I am compelled to start this post by stating that I am not in the business of speculating on the mental health of strangers, nor am I interested in providing pseudo-psychological assessments of celebrities in the news. It is important to make this clear because I don't want readers fooled by the title of this post. Indeed, there are enough armchair psychologists in the media offering analysis of celebrities' behaviour. Rather, the recent attention that Mr. Sheen has garnered made me think of a psychological process that can significantly impact mental health, including substance abuse. Psychologists call it cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive Dissonance and Behaviour Change
Cognitive dissonance occurs whenever someone behaves in a way that is discrepant from their beliefs. For example, if you hold the belief "I hate mainstream, pop music," but at the same time can't resist listening to N'Sync or Britney Spears, there is a discrepancy. These kinds of discrepancies cause psychological tension that make people uncomfortable. Whether they are aware of this tension and discomfort is another issue, as cognitive dissonance can operate outside of one's conscious awareness (like other psychological processes).
Whenever people experience something aversive they are then motivated to act in some way to relieve the tension. In this case, you can either change the behaviour or change the belief. In the example above, to get rid of the tension you would have to either modify your belief in some way (ex: "Some pop music is OK") or change your behaviour (i.e., stop listening to pop music).
The reason this post was inspired by Charlie Sheen's recent behaviour is that he admitted during an interview that he was tired of pretending he was not a partying, rock star. Mr. Sheen has a history of drug use and partying, and has reportedly attended rehab programs on a few occasions. There are undoubtedly a large number of people with profiles somewhat similar to Mr. Sheen's, in that they have tried to control their drug use and partying, but eventually gave up. This is an example of relapse. What is interesting is the potential role that cognitive dissonance plays for someone trying to change an unhealthy habit such as drug abuse.
The cognitive dissonance would look something like this:
Belief: "It is important to stop abusing drugs, so that I can live a healthier lifestyle."
Behaviour: Using drugs and partying.
There is dissonance here. You believe in one thing, but continue to behave in ways that are discrepant from this belief (for a variety of reasons related to addiction, which are not the focus of this article). The tension caused by the dissonance can actually benefit motivation for change because it might lead the person to work even harder to change their behaviour.
However, the other possible modification is that of belief. After unsuccessfully trying to change behaviour, especially over a prolonged period of time, the discomfort from feeling the psychological tension caused by dissonance could compel someone to go in the opposite direction. The belief now becomes "This is who I am and that is OK." There can be a variety of other additional belief changes in addition to this one, such as:
"It's other people that have a problem - they can't handle drugs and partying, but I can."
"I'm different from other people, so the regular rules about health and lifestyle don't apply."
or, as was the case with Mr. Sheen,
I'm a "total frigging rock star from Mars."
In any case, changing the belief provides immediate relief of psychological tension - a feeling that is rewarding and perhaps even pleasurable if the tension has been present for a prolonged period of time.
I am not Mr. Sheen's psychologist and so I cannot say what lead to his recent decision to just accept his partying lifestyle. Indeed, I only wanted to use his story to discuss an interesting psychological process - one that can significantly impact people's behaviour and beliefs.
Cognitive Dissonance and Behaviour Change
Cognitive dissonance occurs whenever someone behaves in a way that is discrepant from their beliefs. For example, if you hold the belief "I hate mainstream, pop music," but at the same time can't resist listening to N'Sync or Britney Spears, there is a discrepancy. These kinds of discrepancies cause psychological tension that make people uncomfortable. Whether they are aware of this tension and discomfort is another issue, as cognitive dissonance can operate outside of one's conscious awareness (like other psychological processes).
Whenever people experience something aversive they are then motivated to act in some way to relieve the tension. In this case, you can either change the behaviour or change the belief. In the example above, to get rid of the tension you would have to either modify your belief in some way (ex: "Some pop music is OK") or change your behaviour (i.e., stop listening to pop music).
The reason this post was inspired by Charlie Sheen's recent behaviour is that he admitted during an interview that he was tired of pretending he was not a partying, rock star. Mr. Sheen has a history of drug use and partying, and has reportedly attended rehab programs on a few occasions. There are undoubtedly a large number of people with profiles somewhat similar to Mr. Sheen's, in that they have tried to control their drug use and partying, but eventually gave up. This is an example of relapse. What is interesting is the potential role that cognitive dissonance plays for someone trying to change an unhealthy habit such as drug abuse.
The cognitive dissonance would look something like this:
Belief: "It is important to stop abusing drugs, so that I can live a healthier lifestyle."
Behaviour: Using drugs and partying.
There is dissonance here. You believe in one thing, but continue to behave in ways that are discrepant from this belief (for a variety of reasons related to addiction, which are not the focus of this article). The tension caused by the dissonance can actually benefit motivation for change because it might lead the person to work even harder to change their behaviour.
However, the other possible modification is that of belief. After unsuccessfully trying to change behaviour, especially over a prolonged period of time, the discomfort from feeling the psychological tension caused by dissonance could compel someone to go in the opposite direction. The belief now becomes "This is who I am and that is OK." There can be a variety of other additional belief changes in addition to this one, such as:
"It's other people that have a problem - they can't handle drugs and partying, but I can."
"I'm different from other people, so the regular rules about health and lifestyle don't apply."
or, as was the case with Mr. Sheen,
I'm a "total frigging rock star from Mars."
In any case, changing the belief provides immediate relief of psychological tension - a feeling that is rewarding and perhaps even pleasurable if the tension has been present for a prolonged period of time.
I am not Mr. Sheen's psychologist and so I cannot say what lead to his recent decision to just accept his partying lifestyle. Indeed, I only wanted to use his story to discuss an interesting psychological process - one that can significantly impact people's behaviour and beliefs.
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