Response inhibition is key to flexible behavior. Importantly, performance in any task, including response inhibition tasks, fluctuates on a moment-to-moment basis. Using pupillometry, we investigated the rela- tionship between these behavioral fluctuations in response inhibition and naturally-occurring fluctuations of norepinephrine (NE) levels in the brain before a given trial has even started. This was motivated by earlier pharmacological work suggesting a pivotal role of NE in response inhibition, in particular. We specifically used two pupillometry proxies for pretrial (tonic) NE levels, the absolute pretrial pupil size and its derivative, and investigated whether and to which degree they were related to response-inhibition performance in a stop-signal task. Specifically, we investigated the relationship to stopping success, and the speed of the go response (GoRT) and that of the stop response (SSRT). In two experiments, we showed that larger pretrial pupil measures predicted (1) lower stopping success, (2) faster GoRTs (particularly so when the go response needed to be executed in a stop context), and some evidence for (3) faster SSRTs. Taken together, our findings show a clear pattern that pretrial pupil measures predict behavioral fluctuations in response inhibition, which suggests that tonic levels of NE are involved in the regulation of these behavioral fluctuations. Yet, our work furthermore indicates that this involvement is not stopping-specific, given its effect on both the go and the stop response.

According to cognitive-dissonance theory, performing counterattitudinal behavior produces a state of dissonance that people are motivated to resolve, usually by changing their attitude to be in line with their behavior. One of the most popular experimental paradigms used to produce such attitude change is the induced-compliance paradigm. Despite its popularity, the replication crisis in social psychology and other fields, as well as methodological limitations associated with the paradigm, raise concerns about the robustness of classic studies in this literature. We therefore conducted a multilab constructive replication of the induced-compliance paradigm based on Croyle and Cooper (Experiment 1). In a total of 39 labs from 19 countries and 14 languages, participants (N = 4,898) were assigned to one of three conditions: writing a counterattitudinal essay under high choice, writing a counterattitudinal essay under low choice, or writing a neutral essay under high choice. The primary analyses failed to support the core hypothesis: No significant difference in attitude was observed after writing a counterattitudinal essay under high choice compared with low choice. However, we did observe a significant difference in attitude after writing a counterattitudinal essay compared with writing a neutral essay. Secondary analyses revealed the pattern of results to be robust to data exclusions, lab variability, and attitude assessment. Additional exploratory analyses were conducted to test predictions from cognitive-dissonance theory. Overall, the results call into question whether the induced-compliance paradigm provides robust evidence for cognitive dissonance.