Page 233 - The Social Animal

Self-Justification 215

told people something I don’t believe” is dissonant with my self-con-
cept; that is, it is dissonant with my cognition that “I am a person of
integrity.”
This formulation is based on the assumption that most individ-
uals like to think of themselves as decent people who wouldn’t ordi-
narily mislead someone. For example, consider Kathy, who believes
marijuana is dangerous and should definitely not be legalized. Sup-
pose she is induced to make a speech advocating the use of mari-
juana. Let us assume she makes the speech to an audience consisting
of individuals whom she knows to be irrevocably opposed to the use
of marijuana (e.g., the members of a police vice squad, the Daugh-
ters of the American Revolution, or prohibitionists). In this case,
there is little likelihood that she will influence this audience because
of the firmness of their convictions. According to my view of disso-
nance theory, Kathy would not change her attitude because she has
not affected anyone’s behavior. Similarly, if Kathy were asked to
make the same statement to a group of individuals whom she knows
to be irrevocably committed to the use of marijuana, there would be
no possibility of influencing the audience. On the other hand, if
Kathy were induced to make the identical speech to a group of indi-
viduals who have no prior information about marijuana, we would
expect her to experience much more dissonance than in the other sit-
uations. Her cognition that she is a good and decent person is disso-
nant with her cognition that she has said something she doesn’t
believe that is likely to have serious belief or behavioral consequences
for her audience.To reduce dissonance, she needs to convince herself
that the position she advocated is correct. This would allow her to
believe that she is a person of integrity. Moreover, in this situation,
the smaller the incentive she receives for advocating the position, the
greater the attitude change. I tested and confirmed this hypothesis in
37
collaboration with Elizabeth Nel and Robert Helmreich. We found
an enormous change in attitude toward marijuana when participants
were offered a small reward for making a videotape recording of a
speech favoring the use of marijuana—but only when they were led
to believe that the tape would be shown to an audience that was un-
committed on the issue. On the other hand, when participants were
told that the tape would be played to people who were irrevocably
committed on the subject of marijuana (one way or the other), there
was relatively little attitude change on the part of the speaker. Thus,