Significance matters: fresh perspectives on effort dynamics in managing psychological discrepancies

In the original Cognitive Dissonance Theory, Festinger argued that the higher the personal importance of the conflicting elements in the system, the greater the magnitude of the dissonance in their relation. So, in other words, we may say that when elements are not important the dissonance should not occur. However, it is not the case, recent research has suggested, that simple cognitive inconsistency may also evoke the affective and motivational state of the dissonance (e.g., E. Harmon-Jones, Harmon-Jones, & Levy, 2015; Levy, Harmon-Jones, E. Harmon-Jones, 2018). We propose that personal importance does not influence the magnitude of the dissonance itself, but rather sets directly (not via the magnitude of the dissonance) the level of the motivation to dissonance reduction. We tested this assumption in one correlational and two experimental studies from witch data (total N= 846). The results were in line with our predictions, and thus we modestly propose how the classical theory can be remodeled to broaden its boundary conditions. Here we deposited for open use the data from the project.

在经典认知失调理论（Cognitive Dissonance Theory）中，费斯廷格提出：个体认知系统内冲突元素的个人重要性越高，二者关联间的认知失调程度便越强。换言之，我们可推知，当冲突元素并不具备重要性时，本不应产生认知失调。但近期研究表明，事实并非如此：单纯的认知不一致同样可引发失调相关的情感与动机状态（例如：E. Harmon-Jones、Harmon-Jones与Levy，2015；Levy、Harmon-Jones、E. Harmon-Jones，2018）。本研究提出，个人重要性并不会直接影响认知失调的程度本身，而是直接（而非通过失调程度这一中介）设定了失调缓解动机的水平。我们通过一项相关研究与两项实验研究验证了这一假设，本项目所用全部数据的总样本量为N=846。研究结果与我们的预测相符，因此我们谨此提出对经典理论的修订方案，以拓展其适用边界条件。本文现已将本项目的全部数据公开以供开放使用。