Decision making process

The Decision-Making Process

The decision-making process is an important part of everyday life for in-groups, out-groups, and individuals. This is done to express and change one’s attitude toward something, or to hold a different perspective and belief. Cognitive dissonance is caused by opposing attitudes and behaviors that cause discomfort, causing an individual to change the attitudes or behaviors that cause the distress. Cognitive dissonance theory has a considerable impact on the minority group’s power over the majority group. Minority control and the emphasis on cognitive dissonance theories drive successful minority influence. Minority influence takes the form of social influence whereby a member of the minority group tries to impact on and change the decisions of the majority and accept the behaviors and beliefs of the minority.

Leon Festinger and Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Leon Festinger developed cognitive dissonance theory in the 1950s. Leon’s theory is an area of research that has established plenty of attention from personality and social psychologists (Bem, 1967). A minority can involve social risk to overcome different barriers such as norms, social pressure and motivations to achieve what a minority set as an achievement. Moscivici (1969) was interested in minority influences and stated the importance of a behavioral style such as resisting social pressure and abuse to be an essential aspect of consistency where a minority holds their position in a group. Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance is very influential and has a big influence on the history of social psychology.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

This theory affects individuals who seek consistency with their own cognitions such as beliefs, behaviors, attitudes, or opinions on a matter. Cognitive dissonance refers to an event that involves diverging of attitudes or behaviors, which leads to discomfort and an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors to decrease the distress and increase balance (Festinger, 1957). If there is a deviation between attitudes or behaviors, something must change in the cognition in order to reduce the dissonance (Tanford & Montgomery, 2014).

Minority Influence

Minority influence is a form of social influence that is associated with exposure to a rationale minority position in a group. This influence can lead to an individual minority impact on the actions and decisions of the majority group. It moves the majority to accept and adapt to the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of the minority group (Aronson & Mills, 1959). A minority is aiming to recruit members to influence a majority to approve the minority’s behaviors and beliefs.

The Role of Cognitive Dissonance and Social Influence

Tanford & Montgomery (2014) found that both cognitive dissonance and social influence play a role in and affect the results of attitudes and beliefs in a group. Cognitive dissonance theory has numerous factors that help to identify the importance in the change of attitude. Psychology researchers such as Carl smith and Festinger have looked at forced compliance behavior, decision-making, and effort as the three main areas in the cognitive dissonance in relation to minority influence. Forced compliance behavior is when an individual is forced into doing something they do not want to do. Dissonance is shaped between an individual’s cognition and behavior whereby cognition is what they do not want to do and behavior is what they actually did.

Influence of Cognitive Dissonance on Minority Beliefs and Actions

It takes time and effort to change a behavior that is resulting in dissonance. The affected individuals try their best to convince themselves by doing the action resulting in dissonance without caring about the known consequences (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959). Minority influence has plenty of ways to reduce dissonance that is aroused by making a decision (Festinger, 1964). Increasing the attractiveness of a preferred alternative and decreasing the attractiveness of the prohibited alternative is a popular way to reduce dissonance by minority influence. Efforts of a minority group to change the behaviors of the majority thinking and behaviors are essential in impacting and shifting the paradigm of cognitive dissonance.

Consistency and Cognitive Dissonance

Festinger (1957) proposed that a theory called action-opinion could influence beliefs and attitudes by an individual’s action. It is focused on avoiding dissonance by weakening a member’s capability to make decisions. This theory can be manipulated by changing a group’s beliefs, actions, norms, and perception of action. In 1969 Moscovici and Zavalloni did an experiment to see if a consistent minority could influence a majority. From the experiment, it was evident that the minority significantly influenced the actions and decision of the majority by changing the behaviors and attitudes of the majority towards matters that might result in dissonance. The experiment also showed the bigger the minority group, the more influence they had on the majority group. The large size of the minority group acted as a source of confidence in their beliefs and opinions. (Moscovici et al, 1969).

Consistency and Belief Change

For a minority influence to effectively impact on the attitudes, beliefs, and actions of the majority in solving cognitive dissonance, specific theories have to come into play other than the individual group’s actions. Consistency is an essential aspect of part of cognitive dissonance theory. The minority takes advantage of consistency in their beliefs and attitudes to change the behaviors and decisions of the other parties that might be experiencing cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957). Minorities have to be consistent and united in their beliefs and actions in order to be inspirational in making social change. Gawronski (2012) argued that cognitive consistency symbolized a core motive, which is needed as a fundamental to achieve what a minority wanted to accomplish.

Factors Affecting Consistency

Gawronski’s main statement is that consistency would serve as the main factor cue for mistakes in an individual’s/groups system of beliefs, thinking, and reasoning when it comes to attitude and social change. The same year Kruglanski and Shteynber (2012) stated that consistency depends on the environment a person is in to achieve what is wanted. Consistency has a positive effect when it comes to desired beliefs, but if a minority is thinking negatively, consistency will be unsuccessful towards undesired beliefs. Having a motivated reasoning towards believing what is correct is commonly driven by an accuracy motive.

Power of Minority Influence

It is clearly evident that minorities have the capacity of disproportionately influencing a larger group. It could be challenging for one person to change or have a significant influence on a larger group. However, if the voice of one person is joined with others, they qualify to form a minority group, and this boosts their confidence and makes them able to significantly influence the larger group provided they work in unison. The minority finds it easy to hold their views together compared to the majority group. Their passion often leads them to obtain expertise in their areas of interest, and this increases their capacity to persuade and convince the majority groups and the relevant authorities. The majority groups who are experiencing cognitive dissonance often tolerate the opinions and attitudes of the minorities concerning a matter that brings about dissonance. They do so because they generally do not have the capacity to knit together due to their variances in interests. They seem to be conservative in nature and often time are willing to flex their opinions and views in order to fit that of other people in the group. This is unlike the minority group who holds similar interests and who agree in almost every opinion of the group.

The Role of Cognitive Dissonance and Social Influence in Minority Influence

If there is a diversion between attitudes or behaviors in a minority, the minority will not be able to power over the majority to accept the influence that is trying to come out. The cognitive dissonance theory will make it possible to influence the minority to make a change in cognition to reduce the dissonance, and the social influence will become more successful if winning over the majority to trigger a social effect. Lastly, the cognitive dissonance theory has powerful fundamentals to influence a minority by following steps, theories, and factors on how to make social changes and influence a majority to come to a bigger influential group.

Characteristics of a Successful Minority Leader

A good minority leader will be open-minded and follow the cognitive dissonance theory to increase attractiveness in chosen alternatives to get the best possible outcome of influence. Minorities do also focus on peripheral and focal attitude changes which are indirect and direct changes, a majority is more likely to change their view on peripheral (indirect) than focal (direct) attitudes.

Conclusion

Cognitive dissonance theory is a significant model in the explanation of the success of minority influence. This theory proposes that individuals often have the inner drive to keep their attitudes and behaviors in harmony with their cognition. The minority has higher chances of influence because they tend to have similar interests in a matter unlike the majority group who can often compromise their opinions to fit the interests of others in the group. Their balance of the various factors in the cognitive dissonance theory that embraces consistency contributes to the success of minority influence. The minority acts as foundations of social change in society as it has the capacity to positively or negatively impact the majority suffering from cognitive dissonance. The unison of the minority acts as a pillar of change and cognitive consonance. Resolving cognitive dissonance requires tremendous efforts on the affected. However, with the help of the minority, the behaviors and attitudes of those experiencing dissonance can be effectively corrected. The minority opinions seem to be the most significant parameters in the shift of paradigms towards cognitive consonance. The effects of conflicting behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs brought about by cognitive dissonance that eventually results in discomfort act as the compelling factors for the success of the minority influence. In this regard, minority influence tends to repair and seal the wounds of dissonance in the cognitive system.

References

Aronson, E., & Mills, J. (1959). The effect of severity of initiation on liking for a group. The Journal Of Abnormal And Social Psychology, 59(2), 177-181.

Bem, D. (1967). Self-perception: An alternative interpretation of cognitive dissonance phenomena. Psychological Review, 74(3), 183-200.

Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Festinger, L. (Ed.). (1964). Conflict, decision, and dissonance (Vol. 3). Stanford University Press.

Festinger, L., & Carlsmith, J. (1959). Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. The Journal Of Abnormal And Social Psychology, 58(2), 203-210.

Gawronski, B. (2012). Back to the Future of Dissonance Theory: Cognitive Consistency as a Core Motive. Social Cognition, 30(6), 652-668.

Kruglanski, A. W., & Shteynberg, G. (2012). Cognitive consistency as means to an end: How subjective logic affords knowledge. A fundamental principle in social cognition (pp. 245-264). New York: Guilford.

Moscovici, S., & Zavalloni, M. (1969). The group as a polarizer of attitudes. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 12(2), 125-135.

Tanford, S., & Montgomery, R. (2014). The Effects of Social Influence and Cognitive Dissonance on Travel Purchase Decisions. Journal Of Travel Research, 54(5), 596-610.

Wood, W. (2000). Attitude Change: Persuasion and Social Influence. Annual Review Of Psychology, 51(1), 539-570.