Distraction, choice and self-esteem effects on cognitive response facilitation.

From an integration of distraction-conflict theory and cognitive dissonance theory, it was hypothesized that distraction would increase, rather than disrupt, the proarguing of persons who had been given high choice to engage in discrepant behaviour, and would increase, rather than disrupt, the counterarguing of persons who had been given low choice to engage in such behaviour. Furthermore, it was expected that this cognitive response facilitation effect would more likely occur for persons high in self-esteem. The results supported the hypotheses and were interpreted as also confirming the notion that dissonance-related processes occur at the cognitive response level.