Trigger a new behavior through an irrelevant and intellectually unconvincing motivator

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The unsoundness of the motivator that launches Step 1 is essential to the process; if the motivator were intellectually convincing the behavior wouldn’t arouse any dissonance. In a classic cognitive dissonance experiment, people were offered varying amounts of money to argue an opinion they actually disagreed with. If they were offered too small an amount, people would simply decline. If they were offered too much, they would give the speech but feel no dissonance; they felt comfortable telling themselves they did it for the money, so there was no need to reconsider their opinions. Somewhere in the middle was a financial offer sufficient to get people to give the speech but not sufficient to get them to feel okay about giving it. That’s when people experienced the most cognitive dissonance, and therefore the most interest in finding information to support the view expressed in the speech, and therefore the most change in their own opinions.

When an existing opinion conflicts with a proposed new behavior, people try to avoid the new behavior, because acting in ways incompatible with their belief system would arouse cognitive dissonance. When an existing behavior conflicts with a proposed new opinion, people try to avoid the new opinion for the same reason.

What about when an existing opinion conflicts with an existing behavior? People are usually more deeply committed to the behavior. So we seek out ways to resolve the dissonance that won’t require us to change what we do. Ideally, we would prefer not to have to change what we think either. We look for a rationale that makes the two compatible, or we try to avoid noticing the inconsistency. But if something’s got to go, it’s probably going to be the opinion.</p>