Effort justification

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Effort Justification is an idea and paradigm in social psychology stemming from Festinger's theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Effort justification is people's tendency to attribute a greater value (greater than the objective value) to an outcome they had to put effort into acquiring or achieving.

Critics of this theory[3] claim it is on complex social context (which is responsible for the creation of dissonance), but research has shown the same effects in children (who understand less about social context and therefore are less likely to be influenced by it) and even in pigeons. The researchers argue that the cause for these findings, both in humans and animals, is the contrast effect. According to this theory, the preference is a result of the difference between the reward and the situation that leads to it. When the preliminary situation is unpleasant or strenuous, the difference between it and the reward that follows is great. When the preliminary situation is not especially unpleasant or strenuous, the difference between it and the reward is smaller. The reward that has the larger difference from its preliminary situation will be preferred since it is experienced as more positive.

References

1. ^ Festinger, L. (1957) Cognitive dissonance. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
2. ^ Aronson, E., & Mills, J. (1959) The effect of severity of initiation on liking for a group. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology ,59, 177-181
3. ^ Alessandri J., DarchevilleJ.C. , Zentall T.R. (2008)Cognitive dissonance in children: Justification of effort or contrast? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15, 3,673-677