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A study was designed to test the notion that dissonance has arousal properties. In a 2 X 3 design, experimental subjects were induced to write counterattitudinal essays under either high-or low-choice conditions. One third of the subjects were led to believe that a pill, which they had just taken in the context of a separate experiment, would lead them to feel tense. Another third were led to believe that the pill would cause them to feel relaxed. The final third expected the pill to have no side effects whatsoever. In this last condition, the results yielded the usual dissonance effect: High choice produced more attitude change in the direction of the essay than low choice. When subjects could attribute their arousal to the pill, this effect was virtually eliminated; when subjects felt they should have been relaxed by the pill, this effect was significantly enhanced. The implications of these results for Festinger's original statement that dissonance is a drivelike state were discussed.

This paper examines the evidence for the digital divide based on gender. An overview of research published in the last 20 years draws to the conclusion that females are at a disadvantage relative to men when learning about computers or learning other material with the aid of computer-assisted software. The evidence shows that the digital divide affects people of all ages and across international boundaries. We suggest that the digital divide is fundamentally a problem of computer anxiety whose roots are deep in socialization patterns of boys and girls and that interact with the stereotype of computers as toys for boys. A model of the digital divide is presented that examines gender stereotypes, attribution patterns, and stereotype threat as antecedents of computer anxiety. Computer anxiety in turn leads to differences in computer attitudes and computer performance. A number of suggestions are offered to reduce the impact of the digital divide.

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