Cognitive Dissonance and Addiction Behaviors Elevate Addiction Services

Tim also spent several years as CEO to Eric Clapton’s facility in the Caribbean, Crossroads of Antigua. Cognitive dissonance is the fundamental coping mechanism that people abusing drugs use throughout their https://ecosoberhouse.com/ active addiction and can often follow them into recovery. The defense mechanisms that someone places around themselves to keep cognitive dissonance at bay need to be addressed to start the recovery process.

Addiction and Cognition

Second, a study found that users’ self-efficacy in managing information overload was negatively related to cognitive dissonance and positively related to continuous usage intention in social media platforms [65]. Moreover, Qaisar et al. [92] revealed that user addiction had a stronger negative effect on discontinuous usage intention among users with low self-efficacy towards mobile applications. In contrast, users with low self-efficacy are more susceptible to negative emotions and cognitive dissonance when using the platform, which can lead to discontinuous usage intention. The American social psychologist Festinger [38] proposed the Cognitive Dissonance Theory (CDT), which is based on Gestalt psychology, to analyze the psychological conflict before decision-making and the discomfort afterward. Cognitive and behavioral inconsistencies produce cognitive dissonance and emotional adjustment needs to achieve equilibrium [39].

• Their research helps us understand the connections between our thinking, our behavior, and our emotions.
• It is crucial for specialists to comprehend the role of cognitive dissonance in addiction perception in order to effectively treat their clients.
• Information overload on pan-entertainment mobile live broadcast platform has a positive influence on users’ cognitive dissonance.
• Future research could investigate these factors to gain a more comprehensive understanding of discontinuous usage intentions.
• The cognitive dissonance is effectively wiped clean by changing how they feel towards their addiction.

Neuroplasticity and Addiction: Rewiring the Brain for Recovery

The relationship between Cognitive Dissonance and Addiction is an emerging topic of fascination, particularly for addiction specialists who perhaps are seeking new ways to treat clients (it’s also helpful for those in addiction recovery). When you discover new information and you’re faced with the uncomfortable decision to … well, make decisions, embrace a positive outlook. Sometimes, when you’re faced with difficult decisions in the moment, it’s best to take a break and revisit it later when all parties have processed what’s happened.

Dissonance-Based Therapy

When it comes to addiction, and other potentially harmful behaviors, cognitive dissonance can keep us trapped in denial, unable to change destructive behaviors. Increasing our awareness about what we believe, think, and do is the first step to making the changes we want to make. You also tell yourself that people really exaggerate how dangerous smoking is.  After all, you know people who smoke who have lived very long lives. Then, of course, you tell yourself that if you quit smoking, you might gain weight, which is also bad for your health. Cognitive dissonance is the tension that arises when there is a conflict between a belief and a desire or behavior. It occurs when individuals hold opposing beliefs and experience psychological stress as a result.

• Second, the study used a cross-sectional survey design with a single source of data, which limits the ability to establish causality and the changes in discontinuous usage intentions over time.
• For example, gradual exposure therapy, which involves incrementally increasing an individual’s contact with the feared situation, could be used to intervene on nomophobia by helping individuals to confront their anxiety in a controlled and supportive manner.
• It’s hard at first, but instead of feeling guilty when you see the gym keychain, you feel proud of yourself.

Cognitive behaviour therapy is a structured, time limited, psychological intervention that has is empirically supported across a wide variety of psychological disorders. CBT for addictive behaviours can be traced back to the application of learning theories in understanding addiction and subsequently to social cognitive theories. cognitive dissonance addiction The focus of CBT is manifold and the focus is on targeting maintaining factors of addictive behaviours and preventing relapse. Relapse prevention programmes are based on social cognitive and cognitive behavioural principles. More recent developments in the area of managing addictions include third wave behaviour therapies.

Modifying social and environmental antecedents and consequences another approach to working with addictive behaviours18. Therapeutic strategies such as contingency management, differential reinforcement of incompatible and alternate behaviours and rearrangement of environmental cues that set the occasion for addictive behaviour, including emotional triggers are used in this approach. Family members are counselled so as identify potential risk factors for relapse, such as emotional and behavioural changes.

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This study used Cronbach’s α coefficient to measure the consistency of the questionnaire as a pre-test reliability measure. The α coefficient ranges from 0 to 1, with a value greater than 0.7 indicating that it is trustworthy and a value greater than 0.9 representing very high trustworthiness. The composite reliability value represents the internal consistency of the construct indicators, and a value of 0.7 is acceptable [86], with a recommended value of 0.6 or higher [87]. Factor loading analysis measures the correlation between individual variables and factors.

Addicts are fully aware of the dangers of alcohol and drug abuse but will find new and creative ways to justify their self-destructive behaviours. Seeking professional help for Cognitive Dissonance allows those with mental health conditions such as anger issues, personality disorders and addictions to make positive changes to their lifestyle, allowing them to move forward. When faced with conflict, you may experience cognitive dissonance if you make a decision to lessen potential conflict between you and other people, but it’s not necessarily a decision you fully believe in. When faced with a deadline, you could even cut corners to accomplish a task, but then experience discomfort when it’s done because you value hard work. You may also experience cognitive dissonance when you have situations where friends, family members or coworkers act a certain way that don’t align with your beliefs.

• This reward was intended to thank the participants for their time and effort in completing the survey and to encourage them to answer each question truthfully and to the best of their ability.
• Similarly, Yener et al. [100] found that self-efficacy helps mitigate the impact of information overload on job stress and job burnout among information workers.
• It compares the average correlations between indicators of different constructs to the averages between indicators of the same construct.
• The behavioral intention part of the framework refers to the likelihood of an individual engaging in a particular behavior, which in this study refers to stopping the use of the pan-entertainment mobile live broadcast platform.
• The relationship between Cognitive Dissonance and Addiction is an emerging topic of fascination, particularly for addiction specialists who perhaps are seeking new ways to treat clients (it’s also helpful for those in addiction recovery).
• The study’s findings add to the body of literature supporting this theory, particularly in the context of pan-entertainment mobile live broadcast platforms.
• Each of the five stages that a person passes through are characterized as having specific behaviours and beliefs.

The effects of cognitive dissonance

Social psychologists have uncovered dozens of cognitive biases, such as self-serving bias, unconscious bias or implicit bias, confirmation bias, fundamental attribution error, and the sunk-cost fallacy. Since addiction creates a chemical dependency on a substance — whether it’s nicotine or sugar — this kind of dissonance can be hard to shake. When we say “yes” to a choice, whether it’s as small as what to order for lunch or as big as where to live, we have to say “no” to something else.