Your friend teaches preschool, and there is one little boy in her class who is giving her fits. He is constantly misbehaving, throwing toys, threatening other children, and sometimes even physically attacking them

So far, her stern punishment has stopped his destructive behavior when she's there, but when she leaves the room or when a substitute fills in, he's back to his old ways. You suggest that she use dissonance to change his behavior permanently. What would you tell her?
What will be an ideal response?

Answer: When she punishes him sternly, she may change his behavior in positive ways, but he doesn't have sufficient internal justification for behaving well. That's why he tends to act up when she's not there to administer punishment. If she really wants to change his behavior over the long haul, she should remove the external justification for behaving appropriately and encourage him to develop an internal justification for his positive behavior. Thus, the threat of mild punishment is likely to work so long as the threat is just sufficient to stop his problematic behavior but not so strong that he has an external justification for behaving appropriately. In the absence of sufficient external justification, he will convince himself—through internal justifications—that he likes or wants to behave in positive, prosocial ways.