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People rationalize for various reasons—sometimes when we think we know ourselves better than we do. Rationalization may differentiate the original deterministic explanation of the behavior or feeling in question. [3] [4] [failed verification]
If people have too much external justification for their actions, cognitive dissonance does not occur, and thus, attitude change is unlikely to occur. On the other hand, when people cannot find external justification for their behavior, they must attempt to find internal justification—they reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes or behaviors.
An example of rationalization in place would be the case of witch doctors in certain parts of Africa. Whilst many locals view them as an important part of their culture and traditions, development initiatives and aid workers have tried to rationalize the practice in order to educate the local people in modern medicine and practice. [3]
Firstly, there is the concept of instrumentality—basically the idea that people and organisations are instrumentally rational—that is, adopt the best actions to achieve their goals. Secondly, there is an axiomatic concept that rationality is a matter of being logically consistent within your preferences and beliefs.
System justification theory is a theory within social psychology that system-justifying beliefs serve a psychologically palliative function. It proposes that people have several underlying needs, which vary from individual to individual, that can be satisfied by the defense and justification of the status quo, even when the system may be disadvantageous to certain people.
Rational choice theory uses a much more narrow definition of rationality. At its most basic level, behavior is rational if it is reflective and consistent (across time and different choice situations). More specifically, behavior is only considered irrational if it is logically incoherent, i.e. self-contradictory.
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"Fearful people made pessimistic judgments of future events whereas angry people made optimistic judgements." [ 22 ] Study participants who had been induced to feel sad were likely to set a lower selling price for an item they were asked to sell; the researchers suggest that selling the item would bring about a change in the participants ...