Participants (male) arrived, seated at a table, asked to perform a series of dull, meaningless tasks for ~1 hour
-Afterwards experimenter asks you to give the experiment instructions to the next participant: tell her the tasks were worthwhile, interesting, and educational
-Paid either $1 or $20 to do this, then privately rate enjoyment of tasks in a questionnaire
-Participants taking $1 experienced cognitive diss, because of 2 inconsistent cognitions: I did this stupid boring task, yet told this women it was fun (and only got $1 for doing it-small reward)-->feel dissonance, thus change their attitude toward the task to resolve the dissonance that way
-but those with $20 did not have to change their attitudes (($20 large enoigh reward to be external justification-convinces you not to think about it)