Consistency Bias

The concept was first formally proposed by social psychologists Daniel Gilbert and Patrick Malone in 1995. Earlier research included Greg Markus's 1986 study of people's political beliefs from the University of Michigan. The term "consistency bias" was used by Sadler & Woody (2003) to describe people's tendency to judge their interpersonal behavior according to general self-images. Related to but distinct from Robert Cialdini's "commitment and consistency" from Influence (1984).