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An experiment and a partial replication were conducted to relate the change of motivation due to dissonance reduction and committment to physiological changes. The experimental technique was based on food deprivation studies which showed that already deprived individuals who committed themselves to further fasting under conditions of low reward decreased their self-estimates of hunger, while the reverse was true for those given high rewards. In the present study the further deprivation was actually executed, and a physiological measure, the concentration of plasma free fatty acids was taken. This was shown to be a reliable measure of autonomic nervous system activity in response to increased energy demands upon the individual, such as length of fasting. The data indicate that a person who has convinced himself that he is not so hungry tends to respond physiologically as if he were not hungry. Physiological aspects of a more enduring process, such as hunger motivation, are also affected by justification in a manner consistent with dissonance theory.

Reactions of subjects to the experimental situation was investigated by means of plasma free fatty acid level. Arousal (elevated FFA level) was shown at entry into the experiment, at the giving of instructions, and at upsetting experiences during the experiment. Stress at entry can be called experimental stress, variations within the experiment, manipulated stress. A series of conditions which insulate the subject socially, psychologically or physically from the situation diminish experimental stress and obliterate the differences in manipulated stress. They are: previous acquaintance, previous work together as a group, commitment to the experiment, and low height-weight ratio. (Author), Supported in part by contract PHS-MH-10896.

The study was designed to investigate, with the aid of physiological measurements, the subject's reaction in a standard experiment. The following questions were investigated: (1) Do activities incidental to the experimental process, such as the order in which the subjects are tested and the conditions of waiting, affect the subjects; (2) Does the introduction of experimental variables arouse the subject separately from, and in addition to, the experimental arousal itself; (3) Do individual conditions, such as personality traits and previous experience, make a difference in the importance of intrinsic factors; (4) Do these differences in arousal affect the results of the experiment.

The reactions of subjects to the planned and intrinsic events in a standard conformity experiment were obtained by measuring physiological arousal (plasma free fatty acid level). In a 2 X 2 X 2 design, Negroes and whites were compared under the following conditions: (1) subjects recruited either in groups of friends or strangers; (2) subjects did or did not have a group meeting prior to the experiment. The subjects having previous meetings were the least aroused at all points in the experiment. The Negroes, especially those who had no previous meeting failed to relax during a period of inactivity. High conformity rates among Negroes suggest that group ties protected subjects from the stress of specific events, but not from the stress of being in an experiment. (Author), Research supported in part by NSF.