Increasing cognitive dissonance by a fait accompli.

A RECENT theory by Festinger (1957) attempts to state the conditions under which discrepancies between cognitions produce "cognitive dissonance," a state of tension that motivates the individual to reduce or eliminate the discrepancies. One of the conditions that may be necessary for the creation of cognitive dissonance is that there be some element of volition. The theory states, for example, that a person who is completely forced to behave in a manner he would avoid if possible, experiences no dissonance. On the other hand, a, fait accompli—i.e., an event outside of the person's control—might conceivably create dissonance if that same event would have led to the opposite behavior had it been predictable at a prior choice point. The purpose of this paper, then, is to report an experiment in which a fait accompli does appear to have increased cognitive dissonance. The theoretical expectations may be stated succinctly. If a person is induced by the promise of a small prize to eat a disliked food, he should experience dissonance. If other things are held constant, the amount of dissonance can be increased by increasing the amount of the disliked food to be eaten. A person who is experiencing such dissonance should try, in proportion to its magnitude, to reduce it by convincing himself that he likes the food more than he originally thought. If, then, the amount of expected eating is increased by a fait accompli after the initial decision to eat has occurred, and this is accompanied by increased liking, it may be concluded that a, fail accompli can affect the magnitude of dissonance.