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

摘要

GIRE AND WILLIAMS (2007) REPORTED on a study examining the threat of punishment for picking up found money in relation to two colleges' honor systems. Results indicated that students at a military college, with a strict honor code (and a harsh penalty for taking things that do not belong to them), were reticent to pick up the money in a public setting but were willing to pick up the money in a private setting. Students at a nonmilitary college with a less stringent honor code were likely to pick up the money regardless of the setting. The authors interpreted these results as supportive of the idea that cognitive dissonance, in a manner similar to that produced in the forbidden toy paradigm, was responsible for the different patterns that emerged across colleges and settings. I believe that the authors misinterpreted their findings and have erroneously implicated dissonance as an explanation.