ABSTRACT
Leon Festinger conceived the theory of cognitive dissonance, his major contribution to psychology. So much research instigated by one theory was unprecedented in social psychology, perhaps in all psychology. American academic psychology was dominated by behaviorism, particularly by learning theory. Although there were controversies among the different versions of such theorizing, two widely accepted premises were that (a) rewards have a direct influence on the tendency to repeat behavior, and (b) thoughts and feelings are not permissible psychological processes. In addition, in those days, social psychology had become complacent with the view that its future was in the determination through research of which various commonsense hypotheses were actually true. A similar conceptual analysis can be applied to what Festinger called forced compliance. These two general implications from dissonance theory that is postdecision dissonance and forced compliance, encompass the bulk of research generated by the theory.
