MACHIAVELLI AND DEVILS ADVOCATE

80 high and low scorers on Christie's scales measuring agreement with statements by Machiavelli were Ss in an experiment contrasting counter-attitudinal role playing with a nonrole-playing condition. Role-playing Ss were required to improvise a talk against fluoridation. Monetary incentive was kept low and constant across conditions. On the basis of a hypothesized difference in susceptibility to dissonance stemming from discrepant role-playing, it was predicted that opinion-change scores would display an interaction effect between Machiavelli scale score and role-playing condition in the direction of greater opinion change by low Mach scorers in the counterattitudinal role-playing condition. The prediction was sustained. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1969 American Psychological Association.