Accountability is especially important when it comes to reducing cognitive dissonance and regaining control of your life. Trying to suddenly adjust your thoughts, behaviors, and beliefs can be tricky, but someone who knows the full story can help you stay on track. Metacognitions about smartphone use mediates the relationship between Type D personality and smartphone addiction. One of the best examples of cognitive dissonance can be found in the Aesop Tale of the Fox and the Grapes.
2. Structural Equation Model
For the past 6 years, she additionally has been overseeing the detox area, health services, and office of family support. She has implemented a lot of new protocols for the operations of these areas to ensure the clients are receiving the highest quality of care that we are able to provide. She has a strong work ethic and it’s not unusual for her to be up at the facility at 2am or on the phone all night helping guide our staff on how to best manage whatever situations come up. Mason has always shown a strong desire to help clients recover from drug and alcohol addiction and to provide a strong support system for our employees and counselors as well, allowing them to reach their full potential in their current roles.
3. Cognitive Dissonance Theory
As such, no set of external signs can reliably indicate a person is experiencing cognitive dissonance. An individual’s genetic makeup can influence the degree to which a drug of abuse alters his or her cognitive processes. For instance, an individual’s cognitive response to acute amphetamine depends in part on which of the alternative forms of the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene he or she has inherited. Adolescent exposures to other substances of abuse, such as alcohol, cannabis, and MDMA, also cause persistent disruptions of cognition (Brown et al., 2000; O’Shea, McGregor, and Mallet, 2006; Piper and Meyer, 2004; Stiglick and Kalant, 1982). These findings indicate that the adolescent brain, which is still developing, is susceptible to insult from drug use and abuse, and such insult can result in long-lasting changes in affect and cognition.
Early Studies of Cognitive Dissonance
They might know, on an intellectual level, that their substance use is destroying their relationships, career, and health. Yet, they continue to use, trapped in a cycle of self-destructive cognitive dissonance addiction behavior that seems impossible to break. Your brain will attempt to resolve cognitive dissonance on its own — but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have any say over the process.
Mediation of metacognitions about smartphone use
To live an authentic life, you need to be able to recognize when you’re compensating for incongruence. From there, you can make positive changes that help you live according to your true values. Before they went on stage, they were told to think of a time when they didn’t exhibit that behavior.
The take-home lesson is that our reasoning is biased by our desires and motivations. Research shows that justifications give people the impression that they made a careful decision. In the face of temptation (problematic desires), we need to dispute rationally our distorted reasoning and the judgments that follow. After all, it takes only a single moment of weakness during a high-risk situation for a recovering addict to reconsider drug use and relapse. 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. First and foremost, it is essential to cultivate the skill of emotional regulation.
Cognitive strategies in managing addictive behaviours
Leon Fester, psychologist and author of the book; A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957), proposed that people experience psychological unease when their beliefs are conflicting or when their actions and behaviours contradict each other. There’s a certain kind of confidence that comes with being grounded in your beliefs. It feels good knowing you’re able to uphold certain values, like the ones you learned from your parents https://ecosoberhouse.com/ and caregivers or the ones you’ve carved out for yourself based on your own personal experiences. While cognitive dissonance is often described as something widely and regularly experienced, efforts to capture it in studies don’t always work, so it could be less common than has been assumed. People do not necessarily experience discomfort in response to every apparent contradiction in their thoughts and beliefs.
- In addition to the above aspects, existing studies have explored the relationship between personality and metacognitions about smartphone use.
- This is congruent with the findings of existing studies on the relationship between Type D personality and addiction [21, 82].
- For example, a type of cognitive- behavioral therapy called dissonance- based therapy has been evaluated by researchers to be effective, even long term, for young women with eating disorders (Stice, Rhodes, Shaw, & Gau, 2011).
- He has worked for Elevate Addiction Services for over 2 years, and is board-certified in family and addiction medicine.
Inhibition of GABA activity could lead to an overall increase in neural activity throughout the brain, which might lead to the formation of stronger associations than would normally occur, including maladaptive drug-context associations. Relapse is a process in which a newly abstinent patient experiences a sense of perceived control over his/her behaviour up to a point at which there is a high risk situation and for which the person may not have adequate skills or a sense of self-efficacy. Self- efficacy increases and the probability of relapsing decreases when one is able to cope with this situation31. Problem solving therapy (PST) is a cognitive behavioural program that addresses interpersonal problems and other problem situations that may trigger stress and thereby increase probability of the addictive behaviour. The four key elements of PST are problem identification, generating alternatives, decision making, implementing solutions, reviewing outcomes and revising steps where needed. Problem orientation must also be addressed in addition to these steps, and the efficacy of PST increases when problem orientation is addressed in addition to the other steps25,26.
- But sometimes, we have feelings of dissonance and we don’t understand — or can’t trace — where they came from.
- Sometimes, resolving cognitive dissonance is just a matter of changing your perspective on something or developing new patterns of thinking to help you live according to what’s most important to you.
- That means that when we take in new information, we don’t interpret it objectively.
- Sometimes the individual can hold beliefs and opinions that are contradictory or that contradicts their behaviour.
- With over 15 years of content experience, Allaya Cooks Campbell has written for outlets such as ScaryMommy, HRzone, and HuffPost.
