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Cognitive dissonance, double forced compliance, and commitment
Author(s) -
Joule RobertVincent,
Azdia Touati
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
european journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1099-0992
pISSN - 0046-2772
DOI - 10.1002/ejsp.165
Subject(s) - cognitive dissonance , self justification , psychology , self perception theory , social psychology , context (archaeology) , compliance (psychology) , perception , attitude change , paleontology , neuroscience , biology
Double forced compliance situations are studied to analyse how attitudes change after the performance of two behaviours, rather than just one as in standard forced (or induced) compliance situations. In the present experiment, subjects were asked to execute two successive counterattitudinal behaviours: writing an essay in favour of selective admission to the third year of university (first behaviour) and giving a convincing speech in favour of selective admission (second behaviour). The first behaviour was always performed in a high‐commitment context (free choice, publicness, and consequences), whereas the second was performed in a high‐commitment context as well as in a low‐commitment context (free choice, anonymity, and no consequences). The following hypotheses were tested. (1) If the second behaviour is performed in a high‐commitment context, it will increase the dissonance induced by the first. (2) If the second behaviour is performed in a low‐commitment context, it will decrease the dissonance induced by the first. The results confirmed both hypotheses, which comply with the radical version of dissonance theory (Beauvois & Joule, 1996, 1999). As a whole, these results are incompatible with competing theories of Festinger's theory of dissonance (1957), and in particular with self‐perception and impression‐management theories. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.