For instance, skipping your workout despite knowing its benefits can lead to lingering self-doubt. Recognising these moments is the first step toward realigning your habits with your true self. If you’re interested in practical ways to manage personal stress and boost wellbeing, check out our 15 Proven Stress Relief Techniques. It sounds simple but the downside is that a lot of the time, we reduce the dissonance by deluding ourselves, or by using something to temporarily distract us, to silence the thoughts and numb the feelings.
Stages of Addiction: A Neurological Journey Through the Brain
What is cognitive dissonance is crucial in comprehending how conflicting ideas and beliefs can lead to psychological tension, mental discomfort, and the mechanisms behind resolving this discomfort. Rooted in social psychology, cognitive dissonance theory suggests that individuals experience discomfort when holding contradictory beliefs or engaging in behaviors that conflict with their existing beliefs. The theory also highlights its important role in social psychology and behavioral science, emphasizing its significance in psychological research. In this guide, we delve into the theory of cognitive dissonance, its implications in everyday life, and strategies for resolving conflicting cognitions to achieve cognitive consistency. This internal conflict often leads cognitive dissonance treatment to specific cognitive consequences such as changes in self-perception and stress related to self-image, as cognitive dissonance creates discomfort and doubt. Individuals seek cognitive dissonance reduction through various mechanisms, such as rationalization and neural activation, to alleviate the discomfort and restore mental harmony.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Cognitive Restructuring
We’ve explored how conflicting beliefs can create mental turmoil, and how therapy can help us navigate these internal battles. We’ve seen how this approach can be applied to various mental health challenges and personal growth opportunities. Your therapist will work with you to identify the conflicting beliefs causing distress.
Cognitive Dissonance – The Battle Between What We Think, Feel, and Do
The thing is, you’re probably not going to experience and think, “This is cognitive dissonance.” Your going to feel uncomfortable, but you’re going to experience it more as guilt, shame, or regret. On a big-picture level, we have cognitive dissonance to thank for huge advancements within society. Dr. Noulas says that successes in women’s rights, environmental rights, and gay rights are examples of positive change that have resulted from cognitive dissonance. Those changes were due to individuals recognizing contradictions between how people viewed women, the environment, and nontraditional relationships and how we acted as a society (or allowed others to act).
Identifying Negative Thoughts / Cognitive Distortions
Recognizing and reconciling cognitive dissonance is not always a feel-good experience. Spotting dissonance in our own lives can be painful, embarrassing, and anxiety-inducing, too. And it can be troubling and mentally exhausting to deal with, Curry says. People recognized the cognitive dissonance and made necessary changes to better align society’s values with our actions. Doing some soul searching to determine the areas of your life where contradiction exists can shed light on areas you may need to work on.
Once a reduction strategy is implemented, the individual’s response will feed back into the initial interpretation of the situation and a new evaluation will take place. For example, when the individual engages in a dissonant situation, a change/modification of the initial attitude might take place. Interestingly, this may in turn lead to more positive emotions toward the situation–since the individual has managed to accommodate the modified attitude into the existing cognitive structure. Empirical findings, across several experiments, have actually shown a strong positive relationship between positive emotions and attitude change in the induced-compliance paradigm (Cancino-Montecinos et al., 2018).
- By helping clients recognize the underlying assumptions and biases that shape their narratives, counselors can assist them in identifying and challenging the cognitive distortions that contribute to their cognitive dissonance.
- However, if ongoing, it can harm emotional well-being and decision-making.
- Indeed, mediation models following positive parenting behaviors may improve child adjustment post-divorce (van Dijk, et al., 2020).
- Cognitive dissonance is a normal part of being human—but when it interferes with your well-being, it’s time to seek support.
- Like past literature on cognitive dissonance, our results support its potentially detrimental effects as well as its potential benefits for children (Hornstra et al., 2022).
However, persistent or unresolved cognitive dissonance may contribute to stress, anxiety, or other mental health difficulties, particularly if it interferes with daily functioning or well-being. Like past literature on cognitive dissonance, our results support its potentially detrimental effects as well as its potential benefits for children (Hornstra et al., 2022). Narratives of divorce reveal how a child resolves their cognitive dissonance can lead to both positive and negative attitudes towards themselves and to their parents. Similarly for children involved in triangulation from divorce, they may show similar processes of cognitive restoration, including blaming themselves for the divorce. From our results, this may reflect an attempt to explain their active involvement in loyalty conflicts while not adhering to blame narratives towards their parents (Blow & Daniel, 2016). Indeed, avoidance of cognitive dissonance, such as avoiding a parent that creates loyalty conflicts, may be a protective measure, yet it may exert a detrimental impact on their relationships (Aguilar et al., 2022).
Impulse Control and Addiction Disorders: Exploring the Intricate Connection
In sum, given that the purpose of dissonance reduction is to alleviate emotional tension, an emotion-regulation framework seems to be an appropriate tool for understanding the dissonance-reduction process. Next, we will explore this notion more closely by presenting a general model of dissonance reduction. Being aware of it and addressing it can greatly assist individuals in overcoming their addiction. Therapeutic approaches such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) can be highly effective in helping individuals identify and challenge conflicting thoughts, ultimately promoting positive behavioral changes. Recognizing these instances Substance abuse of cognitive dissonance is the first step toward understanding our behavior. So next time you find yourself justifying something that feels a little off, take a moment to reflect.