Trace the causal chain by which a 1-dollar participant ends up genuinely believing the task was interesting. Put the steps in order.

1. You perform a behaviour that contradicts your private attitude: you call a dull task enjoyable.
2. The statement was made out loud to another person and cannot be taken back.
3. You look for an external justification and find only a trivial one - a single dollar.
4. Dissonance persists, and the behaviour is no longer available to change.
5. The attitude moves to match the behaviour: the task really was rather interesting.

The order shows why attitude change is the LAST resort, not the first move. Dissonance only forces a belief to shift when the behaviour is irreversible and no external justification is available to absorb the contradiction - which is precisely why the smaller payment produced the bigger change.