The Power of Cognitive Dissonance: How Rewards Can Influence Attitudes
What is the most likely result of the psychology experiment involving Ed and Todd?
a. Todd's attitude about seat belts will not change; Ed's will become stronger that seat belts are unnecessary.
b. Todd will favor seat belts more than before; Ed's attitudes will not change.
c. Todd will favor seat belts more than before; Ed will be more opposed.
d. Todd's attitude about seat belts will not change; Ed's will become stronger that seat belts are necessary.
Final Answer:
Todd's attitude on seat belts will likely remain unchanged due to sufficient justification from a large reward, whereas Ed's attitude may change to oppose seat belts more because his small reward does not justify his action against his belief.
Explanation:
In the context of a psychology experiment, where Ed is given a small reward for writing an essay against seat belts and Todd is given a large reward, it relates to cognitive dissonance theory. Cognitive dissonance occurs when a person holds contradictory beliefs or attitudes, especially if an action contradicts one's beliefs or attitudes.
Research on cognitive dissonance, such as the experiments by Festinger and Carlsmith (1959), suggests that when people are induced to engage in a behavior that conflicts with their attitudes and the reward is insufficient to justify the action, they may change their attitudes to align more closely with the behavior to reduce the dissonance.
In this case, the most likely result of the experiment is that Todd's attitude about seat belts will not change; he received a large reward justifying his action while Ed's attitude will become more opposed to seat belts because the small reward is not enough to justify his contradictory behavior, leading him to possibly change his attitude to align with his essay.