Attitude change and engagement in double submission situations.

Summary The present thesis is situated in the field of social psychology and is based on the theory of cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957) and more precisely on its radical version (Beauvois and Joule, 1981; Joule, 1987; Joule and Beauvois, 1998). Our objective is to study the cognitive effects of commitment (attitude change) in a new paradigm of dissonance theory: the double forced submission paradigm. In this paradigm, subjects perform two behaviors in succession, not just one. Indeed, the results of some research on double submission may seem contradictory. In some research, when subjects perform two contractual behaviors, the change in attitude, in the direction of rationalization of the contractual behavior, is stronger (Joule, 1991a), whereas in other research the change in attitude is less (Joule, 1991b; Joule & Girandola, 1994). It is thus as if, in one case, the second behavior increased the cognitive dissonance generated by the first, while in the other case, it decreased it. We propose to overcome this contradiction in the light of Kiesler's (1971) theory of commitment. Four experiments have been carried out: in the first two, both behaviors are contractual, in the next two, only one behavior is contractual. These experiments separate Festinger's theory from the consistency theories and from the rival theories of cognitive dissonance: the theory of self-perception (bem, 1967 . 1972) and the theory of impression management (tedeschi, 1981) in particular.