A Cognitive Theory of Motivation: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive theories of motivation rely on your thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes to explain your motivation. Collectively, these are called, “cognitions.” The most famous and widely cited of these theories is Cognitive Dissonance (CDT). Leon Festinger first published the theory in 1957 and it is still widely used in research (Cooper, 2007). Because these theories rely on cognitions, which can be about anything, CDT and other cognitive theories of motivation are the most powerful and flexible theories out there. If you want to know why someone behaves in a certain way, look for the cognitions that underlie the behavior!

CDT indicates that people's beliefs affect their behavior. Simply put, if we believe one thing, then we are motivated to act in a way that fits with the belief; to be consistent. If we are not consistent, we experience "cognitive dissonance" where we feel uncomfortable. Dissonance can be almost physically painful, and a cause for strong emotion, if not action. Think about how angry a person can get when their favorite sports team loses a game that the person expected them to win. That shows dissonance- the difference between what they believed (team should win) and what actually happened (team lost). Some people yell at the television or even break it in their anger, all aroused by dissonance!

Postulates of the Theory

The theory proposes a few fairly straightforward points. These are below, adapted from Cooper (2007):

Holding two or more dissonant cognitions bring on cognitive dissonance, and dissonance is experienced as discomfort.
Dissonance creates a “drive-like tension” (p.7) which has to be decreased, especially if the person is experiencing a high degree of dissonance.
Having or creating more cognitions that are consonant with the one creating the dissonance will decrease dissonance.
The more important a cognition that is creating dissonance, the more dissonance it will create. The reverse is also true- as consonant cognitions become more important, dissonance is reduced.
Dissonance can be reduced by changing behavior or cognitions.

So, dissonance is a powerful, “drive-like” motivator to which we have to pay attention(Cooper, 2007). It is not simply a choice or a decision. It is similar to being hungry or thirsty. We can change dissonance by changing beliefs or behavior. In terms of motivation, dissonance (and by extension consonance) are powerful forces.

Cognitive Dissonance And Consonance Matter

Both sides of this "coin" are important. The dissonance, or discomfort when we are NOT consistent, is an important motivator. But equally important is the good feeling of comfort and "rightness" when we act in ways that are consistent with our beliefs. For example, a general term for these sorts of theories is “Cognitive Consistency Theories”(Simon, Snow, & Reed, 2004). So if a person who believes herself to be generous gives money to charity, they feel good, comfortable, and correct. That person will be uncomfortable if she doesn't give, and may act differently to avoid that feeling of dissonance! For instance, if she knows there will be people begging for change on 12th Street and she doesn't want to give them any money, she may avoid 12th Street entirely in order to decrease dissonance (McLeod, 2007). She may also change her beliefs about the people who are begging, and come to see them as lazy, immoral, or less deserving in some other way (McLeod, 2007). Generally, the change in belief is easier that the change in behavior (Cooper, 2007).

The Power of Cognition

CDT (and CCT) are the most powerful and flexible of the theories of motivation. To find the motivation, just find the belief! A person may or may not be aware of their beliefs, but those beliefs will still affect behavior and motivation! Research studies on automatic bias and hiring have found unconscious preferences. For instance, Agerstrom and Rooth (2011) found a bias against overweight job applicants. Their study was particularly interesting because they presented fake applications for real jobs, with real hiring managers, so this study had a great deal of external validity (Agerstrom & Rooth, 2011). To test your own implicit attitudes on race, see below.

Test your own implicit attitudes on race: go to https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/featuredtask.html and take the "Four Category Race-Gender IAT."

Reward Vs. Dissonance

In the late 1950s, behaviorism was the dominant paradigm in psychology. Behaviorists predicted that all behavior was motivated by consequences- rewards and punishments. Larger consequences would cause greater motivation, so if someone offered you $20 to do something, you’d be more motivated to do it than if you were offered only $1 (Cooper, 2007). Festinger & Carlsmith (1959) showed that CDT was superior to behavioral thinking. The task they set up caused participants to change how they viewed a boring task they had just completed. Just after the task, the experimenter asked the participants to go back into the waiting room and tell another waiting “participant” (actually a confederate of the experimenter) that the task was fun and very exciting. The boring task and the statement created a certain amount of dissonance. Further, they created high and low dissonance groups by paying one group $20 (a lot of money in 1959) and the other group only $1. People in the high dissonance condition (the $1 group) felt more dissonance, and changed their view of the boring task to decrease dissonance between the boring task and getting paid only $1 to lie about it. Since they only got paid a small amount, they had to change their view of the task to "it was fun" to feel comfortable. Participants in the low dissonance condition changed their views far less. Behaviorists would predict that the greater reinforcement in the low-dissonance group would make participants like the task more, because of the greater reinforcement but that was not the case (Cooper, 2007). Festinger’s original 1957 study showed a similar effect- he and his colleagues In addition to demonstrating CDT, this study also shows how behavioral approaches oversimplify humanity, and the reasons for human behavior.

Using Cognitive Theories

As mentioned above, to explain an action, look for the beliefs or thoughts that motivated it. These beliefs may not be obvious, nor may they be conscious. But, you can figure them out if you look at patterns in the person’s behavior, or for beliefs that were learned early on. For example, when I was in graduate school, my best friend met, got engaged, and eventually got married. Before and during their engagement, she and her fiancée shared all the cooking and cleaning duties in their little apartment. They were both busy graduate students, and happy with this arrangement. Why, in CDT terms did it suit them?

In CDT terms, they were motivated to continue sharing because the behavior was consonant with their beliefs that men and women should share domestic chores. After they were married, however, my friend found herself getting angry with her new husband when he would cook or clean! She was surprised herself, and spent several weeks feeling this way and not understanding why. Eventually, she figured it out- she had learned (probably as a child) that the “wife” did those chores! So she felt dissonance- those jobs were “hers,” but she was seeing her husband do them! Consequently, she felt annoyed and angry. She felt this way even though her conscious beliefs were consonant with what she was seeing- the unconscious, automatic beliefs were (for her) stronger than her conscious ones. Fortunately, she did eventually figure out the problem and she learned to ignore those outdated unconscious beliefs.

References

Agerstrom, J. & Rooth, D. (2011). The role of automatic obesity stereotypes in real hiring discrimination. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96, 790-805.

Cooper, J. (2007). Cognitive dissonance: Fifty years of a classic theory. London: Sage.

Festinger, L. & Carlsmith, J. M. (1959). Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58, 203 – 210. Cited in Cooper, J. (2007). Cognitive dissonance: Fifty years of a classic theory. London: Sage.

McLeod, S. A. (2007). Simply Psychology – Cognitive Dissonance. Retrieved from: http://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive%20dissonance%20theory.pdf on 6/11/13.

Simon, D., Snow, C.J., & Reed, S.J. (2004). The redux of cognitive consistency theories: Evidence judgment by constraint satisfaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 814-837.

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