Advertisers successfully use classical conditioning strategies to persuade consumers. Imagine that you are an advertising manager. For this Discussion, imagine the following scenario:

You are the advertising manager at an agency that has been hired by a corporation preparing to launch a new product. Your assignment is to design an advertisement that promises to popularize the new product and ultimately boost the corporation’s profit margin. A national ad launch guarantees the new product will have wide visibility, putting pressure on you to deliver a message that will encourage consumers to purchase the product.

For this Discussion, you will apply classical conditioning strategies to an ad campaign and analyze the formation of attitudes by classical conditioning. 

 

To Prepare

• Review the Learning Resources for this week and consider classical conditioning strategies employed to create positive attitudes.
• Also, consider how advertisers employ classical conditioning strategies to increase the desirability of their products.
• Create a fictional product not yet on the market and design an advertisement (i.e., print, radio, television, or some other type of media ad) that uses classical conditioning strategies. Search the Internet for ideas to guide you as you design an advertisement.

 Post a description of your fictional product and your advertisement. Describe the process by which classical conditioning creates favorable attitudes sufficient to encourage consumers to buy the product.  

Required Readings (All attached)

 Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., Akert, R. M., & Sommers, S. R. (Eds.). (2019). Social psychology (10th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

• Chapter 7, “Attitudes and Attitude Change: Influencing Thoughts and Feelings” 

 Staats, A. W., & Staats, C. K. (1958). Attitudes established by classical conditioning. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 57(1), 37–40. https://doiorg.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1037/h0042782 

 Levy, N., Harmon-Jones, C., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2018). Dissonance and discomfort: Does a simple cognitive inconsistency evoke a negative affective state? Motivation Science, 4(2), 95–108. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1037/mot0000079 

ATTITUDES ESTABLISHED BY CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

1

ARTHUR W. STAATS AND CAROLYN K. STAATS

Arizona State College at Tempe

O
SGOOD and Tannenbaum have stated,
“… The meaning of a concept is its
location in a space denned by some

number of factors or dimensions, and attitude
toward a concept is its projection onto one of
these dimensions defined as ‘evaluative’ ” (9,
p. 42). Thus, attitudes evoked by concepts
are considered part of the total meaning of
the concepts.

A number of psychologists, such as Cofer and
Foley (1), Mowrer (5), and Osgood (6, 7), to
mention a few, view meaning as a response—an
implicit response with cue functions which
may mediate other responses. A very similar
analysis has been made of the concept of
attitudes by Doob, who states, ” ‘An attitude
is an implicit response . . . which is considered
socially significant in the individual’s society’ ”
(2, p. 144). Doob further emphasizes the
learned character of attitudes and states, “The
learning process, therefore, is crucial to an
understanding of the behavior of attitudes” (2,
p. 138). If attitudes are to be considered
responses, then the learning process should be
the same as for other responses. As an example,
the principles of classical conditioning should
apply to attitudes.

The present authors (12), in three experi-
ments, recently conditioned the evaluative,
potency, and activity components of word
meaning found by Osgood and Suci (8) to
contiguously presented nonsense syllables. The
results supported the conception that meaning
is a response and, further, indicated that word
meaning is composed of components which can
be separately conditioned.

The present study extends the original
experiments by studying the formation of
attitudes (evaluative meaning) to socially
significant verbal stimuli through classical con-
ditioning. The socially significant verbal
stimuli were national names and familiar
masculine names. Both of these types of

1 This study is part of a series of studies of verbal
behavior being conducted by the authors at Arizona
State College at Tempe, The project is sponsored by the
Office of Naval Research (Contract Number NONR-
2305 (00)), Arthur W. Staats, principal investigator.

stimuli, unlike nonsense syllables, would be
expected to evoke attitudinal responses on the
basis of the pre-experimental experience of the
5s. Thus, the purpose of the present study is to
test the hypothesis that attitudes already
elicited by socially significant verbal stimuli
can be changed through classical conditioning,
using other words as unconditioned stimuli.

METHOD

Subjects
Ninety-three students in elementary psychology

participated in the experiments as 5s to fulfill a course
requirement.

Procedure
The general procedure employed was the same as in

the previous study of the authors (12).
Experiment I,—The procedures were administered

to the 5s in groups. There were two groups with one half
of the 5s in each group. Two types of stimuli were used:
national names which were presented by slide pro-
jection on a screen (CS words) and words which were
presented orally by the E (US words), with 5s required
to repeat the word aloud immediately after E had
pronounced it. Ostensibly, 5s’ task was to separately
learn the verbal stimuli simultaneously presented in the
two different ways.

Two tasks were first presented to train the 5s in the
procedure and to orient them properly for the phase of
the experiment where the hypotheses were tested. The
first task was to learn five visually presented national
names, each shown four times, in random order. 5s’
learning was tested by recall. The second task was to
learn 33 auditorily presented words. 5s repeated each
word aloud after E. 5s were tested by presenting 12
pairs of words. One of each pair was a word that had
just been presented, and 5s were to recognize which
one.

The 5s were then told that the primary purpose of
the experiment was to study “how both of these types of
learning take place together—the effect that one has
upon the other, and so on.” Six new national names
were used for visual presentation: German, Swedish,
Italian, French, Dutch, and Greek served as the C5s.

These names were presented in random order, with
exposures of five sec. Approximately one sec. after the
CS name appeared on the screen, E pronounced the US
word with which it was paired. The intervals between
exposures were less than one sec. 5s were told they
could learn the visually presented names by just
looking at them but that they should simultaneously
concentrate on pronouncing the auditorily presented
words aloud and to themselves, since there would be
many of these words, each presented only once.

37

38 ARTHUR W. STAATS AND CAROLYN K. STAATS

The names were each visually presented 18 times in
random order, though never more than twice in
succession, so that no systematic associations were
formed between them. On each presentation, the

CS

name was paired with a different auditorily presented
word, i.e., there were 18 conditioning trials. CS names
were never paired with US words more than once so
that stable associations were not formed between them.
Thus, 108 different US words were used. The CS
names, Swedish and Dutch, were always paired with US
words with evaluative meaning. The other four CS
names were paired with words which had no systematic
meaning, e.g., chair, with, twelve. For Group 1, Dutch
was paired with different words which had positive
evaluative meaning, e.g., gift, sacred, happy; and
Swedish was paired with words which had negative
evaluative meaning, e.g., bitter, ugly, failure,2 For
Group 2, the order of Dutch and Swedish was reversed
so that Dutch was paired with words with negative
evaluative meaning and Swedish with positive meaning
words.

When the conditioning phase was completed, 5s
were told that E first wished to find out how many of
the visually presented words they remembered. At the
same time, they were told, it would be necessary to
find out how they/eW about the words since that might
have affected how the words were learned. Each S was
given a small booklet in which there were six pages.
On each page was printed one of the six names and a
semantic differential scale. The scale was the seven-
point scale of Osgood and Suci (8), with the con-
tinuum from pleasant to unpleasant. An example is as
follows:

German
pleasant: : : : : : : .’unpleasant

The 5s were told how to mark the scale and to
indicate at the bottom of the page whether or not the
word was one that had been presented.

The 5s were then tested on the auditorily presented
words. Finally, they were asked to write down anytlu’ng
they had thought about the experiment, especially the
purpose of it, and so on, or anything they had thought
of during the experiment. It was explained that this
might have affected the way they had learned.

Experiment //.—The procedure was exactly re-
peated with another group of 5s except for the CS
names. The names used were Harry, Tom, Jim, Ralph,
Bill, and Bob. Again, half of the 5s were in Group 1 and
half in Group 2. For Group 1, Tom was paired with
positive evaluative words and Bill with negative
words. For Group 2 this was reversed. The semantic
differential booklet was also the same except for the
C5 names.

Design
The data for the two experiments were treated in the

same manner. Three variables were involved in the
2 The complete list of CS-US word pairs is not pre-

sented here, but it has been deposited with the American
Documentation Institute. Order Document No. 5463
from ADI Auxiliary Publications Project, Photo-
duplication Service, Library of Congress, Washington
25, D. C., remitting in advance §1.25 for microfilm or
SI.25 for photocopies. Make checks payable to Chief,
Photoduphcation Service, Library of Congress.

design: conditioned meaning (pleasant and unpleasant);
C5 names (Dutch and Swedish, or Tom and Bill); and
groups (1 and 2). The scores on the semantic differential
given to each of the two CS words were analyzed in a
2 x 2 latin square as described by Lindquist (4, p. 278)
for his Type II design.

RESULTS

The 17 5s who indicated they were aware of
either of the systematic name-word relation-
ships were excluded from the analysis. This
was done to prevent the interpretation that
the conditioning of attitudes depended upon
awareness. In order to maintain a counter-
balanced design when these 5s were excluded,
four 5s were randomly eliminated from the
analysis. The resulting Ns were as follows: 24
in Experiment I and 48 in Experiment II.

Table 1 presents the means and SDs of the
meaning scores for Experiments I and II.
The table itself is a representation of the 2 X 2
design for each experiment. The pleasant

TABLE 1

MEANS AND SDs OF CONDITIONED ATTITUDE SCORES

Names

Dutchum^u Swedish
Expen-
ment Group Mean SD Mean

SD

I 1
2

2.67
2.67

.94
1.31

3.42
1.83

1.50
.90

Tom Bill

ment
II

Group
1
2

Mean

2.71
3.42

SD

2

.01

2.55

Mean

4.12
1.79

SD

2.04
1.07

Note.—On the scales, pleasant is I, unpleasant 7.

TABLE 2

SUMMARY OF THE RESULTS OF THE ANALYSIS O

F

VARIANCE FOR EACH EXPERIMENT

Source

Between 5s
Groups
Error

Within
Conditioned

attitude
Names
Residual

Total

Exp. I

df

1
22

1

1
22
47

MS

7.52

1.73

7.52

.02
1.36

F

4.36*

5.52*

.01

Exp. II

df

1
46

1

1
46
95

MS

15.84
3.17

55.51

.26
5.30

F

5.00*

10.47**

.05

‘ t < .05. "p < .01.

ATTITUDES ESTABLISHED BY CLASSICAL CONDITIONING 39

extreme of the evaluative scale was scored 1,
the unpleasant 7.

The analysis of the data for both experi-
ments is presented in Table 2, The results of
the analysis indicate that the conditioning
occurred in both cases. In Experiment I, the
F for the conditioned attitudes was significant
at better than the .05 level. In Experiment II,
the F for the conditioned attitudes was signifi-
cant at better than the .01 level. In both
experiments the F for the groups variable was
significant at the .05 level.

DISCUSSION

It was possible to condition the attitude
component of the total meaning responses of
US words to socially significant verbal stimuli,
without Ss’ awareness. This conception is
schematized in Fig. 1, and in so doing, the way
the conditioning in this study was thought to
have taken place is shown more specifically.
The national name Dutch, in this example, is
presented prior to the word pretty. Pretty
elicits a meaning response. This is schematized
in the figure as two component responses; an
evaluative response rpy (in this example, the
words have a positive value), and the other
distinctive responses that characterize the
meaning of the word, Rp. The pairing of
Dutch and pretty results in associations between
Dutch and rpv, and Dutch and Rp. In the fol-
lowing presentations of Dutch and the words
sweet and healthy, the association between
Dutch and rPv is further strengthened. This is
not the case with associations RP, Rs, and RH,

CS

DUTCH ^.-=u-_ _ .

“PRETTY.

DUTCH

-HEAI/DHY

FIG. 1. THE CONDITIONING or A POSITIVE ATTITUDE.
THE HEAVINESS OF LINE REPRESENTS STRENGTH

OP ASSOCIATION

since they occur only once and are followed by
other associations which are inhibitory. The
direct associations indicated in the figure
between the name and the individual words
would also in this way be inhibited.

It was not thought that a rating response
was conditioned in this procedure but rather
an implicit attitudinal response which medi-
ated the behavior of scoring the semantic
differential scale. It is possible, with this con-
ception, to interpret two studies by Razran
(10, 11) which concern the conditioning of rat-
ings. Razran found that ratings of ethnically
labeled pictures of girls and sociopolitical slo-
gans could be changed by showing these stimuli
while Ss were consuming a free lunch and, in
the case of the slogans, while the 5s were
presented with unpleasant olfactory stimula-
tion. The change in ratings could be thought
to be due to the conditioning of an implicit
evaluative response, an attitude, to the CSs by
means of the lunch or the unpleasant odors.
That is, part of the total response elicited
by the food, for example, was conditioned to
the pictures or slogans and became the
mediation process which in turn elicited the
positive rating.

It should be stated that the results of the
present study do not show directly that Ss’
behavior to the object (e.g., a person of Dutch
nationality) has been changed. The results
pertain to the Ss’ attitudinal response to the
signs, the national names themselves. However,
Kapustnik (3) has demonstrated that a re-
sponse generalized to an object when the re-
sponse had previously been conditioned to the
verbal sign of the object. Osgood states,

The aggressive reactions associated with Nazi and Jap
on a verbal level certainly transferred to the social
objects represented under appropriate conditions.
Similarly, prejudicial behaviors established while read-
ing about a member of a social class can transfer to the
class as a whole . . . (7, p. 704).

The results of this study have special rele-
vance for an understanding of attitude forma-
tion and change by means of verbal communi-
cation. Using a conception of meaning as a
mediating response, Mowrer (5) has suggested
that a sentence is a conditioning device and
that communication takes place when the
meaning response which has been elicited by
the predicate is conditioned to the subject of
the sentence. The results of the present study
and the previous one of the present authors

40 ARTHUR W. STAATS AND CAROLYN K. STAATS

(12) substantiate Mowrer’s approach by sub-
stantiating the basic theory that word meaning
will indeed condition to contiguously pre-
sented verbal stimuli. In the present study,
the meaning component was evaluative, or
attitudinal, and the CSs were socially signifi-
cant verbal stimuli. The results suggest, there-
fore, that attitude formation or change through
communication takes place according to these
principles of conditioning. As an example, the
sentence, “Dutch people are honest,” would
condition the positive attitude elicited by
“honest” to “Dutch”—and presumably to any
person called “Dutch,” If, in an individual’s
history, many words eliciting a positive atti-
tude were paired with “Dutch,” then a very
positive attitude toward this nationality would
arise.

The reason for the group differences in each
of the experiments is not clear. These differ-
ences could have arisen because there were
actual differences in the 5″s composing each
group, or in some condition of the procedure
occurring to one of the groups. Nothing the
authors were aware of seem to indicate this
as the explanation, and in the previous experi-
ments of the authors (12) there were no group
differences. Since in a 2 x 2 latin square the
interactions are entirely confounded with the
main effects, the group differences could also
have arisen as a result of the interaction of the
other two main effects (i.e., direction of con-
ditioning and names).

SUMMARY

Two experiments were conducted to test
the hypothesis that attitude responses elicited
by a word can be conditioned to a contigu-
ously presented socially significant verbal
stimulus. A name (e.g., Dutch) was presented
18 times, each time paired with the auditory
presentation of a different word. While these

words were different, they all had an identical
evaluative meaning component. In Experi-
ment I, one national name was paired with
positive evaluative meaning and another was
paired with negative evaluative meaning. In
Experiment II, familiar masculine names
were used. In each experiment there was sig-
nificant evidence that meaning responses had
been conditioned to the names without 5s’
awareness.

REFERENCES

1. COEER, C. N., & FOLEY, J. P. Mediated generaliza-
tion and the interpretation of verbal behavior:
I. Prologemena. Psychol. Rev., 1942, 49, 513-
540.

2. DOOB, L. VV. The behavior of attitudes. Psychol.
Rev., 1947, 54, 135-156.

3. KAPUSTNIK, 0. P. The interrelation between direct
conditioned stimuli and their verbal symbols.
(Trans, from Russian title) Psychol. Abstr.,
1934, 8, No. 153.

4. LINDQUIST, E. F. Design and analysis oj exper-
iments in psychology and education. Boston:
Hough ton Mifflin, 1953.

5. MOWRER, O. H. The psychologist looks at lan-
guage. Amer. Psychologist, 1954, 9, 660-694.

6. OSGOOD, C. E. The nature and measurement of
meaning. Psychol. Brill, 1952, 49, 197-237.

7. OSGOOD, C. E. Method and theory in experimental
psychology. New York: Oxford Univer. Press,
1953.

8. OSGOOD, C. E., & Suci, G. J. Factor analysis of
meaning. J. exp. Psychol., 1955, 60, 325-338.

9. OSGOOD, C. E., & TANNENBAUM, P. H. The
principle of congruity in the prediction of
attitude change. Psychol. Rev., 1955, 62, 42-55.

10. RAZRAN, G. H. S. Conditioning away social bias
by the luncheon technique. Psychol. Bidl., 1938,
35, 693.

11. RAZRAN, G. H. S. Conditioned response changes in
rating and appraising sociopolitical slogans.
Psychol. Bidl, 1940, 37, 481.

12. STAATS, C. K., & STAATS, A. W. Meaning estab-
lished by classical conditioning. /. exp. Psychol,
1957, B4, 74-80.

Received June 12, 1957.

Dissonance and Discomfort: Does a Simple Cognitive Inconsistency
Evoke a Negative Affective State?

Nicholas Levy, Cindy Harmon-Jones, and Eddie Harmon-Jones
The University of New South Wales

Festinger (1

95

7) described cognitive dissonance as psychological discomfort that
resulted from a cognitive inconsistenc

y.

Discussion of dissonance for the past 60 years
has focused on the classic paradigms and the motivation to reduce dissonance, but some
have noted that this represents a narrow application of Festinger’s ideas (Gawronski &
Brannon, in press). Recent research has suggested, but not demonstrated, that simple
cognitive inconsistencies may also evoke the affective and motivational state of
dissonance (e.g., E. Harmon-Jones, Harmon-Jones, & Levy, 2015). In the current
experiments, participants read sentences that ended with incongruent or congruent final
words. In Study 1, sentences with incongruent endings led to more negative implicit
affect than did sentences with congruent endings. Study 2 replicated this finding, with
the addition of self-report and facial electromyography. These findings indicate that
simple inconsistencies can evoke dissonance.

Keywords: dissonance, consistency, emotion processing, implicit measures, affect

Festinger’s (1957) cognitive dissonance the-
ory revolutionized the understanding of the re-
lationships between cognitive, motivational,
and affective processes. According to the orig-
inal theory, “In the presence of an inconsistency
there is psychological discomfort” (Festinger,
1957, p. 2). Inconsistency here refers to “non-
fitting relations between cognitions” (Festinger,
1957, p. 3). Festinger, (1957) speculated that

If a person were standing in the rain and yet could see
no evidence that he was getting wet, these two cogni-
tions would be dissonant with one another because he
knows from experience that getting wet follows from
being out in the rain. (p. 14)

It is interesting to note that Festinger did not
distinguish between dissonance as a relation
between cognitions and dissonance as a moti-
vational state of discomfort: “nonfitting rela-
tions among cognitions [are] a motivating factor

in [their] own right.” (Festinger, 1957, p. 3). In
this light, Festinger’s example suggests even
simple inconsistencies would cause dissonance
discomfort. Although this theory and evidence
(see below) suggest that a simple cognitive in-
consistency should evoke psychological dis-
comfort, no prior research has tested this di-
rectly. Thus, the current research examined
whether a simple cognitive inconsistency could
evoke the psychological discomfort of disso-
nance.

Models of affect recognize that affective
states are characterized by psychophysiological
dimensions (e.g., Bradley, Greenwald, Petry, &
Lang, 1992; Russell, 1980), including, but not
limited to, affective valence (how pleasant or
unpleasant an affective state is; E. Harmon-
Jones, Harmon-Jones, Amodio, & Gable, 2011)
and arousal (Gable & Harmon-Jones, 2013). The
present studies measured both affective valence
(Studies 1 and 2) and arousal (Study 2), because
dissonance discomfort is characterized by both
negative valence (Festinger, 1957) and arousal
(Gerard, 1967; for review, see E. Harmon-Jones,
2000b).

Cognitive Dissonance and Affect

The first examination of cognitive dissonance
theory observed dissonance after a violation of

This article was published Online First September 28,
2017.

Nicholas Levy, Cindy Harmon-Jones, and Eddie Harmon-
Jones, School of Psychology, The University of New South
Wales.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed
to Eddie Harmon-Jones, School of Psychology, The University
of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia. E-mail:
eddiehj@gmail.com

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Motivation Science © 2017 American Psychological Association
2018, Vol. 4, No. 2, 95–108 2333-8113/18/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/mot0000079

95

mailto:eddiehj@gmail.com

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/mot0000079

an expectation. In this classic study, Festinger,
Riecken, and Schachter (1956) were participant
observers in a group who believed a cata-
strophic flood would occur on a prophesied date
in the near future. Many members of the group
had abandoned their normal lives in prepara-
tion. When the prophesied date passed without
catastrophe, they were confronted with evi-
dence that violated their expectation. Festinger
and colleagues speculated that these individuals
experienced dissonance as a result of the dis-
confirmation of their beliefs, or a violation of an
expectation.

Laboratory experiments on dissonance theory
have focused primarily on the ways in which
individuals reduce dissonance. However, Fest-
inger (1957) stated, “There is no guarantee that
(a) person will be able to reduce or remove the
dissonance” (p. 6). Thus, it is possible that the
affective state of dissonance can be evoked but
not reduced by typical dissonance reduction
methods (e.g., attitude change). Moreover, this
may especially be the case when the disso-
nance-evoking event is minimal. That is, with a
minimal evocation of dissonant cognitions, the
affective state of dissonance may dissolve
quickly and almost on its own via homeostatic
or opponent processes. In the present research,
we were interested in investigating the minimal
circumstances that will evoke the affective state
associated with dissonance.

Over the decades, dissonance researchers
have used a variety of methods to investigate
the affective state associated with dissonance.
In the 1960s and 1970s, researchers used per-
formance on simple and complex tasks to in-
vestigate the arousal associated with disso-
nance, with the assumption that arousal would
improve performance on simple tasks and impair
performance on complex tasks (Cottrell & Wack,
1967; Cottrell, Wack, Sekerak, & Rittle, 1968;
Pallak & Pittman, 1972; Waterman, 1969). Then,
in the 1970s to 1990s, researchers used misattri-
bution paradigms to further investigate the
arousal and negative valence associated with
dissonance, based on the assumption that if in-
dividuals were given a different explanation for
their affective state, they would not engage in
dissonance reduction (Fried & Aronson, 1995;
Higgins, Rhodewalt, & Zanna, 1979; Losch &
Cacioppo, 1990; Pittman, 1975; Zanna, Hig-
gins, & Taves, 1976). Also during these years a
few researchers found that dissonance caused

increased arousal as measured by skin conduc-
tance (Elkin & Leippe, 1986; Losch & Ca-
cioppo, 1990). However, in all of these studies,
traditional dissonance paradigms were used,
which likely evoked other psychological con-
cerns (e.g., self-worth) in addition to cognitive
inconsistency.

In the 1990s and 2000s, experiments attempted
to present participants with dissonance paradigms
that evoked mere cognitive inconsistency, uncon-
taminated by self-concerns. These experiments
found increased self-reported negative affect (E.
Harmon-Jones, 2000a) and skin conductance (E.
Harmon-Jones, Brehm, Greenberg, Simon, &
Nelson, 1996). In one such experiment, partici-
pants were assigned to write that they liked an
unpleasant drink (low-choice condition), or were
subtly induced to write that they liked it while
believing it was their own choice (high-choice
condition; E. Harmon-Jones, 2000a). Participants
then discarded the statements in the trash. Partic-
ipants reported more negative affect in the high-
choice condition as compared with low-choice
condition (E. Harmon-Jones, 2000a).

However, these inconsistencies required ac-
tion on the part of the participant (i.e., they
wrote a counterattitudinal statement). Would a
simpler inconsistency not involving action by
the individual be sufficient to evoke the nega-
tive affect of dissonance?

Simpler Inconsistencies

Proulx, Inzlicht, and Harmon-Jones (2012)
argued that simple inconsistencies could be un-
derstood in the same terms as dissonance. Other
researchers have argued that the definition of
dissonance has become unnecessarily narrow
and as a result lost explanatory power (Gawron-
ski & Brannon, in press). Returning to Festing-
er’s broader definition of dissonance, they ar-
gue, would position cognitive consistency as a
more fundamental part of information process-
ing and provide insights into more phenomena
(Gawronski & Brannon, in press). Proulx et al.
(2012) proposed that negative affective re-
sponses to a variety of inconsistencies could be
understood in the same neurocognitive and mo-
tivational terms, including cognitively complex
inconsistencies like those involved in classic
dissonance paradigms and simpler inconsisten-
cies like incongruous word pairings (Randles,
Proulx, & Heine, 2011). However, these studies

96 LEVY, HARMON-JONES, AND HARMON-JONES

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of simple inconsistencies did not measure affec-
tive responses.

Other bodies of research have found discom-
fort in response to simple inconsistencies (Bar-
tholow, Fabiani, Gratton, & Bettencourt, 2001;
Mendes, Blascovich, Hunter, Lickel, & Jost,
2007; Plaks, Grant, & Dweck, 2005). However,
many of these studies included social informa-
tion with positive or negative valence already
attached (e.g., perceptions and expectations
about others’ intelligence, as in Plaks et al.,
2005). Evidence of discomfort after a neutral,
novel expectancy violation would go further in
establishing the central role of inconsistency in
creating discomfort.

Along these lines, Dreisbach and Fischer
(2015) reviewed studies in which they found
negative affect after conflict trials in the Stroop
task (Dreisbach & Fischer, 2012a). The authors
explained this response in the context of Se-
quential Control Adaptation, which is an in-
crease in cognitive control following the detec-
tion of a conflict (see Egner, 2007, for a
review). However, it is important to note that
these studies still required participant action and
effort in encountering these conflicts in tasks
with a goal, and were concerned with “adapting
to changing task demands” (Dreisbach & Fi-
scher, 2012b, p. 1). Evidence of dissonance
discomfort in a task where there is no action on
the part of the participants and no advantage to
an increase in cognitive control would support
the idea that simple inconsistencies can evoke
dissonance.

Another body of work that is relevant to the
present work is research on perceptual and pro-
cessing fluency. For example, some research
used sentences that ended with either a strongly
expected word (e.g., The stormy seas tossed the
BOAT) or a word that was not strongly expected
(e.g., He saved up his money and bought a
BOAT; Whittlesea, 1993, Experiment 2). Re-
sults revealed that sentences with strongly ex-
pected endings caused participants to make
judgments suggesting they had an illusory feel-
ing of familiarity. Other work along these lines
has revealed results even more directly relevant
to the present work. For instance, word triads
with a common remote associate (e.g., SALT
DEEP FOAM implying SEA) evoke more pos-
itive affect than word triads without a common
remote associate (e.g., DREAM BALL BOOK;
Topolinski, Likowski, Weyers, & Strack, 2009).

These results from the perceptual and process-
ing fluency literatures suggest that cognitive
processes not too dissimilar from cognitive dis-
sonance may evoke affective responses.

The current studies aimed to look “beyond
attitude– behavior discrepancies . . . uniting . . .
phenomena under the umbrella of dissonance
theory” (Gawronski & Brannon, in press, p. 3)
by testing if a simple inconsistency evoked the
affective state of dissonance. We manipulated
consistency using sentences where the last word
was either congruent with the meaning implied
by the beginning of the sentence or incongruent
with the meaning implied by the beginning of
the sentence. We hypothesized that incongruent
sentence endings would evoke more negative
affect than congruent sentence endings.

Study 1

Because self-report measures of affective re-
sponses may be relatively insensitive to slight
changes in affect and associated with problems
of awareness and various biases, we chose to
use an adapted form of the Implicit Positive and
Negative Affect Test (IPANAT; Quirin, Kazén,
& Kuhl, 2009) to measure implicit affective
responses to the dissonance manipulation. Here
we will briefly explain the conceptual and em-
pirical framework of this implicit measure.

Strack and Deutsch (2004) proposed that
people process information with both a reflec-
tive system, based on conceptual propositions
and clarifications, and an associative system,
which works via the spreading activation of
representations. Although self-report measures
tap into the reflective system, implicit measures
can tap into the associative system, circumvent-
ing issues of awareness and biased or erroneous
self-reporting.

Working from a similar theoretical model,
Quirin et al. (2009) developed the IPANAT to
measure implicit affect. In this task, participants
see neutral nonwords. Participants nominate to
what degree these nonwords express each of six
positive and negative emotions. As a demon-
stration of the measure’s sensitivity, the exper-
imenters presented participants with emotion-
ally arousing pictures either positive (e.g., cute
animals) or negative (e.g., a crying child) in
valence. After pictures with negative content,
participants rated the nonwords as conveying
more negative emotions. After pictures with

97DISSONANCE AND DISCOMFORT

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positive content, participants rated the non-
words as conveying more positive emotions.

Throughout this article we refer to partici-
pants’ responses to the nonwords that make up
this measure. These responses reflect the affec-
tive valence of participants’ reactions. We pre-
dicted that participants’ ratings of nonwords
would demonstrate more negative affect after
incongruent sentence endings than after congru-
ent sentence endings, suggestive that this min-
imal dissonance manipulation indeed evoked
negative affect.

Method

Participants. Participants were recruited
through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (n � 199
[127 females]) and were paid 75 cents for their
time. All participants were residents of the United
States, between 18 and 76 years of age. We de-
termined the sample size given an estimated effect
size from a previous unpublished exploratory
study, by means of an effect size calculator (a
priori dependent samples t test, Cohen’s dav � 0.2,
� � .90, � � .05, one-tailed).

Procedure. Each trial started with fixation
asterisks shown for 1,000 ms, then the first word
of a sentence for 200 ms, then a blank screen for
300 ms, and then the next word for 200 ms and so
on (after Duncan et al., 2009; Thornhill & Van
Petten, 2012). Following the offset of the sen-
tence-final word, a blank screen occupied the dis-
play for a variable interval between 2,300 ms and
2,800 ms.

Participants then saw a nonword in green
(which distinguished these words from the pre-
vious words in black text) for 1,500 ms before it
was replaced on screen by a rating scale. Once
participants made a rating, they saw a blank
screen for 1,000 ms before the next sentence
started.

Design and materials. Of the 50 sentences
seen by each participant, 25 ended with a word
incongruent with the contents of the rest of the
sentence and 25 ended with a word congruent
with the contents of the rest of the sentence (see
below for examples). Sentences were presented
in one of eight pseudorandom orders, to control
for order effects.

Block and Baldwin (2010) provided the sen-
tence stimuli. The full set, along with the sen-
tence completion norms, may be downloaded
from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/

46095540_Cloze_probability_and_completion_
norms_for_498_sentences_Behavioral_and_
neural_validation_using_event-related_potentials.
From this set, we chose sentences with the highest
cloze probability that also did not have any emo-
tional or arousing content. To create incongruent
versions of the sentences, we swapped final words
with others from the set (after Duncan et al., 2009;
Thornhill & Van Petten, 2012). Sentences that
ended with a congruent word for some partici-
pants ended with an incongruent word for others
to control for effects of particular combinations.
For instance, all participants saw the words, “She
couldn’t start her car without the right . . . .” Some
participants saw the sentence end with the incon-
gruent ending “teeth.” Other participants saw the
congruent ending “keys.”

The IPANAT displayed a single 7-point scale
after each sentence. Participants saw a nonword,
and then saw the question “Do you think this word
expresses . . .” and selected one of the following: 1 �
“Something very bad or unpleasant,” 2 � “Some-
thing fairly bad or unpleasant,” 3 � “Something
slightly bad or unpleasant,” 4 � “Something neu-
tral,” 5 � “Something slightly good or pleasant,”
6 � “Something fairly good or pleasant,” 7 �
“Something very good or pleasant.”

Our study involved more trials than Quirin et
al. (2009), so we developed more nonwords in
the same way that they did. To develop our set
of nonwords, 72 participants rated 552 non-
words in an online survey. They rated nonwords
such as “KICAL” and “TOBAL” on valence
(from 1 � very unpleasant to 5 � very pleas-
ant), familiarity (from 1 � not at all familiar to
5 � extremely familiar), and meaning (from
1 � I have no clue what it means to 5 � I’m
sure I know what it means). We first eliminated
words below 2.70 or above 3.30 on the valence
item. We then eliminated words rated any
higher than “not very familiar” on the familiar-
ity item. Of the remaining set, we selected the
50 nonwords rated least meaningful on the
meaning item. Ratings fell between 1.07 and
1.45 on meaning, with a mean of 1.30.

Data analysis. For each participant, we av-
eraged across all responses to nonwords after
incongruent endings and compared this to the
average of all responses to nonwords after con-
gruent endings. We predicted mean ratings of
nonwords after incongruent sentence endings
would be significantly more negative than rat-
ings of nonwords after congruent sentences, as

98 LEVY, HARMON-JONES, AND HARMON-JONES

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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46095540_Cloze_probability_and_completion_norms_for_498_sentences_Behavioral_and_neural_validation_using_event-related_potentials

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46095540_Cloze_probability_and_completion_norms_for_498_sentences_Behavioral_and_neural_validation_using_event-related_potentials

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46095540_Cloze_probability_and_completion_norms_for_498_sentences_Behavioral_and_neural_validation_using_event-related_potentials

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46095540_Cloze_probability_and_completion_norms_for_498_sentences_Behavioral_and_neural_validation_using_event-related_potentials

determined by a paired samples t test. For our
studies, predictions were derived from theory,
and therefore were made a priori and were di-
rectional. As such, the tests for Studies 1 and 2
are one-tailed, as are all confidence intervals
(Rosenthal, Rosnow, & Rubin, 2000).

Results and Discussion

Participants rated nonwords presented after
incongruent sentence endings as expressing
something more negative (M � 4.07, SD �
0.45) than those after congruent sentence end-
ings (M � 4.17, SD � 0.47), t(198) � 2.84, p �
.002, dav � .22, 95% confidence interval (CI)
[0.031, 0.176].

In support of the hypothesis, participants im-
plicitly expressed more negative affect after in-
congruent sentences than after congruent sen-
tences. This result provides support for the idea
that cognitively simple inconsistencies evoke
discomfort (Proulx et al., 2012).

In the next study, we aimed to replicate the
implicit affect finding in a laboratory setting,
with the addition of self-report and electrophys-
iological measures.

Study 2

To replicate and extend the findings of Study
1, we designed a second study including ratings
of nonwords like Study 1, as well as self-report
items of affective valence and arousal, an elec-
tromyographic (EMG) measure of affective re-
sponse to sentences, and an electroencephalo-
graphic (EEG) measure of responses to the final
word of the sentences. Below we discuss the
rationale for each of these measures.

Self-reported affect is typically measured by
asking participants how they feel directly after a
manipulation (e.g., Greenberg et al., 1990;
Twenge, Catanese, & Baumeister, 2003) and
commonly using the Positive and Negative Af-
fect Schedule (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen,
1988). However, research has shown problems
with the validity and sensitivity of this measure
(C. Harmon-Jones, Bastian, & Harmon-Jones,
2016a, 2016b; E. Harmon-Jones, Harmon-
Jones, Abramson, & Peterson, 2009; Pettersson
& Turkheimer, 2013). Our affect valence mea-
sure simply asked participants to recall how
positive or negative they felt after incongruent
and congruent sentences. Similarly, our self-

reported arousal measure simply asked them to
recall how aroused they felt after incongruent
and congruent sentences.

These items require participants to recall and
make generalisations about their experience
with these trials, which could also introduce
hindsight bias and demand characteristics.
However recent evidence supports participants’
ability to accurately recall and report their
affective states (C. Harmon-Jones, Bastian, &
Harmon-Jones, 2016a, 2016b). These issues
were why we first used an implicit measure, and
why these self-report items are considered as
supplementary to our other measures.

We examined facial EMG activity after in-
congruent and congruent final words of sen-
tences. In particular, we recorded activity over
the corrugator supercilii muscle, which is lo-
cated on the brow above the inner corner of the
eye. Corrugator EMG activity is a sensitive
measure of negative affective responses to a
variety of stimuli (Allen, Harmon-Jones, &
Cavender, 2001; Cacioppo & Petty, 1979; Dim-
berg, 1982; Larsen, Norris, & Cacioppo, 2003;
Schwartz, Fair, Salt, Mandel, & Klerman 1976;
Topolinsky & Strack, 2015).

We also recorded EEG potentials time-
locked to the onset of the final words of each
sentence. Different components of this potential
(known as the event-related potential or ERP)
inform our understanding of the neural pro-
cesses underlying responses to stimuli. The
N400 component of this potential is a negative-
going component that peaks over parietal brain
regions and is studied in relation to responses to
language stimuli (Kutas & Federmeier, 2011).
The sentences used in Studies 1 and 2 come
from literature investigating the N400 compo-
nent of the ERP. Consequently, we investigated
this component and its relationship with affec-
tive responses. The magnitude of the N400 is
associated with the degree of semantic congru-
ity a word has for a particular sentence. Incon-
gruent sentence endings elicit a greater N400. It
is important to note that this is not an affective
measure, but acts as a manipulation check that
the incongruent sentence endings were in fact
perceived as incongruent.

We hypothesized that incongruent sentences
would lead to greater negative affect than con-
gruent sentences, as measured by self-report,
corrugator EMG activity, and nonword ratings
(i.e., IPANAT). We predicted that incongruent

99DISSONANCE AND DISCOMFORT

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sentence endings would cause a larger (i.e.,
more negative) N400 component than congru-
ent sentence endings, by way of a manipulation
check.

Method

Participants. Participants were first-year
psychology students at the University of New
South Wales participating for course credit (n �
96 [54 females]). All participants were right-
handed, between 18 and 30 years old, had normal
or corrected-to-normal vision. The description of
the study invited participants to participate in a
study about words, associations, and emotions.
We determined the sample size given an estimated
effect size from a previous unpublished explor-
atory study by means of an effect size calculator (a
priori dependent samples t test, Cohen’s dav � 0.2,
� � .90, � � .05, one-tailed).

Procedure. Participants were fitted with a
64-electrode EEG array, with two reference
electrodes on the earlobes. Participants were
also fitted with two EMG electrodes over the
corrugator muscle. We recorded 4 min of EEG
data while participants rested. This allows par-
ticipants and their electrode signals to settle.
After receiving instructions, participants began
viewing sentence trials. Trials were presented in
the same way as in the online study, but with
two rests of 1 min after 60 and 120 trials were
completed, to prevent fatigue. Once all 180
trials were finished, participants were debriefed.

Design and materials. The design and ma-
terials for this study were similar to the online
study, except that participants saw 180 sen-
tences, of which 90 ended with an incongruent
word and 90 ended with a congruent word. We
used 180 trials to ensure we had sufficient trials
for the EMG and ERP analyses.

Self-report items followed the main body of
the experiment. Participants completed “The
sentences with UNEXPECTED endings made
me feel ____” on 7-point scales for affective
valence (1 � negative to 7 � positive,) and
arousal (1 � unaroused to 7 � aroused). For
both of these items, only the endpoints were
labeled. Participants completed the same two
scales for “sentences with EXPECTED end-
ings.”

Data processing and analysis. The corru-
gator EMG data were processed off-line after
Fridlund and Cacioppo (1986). The continu-

ous raw EMG signal was band-pass filtered
(10 –500 Hz with a 12dB/octave roll-off). The
data were then rectified. We exported the
average values for two 1,000 ms segments
(0 –1,000 ms and 1,000 –2,000 ms) following
the onset of the final word of each sentence
for each participant. The following stimulus
onset appeared between 2,600 ms and 3,100 ms
after the onset of the final word of a trial so we
did not examine the period between 2,000 –
3,000 ms. We subtracted the mean activity in
the 200-ms period before the onset of the final
word to adjust for baseline activity. We aver-
aged the mean activity in both 1,000 ms periods
across all incongruent trial values and across all
corrected congruent trial values. We compared
average activity at each time using paired sam-
ples t tests.

To process the EEG data, we used Brain
Vision Analyzer 2.0. EEG signals were refer-
enced to the average signal from the earlobe
electrodes. They were then filtered using a 0.1
Hz hi-pass Butterworth filter with a 48 dB/
octave roll-off and a 30 Hz low-pass filter of the
same family with a 48 dB/octave roll-off (Foti
& Hajcak, 2008; MacNamara, Foti, & Hajcak,
2009).

The program identified artifacts in individual
channels (signals from particular sites on the
scalp) of the EEG data for removal. It removed
trials if there was a step in voltage of 50 �V or
more within a millisecond, if there was differ-
ence of more than 300 �V within 1,000 ms, if
the amplitude of the signal exceeded � 100 �V
at any point, or if the activity within 100 ms was
less than 0.5 �V. Each segment was then base-
line corrected and averaged by trial type. This
process is in line with previous ERP research
(Foti & Hajcak, 2008).

To analyze the N400, the time window for
data export was 300 –500 ms. The exported
values for sites Cz, CPz, Pz, CP1, and CP2 were
averaged for each trial type (after Thornhill &
van Petten, 2012) and compared using a paired
samples t test.

Results and Discussion

For the first 10 participants, a programming
error prevented the self-report data being re-
corded. We also excluded 10 participants who
reported levels of English fluency other than
“extremely fluent” on a four-point scale. Our

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manipulation relied on interrupting the fluency
of sentence comprehension, so a high level of
fluency was necessary.

During the debriefing, the experimenter care-
fully probed for participant suspicion and noted
whether the participant was suspicious of the
hypotheses of the experiment. Twenty-five par-
ticipants out of the remaining 86 had at least
some suspicion of the experiment’s hypothesis.
Participants were considered suspicious if they
said the aim of the experiment was to examine
emotions. When these participants are excluded
from the analysis, none of the measures differed
in significance. As such, we report tests includ-
ing their data. See Figure 1 for a graphical
representation of normalized means most rele-
vant to our conclusions.

N400. Participants displayed the typical
N400 effect. The N400 component was more
negative in response to incongruent sentence
endings (M � 2.63 �V, SD � 6.13) than to
congruent sentence endings (M � 7.38 �V,
SD � 6.44), t(85) � 12.53, p � .001, dav �
0.89, 95% CI [4.12, 5.38]. Thus, our manipula-

tion was successful in creating incongruent sen-
tence endings.

Corrugator EMG activity. Participants sho-
wed greater corrugator EMG activity after in-
congruent sentence endings (M � 1.03 �V,
SD � 4.37) than after congruent sentence end-
ings (M � �0.41 �V, SD � 5.45), in the period
between 1,000 and 2,000 ms after the onset of
the final word, t(85) � 1.80, p � .04, dav �
0.291, 95% CI [0.11 �V, 2.77 �V]. In the 1,000
ms immediately following the onset of the final
word (which contains responses related to ori-
enting as well; see Dimberg, Thunberg, &
Elmehed, 2000), corrugator EMG activity after
incongruent sentence endings (M � 0.20 �V,
SD � 1.71 �V) was not significantly different
to EMG activity after congruent sentence end-
ings (M � �.20 �V, SD � 3.20 �V), t(85) �
1.27, p � .17, dav � 0.16, 95% CI [�0.30 �V,
1.10 �V].

Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test.
Participants rated nonwords presented after in-
congruent sentence endings as expressing
something more negative (M � 4.02, SD �

Figure 1. Normalized (z score) scores for Study 2 means for corrugator electromyographic
(EMG) activity (1,000 –2,000 ms), self-reported arousal, Implicit Positive and Negative
Affect Test ratings (IPANAT), and self-reported affective valence in response to incongruent
and congruent sentence endings. For corrugator EMG, more positive scores indicate more
EMG activity; for self-reported arousal, more positive scores indicate more arousal; for
IPANAT, more positive scores indicate more positive affect; and for self-reported affect,
more positive scores indicate more positive affect.

101DISSONANCE AND DISCOMFORT

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0.36) than those presented after congruent end-
ings (M � 4.12, SD � 0.35), t(85) � 3.11, p �
.002, dav � 0.28, 95% CI [0.05, 0.17]. These
results replicate those of Study 1.

Self-report. Participants reported feeling
more negative after incongruent sentence end-
ings (M � 3.92, SD � 1.28) than after congru-
ent sentence endings (M � 4.87, SD � 1.37),
t(75) � 4.11, p � .001, dav � 0.71, 95% CI
[0.56, 1.33]. Participants also reported feeling
more aroused after incongruent sentence end-
ings (M � 3.72, SD � 1.59) than after congru-
ent sentence endings (M � 3.17, SD � 1.27),
t(75) � 2.59, p � .006, dav � 0.471, 95% CI
[0.20, 0.91].

Conclusion

Replicating Study 1, participants expressed
more negative affect on the measure of implicit
affect in response to incongruent endings than
congruent endings. In an extension of Study 1,
Study 2 found that participants displayed more
corrugator EMG activity to incongruent than
congruent endings. However, corrugator EMG
activity only differed significantly in the second
time period of interest. The first time period
showed a difference in the same direction.
Given that the first time period is contaminated
by orienting (see Dimberg et al., 2000), this
weaker difference is understandable. Finally,
participants reported feeling more negative af-
fect and arousal to incongruent than congruent
endings.

One concern about Study 2 that should be
noted is that corrugator EMG could reflect other
psychological processes in addition to negative
affect. For instance, past research has found that
corrugator EMG is related to cognitive effort
(de Morree, & Marcora, 2010). However, the
inclusion of other measures of negative affect
(i.e., self-reports, IPANAT) that have high con-
vergent validity mitigates this concern. Future
research would benefit from the inclusion of
additional measures of negative affect.

General Discussion

The current studies found negative affective
responses to simple inconsistencies across im-
plicit (nonword ratings), physiological (corru-
gator EMG responses), and self-report mea-
sures. This is the first demonstration of

dissonance discomfort in response to a simple
inconsistency in the absence of information
with positive or negative valence already at-
tached to it (Plaks et al., 2005) and in the
absence of participant action and effort
(Dreisbach & Fisher, 2015).

Festinger originally conceived dissonance as
concerning inconsistencies between “any
knowledge, opinion, or belief about the envi-
ronment, about oneself, or about one’s behav-
ior” (Festinger, 1957, p. 3). The current findings
support a return to this broader focus of disso-
nance research, which would include responses
to simpler inconsistencies (Gawronski & Bran-
non, in press; E. Harmon-Jones et al., 2015).
This return would allow dissonance research to
shed light on a wider variety of phenomena
(Gawronski & Brannon, in press).

Methodological Considerations

Although multiple measures of negative af-
fect were used in the current studies to make
alternative explanations less likely to account
for the results, some readers might question
whether some of the current effects are due to
demand characteristics. We suggest that al-
though demand characteristics might be able to
explain the self-report affect and arousal differ-
ences, demand would not be easily able to ex-
plain the results obtained using the more im-
plicit measures (EMG, IPANAT).

Some readers might suggest that the incon-
sistency found in the incongruent sentences
could better be described as “meaninglessness.”
We concur that inconsistency interferes with
meaning or “making sense.” That is, inconsis-
tency often evokes a perception of meaningless-
ness (Proulx et al., 2012). This link is clear
when one tries to think of examples of mean-
inglessness without some inconsistency. Others
might suggest that participants experienced
frustration at not being able to complete the task
of comprehending the incongruent sentences.
The explicit instructions to participants did not
require them to comprehend the sentences, and
thus they were unlikely to be frustrated by this
type of explicit goal. However, they may have
experienced frustration because of the violated
expectations created by the incongruent sen-
tences. Frustration, which is often created by
violated expectations, may also fall under the
umbrella of cognitive inconsistency, particu-

102 LEVY, HARMON-JONES, AND HARMON-JONES

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larly in the way Festinger’s original theory de-
fined inconsistency. Cognitive inconsistency
(dissonant cognitions) is a broad theoretical
construct that incorporates expectation viola-
tion, challenges to meaning, and frustration
(Festinger, 1957).

According to Festinger’s original theory, sev-
eral variables should determine the degree of
discomfort dissonant cognitions cause. One of
these is the relevance of the cognitions to each
other (Festinger, 1957). In relation to the current
experimental methods, the cognition (or expec-
tation) created by the sentence stem is relevant
to (and [in]consistent with) the cognition cre-
ated by the last word of the sentence. A word in
the final position of a sentence is perceived as
relevant to the beginning of the sentence, be-
cause past experience has indicated that in most
sentences, this connection is meaningful. In
other words, individuals read and hear sen-
tences in which the stem of the sentence and the
final word are both relevant to meaning of that
sentence. Because individuals in our experi-
ments had experience with the language used,
the structure of a sentence imbues the words in
that sentence with relevance to each other, even
if some of those words are not expected. Our
manipulation is effective precisely because
words in a sentence are always expected to be
relevant to each other.

Relation to Other Lines of Research

Our findings complement research on con-
ceptual and perceptual processing fluency. Con-
ceptual fluency research relies on more coherent
information (such as a word triad with a com-
mon remote associate; e.g., SALT DEEP
FOAM implying SEA) being processed more
fluently than other information (such as a word
triad without a common remote associate; e.g.,
DREAM BALL BOOK; Topolinski et al.,
2009). Perceptual fluency research relies on vi-
sually coherent information (such as a picture of
a normal cube) being processed more fluently
than incoherent visual information (such as a
picture of an impossible cube; Topolinski, Erle,
& Reber, 2015). Individuals have more positive
(less negative) affective reactions to informa-
tion that is more easily processed, as measured
by facial muscle activity (Topolinski et al.,
2009, 2015; Winkielman & Cacioppo, 2001),
self-reported liking of the stimuli (Mandler, Na-

kamura, & Van Zandt, 1987; Reber, Winkiel-
man, & Schwarz, 1998; Topolinski & Strack,
2009a), and the affective influence of the stim-
uli on subsequent task performance (Reber et
al., 1998, Study 1; Topolinski & Strack, 2009b,
2009c).

In the processing fluency literature, more flu-
ency indicates success in processing, which
causes an increase in positive affect (Topolinksi
et al., 2015). We believe that this processing
fluency research fits with ideas derived from
dissonance theory, even though the processing
fluency research has focused more on fluency
increasing positive affect than on dysfluency
increasing negative affect. The present research
addresses this latter point and it is consistent
with Festinger’s ideas about dissonance theory.
That is, although many researchers considered
dissonance theory to be an ego-defense theory
(Aronson, 1968, 1999), Festinger considered
dissonance theory to involve basic perceptual
and motivational processes. For example, Fest-
inger and colleagues conducted several experi-
ments designed to evoke a dissonance between
two basic perceptions about reality—visual and
tactile (Festinger, Ono, Burnham, & Bam-
ber,1967). In these experiments, participants
wore prism goggles that made the straight edge
of a door appear curved. When the participants
touched the straight edge of the door with their
hands, their perceptual system assimilated the
tactile information to create the perception that
the door was in fact curved even though it was
straight. In other words, the perceptual system
had already developed an illusion or a quick-
and-easy way to deal with the dissonance.

Our findings also converge with recent work
on the valence of surprise. Expectancy viola-
tions are often surprising (Meyer, Niepel, Ru-
dolph, & Schützwohl, 1991). The research lit-
erature on the feeling of surprise varies between
positing that surprise feels good (Fontaine,
Scherer, Roesch, & Ellsworth, 2007), bad
(Noordewier & Breugelmans, 2013), or neutral
(Mellers, Fincher, Drummond, & Bigony,
2013). One perspective explains this confusion
as due to different researchers focusing on dif-
ferent time periods during and/or after an unex-
pected event (Noordewier, Topolinski, & Van
Dijk, 2016). These authors argue that surprise is
initially negative, and is very quickly replaced
with other feelings that are influenced by an
understanding of the unexpected event. Partici-

103DISSONANCE AND DISCOMFORT

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pu
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pants describe their own experience of surprise
as significantly more negative when reporting
how they felt at the moment that the surprise
happens, compared with after a short while
(Noordewier & Breugelmans, 2013, Study 1).
Participants also rate facial expressions of oth-
ers as more negative in the first couple of sec-
onds following a positive unexpected event than
four seconds after (Noordewier & Breugelmans,
2013, Study 3a). Our study found early negative
responses to unexpected events, supporting this
perspective on surprise. Dissonance perspec-
tives such as the action-based model of disso-
nance suggest that surprise may be initially neg-
ative because it prevents one from knowing how
to behave (E. Harmon-Jones, 1999; E. Harmon-
Jones, Amodio, & Harmon-Jones, 2009). Sur-
prise indicates a discrepancy between what was
expected and what happened, making it difficult
to know how to behave. Resolving this discrep-
ancy reduces this negative affect and allows
easier behavioral responses.

Along similar lines, the conflict monitoring
hypothesis describes a system that identifies
cognitive conflict and adjusts effort and atten-
tion in response. The conflict detection system
is mediated by activity in the anterior cingulate
cortex, and cognitive control is then mediated
by activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
(Botvinick, Braver, Barch, Carter, & Cohen,
2001). Simple response conflicts (Botvinick,
Nystrom, Fissell, Carter, & Cohen 1999) and
conflicts where behavior is inconsistent with the
self-concept (Amodio et al., 2004) both evoke
this conflict-related anterior cingulate activity.
As a result, the conflict monitoring hypothesis
can be understood in the same motivational and
neurocognitive terms as dissonance processes,
as discussed previously (E. Harmon-Jones,
2004; E. Harmon-Jones, Amodio, & Harmon-
Jones, 2009; Proulx, Inzlicht, & Harmon-Jones,
2012). Thus, dissonance theory could provide
predictions for how individuals resolve conflicts
considered in the conflict monitoring literature
(e.g., via attitude change, adding cognitions, see
Festinger, 1957). It would also suggest that the
cognitive conflict monitoring process is intrin-
sically affective and motivational in nature.

Conclusion

Cognitive dissonance theory has gained at-
tention for so many years precisely because the

research vividly demonstrates the power of af-
fective processes to overrule the jurisdiction of
cold reason. Given how frequently we come in
contact with inconsistency in everyday life, its
influence on mental processes is important to
better understand. This line of research has the
potential to contribute to unifying efforts (e.g.,
Proulx et al., 2012) in understanding similarities
and differences between effects of cognitively
simple and cognitively complex conflicts, and
bringing the field of psychology closer to a
comprehensive understanding of the interaction
between affect, motivation, and cognition.

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Received May 13, 2017
Revision received August 14, 2017

Accepted August 15, 2017 �

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108 LEVY, HARMON-JONES, AND HARMON-JONES

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.81.6.989

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.81.6.989

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0022-1031%2876%2990032-9

• Dissonance and Discomfort: Does a Simple Cognitive Inconsistency Evoke a Negative Affective State?

Cognitive Dissonance and Affect
Simpler Inconsistencies
Study 1
Method
Participants
Procedure
Design and materials
Data analysis
Results and Discussion
Study 2
Method
Participants
Procedure
Design and materials
Data processing and analysis
Results and Discussion
N400
Corrugator EMG activity
Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test
Self-report
Conclusion
General Discussion
Methodological Considerations
Relation to Other Lines of Research
Conclusion
References