What is the meaning of cognitive consistency theory?
Cognitive consistency is a psychological theory that proposes that humans are motivated by inconsistencies and a desire to change them. The tension arises when thoughts conflict with each other and this tension creates a motivation to change and correct the inconsistency.
What is consistency theory of attitude?
Cognitive Consistency Theories: Research has generally concluded that people seek consistency among their attitudes and between their attitudes and their behaviour. This means that people seek to reconcile divergent attitudes and align their attitudes and behaviour so that they appear rational and consistent.
What is the theory of attitude formation?
Attitude formation theories help us understand how a person’s attitude takes shape and why a person might have a particular attitude or how that attitude came to exist. Rather, there are three theories that are used most often to describe attitude formation: functionalism, learning, and cognitive dissonance theories.
What is cognitive consistency with example?
Examples of cognitive consistency in earlier chapters include perceptual judgment (Section 4.2), the functional theory of attitudes (Section 6.1), attitude-behavior consistency (Section 6.3), cognitive heuristics (Section 7.4), and cognitive emotion theory (Section 9.1).
What is consistency theory?
a class of social psychological theory holding that people are chiefly motivated by a desire to maintain congruence or consistency among their cognitions.
What is the congruity theory?
The Congruity theory predicts that if there are two contradicting people, sets of information, or concepts on which a judgment must be made by a single observer, the observer will experience pressure to change his or her judgment on one of the sides.
What is cognitive balance?
Cognitive balance theory was devised by Heider (1946, 1958) to explain how people resolve inconsistencies in their interpersonal affects. As predicted, participants accepted the communication that achieved balance in one cognition change over those that required more cognition changes. …
What is cognitive consistency explain briefly the theory of cognitive dissonance?
cognitive consistency can be defined as the concept that individuals have a preference for their thoughts, beliefs, knowledges, opinions, attitudes, and intents to be congruent, which is to say that they don’t contradict each other.
What are consistency theories?
What are the four main theories of attitude formation?
Theories of Attitude Formation
- Cognitive Consistency Theories. Attitudes do not exist in isolation; indeed, a complex structure results which appears to have at its heart a consistent tendency to maintain balance and resist change from influences of various types.
- Functional Theory.
- Social Judgement Theory.
What is the main idea of cognitive theory?
What is the main idea of cognitive learning theory? The main assumption of cognitive theory is that thoughts are the primary determinants of emotions and behavior. The cognitive approach to learning believes that internal mental processes can be scientifically studied.
What is cognitive dissonance theory of attitude?
Cognitive dissonance theory postulates that an underlying psychological tension is created when an individual’s behavior is inconsistent with his or her thoughts and beliefs. This underlying tension then motivates an individual to make an attitude change that would produce consistency between thoughts and behaviors.
What is the premise of the Cognitive Consistency Theory?
At the heart of cognitive consistency theories is the assumption that people are motivated to seek coherent attitudes, thoughts, beliefs, values, behaviors, and feelings. If these are inconsistent, they will produce a “tension state” in the individual, and motivate the individual to reduce this tension.
Why do people seek consistency in their attitudes?
Research has generally concluded that people seek consistency among their attitudes and between their attitudes and their behaviour. This means that people seek to reconcile divergent attitudes and align their attitudes and behaviour so that they appear rational and consistent.
When was Cognitive Consistency Theory out of Vogue?
Virtually no research on cognitive consistency theories took place during the 1970s. With the end of the 1960s, theories of behavior that centered around motivational and affective forces (which certainly described cognitive consistency theories) were “out of vogue” with researchers.
What happens when there is an inconsistency in attitude?
When there is an inconsistency, forces are initiated to return the individual to an equilibrium state where attitudes and behaviour are again consistent. This can be done by either altering the attitude or the behaviour or by developing a rationalization for the discrepancy.