Attitude Change: Comparing two Theories of Self-Consistency and Self-Affirmation

his study compared self-consistency and self-affirmation theory with the aim of changing attitude toward a favorite individual in the context of 2×2×2 design. A sample of 120 male students of Shahid Beheshti University participated in this study. Using the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) participants were divided into two groups of low and high self-esteem. Next based on the Role Playing Paradigm (Nail et al., 2001) a scenario was read to the participants in which during a momentous meeting a person favorite to the participants rejected the request of a ten year old child who asked for his/her autograph. Half of the participants received a good explanation for this behavior (sufficient justification) while the rest received a poor explanation (insufficient justification). In order to determine two conditions of self-focus and non self-focus (third independent variable) half of the participants under both conditions (i. e., sufficient and insufficient justification) an- swered the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale before and after the scenario was read to them. Consistent with the self-consistency theory, findings revealed that in both conditions of sufficient and insufficient justification the popularity of the individual decreased more among the participants with high self-esteem. The role of self-esteem, self-focus in dissonance processes, the source of dissonance (one's own behavior or anothers) and the paradigm in which dissonance occurs are discussed.