The effect of effort and improvisation on self-persuasion produced by role-playing

Abstract

Opinion change increased as the amount of effort expended to deliver a persuasive counternorm speech was increased. In two experiments physical effort was manipulated by varying the interval of delay in auditory feedback. No differences were found between Ss who improvised a speech advocating a discrepant attitude position and those who merely read the speech sincerely. The theory of cognitive dissonance appears to offer adequate and parsimonious explanation of the results.