Exam 6: The Need to Justify Our Actions: the Costs and Benefits of Dissonance Reduction

If a person goes through a demanding process involving lots of effort and hard work to achieve a goal, what would cognitive dissonance suggest that person will think about the experience afterwards?

According to the tenets of dissonance theory, when we cannot find sufficient external justification for acts such as saying something we don't truly believe, we will most likely

Imagine that you have just moved into a house with four other people.One of your housemates, Tony, doesn't seem to like you all that much.If you were to make use of the Ben Franklin effect, what can you do to increase Tony's liking for you?

You've recently learned that eating avocados, which you love, is bad for your health.To reduce the dissonance you experience after reading this news, you would most likely

Dissonance theory helps us understand the apparently irrational behavior of cult members, such as those in the Heaven's Gate cult and at Jonestown, who committed mass suicide.All of the following EXCEPT ________ tend to increase dissonance and hence the extreme dissonance-reducing commitment to the cult or cause and the beliefs of the leaders.

In research presented in the text, a social psychologist had army reservists eat fried grasshoppers, allegedly as part of a research project on survival foods.Reservists who ________ liked the grasshoppers more.

It is not uncommon for cultures to dehumanize their enemies.What explains why, for example, a Vietnam veteran might dehumanize the Vietnamese or a Nazi might dehumanize the Jews?

Engaging in self-justification strategies as a response to dissonance is a process that can have negative consequences.Explain how self-justification can be negative, and what one could do to better learn from one's mistakes.

________ refers to the dissonance aroused after we have chosen between two or more alternatives.

Anita spent two months trying to decide whether to buy a PC or a Mac.She finally decided on a Mac.Now, Anita most likely

According to cognitive dissonance theory, soldiers may reduce their guilt about killing innocent civilians during wartime by

Recall that in experiments presented in your text (Leippe & Eisenstadt, 1994; 1998), white college students agreed to write essays in favor of doubling funds for minority student scholarships, even though that policy would reduce funds available for majority students.What happened? Participants

________ is to dissonance-induced attitude change as ________ is to no attitude change.

All things being equal, it would generate the most dissonance to decide which of two

You have worked extremely hard to attain a goal, but soon realize that the goal is not as exciting as you expected.You will probably

When unscrupulous salespeople use lowballing as a means of selling cars, they take advantage of buyers' illusions that their decision to buy a particular car was

According to dissonance theorists, the practice of threatening mild punishment works because it arouses ________ cognitive dissonance and therefore causes ________.

In an experiment by Takaku (2006) on road rage, when drivers went through a driving simulation in which they accidentally cut off another driver, and then were cut off themselves, they were less likely to

According to the authors, every time we make a decision, we experience some amount of dissonance.Why?

Mahmoud wants his seven-year-old daughter to learn that littering is bad.According to cognitive dissonance theory, how should Mahmoud teach his daughter not to be a litterbug? Mahmoud should