                      5.  CONSISTENCY THEORY OF MOTIVATION.
        
             The notion that motivational processes may be described as
        being homeostatic in nature has a long tradition and can be found
        in the writings of a number of different fields beside
        psychology.  Summer (1906) wrote that a "strain toward
        consistency" in cultural norms and folkways can be a thesis
        describing man's motivation.  Cannon (1939) originally coined the
        term, homeostasis, meaning the steady state the physiological
        processes were aimed at achieving.  Cofer and Appley (1964) cited
        a number of studies to support this theory.  Stagner (1951) noted
        that perceptual tendencies were a prime example of the human
        organism's desire to maintain a steady state.  Korman (1971b)
        found that task and work behavior can be and often are kept at a
        steady level despite considerable variation in such environmental
        stimuli as noise and music.  Festinger (1941) found that goal
        setting was positively influenced by task success thus supporting
        the homeostatic model.  
        
             Some criticisms of the consistency theory abounded.  Young
        (1949) proposed that the consistency theory cannot handle the
        observed data that organisms will sometimes seek non-nutritive
        substances resulting in an imbalance in the homeostatic state of
        the being.  Another criticism was that the consistency theory
        could not account for creativity, suicide, or self-sacrificing
        behavior (Maddi, 1968).  In terms of accounting for suicide
        and/or self-defeating behavior, there was nothing in the
        consistency theory that necessarily precluded predicting such
        behavior when the primary units under analysis were psychological
        in nature, rather than physiological.  It was this concentration
        on psychological imbalance that marked the contemporary work in
        consistency motivation.  
        
             Imbalances make the world more anxiety prone provoking
        frustration in humans.  Since not knowing how others will react
        and behave makes it difficult to satisfy human desires and
        motives adequately, humans often behave and reward themselves in
        a consistent fashion so that they may know and understand the
        world better, and thus satisfy their needs (Brehm and Cohen,
        1962; Baron, 1968).  Humans engage in consistent behavior because
        it makes them more credible and understandable in the eyes of
        others.  Having such status enables them to influence others in
        order to achieve particular goals (Tedeschi, Schlenker, and
        Bonoma, 1971).  There was evidence to support the hypothesis that
        imbalance may be considered as a secondary source of drive in a
        Hullian sense.  However, evidence both for and against this
        proposition existed (Pallak and Pittman, 1972; Seudfeld and
        Epstein, 1971).  
        
             There was considerable evidence to support the basic
        assumption that psychological imbalance was under some conditions
        a sufficient condition for the arousal and direction of behavior
        aimed at reducing that imbalance.  Jordan (1953) tested and
        supported the hypothesis that hypothetical imbalanced situations
        would be rated as more unpleasant than hypothetical balanced
        situations (Whitney, 1971).  Zajonc and Burnstein (1965) found
        that triads about relevant issues were balanced and learned more
        rapidly than those that were imbalanced.  For irrelevant issues,
        balance did not have an influence on learning.  People who
        interact frequently were more apt to like one another according
        to Homans (1950) and Festinger, Schacter, and Back (1950). 
        Knowledge that one had been assigned somebody else as a partner
        increased the attractiveness of the other person even before
        personal contact with the individual was made (Darley and
        Berscheid, 1967).  Using the galvanic response (GSR) as a measure
        of emotionality in balanced and unbalanced situations, Burdick
        and Byrnes (1958) found that (a) GSR differed depending on
        whether the subjects agreed or disagreed with a well-liked
        experimenter, and (b) subjects who liked an experimenter tended
        to change their opinions toward greater agreement with him, while
        those who disliked him tended to change their opinions toward
        greater disagreement.  
        
             Congruity, as developed by Osgood and Tannenbaum (1955) was
        in its basic orientation a special case of balance theory as
        developed by Heider, the identity was in some respects a
        misleading one.  The reason it was misleading was that congruity
        theory, as opposed to consistency theory, was far more
        sophisticated in terms of its measurement aspects and its
        preciseness of its predictions.  Its advance in measurement were
        limited.  The cost of congruity theory was more limited in scope
        than most theories.  First, it dealt with the problem of
        predicting the direction of attitude change as a function of the
        nature and characteristics of attitude-change messages.  Second,
        it dealt with the prediction of how complex stimuli will be
        evaluated as a function of the simple stimuli out of which they
        are constructed (Tannenbaum, 1968).  There were two basic
        assumptions of Osgood and Tannenbaum's congruity theory:
             1.   Evaluative judgements tend toward maximal simplicity. 
                  Since "black or white," "all or nothing," or "you're
                  with us or against us" evaluative judgments are easier
                  to make than more refined, differentiated ones, there
                  is continuing pressure within the cognitive structure
                  toward judgements of this nature, and therefore, toward
                  the polarization of one's opinions.
             2.   Since seeing two things as being identical is less
                  complex than seeing them as being finely discriminated
                  from one another, related concepts will tend to be
                  brought together within one's cognitive structure and
                  related to one another in a similar manner (p. 162).
        
             Given these basic assumptions, the principle of congruity
        purported that attitude change will always occur in the direction
        of increased congruity with the prevailing frame of reference. 
        It was the basic prediction of congruity theory that when sources
        of statements and objects of statements were linked by an
        assertion in an incongruous fashion, there will be a tendency to
        change attitudes toward both the source and the object in the
        direction of increased congruency.  The change will take place
        dependent upon whether or not the assertion is positive or
        negative in terms of how it links the person making the assertion
        and the object of the assertion.  It also depends on how the
        person feels about the source and object and the strength of
        these feelings.  The degree of change will also depend on how
        discrepant these attitudes are to begin with.  
        
             Along with consistency theory, congruity theory generated a
        great amount of research, a fact that was surprising considering
        its general sophistication and the preciseness of its
        predictions.  While it did possess weaknesses by not providing a
        means for assessing the strength of assertions or for the fact
        that incongruity reduction may take place in ways not specified
        by the theory, these weaknesses were relatively common to all
        consistency theories.  While the others did not have the
        strengths of the congruity approach, it was somewhat puzzling
        that the amount of research was generated was small when compared
        to other consistency theories.
        
             No discussion of consistency motivation would be complete
        without mention of cognitive dissonance, a theory generated a
        significant degree of research and controversy.  The logic of
        dissonance theory was originally developed by Festinger (1957). 
        It was quite simple at first glance.  The basic postulates of the
        theory were:
             1.   Man has cognitions about the world and about himself
                  (cognitions are bits of knowledge, attitudes, and
                  perceptions).
             2.   These cognitions may have three forms of relationship
                  with one another within the individual's cognitive
                  apparatus.
             3.   One relationship is that any two cognitions may be
                  consonant with one another.  By consonant, Festinger
                  meant that one cognition follows from the other. For
                  example, when a person who enjoys watching a baseball
                  game goes to one.
             4.   A second type of relationship between any two
                  cognitions is that they may be irrelevant to one
                  another.  For example, a person who enjoys watching
                  baseball games decides to have ham and eggs for supper.
                  
             5.   A third type of relationship between any two cognitions
                  may be that they are dissonant with one another in that
                  considering the two cognitions alone, the observe of
                  one would follow from the other.  For example, a
                  dissonant relationship would be that the person who
                  likes watching baseball games goes to the opera even
                  though there is a game being played that he could
                  attend (Korman, 1974, p. 167).
        
             According to Festinger, dissonance was a negative
        motivational state that one wished to reduce when it occurred. 
        The occurrence of dissonance was postulated to serve as an
        antecedent to condition leading to the arousal of behavior. 
        Direction was a function of choosing those behavioral
        alternatives that will reduce the dissonance.  It could be
        avoided through such processes as selective information seeking
        and the like.  Festinger postulated that the total amount of
        dissonance a person felt was a function of the total number of
        units that were in a dissonant relationship with one another,
        weighted by the importance of the cognitive elements involved. 
        The basic prediction was that the greater the amount of
        dissonance, the more likely behavior will be undertaken in order
        to reduce the dissonance.  Thus, motivation to change was
        directly related to the dissonance a human being felt.
        
             One of the most intriguing derivations made by dissonance
        theory was its predictions concerning the problem of partial
        reinforcement.  The problem was that clear behavioral regarding
        organisms reinforced the learning on a partial-reinforcement
        schedule and would persist in the learned behavior longer after
        reinforcement was totally withdrawn.  In a series of experiments,
        Festinger and Lawrence (1962) proposed that the partial-
        reinforcement effect was nothing but a manifestation of the
        forced compliance predictions.  
        
             The question the motivational researcher must ask is, if
        consistency is such an important motivational variable, why are
        there inconsistencies in human cognition?  Bem (1970) suggested
        that consistency may not be important for some people.  Those who
        are not intellectually oriented and who do not care particularly
        about the degree to which they present a logical, coherent,
        consistent picture of the world, express the limitations that are
        the essence of the consistency theory.  Consistency motivation
        seemed to be an important influence on behavior.  
        
             There are three reasons consistency theory remained a
        popular approach in interpreting motivational theory for a period
        of time.  First, it generated frequently supported, subtle, non-
        obvious predictions.  Second, consistency theory had great appeal
        to those psychologists who want to investigate questions of a
        more human, as opposed to animal, bent, but who still wanted to
        be relatively rigorous and experimentally oriented in their
        thinking and research.  Finally, what was most significant, the
        consistency approach remained viable for the same reasons as the
        other theories presented above.  If the consistency approach was
        to remain viable, attention would have to be paid to such
        questions as (a) the measured degree of inconsistency in a person
        at a give time, (b) individual differences in the type of
        inconsistency reduction preferred, and (c) the conditions under
        which it will not (i.e., the inconsistency is tolerated as a
        "fact of life").
