Page 225 - The Social Animal

Self-Justification 207

1. If you want people to form more positive attitudes toward an
object, get them to commit themselves to own that object.
2. If you want people to soften their moral attitudes toward some
misdeed, tempt them so that they perform that deed; con-
versely, if you want people to harden their moral attitudes to-
ward a misdeed, tempt them—but not enough to induce them
to commit the deed.

The Psychology of Inadequate
Justification

Attitude change as a means of reducing dissonance is not, of course,
limited to postdecision situations. It can occur in countless other
contexts, including every time a person says something he or she
doesn’t believe or does something stupid or immoral. The effects can
be extremely powerful. Let us look at some of them.
In a complex society, we occasionally find ourselves saying or
doing things we don’t completely believe. Does this always lead to
attitude change? No.To illustrate, I will choose a simple example. Joe
Lawyer enters the office and sees that his law partner, Joyce, has hung
a perfectly atrocious painting on the wall of the office they share. He
is about to tell her how awful he thinks it is when she says proudly,
“How do you like the painting? I did it myself—you know, in the art
class I’m taking at night.”
“Very nice, Joyce,” Joe answers. Theoretically, Joe’s cognition “I
am a truthful person” is dissonant with the cognition “I said that
painting was nice, although it really is disastrous.” Whatever disso-
nance might be aroused by this inconsistency can easily and quickly
be reduced by Joe’s cognition that it is important not to hurt other
people: “I lied so as not to hurt Joyce; why should I tell her it’s an
ugly painting? It serves no useful purpose.” This is an effective way
of reducing dissonance because it completely justifies Joe’s action. In
effect, the justification is situation-determined. I will call this exter-
nal justification.
But what happens if there is not ample justification in the situa-
tion itself? For example, imagine that Joe Lawyer, who is politically
conservative, finds himself at a cocktail party with many people he
doesn’t know very well. The conversation turns to politics. The