To test cognitive dissonance in an elementary school setting, a dissonance-producing situation was created between 18 students' performance on a simulated academic task and their self-regard with respect to academic work. The hypothesis that students performing at variance with their self-appraisals would experience more dissonance and consequently make more of an effort to reduce the dissonance than the group performing consistently with their self-appraisals, was not confirmed.
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