The facilitating and interfering effects of cognitive dissonance on Simple and Complex paired associates learning tasks

Abstract

This experiment was designed to determine whether dissonance has general drive (D) properties in that dissonance interacts with task complexity, facilitating performance when correct responses are dominant (Simple task) and impeding performance when incorrect responses are dominant (Complex task). Subjects in Dissonant and Consonant groups, respectively, were asked to write attitude discrepant and attitude consistent essays. Half the subjects in each group only committed to write the essays (Commitment group) while half actually wrote them (Writing group). While believing they were participating in a separate experiment, subjects completed a Simple or Complex paired associates learning task. Thus, the experiment constituted a 2×2×2 factorial design with dissonance, writing, and task complexity as the factors. The predicted Dissonance × Task interaction approached significance on trials to criterion and attained significance on number of errors.