Assume that you were a participant in the experiment conducted by Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) in which participants were paid either a large or small sum of money to tell an innocent stranger that the boring, tedious task they had just completed was really enjoyable and very interesting. Further assume that you were paid a large amount of money to tell the stranger that lie. In this situation, you would be most likely to __________.
A) convince yourself that the boring task was actually more interesting than you had previously thought
B) maintain your original assessment of the task as dull and boring
C) convince yourself that the stranger deserved to be lied to
D) ask to complete the task again, given that you had high internal justification for doing so

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The experiment found that participants who were paid a large sum of money had insufficient justification for telling the lie and therefore did not change their opinion of the task. This means that you would likely maintain your original assessment of the task as dull and boring, as you were not able to justify why you told the lie.

Assume That You Were a Participant in the Experiment Conducted