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A Radical Dissonance Theory
By Jean-Leon Beauvois and Robert-Vincent Joule. European Monographs in Social Psychology Series. Bristol, PA: Taylor & Francis, 1996. xxiv + 154 pp. Cloth, 39.00 . Paper, 13.95 .
A Radical Dissonance Theory, by French psychologists Jean-Leon Beauvois and Robert-Vincent Joule, presents some of the latest in theory and research on cognitive dissonance phenomena (Festinger, 1957). As suggested by the title, the aim of the book is to introduce a radical departure from contemporary theorizing about cognitive dissonance, largely by reemphasizing aspects of Festinger's original perspective, but with the addition of some new theoretical and methodological twists. The authors unveil the radical theory across seven chapters that include the results of 33 experiments, some of which were not available previously in English. The book presents a provocative treatment of the literature and is worth a careful read by scholars interested in the basic operation and applied value of cognitive dissonance processes.
The year 1997 marks the 40th anniversary of the publication of A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance by Leon Festinger. Social psychologists are celebrating a regeneration of interest in the mechanics of dissonance, much of which has been inspired by important new findings in the work on self-affirmation theory (e.g., Steele, 1988) and by Cooper and Fazio's (1984) "New Look" summary of the literature. A recent debate has emerged between different revisions of dissonance theory (see Aronson,1992; Cooper,1992; Steele & Spencer,1992), which has led to research on new dissonance phenomena such as hypocrisy (Fried & Aronson, 1995; Stone, Wiegand, Cooper, & Aronson, 1997) and disidentification (Aronson, Blanton, & Cooper, 1995). Other researchers have returned to investigate forgotten propositions in Festinger's original monograph, such as that dissonance is experienced as a state of psychological discomfort (Elliot & Devine,1994) and that dissonance reduction can be accomplished through trivialization of a behavioral cognition (Simon, Greenberg, & Brehm,1995). Questions about the antecedents and consequences of cognitive dissonance are once again stimulating the laboratories of social psychologists around the globe.
The main thrust of the book by Beauvois and Joule is to bring forward some of the original assumptions made by Festinger and to demonstrate their underscored importance for understanding dissonance phenomena. Specifically, the authors focus on the necessity of the dissonance ratio, defined as the...