ABSTRACT Cognitive dissonance theory shares much in common with perspectives that address anomalies, uncertainty, and general expectancy violations. This has led some theorists to argue that these theories represent overlapping psychological processes. If responding to dissonance and uncertainty occurs through a common psychological process, one should expect that the behavioral outcomes of feeling uncertain would also apply to feelings of dissonance, and vice versa. One specific prediction from the meaning maintenance model would be that cognitive dissonance, like other expectancy violations, should lead to the affirmation of unrelated beliefs, or the abstraction of unrelated schemas when the dissonant event cannot be easily accommodated. This paper presents four studies (N = 1124) demonstrating that the classic induced-compliance dissonance paradigm can lead not only to a change of attitudes (dissonance reduction), but also to a) an increased reported belief in God (Study 2), b) a desire to punish norm-violators (Study 1 and 3), c) a motivation to detect patterns amidst noise (Study 3), and d) polarizing support of public policies amongst those already biased towards a particular side (Study 4). These results are congruent with theories that propose content-general fluid compensation following the experience of anomaly, a finding not predicted by dissonance theory. The results suggest that dissonance reduction behaviors may share psychological processes described by other theories addressing violations of expectations. Arguably the most prominent theory in social psychology, the conceptualization of cognitive dissonance has traversed a long and meandering path since it was first
B = 1.87, p < .0001, d = .93 CI.975[.74, 1.12]. The dissonance condition reported significantly more interest in the paragraph MDiss = 2.70, SD = 1.8, MCont = 2.28, SD = 1.56; B = .43, p = .01, d = .26 CI.975[.06, .45], supporting the original dissonance reduction finding, even accounting for the methodological concern caused by asymmetric noncompliance (see Table 1). However, when was included as a moderating variable, there was a significant interaction for dissonance reduction between condition and willingness to comply, B = 1.07, p = .02. Amongst those who complied with instructions, we observed a classic dissonance effect, such that participants in the dissonance condition claimed that the passage was more interesting, M = 3.14, SD = 1.81, than those in the forced choice condition, M = 2.31, SD = 1.56; B = .86, p < .0001, d = .47 CI.975[.28, .66]. Those who did not comply showed no difference between conditions, MDiss = 1.74, SD = 1.3; MCont = 2.0, SD = 1.60; B = -.21 p = .62, d = .05 CI.975[-.15, .25]. We anticipated an effect, such that if a person affirmed an unrelated belief first, they would not feel as motivated to reduce dissonance and vice versa. were included, but to prevent interpreting a 2X2X2 with some unstable cells, compliance was not added as a moderating term. Order did not moderate the effect of the manipulation on either dissonance reduction, B = .47, p = .16, or the prostitution bond, B = -43.92, p = .43. Given the null interactions, the remaining analyses are collapsed across order. In the context of successfully replicating dissonance reduction, we tested our main hypothesis of interest; that feeling dissonant would also lead to compensatory affirmation. A main effect emerged for affirmation, MDiss = 429.59, SD = 289.99, compliers
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