A Japanese psychologist by the name of Sakai observed participants partaking in dissonance-reducing behaviors. Sakai also had a fellow group member of the participants observe the dissonance-reducing behavior.
The observer then indicated how enjoyable he or she thought a boring task was. These results suggest that Japanese observers
a. attended to what their fellow group members said, and ignored the task itself.
b. have no internally based attitudes; those are a Western cultural phenomenon.
c. experienced dissonance on behalf of fellow members of their group.
d. wanted to show solidarity with the experimenter by saying the task was enjoyable.
Question 2
According to the authors of your text, why would people experience cognitive dissonance after investing a lot of time and effort in pursuit of a goal that falls short of their expectations?
a. Punishment serves to reduce intrinsic motivation.
b. Heightened intrinsic motivation biases people's perceptions.
c. Actually, people would not experience cognitive dissonance in this situation.
d. Sensible people don't work hard to attain something trivial.
Japanese Spitz
Mars sketched as observed by Lowell sometime before 1914. (South top)
A Japanese American child in California tagged for relocation to an internment camp.
Observed Mother–Child Arguments at Five Time Points Over an Eight-Year Period
Fate of reducing equivalents derived from fatty acyl-CoA dehydrogenation
Reducing Radicals