Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance 1 Examining the Role of Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance in the Charity: water Campaign Abstract: Cognitive dissonance has been a much-researched variable in the consumer behavior literature. However, much of this literature studies cognitive dissonance as a post consumer decision effect, or “buyer’s remorse”, and little study has been done on cognitive dissonance as a driver of consumer decision making. However, dissonance-generating techniques are widely used in non-profit fundraising campaigns, and it is evident that cognitive dissonance plays an important role in viewers’ decision to donate to a certain charitable organization. A study of the literature on Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance Theory revealed its potential as a theoretical framework for analyzing persuasive messages by non-profit organizations. In this paper, a set of messages from Charity: water’s campaign will be identified and described, and then analyzed using Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance Theory. Charity: water is a relatively young non-profit organization, yet its success has caught the attention of various major media and became one of the most reported charities in recent years. Within three years of its establishment it has raised more than 10 million US dollars and helped fund 1360 projects in 15 countries, more than any other water-related charities in the same amount of time (Charity: water, 2009). Charity: water’s campaign is innovative in both its content and channel of
Transcript
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance 1
Examining the Role of Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance in the Charity: water Campaign
Abstract: Cognitive dissonance has been a much-researched variable in the consumer behavior literature. However, much of this literature studies cognitive dissonance as a post consumer decision effect, or “buyer’s remorse”, and little study has been done on cognitive dissonance as a driver of consumer decision making. However, dissonance-generating techniques are widely used in non-profit fundraising campaigns, and it is evident that cognitive dissonance plays an important role in viewers’ decision to donate to a certain charitable organization. A study of the literature on Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance Theory revealed its potential as a theoretical framework for analyzing persuasive messages by non-profit organizations. In this paper, a set of messages from Charity: water’s campaign will be identified and described, and then analyzed using Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance Theory.
Charity: water is a relatively young non-profit organization, yet its success has caught the
attention of various major media and became one of the most reported charities in recent years.
Within three years of its establishment it has raised more than 10 million US dollars and helped
fund 1360 projects in 15 countries, more than any other water-related charities in the same
amount of time (Charity: water, 2009). Charity: water’s campaign is innovative in both its
content and channel of promotion. Fundraising organizations frequently use graphic images of
victims of devastation to “pull on people’s heartstrings” (Fischer, 2000, p125), but Charity:
water is not heavy on the use of such shock tactics in its campaign. Rather, Charity: water
simply asked viewers to “imagine” living without access to clean water and sympathize with the
victims. As for the channel of promotion, Charity: water utilizes the internet and social media
instead of focusing on traditional media forms. Its promotional videos are widely played on
youtube.com and online television sites like hulu.com. Facebook and Twitter are also used to
reach out to the target audience. This approach enabled the organization to reach its target
audience while maintaining low promotion costs. An exploration into the theoretical foundation
of Charity: water’s message design could contribute to the theories of persuasion, and could also
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance 2
yield practical guidelines for the development of future persuasive messages.
The purpose of this paper is to first identify and describe one message set from Charity:
water’s campaign, and then to analyze the effectiveness of this message set through the use of
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance Theory. Through Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance Theory, I will
show that the persuasive tactics used to encourage social change could be effective in raising
awareness of the organization’s mission; and that social identity plays an important function as a
persuasive tool.
The Charity: water campaign
Organization
Charity: water is a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing clean and safe drinking
water to people in developing nations (Charity: water, 2009). It was founded in 2006 by Scott
Harrison, and in the 3 years since its establishment the organization has helped fund over 1300
projects in 15 countries, benefiting more than 720,000 people. In addition, the charity enjoyed
great publicity in the media. Charity: water’s story appeared on over 70 major online news sites
including The New York Time, CNN, ABC, and Forbes, and its promotional videos were played
at several major online news and video sites including Youtube, Hulu, CNN, and ABC.
Messages
The set of messages I have chosen to analyze include a PSA video (George, 2008) and a
world water day promotional video (Willows, 2009). The PSA video was released in April 2008,
and was aired on TV as well as on online video sites such as Youtube and Hulu. The video is still
being played at Hulu currently. The World Water Day promotional video was released in 2009 as
an effort to promote World Water Day on March 22nd and raise awareness of the global water and
sanitation crisis affecting the planet. Both videos can be found on the Charity: water website.
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance 3
The Public Service Announcement ad with Jennifer Connelly was directed by Terry
George. The 62 second short video was set in New York. A Mother (played by Jennifer Connelly)
and her small son walk across the streets of New York to central park to fill two yellow Jerry
Cans with dirty water, which she serves to her children in a drinking glass. The screen blacks out
and the following words appear: Imagine drinking this. 1.1 billion people don’t have access to
clean water. Help. Chritywater.org. Apart from the Jerry Cans carried by everyone on the street
and the dirty water served in a drinking glass, the video depicted normality in New York:
crowded streets, busy traffic, trendy young people, a modern home, and children playing on the
computer while their mother makes them food and a drink. In director Terry George’s words, the
PSA “allowed us to imagine for a moment what life without clean water would be like in New
York City” (Charity: water, 2009). The main purpose of the PSA was to raise the awareness of
the global water crisis and encourage viewers to donate to the charity.
Directed by Simon Willows, the Charity: water World Water Day video is a 02: 36
minutes long promotional video shot in Central African Republic, a country devastated by water
shortage. The promo video was aimed at raising the awareness of the global water crisis and
show people how Charity: water could help. The first scene shows images of a woman in a
shower, a running tap, and a child drinking sparkling clean water from a glass. The voice over
says: “We do use water in large quantities. Water is essential to life. Without water there is no
life”. The images are fuzzy, and the voice over and the background music has an old Hollywood
feel. Here the music suddenly changes from romantic to upbeat, and the word WATER appears in
white block letters on a red background. The screen flashes, and the word WATER disappears,
taking its place are the word DIRTY and a picture of a skull. The words CENTRAL AFRICAN
REPUBLIC appears, and the following 30 seconds of the video is used to present various facts
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance 4
and statistics about the devastations endured by Central African Republic people, including the
average life expectancy (as low as 39 years), number of people without homes, and the
percentage of people without access to clean water (85%). Images of Central African Republic
people are displayed in the background: children walking barefoot on dirt roads, casualties from
one of its three civil wars laying on the ground, a frightening thin man staring out from the
screen with a helpless look on his face. Next, the word DIRTY WATER appears on the left side
of the screen; on the right side of the screen a list of the diseases associated with drinking dirty
water appears. The list includes diarrhea, dysentery, parasites and typhoid. The following 30
seconds of the video is used to illustrate the consequences of not having access to clean water,
including illnesses, time wasted on walking for miles to fetch water, and children missing school.
The image of muddy water being fetched from ponds, rivers and lakes is constantly being
displayed in the background. The words IMAGINE DRINKING THIS appears. The rest of the
video is dedicated to explaining how Charity: water helps to provide clean water to the people in
Africa, and how the viewer can get involved and help. At the end of the video the viewers are
asked to donate $20 to the charity. While the overall emotion represented in the first half of the
video is helplessness and despair, the second half of the video is more upbeat and hopeful.
Audience Choice
Charity: water incorporates the use of the internet as a major channel of message
distribution. This approach enabled the organization to reach people all over the world, and also
reach the younger generation who has increasingly moved away from traditional media sources
such as the TV and print media. In addition, all of Charity: water’s fundraising information is
online, and very little print material is produced and distributed. Potential donors would be
provided with the organization’s website address, and will be presented with more information
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance 5
about the charity’s mission and ways to get involved once they go to the charity web page.
Theoretically, all English-speaking people from around the world who: 1) have internet
access, 2) are accustomed to using the internet as a source of information, 3) are sympathetic
towards people who lack access to the basic necessities of life, and 4) possess adequate resources
to help could be potential contributors to the charity’s mission. However, the fact that all
Charity: water’s campaign material are released predominantly on US-based websites and other
media forms imply that the target audience for receiving these messages are people in the US
who fit the above mentioned criteria. In addition, both videos show women and children as the
victims of the water crisis, therefore it can be inferred that women, particularly mothers are
targeted as receivers of this message set. The implications of these criteria are that the intended
audience is a female member of Generation Y, or the Net Generation. This would put the age
range of the target audience between 18 and 40. Some key characteristics of the target audience
include: young and technology-savvy, used to using the internet as a source of information, and
are familiar with using social media as a form of communication.
The message set discussed in this paper exhibits characteristics that would make them
suitable for an audience as described above. First, although the PSA video was shown on the TV
for a short while, the organization relied heavily on the internet and online video sites to promote
both videos. The target audience of Charity: water spends a considerable time online and
therefore would be likely to be exposed to the videos. Also, the only means of getting involved in
the charity offered is to go to its official website, which is the most convenient and natural way
for most of the charity’s target audience, who are more likely to make an online payment to the
charity than to mail in a check. Second, both videos attempt to invoke the sympathy in the
viewers by asking them to imagine themselves living without clean water. Finally, the portrayal
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance 6
of women and children as victims of the global water crisis in the videos make the messages
more persuasive for female audiences, especially mothers. In addition, the fact that a
considerable portion of the target audience are made up of young people means that the messages
need to be simple yet powerful in order to catch the audience’s attention. The Net Generation is
constantly bombarded with various commercials on the TV, on billboards, and on the internet. By
incorporating strong visual impact, minimal use of text and voice-overs, and simplistic messages,
the two videos do not take the viewer a lot of time and effort to process, yet strong enough to be
remembered.
Purpose
The instrumental goals of the Charity: water campaign would be to firstly raise awareness
in the US about the global water crisis, and secondly to persuade the audience to go to their
website and get involved in the organization’s mission. The website provides a variety of ways in
which a visitor could get involved, from traditional ways such as donating money and taking part
in sponsored walks, marathons, or swims, to unconventional ways such as hosting a Charity:
water birthday party and asking friends to donate to the charity instead of giving birthday
presents. For those who are unable to make monetary contributions, Charity: water still offers a
way in which they could help: by embedding one or more Charity: water banners on their
personal web page to spread the word. The terminal results Charity: water hopes to achieve, as
described by the organization’s mission statement, is simply to bring clean and safe drinking
water to people in developing nations (Charity: water, 2009).
Persuasive Strategies
The same central message that appeared in both of the videos is “Imagine drinking this”.
This message asks the audience to place themselves in the shoes of the victims of the water
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance 7
crisis, and in order for the audience to do so, they must be able to identify with the people and/or
the situation depicted the videos. It is clear that the setting of the video and the people depicted
were chosen with the characteristics of the intended audience in mind.
The PSA video was set in the city of New York. New York City is one of the most
portrayed places in the media, not only in America, but also throughout the world. Therefore
even if an individual had never been to New York, he or she would still be familiar with what life
is like in the city through exposure to images and videos of the city. By incorporating the concept
of not having clean water into a familiar image of what life is like for Americans, the audience
would be more likely to identify with the hypothetical scenario in the video, thereby delivering a
powerful message. Rather than showing actual scenes of developing countries devastated by the
lack of access to clean water, showing the audience a hypothetical situation using scenes they are
familiar with could make the reality of not having access to clean water more real to them.
Similarly, in the beginning of the World Water Day promo video, scenes of water usage that
would be familiar to the target audience were shown: a woman enjoying a relaxing hot shower, a
glass overflowing with water pouring from the tap, a child drinking clear sparkling water from a
glass.
Considering the fact that the US is a multi-cultural melting pot, there are reasons to believe
that the choice of the actress to play the leading role in the PSA is not random, but rather a
thoughtful and strategic decision. Jennifer Connelly's father was of Irish Catholic and Norwegian
descent, and Connelly's mother was Jewish. Her multi-racial background makes her “racially
ambiguous”, meaning that she could be perceived as a member of multiple ethnic groups. Her
pale skin identifies her as Caucasian, her slight frame and slender figure could suggest Asian
decent, and her dark hair and features could identify her as having African, Hispanic, or Jewish
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance 8
origins. This would make her easier to identify with for a larger proportion of females from
America’s major ethnic groups.
The message set is also designed with consideration to the organization’s purpose to raise
awareness of the shortage of clean water in developing countries. The implications for the lack of
clean water in certain developing countries are illustrated by accentuating the contrast between
how people in America use water and how people in developing countries use water. The World
Water Day promo video establishes this contract by showing images of Americans use water
liberally followed by images of Central African Republic people struggling to even find dirty
water. The contrast in the PSA video is more implicit. No images of the way Americans use
water appeared in the video, but the beliefs concerning how Americans use water are implicit in
the familiar setting and people portrayed so that a strong contrast can still be perceived by the
audience.
Another main purpose of this set of messages is to persuade people to donate to the
charity. The request for help was made right after asking the viewers to imagine a life without
access to clean water, and could be seen as offering a way to reduce the psychological discomfort
in the viewers caused by the contrast between their beliefs about water usage and the reality in
some parts of the world. By asking the audience to place themselves in the shoes of the victims
of the global water crisis, the videos make the audience briefly experience a life that is in stark
contrast with their own. This could cause the audience psychological distress, and prompt them
to act to reduce this feeling. Any solicitation for help at this moment could be viewed as offering
the audience a way to make the viewers feel better, therefore increasing the chance of donation
by the viewers.
Theoretical basis
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Both of the videos discussed in this paper employ strategies to: 1) ask the viewers to
imagine living without access to clean water. 2) Design messages so that the viewers can easily
identify with the people portrayed in the videos. 3) Illustrate the contrast between water usage in
the US and water usage in countries facing water shortage. Both these videos ask the viewers to
briefly experience the life of the victims of the global water crisis, and see the stark contrast
between how people in America use water and how people in some developing countries use
water. Most people in America would find it hard to imagine having to walk miles every day to
fetch water from dirty lakes and ponds, thus the thought of doing so would cause them
psychological distress. This distress could also be described as cognitive dissonance. As the
viewers experience this dissonance through identifying and sympathizing with the characters
portrayed in the videos, the dissonance they experience is vicarious dissonance, and the strength
of vicarious dissonance experienced could be a predictor of the persuasive power of the
messages. Therefore, Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance Theory is proposed as a theoretical
framework for studying the set of messages.
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Cognitive dissonance is traditionally associated with inconsistencies in cognitions caused
by one’s own attitudes and actions (Festinger, 1957). Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance Theory is a
more recent development in CDT which suggests that dissonance can also be caused by
observing other people act inconsistently with their attitudes (Cooper & Hogg, 2007; Norton,
Monin, Cooper & Hogg, 2003). Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance Theory assumes the basic
assumptions of classical Cognitive Dissonance Theory, and also has roots in Social Identity
Theory.
Basic Assumptions of Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance 10
Leon Festinger made a very basic observation over 50 years ago about the social lives of
human beings: we do not like inconsistency. The greater the inconsistency we face, the more
motivated we will be to reduce it. This seemingly simple obvious observation became the
foundation for Cognitive Dissonance Theory.
There are three basic assumptions of CDT. The first is that human beings desire
consistency in their cognitions. A cognition is any piece of knowledge a person may have,
including knowledge of behavior, attitude, or belief (Wicklund, 1976; Cooper, 2007). When two
related cognitions are inconsistent with each other, dissonance is created.
The second assumption of CDT is that dissonance is an aversive state that drives people to
action. People do not enjoy being in a state of dissonance; it is an uncomfortable state. Festinger
asserted that dissonance is a drive state possessing arousal properties (Festinger, 1957; Wicklund,
1976).
Finally, CDT assumes that the arousal generated by dissonance will motivate people to
avoid situations that create inconsistencies and strive toward situations that restore consistency
(Festinger, 1957; Wicklund, 1976). Dissonance can be reduced through several means, such as
reducing the importance of dissonant beliefs; attitudinal or behavioral change; and seeking
information.
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance Theory predicts that when a person observes a member of
the same social group suffer from cognitive dissonance, this person would also experience the
same dissonance, which would create an aversive state in which the individual would attempt to
reduce that dissonance (Cooper, 2007).
One important basis for experiencing vicarious cognitive dissonance is common group
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance 11
membership between the observer and the person being observed. When we share group
membership with someone, we take on part of that person’s identity. Therefore when we observe
him or her act in a way that would cause them dissonance, the empathic transmission of emotion
would make us feel that dissonant emotion too (Cooper, 2007). Study revealed that when we
identify with another person, we are likely to sympathize with that person and experience any
dissonance that person experiences (Hogg, 2001; Glasford et al., 2008). Related study revealed
that the more attached the individual is to a certain social group, the more vicarious cognitive
dissonance he or she will experience on seeing a member from that social group act in an
inconsistent way (Norton et al., 2003; Sungeun et al., 2008).
Scholars have suggested that dissonant information can create a mental imbalance for
individuals, and when this imbalance is combined with a fundraising solicitation, individuals are
given an opportunity to restore the balance (Bolin, 1988., Jonas, Greenberg, & Frey, 2003.
Bennet & Kottasz, 2000., Waters, 2009). Both videos discussed in this paper ask viewers to
imagine themselves in dissonance-generating situations before making requests for help,
therefore vicarious cognitive dissonance could be the variable that accounts for the degree of
influence exerted by the message set. In the following section the message set will be analyzed
and evaluated using Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance Theory as a theoretical framework.
Message Analysis
Appropriateness of messages according to VCDT
According to Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance Theory, the ideal message that could create
dissonance in viewers and motivate viewers to take action to reduce dissonance would exhibit
the following characteristics:
1) The character portrayed in the message should be easy to identify with by the majority of the
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance 12
target audience.
2) There are disparities between the character’s actions and perceived attitudes that would cause
cognitive dissonance in the character.
3) The cognitive dissonance experienced by the actor should be strong enough so that if the
same dissonance is experienced by the viewers, it would motivate them to take actions to
reduce it.
4) An acceptable way to reduce the dissonance created in the video should be presented to the
audience.
The PSA video created by Charity: water exhibits all the above characteristics. Jennifer
Connelly played a mother living in New York with three kids. Her attire and the home decoration
suggest that she is portraying a mother from an average middle-class American family. The
majority of the target audience would be able to identify with this family. Considering that the
age range of the target audience is between 18 and 40, it is reasonable to assume that a large
portion of these people would be parents, and therefore be able to identify with the parental
figure portrayed in the video. The multiracial characteristics exhibited by the leading actress
make her all the more easy to identify with by the target audience.
When the viewer considers the actor in the video as belonging to the same social group
with themselves, it is implied that the actor shares their attitudes and beliefs. A person from an
average American family would hold the following beliefs: clean water should come from a tap;
and unsanitary water would be harmful to one’s health if consumed. When the viewer sees the
actor walk across New York to get water from a dirty lake, and then serves the dirty water to her
children, her actions would have violated both of these beliefs. The discrepancy between the
perceived beliefs of the actor and her behavior would likely cause cognitive dissonance in the
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance 13
viewer.
How much dissonance would the video cause in the viewer? Although there isn’t a study
that measured the degree of dissonance in viewers after viewing the PSA video, the fact that
most American people take unlimited clean water running from taps for granted would make the
hypothetical scene more than disturbing to viewers. The scene depicted in the video is drastically
different from the life in New York most people are familiar with, and it would be hard to
associate modern urban life with having to walk across the city just to fetch water that is not even
clean. The video would produce even more dissonance in parents, who would be likely to find
the idea of giving unsanitary water to their children to drink unthinkably disturbing. The
implantation of these two major dissonance-creating factors in an otherwise normal urban scene
would be sufficient to create dissonance in viewers.
Now that adequate dissonance is created and the audience is left with a desire to reduce
this uncomfortable feeling, the next right move to do would be to provide the audience with a
means to do so. Just before the children drinks the dirty water, the screen blacks out and the word
Help appears, follows by the charity’s website. The message being sent to the audience is: “there
is a way to make you feel better, just go to our website to find out what you can do”. When the
viewer is motivated to reduce the dissonance brought about by the images in the video, he or she
is more likely to take the chance to reduce the dissonance when presented with one.
The World Water Day promo video only included scenes depicting water usage that would
be familiar to American viewers at the beginning of the video. Viewers would be able to identify
with the depicted manner of water usage, as most Americans are used to using large quantities of
water in our everyday activities. Most Americans would also identify with using water in a
wasteful manner-it is common for people to leave the tap running unnecessarily. The rest of the
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance 14
video showed images of people in water-deprived African countries. Similar to the PSA video,
images of women and children walking miles to fetch water were shown; however the women
and children were native African people with whom the American viewers would perceive to
have little in common with. According to Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance Theory, the amount of
vicarious cognitive dissonance experienced by the viewer is in proportion to the level of
identification the viewers perceive that they would have with the people being observed (Cooper,
2007). In this case, although the people in the video acted in a way that is inconsistent with the
viewers’ beliefs, the lack of identification between the viewers and the native African people
would mean that little to no vicarious dissonance would be experienced by the viewers after
watching this video. Granted, some viewers might identify with the women in the video as
mothers with small children, but this identification is somewhat single dimensional and would
only apply to a limited portion of the target audience. According to the assumptions of VCDT,
the lack of identification between the viewers and the people portrayed in the video would make
the message “Imagine drinking this” less effective.
Message evaluation
This set of messages was not chosen for its effectiveness, but was chosen to be studied for
the potential theoretical insight it may provide. There is no doubt that the Charity: water
campaign has been largely successful by looking at its accomplishments over the course of just
three years. In addition to raising enough money to help over 720,000 people obtain access to
clean, safe drinking water, the charity enjoyed great publicity in the media. Charity: water’s
story appeared on over 70 major online news sites including The New York Time, CNN, ABC,
and Forbes, and its promotional videos were played at several major online news and video sites
including Youtube, Hulu, CNN, and ABC. It is, therefore, fair to say that Charity: water
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance 15
accomplished its goals of both awareness-raising and fundraising. However, it is difficult to
attribute this success to any single message set the organization produced in the effort to exert
persuasion: the two videos discussed in this paper are only a very small part of the Charity:
water campaign. To fully evaluate the effectiveness of Charity: water’s persuasive messages,
several sets of messages would have to be studied and their collective effectiveness measured.
Improving the Message Set
Based on the assumptions of Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance Theory, the World Water
Day promo video could be changed to increase its effectiveness. This promo video was made by
Charity: water volunteers on a trip to install wells in Africa, and one of the objectives of the
video was to show how Central African people lived and how Charity: water’s efforts could help
them improve the quality of their life. In order to improve the effectiveness of this video without
compromising the original purpose of this video, one suggestion would be to incorporate familiar
scenes or people from the US in the video. Instead of showing images of Central African people
and how they are living with life without access to clean water, show images of American
volunteers working alongside the native people for a day: the volunteers could be given the same
yellow Jerry Can to carry, and walk across dry, cracked lands to fetch water from the same
muddy rivers or lakes. The audience may feel distanced from the native African people, but it
would be easier for them to identify with the volunteers, who live and work in the US and are
also used to having clean water running from their kitchen taps. Another assumption of Vicarious
Cognitive Dissonance Theory states that the degree of identification is a moderating factor in the
amount of vicarious cognitive dissonance experienced in the viewer (Cooper, 2007). How much
an individual identifies with another is dependent on how much common social membership the
individual perceives to exist between them, therefore the volunteers being portrayed on the
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance 16
promo video should be chosen with the characteristics of the target audience in mind. The PSA
video targeted mainly mothers, so it might be a good idea to expand the target audience with this
promo video and feature more males and younger females. The names and occupations of the
volunteers could be briefly introduced at the beginning of the video, for example, “Anna, a
college student majoring in Accounting, is going to experience how a day in Central Africa
would be like for a girl her age.” Images of Anna working alongside a native girl to fetch water
could then be shown, she would be easier to identify with by American college students than the
native girl, with whom the American students would perceive to have little common social
membership with. According to VCDT, viewers from the target audience would experience
vicarious cognitive dissonance when they see individuals with whom they identify with behaving
in an inconsistent way. The message “Imagine drinking this” would therefore be more powerful,
which would make the video more effective in both awareness raising and fundraising efforts.
Discussion
Through studying a set of messages from the Charity: water campaign using Vicarious
Cognitive Dissonance Theory, this paper provided justification for proposing Vicarious
Cognitive Dissonance Theory as a framework for the design and evaluation of non-profit
fundraising persuasive messages. Past research using cognitive dissonance as a variable in
consumer behavior has focused on post-decision dissonance, and little research has been done on
cognitive dissonance as a predictor of consumer behavior prior to the decision. This is because
the classical CDT predicts that dissonance will only be created after a decision, or action, has
been made that is inconsistent with the consumers beliefs. Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance
Theory provides insights into how cognitive dissonance can be experienced by an individual by
just watching another act in an inconsistent way, and therefore could expand the study of
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance 17
cognitive dissonance in consumer decision making to the pre-decision making process.
Although this study provides a tentative rationale on how to design and evaluate a message
set according to the assumptions of Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance Theory, it is limited in many
ways. First of all, the message set is only analyzed for its content, but the channel of message
distribution could have also attributed to how much the viewers identify with the content of the
video. As the target audience of the message set is used to receiving information online, the fact
that the videos are widely distributed online may make the contents of the video easier to identify
with for the viewers. Secondly, Endorsement Theory predicts that consumers relate more to
celebrities (Marshall, 2008), therefore the perceived effectiveness of the PSA video according to
VCDT could be partly attributed to Jennifer Connelly’s endorsement. Finally, the study used
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance as the framework for analyzing the set of messages, but as
VCDT is rooted in Social Identity Theory, it may be useful to establish a comprehensive
theoretical framework which incorporates Social Identity Theory to gain a fuller understanding
of how social identity acts as a mediating factor in the amount of vicarious cognitive dissonance
experienced by individuals.
One interesting future research on the effectiveness of the set of messages studied in the
paper would be to design an experimental study to compare the amount of dissonance created in
viewers. According to the hypothesis of Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance Theory, the more the
viewer identify with the people in the videos, the more dissonance they will experience. If this
hypothesis is to be supported, then the results of the experiment should show that viewers
(sample population from the target audience) would experience more dissonance when watching
the PSA video compared to when watching the World Water Day promo video.
Vicarious Cognitive Dissonance 18
References
Bennett, R. & Kottasz, R. (2000). Emergency fund-raising for disaster relief. Disaster Prevention
and Management, 9 (5), 352–360.
Bolin, R. (1988). Response to natural disasters. In: M. Lystad. (Ed.). Mental health responses to
mass emergencies, Bruner Mazel, NY: Sage.
Charity: water. (2009). 2008 Annual report. Retrieved from
