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A 5 page research paper that describes several consistency theories and their applications in better understanding attitude change and human behavior. The last part of the paper offers guidance to the student on how to write a personal response to the subject. Bibliography lists 3 sources.
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5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: KL9_khconsisth.doc
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
individuals communicate. In other words, consistency theory offers insight into the processes that people use to adjust their attitudes and/or behaviors to fit their circumstances and maintain balance and homeostasis
with their environment. Consistency theories do this by focusing on the discomfort and tension that arises from inconsistency. As this indicates, consistency theory is important because it underscores and examines
a universal characteristic of human nature, which is, the love that everyone has for what is familiar, as the unfamiliar, that is, that which threatens ones innate cultural biases, is
cognitive and emotionally disturbing. For example, an individual may hold a bias against Jews based on the stereotypical perception that they are avarice and greedy. Therefore, when that individual
encounters a Jew who is generous and altruistic, the individual may handle this inconsistency by altering his attitude. As this indicates, consistency theories make a significant contribution to the field
of communications because they aid scholars in understanding the motivation and mechanisms that affect communication and its relationship to attitudes and beliefs. The following examination of consistency theories presents the
history of this area in the field of communications, and offers a brief overview of several consistency theories, while also indicating the significance of this topic to individual experience.
Austrian psychologist Fritz Heider developed one of the earliest consistency theories, balance theory, which focused on the relationship: "the perceiver, another person and an object" (Littlejohn and Foss, 2009, p.
57). Heider defined unbalanced configurations, pointing out that perceives recognize these states as unbalanced and endeavor to regain balance by changing their attitudes and/or beliefs toward another person or the
object that is the focus of the state of unbalance (Littlejohn and Foss, 2009). Among the theories that have extended Heiders balance theory is Robert Abelsons "theory of cognitive
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