Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1988. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 114-122).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1967. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.) University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on August 6, 2007) Includes bibliographical references.

Using the action-based model of dissonance (Harmon-Jones, Amodio, & Harmon-Jones, 2009) and self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2008) as theoretical frameworks, this thesis sought to explain the motivational processes underlying the environmental belief-action gap. The thesis examined why and how people resolve inconsistencies between their favourable attitudes toward environmental protection and their environmentally harmful behaviour. I hypothesized that accounting for individual differences in autonomous and controlled distal motives for effective and unconflicted action would clarify why attitude-behaviour inconsistencies are uncomfortable and explain how people compensate for them. I carried out 3 sets of studies to test the proposed hierarchical action-based model of inconsistency compensation in the environmental domain (HABICE). The objective of the first set of 3 studies was to test hypotheses about the role of individual differences in global and contextual motivation on dissonance arousal, in response to native attitude-behaviour inconsistencies encountered across and within important life domains. The second set of 3 studies tested hypotheses about the role of individual differences in contextual motivation toward the environment on the use and choice of strategies to compensate for a recent native inconsistency in the environmental domain. Finally, the goal of the final study was to test hypotheses about the moderating effect of social factors that direct attention to public (ego-invested) versus private (authentic) aspects of the self during the perception of inconsistencies on motivation and intentions to revise pro-global warming mitigation attitudes. The results of the 7 studies (total N = 2,209) supported the main predictions of the HABICE. The cumulative evidence supported the existence of two motivational orientations operating during inconsistency compensation processes. The autonomous motivational orientation, which embodies action tendencies to facilitate organismic integration via authentic regulation, motivated people to compensate for attitude-behaviour inconsistencies to restore the integrity of authentic self-structures. As a result, autonomous motivation toward the environment led people to reduce dissonance and to compensate for perceived inconsistencies by bringing their behaviour in line with self-relevant attitudes. The controlled motivational orientation, which embodies action tendencies to facilitate instrumental outcomes via contingent regulation, motivated people to compensate for attitude-behaviour inconsistencies to protect ego-invested self-structures by avoiding the aversive consequences of their counter-environmental actions. When inconsistencies aroused dissonance, controlled motivation predicted the use of overt behavioural strategies, for example enacting a compensatory pro-environmental action, to reduce dissonance. However, when inconsistencies did not arouse dissonance or there were barriers to behaviour change, controlled motivation predicted the use of cognitive strategies, for example revising or distorting pro-environmental attitudes, to minimize the inconsistency. Consequently, autonomous compensation processes predicted relatively infrequent attitude-behaviour inconsistencies in the environmental domain while controlled compensation processes predicted relatively frequent inconsistencies. The results imply that controlled motivation toward the environment may be driving the environmental belief-action gap, but that finding ways to promote autonomous motivation toward the environment in the general population has the potential to alleviate the gap.

The theories of cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957) and self-perception (Bern, 1965) are reviewed in terms of the "insufficient justification" and "observer replication" laboratory paradigms. The controversy generated by their competing explanatory claims was evaluated in three separate contexts: as debate, theory, and metatheory. In a debating context it was concluded that Ben got the better of the controversy by observing the input requirements of his theory and marshalling against his critics evidence generated by their own failure to do likewise. Analytical and epistemological errors committed by the dissonance theory advocates were major factors in this csnclusion. With respect to the more substantive context of theory-testing, it was concluded that Bern failed to establish the plausibility of the cognitive process postulated by the self-perception theory. A unique counter-instance was cited to demonstrate that self-perception is not a wholly viable alternative analysis of cognitive dissonance phenomena. In addition, an examination of Bern's adherence to a functional analysis in conjunction with a simulation methodology raised doubts that such a strategy could deliver the desired information concerning plausibility of the self-perception process. When viewed at the level of metatheory, however, Bern was considered to have had a substantial influence upon the working commitments of a small community of his colleagues. This conclusion was derived from a metaphorical application of Kuhn's (1962) thesis concerning scientific revolutions to events in the recent history of Social Psychology. In this view, the self-perception theory is an historical marker which brings clearly into focus the transition of attitudinal research from a motivational-consistency "paradigm" to an information processing/attributional "paradigm". Three experiments are reported which make use of Bern's credibility cueing procedure to articulate the newer "paradigm". The first experiment provides support for a fundamental hypothesis derived from the self-perception theory. Subjects' recall of a task was systematically influenced by external discriminative stimuli for self-credibility when internal memory cues were relatively weak, but net when such cues were relatively strong. The use of a statistic which takes into account subjects' differential guessing strategies increased confidence in the self-perception interpretation of these results. The second experiment attempted to extend the credibility cueing effect beyond the traditional impersonal cueing situation to one involving interpersonal discriminative stimuli for self-credibility. Although procedural insights rendered the results inconclusive, a serendipitous observation was made. The results suggested a novel hypothesis that different stimulus persons could have differential effects on subjects' self-credibility. A third experiment provided support for this hypothesis. When one live interviewer was manipulated as a discriminative stimulus for self-credibility, subjects' recall of a task was systematically influenced in accord with self-perception predictions. These effects did net occur in the presence of a second live interviewer. Speculation was advanced concerning the psychological basis for differential credibility cueing properties of parties to social interactions with particular reference to the credibility cueing potential of police interrogations. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

No description available.

Cognitive dissonance is one of the most frequently cited theories in social psychology (Cooper, 2007) and has been studied in many communication contexts. Although there are many situations in which people need to repeatedly reduce dissonance concerning the same focal belief or behavior, the vast majority of dissonance studies have focused on single instances of dissonance (McGrath, 2017). This dissertation addresses the question of how beliefs and affect change in response to sequentially induced cognitive dissonance. Belief change is frequently studied as a mode of dissonance reduction (Vaidis & Bran, 2018). Information integration theory states that belief change is a function of the scale value (valence) and weight of each piece of information in a message, and that belief change in response to multiple pieces of information is a weighted sum of the valence of the pieces of information (Anderson, 1971; Anderson & Farkas, 1973). Using the sequential information integration model (SIIM; Chung & Fink, 2016; Chung, Fink, Waks, Meffert, & Xie, 2012), this 2 (statement type: justification vs. vote recall) x 2 (evaluation order: evaluation/affect vs. affect/evaluation) within- and between-subjects online experiment tested the effect of sequential induction of dissonance, via repeated exposure to incongruent information, on evaluations of candidates in a hypothetical congressional election. This study, which included 227 participants based in the U.S., replicated key findings from previous studies on belief trajectories, lending further support to the SIIM and illustrating the strength of decision justification as a mechanism for resisting belief change over time. It also found that people respond to negatively valenced messages, compared to positively valenced messages, with greater psychological discomfort and less positive affect even when both types of messages are counterattitudinal. Finally, this research found that people may continue to experience psychological discomfort until finding an effective way to reduce their dissonance. This dissertation replicates, in part, previous SIIM studies and offers insight into the question of how beliefs and affect change in response to sequentially induced cognitive dissonance. / Media & Communication

This study sought to explore the existence of a relationship between age and/or military affiliation (active, veteran, or family member) and awareness of local community mental health programs available for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. The study separated age from military affiliation to better distinguish between influences on awareness level. Considerations that remain critical regarding post-traumatic stress disorder were described and used to guide a comprehensive review of the literature to find directions to fulfill the goal of this study. A survey was conducted and 586 active military, veterans, and their family members responded to an instrument that contained 40 items. This study was constrained to three items from the survey; age, military affiliation, self-rated awareness of treatment for PTSD. Multiple analysis techniques found no significant (p < .05) correlation between either age and awareness or military affiliation and awareness. Further analysis found a significant (p = .003) correlation between veterans and awareness, as well as between family members of veterans (p = .017) and awareness. Veterans and their family members indicated a greater awareness of local community mental health programs available for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder than did active troops and/or their family members. The significance of this finding presents new opportunities to study and improve both the marketing and the delivery of mental health treatment for PTSD to the active military population. Multiple opportunities for future research are discussed.

Changes in religious and spiritual trends over the past few decades are contradicting previously held assumptions in academia pertaining to personal religious and spiritual definitions, identities and how these religious and spiritual identities are affected by higher educational attainment. In addition, there is limited research on how students may resolve cognitive dissonance if it develops due to discrepancies between their college experiences and their personal spiritual or religious convictions. The intent of this thesis is to explore the effects of college experience and higher educational attainment on students' religious and spiritual identities; to explore the growing trend to identify as 'spiritual, but not religious;' and to explore whether any changes in their religious and spiritual identity are as a result of adjustments spurred by cognitive dissonance. This study helps fill in gaps in current literature about the effects of higher education on religious and spiritual identity and their resolutions of cognitive dissonance.

Last chance tourism (LCT) is defined as an endangered place due to climate change which creates motivations for tourists to travel to these places before they vanish. These trips also involve interaction with and observation of rare species that is about to disappear due to climate change. By integrating the Value-Belief-Norm and cognitive dissonance theory models, the main purpose of this research was to investigate psychological antecedents of engaging in LCT in higher educational institutions in Sweden. A survey was administered to 234 academics on seven universities in Sweden consisting of items measuring beliefs, pro-environmental personal norms, cognitive dissonance, and intentions to engage in Last Chance Tourism. The data was later analyzed using Partial Least Square-Structural Equation (PLS-SEM) approach. The results revealed a significant impact of cognitive dissonance on intentions to engage in LCT. These findings are important since they support the advantage of using cognitive dissonance theory within the context of LCT. The implications will hopefully spark an interest among academics to develop a sustainable tourism rescue plan and transfer this knowledge to a younger generation. For practitioners, this could be food for fought for organizations that are operating within the field of LCT.