In one research study, participants were paid either 50 cents or $30 to spend an hour performing a boring task (circling all of the vowels in the words in a paragraph). Afterwards, they were asked how much they enjoyed the task. According to cognitive dissonance theory, which group would report enjoying the task more?

Question

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

In this scenario, participants perform a boring task and then report how much they enjoyed it. Cognitive dissonance theory predicts that when external justification is minimal, people must adjust their internal attitude to align with their behavior.
Option 1: the group paid 50 cents. Because this payment is insufficient to justify performing the tedious task, participants experience dissonance between their behavior (doing a boring task) and their attitude (likely thinking it wasn’t enjoyable). To reduce the dissonance, they are motivated to convince themselves that they actually enjoyed the task, leading to higher reported enjoyment.
Option 2: the group paid $30. Here, the larger payment provides a clear external justification for doing something they wouldn’t find enjoyable, which lowers the need to alter their own attitude. Consequently, they have less incentive to report heightened enjoyment, and their stated enjoyment would be lower or similar to their true attitude.
Option 3: both groups would be equal. This would imply no difference in enjoyment reports, which contradicts the core prediction of cognitive dissonance theory regarding the influence of insufficient external justification on attitude change.
Summarizing the reasoning across options, the 50-cent group faces greater dissonance due to minimal external justification and is more likely to adjust their attitude upward to resolve it, whereas the $30 group has a strong external reason for participating and shows less or no such attitude shift. The idea that both groups would report equal enjoyment ignores the dissonance mechanism and its reliance on justification strength.

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