Dissonance, self-perception, and honesty in children.

A self-perception analysis was presented of Freedman and Eraser's "foot in the door" effect—increased compliance with a substantial demand produced by prior compliance with an earlier, less consequential request. From this perspective, conceptually analogous effects were predicted in a variety of radically different situations, and this possibility was examined in a paradigm involving young children's compliance to adult wishes in the face of temptation not to comply. In a first experimental session, two groups of children were forbidden from playing with an attractive toy under either mild, but sufficient (high dissonance), or severe (low dissonance) threat of punishment, while a third, control, group received no initial prohibition. Three weeks later, a second experimenter asked these subjects to play a game in which they could obtain attractive prizes only by falsifying their scores. As predicted from self-perception analysis, subjects who complied with the initial prohibition under mild threat showed more resistance to temptation in this second situation than control subjects or subjects who had initially complied under severe threat, and severe threat subjects tended to show less resistance to temptation than control subjects. An attempt to assess changes in children's self-perceptions directly provided only partial further support for the proposed analysis.