One Dollar Condition

Specifically, as applied to our results, this alternative explanation would maintain that perhaps, for some reason, the 5s in the One Dollar condition worked harder at telling the waiting girl that the tasks were fun and en- joyable. That is, in the One Dollar condition they may have rehearsed it more mentally, thought up more ways of saying it, may have said it more convincingly, and so on. Why this might have been the case is, of course, not immediately apparent. One might expect that, in the Twenty Dollar condition, having been paid more, they would try to do a better job of it than in the One Dollar condition. But nevertheless, the possibility exists that the 5s in the One Dollar condition may have impro- vised more.

Because of the desirability of investigating this possible alternative explanation, we recorded on a tape recorder the conversation between each S and the girl. These recordings were transcribed and then rated, by two independent raters, on five dimensions. The ratings were, of course done in ignorance of which condition each S was in, The relia- bilities of these ratings, that is, the correlations between the two independent raters, ranged from .61 to .88, with an average reliability of .71. The five ratings were:

1. The content of what the 5 said before the girl made the remark that her friend told her it was boring. The stronger the S’s positive statements about the tasks, and the more ways in which he said they were interesting and enjoyable, the higher the rating.

2. The content of what the S said after the girl made the above-mentioned remark. This was rated in the same way as for the content

efore the remark.b

3. A similar rating of the over-all content of what the S said.

4. A rating of how persuasive and convincing the S was in what he said and the way in which he said it.

5. A rating of the amount of time in the dis- cussion that the 5 spent discussing the tasks as opposed to going off into irrelevant things. The mean ratings for the One Dollar and Twenty Dollar conditions, averaging the rat- ings of the two independent raters, are pre- sented in Table 2. It is clear from examing the table that, in all cases, the Twenty Dollar condition is slightly higher. The differences are small, however, and only on the rating of “amount of time” does the difference between the two conditions even approach significance. We are certainly justified in concluding that the Ss in the One Dollar condition did not improvise more nor act more convincingly. Hence, the alternative explanation discussed above cannot account for the findings.