Cognitive Dissonance In Festinger's Experiments

1. Cognitive dissonance is a state where someone is being confronted by something that is against his beliefs (doing an action that he / she does not like, etc.), and then he / she tries to balance the inconsistency that he experienced by changing his view on that inconsistency (to reduce the dissonance by justifying it). People want to be consistent in their attitudes and rationalizing irrational things that they did is what cognitive dissonance makes them do. For example, in Festinger’s experiments the students that are paid 1$ think that they actually enjoyed the experiments rather than those who are paid 20$. The students who are paid more think that the experiments are boring but they lied and said that it is fun to the girl (on the
experiment) because they are paid for it (external justification). The one paid 1$ does not have enough external justification to back up stupid and boring things that they did, so to justify the stupid things that they did, they change their belief about the experiments and actually think that they enjoyed it (to reduce the dissonance.)
Aronson said that if you have external justification, you do not need to justify anything.
But if you do not have it, you need a self-justification and that is what makes cognitive dissonance a powerful tools to changes someone’s belief, because if it is a personal choice, the changes are deeper and more durable.
2. Explanation and examples :
a. Justification of Effort :
If we put in more effort (money, work, etc.) at something we are going to cherish that thing more. This is related to cognitive dissonance where we want to justify something is better because we put more effort to it, even when the item is not necessarily good or better than the others (Even more so if we actually feel that it does not come up to par with the money / effort that we put to it, because we will experience dissonance and try to rationalize it.)
For example, people often say that an expensive wine taste better than cheap convenience store wine because people are spending much more money on the expensive one and even though the taste does not really change that much, they are going to rationalize the taste because of the thought of money poured into it and change their belief that it is indeed tastier than the convenience store wine.
b. Post-decision dissonance
:
It is a dissonance when we experience regret after we have chosen something (when we realize that we chose the wrong one or not really satisfied with it.) We are going to enhance the option that we choose and devalue the option that we rejected. We are going to just look at the bright side or attractiveness of the decision that we choose (enhancing it), and start to see bad things of the option that we did not choose (devaluing it).
For example, when we choose to rent a house from one place and another place and we could not get the other one and left with the “worse” one, we are going to devalue the “better” house by looking at its price, age, etc.
c. Ben Franklin effect :
It is a dissonance that is experienced when someone is asked to do a small favor for someone. According to this effect it is going to make them like the one who asks the favor more because it is going to cause a dissonance for them (the one who does the favor) about the reason on why they help the person who asks the favor.“ I did some things to this people, that means I like that person.” It also works not only for favors but for small things that a person do to us.
For example, when we ask a girl out, we usually do not blatantly say it on the first meeting and start doing small stuff little by little to raise affection points of her to us. “I have gone on dates with him for no reason so many times, that means I like him.”