Jack W. Brehm’s research while affiliated with University of Kansas and other places

This chapter investigates how individuals react when they are unable to exert control over their environment—when they are unable to have options or reach goals that are important to them, or when they are forced to endure outcomes that they would not voluntarily choose. It reviews a number of theories that have focused on the importance of control over one's environment. Some investigators have suggested that the perception of inability to exert control over one's environment can even result in sudden death from coronary disease or other factors. Furthermore, feelings of lack of control have also been viewed as a cause of many types of antisocial behaviors. There are two theories that make rather specific predictions concerning reactions to lack or loss of control: Brehm's theory of psychological reactance and Seligman's learned helplessness model. The chapter discusses these theoretical orientations in some detail. Because these two formulations appear to make contradictory predictions, it attempts to integrate them into a single theoretical statement. The chapter also reviews the relevant evidence, and discusses a number of unresolved theoretical problems.

Hypothesized that when a new alternative is introduced, old alternatives will tend to become more attractive to the extent that (a) the individual had previously felt free to choose the old alternatives, (b) the old alternatives were already attractive, and (c) the new alternative was more attractive than the old. The amount of freedom that 51 female undergraduates felt to select any of a set of alternatives was manipulated, and then a moderately or very attractive new alternative was introduced. Although the manipulation of the attractiveness of the new alternative failed, changes in attraction of the old alternatives supported the idea that when an attractive, new alternative is introduced, the increase in attractiveness of old alternatives in a condition of high freedom is greater than that in a condition of low freedom in proportion to the initial attractiveness of the old alternative. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Discusses D. Linder and K. Crane's (see pa, vol. 44:15980) evidence in support of the reactance theory prediction that ratings of the attractiveness of 2 decision alternatives will converge as the decision point approaches in time. Some alternative explanations of their data are presented based on the inadvertent confounding of the amount of time remaining until the decision with the amount of information about the alternatives that the s might reasonably expect to obtain. In an experiment with 36 female undergraduates, time until the decision was varied independently, while expectations about additional information were held constant. Predecisional convergence of the attractiveness of decision alternatives was again demonstrated by data showing that the shorter the amount of time remaining until the decision, the more equal the attractiveness of the alternatives. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Tested 3 hypotheses: (a) a threat to the freedom to make 1 of 2 choices arouses reactance and a consequent increase in desirability of the choice; (b) the increase in desirability will be reduced to the extent that the threatened freedom is directly restored by another person; and (c) the increase in desirability will be reduced to the extent that another person, under the same threat to freedom, is observed to act so as to restore his own freedom. In Exp. I with 90 male undergraduates, the S and 2 confederates acting as Ss were to make a group decision between 2 alternatives. When 1 of the confederates demanded the selection of a particular alternative, Ss tended to want the other alternative. When the 1st confederate's demand was followed by the 2nd saying that he had not yet made up his mind, Ss tended to prefer the alternative demanded by the 1st confederate. In Exp. II with 36 male undergraduates, each group member was to make his own choice between the 2 alternatives, rather than there being a group decision. When 1 confederate demanded that all in the group choose a particular alternative, Ss tended to choose the opposite alternative. When that confederate's demand was followed by the 2nd confederate saying that he had not yet made up his mind (about his own choice), Ss tended to prefer the task demanded by the 1st confederate. Results confirm the hypotheses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

The hypothesis that volition in commitment is a sufficient condition for later negative consequences to create dissonance has not been supported by recent evidence. The more specific hypothesis that the magnitude of dissonance aroused by a commitment will be reduced or increased by subsequent, unexpected, positive and negative consequences, respectively, was suggested and tested in the following way. Under the guise of consumer research, subjects were given a choice between two attractive LP records. Some of the subjects were forewarned that by selecting the right record they could also win two free movie tickets, while other subjects were not forewarned. After the choice, half of the forewarned and half of the unforewarned subjects learned that they had won two free movie tickets by their selection of a record, while the other half learned that they had not won the two free tickets by their selection. A control condition without mention of tickets established the amount of dissonance reduction from the choice per se. A measure of change in attractiveness of the records from before and after the choice indicated that the magnitude of dissonance was affected by winning or not winning the tickets only when subjects were forewarned. It was concluded that surprise consequences probably do not affect the magnitude of pre-existent dissonance and that “felt responsibility” for consequences may be an appropriate concept for understanding the relevant evidence.

It was hypothesized that the persuasiveness of a one-sided communication would be reduced more than that of a two-sided communication when the audience was made aware there were two plausible sides to the issue. Subjects were informed they would hear the prosecution summary for a court trial, and about half of the subjects were further informed that it was not an open-and-shut case. Cross-cutting this variation, about half of the subjects were exposed to a one-sided prosecution communication while the rest were exposed to a two-sided communication. The predicted interaction between awareness of there being two plausible sides and one- versus two-sided communications was supported. These effects did not seem to be accounted for by perceived bias in the communications and were explained in terms of reactions to pressure to adopt or reject a particular position on an issue.

Examined the effect of strong threats to a person's freedom to decide for himself on an attitudinal issue, and the effect of responses to threat as a function of initial agreement or disagreement with the position of the communicator. 73 undergraduates filled out attitude questionnaires before and after reading a persuasive speech. Ss were exposed to speeches either for or against their side. Ss who received freedom threatening communications in agreement with their own position tended to move away from the advocated position, while Ss in all other conditions tended to move toward the advocated position.

Tested the proposition that imposed salience of dissonant cognitions increases postchoice regret using 36 female undergraduates. After a rating of decision alternatives, Ss chose 1 and then made postchoice ratings at 1-min intervals for 10 min. after the choice. To vary the magnitude of postchoice dissonance, some Ss chose between 2 highly rated alternatives (high dissonance) while others chose between a high- and low-rated alternative (low dissonance). Salience of dissonant cognitions was imposed by leaving stimulus materials with the Ss after their choice that would remind them of negative characteristics of the chosen alternative. Where salience of dissonant cognitions was imposed, there was an unreliable trend for regret to decrease and dissonance reduction to increase as the magnitude of postchoice dissonance increased.

Bem (1965, 1967a) has proposed a self-judgment model of attitude change in an attempt to account for a variety of hypotheses derived from dissonance theory. One derivation from Bem's model is that observer-subjects should be able to discriminate the circumstances controlling the behavior of involved subjects and to estimate accurately the attitudes of involved subjects at the end of the experimental procedure. This derivation has been supported in serveral “interpersonal replications” conducted by Bem. It was hypothesized that these results were obtained because Bem's descriptions of the experimental procedures allowed observer-subjects to perceive systematic differences between conditions in initial attitudes of involved subjects. A series of experiments was performed in an attempt to replicate Bem's results and then to show that observer-subjects cannot accurately predict the results of experiments when perceptions of initial attitudes of the involved subjects are controlled. The results of these experiments indicated that attribution of differential initial attitudes had produced the earlier results and that observer-subjects cannot predict the outcomes of attitude-change experiments when perceptions of initial attitudes are controlled by design.