CHAPTER 5 - Affective Consistency: Balance And Congruity Theory

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Information processing theory began by considering the cognitive response to a discrepancy between the logical content of the message and the receiver's beliefs. There is a different kind of discrepancy that has fascinated other theorists: the emotional compatibility or incompatibility between the feelings of the receiver and the source. Attempts to define emotional consistency led to the development of balance theory and congruity theory. This chapter presents simple models that illustrate the general properties of these models, though these models are not the models of the classic literature. The current consistency models of attitude change trace their origins to theories of group dynamics rather than attitude change per se. Newcomb developed balance theory in an interpersonal context in which one person is talking to another about some object. What the speaker says influences the listener in two ways: the listener may change his attitude toward the object, and the listener will assess the speaker on the basis of whether the listener likes what the speaker says. There is attitude change and source change. The basic balance theory model can be determined by predicting the processes that take place in the listener.