Relative efficacy of volition and justification in arousing dissonance.

The article presents information on the relative efficacy of volition and justification in arousing dissonance. Dissonance theory continues to be an important source of insights for an impressive diversity of behavioral areas. Unfortunately, many of these exciting extensions are based on vulnerable foundations, core assumptions and propositions of dissonance theory are still in dispute. Unlike research derived from a systematic theory, dissonance research has not strengthened the basic statements and postulates that generated it, it has not clarified them, it hasn't brought them closer to the data level and it certainly has not been integrated into a neat unified system. Of the several areas in need of clarification, one concerns the conditions for dissonance arousal. It was to this problem, particularly the relative contributions of volition and justification in arousing forced compliance dissonance, that the present experiment and an attempt at formalization were addressed. A principal feature of scholars J.W. Brehm and A.R. Cohen revision of dissonance theory was the authors' insistence that the subjects make a choice, either between choice objects or whether or not to engage in a given behavior.