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Self-perception theory is an account of attitude change developed by psychologist
Daryl Bem. It asserts that we only have that knowledge of our own behaviour and
its causation that another person can have, and that we therefore develop our attitudes by observing our own behaviour and
concluding what attitudes must have caused them.
Self-perception theory differs from cognitive dissonance
theory in that it does not hold that people experience a "negative drive state" called "dissonance" which they seek to
relieve. Instead, people simply infer their attitudes from their own behavior in the same way that an outside observer
might.
Further reading
- Bem, D.I. (1972) Self-perception theory. In L. Berkowitz (ed) Advances in experimental social psychology, Vol 6, p
1-62. New York: Academic Press. ISBN
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