reading it with a monotonic voice, often grimacing or gesturing to indicate their unease with the ideas in the essay. Distancing includes a wide range of internal and interpersonal behaviors, such as crossing your fingers when telling a lie and folding your arms defensively when listening to a disagreeable argument. Like trivialization, distancing reduces dissonance by weakening our attachment to one of the dissonant cognitions.

By applying these methods of dissonance reduction, we may be able to avoid falling victim to errors in reasoning when making decisions. However, these modes of dissonance reduction can also lead to errors in reasoning, as demonstrated earlier. Remember that the representativeness and availability heuristics and the memory and hindsight biases resulted from attempts at dissonance reduction as well.

Conclusion

Cognitive dissonance plays an important role in decision making, whether to hinder our reasoning, cause us to make decisions, or to determine the way we feel about the decisions we make. Recognizing and reducing dissonance-through attitude changes, bolstering, trivialization, emotional expression, or distancing-when making difficult decisions may improve our decision making skills. This is made possible since many errors in decision making may be indirectly caused by cognitive dissonance. The representativeness heuristic, the availability heuristic, and the memory and hindsight biases were shown, at least philosophically, to result from cognitive dissonance. It is possible that these flaws in human thinking could be reduced by changing the initial attitude that "I am the center of the universe." Perhaps, in a culture that did not value individuality, these errors in thinking would not be so prevalent. Research in dissonance theory may someday lend credence to the philosophical idea that errors in human thinking are all a result of cognitive dissonance. For the present, however, cognitive dissonance remains a powerful and dangerous phenomenon in the realm of decision making.

References

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