Just saw this on the beeb.
Not sure if completely “innocent” or not but at least offers insight into the concept/thinking behind “CD”:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2019020 ... ion-making
When we say one thing but do another, or hold inconsistent beliefs, psychologists call it cognitive dissonance. The term was developed by Leon Festinger, who first used it in 1957. The classic experiment in this field was published by Festinger and James Carlsmith in 1959. In it, they asked: “What happens to a person’s private opinion if he is forced to do or say something contrary to that opinion?” In their experiment, they had 71 men complete two tasks. First, the men were asked to put 12 round wooden spools into a tray, empty the tray and put the spools back in the tray, repeatedly, for half an hour.
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Then the participants were given a board containing 48 square wooden pegs. They were asked to turn each peg by a quarter turn clockwise, then another quarter turn, repeatedly, again for half an hour. While they did this, a researcher watched and wrote things down. These were intentionally boring tasks. Really, really boring.
Although the participants thought it was their performance that was being measured, it was actually what came next that interested the researchers. After their two boring tasks, participants were taken back into the waiting room. They were told that the person sitting there was the next participant. For one-third of the participants, they simply sat down without anything else being mentioned. For the other two-thirds, however, the researcher asked whether they would lie to the next participant. They would even be paid for their lie. Half were told that they would be paid $1 for their lie, and the other half were told that they would be paid $20 for their lie (which in the 1950s was a lot). When they said yes, the researcher then handed them a piece of paper, and instructed them to make the points that were written on it: “It was very enjoyable”, “I had a lot of fun”, “I enjoyed myself”, “It was very interesting”, “It was intriguing”, “It was exciting”.
What the researchers really wanted to know was what impact this lie, and the compensation for it, would have on participants’ rating of the task. They wondered whether participants would actually come to think they enjoyed the boring task, just because they told someone else it was fun. And how would being paid influence this?
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Who do you think rated the experiment as the most enjoyable? The control group, who had not been asked to lie, rated the task as boring and said that they would not do it again. The participants paid $20 also rated the task negatively. However, the participants paid $1 rated the experiment as far more enjoyable than the other two groups, and were more likely to say they would sign up to participate in similar experiments in the future.
What happened? Being paid $1 was probably not seen by the participants as sufficient incentive to lie. Accordingly, they experienced cognitive dissonance. “Why did I say that it was enjoyable when it wasn’t? Surely not for a measly $1?” Since the participants could not go back and change their behaviour, or un-participate in the experiment, the option available to them was to change their belief – it must have actually been enjoyable.For the $20 condition this was not necessary, as they could explain their behaviour as the result of the hefty and easy financial incentive. This was the first of many experiments to show that we often bring our beliefs in line with our behaviour, and that money can change the way we do this.