Eddie Harmon-Jones > Quotes

“Moreover, dissonance-evoking situations have been found to evoke a general negative affect without also evoking increased self-directed negative affect (Elliot & Devine, 1994) or decreased state self-esteem (E. Harmon-Jones, 2000a).”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology

“But at the same time, the humanist in me was always a bit troubled by the rather bleak, rather unappetizing picture the theory painted of the human condition—forever striving to justify our actions after the fact.”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology

“To show actual avoidance of dissonant information, it is necessary to make comparisons against a neutral baseline.”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology

“Self-perception theory (Bem, 1967, 1972) argues that dissonance effects were not the result of motivation to reduce the psychological discomfort produced by cognitive dissonance but were due to a nonmotivational process whereby persons merely inferred their attitudes from their behavior and the circumstances under which the behavior occurred.”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology

“At the same time that the critical importance of free choice was being demonstrated, researchers revealed the significance of other cognitions relating to the public or anonymous nature of the problematic behavior (Carlsmith, Collins, & Helmreich, 1966), the irrevocable or reversible nature of the act (Helmreich & Collins, 1968), and, above all, the role of cognitions concerning its consequences (Calder, Ross, & Insko, 1973; Cooper & Worchel, 1970). Like free choice, such cognitions seem to function as more or less necessary conditions for dissonance arousal.”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology

“In contrast, people with high, well-grounded self-esteem would not use derogation of the victim as a way to reduce their dissonance; rather, they would be more likely to take responsibility for their actions and try, in some way, to make amends for their cruel behavior.”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology

“But whatever the case may be, the arousal can only be reduced by two principal kinds of processes. These processes serve to make the act less problematic. Some processes affect the commitment to the act and reduce this commitment, and other processes reduce the total amount of dissonance by changing one or several existing cognitions or by producing new ones.”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology

“Self-Consistency One of the first revisions proposed was the self-consistency interpretation of dissonance (Aronson, 1968, 1992). It is based on the idea that situations that evoke dissonance do so because they create inconsistency between the self-concept and a behavior. Because most persons have a positive self-concept, persons are likely to experience dissonance when they behave in a way that they view as incompetent, immoral, or irrational.”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology

“Using a slightly different procedure, other research has suggested that, when the counterattitudinal actions do not cause aversive consequences, attitude change does not occur”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology

“The original statement of cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957) proposed that discrepancy between cognitions creates a negative affective state that motivates individuals to attempt to reduce or eliminate the discrepancy between cognitions”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology

“In fact, the 1960s were to prove a rich source of experiments showing that the primary reward effect of dissonance in forced-compliance situations is observed only if the participants are allowed to choose whether to perform the requested act.”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology

“That is why the dissonance-reduction process may result in greater inconsistency among other cognitions. Therefore, the reduction of the ratio, which for us remains the unconditional objective of the dissonance-reduction process, in no way implies that there is consistency among the cognitions that it contains.”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology

“simple conveying of information to rational people.”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology

“However, these past theorists and researchers instead proposed that feelings of personal responsibility for aversive outcomes were necessary to produce dissonance effects.”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology

“alternative explanations must prevent us from concluding that cognitive discrepancy is not necessary or sufficient to create dissonance.”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology

“This type of measure was in perfect conformity with Heider’s premises, which viewed the cognitive universe as a scene contemplated by the perceiver and that satisfied, to a greater or lesser degree, his or her preference for balance (Heider, 1958).”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology

“That is, when I said above that dissonance theory made clear predictions at its core, what I implicitly meant by at its core were situations in which the person’s self-concept was at issue.”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology

“For example, dissonance occurs in non-human animals (e.g., Egan, Bloom, et al., 2010; Egan, Santos, et al., 2007), suggesting that the metacognitive structure of self is not necessary.”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology

“That is, the affective state of dissonance signals a problem and dissonance is reduced so that effective action can occur. To state these ideas less abstractly, consider that most dissonance situations involve a commitment to a chosen course of action. Once an individual commits to a given action, any information inconsistent with that commitment is likely to arouse dissonance and prevent the action from occurring. To maintain the commitment in the face of this inconsistent information, the individual selectively enhances the value of the chosen course of action and reduces the value of the unchosen course of action.”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology

“In fact, extracted from the metatheory, the central element of Festinger’s theory boils down to this: A person can experience an unpleasant state of arousal (state of dissonance) that can be quantified by a ratio (the dissonance ratio; see Chapter 2, this volume, for further explanation) and is reduced when this ratio decreases. Cognitions are relevant and taken into consideration only to the degree that they allow for composing this ratio.”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology

“It took me a couple of years, but it gradually dawned on me that what was at the heart of my argument in both of those situations was the self-concept.”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology

“Dissonance theory and research also played a pioneering role in a second way. By highlighting the often paradoxical and even self-defeating ways that humans frequently deal with the world, dissonance theory was the first comprehensive model to focus our attention on the landscape of human irrationality and the genesis of suboptimal judgments and behaviors.”
― Eddie Harmon-Jones, Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology