It Is a Threat, But Is It Dissonance? Comments on Gire and Williams (2007)

• Published in: The Journal of social psychology Vol. 148; no. 5; pp. 517 - 522
• Main Author: Matz, David
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Heldref 01.10.2008
• Subjects: Cognitive Dissonance; College Students; Humans; Psychological Theories; Punishment; Social Behavior; Social Psychology
• ISSN: 0022-4545; 1940-1183
• DOI: 10.3200/SOCP.148.5.517-522

Comments on the article, Dissonance & the honor system: Extending the severity of threat phenomenon (2007), by J.T. Gire & T.D. Williams, which examined the impact of the threat of punishment for picking up found money. Students from a military college with a strict honor code were very hesitant to pick up found money in a public setting but willing to do so in a private setting. Students at a nonmilitary college with a more lenient honor system were likely to pick up money in any setting. It is argued that Gire & Williams are misinterpreting the findings when they suggest that cognitive dissonance is responsible for the different patterns & their suggestion that the psychological processes involved are comparable to those produced in the forbidden toy paradigm (Aronson & Carlsmith, 1963) is erroneous. Ways in which the methodology used in the found money study differs from the forbidden toy paradigm are discussed to conclude that Gire & Williams provided no evidence to suggest that dissonance processes were at work. References. J. Lindroth