The Dunning–Kruger effect is a hypothetical cognitive bias stating that people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability.
As described by social psychologistsDavid Dunning and Justin Kruger,
the bias results from an internal illusion in people of low ability and
from an external misperception in people of high ability; that is, "the
miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self,
whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error
about others". It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from people's inability to recognize their lack of ability. Without the self-awareness of metacognition, people cannot objectively evaluate their level of competence.
The effect, or Dunning and Kruger's original explanation for the effect, has been challenged by mathematical analyses and comparisons across cultures.
Original study
The psychological phenomenon of illusory superiority was identified as a form of cognitive bias
in Kruger and Dunning's 1999 study "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How
Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated
Self-Assessments".
An example derived from cognitive bias evident in the criminal case of
McArthur Wheeler, who, on April 19, 1995, robbed two banks while his
face was covered with lemon
juice, which he believed would make him invisible to the surveillance
cameras. This belief was apparently based on his misunderstanding of the
chemical properties of lemon juice as an invisible ink.
Other investigations of the phenomenon, such as "Why People Fail to Recognize Their Own Incompetence", indicate that much incorrect self-assessment of competence derives from the person's ignorance of a given activity's standards of performance. Dunning and Kruger's research also indicates that training in a task, such as solving a logic puzzle, increases people's ability to accurately evaluate how good they are at it.
In Self-insight: Roadblocks and Detours on the Path to Knowing Thyself, Dunning described the Dunning–Kruger effect as "the anosognosia of everyday life", referring to a neurological condition
in which a disabled person either denies or seems unaware of their
disability. He stated: "If you're incompetent, you can't know you're
incompetent ... The skills you need to produce a right answer are
exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is."
In 2011, Dunning wrote about his observations that people with
substantial, measurable deficits in their knowledge or expertise lack
the ability to recognize those deficits and, therefore, despite
potentially making error after error, tend to think they are performing
competently when they are not: "In short, those who are incompetent, for
lack of a better term, should have little insight into their
incompetence—an assertion that has come to be known as the
Dunning–Kruger effect".
In 2014, Dunning and Helzer described how the Dunning–Kruger effect
"suggests that poor performers are not in a position to recognize the
shortcomings in their performance".
Later studies
Dunning
and Kruger tested the hypotheses of the cognitive bias of illusory
superiority on undergraduate students of introductory courses in
psychology by examining the students' self-assessments of their
intellectual skills in inductive, deductive, and abductivelogical reasoning,
English grammar, and personal sense of humor. After learning their
self-assessment scores, the students were asked to estimate their ranks
in the psychology class. The competent students underestimated their
class rank, and the incompetent students overestimated theirs, but the
incompetent students did not estimate their class rank as higher than
the ranks estimated by the competent group. Across four studies, the
research indicated that the study participants who scored in the bottom quartile
on tests of their sense of humor, knowledge of grammar, and logical
reasoning, overestimated their test performance and their abilities;
despite test scores that placed them in the 12th percentile, the
participants estimated they ranked in the 62nd percentile.
Moreover, competent students tended to underestimate their own
competence, because they erroneously presumed that tasks easy for them
to perform were also easy for other people to perform. Incompetent
students improved their ability to estimate their class rank correctly
after receiving minimal tutoring in the skills they previously lacked,
regardless of any objective improvement gained in said skills of
perception. The 2004 study "Mind-Reading and Metacognition: Narcissism, not Actual Competence, Predicts Self-estimated Ability"
extended the cognitive-bias premise of illusory superiority to test
subjects' emotional sensitivity toward other people and their own
perceptions of other people.
The 2003 study "How Chronic Self-Views Influence (and Potentially Mislead) Estimates of Performance"
indicated a shift in the participants' view of themselves when
influenced by external cues. The participants' knowledge of geography
was tested; some tests were intended to affect the participants' self-view
positively, and some were intended to affect it negatively. The
participants then were asked to rate their performances; the
participants given tests with a positive intent reported better
performance than did the participants given tests with a negative
intent.
To test Dunning and Kruger's hypotheses "that people, at all
performance levels, are equally poor at estimating their relative
performance", the 2006 study "Skilled or Unskilled, but Still Unaware of
It: How Perceptions of Difficulty Drive Miscalibration in Relative
Comparisons"
investigated three studies that manipulated the "perceived difficulty
of the tasks, and, hence, [the] participants' beliefs about their
relative standing". The investigation indicated that when the
experimental subjects were presented with moderately difficult tasks,
there was little variation among the best performers and the worst
performers in their ability to predict their performance accurately.
With more difficult tasks, the best performers were less accurate in
predicting their performance than were the worst performers. Therefore,
judges at all levels of skill are subject to similar degrees of error in
the performance of tasks.
In testing alternative explanations for the cognitive bias of
illusory superiority, the 2008 study "Why the Unskilled are Unaware:
Further Explorations of (Absent) Self-insight Among the Incompetent"
reached the same conclusions as previous studies of the Dunning–Kruger
effect: that, in contrast to high performers, "poor performers do not
learn from feedback suggesting a need to improve".
One 2020 study suggests that individuals of relatively high social class are more overconfident than lower-class individuals.
Mathematical critique
Dunning and Kruger describe a common cognitive bias and make
quantitative assertions that rest on mathematical arguments. But their
findings are often misinterpreted, misrepresented, and misunderstood.
According to Tal Yarkoni:
Their studies categorically didn’t show that incompetent people are
more confident or arrogant than competent people. What they did show is
[that] people in the top quartile for actual performance think they
perform better than the people in the second quartile, who in turn think
they perform better than the people in the third quartile, and so on.
So the bias is definitively not that incompetent people think they’re
better than competent people. Rather, it’s that incompetent people think
they’re much better than they actually are. But they typically still
don’t think they’re quite as good as people who, you know, actually are
good. (It’s important to note that Dunning and Kruger never claimed to
show that the unskilled think they’re better than the skilled; that’s
just the way the finding is often interpreted by others.)
Paired measures
Mathematically,
the effect relies on the quantifying of paired measures consisting of
(a) the measure of the competence people can demonstrate when put to the
test (actual competence) and (b) the measure of competence people
believe that they have (self-assessed competence). Researchers express
the measures either as percentages or as percentile scores scaled from 0
to 1 or from 0 to 100. By convention, researchers express the
differences between the two measures as self-assessed competence minus
actual competence. In this convention, negative numbers signify erring
toward underconfidence, positive numbers signify erring toward
overconfidence, and zero signifies accurate self-assessment.
A 2008 study by Joyce Ehrlinger
summarized the major assertions of the effect that first appeared in
the 1999 seminal article and continued to be supported by many studies
after nine years of research: "People are typically overly optimistic
when evaluating the quality of their performance on social and
intellectual tasks. In particular, poor performers grossly overestimate
their performances".
The effect asserts that most people are overconfident about their
abilities, and that the least competent people are the most
overconfident. Support for both assertions rests upon interpreting the
patterns produced from graphing the paired measures.
The most common graphical convention is the Kruger–Dunning-type graph used in the seminal article.
It depicted college students' accuracy in self-assessing their
competencies in humor, logical reasoning, and grammar. Researchers
adopted that convention in subsequent studies of the effect. Additional
graphs used by other researchers, who argued for the legitimacy of the
effect include (y–x) versus (x) cross plots and bar charts.
The first two of these studies depicted college students' accuracy in
self-assessing their competence in introductory chemistry, and the third
depicted their accuracy in self-assessing their competence in business
classes.
Some research suggests that the effect may actually be illusory, driven by ceiling/floor effects (exacerbated by measurement error) causing censoring rather than representing a true deficit in metacognition.
Cultural differences in self-perception
Studies
of the Dunning–Kruger effect usually have been of North Americans, but
studies of Japanese people suggest that cultural forces have a role in
the occurrence of the effect.
The 2001 study "Divergent Consequences of Success and Failure in Japan
and North America: An Investigation of Self-improving Motivations and
Malleable Selves"
indicated that Japanese people tended to underestimate their abilities
and to see underachievement (failure) as an opportunity to improve their
abilities at a given task, thereby increasing their value to the social
group.
Popular recognition
In 2000, Kruger and Dunning were awarded a satiric Ig Nobel Prize in recognition of the scientific work recorded in "their modest report".
"The Dunning–Kruger Song" is part of The Incompetence Opera, a mini-opera that premiered at the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony in 2017. The mini-opera is billed as "a musical encounter with the Peter principle and the Dunning–Kruger Effect".
In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information. Relevant items of information include a person's actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, and values, and things in the environment. Cognitive dissonance is typically experienced as psychological stress
when they participate in an action that goes against one or more of
them. According to this theory, when two actions or ideas are not
psychologically consistent with each other, people do all in their power
to change them until they become consistent.
The discomfort is triggered by the person's belief clashing with new
information perceived, wherein they try to find a way to resolve the
contradiction to reduce their discomfort.
In A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957), Leon Festinger proposed that human beings strive for internal psychological consistency to function mentally in the real world.
A person who experiences internal inconsistency tends to become
psychologically uncomfortable and is motivated to reduce the cognitive
dissonance. They tend to make changes to justify the stressful behavior, either by adding new parts to the cognition causing the psychological dissonance (rationalization) or by avoiding circumstances and contradictory information likely to increase the magnitude of the cognitive dissonance (confirmation bias).
Coping with the nuances of contradictory ideas or experiences is
mentally stressful. It requires energy and effort to sit with those
seemingly opposite things that all seem true. Festinger argued that some
people would inevitably resolve dissonance by blindly believing
whatever they wanted to believe.
Relations among cognitions
To function in the reality
of society, human beings continually adjust the correspondence of their
mental attitudes and personal actions; such continual adjustments,
between cognition and action, result in one of three relationships with
reality:
Consonant relationship: Two cognitions or actions consistent
with each other (e.g. not wanting to become drunk when out to dinner,
and ordering water rather than wine)
Irrelevant relationship: Two cognitions or actions unrelated to each
other (e.g. not wanting to become drunk when out and wearing a shirt)
Dissonant relationship: Two cognitions or actions inconsistent with
each other (e.g. not wanting to become drunk when out, but then drinking
more wine)
Magnitude of dissonance
The
term "magnitude of dissonance" refers to the level of discomfort caused
to the person. This can be caused by the relationship between two
differing internal beliefs, or an action that is incompatible with the
beliefs of the person.
Two factors determine the degree of psychological dissonance caused by
two conflicting cognitions or by two conflicting actions:
The importance of cognitions: the greater the personal value of
the elements, the greater the magnitude of the dissonance in the
relation. When the value of the importance of the two dissonant items is
high, it is difficult to determine which action or thought is correct.
Both have had a place of truth, at least subjectively, in the mind of
the person. Therefore, when the ideals or actions now clash, it is
difficult for the individual to decide which takes priority.
Ratio of cognitions: the proportion of dissonant-to-consonant
elements. There is a level of discomfort within each person that is
acceptable for living. When a person is within that comfort level, the
dissonant factors do not interfere with functioning. However, when
dissonant factors are abundant and not enough in line with each other,
one goes through a process to regulate and bring the ratio back to an
acceptable level. Once a subject chooses to keep one of the dissonant
factors, they quickly forget the other to restore peace of mind.
There is always some degree of dissonance within a person as they go
about making decisions, due to the changing quantity and quality of
knowledge and wisdom that they gain. The magnitude itself is a
subjective measurement since the reports are self relayed, and there is
no objective way as yet to get a clear measurement of the level of
discomfort.
Reduction
Cognitive
dissonance theory proposes that people seek psychological consistency
between their expectations of life and the existential reality
of the world. To function by that expectation of existential
consistency, people continually reduce their cognitive dissonance in
order to align their cognitions (perceptions of the world) with their
actions.
The creation and establishment of psychological consistency
allows the person afflicted with cognitive dissonance to lessen mental
stress by actions that reduce the magnitude of the dissonance, realized
either by changing with or by justifying against or by being indifferent
to the existential contradiction that is inducing the mental stress. In practice, people reduce the magnitude of their cognitive dissonance in four ways:
Change the behavior or the cognition ("I'll eat no more of this doughnut.")
Justify the behavior or the cognition, by changing the conflicting
cognition ("I'm allowed to cheat my diet every once in a while.")
Justify the behavior or the cognition by adding new behaviors or
cognitions ("I'll spend thirty extra minutes at the gymnasium to work
off the doughnut.")
Ignore or deny information that conflicts with existing beliefs ("This doughnut is not a high-sugar food.")
Three cognitive biases are components of dissonance theory. The bias
that one does not have any biases, the bias that one is "better, kinder,
smarter, more moral and nicer than average" and confirmation bias.
That a consistent psychology is required for functioning in the real world also was indicated in the results of The Psychology of Prejudice (2006), wherein people facilitate their functioning in the real world by employing human categories (i.e. sex and gender, age and race, etc.) with which they manage their social interactions with other people.
Based on a brief overview of models and theories related to
cognitive consistency from many different scientific fields, such as
social psychology, perception, neurocognition, learning, motor control,
system control, ethology, and stress, it has even been proposed that
"all behaviour involving cognitive processing is caused by the
activation of inconsistent cognitions and functions to increase
perceived consistency"; that is, all behaviour functions to reduce
cognitive inconsistency at some level of information processing. Indeed, the involvement of cognitive inconsistency has long been suggested for behaviors related to for instance curiosity, and aggression and fear,
while it has also been suggested that the inability to satisfactorily
reduce cognitive inconsistency may - dependent on the type and size of
the inconsistency - result in stress.
Selective exposure
Another method to reduce cognitive dissonance is through selective exposure theory.
This theory has been discussed since the early days of Festinger's
discovery of cognitive dissonance. He noticed that people would
selectively expose themselves to some media over others; specifically,
they would avoid dissonant messages and prefer consonant messages.
Through selective exposure, people actively (and selectively) choose
what to watch, view, or read that fit to their current state of mind,
mood or beliefs. In other words, consumers select attitude-consistent information and avoid attitude-challenging information.
This can be applied to media, news, music, and any other messaging
channel. The idea is, choosing something that is in opposition to how
you feel or believe in will render cognitive dissonance.
For example, a study was done in an elderly home in 1992 on the
loneliest residents—those that did not have family or frequent visitors.
The residents were shown a series of documentaries: three that featured
a "very happy, successful elderly person", and three that featured an
"unhappy, lonely elderly person."
After watching the documentaries, the residents indicated they
preferred the media featuring the unhappy, lonely person over the happy
person. This can be attested to them feeling lonely, and experience
cognitive dissonance watching somebody their age feeling happy and being
successful. This study explains how people select media that aligns
with their mood, as in selectively exposing themselves to people and
experiences they are already experiencing. It is more comfortable to see
a movie about a character that is similar to you than to watch one
about someone who is your age who is more successful than you.
Another example to note is how people mostly consume media that
aligns with their political views. In a study done in 2015, participants
were shown “attitudinally consistent, challenging, or politically
balanced online news.” Results showed that the participants trusted
attitude-consistent news the most out of all the others, regardless of
the source. It is evident that the participants actively selected media
that aligns with their beliefs rather than opposing media.
In fact, recent research has suggested that while a discrepancy
between cognitions drives individuals to crave for attitude-consistent
information, the experience of negative emotions drives individuals to
avoid counterattitudinal information. In other words, it is the
psychological discomfort which activates selective exposure as a
dissonance-reduction strategy.
Paradigms
There
are four theoretic paradigms of cognitive dissonance, the mental stress
people suffer when exposed to information that is inconsistent with
their beliefs, ideals or values:
Belief Disconfirmation, Induced Compliance, Free Choice, and Effort
Justification, which respectively explain what happens after a person
acts inconsistently, relative to their intellectual perspectives; what
happens after a person makes decisions and what are the effects upon a
person who has expended much effort to achieve a goal. Common to each
paradigm of cognitive-dissonance theory is the tenet: People invested in
a given perspective shall—when confronted with contrary evidence—expend
great effort to justify retaining the challenged perspective.
Belief disconfirmation
The contradiction of a belief, ideal, or system of values causes
cognitive dissonance that can be resolved by changing the challenged
belief, yet, instead of effecting change, the resultant mental stress
restores psychological consonance to the person by misperception,
rejection, or refutation of the contradiction, seeking moral support
from people who share the contradicted beliefs or acting to persuade
other people that the contradiction is unreal.
The early hypothesis of belief contradiction presented in When Prophecy Fails
(1956) reported that faith deepened among the members of an apocalyptic
religious cult, despite the failed prophecy of an alien spacecraft soon
to land on Earth to rescue them from earthly corruption. At the
determined place and time, the cult assembled; they believed that only
they would survive planetary destruction; yet the spaceship did not
arrive to Earth. The confounded prophecy caused them acute
cognitive-dissonance: Had they been victims of a hoax? Had they vainly
donated away their material possessions? To resolve the dissonance
between apocalyptic, end-of-the-world religious beliefs and earthly, material reality,
most of the cult restored their psychological consonance by choosing to
believe a less mentally-stressful idea to explain the missed landing:
that the aliens had given planet Earth a second chance at existence,
which, in turn, empowered them to re-direct their religious cult to
environmentalism and social advocacy to end human damage to planet
Earth. On overcoming the confounded belief by changing to global
environmentalism, the cult increased in numbers by proselytism.
The study of The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference (2008) reported the belief contradiction that occurred in the Chabad Orthodox Jewish congregation, who believed that their Rebbe
(Menachem Mendel Schneerson) was the Messiah. When he died of a stroke
in 1994, instead of accepting that their Rebbe was not the Messiah, some
of the congregation proved indifferent to that contradictory fact and
continued claiming that Schneerson was the Messiah and that he would soon return from the dead.
Induced compliance
After performing dissonant behavior (lying) a person might find external, consonant elements. Therefore, a snake oil
salesman might find a psychological self-justification (great profit)
for promoting medical falsehoods, but, otherwise, might need to change
his beliefs about the falsehoods.
In the Cognitive Consequences of Forced Compliance (1959), the investigators Leon Festinger and Merrill Carlsmith
asked students to spend an hour doing tedious tasks; e.g. turning pegs a
quarter-turn, at fixed intervals. The tasks were designed to induce a
strong, negative, mental attitude in the subjects. Once the subjects had
done the tasks, the experimenters asked one group of subjects to speak
with another subject (an actor) and persuade that impostor-subject that
the tedious tasks were interesting and engaging. Subjects of one group
were paid twenty dollars ($20); those in a second group were paid one
dollar ($1) and those in the control group were not asked to speak with
the imposter-subject.
At the conclusion of the study, when asked to rate the tedious
tasks, the subjects of the second group (paid $1) rated the tasks more
positively than did either the subjects in the first group (paid $20) or
the subjects of the control group; the responses of the paid subjects
were evidence of cognitive dissonance. The researchers, Festinger and
Carlsmith, proposed that the subjects experienced dissonance between the
conflicting cognitions. "I told someone that the task was interesting"
and "I actually found it boring." The subjects paid one dollar were
induced to comply, compelled to internalize the "interesting task"
mental attitude because they had no other justification. The subjects
paid twenty dollars were induced to comply by way of an obvious,
external justification for internalizing the "interesting task" mental
attitude and experienced a lower degree of cognitive dissonance than did
those only paid one dollar.
Forbidden Behaviour paradigm
In the Effect of the Severity of Threat on the Devaluation of Forbidden Behavior (1963), a variant of the induced-compliance paradigm, by Elliot Aronson and Carlsmith, examined self-justification in children.
Children were left in a room with toys, including a greatly desirable
steam shovel, the forbidden toy. Upon leaving the room, the experimenter
told one-half of the group of children that there would be severe
punishment if they played with the steam-shovel toy and told the second
half of the group that there would be a mild punishment for playing with
the forbidden toy. All of the children refrained from playing with the
forbidden toy (the steam shovel).
Later, when the children were told that they could freely play
with any toy they wanted, the children in the mild-punishment group were
less likely to play with the steam shovel (the forbidden toy), despite
the removal of the threat of mild punishment. The children threatened
with mild punishment had to justify, to themselves, why they did not
play with the forbidden toy. The degree of punishment was insufficiently
strong to resolve their cognitive dissonance; the children had to
convince themselves that playing with the forbidden toy was not worth
the effort.
In The Efficacy of Musical Emotions Provoked by Mozart's Music for the Reconciliation of Cognitive Dissonance
(2012), a variant of the forbidden-toy paradigm, indicated that
listening to music reduces the development of cognitive dissonance.
Without music in the background, the control group of four-year-old
children were told to avoid playing with a forbidden toy. After playing
alone, the control-group children later devalued the importance of the
forbidden toy. In the variable group, classical music played in the
background while the children played alone. In the second group, the
children did not later devalue the forbidden toy. The researchers, Nobuo
Masataka and Leonid Perlovsky, concluded that music might inhibit
cognitions that induce cognitive dissonance.
Music is a stimulus that can diminish post-decisional dissonance; in an earlier experiment, Washing Away Postdecisional Dissonance
(2010), the researchers indicated that the actions of hand-washing
might inhibit the cognitions that induce cognitive dissonance. That study later failed to replicate.
Free choice
In the study Post-decision Changes in Desirability of Alternatives
(1956) 225 female students rated domestic appliances and then were
asked to choose one of two appliances as a gift. The results of a second
round of ratings indicated that the women students increased their
ratings of the domestic appliance they had selected as a gift and
decreased their ratings of the appliances they rejected.
This type of cognitive dissonance occurs in a person faced with a
difficult decision, when there always exist aspects of the
rejected-object that appeal to the chooser. The action of deciding
provokes the psychological dissonance consequent to choosing X instead
of Y, despite little difference between X and Y; the decision "I chose
X" is dissonant with the cognition that "There are some aspects of Y
that I like". The study Choice-induced Preferences in the Absence of
Choice: Evidence from a Blind Two-choice Paradigm with Young Children
and Capuchin Monkeys (2010) reports similar results in the occurrence of cognitive dissonance in human beings and in animals.
Peer Effects in Pro-Social Behavior: Social Norms or Social Preferences?
(2013) indicated that with internal deliberation, the structuring of
decisions among people can influence how a person acts, and that social
preferences and social norms are related and function with wage-giving
among three persons. The actions of the first person influenced the wage-giving actions of the second person. That inequity aversion is the paramount concern of the participants.
Effort justification
Cognitive dissonance occurs to a person who voluntarily engages in
(physically or ethically) unpleasant activities to achieve a goal. The
mental stress caused by the dissonance can be reduced by the person
exaggerating the desirability of the goal. In The Effect of Severity of Initiation on Liking for a Group
(1956), to qualify for admission to a discussion group, two groups of
people underwent an embarrassing initiation of varied psychological
severity. The first group of subjects were to read aloud twelve sexual
words considered obscene; the second group of subjects were to read
aloud twelve sexual words not considered obscene.
Both groups were given headphones to unknowingly listen to a
recorded discussion about animal sexual behaviour, which the researchers
designed to be dull and banal. As the subjects of the experiment, the
groups of people were told that the animal-sexuality discussion actually
was occurring in the next room. The subjects whose strong initiation
required reading aloud obscene words evaluated the people of their group
as more-interesting persons than the people of the group who underwent
the mild initiation to the discussion group.
In Washing Away Your Sins: Threatened Morality and Physical Cleansing
(2006), the results indicated that a person washing their hands is an
action that helps resolve post-decisional cognitive dissonance because
the mental stress usually was caused by the person's ethical–moral
self-disgust, which is an emotion related to the physical disgust caused
by a dirty environment.
The study The Neural Basis of Rationalization: Cognitive Dissonance Reduction During Decision-making
(2011) indicated that participants rated 80 names and 80 paintings
based on how much they liked the names and paintings. To give meaning to
the decisions, the participants were asked to select names that they
might give to their children. For rating the paintings, the participants
were asked to base their ratings on whether or not they would display
such art at home.
The results indicated that when the decision is meaningful to the
person deciding value, the likely rating is based on their attitudes
(positive, neutral or negative) towards the name and towards the
painting in question. The participants also were asked to rate some of
the objects twice and believed that, at session's end, they would
receive two of the paintings they had positively rated. The results
indicated a great increase in the positive attitude of the participant
towards the liked pair of things, whilst also increasing the negative
attitude towards the disliked pair of things. The double-ratings of
pairs of things, towards which the rating participant had a neutral
attitude, showed no changes during the rating period. The existing
attitudes of the participant were reinforced during the rating period
and the participants suffered cognitive dissonance when confronted by a
liked-name paired with a disliked-painting.
Examples
In the fable of “The Fox and the Grapes”, by Aesop,
on failing to reach the desired bunch of grapes, the fox then decides
he does not truly want the fruit because it is sour. The fox's act of rationalization (justification) reduced his anxiety over the cognitive dissonance from the desire he cannot realise.
Meat-eating
Meat-eating can involve discrepancies between the behavior of eating meat and various ideals that the person holds. Some researchers call this form of moral conflict the meat paradox.
Hank Rothgerber posited that meat eaters may encounter a conflict
between their eating behavior and their affections toward animals.
This occurs when the dissonant state involves recognition of one's
behavior as a meat eater and a belief, attitude, or value that this
behavior contradicts.
The person with this state may attempt to employ various methods,
including avoidance, willful ignorance, dissociation, perceived
behavioral change, and do-gooder derogation to prevent this form of
dissonance from occurring. Once occurred, he or she may reduce it in the form of motivated cognitions, such as denigrating animals, offering pro-meat justifications, or denying responsibility for eating meat.
The extent of cognitive dissonance with regards to meat eating
can vary depending on the attitudes and values of the individual
involved because these can affect whether or not they see any moral
conflict with their values and what they eat. For example, individuals
who are more dominance minded and who value having a masculine identity
are less likely to experience cognitive dissonance because they are less
likely to believe eating meat is morally wrong.
Smoking
The study Patterns
of Cognitive Dissonance-reducing Beliefs Among Smokers: A Longitudinal
Analysis from the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Four Country
Survey (2012) indicated that smokers use justification beliefs to
reduce their cognitive dissonance about smoking tobacco and the negative
consequences of smoking it.
Continuing smokers (Smoking and no attempt to quit since the previous round of study)
Successful quitters (Quit during the study and did not use tobacco from the time of the previous round of study)
Failed quitters (Quit during the study, but relapsed to smoking at the time of the study)
To reduce cognitive dissonance, the participant smokers adjusted their beliefs to correspond with their actions:
Functional beliefs ("Smoking calms me down when I am stressed or
upset."; "Smoking helps me concentrate better."; "Smoking is an
important part of my life."; and "Smoking makes it easier for me to
socialize.")
Risk-minimizing beliefs ("The medical evidence that smoking is
harmful is exaggerated."; "One has to die of something, so why not enjoy
yourself and smoke?"; and "Smoking is no more risky than many other
things people do.")
Unpleasant medical screenings
In a study titled Cognitive Dissonance and Attitudes Toward Unpleasant Medical Screenings
(2016), researchers Michael R. Ent and Mary A. Gerend informed the
study participants about a discomforting test for a specific
(fictitious) virus called the "human respiratory virus-27". The study
used a fake virus to prevent participants from having thoughts,
opinions, and feeling about the virus that would interfere with the
experiment. The study participants were in two groups; one group was
told that they were actual candidates for the virus-27 test, and the
second group were told they were not candidates for the test. The
researchers reported, "We predicted that [study] participants who
thought that they were candidates for the unpleasant test would
experience dissonance associated with knowing that the test was both
unpleasant and in their best interest—this dissonance was predicted to
result in unfavorable attitudes toward the test."
Related phenomena
Cognitive
dissonance may also occur when people seek to explain or justify their
beliefs, often without questioning the validity of their claims: After
the earthquake of 1934, Bihar, India, irrational rumors based upon fear
quickly reached the adjoining communities unaffected by the disaster
because those people, although not in physical danger, psychologically
justified their anxieties about the earthquake.
Same pattern can be observed when one's convictions are met with a
contradictory order. In a study conducted among 6th grade students,
after being induced to cheat in an academic examination, students judged
cheating less harshly. Nonetheless, the confirmation bias
identifies how people readily read information that confirms their
established opinions and readily avoid reading information that
contradicts their opinions.
The confirmation bias is apparent when a person confronts deeply held
political beliefs, i.e. when a person is greatly committed to their
beliefs, values, and ideas.
If a contradiction occurs between how a person feels and how a
person acts, one's perceptions and emotions align to alleviate stress.
The Ben Franklin effect
refers to that statesman's observation that the act of performing a
favor for a rival leads to increased positive feelings toward that
individual. It is also possible that one's emotions be altered to
minimize the regret of irrevocable choices. At a hippodrome, bettors had
more confidence in their horses after the betting than before.
Applications
Education
The management of cognitive dissonance readily influences the apparent motivation of a student to pursue education. The study Turning Play into Work: Effects of Adult Surveillance and Extrinsic Rewards on Children's Intrinsic Motivation (1975) indicated that the application of the effort justification
paradigm increased student enthusiasm for education with the offer of
an external reward for studying; students in pre-school who completed
puzzles based upon an adult promise of reward were later less interested
in the puzzles than were students who completed the puzzle-tasks
without the promise of a reward.
The incorporation of cognitive dissonance into models of basic learning-processes to foster the students’ self-awareness of psychological conflicts among their personal beliefs, ideals, and values
and the reality of contradictory facts and information, requires the
students to defend their personal beliefs. Afterwards, the students are
trained to objectively perceive new facts and information to resolve
the psychological stress of the conflict between reality and the student's value system. Moreover, educational software
that applies the derived principles facilitates the students’ ability
to successfully handle the questions posed in a complex subject. Meta-analysis of studies indicates that psychological interventions that provoke cognitive dissonance in order to achieve a directed conceptual change do increase students’ learning in reading skills and about science.
Psychotherapy
The general effectiveness of psychotherapy and psychological intervention is partly explained by the theory of cognitive dissonance. In that vein, social psychology proposed that the mental health of the patient is positively influenced by his and her action in freely choosing a specific therapy and in exerting the required, therapeutic effort to overcome cognitive dissonance. That effective phenomenon was indicated in the results of the study Effects of Choice on Behavioral Treatment of Overweight Children
(1983), wherein the children's belief that they freely chose the type
of therapy received, resulted in each overweight child losing a greater
amount of excessive body weight.
In the study Reducing Fears and Increasing Attentiveness: The Role of Dissonance Reduction (1980), people afflicted with ophidiophobia
(fear of snakes) who invested much effort in activities of little
therapeutic value for them (experimentally represented as legitimate and
relevant) showed improved alleviation of the symptoms of their phobia. Likewise, the results of Cognitive Dissonance and Psychotherapy: The Role of Effort Justification in Inducing Weight Loss
(1985) indicated that the patient felt better in justifying their
efforts and therapeutic choices towards effectively losing weight. That
the therapy of effort expenditure can predict long-term change in the
patient's perceptions.
Social behavior
Cognitive dissonance is used to promote positive social behaviours, such as increased condom use;
other studies indicate that cognitive dissonance can be used to
encourage people to act pro-socially, such as campaigns against public
littering, campaigns against racial prejudice, and compliance with anti-speeding campaigns. The theory can also be used to explain reasons for donating to charity. Cognitive dissonance can be applied in social areas such as racism and
racial hatred. Acharya of Stanford, Blackwell and Sen of Harvard state
CD increases when an individual commits an act of violence toward
someone from a different ethnic or racial group and decreases when the
individual does not commit any such act of violence. Research from
Acharya, Blackwell and Sen shows that individuals committing violence
against members of another group develop hostile attitudes towards their
victims as a way of minimizing CD. Importantly, the hostile attitudes
may persist even after the violence itself declines (Acharya, Blackwell,
and Sen, 2015). The application provides a social psychological basis
for the constructivist viewpoint that ethnic and racial divisions can be
socially or individually constructed, possibly from acts of violence
(Fearon and Laitin, 2000). Their framework speaks to this possibility by
showing how violent actions by individuals can affect individual
attitudes, either ethnic or racial animosity (Acharya, Blackwell, and
Sen, 2015).
Consumer behavior
Three
main conditions exist for provoking cognitive dissonance when buying:
(i) The decision to purchase must be important, such as the sum of money
to spend; (ii) The psychological cost; and (iii) The purchase is
personally relevant to the consumer. The consumer is free to select from
the alternatives and the decision to buy is irreversible.
The study Beyond Reference Pricing: Understanding Consumers' Encounters with Unexpected Prices
(2003), indicated that when consumers experience an unexpected price
encounter, they adopt three methods to reduce cognitive dissonance: (i)
Employ a strategy of continual information; (ii) Employ a change in
attitude; and (iii) Engage in minimisation.
Consumers employ the strategy of continual information by engaging in
bias and searching for information that supports prior beliefs.
Consumers might search for information about other retailers and
substitute products consistent with their beliefs.
Alternatively, consumers might change attitude, such as re-evaluating
price in relation to external reference-prices or associating high
prices and low prices with quality. Minimisation reduces the importance
of the elements of the dissonance; consumers tend to minimise the
importance of money, and thus of shopping around, saving, and finding a
better deal.
Politics
Cognitive
dissonance theory might suggest that since votes are an expression of
preference or beliefs, even the act of voting might cause someone to
defend the actions of the candidate for whom they voted, and if the decision was close then the effects of cognitive dissonance should be greater.
This effect was studied over the 6 presidential elections of the United States between 1972 and 1996,
and it was found that the opinion differential between the candidates
changed more before and after the election than the opinion differential
of non-voters. In addition, elections where the voter had a favorable
attitude toward both candidates, making the choice more difficult, had
the opinion differential of the candidates change more dramatically than
those who only had a favorable opinion of one candidate. What wasn't
studied were the cognitive dissonance effects in cases where the person
had unfavorable attitudes toward both candidates. The 2016 U.S. election
held historically high unfavorable ratings for both candidates.
Communication
Cognitive
dissonance theory of communication was initially advanced by American
psychologist Leon Festinger in the 1960s. Festinger theorized that
cognitive dissonance usually arises when a person holds two or more
incompatible beliefs simultaneously.
This is a normal occurrence since people encounter different situations
that invoke conflicting thought sequences. This conflict results in a
psychological discomfort. According to Festinger, people experiencing a
thought conflict try to reduce the psychological discomfort by
attempting to achieve an emotional equilibrium. This equilibrium is
achieved in three main ways. First, the person may downplay the
importance of the dissonant thought. Second, the person may attempt to
outweigh the dissonant thought with consonant thoughts. Lastly, the
person may incorporate the dissonant thought into their current belief
system.
Dissonance plays an important role in persuasion. To persuade
people, you must cause them to experience dissonance, and then offer
your proposal as a way to resolve the discomfort. Although there is no
guarantee your audience will change their minds, the theory maintains
that without dissonance, there can be no persuasion. Without a feeling
of discomfort, people are not motivated to change. Similarly, it is the feeling of discomfort which motivates people to perform selective exposure (i.e., avoiding disconfirming information) as a dissonance-reduction strategy.
Artificial Intelligence
It is hypothesized that introducing cognitive dissonance into machine learning
may be able to assist in the long-term aim of developing 'creative
autonomy' on the part of agents, including in multi-agent systems (such
as games), and ultimately to the development of 'strong' forms of artificial intelligence, including artificial general intelligence.
Alternative paradigms
Dissonant
self-perception: A lawyer can experience cognitive dissonance if he
must defend as innocent a client he thinks is guilty. From the
perspective of The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance: A Current Perspective
(1969), the lawyer might experience cognitive dissonance if his false
statement about his guilty client contradicts his identity as a lawyer
and an honest man.
Self-perception theory
In Self-perception: An alternative interpretation of cognitive dissonance phenomena (1967), the social psychologist Daryl Bem proposed the self-perception theory
whereby people do not think much about their attitudes, even when
engaged in a conflict with another person. The Theory of Self-perception
proposes that people develop attitudes by observing their own
behaviour, and concludes that their attitudes caused the behaviour
observed by self-perception; especially true when internal cues either
are ambiguous or weak. Therefore, the person is in the same position as
an observer who must rely upon external cues to infer their inner state
of mind. Self-perception theory proposes that people adopt attitudes
without access to their states of mood and cognition.
As such, the experimental subjects of the Festinger and Carlsmith study (Cognitive Consequences of Forced Compliance,
1959) inferred their mental attitudes from their own behaviour. When
the subject-participants were asked: "Did you find the task
interesting?", the participants decided that they must have found the
task interesting, because that is what they told the questioner. Their
replies suggested that the participants who were paid twenty dollars had
an external incentive to adopt that positive attitude, and likely
perceived the twenty dollars as the reason for saying the task was
interesting, rather than saying the task actually was interesting.
The theory of self-perception (Bem) and the theory of cognitive
dissonance (Festinger) make identical predictions, but only the theory
of cognitive dissonance predicts the presence of unpleasant arousal, of psychological distress, which were verified in laboratory experiments.
In The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance: A Current Perspective (Aronson, Berkowitz, 1969), Elliot Aronson linked cognitive dissonance to the self-concept:
That mental stress arises when the conflicts among cognitions threatens
the person's positive self-image. This reinterpretation of the original
Festinger and Carlsmith study, using the induced-compliance paradigm,
proposed that the dissonance was between the cognitions "I am an honest
person." and "I lied about finding the task interesting."
The study Cognitive Dissonance: Private Ratiocination or Public Spectacle?
(Tedeschi, Schlenker, etc. 1971) reported that maintaining cognitive
consistency, rather than protecting a private self-concept, is how a
person protects their public self-image. Moreover, the results reported in the study I'm No Longer Torn After Choice: How Explicit Choices Implicitly Shape Preferences of Odors
(2010) contradict such an explanation, by showing the occurrence of
revaluation of material items, after the person chose and decided, even
after having forgotten the choice.
Balance theory
Fritz Heider
proposed a motivational theory of attitudinal change that derives from
the idea that humans are driven to establish and maintain psychological
balance. The driving force for this balance is known as the consistency motive,
which is an urge to maintain one's values and beliefs consistent over
time. Heider's conception of psychological balance has been used in
theoretical models measuring cognitive dissonance.
According to balance theory, there are three interacting
elements: (1) the self (P), (2) another person (O), and (3) an element
(X). These are each positioned at one vertex of a triangle and share
two relations:
Unit relations – things and people that belong together based on similarity, proximity, fate, etc.
Sentiment relations – evaluations of people and things (liking, disliking)
Under balance theory, human beings seek a balanced state of relations
among the three positions. This can take the form of three positives or
two negatives and one positive:
P = you
O = your child
X = picture your child drew
"I love my child"
"She drew me this picture"
"I love this picture"
People also avoid unbalanced states of relations, such as three negatives or two positives and one negative:
P = you
O = John
X = John's dog
"I don't like John"
"John has a dog"
"I don't like the dog either"
Cost–benefit analysis
In the study On the Measurement of the Utility of Public Works (1969), Jules Dupuit
reported that behaviors and cognitions can be understood from an
economic perspective, wherein people engage in the systematic processing
of comparing the costs and benefits of a decision. The psychological
process of cost-benefit comparisons helps the person to assess and
justify the feasibility (spending money) of an economic decision, and is
the basis for determining if the benefit outweighs the cost, and to
what extent. Moreover, although the method of cost-benefit analysis
functions in economic circumstances, men and women remain
psychologically inefficient at comparing the costs against the benefits
of their economic decision.
Self-discrepancy theory
E. Tory Higgins proposed that people have three selves, to which they compare themselves:
Actual self – representation of the attributes the person believes him- or herself to possess (basic self-concept)
Ideal self – ideal attributes the person would like to possess (hopes, aspiration, motivations to change)
Ought self – ideal attributes the person believes he or she should possess (duties, obligations, responsibilities)
When these self-guides are contradictory psychological distress (cognitive dissonance) results. People are motivated to reduce self-discrepancy (the gap between two self-guides).
Averse consequences vs. inconsistency
During
the 1980s, Cooper and Fazio argued that dissonance was caused by
aversive consequences, rather than inconsistency. According to this
interpretation, the belief that lying is wrong and hurtful, not the
inconsistency between cognitions, is what makes people feel bad.
Subsequent research, however, found that people experience dissonance
even when they feel they have not done anything wrong. For example,
Harmon-Jones and colleagues showed that people experience dissonance
even when the consequences of their statements are beneficial—as when
they convince sexually active students to use condoms, when they,
themselves are not using condoms.
Criticism of the free-choice paradigm
In the study How Choice Affects and Reflects Preferences: Revisiting the Free-choice Paradigm
(Chen, Risen, 2010) the researchers criticized the free-choice paradigm
as invalid, because the rank-choice-rank method is inaccurate for the
study of cognitive dissonance.
That the designing of research-models relies upon the assumption that,
if the experimental subject rates options differently in the second
survey, then the attitudes of the subject towards the options have
changed. That there are other reasons why an experimental subject might
achieve different rankings in the second survey; perhaps the subjects
were indifferent between choices.
Although the results of some follow-up studies (e.g. Do Choices Affect Preferences? Some Doubts and New Evidence, 2013) presented evidence of the unreliability of the rank-choice-rank method, the results of studies such as Neural Correlates of Cognitive Dissonance and Choice-induced Preference Change
(2010) have not found the Choice-Rank-Choice method to be invalid, and
indicate that making a choice can change the preferences of a person.
Action–motivation model
Festinger's original theory did not seek to explain how dissonance works. Why is inconsistency so aversive?
The action–motivation model seeks to answer this question. It
proposes that inconsistencies in a person's cognition cause mental
stress, because psychological inconsistency interferes with the person's
functioning in the real world.
Among the ways for coping, the person can choose to exercise a behavior
that is inconsistent with their current attitude (a belief, an ideal, a
value system), but later try to alter that belief to be consonant with a
current behavior; the cognitive dissonance occurs when the person's
cognition does not match the action taken. If the person changes the
current attitude, after the dissonance occurs, he or she then is
obligated to commit to that course of behavior.
Cognitive dissonance produces a state of negative affect,
which motivates the person to reconsider the causative behavior in
order to resolve the psychological inconsistency that caused the mental
stress. As the afflicted person works towards a behavioral commitment, the motivational process then is activated in the left frontal cortex of the brain.
Predictive dissonance model
The predictive dissonance model proposes that cognitive dissonance is fundamentally related to the predictive coding (or predictive processing) model of cognition. A predictive processing account of the mind proposes that perception actively involves the use of a Bayesian hierarchy of acquired prior knowledge, which primarily serves the role of predicting incoming proprioceptive, interoceptive and exteroceptive
sensory inputs. Therefore, the brain is an inference machine that
attempts to actively predict and explain its sensations. Crucial to this
inference is the minimization of prediction error.
The predictive dissonance account proposes that the motivation for
cognitive dissonance reduction is related to an organism's active drive
for reducing prediction error. Moreover, it proposes that human (and
perhaps other animal) brains have evolved to selectively ignore
contradictory information (as proposed by dissonance theory) to prevent
the overfitting
of their predictive cognitive models to local and thus non-generalizing
conditions. The predictive dissonance account is highly compatible with
the action-motivation model since, in practice, prediction error can
arise from unsuccessful behavior.
Neuroscience findings
Technological advances are allowing psychologists to study the biomechanics of cognitive dissonance.
Visualization
The study Neural Activity Predicts Attitude Change in Cognitive Dissonance (Van Veen, Krug, etc., 2009) identified the neural bases of cognitive dissonance with functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI); the neural scans of the participants replicated the basic
findings of the induced-compliance paradigm. When in the fMRI scanner,
some of the study participants argued that the uncomfortable, mechanical
environment of the MRI machine nevertheless was a pleasant experience
for them; some participants, from an experimental group, said they
enjoyed the mechanical environment of the fMRI scanner more than did the
control-group participants (paid actors) who argued about the
uncomfortable experimental environment.
The results of the neural scan experiment support the original
theory of Cognitive Dissonance proposed by Festinger in 1957; and also
support the psychological conflict theory, whereby the anterior
cingulate functions, in counter-attitudinal response, to activate the
dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insular cortex;
the degree of activation of said regions of the brain is predicted by
the degree of change in the psychological attitude of the person.
The biomechanics of cognitive dissonance: MRI evidence indicates that the greater the psychological conflict signalled by the anterior cingulate cortex, the greater the magnitude of the cognitive dissonance experienced by the person.
As an application of the free-choice paradigm, the study How Choice Reveals and Shapes Expected Hedonic Outcome (2009) indicates that after making a choice, neural activity in the striatum
changes to reflect the person's new evaluation of the choice-object;
neural activity increased if the object was chosen, neural activity
decreased if the object was rejected. Moreover, studies such as The Neural Basis of Rationalization: Cognitive Dissonance Reduction During Decision-making (2010) and How Choice Modifies Preference: Neural Correlates of Choice Justification (2011) confirm the neural bases of the psychology of cognitive dissonance.
The Neural Basis of Rationalization: Cognitive Dissonance Reduction During Decision-making
(Jarcho, Berkman, Lieberman, 2010) applied the free-choice paradigm to
fMRI examination of the brain's decision-making process whilst the study
participant actively tried to reduce cognitive dissonance. The results
indicated that the active reduction of psychological dissonance
increased neural activity in the right-inferior frontal gyrus, in the medial fronto-parietal region, and in the ventral striatum, and that neural activity decreased in the anterior insula. That the neural activities of rationalization
occur in seconds, without conscious deliberation on the part of the
person; and that the brain engages in emotional responses whilst
effecting decisions.
Emotional correlations
The results reported in Contributions
from Research on Anger and Cognitive Dissonance to Understanding the
Motivational Functions of Asymmetrical Frontal Brain Activity (Harmon-Jones, 2004) indicate that the occurrence of cognitive dissonance is associated with neural activity in the left frontal cortex, a brain structure also associated with the emotion of anger; moreover, functionally, anger motivates neural activity in the left frontal cortex. Applying a directional model of Approach motivation, the study Anger and the Behavioural Approach System
(2003) indicated that the relation between cognitive dissonance and
anger is supported by neural activity in the left frontal cortex that
occurs when a person takes control of the social situation causing the
cognitive dissonance. Conversely, if the person cannot control or cannot
change the psychologically stressful situation, he or she is without a
motivation to change the circumstance, then there arise other, negative emotions to manage the cognitive dissonance, such as socially inappropriate behavior.
The anterior cingulate cortex activity increases when errors
occur and are being monitored as well as having behavioral conflicts
with the self-concept as a form of higher-level thinking.
A study was done to test the prediction that the left frontal cortex
would have increased activity. University students had to write a paper
depending on if they were assigned to a high-choice or low-choice
condition. The low-choice condition required students to write about
supporting a 10% increase in tuition at their university. The point of
this condition was to see how significant the counterchoice may affect a
person's ability to cope.
The high-choice condition asked students to write in favor of tuition
increase as if it were their completely voluntary choice. The
researchers use EEG
to analyze students before they wrote the essay, as dissonance is at
its highest during this time (Beauvois and Joule, 1996). High-choice
condition participants showed a higher level of the left frontal cortex
than the low-choice participants. Results show that the initial
experience of dissonance can be apparent in the anterior cingulate
cortex, then the left frontal cortex is activated, which also activates
the approach motivational system to reduce anger.
The psychology of mental stress
The results reported in The Origins of Cognitive Dissonance: Evidence from Children and Monkeys (Egan, Santos, Bloom, 2007) indicated that there might be evolutionary force behind the reduction of cognitive dissonance in the actions of pre-school-age children and Capuchin monkeys
when offered a choice between two like options, decals and candies. The
groups then were offered a new choice, between the choice-object not
chosen and a novel choice-object that was as attractive as the first
object. The resulting choices of the human and simian subjects concorded
with the theory of cognitive dissonance when the children and the
monkeys each chose the novel choice-object instead of the choice-object
not chosen in the first selection, despite every object having the same
value.
The hypothesis of An Action-based Model of Cognitive-dissonance Processes
(Harmon-Jones, Levy, 2015) proposed that psychological dissonance
occurs consequent to the stimulation of thoughts that interfere with a
goal-driven behavior. Researchers mapped the neural activity of the
participant when performing tasks that provoked psychological stress
when engaged in contradictory behaviors. A participant read aloud the
printed name of a color. To test for the occurrence of cognitive
dissonance, the name of the color was printed in a color different than
the word read aloud by the participant. As a result, the participants
experienced increased neural activity in the anterior cingulate cortex when the experimental exercises provoked psychological dissonance.
The study Cognitive Neuroscience of Social Emotions and
Implications for Psychopathology: Examining Embarrassment, Guilt, Envy,
and Schadenfreude
(Jankowski, Takahashi, 2014) identified neural correlations to specific
social emotions (e.g. envy and embarrassment) as a measure of cognitive
dissonance. The neural activity for the emotion of Envy
(the feeling of displeasure at the good fortune of another person) was
found to draw neural activity from the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex.
That such increased activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex
occurred either when a person's self-concept
was threatened or when the person suffered embarrassment (social pain)
caused by salient, upward social-comparison, by social-class snobbery. That social emotions, such as embarrassment, guilt, envy, and Schadenfreude (joy at the misfortune of another person) are correlated to reduced activity in the insular lobe, and with increased activity in the striate nucleus; those neural activities are associated with a reduced sense of empathy (social responsibility) and an increased propensity towards antisocial behavior (delinquency).
Modeling in neural networks
Artificial neural network
models of cognition provide methods for integrating the results of
empirical research about cognitive dissonance and attitudes into a
single model that explains the formation of psychological attitudes and
the mechanisms to change such attitudes.
Among the artificial neural-network models that predict how cognitive
dissonance might influence a person's attitudes and behavior, are:
Adaptive connectionist model of cognitive dissonance
Attitudes as constraint satisfaction model
Contradictions to the theory
There
are some that are skeptical of the idea. Charles G. Lord wrote a paper
on whether or not the theory of cognitive dissonance was not tested
enough and if it was a mistake to accept it into theory. He claimed that
the theorist did not take into account all the factors and came to a
conclusion without looking at all the angles.
An illusion is a distortion of the senses, which can reveal how the human brain normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. Although illusions distort our perception of reality, they are generally shared by most people.
Illusions may occur with any of the human senses, but visual illusions (optical illusions) are the best-known and understood. The emphasis on visual illusions occurs because vision often dominates the other senses. For example, individuals watching a ventriloquist will perceive the voice is coming from the dummy since they are able to see the dummy mouth the words.
Some illusions are based on general assumptions the brain makes during perception. These assumptions are made using organizational principles (e.g., Gestalt theory), an individual's capacity for depth perception and motion perception, and perceptual constancy. Other illusions occur because of biological sensory structures within the human body or conditions outside the body within one's physical environment.
The term illusion refers to a specific form of sensory distortion. Unlike a hallucination, which is a distortion in the absence of a stimulus,
an illusion describes a misinterpretation of a true sensation. For
example, hearing voices regardless of the environment would be a
hallucination, whereas hearing voices in the sound of running water (or
another auditory source) would be an illusion.
Example of visual illusion: a real gecko hunts the pointer of a mouse, confused with a prey
An optical illusion. Square A is exactly the same shade of grey as Square B.
A visual illusion or optical illusion is characterized by visually perceived
images that are deceptive or misleading. Therefore, the information
gathered by the visual sense is processed to give, on the face of it, a percept
that does not tally with information from other senses or physical
measurement. A conventional assumption is that there are physiological
illusions that occur naturally and cognitive illusions that can be
demonstrated by specific visual tricks
that say something more basic about how human perceptual systems work.
The visual system (eye and brain) constructs a world inside our head
based on what it samples from the surrounding environment. However,
sometimes it tries to organize this information "it thinks best" while
other times it fills in the gaps. This way in which our brain works is the basis of an illusion.
Auditory
An auditory illusion is an illusion of hearing,
the auditory equivalent of a visual illusion: the listener hears either
sound which are not present in the stimulus, or "impossible" sounds. In
short, audio illusions highlight areas where the human ear and brain,
as organic, makeshift tools, differ from perfect audio receptors (for
better or for worse). One example of an auditory illusion is a Shepard tone.
Tactile
Examples of tactile illusions include phantom limb, the thermal grill illusion, the cutaneous rabbit illusion
and a curious illusion that occurs when the crossed index and middle
fingers are run along the bridge of the nose with one finger on each
side, resulting in the perception of two separate noses. The brain areas
activated during illusory tactile perception are similar to those
activated during actual tactile stimulation. Tactile illusions can also be elicited through haptic technology. These "illusory" tactile objects can be used to create "virtual objects".
Temporal
A temporal illusion
is a distortion in the perception of time, which occurs when the time
interval between two or more events is very narrow (typically less than a
second). In such cases, a person may momentarily perceive time as
slowing down, stopping, speeding up, or running backward.
Other senses
Illusions can occur with the other senses including those involved in food perception. Both sound and touch
have been shown to modulate the perceived staleness and crispness of
food products. It was also discovered that even if some portion of the
taste receptor on the tongue became damaged that illusory taste could be
produced by tactile stimulation. Evidence of olfactory (smell) illusions occurred when positive or negative verbal labels were given prior to olfactory stimulation. The McGurk effect
shows that what we hear is influenced by what we see as we hear the
person speaking. An illusion occurs when the auditory component of one
sound is paired with the visual component of another sound, leading to
the perception of a third sound. This is a multisensory, auditory-visual
illusion.
Disorders
Some
illusions occur as a result of an illness or a disorder. While these
types of illusions are not shared with everyone, they are typical of
each condition. For example, migraine sufferers often report fortification illusions.
Neuroscience
Perception
is linked to specific brain activity and so can be elicited by brain
stimulation. The (illusory) percepts that can be evoked range from
simple phosphenes (detections of lights in the visual field) to high-level percepts. In
a single-case study on a patient undergoing presurgical evaluation for
epilepsy treatment, electrical stimulation at the left temporo-parietal
junction evoked the percept of a nearby (illusory) person who "closely
'shadowed' changes in the patient's body position and posture".
The Conjurer, 1475–1480, by Hieronymus Bosch
or his workshop. Notice how the man in the back row steals another
man's purse while applying misdirection by looking at the sky. The
artist even misdirects the viewer from the thief by drawing the viewer
to the magician.
The term "magic" etymologically derives from the Greek word mageia (μαγεία). In ancient times, Greeks and Persians had been at war for centuries, and the Persian priests, called magosh in Persian, came to be known as magoi in Greek. Ritual acts of Persian priests came to be known as mageia, and then magika—which
eventually came to mean any foreign, unorthodox, or illegitimate ritual
practice. To the general public, successful acts of illusion could be
perceived as if it were similar to a feat of magic supposed to have been
able to be performed by the ancient magoi. The performance of tricks of
illusion, or magical illusion, and the apparent workings and effects of
such acts have often been referred to as "magic" and particularly as
magic tricks.
One of the earliest known books to explain magic secrets, The Discoverie of Witchcraft,
was published in 1584. It was created by Reginald Scot to stop people
from being killed for witchcraft. During the 17th century, many books
were published that described magic tricks. Until the 18th century,
magic shows were a common source of entertainment at fairs. A founding figure of modern entertainment magic was Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, who had a magic theatre in Paris in 1845. John Henry Anderson was pioneering the same transition in London in the 1840s. Towards the end of the 19th century, large magic shows permanently staged at big theatre venues became the norm. As a form of entertainment, magic easily moved from theatrical venues to television magic specials.
Performances that modern observers would recognize as conjuring have been practiced throughout history. For example, a trick with three cups and balls has been performed since 3 BC. and is still performed today on stage and in street magic
shows. For many recorded centuries, magicians were associated with the
devil and the occult. During the 19th and 20th centuries, many stage
magicians even capitalized on this notion in their advertisements. The same level of ingenuity that was used to produce famous ancient deceptions such as the Trojan Horse would also have been used for entertainment, or at least for cheating in money games. They were also used by the practitioners of various religions and cults
from ancient times onwards to frighten uneducated people into obedience
or turn them into adherents. However, the profession of the illusionist
gained strength only in the 18th century, and has enjoyed several
popular vogues since.
Magic tricks
Opinions vary among magicians on how to categorize a given effect,
but a number of categories have been developed. Magicians may pull a
rabbit from an empty hat, make something seem to disappear, or transform
a red silk handkerchief into a green silk handkerchief. Magicians may
also destroy something, like cutting a head off, and then "restore" it,
make something appear to move from one place to another, or they may
escape from a restraining device. Other illusions include making
something appear to defy gravity, making a solid object appear to pass
through another object, or appearing to predict the choice of a
spectator. Many magic routines use combinations of effects.
Among the earliest books on the subject is Gantziony's work of 1489, Natural and Unnatural Magic, which describes and explains old-time tricks. In 1584, Englishman Reginald Scot published The Discoverie of Witchcraft,
part of which was devoted to debunking the claims that magicians used
supernatural methods, and showing how their "magic tricks" were in
reality accomplished. Among the tricks discussed were sleight-of-hand manipulations with rope, paper and coins. At the time, fear and belief in witchcraft was widespread and the book tried to demonstrate that these fears were misplaced. Popular belief held that all obtainable copies were burned on the accession of James I in 1603.
During the 17th century, many similar books were published that
described in detail the methods of a number of magic tricks, including The Art of Conjuring (1614) and The Anatomy of Legerdemain: The Art of Juggling (c. 1675).
Advertisement for Isaac Fawkes' show from 1724 in which he boasts of the success of his performances for the King and Prince George
Until the 18th century, magic shows were a common source of entertainment at fairs, where itinerant performers would entertain the public with magic tricks, as well as the more traditional spectacles of sword swallowing, juggling and fire breathing.
In the early 18th century, as belief in witchcraft was waning, the art
became increasingly respectable and shows would be put on for rich
private patrons. A notable figure in this transition was the English
showman, Isaac Fawkes, who began to promote his act in advertisements from the 1720s—he even claimed to have performed for King George II. One of Fawkes' advertisements described his routine in some detail:
He takes an empty bag, lays it on
the Table and turns it several times inside out, then commands 100 Eggs
out of it and several showers of real Gold and silver, then the Bag
beginning to swell several sorts of wild fowl run out of it upon the
Table. He throws up a Pack of Cards, and causes them to be living birds
flying about the room. He causes living Beasts, Birds, and other
Creatures to appear upon the Table. He blows the spots of the Cards off
and on, and changes them to any pictures.
From 1756 to 1781, Jacob Philadelphia performed feats of magic, sometimes under the guise of scientific exhibitions, throughout Europe and in Russia.
A founding figure of modern entertainment magic was Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, originally a clockmaker, who opened a magic theatre in Paris
in 1845. He transformed his art from one performed at fairs to a
performance that the public paid to see at the theatre. His speciality
was constructing mechanical automata that appeared to move and act as if
alive. Many of Robert-Houdin's mechanisms for illusion were pirated by
his assistant and ended up in the performances of his rivals, John Henry Anderson and Alexander Herrmann.
John Henry Anderson was pioneering the same transition in London. In 1840 he opened the New Strand Theatre, where he performed as The Great Wizard of the North. His success came from advertising his shows and captivating his audience with expert showmanship. He became one of the earliest magicians to attain a high level of world renown. He opened a second theatre in Glasgow in 1845.
John Nevil Maskelyne, a famous magician and illusionist of the late 19th century.
Towards the end of the century, large magic shows permanently staged at big theatre venues became the norm. The British performer J N Maskelyne and his partner Cooke were established at the Egyptian Hall in London's Piccadilly in 1873 by their manager William Morton, and continued there for 31 years. The show incorporated stage illusions and reinvented traditional tricks with exotic (often Oriental)
imagery. The potential of the stage was exploited for hidden mechanisms
and assistants, and the control it offers over the audience's point of
view.
Maskelyne and Cooke invented many of the illusions still performed
today—one of his best-known being levitation.
The model for the look of a 'typical' magician—a man with wavy hair, a top hat, a goatee, and a tailcoat—was Alexander Herrmann
(1844–1896), also known as Herrmann the Great. Herrmann was a French
magician and was part of the Herrmann family name that is the
"first-family of magic".
The escapologist and magician Harry Houdini
(1874-1926) took his stage name from Robert-Houdin and developed a
range of stage magic tricks, many of them based on what became known
after his death as escapology.
Houdini was genuinely skilled in techniques such as lockpicking and
escaping straitjackets, but also made full use of the range of conjuring
techniques, including fake equipment and collusion with individuals in
the audience. Houdini's show-business savvy was as great as his
performance skill. There is a Houdini Museum dedicated to him in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
The Magic Circle was formed in London in 1905 to promote and advance the art of stage magic.
Many of the principles of stage magic are old. There is an
expression, "it's all done with smoke and mirrors", used to explain
something baffling, but effects seldom use mirrors today, due to the
amount of installation work and transport difficulties. For example, the
famous Pepper's Ghost,
a stage illusion first used in 19th-century London, required a
specially built theatre. Modern performers have vanished objects as
large as the Taj Mahal, the Statue of Liberty, and a space shuttle,
using other kinds of optical deceptions.
Types of magic performance
Magic is often described according to various specialties or genres.
A mentalist on stage in a mind-reading performance, 1900
Amateur magician performing "children's magic" for a birthday party audience
Parlor magic
is done for larger audiences than close-up magic (which is for a few
people or even one person) and for smaller audiences than stage magic.
In parlor magic, the performer is usually standing and on the same level
as the audience, which may be seated on chairs or even on the floor.
According to the Encyclopedia of Magic and Magicians by T.A.
Waters, "The phrase [parlor magic] is often used as a pejorative to
imply that an effect under discussion is not suitable for professional
performance." Also, many magicians consider the term "parlor" old
fashioned and limiting, since this type of magic is often done in rooms
much larger than the traditional parlor, or even outdoors. A better term
for this branch of magic may be "platform", "club" or "cabaret".
Examples of such magicians include Jeff McBride, David Abbott, Channing Pollock, Black Herman, and Fred Kaps.
Close-up magic
Close-up magic
(or table magic) is performed with the audience close to the magician,
sometimes even one-on-one. It usually makes use of everyday items as
props, such as cards, coins, and seemingly 'impromptu' effects. This may be called "table magic", particularly when performed as dinner entertainment. Ricky Jay, Mahdi Moudini, and Lee Asher, following in the traditions of Dai Vernon, Slydini, and Max Malini, are considered among the foremost practitioners of close-up magic.
Escapology
Escapology is the branch of magic that deals with escapes from confinement or restraints. Harry Houdini is a well-known example of an escape artist or escapologist.
Pickpocket magic
Pickpocket
magicians use magic to misdirect members of the audience while removing
wallets, belts, ties, and other personal effects. It can be presented
on a stage, in a cabaret setting, before small close-up groups, or even
for one spectator. Well-known pickpockets include James Freedman, David Avadon, Bob Arno, and Apollo Robbins.
Mentalism
Mentalism
creates the impression in the minds of the audience that the performer
possesses special powers to read thoughts, predict events, control other
minds, and similar feats. It can be presented on a stage, in a cabaret
setting, before small close-up groups, or even for one spectator.
Well-known mentalists of the past and present include Alexander, The Zancigs, Axel Hellstrom, Dunninger, Kreskin, Derren Brown, Rich Ferguson, Guy Bavli, Banachek, Max Maven, and Alain Nu.
Séances
Theatrical séances
simulate spiritualistic or mediumistic phenomena for theatrical effect.
This genre of stage magic has been misused at times by charlatans
pretending to actually be in contact with spirits or supernatural
forces. For this reason, some well-known magicians such as James Randi
(AKA "The Amazing Randi") have made it their goal to debunk such
paranormal phenomena and illustrate that any such effects may be
achieved by natural or human means. Randi was the "foremost skeptic" in
this regard in the United States.
Children's magic
Children's magic
is performed for an audience primarily composed of children. It is
typically performed at birthday parties, preschools, elementary schools,
Sunday schools, or libraries. This type of magic is usually comedic in
nature and involves audience interaction as well as volunteer
assistants.
Online magic
Online
magic tricks were designed to function on a computer screen. The
computer essentially replaces the magician. Some online magic tricks
recreate traditional card tricks and require user participation, while
others, like Plato's Cursed Triangle, are based on mathematical,
geometrical, and/or optical illusions. One such online magic trick,
called Esmeralda's Crystal Ball, became a viral phenomenon that fooled so many computer users into believing that their computer had supernatural powers, that Snopes dedicated a page to debunking the trick.
Corporate
magic or trade show magic uses magic as a communication and sales tool,
as opposed to just straightforward entertainment. Corporate magicians
may come from a business background and typically present at meetings,
conferences and product launches. They run workshops and can sometimes
be found at trade shows, where their patter and illusions enhance an
entertaining presentation of the products offered by their corporate
sponsors. Pioneer performers in this arena include Eddie Tullock and Guy Bavli.
Gospel magic
Gospel magic uses magic to catechize and evangelize. Gospel magic was first used by St. John Bosco to interest children in 19th-century Turin, Italy to come back to school, to accept assistance and to attend church.
Street magic
Street magic is a form of street performing or busking that employs a hybrid of stage magic, platform, and close-up magic, usually performed 'in the round' or surrounded by the audience. Notable modern street magic performers include Jeff Sheridan and Gazzo. Since the first David Blaine TV special Street Magic
aired in 1997, the term "street magic" has also come to describe a
style of 'guerilla' performance in which magicians approach and perform
for unsuspecting members of the public on the street. Unlike traditional
street magic, this style is almost purely designed for TV and gains its
impact from the wild reactions of the public. Magicians of this type
include David Blaine and Cyril Takayama.
Bizarre magic
Bizarre magic is a branch of stage magic that creates eerie effects through its use of narratives and esoteric imagery. The experience is intended to be more akin to small, intimate theater than a conventional magic show.
Bizarre magic often uses horror and supernatural imagery in addition to
the standard commercial magic approaches of comedy and wonder.
Shock magic
Shock magic is a genre of magic that shocks the audience. Sometimes referred to as "geek magic", it takes its roots from circus sideshows,
in which 'freakish' performances were shown to audiences. Common shock
magic or geek magic effects include eating razor blades, needle-through-arm, string through neck and pen-through-tongue.,
Quick
change magic is the use of magic which is combined with the very quick
changing of costumes. Famous quick-change artists include Sos &
Victoria Petrosyan.
Camera magic
Camera
magic (or "video magic") is magic that is aimed at viewers watching
broadcasts or recordings. It includes tricks based on the restricted
viewing angles of cameras and clever editing. Camera magic often
features paid extras posing as spectators who may even be assisting in
the performance. Camera magic can be done live, such as Derren Brown's lottery prediction. Famous examples of camera magic include David Copperfield's Floating Over the Grand Canyon and many of Criss Angel's illusions.
Classical magic
Classical
Magic is a style of magic that conveys feelings of elegance and skill
akin to prominent magicians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Notable classical magicians today include Yu Ho-Jin and Ryan Lally.
Mechanical magic
AmbigramMagic / Dream
with a handheld pattern giving a reversed shadow by mirror symmetry.
"It's all done with smoke and mirrors", as we say to explain something
baffling.
Mechanical magic
is a form of stage magic in which the magician uses a variety of
mechanical devices to perform acts that appear to be physically
impossible. Examples include such things as a false-bottomed mortar in which the magician places an audience member's watch only to later produce several feet away inside a wooden frame.
Mechanical magic requires a certain degree of sleight of hand and
carefully functioning mechanisms and devices to be performed
convincingly. This form of magic was popular around the turn of the
19th century—today, many of the original mechanisms used for this magic
have become antique collector's pieces and may require significant and
careful restoration to function.
Categories of effects
Magicians
describe the type of tricks they perform in various ways. Opinions vary
as to how to categorize a given effect, and disagreement as to what
categories actually exist. For instance, some magicians consider
"penetrations" a separate category, while others consider penetrations a
form of restoration or teleportation. Some magicians today, such as Guy Hollingworth and Tom Stone
have begun to challenge the notion that all magic effects fit into a
limited number of categories. Among magicians who believe in a limited
number of categories (such as Dariel Fitzkee, Harlan Tarbell, S.H. Sharpe), there has been disagreement as to how many different types of effects there are. Some of these are listed below.
Production: The magician produces something from nothing—a
rabbit from an empty hat, a fan of cards from thin air, a shower of
coins from an empty bucket, a dove from a pan, or the magician himself or herself, appearing in a puff of smoke on an empty stage—all of these effects are productions.
Vanish: The magician makes something disappear—a coin, a cage of
doves, milk from a newspaper, an assistant from a cabinet, or even the Statue of Liberty. A vanish, being the reverse of a production, may use a similar technique in reverse.
Transformation: The magician transforms something from one state
into another—a silk handkerchief changes color, a lady turns into a tiger, an indifferent card changes to the spectator's chosen card.
Restoration: The magician destroys an object—a rope is cut, a newspaper is torn, a woman is cut in half, a borrowed watch is smashed to pieces—then restores it to its original state.
Transposition: A transposition involves two or more objects. The
magician will cause these objects to change places, as many times as he
pleases, and in some cases, ends with a kicker by transforming the
objects into something else.
Teleportation: The magician causes something to move from one place
to another—a borrowed ring is found inside a ball of wool, a canary
inside a light bulb, an assistant from a cabinet to the back of the
theatre, or a coin from one hand to the other. When two objects exchange
places, it is called a transposition: a simultaneous, double
transportation. A transportation can be seen as a combination of a
vanish and a production. When performed by a mentalist it might be
called teleportation.
Escape: The magician (or less often, an assistant) is placed in a restraining device (i.e., handcuffs or a straitjacket)
or a death trap, and escapes to safety. Examples include being put in a
straitjacket and into an overflowing tank of water, and being tied up
and placed in a car being sent through a car crusher.
Levitation:
The magician defies gravity, either by making something float in the
air, or with the aid of another object (suspension)—a silver ball floats
around a cloth, an assistant floats in mid-air, another is suspended
from a broom, a scarf dances in a sealed bottle, the magician levitates
his own body in midair. There are many popular ways to create this
illusion, including Asrah levitation, Balducci levitation, invisible thread, and King levitation. The flying illusion has often been performed by David Copperfield. Harry Blackstone floated a light bulb over the heads of the public.
Penetration: The magician makes a solid object pass through
another—a set of steel rings link and unlink, a candle penetrates an
arm, swords pass through an assistant in a basket, a salt shaker
penetrates a tabletop, or a man walks through a mirror. Sometimes
referred to as "solid-through-solid".
Prediction: The magician accurately predicts the choice of a
spectator or the outcome of an event—a newspaper headline, the total
amount of loose change in the spectator's pocket, a picture drawn on a
slate—under seemingly impossible circumstances.
Many magic routines use combinations of effects. For example, in "cups and balls" a magician may use vanishes, productions, penetrations, teleportation and transformations as part of the one presentation.
The methodology behind magic is often referred to as a science
(often a branch of physics) while the performance aspect is more of an
art form.
Dedication to magic can teach confidence and creativity, as well as
the work ethic associated with regular practice and the responsibility
that comes with devotion to an art.
The teaching of performance magic was once a secretive practice.
Professional magicians were unwilling to share knowledge with anyone
outside the profession to prevent the laity from learning their secrets.
This often made it difficult for an interested apprentice to learn
anything but the basics of magic. Some had strict rules against members
discussing magic secrets with anyone but established magicians.
From the 1584 publication of Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft
until the end of the 19th century, only a few books were available for
magicians to learn the craft, whereas today mass-market books offer a
myriad titles. Videos and DVDs are a newer medium of tuition, but many
of the methods found in this format are readily found in previously
published books. However, they can serve as a visual demonstration.
Persons interested in learning to perform magic can join magic clubs.
Here magicians, both seasoned and novitiate, can work together and help
one another for mutual improvement, to learn new techniques, to discuss
all aspects of magic, to perform for each other—sharing advice,
encouragement, and criticism. Before a magician can join one of these
clubs, they usually have to audition. The purpose is to show to the
membership they are a magician and not just someone off the street
wanting to discover magic secrets.
The world's largest magic organization is the International Brotherhood of Magicians; it publishes a monthly journal, The Linking Ring. The oldest organization is the Society of American Magicians, which publishes the monthly magazine M-U-M and of which Houdini was a member and president for several years. In London, England, there is The Magic Circle, which houses the largest magic library in Europe. Also PSYCRETS—The British Society of Mystery Entertainers—caters
specifically to mentalists, bizarrists, storytellers, readers,
spiritualist performers, and other mystery entertainers. Davenport's
Magic in London's The Strand was the world's oldest family-run magic shop. It is now closed. The Magic Castle in Hollywood, California, is home to the Academy of Magical Arts.
Traditionally, magicians refuse to reveal the methods behind
their tricks to the audience. Membership in professional magicians'
organizations often requires a commitment never to reveal the secrets of
magic to non-magicians. Magic performances tend to fall into a few
specialties or genres. Stage illusions use large-scale props and even large animals. Platform magic is performed for a medium to large audience. Close-up magic is performed with the audience close to the magician. Escapology involves escapes from confinement or restraints. Pickpocket magicians take audience members' wallets, belts, and ties.
Mentalism
creates the illusion that the magician can read minds. Comedy magic is
the use of magic combined with stand-up comedy, an example being Penn & Teller.
Some modern illusionists believe that it is unethical to give a
performance that claims to be anything other than a clever and skillful
deception. Others argue that they can claim that the effects are due to
magic. These apparently irreconcilable differences of opinion have led
to some conflicts among performers. Another issue is the use of
deceptive practices for personal gain outside the venue of a magic
performance. Examples include fraudulent mediums, con men and grifters who use deception for cheating at card games.
Misuse of magic
Some
modern illusionists believe that it is unethical to give a performance
that claims to be anything other than a clever and skillful deception.
Most of these performers therefore eschew the term "magician" (which
they view as making a claim to supernatural power) in favor of
"illusionist" and similar descriptions; for example, the performer Jamy Ian Swiss makes these points by billing himself as an "honest liar".
Alternatively, many performers say that magical acts, as a form of
theatre, need no more of a disclaimer than any play or film; this policy
was advocated by the magician and mentalist Joseph Dunninger, who stated "For those who believe, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not believe, no explanation will suffice."
These apparently irreconcilable differences of opinion have led
to some conflicts among performers. For example, more than thirty years
after the illusionist Uri Geller
made his first appearances on television in the 1970s to exhibit his
self-proclaimed psychic ability to bend spoons, his actions still
provoke controversy among some magic performers, because he claimed he
was not using conjuring techniques. On the other hand, because Geller
bent—and continues to bend—spoons within a performance context and has
lectured at several magic conventions, the Dunninger quote may be said to apply.
Less fraught with controversy, however, may be the use of
deceptive practices by those who employ conjuring techniques for
personal gain outside the venue of a magic performance.
Fraudulent mediums have long capitalized on the popular belief in paranormal phenomena to prey on the bereaved for financial gain. From the 1840s to the 1920s, during the greatest popularity of the Spiritualism religious movement as well as public interest in séances, a number of fraudulent mediums used conjuring methods to perform illusions such as table-knocking, slate-writing, and telekinetic effects, which they attributed to the actions of ghosts or other spirits. The great escapologist and illusionist Harry Houdini devoted much of his time to exposing such fraudulent operators. Magician James Randi, magic duo Penn & Teller, and the mentalist Derren Brown have also devoted much time to investigating and debunking paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims.
Fraudulent faith healers have also been shown to employ sleight of hand to give the appearance of removing chicken-giblet "tumors" from patients' abdomens.
Con men and grifters too may use techniques of conjuring for fraudulent goals. Cheating at card games is an obvious example, and not a surprising one: one of the most respected textbooks of card techniques for magicians, The Expert at the Card Table by Erdnase, was primarily written as an instruction manual for card sharps. The card trick known as "Find the Lady" or "Three-card Monte"
is an old favourite of street hustlers, who lure the victim into
betting on what seems like a simple proposition: to identify, after a
seemingly easy-to-track mixing sequence, which one of three face-down
cards is the Queen. Another example is the shell game,
in which a pea is hidden under one of three walnut shells, then
shuffled around the table (or sidewalk) so slowly as to make the pea's
position seemingly obvious. Although these are well known as frauds,
people still lose money on them; a shell-game ring was broken up in Los
Angeles as recently as December 2009.
Researching magic
Because of the secretive nature of magic, research can be a challenge.
Many magic resources are privately held and most libraries only have
small populist collections of magicana. However, organizations exist to
band together independent collectors, writers, and researchers of magic
history, including the Magic Collectors' Association, which publishes a quarterly magazine and hosts an annual convention; and the Conjuring Arts Research Center,
which publishes a monthly newsletter and biannual magazine, and offers
its members use of a searchable database of rare books and periodicals.
Performance magic is particularly notable as a key area of
popular culture from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries. Many
performances and performers can be followed through newspapers of the time.
Many books have been written about magic tricks; so many are written every year that at least one magic author
has suggested that more books are written about magic than any other
performing art. Although the bulk of these books are not seen on the
shelves of libraries or public bookstores, the serious student can find
many titles through specialized stores catering to the needs of magic
performers.
Several notable public research collections on magic are the WG Alma Conjuring Collection at the State Library of Victoria; the R. B. Robbins Collection of Stage Magic and Conjuring at the State Library of NSW; the H. Adrian Smith Collection of Conjuring and Magicana at Brown University; and the Carl W. Jones Magic Collection, 1870s–1948 at Princeton University.
