The Influence of Positive and Negative Self-Evaluation on Postdecisional Dissonance

An investigation of 2 hyp's: (1) among people with a positive self-concept (S-C), a tendency for the attractiveness (AT) of a chosen alternative (AL) to increase, & for that of the rejected AL to decrease (directly after decision-taking), is evident; (2) among people with a negative S-C, the predominant tendency is for the AT of the chosen AL to decrease, & for that of the rejected AL to increase (both hyp's derived from F. Heider's theory of cognitive imbalance, L. Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance, & J. Brehm's exp'tion with post-decision changes in the desirability of AL's). 53 girls, aged 11 to 14, spending a month at a summer camp, were tested in 2 stages: (A) they were confronted with a choice, making the decision of choosing one object & rejecting another; (B) 2 days later, the independent variable (the S-C), was determined by 3 techniques: (a) a sociometric questionaire to determine acceptance by other girls in the same team, (b) a questionaire in the form of `Guess Who?' to segregate girls who in the opinion of others revealed the strongest need for domination or achievement, & (c) a self-evaluation questionaire Results show that among the 46 girls whose choices showed a change in AT, for the chosen AL) , & 18 the reverse. Girls with high popularity showed a stronger tendency for increased AT of the chosen AL than for the group as a whole. However, 'critical selfevaluations had no predictive value unless [they) ... were in agreement with the real sociometric rating of the S.' Thus the hypothesis 's were supported if both self-evaluation & sociometric ratings were combined. Discussion follows of more general implications re the effects of S-C in determining behavior, as well as suggestions for further exp'tion to eliminate discrepancies of interpretation in the present study. L. Gimenez Melo.