A Biosocial Model of Affective Decision Making

Implications for Dissonance, Motivation, and Culture

Shinobu Kitayama1; Steven Tompson    University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
1 Corresponding author: email address: kitayama@umich.edu

1 Introduction

1.1 Behavioral Conflict, Affect, and Motivation

People are conflicted in many different situations. Conflicts can happen when they face important decisions. Conflicts may also happen when they work on a demanding task such as climbing to reach the summit of a mountain. Similar conflicts will also be evident when one is confronting a loss of money, health, or a loved one through gambling, smoking, or using alcohol or illicit drugs. In all these cases, from decision making to mountain climbing, and from gambling to illicit drug use, a conflict arises because the two behavioral options are equally appealing for different reasons, but one course of action (choosing to work for one company; continuing to work on a demanding task or to gamble) precludes the other (choosing to work for the other company; stopping work on a demanding task or giving up gambling).

More often than not, the climbers continue to climb and the gamblers to gamble. Moreover, they often appear to be even more attracted to the endeavor as a result of their desire to discontinue it. For example, the climbers appear to be more attracted than ever to reaching the summit as a result of experiencing the behavioral conflict. Could the climbers be more committed to climbing because they wanted to quit? More paradoxically, in some cases, people appear to be psychologically depleted (much like the climbers who are physically exhausted) after working on a highly demanding task, as if they have used up limited “muscle power” for self-control. Under such conditions, they find other impulses and temptations irresistible and difficult to control (Baumeister, Vohs, & Tice, 2007). Is this effect (called “ego-depletion”) related to the commitment of our climbers? Why are our climbers not “depleted” after having worked so hard to climb?

The thesis advanced in the current article is that the behavioral conflict associated with any demanding task or important decision is highly instrumental in determining subsequent decisions and behaviors, with an assortment of affective and motivational consequences. We propose that humans inherit from nonhuman animals certain brain circuitries that detect behavioral conflict. Once detected, the conflict initiates an active search for incentives associated with one of the response options to select and to pursue. Exactly what incentives are identified depends on what incentives are available and salient. The gamblers may be surrounded by a lot of attractive cues built into any Casino, and, likewise, the climbers may know how breathtaking the view from the summit would be. The gamblers may therefore become addicted to gambling, and the climbers may be more attracted to the endeavor. In contrast, people may be distracted if salient incentives are irrelevant to what they do. In such cases, they may appear being “depleted.” Although some of these phenomena, especially those involving post-decisional increases of commitment, have traditionally been studied under the rubric of cognitive dissonance (Aronson & Mills, 1959), we argue that the relevant brain circuitries responsible for these effects are largely subcortical and thus arguably precognitive. They can best be characterized as affective. We share these circuitries with rodents, birds, and nonhuman primates. The resulting affective dynamic is relevant in understanding the observations made above for the gamblers, the climbers, and the person who has been “depleted.” Moreover, this analysis will shed new light on the nature of all types of both decision making and decision rationalization.

Our thesis is couched initially in terms of cognitive dissonance theory. We will show that the above affective dynamic offers an important insight into a variety of phenomena covered in the dissonance literature of the last half century. Importantly, our analysis will go beyond the traditional confines of dissonance theory. We will use the same theoretical model to understand several different phenomena, including addiction and self-control or the failure thereof. Importantly, the model is open to sociocultural influences and conditioning. This makes it possible to use the model to illuminate how people may be emotionally attached to symbolic systems of culture.

1.2 Dissonance Revolution

Our discussion starts with cognitive dissonance—one of the most prominent topics in social psychology. The central thesis of cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957) is that when two beliefs are inconsistent, individuals experience negatively arousing cognitive conflict (called dissonance). Because the dissonance is aversive, the individuals try to reduce it by changing one or the other beliefs. For example, when making a difficult decision, individuals show attitude change that justifies the decision. In this case, individuals who face such a decision are conflicted because not all beliefs are consistent with the decision. For example, they may have beliefs favoring the option that is rejected. The individuals are therefore motivated to reduce the conflict by justifying the decision they have made. The justification is typically achieved by changing their attitudes and beliefs so that the new attitudes and beliefs are consistent with and justify the decision that has been made. Notably, the resulting attitude change can be long lasting (Sharot, Fleming, Yu, Koster, & Dolan, 2012). By nature, then, we may be rationalizing beings, ready to justify what we have done after the fact.

Dissonance theory revolutionized social psychology by emphasizing the role of cognition in social behavior. More importantly, it also provided the first testable framework in which to conceptualize how cognition could be motivated and how the motivated cognition could yield some intriguing forms of social behavior. The theory enabled us, both in and outside of social psychology, to reflect on potentially unflattering aspects of the human mind. Indeed, the influence of dissonance theory went far beyond the field of social psychology. The term dissonance has since become incorporated into the English vernacular.

1.3 Charting the Terrain

As a scientific hypothesis, dissonance theory has been tested with three primary experimental paradigms (Aronson, 1969). First, a free-choice dissonance paradigm tests the degree to which choice leads to attitude change that justifies the choice (Brehm, 1956). By definition, difficult choices involve competing choice options that are almost equally attractive and thus difficult to choose between. The more difficult the choice, the greater dissonance would be expected to be. To reduce the resulting dissonance, the chooser will increase her preference for chosen options and decrease her preference for rejected options. Researchers have also used an effort justification paradigm. When people invest considerable effort to obtain a positive outcome (e.g., climbing a mountain), they supposedly experience dissonance because knowing that one worked so hard is inconsistent with the possibility that the work (e.g., climbing) is valueless (Aronson & Mills, 1959). The individuals typically justify their effort by increasing their commitment to the task. Third, in an induced compliance paradigm, individuals are led to commit an action that contradicts their beliefs or preexisting attitudes. The action therefore produces a conflict with their preexisting attitudes and beliefs. In order to reduce the resulting dissonance, the individuals change their attitudes and beliefs so that they are better aligned with their action (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959). These three...