An Empirical Research: Cognitive Dissonance as an Instrument for Intergroup Discrimination Reduction

Discrimination and intolerance remains to be one of our main challenges as a modern society. Social identity theory and group formation might be the key driver that creates out-group discrimination and in-group favouritism. This thesis attempts to moderate this negative behaviour by utilizing cognitive dissonance. To measure this effect, a simple economic experiment (dictator game) is used to study whether cognitive dissonance can change the behaviour of the participants. To simulate the discrimination between groups, this thesis examines the difference in the altruistic behaviour of smokers towards smokers and towards non-smokers. A sample of 160 participants is gathered and allocated randomly into four treatments. The findings suggest that cognitive dissonance does influence the behaviour of the participants in becoming more altruistic in general. However, there is insufficient evidence that out-group discrimination exists. One explanation is that some group identities have a stronger effect than others.