Researchers found a powerful alternative to the ‘addiction is a disease’ message.
A ‘growth’ mindset is a key mindset for beating addiction.
People with a growth mindset recognise that addiction has many causes and can be tackled in different ways.
Understanding the reasons for addiction can help empower people.
Addiction is not solely dictated by a person’s genes.
Those with a growth mindset are more likely to seek therapy and more confident in their ability to change, the researchers found.
In contrast, thinking of addiction as a disease makes people believe they have less control over it.
For the study, 214 people with substance-use problems were split into two groups.
One group were told addiction is a disease involving changes in the brain.
The second group was told that addiction can change and improve — a growth mindset approach.
Dr Jeni Burnette, the study’s first author, explained:
“We wanted to see if an alternative message aimed at changing that mindset could affect how people with substance-use problems viewed themselves with regard to addiction.
Specifically, we focused on using a growth mindset message.
The growth mindset message stresses that human attributes are malleable, and we know from previous work that it encourages better self-regulatory strategies such as seeking helping from others.”
The results showed that people who received the growth mindset message felt more confident in their ability to change.
However, they were no more likely to blame themselves.
Dr Desmarais said:
“We want people to feel empowered and confident to change their behavior, but not to feel guilty about it.”
The growth mindset also encouraged people to seek help.
Dr Desmarais said:
“It’s promising to see the growth mindset group express a greater willingness to seek treatment via counseling or cognitive-behavioral therapy.
The finding suggests that it would be more helpful to talk about the many different reasons people become addicted.”
Related
The study was published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology (Burnette et al., 2019).
