Psychology Atlas

How The Mind Works
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme

Switch Atlas

Studies and Experiments

Festinger and Carlsmith's $1/$20 Experiment

Social Psychology

In 1959, Leon Festinger and James Carlsmith had 71 male Stanford students perform a tedious hour-long task of turning pegs a quarter-turn at fixed intervals, then paid them either one dollar or twenty dollars to tell a waiting participant, actually a confederate, that the task had been interesting. A third group performed the task without being asked to lie to anyone. Participants paid only one dollar rated the boring task as significantly more enjoyable afterward than those paid twenty dollars.

Facts
Key Finding
Participants paid only one dollar to tell a confederate the boring task was interesting rated the task significantly more positively afterward than participants paid twenty dollars, illustrating that insufficient external justification for a counter-attitudinal act produces internal attitude change to reduce the resulting dissonance. 1
Study Year
1959 1
Method
Study Design
Controlled Experiment (Lab or Field) 1
Participants
Human Adults 1
Connections

Associated With

Cognitive Dissonance, Theories and Concepts

This is the landmark experiment that first empirically demonstrated cognitive dissonance and insufficient justification.

Source Wikipedia: Cognitive dissonance

Conducted By

Leon Festinger, Psychologists
Source Wikipedia: Cognitive dissonance

In Branch

Social Psychology, Branches of Psychology
Source Wikipedia: Cognitive dissonance
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Cognitive dissonance
Wikimedia Foundation
  • Festinger and Carlsmith 1959 experiment
    the subjects of the second group (paid $1) rated the tasks more positively than did the subjects in the first group (paid $20)
  • Induced compliance
    This procedure included seventy-one male students attending Stanford University.
  • Induced compliance, group conditions paragraph
    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.
  • Conducted By: Leon Festinger
  • In Branch: Social Psychology, Originator section
    Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory is still one of the most influential social theories in modern social psychology.
  • In Category: Studies and Experiments
  • Associated With: Cognitive Dissonance
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.