Kognitive Dissonanz »Revisited«

Using the theory of cognitive dissonance, this study investigates whether users of an online magazine prefer contents that agrees to their attitudes to political issues. In contrast to earlier studies, dissonance is defined issue-specifically rather than by party identification. Moreover, personal relevance is also included. In a two-step data collection, attitudes and relevance assessments were measured first. Participants were asked in a second session to look at an online magazine. Background software recorded the selection of and the time spent with specific contents as participants looked at the magazine. Results show that users spent more time with attitude-consistent information. This was, however, mostly due to persons who had rated issue relevance high. Users with low or moderate rating for issue relevance spent significantly less time with attitude-consistent content and significantly more time with attitude-inconsistent information, as compared with users with high relevance ratings. The influence of issue relevance is discussed as an explanation of contradictory results on cognitive dissonance and media use.