Forced submission: attitude change and resistance to change.

Summary Traditionally, after the performance of an act contrary to an attitude (forced submission paradigm), a change of this attitude in the direction of a justification of the act (rationalization) is observed. However, in some experiments of forced submission, this classical change of attitude is not obtained. In some cases, we even observe an opposite effect: the devaluation of the act. For some authors, this effect would be consecutive to the activation of another process: the attitude maintenance process. The main objective of this study is to determine the conditions of activation of this last process. In a first chapter, we are interested in the experiments in which the effects of the maintenance process are observed. On the basis of a review of the literature, we have formulated some propositions: - unlike the process of rationalization of the act, the process of attitude maintenance is active when the attitude is resistant to change, before the realization of the counter-attitudinal act. - an attitude resistant to change is related to attitudinal cognitions (consistent with the attitude but inconsistent with the act) and non-defensible counter-attitudinal cognitions (by non-defensible we mean "not acceptable" to individuals). - The presence of defensible ("acceptable") counterattitudinal cognitions would promote attitude change. Our second chapter is devoted to a series of experiments aimed at testing these propositions: only the last one has not been fully verified. A third chapter tries to show the limits of the relevant interpretations in the field to explain our results and beyond, the effects of the attitude maintenance process. Finally, the last chapter aims to review the state of the research, in the paradigm of forced submission, by attempting to model the conditions of activation of a dissonance reduction process.