Dominique Oberlé

Denial of responsibility: a new mode of dissonance reduction.

Denial of responsibility as a mode of dissonance reduction and the conditions under which it is likely to occur were explored in 3 experiments. Two experiments tested and supported the hypothesis that following a counterattitudinal behavior, participants prefer the mode of reduction made available to them first, regardless of whether it is attitude change, trivialization, or denial of responsibility. The 3rd experiment tested and supported the hypothesis that denial of responsibility reduces the negative affective state induced by dissonance. The mechanism of denial of responsibility in dissonance reduction is discussed.

Personality Predicts Obedience in a Milgram Paradigm

This study investigates how obedience in a Milgram-like experiment is predicted by interindividual differences. Participants were 35 males and 31 females aged 26-54 from the general population who were contacted by phone 8 months after their participation in a study transposing Milgrams obedience paradigm to the context of a fake television game show. Interviews were presented as opinion polls with no stated ties to the earlier experiment. Personality was assessed by the Big Five Mini-Markers questionnaire (Saucier, 1994). Political orientation and social activism were also measured. Results confirmed hypotheses that Conscientiousness and Agreeableness would be associated with willingness to administer higher-intensity electric shocks to a victim. Political orientation and social activism were also related to obedience. Our results provide empirical evidence suggesting that individual differences in personality and political variables matter in the explanation of obedience to authority.

Differential access to information and anticipated group interaction: impact on individual reasoning.

Two studies examined the impact of relative differences in access to information and anticipated group interaction on individual reasoning. On 2 different reasoning tasks (P. C. Wasons [1966] selection task and D. Kahneman & A. Tverskys [1973] lawyer-engineer problem), participants sensing that they knew more in anticipation of group interaction or knew less when not anticipating interaction were less susceptible to typical cognitive biases demonstrated by these tasks. Study 2 also showed that the effect of these social contexts was contingent on the task presentation format. Thus, knowing more in anticipation of group interaction and knowing less when not anticipating group interaction seemingly compensated for task features that enhance suboptimal reasoning strategies. These results illustrate the importance of the social context in which reasoning is situated and are discussed in terms of cognitive tuning, social comparison, and social motivations.

Group heterogeneity and social validation of everyday knowledge: the mediating role of perceived group participation

Studies presented in this article show that participants attribute greater validity to opinions supported by heterogeneous groups than by homogeneous ones, that this effect occurs whether participants anticipate group belonging or not and that the relationship between heterogeneity and the attribution of validity to opinions is mediated by the perception of participation within heterogeneous groups. More specifically, an experimental scenario was tested in a pilot study (N = 299): group heterogeneity was manipulated and perceived group participation as well as perceived validity of group opinions was measured. Results show the expected effect of heterogeneity on the validation of opinions and also a mediating effect of perceived participation. The main study (N = 336) shows that the effect of heterogeneity occurs not only when participants are mere observers of groups but also when they anticipate group belonging. Furthermore, this study shows that whereas the effect of group heterogeneity was mediated by perceived participation, the effect of group belonging on perceived validity of group opinions was mediated by trust.

Le traitement motivé de l'information dans la prise de décision en groupe : le cas du paradigme des « profils cachés »

When complex problems are to be solved, groups are often used to make decisions. A popular reason for this is the assumption that group members work in a cooperative way and, by consequence, they make more informed decisions. This article reconsiders the classic cooperation assumption and reviews the literature on hidden-profiles from the perspective of competitive motivations. By using recent experimental evidence, this article casts doubt on some classic results and opens new perspectives of research with regard to the role of cooperative and competitive motivations on group decision-making.

L'effet de l'ordre et du délai sur l'usage de trois modes de réduction de la dissonance cognitive: le changement d'attitude, la trivialisation et le déni de responsabilité

L�objectif de cet article est d�etudier l�effet de deux variables contextuelles, l�ordre de presentation des modes de reduction et le delai post-comportemental sur l�usage de trois modes de reduction : le changement d�attitude, la trivialisation et le deni de responsabilite. Dans ce dessein, nous avons utilise le paradigme de la soumission forcee. Plus precisement, nous mettions les participants en dissonance via un essai contre-attitudinal et la declaration de liberte. Puis, nous leur proposions deux modes de reduction en faisant varier systematiquement l�ordre de presentation ; aussitot ou 10 minutes apres la redaction de l�essai. Dans une premiere experimentation, c�etaient le changement d�attitude et la trivialisation qui etaient conjointement presentes, dans une deuxieme experimentation la trivialisation et le deni de responsabilite. Les resultats indiquent la presence d�un impact du delai sur l�usage de chacun des modes de reduction selon l�ordre de presentation de ces modes de reduction. Concernant le changement d�attitude, on observe que l�usage du changement d�attitude baisse avec le delai, quand il est propose en premier. Concernant la trivialisation et le deni de responsabilite, on observe que l�usage de ces deux modes de reduction est identique sans delai et avec delai quand ils sont proposes en premier, mais augmente significativement avec le delai quand ils sont proposes en second.

Differential impact of independent and interdependent views of the self on the use of consensus and heterogeneity information: The case of validity of groups’ decisions:

In this article, we analyse the moderating effect of the activation of independent and interdependent views of the self on the use of heterogeneity and consensus information in the attribution of validity to group decisions. In two experimental studies, we present evidence showing that the participants, when primed with an interdependent view of the self, make no distinction between homogeneous or heterogeneous information regarding group composition while attributing validity to group decisions. Indeed, they base their validity attribution mainly on consensus information. In contrast, when primed with an independent view of the self, they make use of variability information as they attribute a greater validity to a more heterogeneous and consensual group and a lower validity to a group depicted as homogeneous and consensual. Results are discussed in light of the differential utility of consensus and heterogeneity information, as well as participants’ self-knowledge within the processes of validation of group decisions.