Depth 1 · 40 s
One dollar or twenty
People did an hour of a boring task, then were paid 1 or 20 dollars to tell the next person it was fun. The one-dollar group later said it had been more enjoyable. Cognitive dissonance, and the fox who decided the grapes were sour.
About this video
People spent an hour on a very boring task, turning pegs on a board. Then each was paid to tell the next person that the task was fun. Some got one dollar, others twenty. Later, which group said the task had been more enjoyable? Most people guess the twenty-dollar group. In the experiment, run by Leon Festinger and James Carlsmith at a university in the United States in 1959, it was the one-dollar group. The twenty-dollar group still called it boring.
Why? Twenty dollars was plenty of reason to say something untrue, so those people felt no clash: I said it was fun because I was paid well. The one-dollar group had a clash: I told someone it was fun, for almost nothing, and it was dull. The easiest thought to change was the last one: maybe it wasn't that dull.
In 1957 Festinger gave this feeling a name. Holding two thoughts that clash, or doing something that clashes with what you believe, feels uncomfortable, and we call that feeling cognitive dissonance. To make it stop, we often change one of the thoughts without noticing. It is the old fable of the fox who can't reach the grapes and walks away saying they were sour anyway. It shows up after buying something expensive, when people notice only its good points, and after choosing one school or job, when the other starts to look worse.
Be careful with the size of it: in 2024 David Vaidis and many other psychologists repeated this kind of study in many countries at once and did not find the effect, and psychologists still argue about how strong dissonance is. But the uncomfortable feeling of two clashing thoughts is something everyone knows. When a thought makes you uneasy, notice what it clashes with, and ask: if I hadn't already chosen this, what would I think of it? Saying I made a mistake ends the clash too, and you learn something.
This video shows depth 1 of Cognitive dissonance.
Learn Cognitive dissonanceTranscript
- 0:00An hour of a very boring task, turning pegs on a board.
- 0:05Then each is paid, one dollar or twenty, to say it was fun.
- 0:11Later, the one-dollar group said it was more enjoyable. A 2024 repeat didn't find it.
- 0:17I said it was fun, but it was boring. So, it wasn't that bad.
- 0:23Like the fox who can't reach the grapes. They were sour anyway.
- 0:29Notice the unease. Ask what you'd think if you hadn't already chosen.
- 0:35If I hadn't already chosen, what would I think?