TY - JOUR
T1 - Influencing Republicans’ and Democrats’ attitudes toward Obamacare
T2 - Effects of imagined vicarious cognitive dissonance on political attitudes
AU - Cooper, Joel
AU - Feldman, Lauren A.
AU - Blackman, Shane F.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, © 2019 Taylor & Francis.
PY - 2019/1/2
Y1 - 2019/1/2
N2 - The field of experimental social psychology is appropriately interested in using novel theoretical approaches to implement change in the social world. In the current study, we extended cognitive dissonance theory by creating a new framework of social influence: imagined vicarious dissonance. We used the framework to influence attitudes on an important and controversial political attitude: U.S. citizens’ support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA). 36 Republicans and 84 Democrats were asked to imagine fellow Republicans and Democrats, respectively, making attitude discrepant statements under high and low choice conditions about support for the ACA. The data showed that vicarious dissonance, established by imagining a group member make a counterattitudinal speech under high-choice conditions (as compared to low-choice conditions), resulted in greater support for the Act by Republicans and marginally diminished support by Democrats. The results suggest a promising role for the application of vicarious dissonance theory to relevant societal issues and for further understanding the relationship of dissonance and people’s identification with their social groups.
AB - The field of experimental social psychology is appropriately interested in using novel theoretical approaches to implement change in the social world. In the current study, we extended cognitive dissonance theory by creating a new framework of social influence: imagined vicarious dissonance. We used the framework to influence attitudes on an important and controversial political attitude: U.S. citizens’ support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA). 36 Republicans and 84 Democrats were asked to imagine fellow Republicans and Democrats, respectively, making attitude discrepant statements under high and low choice conditions about support for the ACA. The data showed that vicarious dissonance, established by imagining a group member make a counterattitudinal speech under high-choice conditions (as compared to low-choice conditions), resulted in greater support for the Act by Republicans and marginally diminished support by Democrats. The results suggest a promising role for the application of vicarious dissonance theory to relevant societal issues and for further understanding the relationship of dissonance and people’s identification with their social groups.
KW - Attitude change
KW - cognitive dissonance
KW - political psychology
KW - social change
KW - vicarious dissonance
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85047266572&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85047266572&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/00224545.2018.1465023
DO - 10.1080/00224545.2018.1465023
M3 - Comment/debate
C2 - 29659334
AN - SCOPUS:85047266572
SN - 0022-4545
VL - 159
SP - 112
EP - 117
JO - Journal of Social Psychology
JF - Journal of Social Psychology
IS - 1
ER -