Do amnesics exhibit cognitive dissonance reduction?
Lieberman MD; Ochsner KN; Gilbert DT; Schacter DL Department of Psychology, Franz Hall, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563, USA. lieber@ucla.edu In two studies, we investigated the roles of explicit memory and attentional resources in the process of behavior-induced attitude change. Although most theories of attitude change (cognitive dissonance and self-perception theories) assume an important role for both mechanisms, we propose that behavior-induced attitude change can be a relatively automatic process that does not require explicit memory for, or consciously controlled processing of, the discrepancy between attitude and behavior. Using a free-choice paradigm, we found that both amnesics and normal participants under cognitive load showed as much attitude change as did control participants.
