Browsing by Author "Clemerson, Peter"

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    Evolutionary psychologically predicted biases in the manifestation of cognitive dissonance : an exploration : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2009) Clemerson, Peter
    It was hypothesised that over evolutionary time, selection pressures have generated a cerebral modularity which detects survival and reproduction related contradictions preferentially over others. It was also hypothesised that contradiction-detecting mechanisms are rendered less effective if contradictions are implicit rather than explicit, or refer to the future rather than the immediate present. Explicit and implicit contradictions pertaining to the above conditions were embedded in narratives to test these hypotheses. Participants read the narratives via a computer screen, pressing the keyboard space bar to progress through the narratives line by line. A programme recorded reading times (RTs) of each narrative line. An extended RT for a line contradicting an earlier one was interpreted as indicating the generation of cognitive dissonance consequent to detecting the contradiction. A questionnaire was used to ascertain participants' subjective reactions. Analysis of the RTs provided some evidence that the hypothesised modularity exists for reproduction-related contradictions. The results, particularly those relating to survival, suggest that detection of subject matter related modularity is hindered by heterogeneous phrasing and/or the generation of mortality-related emotions. As predicted, implicit contradictions were less frequently noticed. The phrasing employed did not yield any timeframe-related difference in noticeability.
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    On the origin of cognitive dissonance : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2016) Clemerson, Peter
    Since Festinger (1957) published his monograph describing Cognitive Dissonance (CD), a wealth of research has led to a widely accepted understanding of its nature and effect on human behaviour. Holding two conflicting cognitions in mind simultaneously results in an aversive feeling which is alleviated when action is taken to resolve the conflict. In many ways, it acts like an aversive emotion though it is not widely regarded as one. Emotions are accepted as products of humanity’s evolution over many millions of years. Despite its occasional designation as ‘adaptive’ and even rarer comparison to emotions, research establishing CD as a product of Darwinian selection pressures is still lacking. In this research, three main hypotheses based upon Darwinian considerations were developed which predicted differential sensitivity to contradictions according to semantic categories. Further minor predictions were made to test relative sensitivities within categories. Verification of the main hypotheses provides clear evidence for a Darwinian explanation for the existence of CD. Two studies to test the hypotheses were based upon the contradiction paradigm. Over four hundred adults from university premises and shopping mall food courts volunteered to read short stories on a laptop computer screen. Half the stories contained a line contradicting an earlier one. These contradictory stories embraced nine semantic categories of contradiction. As participants successively pressed the space bar to display each story line, their response times were recorded. Predictions specified participants’ relative sensitivities to each category of contradiction, indexed by the differential response times of contradictory lines. Analyses of the response times of all participants combined and male and female participants separately produced confirmations of the main predictions, often with large effect sizes, and a mixture of confirmations and disconfirmations of the minor ones. Some interesting differences between male and female participants emerged for which tentative explanations are offered. The data were further analysed to verify the assumptions upon which the contradiction paradigm is based. In summary, it is claimed that this research establishes CD as a product of Darwinian evolution.