El periodismo que trata los asuntos sociales

The theory of cognitive dissonance roughly boils down to the idea that people rationalize their choice. The idea is not limited to goods with social externalities.

In fact, despite its relative simplicity, there is a wide range of applications (Aron-son [1988], Akerlof and Dickens [1982]). This section describes some experimental

2Other contributions to economics that try to explain the findings by social psychologists by formalizing the theory of cognitive dissonance include the following. The focus of Akerlof and Dickens [1982] is on the purchase of safety equipment in an environment of uncertainty, Akerlof [1991] considers time-inconsistency, Dickens [1986]

criminal behaviour, Rabin [1994] examines social norms, and Rabin [1995] moral behavior. James and Gutkind [1985] apply the concept to the conditional help provided by the IMF.

results. All of them are easily understood by assuming that people are motivated to rationalize their choice³.

In a very early experiment by Brehm [1956], some women were asked to rate various household products. The experimenter selected two of the appliances that were presented wrapped to the women, and which were rated equally by the women. The women were then told that they could choose one of these two products as a reward for participation (without knowing on which base these were selected). Still wrapped, they were asked to evaluate these two products again. A systematic feature of the second evaluation relative to the first one, was that the chosen product increased in valuation, whereas the rejected product apparently became less attractive to these women.

Aronson and Carlsmith [1963] designed an experiment where children were asked to rate several toys in attractiveness and were then left alone. In one condi-tion, the experimenter took the second rated toy with him. In a second condicondi-tion, the toy was left with the child but the child was asked not to play with it, with the added mild threat that the experimenter would otherwise be annoyed. In the third condition, the threat was more severe, announcing that he would be very angry. No child played with the toy. After that, the experimenter returned and asked for another evaluation. As it turns out, the perceived attraction increased in conditions 1 and 2, where the child had enough external reasons not to play with the toy. In the mild threat condition, however, the attraction was less in the second evaluation. Apparently, the child had no really good justification for not playing with the toy and so tried to rationalize behavior by reasoning that the toy was not so attractive after all.

Festinger and Carlsmith [1959] report an experiment where subjects had to lis-ten to a rather boring seminar. After the seminar, some were asked to tell the next participants that the seminar was going to be very interesting. Some were paid $1 for this, others $20. All participants were asked to rate the seminar. Interestingly, the subjects who were paid $1 showed a much more positive evaluation record than the other groups. This could be expected. Some individuals were asked to tell a lie, and nobody rejected this request. Likely, telling a lie is not congruent with the self-image of being a decent person. This can create some dissonance.

However, the group of people which received $20 has a clear rational for lying:

3Most of the material in this section draws upon the expositions by Aronson [1988] and Brigham [1991].

they were paid considerably for this. Hence, the only group where the lie created dissonance was the group which only received $1 and they indeed revised their opinion most.

If we assume that people try to rationalize behavior, this has an interesting consequence for how people should recall things. Consider a situation where there are good reasons pro and contra an individual’s position. From all the reasons pro and contra, some make sense and others are less plausible. Which ones would be best to recall for an individual? In order to rationalize the position taken, the best thing to do is to remember the sensible reasons congruent with the position taken, and the implausible arguments that are incongruent. In an experiment by Jones and Kohler [1959] exactly this pattern was found.

Three more things are worthwhile to note. First, dissonance seems to bring a real physiological arousal. An experiment by Croyle and Cooper [1983] shows that conditions creating high-dissonance situations show more skin conduction responses. According to them, this is a reliable indicator of physiological arousal.

This means that the phenomenon of dissonance goes beyond subjective self-reports (Aronson [1988]). Relatedly, attitude change is not a superficial tendency of people to pretend they were changing (Baumeister [1998]).

Second, attitudes are, if properly measured, a reliable indicator of behavior (Brigham [1991]). In a famous study by Lepper, Greene and Nisbett [1973] chil-dren were asked to draw a picture using attractive magic markers. Some chilchil-dren were paid for this. In a second session, the children were left alone to play freely with the materials. Those children who were not paid before (and had therefore no good rational to participate other than that the magic markers were enjoyable in themselves to play with) were more likely to spend time with the materials.

Hence, instead of measuring attitude changes, this study shows that also behav-ioral changes are induced. This is an important aspect from an economics point of view, since if changed attitudes do not lead to changes in behavior they are not very interesting from the perspective of choice theory.

Finally, the attitude changes are persistent. Between the first and second session of the experiment by Lepper et al. [1973] was a time span of several days. In a study by Freedman [1965] children were less likely to play with previously forbidden toys, even after nine weeks had passed.