Hein Lodewijkx
First author of the 1997 field test of effort justification, in the European Journal of Social Psychology. It is the strongest single piece of disconfirming evidence for the idea that a harder route into a group buys more loyalty, and it is a field study rather than a laboratory one.
Who they are
Hein F. M. Lodewijkx (the form in the Crossref record; earlier vault pages said Hendrik) wrote the paper with Joseph E. M. M. Syroit. Two longitudinal field studies in the Netherlands, with 202 and 46 participants, compared a severe initiation with a milder one. The path analyses supported the authors' competing affiliation-attraction hypothesis instead of the dissonance prediction: companionship predicted group attractiveness irrespective of severity. Severity experienced early in the initiation correlated with frustration and loneliness in the first study and with low mood in the second, those feelings lasted throughout, and they lowered liking for the group.
Key papers
Lodewijkx, H. F. M., & Syroit, J. E. M. M. (1997). Severity of initiation revisited: Does severity of initiation increase attractiveness in real groups? European Journal of Social Psychology, 27(3), 275-300.
Key ideas
In real groups, outside the laboratory, severity predicted less liking and not more. That is the opposite sign from the classic result, and it is measured over time in the groups themselves rather than in a one-sitting manipulation.
It belongs alongside two other things on this site. The multilab replication of induced compliance found nothing from the choice manipulation at scale. And the developmental work on the assembly effect reports that the effect is not moderated by how much effort was invested, which removes the dose-response the folk version depends on.
Sources
- Lodewijkx, H. F. M., & Syroit, J. E. M. M. (1997). European Journal of Social Psychology, 27(3), 275-300. Abstract read in full; author order confirmed.