1. Cognitive dissonance is a distressing mental state. When did you last experience
this aversive drive? Why might you have trouble answering that question?
2. The results of Festinger’s famous $1/$20 experiment can be explained in a
number of different ways. Which explanation do you find most satisfying?
3. Suppose you want your friends to change their sexist attitudes. What advice
does the minimal justification hypothesis offer?
4. Cognitive dissonance theory says a lot about cognition—what goes on inside the
mind. Why, then, is it in a communication theory textbook? What does commu–
nication have to do with dissonance creation and reduction?
