Leon Festinger – författare

For more than a million years, man's utter dependence on technology has been producing a host of intricate problems. For example, we steadily reduce the need for human labor while finding ways to increase life expectancy. We mass produce the automobile without grasping the harsh effects it leaves on the environment. The Human Legacy concerns the evolution and development of man-physically, socially, psychologically-into the latest version of the species we see around us today. The author paints an intriguing picture of man, living in complex societies and trying to solve the unanticipated consequences of action.

For more than a million years, man's utter dependence on technology has been producing a host of intricate problems. For example, we steadily reduce the need for human labor while finding ways to increase life expectancy. We mass produce the automobile without grasping the harsh effects it leaves on the environment. The Human Legacy concerns the evolution and development of man-physically, socially, psychologically-into the latest version of the species we see around us today. The author paints an intriguing picture of man, living in complex societies and trying to solve the unanticipated consequences of action.

Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance has been widely recognized for its important and influential concepts in areas of motivation and social psychology. The theory of dissonance is here applied to the problem of why partial reward, delay of reward , and effort expenditure during training result in increased resistance to extinction.The author contends that a state of impasse exists within learning theory largely because some of its major assumptions stand in apparent opposition to cetain well-established experimental results. The book puts forward a new theory that seems to reconcile these data and assumptions. This new theory can account for data with which other theories have difficulty: it integrates empirical phenomena that have been regarded as unrelated, and it is supported by the results of experiments designed specifically to test its implications. These experiments are fully described in the text.

Studies in Machiavellianism covers the various aspects of Machiavellian personality and characteristics. Traditionally, the "Machiavellian" is someone who views and manipulates others for his own purposes. This 17-chapter text discusses the empirical findings on approved canons of social psychological reporting concerning Machiavellianism. The introductory chapters examine the relationships between Machiavellianism and measures of ability, opinion, and personality, as well as the visual interaction in relation to Machiavellianism and an unethical act. The succeeding chapters discuss the results and implications of the Machiavel study, with a particular emphasis on the measure of success of attempts to manipulate others. Other chapters deal with the results of the Con and Ten Dollar Games along with their interpretation. The remaining chapters discuss the laboratory and field research studies of Machiavellianism, as well as its social correlation. This book will prove useful to social psychologist, behaviorists, historians, and researchers.

Deviancy: The Psychology of Being Different discusses the effects of deviancy on behavior. The book describes the effect of deviancy per se, in no reference to any particular deviant characteristic. The authors explain the methods they used in this study, as well as some checks made on the study to insure accuracy. Deviants prefer to associate with others of their kind due to fear of rejection, and they tended not to reveal their deviancy. The authors also discuss how deviants and non-deviants react and treat each other, and the degree of aggression that will be shown to a member of either group when some "fault" is assigned. They also note that 1) non-deviants choose deviants for punishment but not for reward and 2) deviants choose others like them for reward but not for punishment. The authors also show that as regards to a change in attitude, deviants are no different from non-deviants in this aspect. They also report other findings such as conformity (deviants conform less compared to non-deviants), attitude change (no effect), and compliance (depends on the circumstances). The text can prove useful for psychologists, counselors, educators, ministers, and social workers.

The study reported in this volume grew out of some theoretical work, one phase of which bore specifically on the behavior of individuals in social movements that made specific (and unfulfilled) prophecies. We had been forced to depend chiefly on historical records to judge the adequacy of our theoretical ideas until we by chance discovered the social movement that we report in this book. At the time we learned of it, the movement was in mid-career but the prophecy about which it was centered had not yet been disconfirmed. We were understandably eager to undertake a study that could test our theoretical ideas under natural conditions. That we were able to do this study was in great measure due to the support obtained through the Laboratory for Research in Social Relations of the University of Minnesota. This study is a project of the Laboratory and was carried out while we were all members of its staff. We should also like to acknowledge the help we received through a grant-in-aid from the Ford Foundation to one of the authors, a grant that made preliminary exploration of the field situation possible.

The study reported in this volume grew out of some theoretical work, one phase of which bore specifically on the behavior of individuals in social movements that made specific (and unfulfilled) prophecies. We had been forced to depend chiefly on historical records to judge the adequacy of our theoretical ideas until we by chance discovered the social movement that we report in this book. At the time we learned of it, the movement was in mid-career but the prophecy about which it was centered had not yet been disconfirmed. We were understandably eager to undertake a study that could test our theoretical ideas under natural conditions. That we were able to do this study was in great measure due to the support obtained through the Laboratory for Research in Social Relations of the University of Minnesota. This study is a project of the Laboratory and was carried out while we were all members of its staff. We should also like to acknowledge the help we received through a grant-in-aid from the Ford Foundation to one of the authors, a grant that made preliminary exploration of the field situation possible.

La théorie de la dissonance cognitive est un ouvrage majeur de la psychologie scientifique écrit par le Pr. Leon Festinger et paru en 1957. La question initiale est ambitieuse par sa simplicité : comment les individus gèrent-ils des idées contradictoires ? La réponse apportée par la théorie de Festinger a profondément modifié le paysage de la psychologie scientifique en apportant pour la première fois une théorie complète faisant le pont entre cognitions, comportements et émotions. La dissonance cognitive est une théorie essentielle de la psychologie sociale qui a trouvé des débouchés dans l’ensemble des sciences humaines et sociétales. Elle a profondément influencé les décennies suivantes et elle est à l’origine d’un grand nombre de théories relatives au Soi, à la régulation émotionnelle ou encore aux menaces. En soixante ans, ce livre incontournable n’avait jamais fait l’objet d’une adaptation française. Le présent ouvrage a reçu un soin tout particulier pour permettre au lecteur de faire la jonction entre 1960 et nos jours. Le livre est ainsi annoté de commentaires scientifiques permettant de comprendre comment la théorie a évolué. Un chapitre complémentaire permet aussi de saisir la complexité de la théorie et les ramifications actuelles. Il nous démontre ainsi que la théorie de la dissonance est définitivement une théorie moderne.