Reports Intragroup dissonance: Responses to ingroup violation of personal values q Demis E. Glasford a, * , Felicia Pratto a , John F. Dovidio b a Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut, USA b Department of Psychology, Yale University , USA Received 13 March 2007; revised 15 October 2007 Available online 5 November 2007 Abstract The present research draws on cognitive dissonance theory [Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stan- ford University Press] and social identity theory [Tajfel, H. (Ed.). (1978). Differentiation between social groups. London: Academic Press] to examine how group members respond to discrepancies between their personal values and the behavior of an ingroup. In two exper- iments we manipulated whether participants’ ingroup violated a personal value (providing basic healthcare in Experiment 1 and self-reli- ance in Experiment 2) and measured participants’ emotional responses and strategies for reducing discomfort. As expected, individuals experienced psychological discomfort (but not negative self-directed emotion), when an ingroup, but not when an outgroup, violated a personal value, and this discomfort mediated participants’ disidentification with their group (Experiment 1) and value-adherence activ- ism (Experiment 2). Ó 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Cognitive dissonance; Intragroup; Social identity; Personal values; Personal identity I saw an orderly buildup of evil, an accumulation of inhumanities, each of which alone is sufficient to make men hide in shame... The time had come—indeed it was past due—when I had to disavow and dissociate myself from those who in the name of peace—burn, maim, and kill... I could do no less for the salvation of my soul. (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on his decision to protest the Vietnam War; April, 1967; Carson, 1998) Dr. King’s decision to speak out against the Vietnam War was spawned by his belief that the United States was violating the humane values he so strongly endorsed (Carson, 1998). His uneasiness with the violation led King to disassociate himself from this group and to work to change the behavior of that group. This example illustrates the importance of understanding how people negotiate dis- crepancies between their own personal values and the behavior of important groups with which they identify. Social psychologists have long been interested in how peo- ple experience and respond to inconsistency within their own group (Kelley & Woodruff, 1956), and have postulated a range of processes (e.g., balance; Heider, 1958) that can shape these responses. In this paper, we propose that cog- nitive dissonance is a key process that likely underpins responses to ingroup violation of personal values. In par- ticular, the present research draws on cognitive dissonance, as well social identity theory, to investigate ‘‘intragroup dissonance,’’ a discrepancy between one’s personal beliefs or values and the behavior of an ingroup that results in psychological discomfort. Festinger (1957) postulated that inconsistency between one’s cognitions and one’s behavior results in cognitive dis- sonance, an aversive temporary state that individuals are motivated to reduce. Fifty years of research has provided substantial support for this fundamental proposition (see 0022-1031/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2007.10.004 q The studies reported are based on a dissertation submitted by Demis E. Glasford to the University of Connecticut Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the doctoral degree. We are grateful to Samantha Sherwood for her assistance with data collection. * Corresponding author. Address: Department of Psychology, John Jay College, 445 West 59th Street, New York, NY 10019, USA. E-mail address: dglasford@jjay.cuny.edu (D.E. Glasford). www.elsevier.com/locate/jesp Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44 (2008) 1057–1064