Detailed Review: Cognitive Consequences of Forced Compliance (1959)

This report provides a detailed review of Festinger and Carlsmith's 1959 study on cognitive dissonance and forced compliance. The study investigated how rewards influence opinion change when individuals are compelled to express views contrary to their private beliefs. The experimental design involved participants performing a dull task and then being paid either $1 or $20 to tell others the task was enjoyable. The results indicated that smaller rewards led to greater opinion change, supporting the theory that cognitive dissonance is higher when justification for the behavior is minimal. The review critically appraises the study's methodology, noting its strengths in research design and sample size, but also highlighting limitations such as the exclusive use of male participants, which impacts the generalizability of the findings. The report concludes by discussing the broader implications of the study, suggesting its relevance in understanding motivations behind unethical behavior and its potential application in promoting behavioral change within psychology.

Running head: ARTICLE REVIEW
Article review
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

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Topic, purpose and importance of the study:
The article by Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) focussed on the topic of cognitive
dissonance resulting in opinion change following forced compliance. This is in relation to the
situation where a personal is induced to make a statement contrary to his private opinion because
of rewards. The main purpose of the research was to investigate the derivation whether amount
of rewards forces a person to make a contrary statement or not. The significance of research in
this area is that it will help to identify the reason behind immoral acts or behaviour in society.
Researchers question and hypotheses:
The research question for the article by Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) was that whether
more number of rewards increases the likelihood of giving contrary statement or not. The
research hypothesis is that the larger the reward given to people, the smaller will be the
subsequent opinion change.
Methods and unique features of the study:
Experimental study was done with seventy one male students studying in the psychology
course at Stanford University and they had to spend certain number of hours as research
participants by choosing among the available experiments in which they wanted to participate.
The present study was a two hour experiment. Two groups were taken in the experiment. First
group included those who were about previous expectation about the experiment and the other
group was the one who had no expectation about the experiment. The subjects were given the
task of putting spools onto a tray, emptying the tray and refilling it with spools. The
experimented focused on observing behaviour of subject. After this, the subjects were divided
into control, one dollar and twenty dollar group. One dollar group were given one dollar to tell

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waiting the subjects that the task which was dull and boring was enjoyable and twenty dollar
group were given twenty dollars to do the same thing (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959).
The unique feature of this experiment is that it has a very unique research design and very
unconventional technique has been adapted to investigate on the research topic.
Findings and implications of the results:
Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) mainly evaluated outcomes of three experimental
conditions. In case of the question ‘How enjoyable tasks were?’, the resulting dissonance was
higher for the one dollar group and low for the twenty dollar group. The difference between the
outcomes of the one dollar group and the twenty dollar group was statistically significant too.
The results of the experiment prove that more rewards offered are linked to smaller effect. This
result is useful in validating Festingar’s theory related to dissonance.
Critical appraisal of the paper:
The research by Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) is found to be reliable as it had
appropriate research design and the experimental groups were exposed to appropriate conditions
to achieve the aim of the research. Apart from the experiment, other things were kept same for
all the three groups which made the outcome reliable. Furthermore, the sample size of seventy-
one male students was also appropriate. However, one confounding factor is taking only male
students. Equal group of male and female students should have been taken to minimise impact of
gender on research outcomes. If the researcher had taken heterogeneous sample group, this
would have eliminated confounding factors and increased applicability of the research for other
settings (Leung, 2015).

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The success of any research dependent how far the research outcomes can be applied in
target setting or population group. In the study by Festinger and Carlsmith (1959), the main
sample group were only college study from Stanford University. However, taking only male and
college group sample is a limitation of the study as it does not guarantees that the result can be
applied for all the US population and those belonging to different cultures. Hence, improving the
sample recruitment technique and taking efforts to select diverse sample based on occupation
and culture would have enhanced the generalizability of the research finding (Leung, 2015).
When reviewing the study from a broader angles and understanding its application in
society, the study gives the opinion that awards and motivational aspects are some factors that
can influence behaviour of people and lead to cognitive dissonance. Hence, this aspect of human
nature to modify their opinion based on rewards can be put to good use to understand the reason
behind people to engage in any wrongful act or behaviour. While analysing any criminal act or
unethical behaviour, the strategy of applying the impact of rewards on a person’s impulse would
help to understand what prompted a person to do such acts. This concept would be useful in the
field of psychology to promote behavioural change in people and identified the effect of
dissonance. For example, research has used this concept to explore about the cause behind
intimate partner violence (Nicholson & Lutz, 2017).

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References:
Festinger, L., & Carlsmith, J. M. (1959). Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. The
journal of abnormal and social psychology, 58(2), 203.
Leung, L. (2015). Validity, reliability, and generalizability in qualitative research. Journal of
family medicine and primary care, 4(3), 324.
Nicholson, S. B., & Lutz, D. J. (2017). The importance of cognitive dissonance in understanding
and treating victims of intimate partner violence. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment &
Trauma, 26(5), 475-492.