Cognitive Rationalization and Act Rationalization in an Escalation of Commitment

Abstract

The main objective of this article is to test the utility of a new concept: act rationalization (commission of a new act that justifies a previous costly act) that can substitute cognitive rationalization (e.g., dissonance reduction). Two experiments were done with a compliance paradigm. They rely on the hypothesis concerning the alternative nature of cognitive rationalization and act rationalization. The first experiment shows that the subjects who had the time to rationalize cognitively a first costly act (18-hr period of smoking deprivation), or to whom we asked to justify the first act, were less likely to commit a new more costly act (6-day period of smoking deprivation). The second experiment shows that the subjects to whom we blocked the cognitive rationalization of a first costly act (answering a long questionnaire) were more likely to commit an even more costly act (accepting an in-home interview).These results, if they support the theory of cognitive dissonance, cannot he interpreted in terms of the self-perception theory nor the self-valorization theories (self-presentation; impression management).