We want to go on a diet, but we eat that cake for dessert without hunger. We want to quit smoking, but we start a new cigarette. We want to get in shape, but we never go to the gym.
We want, we desire and we aspire but when it comes to bringing it down to reality, our strength, will and perseverance fail us.
Why don’t we do what we propose or want to do? To understand it we have to go back to the fifties when the psychologist Leon Festinger was investigating the mental discomfort What people feel when they have contradictory or incompatible beliefs, acts or emotions.
We have bad inconsistency and we are capable of deceiving ourselves, if necessary, to lighten the strain What does this cause us? contradiction.
Festinger discovered that we often use three strategies different ones to alleviate the cognitive dissonance we feel when we eat a sweet, when we light a cigarette or when we lie on the couch at home.
When we think we deserve that tiramisu we are justifying the inconsistency; when we think that smoking is not so bad we are changing our beliefs and when we say that tomorrow we will go to the gym we are adjusting our behavior to our beliefs.
Which one do you use the most? Maybe you can use all three left and right. Nothing happens, it is normal, it is a basic psychological phenomenon that helps us live in a complex world full of contradictions.
How to resolve cognitive dissonance
The most complicated way to resolve this dissonance would also be the most logical, which is change behavior that we have, that is, rejecting that dessert, throwing the packet of cigarettes in the trash or heading to the gym happy and motivated.
We want. We often want to. But we can’t. It is superior to us, to our strength, to our motivation. It’s not that we don’t want to, it’s that we can’t. We don’t have words to describe it, but we simply can’t.
We can also change the belief in order to resolve this tension. In this way we will be clear that dieting is not so important, that smoking is not so bad and that going to the gym is overrated. This is much easier, it only requires a few seconds of mental processing.
Finally, the third strategy allows us add a new belief or modulate the one we have. This is perhaps the most common way to manage the cognitive dissonance that prevents us from sleeping. Thus, it will become increasingly clear that that tiramisu helps you digest food, that smoking helps you relax and that going to the gym is not good for your joints.
As they say, the law is done, the trap is done. The Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance It is very important since it explains and shows how people try to maintain coherence in their system of beliefs and behaviors even if this involves rationalizing decisions that seem illogical or contradictory.
Maybe, now that you know, you will be able to go to the gym, quit smoking or diet… or at the very least, you will be able to realize when you are deceiving yourself.
You can discover other tips from Tomás Navarro (@tomasnavarropsi on Instagram) to set limits on those people who harm us in their work’Your red lines (Zenith/Planet). And also, you can read other articles by Tomás Navarro in ABC Bienestar here.
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