displacement behaviour and cognitive dissonance

By unknown, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org

The following extract is taken from a current research outline, which aims to bring together the ethological idea of self-directed actions and concepts from social psychology - in this case,  Leon Festinger's concept of Cognitive Dissonance.

In terms of psychological concepts, perhaps the closest social psychology has come to recognising the cognitive processes pertaining to displacement behaviour is Festinger's notion of cognitive dissonance. Festinger's theory (1962) aims to understand mental discomfort and how it is regulated. Cognitive dissonance is a form of tension where a conflict exists between current thoughts and a past action. In other words, it is a tension born of hindsight (regret, guilt, anxiety, uncertainty) and it is so unsettling that it can only be resolved through changing how a person thinks about a past event, and/or changing how others thinks about it and/ or changing behaviour in order to create greater congruence (less dissonance) between what one believe one should have done and what one actually did. For example, a person who buys a new computer may be very happy with his purchase but this mental satisfaction will be threatened if he finds the same computer at discounted price in a different store later. To re-establish peace of mind he must either convince himself that, for example, the first store will give him better long-term service, or convince others that it was worth paying a bit extra, or aim to take the machine back for a refund in order to benefit from the cheaper offer.

However, Festinger's concept of cognitive dissonance is a disembodied one. In other words, discomfort is mediated through thoughts and socially directed actions. But Festinger does not focus on the possibility that cognitive dissonance, especially where it is prolonged and/or where a person is unable to resolve the dissonance, may produce self-directed behaviours and, perhaps, in severe cases of mental conflict or disturbance, even stereotypical activities. It is also, as previously stated, a backward focused process whereby it is the past event that is causing dissonance in the present moment. In these respects, Festinger's concept does not include the idea that mental discomfort might also be produced by a forward focused process. In other words, presently occurring cognition may become contradicted by a suddenly changed situation. In this case, an eagerly expected, desired or anticipated event will produce mental discomfort if the situation suddenly alters so that it no longer supports those expectations, desires or anticipations. For example, a gambler who strongly believes his horse is going to win, will experience sudden discomfort if the leading animal bet upon falls just ahead of the finish line. The sudden thwarting of a positively anticipated outcome would create mental discomfort as two opposing cognitive-behavioural systems (celebration v. disappointment) are momentarily in balance. As a result, a self-directed action would be highly likely to follow as a means to reducing this stress so that a transition towards the most adaptive response to external events can emerge. In some instances, where self-directed behaviour fails to reduce tension sufficiently then an outward aggression or anger will be expressed but at this point the mental tension is broken completely and no forward focused dissonance would be experienced thereafter.

If displacement behaviour can be viewed as a forward focused behaviour which serves to adapt cognition and behaviour to a newly emerged reality, and if cognitive dissonance is viewed as a backward process of mediating discomfort after the new reality has settled and become accepted, then it is rational for these concepts to be understood as part of a larger process of homeostasis, whereby external stimuli and internal physiological responses are mediated. If displacement behaviour facilitates cognitive and behavioural acclimatisation to the unfolding present (e.g. against all expectation the horse lost the race), then cognitive dissonance facilitates attitudinal adjustment to the gambler's newly established relationship to the world which cannot be changed in any way other than how s/he frames it to himself ('oh well, easy come, easy go!'). In other words, both processes serve an adaptive process of reconciling self to world but via differing means: one utilising physical self-directed contact as a means to reducing the initial stress after a thwarted expectation and the second involving mental reframing as the pain endured is slowly accepted and even positively regarded.

As a final note, it is important to add that displacement behaviour and cognitive dissonance have one further aspect in common: they serve to manage a situation that cannot be reversed in time nor negated destructively. In other words, these processes are concerned with how to tolerate and adapt to the world rather than destroy it in rage or retreat into psychotic fantasy or enter a frozen catatonic state.

References

  Festinger, L. (1962) Cognitive dissonance. Scientific American, Vol 207(4), 93-107

Cognitive dissonance and trichotillomania - link?

Can prolonged cognitive dissonance produce self-directed behaviours?

The following was written as part of my school studies, where I am trying to link the concepts of cognitive dissonance and displacement behaviours, such as hair pulling.  Hopefully, it sheds some light on how being caught in two minds functions in different ways.

Within the wide field of psychology are two concepts known as displacement behaviour.   
Originally, Freud coined the term displacement behaviour to refer 
to libidinal impulses which are channeled towards objects when the actual or natural object of desire has been blocked, or its attainment prevented.  He identified fetish objects which are invested in sexualised meaning and significance separate from their cultural value as objects of utility or aesthetic satisfaction. The other concept referred to as displacement behaviour is derived from the field of ethology, and in particular the work of ethologist Niko Tinbergen.  He was one of the first to study how animals caught between two contradictory impulses can manifest modes of behaviour that seemingly bear no relevance to the situation in which the animal finds itself.  Since then there have been a number of animal studies that reveal displacement behaviours across a range of species, including humans too.

In nature, displacement behaviour has been observed as a naturally occurring event that marks a

transition. For example, Tinbergen observed apparently inexplicable fanning movements by male

stickleback fish in a certain proximity to each other.  Tinbergen realised that this fanning marked

the territorial boundary line between the two fish and the tipping point between aggression (approach behaviour)

and retreat (withdraw behaviour). In nature, displacement activities are short-term responses to

temporary frustrations which soon resolve themselves (e.g. they end when conflict with a

potential aggressor is avoided).

In a domestic context, I have often observed how cats manifest grooming behaviours when they are

thwarted in their attempt to achieve a goal state, such as obtaining food.  A hungry cat presented

with an empty dish or a dish of food it does not find appetising will commonly begin to groom itself

prior to repeating the cycle of seeking food once again.  It would seem then that displacement

behaviour exists to calm an excited animal when the situation falls short of what is expected,

or in some way thwarts its desire, or only partially fulfills an internal criteria for

activating an automatic species-specific response. This partial activation implies

that two impulses are possibly occurring together and a third behaviour is needed to reduce

the discomfort until the situation changes and the goal state can be attained.

The most common forms of displacement behaviour are found in captive animals, often in laboratory

settings.  Here species-specific behaviours may not be supported by the artificial environmental

conditions.  For example, animals may not have enough space to regulate their natural range of proximity

from animals or humans and be unable to avoid/hide or use aggression to ward off an unwanted human

or animal presence.  Other typical situations involve being housed with siblings so that sexual impulses

served by approach behaviour are equally met by the need to avoid incest.  Typically, mice in

these conditions either bite their siblings' fur or their own. 

Self-directed behaviours have been particularly highlighted as indicators of displacement activity.

Laboratory studies show that self-directed hair pulling is common in many animals, including cats,

mice, rats, sheep, parrots and rhesus monkeys which have been kept in captive conditions and/or

where outlets for species-typical behaviours have not been incorporated (Akgul et al, 2000),

(Bordnick et al, 1994), (Chiezey, 2010), (Garner et al. 2004,2006),(Reinhardt 2005).

However, in natural habitats such self-directed behaviour has not been reported, possibly indicating

that the disorder reveals a disturbance in the organism’s relationship to its social and ecological

environment.  Perhaps the activity may help switch off the evolved response (e.g. fight or flight

response, seeking or vigilance etc) and reduce anxiety by switching attention away from the source

of stress.  It should be emphasised again that displacement activities are not necessarily pathological

and do occur in nature but not for prolonged periods.  But it is when the conditions behind the

displacement action are prolonged or permanent that it can become stereotypical. 

In humans, displacement activity is an everyday occurrence.  It is manifested in chin rubbing, gaze

aversion, hair manipulation, scratching or coughing.  For example, a person caught in two minds

between going in one direction or another will commonly manifest a behaviour such as chin scratching

as a way of limiting the agitation that comes with his temporary confusion.  However, a more stereotypical form of such behaviour may be found in the condition known as

trichotillomania, or hair pulling disorder (Christenson et al. 1999).  This is where a person seeks out suitable hairs to pull from their scalp or body, often as a means to obtaining a lipid fat sebum hair root before eating it.  Over time this condition can create bald patches and is known to be a behaviour that is very resistant to change.

In comparison, Festinger's concept of cognitive dissonance is also understood as the means by which discomfort or agitation from being in two minds about a choice or decision can be reduced. In this respect cognitive dissonance can be viewed as an inverted process of displacement behaviour.  By this I mean that displacement behaviour emerges in response to a situation that is being endured in the present moment and involves a certain level of anticipation towards attaining a future goal state.

However, cognitive dissonance appears to relate to the discomfort of hindsight, of attempting to adapt to a situation where the goal state has to some extent been attempted but not to a satisfactory degree.  This may produce a persistent sense of failure, a sense of achieving a non-optimal outcome that cannot be altered; and with no way to reverse time or the decision-making process this creates a mode of distinct internal or cognitive discomfort.  For example, a football fan who expects his team to score in a high pressure game, only to see the ball narrowly miss the goal may run his hands through his hair in exasperation.  But the expectation of scoring remains ongoing, and he anticipates that there will be further chances later in the match. Only after the game has ended, when there are no more opportunities for scoring, will he experience cognitive dissonance as he attempts to reconcile his disappointment in his team's performance with his passionate belief that his team are special and superior to the opposition.

Interestingly, as far as I know, Festinger never identified any accompanying physical manifestations

of cognitive dissonance.  The resolution of the discomfort was achieved from inside out, not outside inwards.  In other words, by changing one or both of the cognitions, or introducing a new one the agitation could be reduced (Hewstone et al.,2012)  But whether the process of changing or introducing new cognition leads to chin rubbing, hair pulling or skin scratching is not something which appears to be Festinger's focus. I would suggest that (from outside inwards) external physical stimulation is a form of homeostasis, when there is no social means by which the agitation can be avoided, such as asking a car passenger which direction one should drive. But I would add that where cognitive dissonance occurs for a prolonged period of time, some form of physical manifestation would also be apparent. 

In examining some similarities and differences between displacement behaviour and cognitive dissonance I would suggest that both phenomenon seek the same outcomes via different means to the problems of internally felt discomfort.  Ultimately, this outcome involves adapting to the prevailing situation as a means to moving forwards; it safeguards against an organism becoming stuck for too long in one mode of being or becoming rooted in the past.  In other words, both processes are necessary for mental health and reveal the emergent nature of human experience.

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Adaptive impossibilities!

an adaptive impossibility?

This blog is called, 'Caught In Two Minds' because it is about displacement behaviour.  This is behaviour that arises when a person or an animal has two opposing or rival motivations competing at the same time.  This might be fight v flight or, approach v. withdraw.

Maybe I should have called this blog, Adaptive Impossibilities.  Why?  Because there are some environments that people and animals cannot adapt to.  In such cases, the organism finds it impossible to achieve certain psychological goal states, such as comfort or safety.  As a result, the brain compensates for the environment with maladaptive or coping strategies.  Hair pulling is one such mode of behaviour.

In nature, displacement behaviour is normal and short term.  For brief periods animals in the wild are confronted by situations that prompt competing behaviours or opposing motivations.  Displacement behaviour, such as grooming sequences, emerge briefly until the situation changes and an adaptive response to the environment can be expressed.  But in captive or artificial environments, which may be permanently static and inhospitable, displacement behaviours can become fixed and stereotypic.

In people, but especially children whose brains are forming and growing, an environment that does not offer safety, comfort or the fulfillment of other core goal states is problematic to them.  The child is troubled.  It cannot find an adaptive relationship to the world.  In short, it does not know what to do or how.  In these circumstances I believe hair pulling becomes highly likely.  Of course, the child may not know why s/he is pulling their hair.  This is because the environment to which it is experiencing adaptive problems may be the only one it has ever known and without a point of comparison it has no way of recognising the cause of the problem.  In this respect, therapists tend to focus on symptoms and not root causes.

Once the pattern of hair pulling is established, it can be very hard to lose.  In time many people simply grow out of it as they leave the initial environment behind or, the urge simply weakens.

Toothcombing

hair pullers 'comb' strands using their front teeth

Animal behaviour can reveal a lot to us about our own!  My interest is in grooming behaviours because these are some of the most ancient behaviour patterns we possess and for this reason they tend to occur automatically, requiring very little (if any) conscious effort.  Whether it is scratching an itch, rubbing one's beard, running your hands through your hair...these actions are not so much ones that we do but ones that we are!

In animals too, grooming behaviours are the most natural and automatic of actions.  Recently, I was cycling along a country road and was fascinated to watch a mare with its young foal in a nearby field grooming each other.  They were taking each other's fur into their mouths and then using their teeth to comb the hairs through the teeth and in the process remove any dirt or entangled debris.

Other animals tooth comb too.  Primates do it.  And so do humans!  Now, you are probably wondering how can humans comb hair with their teeth.  Well, for people with hair pulling disorder (or trichotillomania) it is an integral part of the behaviour pattern.  They select and pluck out a hair.  This can be from the head, or elsewhere from the body and they aim to do this so that they remove the white lipid fat hair root which is attached to the hair stem.  They then bring this root to their lips and manipulate it by rubbing the moist root against the lips.  Finally, they use the gap between the front teeth to run the hair through and in so doing comb off the root and eat it.

Trichotillomania is a behaviour that connects us to behaviour patterns which relate to our lower brain - patterns that make us human and connect us to our primeval past!  It makes hair pulling a fascinating disorder by revealing remnants of the animal in us.

Social Captivity

sedentary living in temporary homes circa 1975, USA

It was the renowned psychoanalyst R.D. Laing who famously pronounced the condition of man to be one of captivity.  For him, the concept of captivity was bound up in notion of being-for-others.  In this sense, people were bound in relationships and where these were too rigid or where disturbed patterns of communication or where perceptions of others were skewed, the human image got distorted or lost.

For me, captivity as a concept applied to humans also reveals a historical problem.  Most of us on this planet live sedentary lives, which means we reside in one place or location. This means that we are forced to adapt to the situation in which we find ourselves, even if it is one we are less than happy with.  How many times do people say or think to themselves, 'If he wasn't my boss I would tell him to shove his job'?  Or, how often do people bite their tongues with their neighbours or colleagues?  They have to do this because they know that they must face those same people day in, day out for the long term.

In human history, when we lived nomadic lives, the stresses and strains of our environment were no less problematic but with one significant difference.  When groups felt oppressed or misgoverned by others they were free to go their own way, to separate off and walk a new course.  Sometimes this splitting off from the group was a reflection of group size and the need to remain in smaller bands so that living off the land did not become too pressurised by higher population density. 

Over time, as humans spread around the planet, the option for finding new pastures became less as population density increased and space to roam was no more.  As humans became more sedentary, class systems emerged whereby a new social order emerged to distribute the wealth from the land and society's labours.  The people at the top were fewer in number but proportionally attracted a greater share of wealth as they came to co-ordinate the work and lives of those under them.

This is the point at which politics emerges and having to live under a regime or order constructed by someone else.  This is my notion of captivity: being part of a social system not necessarily being operated with your interests in mind, and yet not being able to leave or move away.  Studies have shown that people living in societies where the gap between rich and poor is greatest suffer from greater stress and mortality rates are higher.  Is it any wonder that England with its rigid class structure produced waves of immigrants ready to settle new worlds and escape the oppressive social order at home?  The irony, of course, is that they re-established those orders elsewhere but raised their own relative positions within them by gaining access to greater resources than possible at home.

The problem of being stuck in a single situation that is causing stress and which one cannot simply walk away from is how to find ways of coping.  One way is to have an extended family so that aunts, uncles, grand-parents and cousins can all assist you if you have problems.  Alternatively, you may have a great network of trusty friends.  But many people do not and in this captive void may turn to self-directed behaviours to achieve a sense of comfort, relief and release.  Where these actions produce unwanted consequences, such as hair pulling, people may recognise the obvious symptoms and aim to treate these.  But the underlying socially related aspects must be acknowledged too.

Something in the way...

 

Nirvana's Kurt Cobain once famously sung a song called Something In The Way.  Like a number of his tracks, it was a bit of a barbed response to his own fans with whom he had something of a love/hate relationship.  The song highlights a rather sad character who has no coherent perspective on life and is living a drop-out hippy kind of lifestyle.  

The notion of 'something in the way' could be applied to displacement behaviour too.  In my view psychology is a bit too concerned with intra-psychic events (Freud's legacy) and not enough with environmental obstacles which affect mental health.  Very often people grow up in situations where natural behaviours are obstructed or blocked from being expressed.  It is the continued frustration of species specific behaviours at key points of development which can lead to brain re-wiring and maladaptive patterns developing.

For example, a parental figure who elicits both approach and withdraw behaviours can place a child in two minds, blocking the opportunity for secure attachment and creating a state of mind that requires a behaviour, such as hair pulling, in order to attain some measure of ease and comfort.  Dysfunctional environments can be a real problem for young kids because they are at an age where they are trying to adapt, rather than challenge the physical limits of their world.  Trying to make oneself fit a 'cage' that is not conducive to development can lead to all kinds of mental and emotional problems.

In this blog I contend that where normal behaviours lack the environmental basis for support or expression, the human brain develops its own strategies for achieving internal goal states, such as safety and comfort.  The brain, being the amazing thing it is, may be successful in achieving the desired psychological effects it seeks but at the cost of producing distorted behaviour patterns. Viewed from outside the context in which they develop these can appear to make no sense whatsoever and offer no obvious benefits.  Hair pulling is one such case in point.

So, maybe Kurt Cobain's song could have included another verse or two to reveal that a whole range of distortions can occur when something does get in the way of people being more adapted to the world. From psychology's perspective, these behaviours need to be judged from within the situation people find themselves and not solely from the outside if they are to be properly understood.  In other words, instead of seeing these behaviours as merely problems, they should also be viewed in terms of the compensatory benefits they provide in reaction to a repressive environment.

Research update

Focusing on qualitative and quantitative methods is an area of study that interests me for a few reasons.  It links to my interest in academic research and academic language generally, but also to generating new methods for examing self-directed behaviours.

From hair pulling, to chin rubbing, thumb sucking, self-harming, scratching or non-pathological self-grooming...all these are things of interest because they link us to our evolutionary past.

Moments of indecision, the weighing up of costs and benefits, calculating pros and cons...such mental processes usually produce self-directed behaviours.  They help us to to navigate our way through the dilemna (do I turn left or right?, buy X or buy Y?, etc.) by soothing the anxiety caused by being in two minds.

In social situations other outward signs of mental processes where two conflicting impulses are in conflict can be seen.  Football fans regularly brush their hands through their hair after a near miss of the goal by their team's striker.  It is a commonplace event that occurs during every game, but apparently no one can explain it, except by saying it helps relieve tension, eases discomfort and restores equilibrium.

What makes these kinds of behaviours even more fascinating to me is that we share them with other animals.  More significantly animals in captivity display more self-directed behaviours than in the wild and hair pulling ONLY occurs in captive animals!

Displacement behaviours have a clear purpose it would seem.  They help us to navigate our way through short-term periods of anxiety by soothing us and limiting excitement until the internal conflict caused by the immediate environment has been resolved internally or until the external situation changes and the dilemna is over.

But sometimes people (and animals) can remain in anxious states for long periods and at key points in child development this can lead to unwanted behaviours emerging.  Imagine being caught in two minds about something not just for a few seconds but for hours, days or even years!

My approach would be to undertake research into what the possible benefits of these behavours are.  Do they reduce stress or the heart rate?  Do they affect metabolic rate?  What happens if these behaviours are prevented in some way so the discomfort of being in two minds is not relieved?  These are the kinds of questions I would like to answer.  

But devising experiments that are simple and give clear results is not easy...as any psychologist would probably testify to.  So, studying the different methods and approaches to doing research is very useful and also widely applicable!