ABSTRACT
The present chapter continues the extension of dissonance theory to various well-established phenomena in psychology. The subject here is the well-documented finding that irregular, or partial, reinforcement results in stronger resistance to extinction than does regular reinforcement. We will also consider the effort-justification hypothesis in the context of research that shows resistance to extinction to be affected by the amount of physical effort exerted during learning. Rather than focusing specifically on a motive state, as in the previous three chapters, this chapter centers on the dependent variable of resistance to extinction. There is another important uniqueness associated with this chapter: the experimental subjects of these cognitive dissonance studies are rats.
