title: Effects of past transgressions in an induced hypocrisy paradigm.
abstract: Hypocrisy can be considered as a dissonance state expressed as a combination of two factors: commitment (advocating a pronormative position) and mindfulness (being aware of past transgressions). Such inconsistency between what people advocate and their past behaviors is usually reduced by modifying behaviors or behavioral intentions in line with normative advocacy. The aim of this study is to examine the conditions under which this set of behaviors (apparent hypocrisy) can occur. Specifically, the salience of the transgressions was manipulated: participants were led to recall 1 or 4 transgressions varying in severity (serious vs harmless). As expected, recalling 4 transgressions led to greater behavioral change than recalling only 1 transgression. Surprisingly, recalling 4 harmless transgressions induced greater behavioral change than recalling 4 serious transgressions.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Social Psychology, University of Provence, Aix-en-Provence, France. Valerie.Fointiat@univ-provence.fr
authors.forename: Valérie
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Fointiat
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Morisot
authors.forename: Muriel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pakuszewski
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001334:Automobile Driving / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D001364:Awareness; D003073:Cognitive Dissonance; D005260:Female; D006167:Guilt; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D012649:Self Concept; D012919:Social Behavior; D013997:Time Factors