AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE EFFECT OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE ON RISK-TAKING BEHAVIOUR IN RELATION TO CERTAIN PERSONALITY VARIABLES •^^^^^M^puB; ABSTRACT THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN PSYCHOLOGY BY DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh September 1979 m BXPBRlMiaiTAL SSVDY &f ^HE EFFECT OF COGHIf IVB 10 CBfCPAlH PERSOJIALOTY VARIABLBS ' i?ho Qt^dy eeposts four experlEaento the purpose ot each of wliich was tio ascertain tte effect of cogaitiv© dlssonanco upon riak-taklBd behaviour in ceiation to each one of four panrstmoXity voriablos, nanseXy* anxiety, intemal-Qsctomal Xocuo of control aoif-osteem, an<S £epres3ic»i-^»:^&itissatioa. ThB effoct of co03itive diss^ianco upon risk-taking behaviour wao studied on certaiUi geounda. that <i) i9hen tho ss ar© •taalt-involvod*, i.e., ace required to be ctoioetivo, in ©xpresaing thair opinion, any comtmication which ia diacrepent ^ith thair exiating opinion will arouae co^itive dissonance, and in a ri^^-taking aituation %h& 3s are e^qpectad to bo *ta8k~ oriented* in so far as t!^y are niquired to be objective in their choice of risk alternatives each risk alternative being based on inforroatious indicating probability of success and amount of payoff I ai^ (ii) there has been scant attention to study the effect of cognitive dissonance upon risk-taking behaviour. Assuming that the manner of reducing cognitive disstonance of an individual nay be related to his positioxi on adjustment^ iaala<Sjustii»nt dimension in aucb a «ay that a facilitative SQSponae involving atdjustmants and necessary modifications bein0 used by a well-adjusted individual and a debilitativo one involving sonie kind of defense s^chanisnt being used by a maladjusted individual,/the four personality variables# n&mlY* anxiety, intoEnal-exteenal locus of control, self, estecan, and repress ion-sensitieatic^ -•> each of which considaced to play a vital role in tto cdjuotinemt-c^ladjuetnient of an individual —- '^ero included in the present study, / Every e«p3rJjsont employod a 2 x 2 factorial design in t^hlch thoro yo£o tw> independent variables with t\m variations of each voricble, nan^ly, (1) asousal vs. nonarousal of cognitive dissonance induced by negative feedback of losing the ^oi^lo and positive fee(SQ>ack of i^imiing the ganible xespectivolyr end (2) !ii@h scores vs. lo%7 scores on the personality diraension* Tho dependent vari^le, nanaely, the risk-taking behaviour was measured in terms of chon^ in the selection of case of two risk alternative (strategy) ctK>ices in the second of two bids as compared to the first one after winning (*nonarousal of cognitive dissonanos*} or losing (*arousal of cognitive dissGoance *} the ganoble in a risk-taking task. The analyses of scores s^M3wed that the condition of 'arousal of co^fiitive dissonance* led to no re changes of risk strategy tbsn did the c(»tdition of 'nonarousal of cognitive disscmance'. The analyses further revealed that the *n<»iarousal ot cognitive dissonance* led to % tendency to sapeat a risk striitegy cm the part of both the *roiXdiy anxious' M«1 •highly anximis* Ss# both the • iotejmally-orientcd • and *e3etoxnally~ ori©ntQd» Ss# both th© »high selfo-esteero* and *lo«r self-^ esteeo5' ss, and also on the part of both ths 'repwisoor* aaid *6ensitia^r* ss. la the condition of 'aronsol of cogaitivo Cilosanancc, on tto otter hand, tte '©ildly Gnxio«s* B&» th© internally-offiontc^* 3B, tshQ "high self-osteea* ss* ond tho •ropuBssor* ss elwccd significantly mose choncpo of risk «3tsr;tcoy th[m did th3ir reopsctiv© coantorports in th© •hi#i ©Cores' ©roup©. \ DEPiKTMSNT OF">SYGHOLOGX, ALIGAaH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY, A L I G A R H, September 28, 1979 This is to certify that Mr, Arurr Kumar Singh \^30 worked under the Supervision of Late Prof. Jnwar •Ansari got almost all the Chapters of his Ph.D thesis thoroughly gone through ahd corrected by him. I have read the thesis and I am fvlly satisfied that the thesis, aS presented in its final foim, is worth presenting for adjudication. Profjgssor A.Jamil Qadri "~SfS SrCTTOW AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE EFFECT OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE ON RISK-TAKING BEHAVIOUR IN RELATION TO CERTAIN PERSONALITY VARIABLES THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN PSYCHOLOGY BY ]M[a.it>aiiiL A.x*unlcuixia.]:* Sin^H DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh September 1979 u %^ ^m ^^^..,;.^ ^ n 0 nCR 1990? T2040 CHECKED-200& cn''Tr<".' /p(>-9f ACKN0WIiED(3ffiNT I am gjreatly indebted to my supervisor, late Professor Anwar Ansari, for his invaluable guidance in conducting the present investigation. I am also indebted to Professor A. Jamil Qadri, Head of the Department of Psychology, Aligarh Muslim University, and Dr. Qamar Hasan for going through the manuscript and for giving me precious comments and suggestions. My thanks are due to Professor (Mrs. ) G. Ansari for giving me inspiration during the course of this study. Alongwith, I express my gratitude to my teachers, research scholars, and other members of Department of PsychoJLoigy,, Adigarh Muslim university, Aligarh, and to the staff members of Maulana Azad Library, for their kind help. Finally, I am thankful to those who served as subjects in this study, to Mr. Mashhood Alam Raz for typing the report of the study and to many others who have helped me in one way or other to complete the study. yt(, ^/s.wv^^^'^-^^v-^''^-^^^^^ M. ARUN KUMAR SINGH Dept. of Psychology Aligarh Muslim Univ. Aligarh CONTENTS Chapter I ORIENTATION OP PROBLEM 1 Chapter II SURVEY OP LITERATURE 15 Chapter III METHOD AND PROCEDURE 60 Chapter IV RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 72 Chapter V SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 84 REFERENCES 87 Appendixes Chapter I ORIENTATION OP PROBLEM Festinger's (1957) theory of cognitive dissonance, which considers cognition or cognitive element as "any knowledge, opinion, or belief about the enj/ironment, about oneself, or about one's behaviour" (Pestinger, 1957, p.3), states that (a) dissonance arises when tVo cognitions are inconsistent with each other, (b) the experience of dissonance is uncomfortable, and that (c) the individual experiencing dissonance is motivated to reduce it and achieve consonance. The dissonance may be reduced either by changing one or more of the otherwise inconsistent cognitions or by adding new consonant cognitive elements. The theory has led to a substantial amount of research using varied paradigms, like 'counterattitudinal behaviour' (Pestinger and Carlsmith, 1959), 'post-decision change" (Brehm, 1956), and 'discrepant communication' (zimbardo, 1960), etc. In many of the researches that have been done to study the effect of cognitive dissonance on opinion change there is a good deal of controversy on the question of the arousal of cognitive dissonance, specifically, in researches using the paradigms of 'counterattitudinal behaviour' and 'post-decision change' the arousal of cognitive dissonance has been questioned (Bern, 1967; Kelley, 1967; Gerard, Blevans and Malcolm, 1964). Truly speaking, in researches using these two paradigms, the arousal of cognitive dissonance is not clear, because the existence of inconsistency betvreen two cognitive elements is not concretely identifiable. It is only in the researches using the paradigm of 'discrepant communication' that the existence of inconsistency between two cognitive elements is concretely identifiable, because in these researches discrepant communication is provided by the experimenter, and hence is manipulable by him. Certain important questions arise regarding the researches using the paradigm of 'discrepant communication' in which the inconsistency between two cognitive elements is concretely identifiable: What is a discrepant communication? Does a discrepant communication necessarily arouse cognitive dissonance? When will a discrepant communication arouse cognitive dissonance? several authors (Derlega, 1972; Zimbardo, 1960) consider involvement in the cognitive elements to be an important variable which affects the magnitude of cognitive dissonance. However, as Kiesler et al. (1969), while discussing the question of involvement in the arousal of cognitive dissonance, have pointed out, the concept of involvement has not been clearly defined in terms of the antecedent conditions which produce it, or the manner one can vary it both in degree and in type. In fact, different experimental procedures have been employed to induce involvement so that it is difficult to say which one of these procedures is more appropriate. In order to clarify the meaning of involvement as it relates to the arousal of cognitive dissonance, it is important to note the observation made by Festinger (1957), that if two cognitive elements are dissonant with one another the magnitude of the cognitive dissonance will be a function of the importance of the cognitive elements. What Festinger seems to mean by the above mentioned observation is that cognitive dissonance would be aroused in an individual when both the cognitive elements, i.e., the one implied in his opinion that has already been accepted by him and the other implied in the discrepant information that is being communicated now are important from the point of view of the individual. Now, the question arises as to what are the conditions vmder which the two cognitive elements would asxime importance for the individual. Empirical data seem to suggest that the importance of the two cognitive elements is contingent upon the type of involvement experienced by the individual in a given situation. If the individual is 'ego-involved' with regard to the opinion he is expressing on a particular issue, i.e., is keen to express his own personal beliefs and values, the cognitive element of the opinion he holds will certainly assume importance for him and the cognitive element of any communicated information 4 which is discrepant with the opinion he holds will be irrelevant and unimportant to him. If, on the other hand, the individual is 'task-involved' in expressing his opinion on an issue, i.e., is keen to express a correct and objective view regarding that issue, then both the cognitive element of the opinion he is holding and that of any information that is discrepant with the opinion lie is holding will be important to him.