Cognitive Dissonance Causes Physical Harm: Study

The pain of our internal contradictions isn't only psychological, researchers warn

Cognitive dissonance can contribute to back pain, researchers say. AdobeStock

Researchers have found real-world evidence that cognitive dissonance can generate pain in the body.

Cognitive dissonance is the psychological discomfort or tension that we feel when there’s an inconsistency between our beliefs and our actions, or when we hold two conflicting beliefs or values at the same time.

For instance, we may think that spending more time with our family is important, but then we use our free time after work to scroll through our phones or watch TV. While it may not be at the front of our minds, lurking in the background is an awareness that we aren’t acting in accord with our own values.

In a study conducted by researchers at Ohio State University and the University of Michigan and published in the journal Ergonomics in February, 17 volunteers—nine men and eight women aged 19 to 44—were instructed to lift lightweight boxes according to a specific method, with the study purportedly intending to monitor their backs for that reason.

But the sensors that had been placed on the participants’ backs were actually recording tension in the spine, or spinal load. Although participants were told that they were doing the movements correctly, they were later criticized for doing the work incorrectly.

The wearable sensors and motion-capture technology attached to their backs detected the peak spinal loads in the neck and low back, measuring both compression of vertebrae and vertebral movement—which is also known as shear.

Using the workplace scenario, researchers found that even this simple amount of psychological distress generated pressure on the volunteers’ necks and lower backs, with the peak spinal loads on cervical vertebrae in the neck being 11.1 percent higher in compression, 9.4 percent higher in anterior-posterior shear and 19.3 percent higher in lateral shear.

Nothing had changed in the actual work or movements that the participants were doing.

“This increased spine loading occurred under just one condition with a fairly light load,” William Marras, executive director of the Spine Research Institute at The Ohio State University and one of the study’s authors, told Ohio State University News.

“You can imagine what this would be like with more complex tasks or higher loads.”

While cognitive dissonance may seem an abstract problem for the average workplace, workers often find themselves dealing with conflicting personal or company values. For example, workers may constantly be told that quality is job one, but then they’re given so much work that they can’t keep up and ensure that quality standards are always met.

Mind–Body Link for Pain Long Established

Marras’s lab has been examining the links between different occupational factors and their effects on the spine for decades. He first discovered that psychological stress could influence spine biomechanics some 20 years ago.

Marras argues that there is a link between cognitive dissonance and spinal health, which has significant implications for health and safety in the workplace, where stress—including that linked to cognitive dissonance—can be overwhelming. 

“We ended up finding that when you’re under that kind of psychosocial stress, what you tend to do is what we call co-activate muscles in your torso. It creates this tug of war in the muscles because you’re always tense,” he said.

“Our tolerance to shear is much, much lower than it is to compression, so that’s why that’s important. A small percentage of load is no big deal for one time. But think about when you’re working day in and day out, and you’re in a job where you’re doing this 40 hours a week—that could be significant and be the difference between a disorder and not having a disorder.

Additionally, the study also found that one’s personality type can also increase the pressure placed on the spine.

“We found that in certain personality types, the loads in the spine increased by up to 35 percent,” Marras said.

The Pain’s Mind-Body Link 

The human body’s pain perception is the process by which the brain interprets and responds to painful stimuli, which is a complex physiological and psychological phenomenon that involves the transmission and processing of signals from various sensory receptors in the body.

When someone experiences pain, specialized nerve endings called nociceptors detect painful stimuli, such as heat, pressure, or chemical signals. These nociceptors are present throughout the body—including the skin, muscles, organs, and other tissues—and once activated, they send electrical signals through nerve fibers to the spinal cord and brain.

The brain plays a crucial role in pain perception. The signals from the nociceptors are processed in several brain regions, including the thalamus, somatosensory cortex, and the limbic system, which is involved in emotions and motivation. The brain then integrates the sensory information and generates a subjective experience of pain.

How to Combat Cognitive Dissonance

The concept of cognitive dissonance was first introduced by psychologist Leon Festinger in the 1950s.

When individuals experience cognitive dissonance, they feel a sense of discomfort, unease, or internal conflict. Ideally, this discomfort motivates them to reduce the dissonance by resolving the inconsistency and restoring a sense of cognitive harmony. To achieve this, people may employ various cognitive and behavioral strategies.

There are a few ways in which individuals typically reduce cognitive dissonance.

Some people modify their existing beliefs or attitudes to align with their behavior. For example, if someone smokes despite knowing it’s unhealthy, he may convince himself that smoking has fewer risks or downplay the negative consequences.

Another way to reduce cognitive dissonance is to acquire new information, so individuals may seek out further information or reinterpret existing information to support their beliefs or justify their behavior. They may selectively focus on information confirming their beliefs and ignore contradictory evidence.

Further, people may alter the importance or value that they attribute to certain beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors. For instance, if someone values her social connections but engages in conduct that isolates her socially, she may convince herself that solitude is more fulfilling or that her social relationships aren’t as important as she previously believed.

People also can seek out information or activities that align with their beliefs or behaviors, thereby avoiding situations that may trigger cognitive dissonance.

Finally, people may confront or change situations that create internal conflict for them, and thereby remove the source of dissonance.