The Evolution of Cognitive Dissonance: A Review of Foundational Paradigms, Theoretical Refinements, and Contemporary Directions

Customer service-based employees act as an interface between the consumer and the organisation using managed emotional display which is known as emotional labour. While much research into emotional labour has been conducted over the last three decades, disagreement persists regarding the consequences of emotional labour on employee well-being, ranging from job satisfaction to job burnout. Conflicting empirical findings suggests there is much to be understood regarding the impact of emotional labour on employee well-being, particularly the differential impact of the two types of acting associated with emotional labour: surface acting (faking emotional display) and deep acting (trying to manufacture ‘authentic’ emotional display) and the function of emotional dissonance (stressor). This research examines the employee processes and mechanisms used by University Student Services staff to manage the experience of emotional dissonance during the process of performing emotional labour (specifically, surface acting). This research presents and tests a theoretically derived model of emotional labour that integrates components of coping and cognitive dissonance theories that assists in explaining how employees may manage the affective consequences of emotional labour. Adopting a mixed methods approach, this research includes three sequential phases. The first stage is a qualitative evaluation of the constructs within the theoretical model within the applied setting of Higher Education Student Services. The second stage involves two phases of data collection to develop and test emotional labour focused measures of behavioural disengagement and effort justification (cognitive dissonance theory), as well as a measure of emotional dissonance. The third and final stage tests the proposed model within the applied setting using the scales developed in stage two of the research. Study 1- A qualitative evaluation of the theoretical model using semi-structured interviews on a sample of Student Services employees (n=18). This study is also used to inform item selection and development for Study 2. Study 2- Stage 1: An assessment of the theoretically derived measurement models for emotional dissonance, behavioural disengagement, and effort justification using SEM techniques on a sample of customer service-based employees (n= 355). Stage 2: A confirmation of the measurement models on a sample of customer service-based employees (n= 154). Study 3- A test of the theoretical model using SEM and regression-based techniques using a sample of Student Services employees (n= 175). The scales developed in Study 2 are used in this phase of the research. The results supported the proposed mediating relationship of emotional dissonance between surface acting and job burnout suggesting that the negative affective state is central to determining the nature of job outcomes associated with emotional labour. The findings also indicated that employees who engage in the cognitive reappraisal mechanisms of behavioural disengagement and effort justification are able to manage the level of emotional dissonance they experience when surface acting. This finding illustrates the salience of individual differences in managing the consequences of emotional labour and contributes to clarifying the complex relationship between emotional labour and burnout. Finally, preventive coping was the only individual coping style found to predict the choice of emotional labour based acting (deep acting). This research demonstrates the importance of understanding intrapersonal processes in determining individual responses to emotional labour-based role demands and, in part, helps to clarify the nature and management of emotional dissonance, its measurement and its impact on employee burnout.

In order to understand how health beliefs map onto health behaviors, a national survey, administered in the wake of the COVID-19 campus closures, was conducted to explore college students’ mind-body health beliefs and their health behaviors (across dimensions of physical exercise, diet/nutrition, and socialization). To this end, the Mind-Body Health Screener (MBHS), a five-item, Likert scale, brief measure, was developed. The present study applied an online survey design administered nationally to U.S. undergraduate students during the initial lockdowns with the pandemic (n = 557). To examine the psychometric properties of the MBHS, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were run as well as measures of reliability. Furthermore, linear regressions and effect sizes were computed to understand the connection between mind-body health beliefs and behaviors. While initial data supported the psychometric properties of the Mind-Body Health Screener (MBHS) developed for this purpose, substantive results suggested that mind-body health beliefs did not relate to mind-body health behaviors (either before or after the campus closures), aligning with the Cognitive Dissonance Theory. Post hoc analysis did, however, suggest a significant change in health behaviors from pre-campus closures to during the closures, suggesting students engaged in more physical exercise, eating behaviors, and socializing before campus closed, observed with small to large effects. Taken together, the findings of the present study illustrate how the Cognitive Dissonance Theory is a relevant perspective to consider the relation between health beliefs and behaviors during a period of immense stress, such as the COVID-19 initial campus closures.

The present research tested the effect of manipulated perceived control (over obtaining the outcomes) and effort on reward valuation using the event-related potential known as the Reward Positivity (RewP). This test was conducted in an attempt to integrate two research literatures with opposite findings: Effort justification occurs when high effort leads to high reward valuation, whereas effort discounting occurs when high effort leads to low reward valuation. Based on an examination of past methods used in these literatures, we predicted that perceived control and effort would interactively influence RewP. Consistent with the effort justification literature (cognitive dissonance theory), when individuals have high perceived control, high effort should lead to more reward valuation than low effort should. Consistent with the effort discounting literature, when individuals have low perceived control, low effort should lead to more reward valuation than high effort should. Results supported these interactive and integrative predictions.

This thesis takes Robert Jervis’s Cognitive Theory which is the effort of international political psychology to figure out the triangle cognitions of China, U.S. and USSR during the war of Korea. And also discuss each diagnosis of others. Besides, it tries to solve the blind spots of traditional research of Korean war. There are four models which provoked by Robert Jervis. The first one is taking others behaviors as consolidation. The second one is highly valuated self influence or accounted itself as an important target. The third one is wishful thinking and the last one is Cognitive Dissonance Theory. Go through this thesis, we can find out that there are several mistakes of the triangle cognitions of China, U.S. and Russia during the war of Korea. The U.S., based on the wrong cognitive information which caused them failed in Korean war at the end of time. Furthermore, China analyzes U.S. from its point of view and neglects the complex situation of U.S. politics. It is because that China considers U.S. as an consolidate union. Russia makes the same mistakes as well. They believe that the success of Korean war could bring numerous benefits to themselves. They neglect the U.S. attitude toward the war and some objective factors. If we do believe in Robert Jervis’s Cognitive Theory, then it really means that we can avoid accept wrong cognitive information? And we do really can avoid some events which based on these wrong cognitions? From this thesis we can realize that the there are still exist other reasons and possibilities could caused the Korean war. The limited of Robert Jervis’s Cognitive Theory is to ignore the continuous factors of history. At last, this thesis takes the triangle interactions of China, U.S. and USSR during the war of Korea as an example and tries to go through by historical analysis to points out the wrong cognitions could influence national behaviors. By declassified some China’s documents, we know that there are a lot of improvements of documental research analysis. Furthermore, we also discover that combined with cognitive theory, constructive theory and game theory is a worthy research path for other researchers to give a try on it.

Cognitive dissonance theory suggests that our preferences are modulated by the mere act of choosing. A choice between two similarly valued alternatives creates psychological tension (cognitive dissonance) that is reduced by a postdecisional reevaluation of the alternatives. We measured EEG of human subjects during rest and free-choice paradigm. Our study demonstrates that choices associated with stronger cognitive dissonance trigger a larger negative frontocentral evoked response similar to error-related negativity, which has in turn been implicated in general performance monitoring. Furthermore, the amplitude of the evoked response is correlated with the reevaluation of the alternatives. We also found a link between individual neural dynamics (long-range temporal correlations) of the frontocentral cortices during rest and follow-up neural and behavioral effects of cognitive dissonance. Individuals with stronger resting-state long-range temporal correlations demonstrated a greater postdecisional reevaluation of the alternatives and larger evoked brain responses associated with stronger cognitive dissonance. Thus, our results suggest that cognitive dissonance is reflected in both resting-state and choice-related activity of the prefrontal cortex as part of the general performance-monitoring circuitry.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Contrary to traditional decision theory, behavioral studies repeatedly demonstrate that our preferences are modulated by the mere act of choosing. Difficult choices generate psychological (cognitive) dissonance, which is reduced by the postdecisional devaluation of unchosen options. We found that decisions associated with a higher level of cognitive dissonance elicited a stronger negative frontocentral deflection that peaked ∼60 ms after the response. This activity shares similar spatial and temporal features as error-related negativity, the electrophysiological correlate of performance monitoring. Furthermore, the frontocentral resting-state activity predicted the individual magnitude of preference change and the strength of cognitive dissonance-related neural activity.

Over 50 years of work on cognitive dissonance theory has suggested that dissonance reduction is a motivated process. However, no research has unambiguously demonstrated the direction of this motivation—whether it is approach or avoidance oriented. The action-based model of dissonance proposes that dissonance reduction is an approach-related process that assists in the implementation of decisions. It follows from the action-based model that approach-related personality traits should be related to greater dissonance reduction. The current research tested this idea. Study 1 found that trait behavioral approach sensitivity (BAS) related to more spreading of alternatives (more liking for the chosen over the rejected decision alternative) following a difficult decision. Study 2 found that BAS related to attitudes being more consistent with recent induced compliance behavior. This research therefore suggests that dissonance reduction is an approach-motivated process.

Justification of effort is a form of cognitive dissonance in which the subjective value of an outcome is directly related to the effort that went into obtaining it. However, it is likely that in social contexts (such as the requirements for joining a group) an inference can be made (perhaps incorrectly) that an outcome that requires greater effort to obtain in fact has greater value. Here we present evidence that a cognitive dissonance effect can be found in children under conditions that offer better control for the social value of the outcome. This effect is quite similar to contrast effects that recently have been studied in animals. We suggest that contrast between the effort required to obtain the outcome and the outcome itself provides a more parsimonious account of this phenomenon and perhaps other related cognitive dissonance phenomena as well. Research will be needed to identify cognitive dissonance processes that are different from contrast effects of this kind.

This paper attempts to place an explanation of the consequences of status inconisistenlcy within the framework of dissonance theory. It integrates the Theory of Social Certitude, the Principle of Expectancy Congruence, and the Theory of Distributive Justice into the Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. The combined theory is evaluated in terms of its utility in explaining the empirical consequences of status inconsistency. A series of predictions are made regarding particular behavioral responses to specific inconsistency profiles. T he concept of status consistency (status crystallization or status congruence) is gradually assuming greater prominence in the literature of social stratification. Its major weakness lies in its use as a structural characteristic predicting behavioral consequences without an explicitly stated social-psychological theory of motivation to account for these predictions. Three such theories have been proposed. They are Homans' Theory of Distributive Justice,1 Zaleznik's Theory of Social Certitude,2 and Sampson's Principle of Expectancy Congruence.3 The last-named is an attempt to explain the findings of status consistency research within the framework of Festinger's Theory of Cognitive Dissonance.4 Sampson's approach is similar to that of Zaleznik but has the advantage of being more general. However, it is still incomplete as it does not adequately explain all consequences of status inconsistency. It is suggested herein that the Theory of Distributive Justice can bridge this gap if it can be integrated into a dissonance framework. Two attempts to do this have been malde.5 However, they represent mere beginnings as they are limited as to degree of specification and detailed analysis. The present paper hopes 1 George C. Homans, Social Behavior: Its Elein7cntary Form1ls (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1961). 2 A. Zaleznik, C. R. Christenson, and F. J. Roethlisberger, in collaboration with George C. Homans, The Motivation, Produtctivity, anid Satisfactioit of Workcirs (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958), pp. 56-66. 3 Edward E. Sampson, Status Congruence and Cognitive Consistency, Socioiiietry, 26 (June 1963), pp. 146-162. 4 Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissoaonce (Evanston, Illinois: Row, Peterson & Co., 1957). a James A. Geschwender, Explorations in the Theory of Social Movements and Revolutions, unpublished manuscript; and C. Norman Alexander, Jr. and Richard L. Simpson, Balance Theory and Distributive Justice, Sociological Inqitiry, 34 (Spring 1964), pp. 182-192. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.138 on Sun, 26 Jun 2016 07:17:27 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms STATUS CONSISTENCY AND DISSONANCE 161 to complete the task and to spell out in some detail further implications of the combined theory. The strategy of attack will be to briefly describe the Theory of Social Certitude and the Principle of Expectancy Congruence, to relate them to each other, and to evaluate this combination. The Theory of Distributive Justice xvill then be described and integrated into dissonance theory. This combination will subsequently be evaluated as to its ability to explain the empirical findings of status consistency and further theoretical implications will be derived.

Inducing attitude change toward online gaming among adolescent players based on dissonance theory: The role of threats and justification of effort

Cognitive dissonance is the state of psychological discomfort or tension that knowledgeable by the people who have more than two conflicting attitude, values and belief happen at same period of time. Its conception associated with self-doubt at the time of making decision. The aim of this review study is to emphasize on cognitive dissonance, reasons to cause the cognitive dissonance, cognitive dissonance theory with revisions, association between cognitive dissonance and the strategies to elimination of cognitive dissonance. The cognitive dissonance is most impactful in the social psychology in past time. The revisions of the cognitive dissonance theory emphasizes on that the cognitive dissonance arises by the function of self-concept. The cognitive dissonance caused by many reasons namely: force compliance behaviour, gain new information, during decision making and effort made by the person. The existence of cognitive dissonance increases the state of motivation in person to change the attitude. The cognitive dissonance is strongly associated with changes in attitude. The changes in behavioural, social cognitive elements, addition of new elements and avoidance of dissonance are the strategies to lessen cognitive dissonance.

CHAPTER 9 - Cognitive Consistency Theory

When individuals expend effort for a task that turns out to be boring or trivial they often justify their effort by enhancing the ratings of the task. The present experiment attempted to differentiate between two explanations for this process of effort justification: dissonance and impression management. Subjects completed either a simple (low effort) or difficult (high effort) number-circling task for an experimenter who was either friendly and pleasant (high attractiveness) or rude and unpleasant (low attractiveness). Contrary to impression management theory, and as predicted by cognitive dissonance theory, effort justification occurred only in the presence of the unattractive experimenter.

Cognitive dissonance was one of the first social scientific concepts to be applied in New Testament studies. J Gager in Kingdom and community (1975) used cognitive dissonance theory to account for Christian responses to disconfirmation of their eschatological expectations. In a later article (1981) he used the theory to illuminate Paul's conversion. It was with the same intention that Segal (1990) applied this among other theories. Räisänen implicitly draws upon, if not the theory, then the thinking and observations which lie behind it in his study of Paul and the Jewish Law (1986). In my own previous work (1992; 1993; 1996) I have sought to apply cognitive dissonance both to Paul's conversion and to its much later repercussions for his views on matters of Jewish heritage and observance. Opposition to the use of cognitive dissonance theory in New Testament Studies has been led by Malina (1986). Drawing upon the cautions raised by Snow and Machalek (1982), Malina argues that cognitive dissonance theory is inappropriate to the early Christian situation, as the culture accommodated anomalous beliefs and practices without any consciousness of their incompatibility. Malina therefore suggests that, rather than Festinger's notion of cognitive dissonance (1957), Merton's conception of normative ambivalence (1976) should be used to account for discrepancies in the records of early Christianity. A corollary of this would be that dissonant information would not generate any pressure towards resolution in the early Christian context. This article will examine Malina's criticisms of the use of cognitive dissonance theory in Biblical Studies. Particular attention will be given to the question whether cognitive dissonance and normative ambivalence can in reality be deemed to be mutually exclusive alternatives. It will be argued that situations do occur where anomalies do not generate cognitive dissonance, and these are more adequately accounted for in terms of normative ambivalence. However, there remain situations where the stress occasioned by discrepant beliefs, practices, and experiences is evident. These situations are more adequately accounted for by cognitive dissonance. The theory therefore remains a valid tool for New Testament studies.

In modern psychology, cognitive theories are considered progressive. One speaks of cognitive development, cognitive functions, cognitive structures, cognitive styles, cognitive attitudes, cognitive dissonance, cognitive balance, cognitive needs, cognitive learning theory, cognitive personality theory, etc. Yet, the term “cognitive” is probably just as ambiguous as it is popular. Although presumably the word is always meant to express a relationship to internal conscious or unconscious processes of cognition, thought, or decision, cognitive theories deal not only with the phenomenon of cognition but also with the most varied problems and fields of psychology. A cognitive theory, therefore, need not be a theory of cognition. Beyond the consideration of internal processes, most of which are postulated to be conscious, cognitive approaches are also characterized by a preference for global explanations, complex solutions, and system-theory lines of thought.

Objective: The purpose of this research is to analyze the impairment loss of goodwill in companies listed in Brasil, Bolsa, Balcão [B]3 from the perspective of Agency Theory and Cognitive Dissonance Theory.Method: We used a sample composed of Brazilian non-financial publicly traded companies listed in [B]3. The analysis was conducted through the logistic regression, considering an unbalanced panel data set for the period from 2010 to 2016.Originality/Relevance: This study uses a theory of psychology, the Cognitive Dissonance Theory, to try to explain the occurrence of goodwill impairment loss.Results: The results point to the Cognitive Dissonance Theory as the theory that explains the goodwill impairment loss, since managers tend to record a goodwill impairment loss in the current year, when there was already a loss recorded in the previous year, as a way to decrease the mental discomfort caused between their cognitions.Theoretical/Methodological contributions: It contributes to the literature in order to associate the decisions made by managers with a psychological behavioral theory that until now has not received prominence in the attempts to justify the decisions of agents. The gain from this research is also directed to investors, as it allows them to make decisions not only based on what the accounting reports say, but taking into account other aspects, such as managers’ behavior and cognitions.