Cognitive Dissonance and Consumer Behavior

Festinger Leon , A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1957).

U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service, Public Health Service Publication No. 1103 (Washington, D.C.: Superintendent of Documents, 1964).

Festinger L. Riecken H. Schachter S. , When Prophecy Fails (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1956).

Hastorf A. Cantril H. , “They Saw a Game: A Case Study,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology XIX (1954), 129–134.

Brehm J. , “Post-decision Changes in the Desirability of Alternatives,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, LII (1956), 384–389.

Ehrlich D. Guttman I. Schonbach P. Mills J. , “Post Decision Exposure to Relevant Information,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, LIV (1957), 90–102.

The American public discuss cancer and the American Cancer Society campaign: A national survey (Ann Arbor: Survey Research Center, University of Michigan, December 1948).

The assumption has been made that at the time of the study all smokers had been exposed to and were aware of the possibility of a smoking-cancer linkage and hence were in a state of potential dissonance. In fact, 89 per cent of the smokers and 82 per cent of the nonsmokers claimed they had heard about the 1964 Surgeon General's report and were able to identify the specific medium in which they were exposed to that particular source of information alone.

A 3 × 3 chi square statistic was 6.08 with 4 df, p < .20. For tests of significance, it was assumed that the sample was statistically random. In fact the sample selection, rather than pure random, was one of using clusters with only occasional call-backs. This tends to increase the standard error such that some significance levels must be interpreted with caution.

Wall Street Journal, April 9, 1964.

A chi square analysis produced a statistic of 48.93 with 3 df. This is significant well beyond the .001 level. Naturally, these results can also be interpreted in the obverse direction such that the less a person believes in the smoking-cancer linkage the more he smokes. The implication of this point of view, however, is that beliefs and attitudes about cancer preceded the smoking behavior. The authors feel that it is more likely that the behavior is first enacted and cognitions about the behavior are then brought in line to be consonant with the behavior pattern.

A 2 × 2 chi square applied to the data is significant at the .01 level (x² = 8.65). In Tables I, III, IV, and V, it would have been of interest to know how recent “quitters” felt about these questions. Unfortunately, only 6 respondents had quit smoking since publication of the Surgeon General's report and hence were not processed separately. These persons have been grouped with the nonsmokers.

Minneapolis Sunday Times, March 21, 1964. Reported in Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, op. cit.