Sort each feature of a situation by whether dissonance theory predicts it will produce more or less attitude change in the person who acted against their own view.

Predicts MORE attitude change: The reward for the counter-attitudinal act was trivially small, The act was public and cannot now be denied

Predicts LESS attitude change: The person was given a ready excuse: everyone in the room had been instructed to say it, The person was openly threatened with a heavy penalty for refusing

Anything that supplies external justification - payment, orders, threats - absorbs the dissonance and leaves the attitude alone. Anything that strips justification away - free choice, irreversibility, unrewarded effort - forces the belief to move instead. Note that a heavy threat behaves exactly like a large payment here, which surprises most students.