A Goal‐Priming Approach to Cognitive Consistency: Applications to Judgment

摘要: A fundamental criterion of judgment is consistency among beliefs. To augment traditional methods for studying cognitive consistency, we treat it as a goal and present priming method increasing its activation. Three studies use three criteria to validate the method: an increase in biased evaluation incoming information, speed lexical decision task, participants' direct reports greater The then used verify role diverse phenomena. Priming increases search postdecisional supporting information (selective exposure information), agreement between preference prediction (the desirability bias or wishful thinking), adjustment socially unacceptable implicit attitude conform corresponding explicit attitude. One conclusion that cause these phenomena not only motivated reasoning (driven directionally by desired outcome) but also purely nondirectional process simply making beliefs more consistent.