Does cognitive dissonance occur in older age? A study of induced compliance in a healthy elderly population.

Does cognitive dissonance change as people age? Although cognitive dissonance has been one of the most widely studied theories in psychology, scant research has investigated the experience of dissonance over the life span and, to our knowledge, no prior research has investigated its effects in healthy older adults. The current study is the 1st empirical test of cognitive dissonance in an elderly population. We found that, consistent with dissonance theory, older adults showed effects of cognitive dissonance as measured by attitude differences in the direction of attitude-discrepant behavior in a classic induced compliance paradigm. Implications for the development of prohealth, dissonance-based interventions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).