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Everything worth your time on the question: Where is the distance between belief and conduct?

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TRY · 12 MIN

Belief vs Behaviour Audit

TAIU

Values are visible in a diary and a bank statement.

Puts stated values next to the diary and the bank statement.

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Identity-based habits

James Clear

Best for seeing why repeated action is better evidence than self-description.

A short piece with one idea in it: every action is a small vote for the kind of person you believe you are, and the tally is more honest than the label. It is the clearest statement of the assumption this exercise runs on, which is that what you did tells you more than what you would say.

A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance

Leon Festinger

Best for knowing what your mind does with a gap between belief and conduct.

The finding that matters here is not that people feel uncomfortable when belief and behaviour diverge. It is what they do about it. Adjusting the belief is far cheaper than adjusting the conduct, and it happens without anybody noticing. If you have quietly stopped believing something you used to act on, this explains the mechanism.

Moral hypocrisy: appearing moral to oneself without being so

C. Daniel Batson and colleagues

Best for testing whether your principles survive a private cost.

Batson's experiments put people in situations where acting fairly cost them something and nobody would know. Most preferred to appear moral to themselves rather than to be moral, and were remarkably good at not noticing. It is a useful piece of evidence to hold when you are describing the distance between what you say you value and what you did last month.

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