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Consistency Commitment Revised

Consistency is a powerful motivator because people strive for psychological balance and consistency in their cognitions. When inconsistencies arise, various methods are used to regain consistency, including denial, modifying attitudes, making excuses, differentiation, and communicating. Marketing tactics also exploit consistency through brand loyalty and active participation. Commitment further engages consistency through cognitive dissonance theory and techniques like foot-in-the-door and low-balling that induce compliance to generate attitude change.

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Velma M Salanoa
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16 views19 pages

Consistency Commitment Revised

Consistency is a powerful motivator because people strive for psychological balance and consistency in their cognitions. When inconsistencies arise, various methods are used to regain consistency, including denial, modifying attitudes, making excuses, differentiation, and communicating. Marketing tactics also exploit consistency through brand loyalty and active participation. Commitment further engages consistency through cognitive dissonance theory and techniques like foot-in-the-door and low-balling that induce compliance to generate attitude change.

Uploaded by

Velma M Salanoa
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Consistency

• Consistency is a powerful motive?


• Why?
Inner Peace of Consistency

Balance Theory
• People strives for consistent
psychological (balanced) state.
• When there are inconsistencies, people
will strive to regain balance.
P=person, O=other, X=object
+ -

+
Methods of Maintaining Consistency
• Denial
• Modifying attitudes
• Bolstering/making excuses
• Differentiation
• Transcendence
• Communicating
• Bargaining
Marketing Tactics Using Consistency
• Have your cake and eat it too!
• Brand loyalty: Accept no substitute
• Active participation
• Marketing inconsistency
• Tell how your product fits into the existing
cognitions
Commitment
• Commitment is how the force of
consistency is engaged in persuasion.
• Some examples
– Cognitive Dissonance Theory
– Foot-in-the-door
– Low-balling
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Festinger
• Basic premise: cognitive consistency
• Three possible relations between two
cognitions
– irrelevance
– consonant (consistent)
– dissonant (inconsistent)
Key Predictions of CDT
• When two cognitions are in dissonant
relation, the person is said to have
dissonance.
• Dissonance is an aversive motivational
state  people want to get rid of
dissonance.
• Dissonance vary in magnitude  the
bigger the dissonance, the bigger the
motivational pressure.
Magnitude of Dissonance is
Influenced by…
• The proportions of consonant and dissonant
elements
• The importance of the elements or issue
• Free choice/insufficient justification
• Amount of efforts required
Example
Law school at UHM History graduate school at UW

Tuition expensive Scholarship will cover tuition


Possibly better paying job after Not sure about job prospect
Can live with parents and save money Have to pay for living expense
I am not sure if I will like law I really like history
Parents will be happy Parents will be sad
Have to be apart from girl friend at UW Girl friend also going to school at UW

3 consonant elements 3 consonant elements


3 dissonant elements 3 dissonant elements
Means of Reducing Dissonance

• Change the relative proportions of


consonant and dissonant elements.
- add new consonant cognitions
- change/delete existing dissonant
cognitions
• Change the importance of the elements
involved.
Application: Induced Compliance
• It occurs when a person is induced to act in
a way discrepant from his/her beliefs and
attitudes.
• In-sufficient justification produces bigger
dissonance  leads to greater change
compared to large justification.
• Two conditions for this effect to occur:
- one has to feel that they had a choice
- there is no other alternative cause for
the anxiety associated with dissonance
Example: Chinese POWs
Key for Manipulating Self-Image

• Active
• Effortful
• Public
• Freely Chosen
- No external justification
Application: Hypocrisy Induction
• Calling attention to the inconsistency of a
person’s attitudes and actions can arouse
dissonance.
• The feeling of dissonance motivates people to
change their behavior to restore consistency
 leads to increased attitude/behavior
consistency
• Two conditions for this effect to occur:
- Salience of the relevant attitude
- Salience of past attitude-inconsistent
behaviors.
Foot-in-the-Door
• Start with a small request, then move on to a related larger
request
• Small commitments manipulate a person’s self-image.
• Once the self-image has been changed, people will
naturally comply with larger requests that are consistent
with the new self-image.
• Timing  a time delay between their agreement to perform
the first behavior and the second behavior is necessary 
so that people have time to think about the cause of the
behaviors.
• Effect of explicit social labels  People become more likely
to comply with the second, larger request, when their initial
compliance is positively labeled  also when it was
negatively labeled when they can refute the claim that they
are unhelpful.
Low-balling

Growing own legs to stand on


 Once people change their self-
image, they will think of new reasons to
justify their commitment/actions.
 Now, even if the original reasons are
taken away, they will stay committed.

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