Cognitive Consistency Theory in Social Psychology: A Paradigm Reconsidered

Abstract

From the 1950s onward, psychologists have generally assumed that people possess a general need for cognitive consistency, whose frustration by an inconsistency elicits negative affect. We offer a novel perspective on this issue by introducing the distinction between epistemic and motivational impact of consistent and inconsistent cognitions. The epistemic aspect is represented by the updated expectancy of the outcome addressed in such cognitions. The motivational aspect stems from value (desirability) of that outcome. We show that neither the outcome’s value nor its updated expectancy is systematically related to cognitive consistency or inconsistency. Consequently, we question consistency’s role in the driving of affective responses and the related presumption of a universal human need for cognitive consistency.

Keywords:

• Affective response
• cognitive consistency
• hypothesis validation
• motivation

Acknowledgments

We are indebted to John Bargh, Edward, Bernat, Carol Dweck, Tory Higgins, Bertram Gawronski, Michael Inzlicht, Edward Lemay, Luiz Pessoa, Trevis Proulx, Sasha Topolinski, Bill Swann, and Christian Unkelbach for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Funding

Katarzyna Jasko’s work on this project was supported by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education (the Mobility Plus project1115/MOB/13/2014/0).

Notes

1 Because members of a group subscribe to a shared reality reality (Hardin & Higgins, 1996), the mental representation of relations among concepts is likely to be common for members of a given culture or community.

2 The conditions in which expectancy inconsistency (i.e., surprise) versus consistency impacts affect beyond the updated expectancy of desirable or undesirable outcome bears additional investigation. It is possible that in studies where inconsistency differences occurred, (a) the updated expectancy was different in the inconsistent versus consistent conditions, or (b) in the consistent condition where the outcome was expected, there was an affective adaptation to the outcome so that its desirability or undesirability, that is, its value, becomes less extreme. Specifically, individuals may emotionally adapt to expected outcomes that subsequent occurrence is less desirable or undesirable than if the same outcome occurred unexpectedly (Wilson, Wheatley, Kurtz, Dunn, & Gilbert, 2004).

3 An alternative term for describing what later became known as the Need for Closure (cf. Kruglanski et al., 1997; Kruglanski & Freund, 1983).

4 That could end up being the same irrespective of whether it was determined by information inconsistent or consistent with initial expectancy.