Describe the phenomenon of insufficient justification, and explain its relationship to cognitive dissonance
What will be an ideal response?
Insufficient justification occurs when people cannot find a good enough reason to
explain their behavior. Often this results in attitude change in the effort to eliminate the
unpleasant arousal caused by the behavior. The relationship between insufficient
justification and cognitive dissonance is made clear by the 1959 study of Fastinger and
Carl smith. In this study, subjects who had been paid only $1 for their participation in an
unpleasant task (and thus received insufficient justification for doing so) were more
inclined to exaggerate their enjoyment of the task (thereby reducing their cognitive
dissonance) than were subjects who had been paid $20 . The $1 was insufficient
justification to account for why the participants had lied to someone else about how fun
the task was, so participants adjusted their attitudes about the task accordingly in order
to alleviate the cognitive dissonance. The $20 participants had sufficient justification for
their behavior, and therefore no attitude change was necessary.
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Vincent is conducting a survey to assess how Americans feel about the right of terminally ill individuals to end their lives. He is likely to find that ____
a. a large minority would approve b. a majority would approve c. public opinion seems split and adamant in their decisions d. a majority would disapprove
Traditionally, psychoanalysis involved hour-long sessions three to five times a week
Indicate whether the statement is true or false.
Coating the neural fibers with an insulating fatty sheath during the process of __________ improves the efficiency of message transfer
A) myelination B) neuroimaging C) synaptic pruning D) neurotransmission
Objective introspection requires:
a) metaphysical experiences. b) self-skepticism about experiences. c) empiricism. d) reflection on the self.