Festinger, L., & Carlsmith, J. M. (1959). Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. The journal of abnormal and social psychology, 58(2), 203.
Summary
A group of male students participated in a multi-stage experiment. In the first part, they performed two physical tasks for a half hour each. These tasks were purportedly the purpose of the experiment and were designed to be boring. At the end of the experiment, they were told that another person had not shown up. The role of this missing person was to tell the person in the waiting room (who ostensibly was going to complete the same boring tasks but was in actuality a confederate) that the task was enjoyable. Since the role of the missing person needed to be filled, it was offered to the true experimental subjects. The control group participants were asked to help without any remuneration, while two experimental groups were offered $1 and $20 respectively.
Since saying the task would be enjoyable was a lie, dissonance was produced. It was theorized that a student who lied for a small amount would experience greater dissonance (a larger amount would serve as a greater reason to lie, thereby producing a smaller dissonance), which would move them to change their beliefs about the experiment to bring them more in line with their actions (reducing dissonance). The results seem to support this hypothesis.
Application
This reminds me of the autonomy component in self-determination theory, as well as extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Providing a reward can switch motivation from intrinsic to extrinsic (as happened in Kelley 1980). This can also help explain many of the cautionary tales regarding backfiring incentive systems.
As a manager, forcing employees to do things should be a last option. However, if this approach needs to be taken (and, I suspect, most managers would tell you that this is inevitable), enticement should be carefully considered. Offering a large enticement could produce less “buy in” than a small enticement.
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