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MOTIVATED REASONING 1 Cognitive Dissonance, Ego-Involvement, And MOTIVATED REASONING 1 Cognitive Dissonance, Ego-Involvement, and Motivated Reasoning Christopher J. Carpenter Department of Communication Western Illinois University [email protected] In press at the Annals of the International Communication Association doi: 10.1080/23808985.2018.1564881 Author Acknowledgement: I would like to thank the Editor and the anonymous reviewers for providing thoughtful feedback that I believe substantially strengthened this article. MOTIVATED REASONING 2 Abstract One of the enduring topics for persuasion research is motivated reasoning, when people respond to persuasive messages in ways other than seeking to form an accurate attitude. This essay advances the position that the existing research can be synthesized using the self-concept approach to cognitive dissonance with ego-involvement added as the key explanatory variable to indicate when an issue is likely tied to the individual’s self-concept and thus potentially produce cognitive dissonance. The research on motivated reasoning is reviewed with this theoretical lens with recommendations on how to use this theory to advance research on understanding and reducing maladaptive motivated reasoning. Keywords: cognitive dissonance, ego-involvement, motivated reasoning, persuasion, science communication, political communication, health communication MOTIVATED REASONING 3 Cognitive Dissonance, Ego-Involvement, and Motivated Reasoning “Once a man’s understanding has settled on something (either because it is an accepted belief or because it pleases him), it draws everything else also to support and agree with it. And if it encounters a larger number of more powerful countervailing examples, it either fails to notice them, or disregards them, or makes fine distinctions to dismiss and reject them, and all this with much dangerous prejudice, to preserve the authority of its first conceptions” p. 43 -Francis Bacon (1620/2000) “I took care not to dispute anything he said, for there’s no arguing with an Enthusiast. Better not to take it into one’s head to tell a lover the faults of his mistress, or a litigant the weakness of his cause- or to talk sense to a fanatic.” p. 5 -Voltaire “Philosophical Letters” (1732/1961) The above quotations reveal that thinkers have long known that humans are biased towards their cherished beliefs. For some of our opinions, we are willing to ignore compelling evidence, credible sources, and even basic logic in order to go on maintaining our original opinion. If the arguments presented to us differ more substantially from our established opinions, we cling even more strongly to our own opinions. For example, if we strongly identify with a position on restrictions on firearm ownership, we may reject any argument in favor of substantially greater or weaker restrictions than those we already support. For some other opinions, we are readily willing to shift our attitudes towards a different position if compelling evidence is presented. The greater the gap between the position presented MOTIVATED REASONING 4 and our existing opinion, the greater our shift towards the position presented. If a doctor told us that credible research suggests that eating kiwi greatly increased our cancer risk, most of us would give up eating kiwi (no such research exists, to my knowledge). What these situations illustrate is the differential ways that we tend to react to attitude discrepant messages. A greater gap between what one already believes and what is advocated in a well-evidenced, logical, credible persuasive message can either greatly move us to change our own position or strengthen our resolve to maintain it. A number of variables have been studied to determine the outcomes associated with greater or lesser discrepancy between the message and the audience’s existing attitude (Fink & Cai, 2013). Greater resistance to an attitude discrepant message can be considered a type of motivated reasoning. Kahan defined motivated reasoning as “the tendency of people to conform assessments of information to some goal or end extrinsic to accuracy” (2013, p. 408). That definition will be used for this review. Discovering the moderating variable(s) that predict motivated reasoning is a key problem for persuasion researchers as well as any applied researchers seeking to influence public behavior in areas such as health communication, science communication, risk communication, and advertising. The position I articulate in the following review is that cognitive dissonance theory can be used to explain and predict motivated reasoning outcomes. In particular this review will expand the modification of cognitive dissonance proposed by Aronson (1968; 1992) and Rokeach (1968; 1973) labeled the self-concept approach to cognitive dissonance. I will argue this approach to cognitive dissonance can be profitably expanded with the postulate that ego- involvement, as originally described by Sherif and Cantril (1947), can be used to predict the ego- defensive motivations associated with the self-concept approach to cognitive dissonance and thereby motivated reasoning more generally. MOTIVATED REASONING 5 This review will begin by describing cognitive dissonance theory. Then I will explain how ego-involvement can serve as an indicator of the key motives in the theory. This section will be followed by an exposition of the various ways it and similar variables have been studied. Then I will explore how cognitive dissonance can be used to understand various types of motivated reasoning. Finally, I will review research on attempts to reduce people’s likelihood of using motivated reasoning before offering closing remarks. Aronson (1992) argued that the social sciences have become saturated with many, smaller theories, when the self-concept approach to cognitive dissonance could serve as a stronger tool for theoretical integration. This review attempts to continue that integration. Cognitive Dissonance Cognitive dissonance, according to Festinger (1957), is produced when one person has two cognitive elements that are inconsistent with each other. One of the key parts of cognitive dissonance theory is that such inconsistency produces a feeling of negative arousal. People experiencing dissonance are motivated to reduce the inconsistency because they wish to avoid or reduce that negative arousal. They then attempt to reduce the dissonance by altering one of the dissonant cognitive elements. For example recalling that one wasted time by going for a walk is inconsistent with a belief that one should use one’s time wisely. Dissonance might be reduced by considering that breaks make one more productive after the walk. Festinger also argued people can foresee when dissonance might occur and become motivated to avoid dissonance. The inconsistency between two elements is heightened when one or more of the dissonant elements are more important to the individual. In particular, he claimed that, “The maximum dissonance which could exist would, in such circumstances, be determined by the resistance to admitting that he had been wrong or foolish” (p. 29). MOTIVATED REASONING 6 One of the misunderstandings concerning cognitive dissonance theory is that it is only concerned with the effects of behavior on attitudes. This misperception is understandable given that the seminal demonstration of the theory focused on that aspect (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959) and that much of the cognitive dissonance-inspired communication research has focused on the effects of counterattitudinal advocacy (see S. Y. Kim, Allen, Preiss, & Peterson, 2014, for a meta-analysis of this research). Yet, in the original formulation of the theory, Festinger (1957) argued that exposure to messages inconsistent with one’s own beliefs could produce cognitive dissonance. The belief that an otherwise reasonable individual believes something different than oneself is theoretically predicted to produce cognitive dissonance. He explained further that such dissonance “may be reduced if he can believe that the latter is a stupid, ignorant, unfriendly, and bigoted individual” (p. 183). Expanding on this aspect of cognitive dissonance theory, Aronson, Turner, and Carlsmith (1963) argued that hearing a message that is highly discrepant from one’s own attitudes from a highly credible source would be likely to produce a substantial amount of cognitive dissonance. They noted that the audience can reduce the dissonance created by such a message through many means including changing their own attitudes, trying to change the source’s opinion, finding support for their own opinion from like-minded people, or rejecting the source. The idea of general cognitive dissonance was narrowed to cognitive dissonance centered on the self-concept by one of Festinger’s students, Elliot Aronson (1968). He argued that dissonance is substantially more likely to be aroused when at least one of the dissonant elements is closely tied to one’s self-concept. Thus, people who feel that their affection for kiwifruit is a key part of their self-identity would experience cognitive dissonance when encountering a message about the long-term dangers of consuming this fruit. On the other hand, someone who MOTIVATED REASONING 7 has generally enjoyed eating kiwi but does not strongly identify with that habit would not feel cognitive dissonance when encountering a message about its dangers. This approach is consistent with the synthesis of cognitive dissonance and self-perception theory proposed by Fazio, Zanna, and Cooper (1977) that suggested that cognitive dissonance
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