Happy Birthday Cognitive Dissonance

John Tierney in the New York Times Science Blog:

So these five hundred social psychologists walk into a ballroom. They sit through a symposium entitled Cognitive Dissonance Theory Celebrates 50th Birthday. Afterwards there is birthday cake for everyone – two birthday cakes, actually. One is chocolate; one’s white. Neither looks particularly better than the other.

Suppose you’re in line with them for cake. You can have only one piece. You ask a social psychologist for help in choosing. He hasn’t tasted either one, but he says confidently, “Well, one is obviously going to be much, much tastier than the other.”

How does he know this? And which cake does he mean?

Posted on timeJanuary 30th, 2007 by userSimon Greenhill



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