RG

IN CONTEXT

BRANCH

Social psychology

APPROACH

Attitude change

BEFORE

1956 Social psychologist Leon Festinger states his theory of cognitive dissonance, which posits that having inconsistent beliefs causes uncomfortable psychological tension.

1968 The My Lai Massacre of civilians in Vietnam takes place, possibly because US soldiers dehumanized victims to reduce cognitive dissonance.

AFTER

1978 Elliot Aronson devises the Jigsaw method of learning, involving highly interdependent small-group learning, to reduce prejudice and violence at school.

1980s Psychologists argue that dissonance experiments may not reflect real attitude changes, but a desire to seem consistent ...

Get The Psychology Book now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.