Understanding your beliefs and values behind the inconsistencies is an opportunity to develop deeper self-knowledge. Often, we deal with cognitive inconsistencies without being aware of them. This includes refraining from judgment and instead being accepting of our observations. Cognitive dissonance leads to the motivation to reduce the dissonance (Festinger, 1957). The stronger the discrepancy between thoughts, the greater the motivation to reduce it (Festinger, 1957). According to Festinger, there are a few ways that a person might resolve this dissonance.
This could include changes in behavior or attempts to ignore information that contradicts a goal or desire. For example, a smoker might quit smoking or instead rationalize their behavior by saying other habits are just as dangerous. The term “cognitive dissonance” refers to a mismatch between your beliefs and your actions. It’s possible to hold two conflicting https://ecosoberhouse.com/ ideas in your mind simultaneously, but doing so can be intensely uncomfortable. You might go to great lengths to relieve this discomfort, denying information or hiding your behavior to justify your actions and avoid guilt and shame. Cognitive Dissonance is not always a bad thing, and like any kind of pain or distress, it is communicating something to us.
Cognitive Dissonance in Addiction
The article provides an overview of cognitive behavioural approaches to managing addictions. A smoker, for example, who knows that smoking causes cancer, experiences cognitive dissonance if she continues to smoke. But that is difficult, so most smokers convince themselves that the links between smoking and lung cancer are not quite as strong as doctors claim (modify belief, or avoid the information). In the context of dieting, a person who intends to lose weight has dissonance because of his conflicting strong desires for fattening foods and to lose weight. After an overindulging evening in a special event, he may experience an intense feeling of discomfort (regret and guilt) for his behavior. He may reduce the discomfort by either downplaying the importance of weight loss, or engage in a rigorous exercise the day after.
Each of these drugs has been shown to acutely enhance learning and/or attention (Del et al., 2007; Kenney and Gould, 2008; Mattay, 1996). For example, the idea that smoking is a cognitive enhancer is well accepted by researchers and the general public. Numerous studies have confirmed that laboratory animals’ cognitive processes improve immediately following administration of nicotine (Kenney and Gould, 2008). Similar findings in early studies with human smokers were not conclusive, because the study participants were smokers who had received nicotine following a period of abstinence. The observed enhancements might have reflected the reversal of withdrawal effects, rather than improvements over their normal cognitive powers. A subsequent review of the literature, however, suggests that acute nicotine enhances reaction time and attention in nicotine-naïve individuals (Swan and Lessov-Schlaggar, 2007).
Justifying behavior
But you can feel caught off guard when those values and beliefs are shaken by social pressures, the presence of new information or having to make a rushed last-minute decision. Sometimes, we can even get caught up in behaving or reacting a certain way that doesn’t necessarily align with how we really feel — and then we end up feeling cognitive dissonance addiction lost. A man who learns that his eating habits raise his risk of illness feels the tension between his preferred behavior and the idea that he could be in danger. He might ease this feeling by telling himself that the health warning is exaggerated or, more productively, by deciding to take action to change his behavior.
- An individual progresses through various stages of changes and the movement is influenced by several factors.
- It completely changes a person’s moral compass, which is why the choice they make to engage in these addictive behaviors is stronger than just willpower.
- For example, many people express that they care about animals, yet they regularly eat them too.
- Many experiments have since been conducted to illustrate cognitive dissonance in more ordinary contexts.
- The brain regions and processes that underlie addiction overlap extensively with those that are involved in essential cognitive functions, including learning, memory, attention, reasoning, and impulse control.
Friends and relatives who learn that an addict holds a negative view of drug (or behavior) and is motivated to quit may be surprised to learn of a sudden shift in preference for the drug. When you do something or behave a certain way that goes against your values, you may experience cognitive dissonance. This clash of beliefs and disruption of thought can also occur if you have two or more conflicting beliefs and you’re torn between them. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people are averse to inconsistencies within their own minds.