Practicing and arguing for abstinence from smoking: A test of the double forced compliance paradigm

An experiment was conducted within a new paradigm for Festinger's theory of dissonance (1957): the double forced compliance paradigm (Joule, 1986a). Double compliance was used to test dissonance reduction following the execution of not just one, as in the classical paradigm, but two forced compliance behaviours. The first behaviour involved abstinence from smoking, and the second, writing a text for or against smoking. Based on the radical conception of the theory of dissonance (Beauvois and Joule, 1981; Joule, 1986b), subjects were expected to find tobacco deprivation more difficult after having written a text against smoking than before, and easier after having written a text in favour of smoking. The results confirmed these predictions.