Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-t6st2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-04-18T11:21:12.441Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rationalization is irrational and self-serving, but useful

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 April 2020

Jake Quilty-Dunn Open the ORCID record for Jake Quilty-Dunn [Opens in a new window]
Jake Quilty-Dunn*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, OX2 6GG; Department of Philosophy, Washington University, St. Louis, MO63105. quiltydunn@gmail.comsites.google.com/site/jakequiltydunn/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Rationalization through reduction of cognitive dissonance does not have the function of representational exchange. Instead, cognitive dissonance is part of the “psychological immune system” (Gilbert 2006; Mandelbaum 2019) and functions to protect the self-concept against evidence of incompetence, immorality, and instability. The irrational forms of attitude change that protect the self-concept in dissonance reduction are useful primarily for maintaining motivation.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 43 , 2020 , e42
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Alloy, L. B. & Abramson, L. Y. (1979) Judgments of contingency in depressed and nondepressed students: Sadder but wiser? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 108(4):441–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Aronson, E. (1969) The theory of cognitive dissonance: A current perspective. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 4:1–34.Google Scholar
Aronson, E. (1992) The return of the repressed: Dissonance theory makes a comeback. Psychological Inquiry 3(4):303–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aronson, E. & Mills, J. (1959) The effect of severity of initiation on liking for a group. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 59:177–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beck, A. T. (2008) The evolution of the cognitive model of depression and its neurobiological correlates. American Journal of Psychiatry 165(8):969–77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brehm, J. W. (1956) Postdecision changes in the desirability of alternatives. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 52(3):384–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dowsett, E., Semmler, C., Bray, H., Ankeny, R. A. & Chur-Hansen, A. (2018) Neutralising the meat paradox: Cognitive dissonance, gender, and eating animals. Appetite 123:280–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilbert, D.T. (2006) Stumbling on happiness. Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Glass, D.C. (1964) Changes in liking as a means of reducing cognitive discrepancies between self-esteem and aggression. Journal of Personality 32(4):531–49.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Loughnan, S., Haslam, N. & Bastian, B. (2010) The role of meat consumption in the denial of moral status and mind to meat animals. Appetite 55:156–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mandelbaum, E. (2019) Troubles with Bayesianism: An introduction to the psychological immune system. Mind & Language 34:141–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, M. T. & Fresco, D. M. (2012) Depressive realism: A meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychological Review 32:496–509.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Piazza, J., Ruby, M. B., Loughnan, S., Luong, M., Kulik, J., Watkins, H. M. & Seigerman, M. (2015) Rationalizing meat consumption: The 4Ns. Appetite 91:114–28.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S. & Greenberg, J. (2015) Thirty years of terror management theory: From genesis to revelation. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 52:1–70.Google Scholar
Rothgerber, H. (2014) Efforts to reduce vegetarian-induced dissonance among meat eaters. Appetite 79:32–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rozin, P., Hormes, J. M., Faith, M. S. & Wansink, B. (2012) Is meat male? A quantitative multimethod framework to establish metaphoric relationships. Journal of Consumer Research 39(3):629–43.Google Scholar