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Spreading of alternatives is a term used to describe how people evaluate choice alternatives following a difficult decision. The spreading of alternatives is often studied in the free-choice cognitive dissonance paradigm developed by Brehm (1956). People will rate the option that they chose more favorably than they did prior to making a decision, and they will rate the option they did not choose less favorably. Thus, spreading of alternatives is the spread of the evaluations of objects. Whereas people may have rated objects as equally favorable prior to a decision, the chosen option becomes clearly more favorable while the object not chosen becomes clearly less favorable following the decision. Spreading of alternatives is often referred to in the context of cognitive dissonance theory. Many cognitive dissonance researchers have studied this phenomenon. One of the first demonstrations of the spreading of alternatives was in Brehm’s (1956) work. In this initial study, Brehm had people rate various appliances. Then, he asked participants to choose which appliance they would rather have. People were given a free choice between what appliance they wanted to receive, thus the reason why this was called the free-choice paradigm. After participants made a decision, they experienced cognitive dissonance. Specifically, people had thoughts about the positive aspects of the appliance they did not choose and negative thoughts about the appliance they did choose. People initially feel regret whereby they prefer the option that they did not choose. To resolve these dissonant thoughts, people then rated the appliance that they chose more favorably than they did prior to making the decision. Additionally, people rated the appliance that they did not choose more negatively. By emphasizing the positive aspects of the object that the person chose and emphasizing the negative aspects of the object that the person did not choose, the person is able to reduce his/her dissonant cognitions. In follow-up research, Brehm and Cohen (1959) investigated whether or not dissonance would occur if a person could not exercise some degree of choice in the same situation that would produce dissonance when people could exercise choice. This is relevant to work on the spreading of alternatives because it suggests that without choice between alternatives, people may not experience the typical spreading of alternatives effect. In this experiment, participants were told that they would be participating in a boring psychology experiment. The experimenters then manipulated choice. Half of the participants were told that they needed to fill out their availability (low choice), whereas the other half of participants were told that although it would be ideal for them to participate in the study, they could provide an excuse for why they could not participate (high choice). By allowing participants to give an excuse for not participating in the experiment, they had more choice in whether or not they actually participated. The researchers then manipulated relative deprivation. In the low deprivation condition, participants were told that most people receive $1.00 for their participation, and in the high deprivation condition, participants were told that most people receive $10.00 for their participation. However, people in both groups were told that whether people received money or not was by chance, and people in both the low and high deprivation conditions were told that they would not receive any money. The participants then rated their satisfaction with the prospect of participating in the research. The researchers found that when people feel deprived, they feel less satisfaction under conditions of low choice. Under conditions of high choice, however, people experience more dissonance and more increased satisfaction as a result. This finding made a large impact on the cognitive dissonance literature because it suggested that people need to feel somewhat responsible for their decisions for cognitive dissonance to result. In fact, personal responsibility was a key part of the “New Look” approach to cognitive dissonance (Cooper & Fazio, 1984). Later research has suggested that the desirability of the choices in the free-choice paradigm impacts the spreading of alternatives effect. Shultz, Léveillé, and Lepper (1999) hypothesized that a choice between undesirable alternatives would cause people to focus on the positives of the chosen alternative, but a choice between desirable alternatives would cause people to focus on the negatives of the alternative that they did not choose. The authors noted that dissonance merely predicts that people show greater spread of alternatives following a difficult choice than following an easy choice. In the original Brehm (1956) study, however, the spreading seemed to be caused mostly by a decreased evaluation of the alternative that was not chosen. The authors note that understanding constraint satisfaction networks, specifically the consonance model, may provide insight into when people focus on the positives of the chosen alternative vs. the negatives of the alternative that they did not choose. Shultz and colleagues used simulations from this model to generate predictions that they tested in an empirical study. In this study, children were asked to rate eleven different posters. Following the rating, participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: control, easy choice, difficult/low choice, or difficult/high choice. The researcher then eliminated various choices during a filler task. For the difficult/high choice condition, the researcher eliminated the choices that were rated as highly favorable and selected the two next closely related liked choices. For the easy task, the choices that were most liked or most disliked were eliminated and the next highly liked and next least liked choices were the alternatives. In the difficult/low choice condition, the least favorable choices were eliminated and the next two closely disliked choices were selected as the alternatives. Participants were then told that they could keep whatever poster they chose. Participants in control condition made their choice after their final ratings. After the choice, participants were asked to rate the posters again. The researchers found that a choice between undesirable posters caused the children to focus on the positives of the chosen poster, but a choice between desirable posters caused children to focus on the negatives of the poster that they did not choose. This research is interesting in that it helped to clarify when people will increase their evaluations of the chosen object vs. decrease their evaluation of the not chosen object in the free-choice paradigm. Following initial demonstrations of the spreading of alternatives, researchers began to wonder if cognitive dissonance requires conscious awareness or not. Although the evidence is mixed, some research on spreading of alternatives seems to suggest that cognitive dissonance does not require conscious awareness. Lieberman, Ochsner, Gilbert, and Schacter (2001) addressed this issue by comparing a population without the capacity for explicit memory (amnesics) with a healthy population. In the first experiment, the researchers used a modified version of the free-choice paradigm. The experiment consisted of four stages. In the first stage, participants rated two sets of 15 paintings on how much they liked each painting. One of the sets was considered the critical set and this was counterbalanced among participants. The participants then completed a filler task, and the researchers removed critical pairs of paintings (4th /10th ranked prints, 6th/12th ranked prints). In phase two, participants were asked which pairs of paintings they would like to hang in their homes. There were six total choices (five new pairs and the critical pairs) that participants could choose from. The third phase was an adaptation of the earlier filler task that participants completed. In the final phase, participants were asked which four paintings they had seen in phase two and whether they accepted or rejected these paintings in that phase. The researchers found that although the amnesic participants were unable to remember which prints they had chosen or which ones they had seen in phase two, their attitudes changed as much as the healthy participants (they rated the chosen paintings more favorably and the not chosen paintings less favorably than they did in phase 1). The researchers conducted a second experiment in which they included a cognitive load manipulation to rule out the possibility that the attitude change occurred at the moment of choice when even amnesic patients had working memory of the information. They found that even under cognitive load, participants showed the spreading of alternatives effect. There is still much work to be done on cognitive dissonance to better understand this phenomenon. In fact, some researchers argue that spreading of alternatives is not at all related to cognitive dissonance because people will always show evidence of the spreading of alternatives in the free choice paradigm (Chen & Risen, 2010). These researchers first developed and provided a proof for a mathematical theorem to determine when people will show evidence of the spreading of alternatives, even in the absence of attitude change. The authors argue that a preference-driven model of choice can predict the spreading of alternatives, but the choice itself does not cause the spreading of alternatives as is assumed in dissonance theory. The authors claim that their theorem shows that the free choice paradigm will measure the spreading of alternatives without attitude change because if people rate objects based on their existing preferences, they will still show spreading of alternatives. If spreading of alternatives can happen without attitude change, the authors claim that spreading of alternatives cannot be evidence for cognitive dissonance reduction. The authors also conduct a series of experiments to test their model. They design their experiments in a way that they are able to compare spreading from the choice process with spreading that is not due to the choice process. Ultimately, the researchers conclude that choice can reflect one’s existing preferences. They claim that the field has not controlled for pre-existing preferences when studying attitude change that is induced by choice. Although further research is needed to better understand the spreading of alternatives phenomenon, it is an effect that has been replicated many times in experimental research utilizing Brehm's (1956) free-choice paradigm. References Brehm, J. W. (1956). Postdecision changes in the desirability of alternatives. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 52(3), 384. Brehm, J. W., & Cohen, A. R. (1959). Choice and change relative deprivation as determinants of cognitive dissonance. Journal of Abnormal Psychology,58, 3, 383-7. Chen, M. K., & Risen, J. L. (2010). How choice affects and reflects preferences: Revisiting the free-choice paradigm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99, 4, 573-94. Cooper, J., & Fazio, R. H. (1984). A new look at dissonance theory. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 17, 229-266. Lieberman, M. D., Ochsner, K. N., Gilbert, D. T., & Schacter, D. L. (2001). Do amnesics exhibit cognitive dissonance reduction? The role of explicit memory and attention in attitude change. Psychological Science, 12(2), 135-140. Shultz, T. R., Léveillé, E., & Lepper, M. R. (1999). Free choice and cognitive dissonance revisited: Choosing “lesser evils” versus “greater goods.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(1), 40-48.