Content area
Full Text
Cushman usefully highlights the ubiquity and utility of rationalization processes. His account also reinforces an important and often-missed point: Rationalization provides a clear case of processing that is often unconscious but is nonetheless rationalistic, that is, involves a complex sense-making structure rather than mere association. The concept of representational exchange has many possible applications, offering to illuminate a wide array of phenomena beyond Cushman's key example of rationalization. This key example, however, does not in fact seem suited to illustrate the function of representational exchange.
Cognitive dissonance, in particular, does not have the function of increasing or repackaging knowledge about the world, ourselves, or our actions. Unconscious changes of attitudes to reduce dissonance are fundamentally self-serving. Aronson (1969; 1992) argued that dissonance reduction minimizes damage to the self-concept, which comprises the beliefs that we are good, that we are competent, and that we are stable. The negatively valenced feeling of dissonance arises when evidence contradicts these core beliefs, and rationalization occurs when we shift our attitudes to eliminate the contradiction in a way that preserves self-esteem.
The dissonance literature is full of such effects. Classic effects like effort justification (Aronson & Mills 1959) and the spreading of alternatives (Brehm 1956) arise out of a felt need to defang evidence of our own incompetence in decision making. Crucially, rationalistic dissonance reduction is modulated by self-esteem: For example, subjects who choose to shock a person who answers questions incorrectly assuage dissonance...