Mind-Body Dissonance
Embodied cognition refers to the theory that we think with our bodies, not just our brains.
That's meant literally, in the sense that there are cognitive systems threaded throughout our organs and limbs and skin, but also in the sense that our utility of our bodies can influence, be influenced by, and contribute to how we think and feel.
Mind-body dissonance refers to an incongruity between what we're doing and what we're thinking or feeling.
Slapping a big smile on your face when you're feeling sad, or nodding “yes” when you want to shout “no!” are examples of dissonance between your mind and body.
In some cases the utility of these sorts of dissonant actions are called "surface acting," because we act out the physical signals of a particular feeling or state of mind—being happy, for instance—when in reality we feel or are thinking something entirely different.
Surface acting is common in service jobs, as folks working behind coffee counters or trying to sell electronics to customers are often forced to seem okay with life, the world, and with how the customer behaves, even when that okay-ness may not be reflective of how the employee in question is feeling; because of the at-work circumstance they're experiencing in the moment, or because they're struggling with financial issues, relationship problems, or just worried about the state of the world.
In this way, mind-body dissonance can be harmful because it leads to a discrepancy in how different aspects of our thinking-systems are operating. Some research indicates that this incongruity can result in emotional discord, psychological exhaustion, and negative coping mechanisms like higher levels of alcohol consumption.
Other, more recent research, however, suggests that alongside those downsides, some types of mind-body dissonance might actually trigger more creative mindsets in those who are able to bull their way through the uncomfortable dissonant state.
The theory as to why this might be the case is that misaligned mind-body responses and behaviors can lead to more expansive and liberated thinking: we're off the rails and no longer limited to just one way of seeing and thinking about things, and thus may be more capable of processing the data we’re receiving about world differently for a time.
One downside of this type of forced creative mindset is that it also seems to be associated with conspiratorial thinking, as creativity and the sort of superstition that manifests as a type of paranoia that then leads to the perception of conspiracies where they may not exist can share an origin: the ability to see connections between otherwise disconnected things.
Expanding our minds by creating discord in our cognitive machinery, then, may also lead to suppositions that are based on imagined, unbacked assumptions that nonetheless seem quite real to us, even as they help us make connections between things that we might not otherwise have come up with had our minds and bodies been chugging along on the same set of tracks.
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