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Chapter 6
The Need to Justify
Our Actions
Chapter Outline
I. Maintaining a Stable, Positive
Self-Image
Maintaining a Stable, Positive SelfImage
One of the most powerful determinants
of human behavior is the need to
preserve a stable, positive self-concept.
Maintaining a Stable, Positive SelfImage
• The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
Leon Festinger originated the concept of
cognitive dissonance, defining it as
inconsistency between two thoughts.
Cognitive dissonance may arise when a
person engages in an act that is discrepant
from one’s self-concept.
Maintaining a Stable, Positive SelfImage
• The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is the feeling of
discomfort caused by information that is
discrepant from your customary, typically
positive, self-concept. Experiencing
dissonance motivates an attempt to reduce
it.
Maintaining a Stable, Positive
Self-Image
• The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
Maintaining a Stable, Positive SelfImage
• Rational Behavior Versus Rationalizing
Behavior
The need to reduce dissonance and
maintain self-esteem produces thinking
that is rationalizing rather than rational.
Maintaining a Stable, Positive SelfImage
• Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
Postdecision dissonance is aroused after
we make any important decision; it is
reduced by enhancing the attractiveness of
the chosen alternative and devaluating the
rejected alternative.
Maintaining a Stable, Positive SelfImage
• Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
One way to engage in postdecision
dissonance reduction is to proselytize,
recommending your decision/behavior to
others.
Maintaining a Stable, Positive SelfImage
• Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
The more permanent a decision, the greater
the need to reduce dissonance after making
it. Feeling that one’s decision is irrevocable
may lead to falling prey to a sales technique
called lowballing. Lowballing makes the
customer feel compelled to pay a higher
price for an item after first agreeing to pay a
much lower price.
Maintaining a Stable, Positive SelfImage
• Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
Dissonance reduction following a difficult
moral decision can cause people to behave
either more or less ethically in the future,
because people’s attitudes will polarize in
the attempt to justify the ethical choice they
made.
Maintaining a Stable, Positive SelfImage
• Justify Your Effort
What happens when a person voluntarily
works hard and the goal doesn’t seem
worth it after all? People are unlikely to
change their self-concept to believe they
were unskilled or foolish; instead they
change their attitude towards the goal and
see it positively. This is called the
justification of effort.
Maintaining a Stable, Positive SelfImage
• Justify Your Effort
Maintaining a Stable, Positive SelfImage
• The Psychology of Insufficient
Justification
When people attempt to reduce their dissonance by
changing something about themselves, for example
their attitudes, they are using internal justification.
When people attempt to explain their dissonant
behaviors by focusing on reasons that reside outside
of themselves, for example being paid a large sum of
money, they are using external justification.
Maintaining a Stable, Positive SelfImage
• The Psychology of Insufficient
Justification
Counterattitudinal advocacy is the process by which
people are induced to state publicly an attitude that
runs counter to their own attitude. If there is no
external justification for counterattitudinal advocacy,
a person’s attitude may change in accordance with
the view that was expressed publicly.
Maintaining a Stable, Positive SelfImage
• Counterattitudinal Advocacy, Race
Relations, and Preventing AIDS
Harsh punishments teach us to try to avoid
getting caught, and thus require constant
vigilance to be effective. In contrast,
insufficient punishment induces dissonance
about why one is not engaging in the
behavior, and inspires dissonance reduction
by devaluing the forbidden activity or object.
Maintaining a Stable, Positive SelfImage
• Counterattitudinal Advocacy, Race
Relations, and Preventing AIDS
When attitude change occurs due to
insufficient reward or punishment, it
becomes very enduring. Both insufficient
punishment and insufficient justification
lead to self-persuasion, a long-term form of
attitude change that results from attempts
at self-justification.
Maintaining a Stable, Positive
Self-Image
• Counterattitudinal Advocacy, Race
Relations, and Preventing AIDS
Maintaining a Stable, Positive SelfImage
• Counterattitudinal Advocacy, Race
Relations, and Preventing AIDS
Maintaining a Stable, Positive SelfImage
• Counterattitudinal Advocacy, Race
Relations, and Preventing AIDS
Insufficient external justification is
justification that is sufficient to produce the
behavior, but insufficient for people to
believe that they were “forced” through
external justifications to do it.
Maintaining a Stable, Positive SelfImage
• Good and Bad Deeds
Dissonance theory and folk wisdom suggest
that we like people not for the favors they
have done us but for the favors we have
done for them.
Maintaining a Stable, Positive SelfImage
• Good and Bad Deeds
If we harm someone, this induces
dissonance between our actions and our
self-concepts as decent people; to resolve
this dissonance, we may derogate or
dehumanize our victims.
Maintaining a Stable, Positive SelfImage
• Good and Bad Deeds
We are more likely to derogate people we
have harmed if they are innocent victims.
Derogating victims by dehumanizing them
may lead to a continuation or escalation of
violence against them.
CONNECTIONS
Chapter Outline
II. Variations on the Theme of
Self-Justification
Variations on the Theme of SelfJustification
The basic premise of cognitive
dissonance theory is that people have a
fundamental need to maintain a stable
and positive sense of self.
Variations on the Theme of SelfJustification
• Self-Discrepancy Theory
Self-discrepancy theory holds that people
are motivated to maintain a sense of
consistency among their beliefs and
perceptions of themselves, and become
distressed when there is a discrepancy
between the “actual self” and an “ideal” or
“ought” self.
Variations on the Theme of SelfJustification
• Maintaining our Self-Image
Self-evaluation maintenance theory holds
that one’s self-concept can be threatened
by another individual’s behavior, and that
the level of threat is determined by both
the closeness of the other individual and
the personal relevance of the behavior.
Variations on the Theme of SelfJustification
• Maintaining our Self-Image
Dissonance arising when a friend
outperforms oneself in a cherished domain
can be resolved by (1) distancing oneself
from the friend; (2) changing how relevant
the domain is to one’s self-definition; or (3)
improving one’s performance to outshine
the friend’s performance.
Variations on the Theme of SelfJustification
• Self-Affirmation Theory
Self-affirmation theory suggests that
people will reduce the impact of a
dissonance arousing threat to their selfconcept by focusing on and affirming their
competence on some dimension unrelated
to the threat.
Chapter Outline
III. Why Would Anyone Want to
Maintain a Poor Self-Image?
Why Would Anyone Want to
Maintain a Poor Self-Image?
• Confirming Our Self-Concept or
Enhancing It?
Self-verification theory is a theory
suggesting that people have a need to seek
confirmation of their self-concept, whether
the self-concept is positive or negative.
Chapter Outline
IV. Some Final Thoughts on
Dissonance: Learning from our
Mistakes
Some Final Thoughts on Dissonance
The rationalization trap is the potential
for dissonance reduction to produce a
succession of self-justifications that
can ultimately result in a chain of
unintelligent or immoral actions.
Chapter Outline
V. Heaven’s Gate Revisited
Heaven’s Gate Revisited
Making an important decision and
investing heavily in that decision can
evoke a high degree of cognitive
dissonance and a strong need to
justify behavior. One of the most
powerful forces influencing the
members of the Heaven’s Gate cult
was the great amount of cognitive
dissonance they experienced.