False attribution of cognitive dissonance arousal in a freely consented submission situation: experimental research on rationalization in action.

Summary Among the most recent revisions of the theory of cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957), the radical version (Beauvois and Joule, 1981; Joule, 1986) makes it a theory of rationalization of behavior. The process of dissonance reduction (rationalization) allows the value of the dissonance-inducing behavior to be restored a posteriori. Moreover, on the basis of the motivational property of dissonance, this rationalization process is seen as a process with two alternative paths: a cognitive path, cognitive rationalization, and a behavioral path, rationalization in action, the use of one of these modalities reducing the probability that the individual will resort to the other. We have worked on this alternative character of the rationalization process (experiment 1), in the false attribution paradigm of cognitive dissonance (experiment 2) as well as in the lie detector paradigm (experiment 3). Our results show that the individual in a false attribution situation can no longer cognitively rationalize the submission behavior (classical false attribution effect). On the other hand, he can take the behavioral path of rationalization, provided that he is given the opportunity to do so.