Cognitive Dissonance as a Potential Mediator of the Misinformation Effect

JORDAN, NINA Cognitive Dissonance as a Potential Mediator of the Misinformation Effect. Department of Psychology, June 2011. ADVISORS: Daniel Burns and Joshua Hart The current study was interested in examining the relationship between cognitive dissonance and susceptibility to misinformation. Participants were exposed to two emotional images; subsequently, they composed a counterattitudinal essay concerned with generating arguments in support of a tuition increase. Participants were either given a set of objective questions concerning the images or a set of misleading questions. All participants were then administered final questionnaires that contained both misleading and non-leading questions. This study hypothesized that participants in the dissonanceinduced condition were likely to be more susceptible to the inclusion of misinformation during the final recall task. Findings indicated that participants in the dissonance-induced condition did not make more errors than those in the non-dissonance condition. COGNITIVE DISSONANCE AND THE MISINFORMATION EFFECT 1 Cognitive Dissonance as a Potential Mediator of the Misinformation Effect Overview The misinformation effect is a phenomenon that occurs when one’s memory of an event is distorted as a result of one’s exposure to false post-event information (Loftus, 1980). The misinformation effect occurs when an individual experiences two competing and inconsistent cognitions: the memory of an event and the misinformation, which is often supplied by an external source. An explanation proposed here for the pervasiveness of misleading post-event information is derived from the theory of cognitive dissonance. When applied to the misinformation effect, this theory would suggest that in order to achieve consonant cognitions the individual is likely to reconstruct a memory that makes logical sense. The theoretical framework of cognitive dissonance may provide insight into the reason that eyewitnesses to crimes are extremely susceptible to integrating misinformation into their memories of an event. Police intervention following a crime often affects retrieval process due to suggestive questioning. Eyewitnesses tend to maintain strong beliefs in their testimonies, which is problematic when their accounts are inaccurate reports of a given incident. Eyewitness accounts are frequently distorted due to post-event influence from other witnesses or as a result of suggestive questioning during police intervention. This can be explained through the lens of cognitive dissonance; individuals may believe that they saw one thing, but exposure to conflicting post-event information might bring the original memory of the event into question. In order COGNITIVE DISSONANCE AND THE MISINFORMATION EFFECT 2 to logically make sense of the event, it is possible that individuals achieve consonant cognitions by integrating the false post-event information into their memory of the event. The current study is interested in examining the relationship between cognitive dissonance and susceptibility to misinformation. Participants were exposed to two emotional images, one emotionally negative and one emotionally positive in nature, for 30 s each. Subsequently, participants composed a counterattitudinal essay concerned with producing arguments in support of a yearly tuition increase. Those in the dissonance-induced condition were given the choice to write against the increase, while those in the non-dissonance condition were restricted to generating arguments in support of the increase. Following the essay task, participants were either given a set of objective questions concerning the images or they were given a set of questions that contained misleading information. On a final recall task, all participants were given a final set of questions concerning each image that contained a mix of misleading and nonleading questions. This study hypothesizes that the participants in the dissonanceinduced condition are likely to be more susceptible to the inclusion of misinformation during the final recall task. In addition, it is anticipated that recall of negative emotional images will be less accurate than recall of positive emotional images. Previous studies that have been conducted on the misinformation effect report that memory distortion is greater for negative emotional events (e.g., Porter, Spencer, & Birt, 2003). Studies on cognitive dissonance suggest that participants experiencing dissonance are more prone to COGNITIVE DISSONANCE AND THE MISINFORMATION EFFECT 3 make errors in recall on high load memory-tasks (Martinie, Olive, & Milland, 2010). This finding is relevant to the current study because the results imply that cognitive dissonance induction may contribute to deficits in memory. Descriptions of these studies are provided below and illustrate the importance of studying the extent to which the misinformation effect and cognitive dissonance are interconnected. The Misinformation Effect Memory distortion is extremely prevalent in cases in which one has been exposed to reports that are inconsistent with one’s own perception of the event, a lapse in accurate retrieval that is referred to as the misinformation effect (e.g., Roebers & McConkey, 2003). For example, in June of 2002, 110 prisoners, including 11 men who had previously been on death row, were released from prison due to DNA evidence that had surfaced, proving them innocent (Eakin, Schreiber, & Sergent-Marshall, 2003). They were initially sent to jail based on reports from eyewitnesses, who had improperly recalled details of the criminal incidents (Eakin et al., 2003). Eyewitnesses tend to be extremely susceptible to the misinformation effect because they are often supplied with erroneous postevent information by co-witnesses or in the form of suggestive police questioning (Porter, Spencer, & Birt, 2003). Suggestive questioning is often cited as a causal factor in false allegations and false memories of a crime. This is particularly problematic because police interviewers are not present during the event, yet they are often responsible for exposing witnesses to misleading post-event information (Porter, Yuille, & Lehman, 1999). The pliability of memory has become a widely COGNITIVE DISSONANCE AND THE MISINFORMATION EFFECT 4 studied phenomenon because of the problematic social consequences of false or distorted recall in the legal sphere. The misinformation effect has been replicated across various conditions, yielding consistent results that have profound implications concerning the reliability of memory. Although memory distortion is extremely prevalent in eyewitness testimony, it is clear that misinformation affects the accuracy of memory for other, more basic events as well. This phenomenon occurs on a regular basis regardless of whether or not an event produces arousal, which calls into question the general validity of memory. There is evidence that susceptibility to misinformation varies as a function of the time interval that elapses between encoding and recall, as well as the extent of exposure to false information. Loftus (1992) claims that individuals are more likely to misremember an event following exposure to post-event information if a longer length of time has elapsed between the initial event and recall. She attributes this increase in susceptibility to the discrepancy detection principle, which holds, “recollections are more likely to change if a person does not immediately detect discrepancies between post-event information and memory for the original event” (Loftus, 1992, p. 121). The longer the delay between the encoding process and recall, the more likely a person will fail to detect discrepancies between misinformation and the original memory of the event. However, studies indicate that the misinformation effect also occurs when little time has elapsed between the event, misinformation, and retrieval period. In one study, the experimental condition was exposed to slides of a man carrying a screwdriver. Immediately following the image, misinformed participants read a COGNITIVE DISSONANCE AND THE MISINFORMATION EFFECT 5 narrative that stated that the man was carrying a wrench. In a control condition, the slides depicted a screwdriver and the narrative stated that the man was carrying a tool. Subsequently, participants in the two conditions were given a memory test, which contained detailed questions about the original image. Participants in the experimental condition gave inaccurate reports relative to the control condition, which performed significantly better on the memory test (Eakin & Screiber 2003). These findings are typical of misinformation studies, reiterating that there are multiple factors that are responsible for memory distortion. Although time plays a significant role in the extent to which one’s memory is accurate, it is evident that exposure to misinformation is powerful enough to distort one’s memory when there is little time between the encoding process, misleading information, and recall. Several studies have demonstrated that social factors also have a significant effect on the accuracy of one’s retrieval following exposure to false information (Itsukushima, Nishi, Maruyama, & Takahashi, 2006; Paterson, Kemp, & Forgas, 2009). In an experiment conducted by Itsukushima et al. (2006), researchers examined the extent to which social influence increases one’s susceptibility to the misinformation effect. Participants were exposed to a series of 16 slides that depicted a woman’s daily activities. Following the viewing of the original information, misled participants were either asked to listen to a tape recording of two people discussing the slides, or they were given a transcript of the conversation between the two confederates. The researchers found a significant difference between the two misled conditions and a control group that COGNITIVE DISSONANCE AND THE MISINFORMATION EFFECT 6 was not exposed to misinfo