What type of psychology is connected to thoughts and feelings?

You may not be familiar with the term “cognitive dissonance,” but it’s the phrase psychologists use to describe a phenomenon that you likely encounter regularly, if not daily. We humans probably always have, though it wasn’t until the 1950s that the social psychologist Leon Festinger outlined its theory and named it. Since then it’s become one of the most influential theories in psychology. (1)

“Cognitive dissonance is basically this phenomenon whereby we have a natural drive for consistency, in that our belief system must be consistent with itself and it must be consistent with our actions,” says Matt Johnson, PhD, a professor and research fellow at Hult International Business School who is based in Boston. But that consistency doesn’t always happen, and distress can arise as a result.

Festinger’s original premise was that humans prefer to live in a stable world, in which beliefs are consistent with one another and actions align with beliefs. So when you fall out of that perfect harmony and either think or act in opposition to your belief system, tension builds and you become distressed. That distress is called dissonance.

The theory further suggests that present actions can influence subsequent beliefs and values, a conundrum psychologists have noted when studying cognitive dissonance. Our beliefs and values should determine our actions, not the other way around — right?

But if we accept that our beliefs or values can influence our actions and that our actions can influence our beliefs or values, that helps explain a lot of very common human tendencies: like our tendency to rationalize or justify behavior, or the way our beliefs and values change as we navigate different situations in life, and that common human pitfall, hypocrisy. (2)

It’s a universal feeling that all humans have to deal with. “Cognitive dissonance is common to everyone as we encounter different decisions and experiences in our lives that may challenge our existing belief systems or contradict some of our current behaviors,” says Corrine Leikam, PsyD, a licensed clinical psychologist based in Woodland Hills, California.

RELATED: Cognitive Dissonance Happens in Real Life All the Time

Why is it important to think about how cognitive dissonance relates to your own health and wellness? Because the mental or emotional distress it can cause can definitely affect your health and well-being.

The intensity of the discomfort that comes from cognitive dissonance depends somewhat on personality. People who are flexible enough to adjust their thoughts or live with “gray areas” may not have a strong response when they notice the discrepancies. “Some people may experience it more intensely or frequently if they have a high need for consistency in their lives,” Dr. Leikam says. And recognizing and addressing those negative thoughts or emotions is important.

In this article, we take a more detailed look at Cognitive Behaviour Therapy or CBT which is used to help with depression.

We’re often not aware of the impact our feelings and behaviours have on each other, and because of this relationship, changing our behaviours can have a very big effect on our emotions. We can often tackle depression by changing key behaviours, and for many young people this is the most direct way to help them improve their mood.

So where do thoughts fit in? When we talk about thoughts we’re referring to a lot of different mental activities, including wishes, hopes, plans, predictions, judgments and memories. Thoughts often include words but sometimes they can include pictures, speech, or even smells.

Most of the time we don’t notice our thoughts – they go on in the background, helping us make decisions and carry out many tasks automatically. Sometimes, we become aware of our thoughts – for example when we try to work out a puzzle, or remember a specific event, or do a specific task, like write a letter to a friend or learn a new language.

Thoughts

Daniel Kahnmann, described automatic (fast) thinking as ‘System 1’ and deliberate (slow) thinking as ‘System 2’. He has also written a very successful book ‘Thinking fast and slow’ showing how fast or automatic thinking can lead us to make many mistakes in everyday life. Automatic thinking (‘thinking fast’) means that we can get on with life for most of the time without too much effort. Automatic thinking helps us make decisions quickly, recognise patterns, fill in gaps in information, and carry out well-rehearsed behaviours.

Psychologists have also noticed that automatic thoughts can have a direct and really immediate impact on our feelings or emotions, and on our behaviours. If you find this hard to imagine try this exercise:

Imagine yourself walking home, or to your car, one dark evening. You’re alone, wondering about what to have for dinner. Your thoughts are disturbed by a quiet, rustling noise off to your left. What is it?

Thought 1 – “It’s a cat”

What is the effect on your emotions? What do you do differently?

“Ok, it’s a cat. You can relax and carry on walking to your car. What is it you’re having for tea?”

Thought 2 – “It’s a mugger”

What is the effect on your emotions? What do you do differently?

Ok, so this is probably making you feel something quite different. You may feel tense, anxious, or fearful. You might feel sensations in your body – your hands sweat, your heart beats faster, your stomach churns.

And what do you do? Perhaps you walk a bit faster, or look for somewhere to run or somewhere to hide.

Then a cat walks out from behind a wall and you relax.

This simple example shows us just a thought (not a fact), changes how we feel, and what we do.

The link between our thoughts, our emotions or feelings, and our behaviours was highlighted by an American psychiatrist Dr Aaron T. Beck. In his clinical practice, Beck worked with individuals with depression and noticed that negative thinking was a core aspect of depression. He proposed that negative thinking both made people feel depressed and made it hard to recover from depression.

Just as we’ve seen above, Beck proposed that the relationship between thoughts, feelings and behaviours was inter-linked – changing one of the parts would have an effect on any of the others.

As a result, Beck developed a new form of psychotherapy for depression. Rather than focusing on the past, he aimed to use psychotherapy to help tackle depression by changing people’s cognitions (or thoughts) and their behaviours. By changing one, or both, of their cognitions or behaviours, Beck proposed that this would also change their emotions, and improve depression. The new therapy was therefore called Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, or CBT.

CBT has since become one of the most widely researched and used types of psychotherapy. It’s been developed to treat a wide range of physical and mental health problems, and adapted for use with people of different ages. You can find out more about CBT for anxiety and depression in our other FutureLearn course Understanding Anxiety, Depression and CBT. There are also many books based on CBT that have been developed to help adults and teenagers help themselves. You can find a list of these at the end of the course.

What are the 4 main types of psychology?

What type of psychology is thinking?

What is neurological psychology?

What is the study of emotions called?