2020 and Overcoming Cognitive Dissonance

As 2020 draws to a close (and I mean this when I say that it can’t happen soon enough), many of us will reflect back on what may very well be the strangest year in our memories. Aside from the grief, loss, and frustration this year has brought, it has also left us wondering, more than once, “What just happened?”

Early on in the pandemic, myself, close friends, clients, and many others have struggled to pin down exactly what this season has asked of us. Mixed signals and unclear communication from local and national leaders certainly are partially to blame, but this experience of a global pandemic is also new territory for us all, so a bit of a learning curve when adapting to new norms is to be expected.

On more than one occasion, I have been asked by friends and family the following question:

“Why do so many people seem to struggle to accept information provided to us by scientists, community leaders, and other professionals who have our best interest in mind as we attempt to mitigate the loss of this pandemic?”

The theory of cognitive dissonance refers to situations where attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors are conflicting with one another. Because this conflict leads to mental discomfort and the need for additional energy in order to rationalize the conflicting ideas, one will alter their attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors in order to decrease discomfort and restore mental balance.

The concept of cognitive dissonance was developed by Psychologist Leon Festinger in the late 1950’s. Festinger modeled the theory in small experiments, and also was led to ponder the phenomenon based on events in his own life.

Perhaps the most common example used to demonstrate this theory today is smoking. While most smokers today know that there is evidence to support that smoking tobacco leads to cancer, they continue to smoke. This is an example of cognitive dissonance.

In a year like 2020, where so much of what is being asked of us seems contradictory to what we have grown to know as truth, it is no wonder that many of us are experiencing cognitive dissonance. In the age of sharing every second of our lives to social media, “FOMO” (that is, fear of missing out), and the belief that individualism trumps all, our brains have difficulty holding space for the new realities in front of us, while also maintaining the deeply held beliefs that we have always shaped our lives around.

The excerpt below from McLeod states that our inner drives will compel us to seek out cognitive consistency. In order to do that, something must be eliminated:

“Festinger's (1957) cognitive dissonance theory suggests that we have an inner drive to hold all our attitudes and behavior in harmony and avoid disharmony (or dissonance). This is known as the principle of cognitive consistency.

When there is an inconsistency between attitudes or behaviors (dissonance), something must change to eliminate the dissonance.” (McLeod, 2018)

Cognitive dissonance can occur for any given reason, but what Festinger went on to find was that, specifically, when humans are faced with forced compliant behavior, decision making, and effort, the likelihood that they will experience cognitive dissonance increases.

Let’s jump back to the present, here in 2020. It’s no wonder that those of us that enjoy traveling, being at large events, and going about our days doing as we please have struggled with mask mandates and suggestions to stay home. In our personal lives up until this point, many of us may have joked about experiencing “FOMO” when we stayed home instead of going to that dinner with friends or joining the Friday evening happy hour. Our personal beliefs have been that being around others, engaging in social commitments, and sharing it all to our Instagram or Snapchat was important. (This is not meant to downplay the importance of community, as it has been scientifically proven that meaningful relationships contribute to better outcomes for human beings).

And because we can’t go back and change our previous behaviors (and I don’t know about you, but I also just don’t want to), our brains are now being met with a new expectation (that is, to stay home and avoid these things) and is struggling to hold space for these conflicting ideas.

To make things more complicated, our brains are not only experiencing cognitive dissonance about our ideas of acceptable social behavior, but our ideas of self and community altogether as well.

In the United States, it cannot be emphasized enough that our society encourages individualism. This isn’t a criticism of individualism, it has its place. But when a society that has been encouraged to think, act, vote, and create in each persons’ own best interest is faced with the plea to shift their mindsets to focus on the greater good for their community, again, disharmony is introduced.

2020 has also been full of decision making, which naturally brings up disharmony and dissonance. Whenever we are faced with more than one choice, the highlights of each choice will be what stands out to us, making it that much more difficult to decide between options presented to us.

Even small decisions in 2020 have brought on more mental conflict than usual, as our realities and daily lives have shifted so greatly from the norm before this year. A once small decision about whether to cook at home or eat out can bring up more cognitive dissonance than ever before, and larger decisions about jobs, family, school, big events, and other life changes are plagued with even more mental strain.

So what are we to do? We know that our brains do not want to exist in continued disharmony, and that realistically, we don’t have the energy to consistently work to hold room for competing ideas and beliefs.

How does cognitive dissonance get “solved?”

Festinger found that cognitive dissonance could be resolved using three methods. The first seems rather simple, if someone can change their behavior to not be in disharmony with one of the other beliefs, the dissonance will fade. However, as well all know, changing behaviors that we have become accustomed to is much easier said than done.

Take wearing a mask for example. In March and April, I found myself having to double, even triple check, my handbag for a mask before leaving the house. Because I was not accustomed to this behavior and it is contradictory to how I had always acted, it took a while to adapt.

The second way cognitive dissonance can be resolved is to collect new information that somehow outweighs the dissonant beliefs. Because of this, it’s no wonder that conspiracy theories have taken center stage over the last year, or that changing recommendations from national and regional experts have received such significant criticism. If we are able to find information that disproves the conflicting beliefs we are being introduced to, we can reduce the cognitive dissonance and feel at peace.

For example, when it was shared that wearing a mask prohibits our own droplets from spreading to others, but does not necessarily protect us from the droplets of others, this information became a way for many to rationalize discrediting the dissonant belief that we have to wear a mask whenever we leave our homes. Sure, there was additional information left out about how if everyone wears a mask it will therefore protect everyone, but the brain’s goal was to reduce dissonance, which it did. Goal accomplished, state of normalcy achieved.

And finally, where I find most of the cognitive dissonance being resolved in this time in the lives of those I know and work with lies in the third solution: reduce the importance of the beliefs.

If we can convince ourselves that the validity of the information being shared with us is reduced, or that the consequences of our everyday choices don’t really have *that* much impact on those around us, that pesky dissonance starts to fade. And when it does, our brains experience relief that encourages us to keep doing it.

As humans, we are modeled for homeostasis, and not just physically, but psychologically as well.

So when someone loses a loved one to a virus, and still continues to question the validity of the said virus, it is not that they are heartless or have not acknowledged their realities. In fact, it’s more likely that they have acknowledged both of these beliefs, and they were in disharmony with one another, so their brain worked to protect them by returning to a state of normalcy in the best and quickest way possible by invalidating their belief in the virus altogether.

When a friend denies the existence of COVID-19 or the effectiveness of wearing a mask, it could be that they only get their information from unqualified sources. However, it is also just as possible that they have been given accurate information, and then experienced cognitive dissonance as they’ve worked to reconcile their past beliefs with the new, contradictory information being presented to them, and have found a way to resolve that dissonance that required them to alter their actions and beliefs about the virus.

When a coworker expresses increased anxiety day in and day out related to the virus, and yet also continues to travel or gather in large groups, it does not mean that she does not care about her anxiety. It’s possible that by rationalizing a decrease in validity about the information regarding where the virus is most often contracted, she has found her own way to decrease her anxieties as best as she can. 

When a frontline medical worker acts in a way that seems contradictory to the information that their field is producing, it is possible that person is protecting their own state of mind in the only way they feel able to, especially after experiencing vicarious trauma for months on end.

People, both within a pandemic and outside of one, do the best that they can with what they are given in order to succeed. I don’t say this to excuse reckless or unsafe behavior, but I do hope that we can strive to support one another in empathetic ways as we strive to overcome cognitive dissonance in ways that maintain the health and safety of our communities moving forward.

Rationalizing our behaviors can stem from many different places, psychologically speaking, and more often than not, if we seek to find the underlying cause for a behavior beyond the surface, what we will find is a human, just like us, navigating life as best they can, through highs and lows, fear and loss, joy and despair.

As we seek to improve health outcomes in our local communities and beyond, let us remember that perspective taking is a powerful tool for meeting others where they are, and seeking to understand behavior before we jump to change it.

There will come a day in the future when we again are met with cognitive dissonance, but this time it may be due to overcoming anxiety when we are no longer required to wear masks or limit our time with loved ones, when we rejoin crowds at indoor concerts and begin to take family vacations again. We will need to use the same skills we are using now to reach a state of harmony.

What better reason to practice safely seeking harmony in the midst of a pandemic, than to hold the hope that we one day may do it all over again as we return to our deeply held beliefs of old that honor community and celebration?

I can’t think of anything I’d rather shift my behavior for.

Sources:

(McLeod, S. A. (2018, Febuary 05). Cognitive dissonance. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-dissonance.html).

Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Festinger, L. (Ed.). (1964). Conflict, decision, and dissonance (Vol. 3). Stanford University Press.

Festinger, L., & Carlsmith, J. M. (1959). Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58(2), 203.

Surviving a Pandemic is NOT Just Watching Netflix (and other thoughts on minimizing our experiences)

I don’t know what day of “quarantine” you’re on (I had a tally list going at first, but found that to be rather detrimental to my mental health so I tossed it after day 14), but wherever you are in the world, you’ve likely experienced some type of disruption from the pandemic known as COVID-19.

For many, including myself, escaping stress and anxiety through scrolling memes on social media has become one of the many ways we cope with the “world as we knew it” crumbling down around us.

Now I love an internet meme just as much as the next person, in fact, I follow several accounts dedicated to memes completely, and have honestly found a lot of comfort in some of the memes that comment on the pandemic. I know this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but humor helps me feel a little bit more distanced from the chaos of the world so I have enjoyed scrolling through some of the photos with witty little captions that seem to offer just a moment of comedic release. If you are familiar with memes, you may have seen the one that I’m about to comment on. If not, no worries, I have conveniently added it to this post:

Honestly, when I first saw this, I was like “Hell yeah, just stay home! This isn’t that hard.” But most of this reaction was driven by my fear and “righteous anger.” Social distancing guidelines had just started being put into place, and many people who were still skeptical about the severity of this virus were still going about their daily lives and bragging about how they were not going to stay home.

My own fear response was to become critical of others and I immediately latched onto this sentiment of persecuting those who complained this would be hard, because it was easier than sitting with my own fears.

My inner pride was triggered and I immediately felt I was right. Staying home and watching Netflix? Not going to bars and restaurants? Doing home workouts in place of ones at your local gym or studio? That is EASY. There is nothing hard about this! “If you care about other people this should be a no brainer!”

A lot of times our emotional gut reactions to causes we care about come from a good place, but may be misguided. And of course, this was one of those times.

As I began to navigate the pandemic personally and alongside clients, I began to realize that this little meme (and all the rationality behind it) is very flawed. What once seemed like a flippant, entertaining internet picture, now felt invalidating to my experience and to the experiences of those that I work with and care for.

People began having psychotic breaks. And no, I don’t use that as a slang term, but rather in the clinical sense of people coming to the emergency room experiencing psychosis for the first time because the chronic stress, trauma, and poverty that they have trained themselves to manage for so long were no longer able to be contained under the added weight of fear for their lives and the lives of those they love.

Children in foster homes began disrupting (in the world of social work that’s code for families saying that they can no longer house a child because they have gotten unsafe or out of hand). The kids who remained at home continued to act up, get police called on them, and refused to do school work.

I began to find myself slipping into old negative habits, escaping my body as a substitute for sitting with the scary and hard emotions that came with each new day of being separated from friends, clients, and my hopes for the future. Client experiences aside, this pandemic began to feel personal, threatening my plans for reunions with friends, weddings, and five year plans.

This pandemic is HARD. It is hard on all of us, in different ways certainly, but hard on all of us nonetheless.

With all of this being said, obviously this meme is BS.

But beyond that, this meme represents a harmful practice that we as a society continue to perpetuate.

The idea that we need to minimize our own emotions to make room for someone else’s who we think has experienced “more” pain or “worse” trauma is flawed thinking at its worst.

The idea that someone else’s experience is more valid because it checked off more boxes on a trauma screen is harmful, and it is just wrong.

When we begin to internalize these distorted thoughts and succumb to this type of thinking, it has real life consequences. When we begin to believe that our pain is “less than” or “unworthy,” the idea of seeking out help begins to invoke shame and stops us from ever moving forward.

When we feel that our stories aren’t worthy to take up space, it prevents us from sharing our innermost experiences in safe, trusting relationships and teaches us that vulnerability may be helpful for others, but it’s just not for us.

When we begin to rank our personal pain and experiences on a scale, we also begin to see the world in a way that labels other people’s pain, too. If we allow ourselves to begin to invalidate our own experiences and emotions, the practice of invalidating others’ experiences won’t be far off.

So no, surviving a pandemic is not just sitting on our couches and watching Netflix. Our brains are wired for survival, and once they are made aware of a threat to our safety, our Amygdala’s are activated (that’s our fear response part of our brains), whether we are at war or at home on our couches. Trauma is trauma, suffering is suffering, and grief is grief, and each person’s experience will always look different but that does not mean that is less than or invalid. As shame researcher Brené Brown says, shame is dangerous because it keeps us from telling our stories. When we feel that our stories are not worthy of being heard, we live in the shadows and our pain festers and grows.

Whatever your experience has been during this pandemic, the pain you are experiencing is valid. Maybe you have been battling an increase in anxiety while worrying about your elderly loved ones. Perhaps your time at home has brought up deeply buried memories of a time where, like present day, you felt unsafe. Maybe you have been laid off and are stressed about finances and providing for your family. Whatever your experience has been, it is your story and it is real.

It may seem radical to acknowledge our pain and fear as “enough” (as strange as that sounds), but it can be the first step in retraining our brains, and our communities, to practice radical acceptance.

The first step starts with us. The next time societal standards or pressure from family begins to tell you that your pain is small and unworthy, that it is not worth being discussed or making other people uncomfortable, speak up. Find a trusted person. Find a therapist. Process those emotions. Just because someone else projects their desires to have smaller feelings onto you does NOT mean that your feelings aren’t valid “enough” to be shared.

The next time someone you love starts to share something hard and immediately backtracks, saying “Sorry, I know you don’t want to hear about all this,” remind them that their stories deserve to be heard, and if you’re in a place to do so, offer to be the safe place for them to share it.

Can you even imagine? A world where each person feels empowered to share their story, to seek out help, and to be bold in speaking their deepest fears and challenges?

That is a world that I hope to one day be a part of, after this pandemic has come and gone, and all of our emotions remain.

Self-Esteem is NOT the Same as Body Image, and This is Why

I don’t know about you all, but I love a good self-help book. The market for books targeted at millenials spans everything from washing your face, to stop apologizing, to accepting your flaws and becoming a kick-ass businesswoman. I always enjoy these reads for a couple of reasons. Mainly, I love to learn and feel like I’m taking control of my life. Reading books with all the latest tips and tricks about self-care, relaxation, owning your insecurities, and harnessing your creative energy help me feel like I am spending my time wisely by working on myself.

This feeling is good, and I do believe that taking time to care for ourselves is also very good.

But what happens when the self-help books and positive affirmations stop working? Where do we go from here?

My entire life, for as far back as I can remember, I have struggled with self-esteem. I have also struggled with body image, and I intentionally list those two things separately because although they tend to get lumped together in our society, they really are (and should be) two entirely different things that support each other.

Before we dig any deeper, let me be sure to reiterate that what follows is not clinical advice in any way, but rather is my experience learning to not only come to terms with my body and myself, but to even embrace it (not that I’ve reached the finish line but if I was doing one of those couch to 5k programs targeted at loving yourself I’m at least off the couch at this point. Small steps).

For so much of my life, I felt like I did not have low self-esteem. I was nurtured by family and friends growing up and always verbally praised for my accomplishments. I never hesitated to sign up for new experiences or leadership positions at school, and I was always seen as outgoing and friendly, not reclusive in the way that one may be stereotyped into being if he or she was self-conscious.

So as I grew older and stepped into therapy for disordered eating and general emotional regulation concerns, I immediately was convinced that every therapist was dumb and knew nothing because they referred to me as having “low self-esteem” and was insecure when I knew good and well I was very confident in my abilities to do many things on a daily basis.

And so early on, this idea of self-esteem and body image quickly became entangled into a web of sameness. The two began to go together like the diet coke and granola combo that I ate every day for lunch for 6 months. “Low self-esteem comes from poor body image and vice versa” became the concept that developed in my mind. I didn’t know it at the time, but this dangerous entwining of ideas would later make shifting my views of myself infinitely more difficult.

You see, when we begin to believe that self-esteem comes from a positive body image, the task of developing positive self-esteem can become very daunting.

For someone (like me) who felt very angry and upset with her body for most of my life, the belief that I could not overcome this hatred of self until I learned to love (or even like) my body seemed near impossible.

I haven’t fully delved into the deep parts of my subconscious self, but I really do believe that this concept played a role in deterring me from “getting better” for so long. I hated my body for as long as I could remember, so the idea of needed to come to terms with its appearance before developing positive views of myself overall seemed like a lost cause.

If you’ve ever battled negative thoughts about yourself, or distorted thoughts of any sort, really, you are probably familiar with the way the cycle unfolds. We start of by hearing or internalizing this thought or idea, which eventually becomes one of our core beliefs. and that belief begins to shape the ways we feel and respond to ourselves, and those actions then start to reinforce this idea that was never even true to begin with BUT ALAS, you did finally act in a way that gave you evidence that the idea was true, and so it is reinforced again, and again, and again.

What this looked like for me seems really simple looking back on it. I started to hate my body and so I started to believe that my body was bad. This idea took many different forms, like “My body would be good if….” or “My body is only bad because….” but essentially, it was all the same. This core belief became my identity- my body is bad but if I could just lose 20 pounds, then it would be good. So I started to feel like I had to do it- I had to make my body “good” because we are meant to be good, right?

So then I would restrict. Or over-exercise. Or binge and then purge to make myself feel like I was getting what I deserved. And you know what? Ina society that worships thinness, I got what I was looking for. The comments about my weight loss and how its so impressive “that I can choose to not eat or just eat vegan” reinforced what I believed the whole time.

“My body was only bad because of this thing, and now that I am changing it, I am becoming good.”

I finally had evidence! What people did not know was that the comments about my weight loss were reinforcing every distorted belief I held about who I am. And every time they reaffirmed that I was better when I was thinner, the cycle would restart. The issue with a cycle like this, though, is that it’s not sustainable. There comes a time when you burn out on the unhealthy cycles and start to yearn for some sense of normalcy.

But when I started to want to like my body just as is, I mean really want to like it, I just couldn’t.

These thoughts of who I was and where my worth stemmed from had become so deeply entwined with my DNA that my body, and my mind, could not even imagine making this choice. It was so simple: one way made you good, and one did not.

It would not be until years later, as an adult, that my best friend would say the words that many parents, therapists, and friends had said all along. For some reason, this time, it started to become clear.

“You will never change your habits until you change the way you view yourself.”

She wasn’t talking about the way I viewed my body. She was speaking to the way I viewed my self- the whole person of me held up in the skin that I worried so much about.

And so the new work began: the work of untangling self-esteem from body image and learning to see the parts of me that made me truly good, apart from my body.

Please do not read this and misunderstand what I am saying. My body (and yours, too) is so good already. My body shows up for me day after day even when I completely mistreat it or ignore its needs, even after years of starvation and caffeine and trying to fix something that wasn’t broken.

But what I was beginning to learn is that I don’t need to just think of my body as being good in order to know that I, the whole person, am good.

I was slowly beginning to learn as a 20 something, that this body that has carried me my whole life is just a shell of what I really am: the strength I possess, the care I extend to others, the passion and drive and personality that is me, is just housed in these skin and bones.

Yes, it is important to thank our bodies for the work they do for us. It is important to care for our bodies and listen to them and honor them.

But we are not just our bodies. We are infinitely more complex than the vessels that house our neurons and ligaments, our blood and our hearts. What makes me a living person cannot fully be contained in this body that I have been given, and until I realized this truth, I would never be able to fully appreciate the whole of the person I am.

This realization brought me to actual tears. It’s a strange feeling to realize you have been rejecting yourself somewhat for most of your life. It’s a weird phenomenon to feel like you need to simultaneously forgive apologize and forgive yourself all at once, like you were living a lie but really did not know and never meant to hurt anyone by it (especially not yourself).

The work that follows such a realization is long and hard. These core beliefs cannot be easily undone, and take patience and pain to work through.

If you, too, feel like you might be stuck, its okay.

Your body and your heart will forgive you.

It’s okay to take the first step of asking your body and your soul what it needs from you. It may say you have been taking too much, or it may say you have not given enough. And if this is the case, it’s also okay to say, “I’m sorry” and promise yourself to try to do better.

It can be a heartbreaking feeling for someone feeling lost to finally recognize that they will not be able to separate themselves from this body that feels like a trap, or a mistake that you cannot remove yourself from.

But it can also be beautifully refreshing to remember that this body will always be your home, for better or for worse, no matter how far you run. We can’t separate ourselves from ourselves, and while it may be one of the most difficult things humans can do, learning to love the parts of us that are scary or frustrating can open up entirely new dimensions to what it feels like to really, truly, be human.

Some practical things we can do to help target negative views of self are the things that most people roll their eyes at: positive self-talk and affirmations, dismantling negative and untrue thoughts about ourselves, and taking time to care for ourselves to remind ourselves that we are loved.

Something as simple as repeating a positive statement to yourself like, “I am worthy of love simply because I am alive” two to three times a day can actually make a difference. I know, it seems unrealistic, but we actually can see positive shifts in thinking in about 15 weeks with something as simple as remembering to talk to ourselves a few times a day. Start with something small, write it on your mirror or on a post-it in your car, and watch the shifts that your thinking will take.

It can feel like an uphill battle trying to change the ways we see ourselves, but change is possible and it is worth it.