The effect of dissonance reduction in psychotherapy :

Abstract

The choice to continue and choice of treatment was manipulated to determine the effect of the effort justification sequence in counseling. Using flooding therapy as the psychoactive treatment, 36 subjects with fear of snakes were randomly assigned to different levels of degree of choice. The behavioral avoidance test and self-report measure indicated improvement across all groups, but the major hypothesis of this study was not supported since choice did not differentially affect the outcome of counseling. The discrepancy in these results and previous research is discussed and possible explanations are explored. Future theoretical research on the effort justification sequence should proceed cautiously given the current conflicting evidence.