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584 PDF
584 PDF
584 PDF
If a ruler, a parent, or a psychologist wishes One situation which often arouses disso-
to elicit or prevent the occurrence of a par- nance involves the performance of an unpleas-
ticular response from a citizen, a child, or ant or effortful task for little or no reason.
a pigeon, his problem is not a difficult one. That is, if a person finds himself doing some-
All he must do is offer a salient reward or thing which he does not like to do and is in-
threaten to inflict a salient punishment. sufficiently rewarded, his cognition that he
Clearly, the more attractive the reward or performed an unpleasant task is dissonant
the more severe the punishment, the greater with his cognition that he received little or
the likelihood that the organism will comply. no compensation for it. He can reduce disso-
But such induced compliance is an inefficient nance in this situation by seeking some other
method of social control, for one must con- justification for having performed the act.
tinue to reward or to punish the response in Previous research in this area has demon-
order to ensure continued compliance. A much strated that an effective way of justifying an
more effective technique would entail some- insufficiently rewarded action is by cognitively
how getting the organism to enjoy (or abhor) magnifying the attractiveness of the goal.4
the performance of the act.8 Such a tech- In one experiment, subjects who expended a
nique has been suggested by the theory of high degree of effort to attain an unattractive
cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 19S7, 1961; goal convinced themselves that the goal was
Festinger & Aronson, 1960). According to the indeed attractivewhereas subjects who ex-
theory, dissonance occurs when an individual pended little effort saw the goal as it was
simultaneously holds two incompatible cog- that is, unattractive (Aronson & Mills, 1959).
nitions. Dissonance is assumed to be an un- Theoretically, the opposite effect should occur
pleasant drive state; thus, when an individual for punishment. That is, one should be able
experiences dissonance he attempts to reduce to induce a strong distaste for a previously
it by changing one or both of his cognitions, desired action by getting an individual to
adding new cognitions, etc. cease performing that action following a mild
rather than a severe threat of punishment.
research was supported by grants from the
National Science Foundation (NSF-G-16838 and Specifically, if a person is induced to cease
NSF-G-22316) to Elliot Aronson. The experiment the performance of a desired act by the threat
was conducted while Merrill Carlsmith was on the of punishment, his cognition that the act is
tenure of an NSF fellowship. The authors wish to
4
thank the staff of the Harvard Preschool for their This is not to imply that this is the one means
kind cooperation. of reducing dissonance in this kind of situation. Al-
2
Now at Yale University. ternative methods of reducing dissonance in similar
3
See Kelman (1961) for an interesting discussion situations have been investigated by Festinger and
of this issue. Carlsmith (1959), Mills (1958), and Aronson (1961).
584
SEVERITY op THREAT 585
desirable is dissonant with his cognition that on the opposite side of the low table from the sub-
he is not performing it. A threat of severe ject. Putting two of the toys on the table (for ex-
ample, the steam shovel and the tank) he asked:
punishment, in and of itself, provides ample
cognitions consonant with ceasing the action. Suppose you could either play with the steam
shovel [picking it up], or the tank [picking it up].
If a person ceases to perform a desired action Which one would you rather play with?
in the face of a mild threat however, he lacks
these consonant cognitions and, therefore, After the subject had responded, the experimenter
must seek additional justification for not per- replaced the two toys on the floor, put two others
on the table, and continued until the subject had
forming the desired act. One method of justi- made choices between all 10 pairs. By this procedure,
fication is to convince himself that the de- a ranking was elicited, from the most preferred toy
sired act is no longer desirable. Thus, if a per- (1) to the least preferred toy (5). With children this
son is induced to cease performing a desired young, it was inevitable that there would be some
inconsistencies in the paired comparisons. Three sub-
action by a threat of punishment, the milder jects gave judgments which were completely incon-
the threat the greater will be his tendency to sistent; they were not run through the remainder of
derogate the action. the experiment and their results were discarded. In
a few other cases, the reversal of one paired-com-
METHOD parison judgment led to a tie in the ranking of three
of the toys. In these cases, the three toys were placed
The general procedure involved having young chil- on the table and the experimenter pestered the child
dren evaluate several toys, issuing either a mild or a until the tie was broken. Such cases were surprisingly
severe threat of punishment for playing with one rare. The great majority of subjects were able to
specific toy, asking the children to re-evaluate the rank the toys in a consistent manner.
toys at the close of the experiment. Through this After the subject ranked the toys, the experimenter
technique we could compare the effect of a mild picked up the second-ranked toy and placed it on
threat with that of a severe threat on the attractive- the table in the center of the room. He arranged the
ness of playing with the forbidden toy. remaining toys on the floor, and said:
The subjects were 22 children at the Harvard Pre-
school, 11 girls and 11 boys, ranging in age from 3.8 I have to leave now for a few minutes to do an
to 4.6 years.5 The experimental room was a large errand. But why don't you stay here and play with
playroom familiar to all subjects. It contained a one- these toys while I am gone? I will be right back.
way observation mirror and a low table on which You can play with this one [pointing], this one,
the experimenter could display five toys. The toys and this one. But I don't want you to play with
used were a battery-powered tank, a steam shovel, the [indicating the second-ranked toy].
a set of plastic gears, a battery-powered fire engine, At this point the experimental conditions were in-
and a set of dishes and pans. The toys were all at- troduced. In the Mild Threat condition, the experi-
tractive to the children, and an opportunity to play menter continued:
with them was met with enthusiasm. Prior to the
beginning of the experiment, the experimenter spent I don't want you to play with the If
several weeks at the nursery school playing with the you played with it, I would be annoyed. But you
children, so that all the children knew him well when can play with all the others while I am gone, and
the experiment began. I will be right back.
The experimenter led each subject into the experi-
mental room, closed the door, and showed the sub- In the Strong Threat condition, the experimenter
ject the toys. He demonstrated how each toy worked, continued:
and allowed the subject to play with it briefly be- I don't want you to play with the -. If
fore moving on to the next one. After the subject you played with it, I would be very angry. I
was familiar with all the toys, the experimenter sug- would have to take all of my toys and go home
gested a "question game," following which the sub- and never come back again. You can play with all
ject would have a chance to play with the toys. The the others while I am gone, but if you played with
experimenter placed all the toys on the floor and sat the , I would think you were just a baby.
6 I will be right back.
An additional six children were run through part,
but not all, of the experiment: two failed to com- The experimenter then left the room, observed the
plete the experiment because they moved from town; subject for 10 minutes through the one-way mirror,
three were unable to make consistent rankings by returned, and again allowed the subject to play
the method of paired comparisons, and so were dis- briefly with all the toys, including the forbidden toy.
carded; one did not wish to continue with the ex- After the subject had played with all the toys, the
periment. Only data from those children who com- experimenter suggested that they play the question
pleted all of the experiment are included in the game again, after which they would play together
analysis. with all the toys. The experimenter administered the
586 ELLIOT ARONSON AND J. MERRILL CARLSMITH
condition, two of the five subjects who changed the severity of parental punishment for ag-
showed a decrease. These results represent a gression (for example, Sears, Maccoby, &
trend in the expected direction, although with Levin, 1957; Sears, Whiting, Nowlis, & Sears,
an n of only 11, they do not reach an ac- 1953).
ceptable level of significance. REFERENCES
It is interesting to note that the long-term ARONSON, E. The effect of effort on the attractive-
effect of a mild threat was very similar to the ness of rewarded and unrewarded stimuli. J. ab-
immediate effect. When the threat was severe, norm. soc. Psychol., 1961, 63, 375-380.
ARONSON, E., & MILLS, J. The effect of severity of
however, this did not appear to be the case. initiation on liking for a group. J. abnorm. soc.
In the Severe Threat condition, although 64% Psychol, 1959, 59, 177-181.
of the subjects initially increased their rank- FESTJNGER, L. A theory of cognitive dissonance.
ing of the forbidden toy, only 27% ranked Stanford: Stanford Univer. Press, 19S7.
FESTINGER, L. The cognitive consequences of insuffi-
their toy higher after 45 days, suggesting only cient rewards. Amer. Psychologist, 1961, 16, 1-11.
an ephemeral effect. FESTINGER, L., & ARONSON, E. The arousal and re-
Hopefully, the effect demonstrated in this duction of dissonance in social contexts. In D.
experiment may be generalizable beyond mere Cartwright & A. Zander (Eds.), Group dynamics:
Research and theory, Evanston, 111.: Row, Peter-
toy preferences; that is, mild rather than son, 1960. Pp. 214-231.
severe threats of punishment may be an ef- FESTINGER, L., & CARLSMITH, J. M. Cognitive conse-
fective means of inducing the formation of a quences of forced compliance. J. abnorm. soc. Psy-
system of values in children. For example, the chol., 19S9, 58, 203-210.
results of this experiment suggest that if a KELMAN, H. C. Processes of opinion change. Publ.
Opin. Quart., 1961, 25, 57-78.
parent were to administer a mild threat of MILLS, J. Changes in moral attitudes following temp-
punishment for aggressive behavior it might tation. /. Pers., 1958, 26, 517-531.
induce children to derogate aggressiveness. SEARS, R. R., MACCOBY, ELEANOR, E., & LEVIN, H.
Thus, a mild threat might be more effective Patterns of child rearing. Evanston, 111.: Row,
Peterson, 1957.
than a severe threat in the ultimate reduction SEARS, R. R., WHITING, J. W. M., NOWLIS, V., &
of aggressive behavior. This speculation is SEARS, PAULINE. Some child-rearing antecedents of
consistent with data from research in child aggression and dependency in young children.
development which indicates a positive corre- Genet. Psychol. Monogr., 1953, 47, 135-236.
lation between aggressiveness in children and (Received March 28, 1962)