Page 213 - The Social Animal

Self-Justification 195

a compact model. There are various advantages and disadvantages to
each: The SUV would be convenient; you can haul things in it, sleep
in it during long trips, and it has plenty of power, but it gets atro-
cious mileage and is not easy to park. The compact model is less
roomy, and you are concerned about its safety, but it is less expensive
to buy and operate, it is more fun to drive, and you’ve heard it has a
pretty good repair record. My guess is that, before you make the de-
cision, you will seek as much information as you can. Chances are
you will read Consumer Reports to find out what this expert, unbiased
source has to say. Perhaps you’ll confer with friends who own an SUV
or a compact car. You’ll probably visit the automobile dealers to test-
drive the vehicles to see how each one feels. All of this predecision
behavior is perfectly rational. Let us assume you make a decision—
you buy the compact car. What happens next? Your behavior will
begin to change: No longer will you seek objective information about
all makes of cars. Chances are you may begin to spend more time
talking with the owners of small cars. You will begin to talk about the
number of miles to the gallon as though it were the most important
thing in the world. My guess is that you will not be prone to spend
much time thinking about the fact that you can’t sleep in your com-
pact. Similarly, your mind will skim lightly over the fact that driving
your new car can be particularly hazardous in a collision and that the
brakes are not very responsive, although your failure to attend to
these shortcomings could conceivably cost you your life.
How does this sort of thing come about? Following a decision—
especially a difficult one, or one that involves a significant amount of
time, effort, or money—people almost always experience dissonance.
This is so because the chosen alternative is seldom entirely positive
and the rejected alternatives are seldom entirely negative. In this ex-
ample, your cognition that you bought a compact is dissonant with
your cognition about any deficiencies the car may have. Similarly, all
the positive aspects of the other cars that you considered buying but
did not purchase are dissonant with your cognition that you did not
buy one of them. A good way to reduce such dissonance is to seek out
exclusively positive information about the car you chose and avoid
negative information about it. One source of safe information is ad-
vertisements; it is a safe bet that an ad will not run down its own prod-
uct. Accordingly, one might predict that a person who had recently
purchased a new car will begin to read advertisements selectively,