Editing Self-perception theory (section)

==Applications==
One useful application of the self-perception theory is in changing attitude, both [[therapy|therapeutically]] and in terms of [[persuasion]].

===Psychological therapy===

For therapies, self-perception theory holds a different view of psychological problems from the traditional perspectives. Traditionally, psychological problems come from the inner part of the clients. However, self-perception theory perspective suggests that people derive their inner feelings or abilities from their external behaviors.<ref>Bem, D. J. (1972). Self-perception theory. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, (6th ed.). New York, NY: Academic.</ref> If those behaviors are maladjusted ones, people will attribute those maladjustments to their poor adapting abilities and thus suffer from the corresponding psychological problems. Thus, this concept can be used to treat clients with psychological problems that resulted from maladjustments by guiding them to first change their behavior and later dealing with the "problems".

One of the most famous therapies making use of this concept is therapy for "heterosocial anxiety".<ref>Haemmerlie, F. M., & Montgomery, R. L. (1982). Self-perception theory and unobtrusively biased interactions: A treatment for heterosocial anxiety. Journal of Counseling, Psychology, 29, 362-370.</ref><ref>Haemmerlie, F. M., & Montgomery, R. L. (1984). Purposefully biased interactions: Reducing heterosocial anxiety through self-perception theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 900-908.</ref> In this case, the assumption is that an individual perceives that he or she has poor social skills because he/she has no dates. Experiments showed that males with heterosocial anxiety perceived less [[anxiety]] with females after several sessions of therapy in which they engaged in a 12-minute, purposefully biased dyadic social interactions with a separate females. From these apparently successful interactions, the males inferred that their heterosocial anxiety was reduced. This effect is shown to be quite long-lasting as the reduction in perceived heterosocial anxiety resulted in a significantly greater number of dates among subjects 6 months later.

===Marketing and persuasion===

Self-perception theory is also an underlying mechanism for the effectiveness of many [[marketing]] or persuasive techniques. One typical example is the foot-in-the-door technique, which is a widely used marketing technique for persuading target customers to buy products. The basic premise of this technique is that, once a person complies with a small request (e.g. filling in a short questionnaire), he/she will be more likely to comply with a more substantial request which is related to the original request (e.g. buying the related product).<ref>Snyder, M., & Cunningham, M. R. (1975). To comply or not comply: testing the self-perception explanation of the foot-in-the-door phenomenon. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 64–67.</ref><ref>Uranowitz, S. W. (1975). Helping and self-attributions: a field experiment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 852–854.</ref><ref>Seligman, C., Bush, M., & Kirsch, K. (1976). Relationship compliance in the foot-in-the-door paradigm and size of the first request. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 33, 517–520.
</ref><ref>Burger, J. M. (1999). The foot-in-the-door compliance procedure: a multiple-process analysis and review, Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3, 303–325.</ref> The idea is that the initial commitment on the small request will change one's [[self-image]], therefore giving reasons for agreeing with the subsequent, larger request. It is because people observe their own behaviors (paying attention to and complying with the initial request) and the context in which they behave (no obvious incentive to do so), and thus infer they must have a preference for those products.