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

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

Which of the following social psychology concepts is most closely related to the idea,"Saying is believing"?

Over the weekend,you are going to meet your new romantic partner's parents for the first time.In particular,you want your partner's father to like you.How might you use the Ben Franklin effect to get him to like you more? Be sure you include an example.

Recall that Viswesvaran and Deshpande (1996)studied mid-level business managers in India.Some of these business managers were struggling with the question of whether to make unethical business decisions.Based on laboratory research on the effects of deciding to behave immorally,it is reasonable to predict that those managers who ____ would be most lenient about unethical practices a year later.

When people receive bad news-perhaps that they did not get a dream job they applied and interviewed for- what tends to happen?

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

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

Suppose that both Oscar and Sam went through hazing rituals for the same fraternity.Oscar went through a very long and involved hazing process while Sam went through relatively mild rituals.After they both got into the fraternity,they realized that there were a lot of negative things associated with membership that they hadn't expected.According to cognitive dissonance,which of the following would you expect to happen?

Recall that Jon Jecker and David Landy (1969)conducted an experiment in which some participants were asked by the experimenter to return the monetary compensation they had received as a special favor to him,while others were asked by the department secretary to return the money as a favor to the psychology department,and still others received no such request for the return of their compensation.The researchers found that participants who were approached by the experimenter evaluated him better than did participants in the other two experimental conditions.Why?

Recall that Jack Brehm (1956)asked women to rate the desirability of a number of appliances and then allowed them to choose one of those appliances as a gift.Twenty minutes later,all women re-rated the same appliances,including the one they chose.Women tended to rate the alternatives they rejected lower than they had originally,and to rate their chosen appliance more positively.These results suggest that people

In a variation of the "forbidden toy" experiment by Elliot Aronson and J.Merrill Carlsmith (1963),Jonathan Freedman (1965)issued mild and severe threats to prevent children from playing with a very attractive battery-powered robot.Several weeks later,a woman came to the school,allegedly to administer tests to the children.When she left the room to score the tests,children were left alone with the robot and other less attractive toys.Almost 80 percent of the children who were issued severe threats by Freedman played with the robot; only 30 percent of those children issued mild threats succumbed to temptation.This experiment is noteworthy because it demonstrated that

According to the authors of your text,people experience dissonance

In a study by Peterson,Haynes,and Olson (2008),smokers were asked to create an anti-smoking video to be shown to high school students,invoking dissonance in the smokers.To alleviate this dissonance,participants with ____ were more likely to actually intend to quit smoking.

According to the authors of your text,why would people experience cognitive dissonance after investing a lot of time and effort in pursuit of a goal that falls short of their expectations?

George thinks of himself as an honest person until his brother reminds him that he's been known to keep extra change given to him by a cashier and to stock his home office for a sideline business with supplies taken from his job.George is now probably feeling a sense of discomfort known as

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

A mother is trying to get her child to behave in the store and to stop running around,yelling,and grabbing things off the shelves.According to cognitive dissonance theory,if she wants to stop the child's behavior immediately for the time being,she should use a ____,but if she wants to more permanently change the behavior she should use a ____.

Suppose that Derek kept bullying his brother,even when his mother gave him the mild punishment of a stern look.Which of the following is most likely to happen,according to dissonance theory?

What is the broad message or theme about the processes of self-justification and the need to enhance self- esteem? Humans are

Individuals are most likely to reduce cognitive dissonance by