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The ExperimentLeon Festinger and James Carlsmith conducted a study on cognitive dissonance with 71 male college students. They told the students that they would participate in a series of experiments and be interviewed afterwards. The students were told to answer the questions honestly so they could improve the experiments in the future. The subjects were told to do purposely boring tasks (putting a spool on and off a tray and turning 48 pegs). The subjects were divided into a Group A and a Group B. Group A was not given any introduction to the experiment and Group B was given an introduction that made the experiment sound exciting and enjoyable. After the experiment, some subjects were interviewed and let go. These subjects made up the control group. Half of the remaining subjects were give $1 to give the next group an enjoyable introduction and the other half of the subjects got $20.
Explorable.com (Nov 21, 2010). Cognitive Dissonance. Retrieved Apr 10, 2016 from Explorable.com: https://explorable.com/cognitive-dissonance |
The Results11 of the 71 responses were invalid. 5 of the 11 responses were marked invalid because the 5 individuals were suspicious because they were paid. 2 of the 11 participants told the other that they were paid to say the activities were interesting. While 3 of the 11 participants declined the money. As for the remaining participant, he asked the girl for her number so he could explain/debrief her after. The results, display the cognitive dissonance phenomenon. According to Festinger and Carlsmith, the participants experienced dissonance between the conflicting cognitions: telling someone that a particular task is interesting when the truth is, they found it rather uninteresting/boring. Those who were paid $1 were forced to rationalize their own judgments and convinced themselves that what they were doing is enjoyable. On the other hand, the ones who were paid $20, carried out their task because they were paid to do it.
Explorable.com (Nov 21, 2010). Cognitive Dissonance. Retrieved Apr 10, 2016 from Explorable.com: https://explorable.com/cognitive-dissonance |
Researcher's Interpretation
Festinger and Carlsmith concluded that the subjects experienced dissonance between doing as the experimenter asked them to (introduce the task as exciting) or follow their own belief (the tasks were boring). Those paid $1 rationalized their opinion and convinced themselves that the task might have really been enjoyable. The ones paid $20 either did it just for the money or believed that the experiment must have really sucked if they had to be paid $20 (equal to about $175.85 today).
Explorable.com (Nov 21, 2010). Cognitive Dissonance. Retrieved Apr 10, 2016 from Explorable.com: https://explorable.com/cognitive-dissonance
Explorable.com (Nov 21, 2010). Cognitive Dissonance. Retrieved Apr 10, 2016 from Explorable.com: https://explorable.com/cognitive-dissonance