Editing Cognitive dissonance (section)

===Induced compliance===
{{see also|Forced compliance theory}}
[[File:Clark Stanley's Snake Oil Liniment.png|thumb|After performing dissonant behavior ([[lie|lying]]) a person might find external, consonant elements. Therefore, a [[snake oil]] salesman might find a psychological self-justification (great profit) for promoting medical falsehoods, but, otherwise, might need to change his beliefs about the falsehoods.]]
In the ''Cognitive Consequences of Forced Compliance'' (1959), the investigators [[Leon Festinger]] and [[Merrill Carlsmith]] asked students to spend an hour doing tedious tasks; e.g. turning pegs a quarter-turn, at fixed intervals. This procedure included seventy-one male students attending Stanford University. Students were asked to complete a series of repetitive, mundane tasks, then asked to convince a separate group of participants that the task was fun and exciting. Once the subjects had done the tasks, the experimenters asked one group of subjects to speak with another subject (an actor) and persuade that impostor-subject that the tedious tasks were interesting and engaging. Subjects of one group were paid twenty dollars ($20); those in a second group were paid one dollar ($1) and those in the control group were not asked to speak with the imposter-subject.<ref name=FestingerCarlsmith1959>{{cite journal | vauthors = Festinger L, Carlsmith JM | title = Cognitive consequences of forced compliance | journal = Journal of Abnormal Psychology | volume = 58 | issue = 2 | pages = 203–210 | date = March 1959 | pmid = 13640824 | doi = 10.1037/h0041593 | s2cid = 232294 | citeseerx = 10.1.1.497.2779 }}</ref>

At the conclusion of the study, when asked to rate the tedious tasks, the subjects of the second group (paid $1) rated the tasks more positively than did the subjects in the first group (paid $20), and the first group (paid $20) rated the tasks just slightly more positively than did the subjects of the control group; the responses of the paid subjects were evidence of cognitive dissonance. The researchers, Festinger and Carlsmith, proposed that the subjects experienced dissonance between the conflicting cognitions. "I told someone that the task was interesting" and "I actually found it boring." The subjects paid one dollar were induced to comply, compelled to internalize the "interesting task" mental attitude because they had no other justification. The subjects paid twenty dollars were induced to comply by way of an obvious, external justification for internalizing the "interesting task" mental attitude and experienced a lower degree of cognitive dissonance than did those only paid one dollar.<ref name=FestingerCarlsmith1959 /> They did not receive sufficient compensation for the lie they were asked to tell. Because of this insufficiency, the participants convinced themselves to believe that what they were doing was exciting. This way, they felt better about telling the next group of participants that it was exciting because, technically, they weren't lying.<ref name=":03">{{Cite journal |last1=Festinger |first1=Leon |last2=Carlsmith |first2=James M. |date=March 1959 |title=Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. |url=http://doi.apa.org/getdoi.cfm?doi=10.1037/h0041593 |journal=The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology |language=en |volume=58 |issue=2 |pages=203–210 |doi=10.1037/h0041593 |pmid=13640824 |issn=0096-851X|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

====Forbidden behavior paradigm====

In the ''Effect of the Severity of Threat on the Devaluation of Forbidden Behavior'' (1963), a variant of the induced-compliance paradigm, by [[Elliot Aronson]] and Carlsmith, examined [[self-justification]] in children.<ref name="aronson1963">{{cite journal | vauthors = Aronson E, Carlsmith JM | year = 1963 | title = Effect of the Severity of Threat on the Devaluation of Forbidden Behavior | journal = Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology | volume = 66 | issue = 6| pages = 584–588 | doi = 10.1037/h0039901 | citeseerx = 10.1.1.378.884 }}</ref> Children were left in a room with toys, including a greatly desirable steam shovel, the forbidden toy. Upon leaving the room, the experimenter told one-half of the group of children that there would be severe punishment if they played with the steam-shovel toy and told the second half of the group that there would be a mild punishment for playing with the forbidden toy. All of the children refrained from playing with the forbidden toy (the steam shovel).<ref name= "aronson1963"/>

Later, when the children were told that they could freely play with any toy they wanted, the children in the mild-punishment group were less likely to play with the steam shovel (the forbidden toy), despite the removal of the threat of mild punishment. The children threatened with mild punishment had to justify, to themselves, why they did not play with the forbidden toy. The degree of punishment was insufficiently strong to resolve their cognitive dissonance; the children had to convince themselves that playing with the forbidden toy was not worth the effort.<ref name=aronson1963 />

In ''The Efficacy of Musical Emotions Provoked by Mozart's Music for the Reconciliation of Cognitive Dissonance'' (2012), a variant of the forbidden-toy paradigm, indicated that listening to music reduces the development of cognitive dissonance.<ref name="MasatakaPerlovsky_MusicReducesCognitiveDissonance">{{cite journal |vauthors=Masataka N, Perlovsky L |date=December 2012 |title=The efficacy of musical emotions provoked by Mozart's music for the reconciliation of cognitive dissonance |journal=Scientific Reports |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=694 |bibcode=2012NatSR...2..694M |doi=10.1038/srep00694 |pmc=3457076 |pmid=23012648}}</ref> Without music in the background, the control group of four-year-old children were told to avoid playing with a forbidden toy. After playing alone, the control-group children later devalued the importance of the forbidden toy. In the variable group, classical music played in the background while the children played alone. In the second group, the children did not later devalue the forbidden toy. The researchers, Nobuo Masataka and Leonid Perlovsky, concluded that music might inhibit cognitions that induce cognitive dissonance.<ref name="MasatakaPerlovsky_MusicReducesCognitiveDissonance" />

Music is a stimulus that can diminish post-decisional dissonance; in an earlier experiment, ''Washing Away Postdecisional Dissonance'' (2010), the researchers indicated that the actions of hand-washing might inhibit the cognitions that induce cognitive dissonance.<ref name = leeschwarz>{{cite journal | vauthors = Lee SW, Schwarz N | title = Washing away pos-decisional dissonance | journal = Science | volume = 328 | issue = 5979 | pages = 709 | date = May 2010 | pmid = 20448177 | doi = 10.1126/science.1186799 | s2cid = 18611420 | bibcode = 2010Sci...328..709L }}</ref> That study later failed to replicate.<ref>{{cite news | vauthors = Resnick B  |title= More social science studies just failed to replicate. Here's why this is good. |url= https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/8/27/17761466/psychology-replication-crisis-nature-social-science |work=Vox |date=27 August 2018 }}</ref>