Summarize the methods and findings of Aronson and Mill's study of initiation.

Aronson and Mills conducted a study in 1959 to examine the effect of initiation severity on liking for a group. The study is often cited in the context of cognitive dissonance theory. The researchers hypothesized that individuals who undergo a difficult initiation to become a member of a group would rate the group more positively than those who underwent an easy initiation or no initiation at all.

**Methods:**
The study involved female college students who volunteered to join a discussion group on the topic of sex. The participants were divided into three groups:

1. **Severe initiation group:** These participants were required to undergo an embarrassing procedure, which involved reading aloud explicit sexual words and a vivid description of a sexual encounter from a piece of paper.
2. **Mild initiation group:** Participants in this group read aloud a list of words that were mildly related to sex but not explicit or embarrassing.
3. **Control group:** This group had no initiation; they simply joined the discussion without any preliminary requirements.

After the initiation procedure, all participants listened to a recording of a discussion purported to be the group they were joining. The discussion was deliberately made dull and uninteresting.

**Findings:**
The results of the study supported the researchers' hypothesis. Participants who experienced the severe initiation rated the discussion group more positively than those who experienced the mild initiation or no initiation at all. This finding was interpreted as evidence of cognitive dissonance: the participants who went through a more severe initiation experienced a dissonance between the effort and embarrassment they endured and the actual value of the group. To reduce this dissonance, they adjusted their attitudes and convinced themselves that the group was more interesting and worthwhile than it actually was.

The study by Aronson and Mills is a classic demonstration of the cognitive dissonance theory, which suggests that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing them. It also illustrates the broader psychological phenomenon known as "effort justification," where people tend to attribute greater value to outcomes they've worked harder to achieve, even if the intrinsic value of the outcome remains constant.