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

Jacob recently was late to a meeting because of a traffic jam.Later that day, when his wife is late arriving home, Jacob is probably going to be ________, based on the idea of the hypocrisy induction.

Research in which participants' brains were scanned with MRIs while doing a dissonance-producing task showed that when people encounter dissonance, the ________ areas of the brain decrease in activity, and when dissonance is resolved, the ________ areas of the brain "light up."

Why would people be less likely to engage in dissonance-reducing behaviors in a collectivist culture?

Who would be LEAST likely to remember sound and well-founded arguments against smoking?

Derek likes to bully his little brother Matt.Their mother begins to give Derek the mild punishment of a stern look every time Derek hits Matt.This is sufficient to stop Derek's bullying, and in time, Derek stops bullying Matt even when his mother is not around.According to theories of insufficient punishment, why might this happen?

Compare and contrast how cognitive dissonance theory and self-perception theory (Chapter 5) would explain the Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) $1/$20 experiment.Given that both theories can explain these results, in which situations is dissonance theory more likely to apply and in what conditions is self-perception theory probably operating?

People tend to fall subject to the impact bias (and not understand that they will usually successfully reduce cognitive dissonance) because reducing cognitive dissonance is

Why does self-persuasion work better than being lectured by other people to behave in a certain way?

As you and your friends returned and met up for the first time since high school, you find that you've all taken different paths in life.Based on cognitive dissonance and the principle of justification of effort, who would be the LEAST satisfied with what he or she is currently doing?

Describe cultural differences in the extent to which individuals experience dissonance.

Carl and Roger both had similar attitudes about cheating on a partner.However, both were faced with similar situations where they could have cheated on their partners.Now, Carl thinks that cheating is the worst offense one can make in a relationship, whereas Roger thinks that most people would cheat if they were faced with the situation.Explain what could have occurred, both socially and psychologically, that could produce such diverse positions from individuals who shared a similar stance.

According to the authors of your text, after carefully making a decision, what is likely to happen?

In experiments on counterattitudinal advocacy, people change their attitudes more the lower the external incentives.This finding is inconsistent with the ________ approach to psychology.

In a classic experiment, researchers (Aronson & Mettee, 1968) gave positive false feedback to some students, negative false feedback to some students, and no feedback to others.They were interested in seeing whether a boost to self-esteem would affect the likelihood of cheating.In this experiment, what is the independent variable?

The Ben Franklin effect would predict that you would most like someone ________, whereas behaviorist theories would predict that you would most like someone ________.

When someone dehumanizes a victim and successfully reduces dissonance in this way, this is likely to lead to

Jennifer's dad wants to convince her to do her homework as soon as she gets home from school.To ensure that Jennifer actually does her homework immediately-whether or not he is there to keep an eye on her-Jennifer's dad should provide

When people act contrary to their self-perceptions as reasonable and sensible people, they experience a feeling known as ________.

When a neighbor asks if he can borrow your chemistry textbook and you do him this favor, dissonance theory would predict that you will like him more due to the Ben Franklin effect, which works because you

Someone reminds you to be appropriately grateful for the gifts you receive.Were a dissonance theorist to remind you to be thankful, he or she would be giving you advice on how to