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The action-based model of dissonance theorizes that when individuals have conflicting cognitions with action implications , they experience dissonance. This dissonance motivates the individual to value one action tendency over the other, thereby facilitating effective action. Thus, a decrease in the motivation to act (decreased approach motivation) should decrease this tendency to value one action tendency over the other (dissonance reduction). The present research tested this prediction by using an embodied manipulation, a supine posture, to decrease approach motivation. In Experiment 1, relative to an upright posture, a supine posture decreased dissonance reduction in an effort justification paradigm. In Experiment 2, a supine posture decreased the spreading of alternatives following a difficult decision. These results suggest that embodied manipulations that reduce approach motivation decrease dissonance reduction. The findings support the action-based model of dissonance, and suggest that embodied manipulations of reduced approach motivation reduce the rationalization of behavior.

The effort justification phenomenon, in which greater value is given to rewards that require more effort to obtain, is frequently explained in terms of cognitive dissonance (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959). Here, we employed a novel combination of operant and lick analysis techniques to show that rats place more value on a sucrose reward when it follows high effort than when the same reward follows low effort. This is the first demonstration of a direct analogue of the effort justification phenomenon in nonhuman animals. As the behavior of rats is normally considered in terms of relatively simple mechanisms, the current results question the need for complex cognitive accounts for the effort justification phenomenon (in rats or humans). As an alternative, we examine the possibility that high effort produces an aversive state that enhances reward value by a process of contrast.

Quattrone (1985) erasure explanation of the often-reported incongruity between internal states and behavior was tested and used to explain why, in previous studies of effort justification in psychotherapy, predicted behavioral effects have occured without evidence for corresponding changes in attitude. Speech-anxious subjects first engaged in a bogus therapy analogue procedure either high or low in effort. They then provided an extemporaneous speech. Attitude toward public speaking was assessed either before or (as in prior research) immediately after the speech. Replicating prior research, High (vs. Low) Effort subjects were able to speak significantly longer. But they reported more positive attitudes about public speaking only when the attitudinal assessment occurred before the speech. Consistent with an erasure explanation, post-speech (but not prespeech) attitude was positively correlated with evaluations of the just-completed speech. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for an effort justification analysis of therapy as well as for an understanding of the problem of incongruity between internal states and behavior.

Two therapy analog studies attempted to clarify previous ambiguities about whether cognitive dissonance reduction can contribute to improvement in psychotherapy. Study 1 tested whether manipulated therapy effort and personal responsibility for undertaking that effort, each of which has been shown separately to be important in producing behavior change, combine to produce improvement, as dissonance theory predicts. Snake phobics anticipated undertaking a procedure either high or low in effort; decision freedom for engaging in the effort was also varied (high vs low). Consistent with predictions, subjects tended to change their behavior most under high anticipated effort, but only when decision freedom was high. Study 2 was a partial conceptual replication that used a misattribution of arousal paradigm to distinguish dissonance from self-perception or other non-arousal-based explanations for change. Speech anxious subjects anticipated a procedure either high or low in effort and were either provided or not provided with an opportunity to misattribute dissonance arousal. Results indicated that High (vs Low) Anticipated Effort subjects were able to speak longer and tended to speak more fluently when faced with a noxious public speaking situation, but only when no misatribution opportunity had been provided. In both studies, improvement occurred mainly in behavior rather than in attitudes. Possible reasons for this, as well as the routes by which dissonance reduction might lead to improvement, were discussed.

The role of effort justification in psychotherapy was examined. It was hypothesized that the effort involved in therapy, plus the conscious decision to undergo that effort, leads to positive therapeutic changes through the reduction of cognitive dissonance. An experiment was conducted in which overweight subjects attempted to lose weight through one of two forms of “effort therapy”. These therapies were bogus in that they were based solely on the expenditure of effort on a series of cognitive tasks that were unrelated to any existing techniques or theory addressing weight loss. One of the therapies called for a high degree of effort while the degree of effort in the second therapy was low. A no-treatment control group was also included. It was predicted that greater weight loss would occur for high-effort than low-effort or control subjects, and that this weight loss would be maintained or increased over time. Results supported these predictions. Over an initial 3-week period, high-effort subjects lost slightly more weight than low-effort subjects or controls. A 6-month follow-up revealed that the effects of effort on weight loss had increased and were highly significant. Reliable differences remained even 1 year after the initial experimental sessions. Possible mechanisms mediating the dissonance effect were discussed, as were several alternative explanations.

In the research paradigm known as effort justification, people engage in an effortful activity in order to attain a goal. As a result, the goal becomes more attractive. Two experiments were conducted to test the notion that the effort justification sequence can account for the positive changes that result from psychotherapy. In the first experiment, subjects who were afraid to approach a snake underwent one of two types of effortful therapy. One was a modified form of an anxiety-producing therapy known as “implosive therapy”; the other was merely a set of physical exercises. It was reasoned, on the basis of cognitive dissonance theory, that the expenditure of effort would lead to a positive change in the ability to approach the snake but only under conditions of high decision freedom. Half of the subjects in each of the therapy conditions participated with high choice; the other half with low choice. Subjects' improvement in their approach to snakes was assessed. A main effect for decision freedom was predicted and found independently of the type of effort that subjects expended. A second experiment conceptually replicated the findings of the first experiment. Subjects who wanted to become more assertive participated in an effortful, physical exercise therapy or in a modified form of the standard treatment for fear of assertiveness. The results of the 2 × 2 factorial experiment again showed a main effect for decision freedom such that high choice subjects became more assertive. The findings were discussed in terms of dissonance and attribution theories as well as for implications for future consideration of psychotherapy.

Three studies explored the relationship between the reward that individuals receive for engaging in an activity and the value that they subsequently place on that activity. In Experiments 1 and 2, subjects engaged in an activity more when they had previously received a moderate amount of reward than when they had received either a small or a large reward. Experiment 3 indicated that the shape of this function was determined, in part, by the value the activity had before the reward was give. These results, coupled with those of previous studies in the effort justification paradigm, suggest that reward and cost can influence activity value similarly, through the operation of simple comparison processes as predicted by personal comparison theory. Implications for social judgment, associative, self-perception, and dissonance perspectives were discussed.

Wicklund, Cooper, and Linder (1967) presented evidence that anticipated effort prior to exposure to a counterattitudinal communication enhanced attitude change. Their results supported the dissonance prediction of a direct relation between perceived effort expenditure and task enhancement. However, their results are open to an alternative self-esteem interpretation, as are most experiments using attitude communications. In order to overcome this difficulty two experiments were conducted using a nonpersuasive task situation. In Experiment I Ss circled numbers according to high effort rules or low effort rules. Results showed greater task enhancement under high effort. Experiment II was conducted to rule out any alternatives associated with actual effort. Ss thought they would circle numbers or actually did circle numbers under either high or low effort. Results showed greater task enhancement in high effort conditions for both actual effort and anticipated effort. The results of the two experiments provided strong support for the effort justification hypothesis.

This epperiment represents an attempt to rule out a number of alternative explanations of an effect found in a previous experiment by Aronson and Mills. This effect, that the more a person suffers in order to obtain something, the greater will be the tendency for him to evaluate it positively, was predicted from dissonance theory. By modifying the original experiment in a number of ways, and applying additional treatment variations, these other hypotheses were effectively ruled out, thus lending considerable additional support to the original “suffering-leading-to-liking” hypothesis.

An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis, derived from dissonance theory, that the more effort subjects exerted to attain the conclusion to a syllogistic argument the more they would come to agree with that conclusion. Three experimentally manipulated levels of effort were created by varying the number of preliminary syllogisms subjects had to solve in addition to finding the conclusion to the final set of premises, the assertion that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer. Two levels of commitment to the belief that cigarette smoking does not cause lung cancer were defined by dividing subjects into those who smoked and those who did not. Attitude change scores indicated that the amount of effort expended was directly related to the amount of attitude change for smokers, but that nonsmokers in the three effort conditions did not differ in the amount of attitude change evinced. The data were interpreted as the result of dissonance reducing effort justification, but several alternative explanations are discussed. Also, the authors note the relevance of these findings of the question of whether it is best for a communicator to state his conclusion or leave it as an implication to be drawn from his premises by the audience.

The present experiments were both designed to test the following hypothesis: If an individual commits himself to be exposed to a counterattitudinal communication, positive attitude change prior to exposure will occur in direct proportion to the amount of effort he expects to exert in order to hear the communication. In the first experiment expectation of effort was manipulated through variation of the length of delay subjects expected before hearing a counterattitudinal communication. In the second experiment effort was manipulated by leading subjects to believe that they would have to run while standing in place (high effort) or sit quietly (low effort). The dependent measure of attitude was administered immediately after subjects had been informed of the effort required and the attitudinal position to be advocated in the communication. The hypothesis was supported, and the results were interpreted in terms of effort justification through anticipatory attitude change.