Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between reward magnitude and opinion change.
Two experiments were conducted similar to the one of Festinger & Carlsmith (1959). The subjects were 45 (in Exp. 1) and 40 female college students (in Exp. 2).
After Ss had copied inverted alphabet letters for 20 minutes (very monotonous task), they were induced to tell someone that the task had been very interesting and enjoyable.
In experiment I, Ss were paid ¥500 (¥5000) by check.
In Experiment 2, which was designed to test the roles of freedom not to comply and reward magnitude in producing opinion change, they were paid ¥100 (¥500) with cash.
The results can be summarized as follows;
(1) The payment of a large versus small monetary reward had no effect on the amount of opinion change.
(2) Free-choice was markedly more effective than No-choice, irrespective of whether the accompanying monetary reward was large or small.
In general, the results failed to verify predictions from dissonance theory and incentive theory.
These results were somewhat discussed from the cross-cultural point of view.
