Doubting your own doubts can help you achieve your goals

Inducing doubts about one’s own doubts can increase commitment to the long term personal goals and, therefore, achieve them more easily, according to a study from Ohio State University in the United States, which suggests that questioning the validity of one’s own insecurities can strengthen the determination to achieve identity goals, especially those related to what a person aspires to be in life.

The research, published in the journal Self and Identityhas been directed by Psychology professor Patrick Carroll, who was interested in discovering what happens when people experience what is called a ‘action crisis’ when pursuing an identity goal: a long-term goal focused on who you want to become in life.

What is considered an action crisis?

An ‘action crisis’ is a decision conflict in which you’re not sure if you want to continue pursuing the goal; For example, wanting to be a doctor could be, due to the difficulties and work to achieve it, an identity goal that leads to a crisis of action.

The study finds that when people concerned about achieving an identity goal were induced to experience what is called metacognitive doubtthey were actually more committed to achieving their goal.

“What he found is that Inducing doubt in one’s own doubts can provide a formula for trust. When pursuing identity goals, inevitably obstacles arise. There may come a point where the obstacle is large enough to raise questions about whether to continue,” Carroll says.

Most research on the topic has focused specifically on these doubts and how they can influence whether people follow through with their goals. But based on previous work by other researchers, Carroll decided to examine metacognitive doubt, which is the feeling of certainty that a person has about the validity of their thoughts.

In the case of this research, a person may have doubts about whether they will be able to achieve their goal. But what if you are made to question whether your doubts are valid?

Study on almost 300 people

Carroll conducted two studies. One had 267 people who participated online. First, they completed an action crisis scale about their most important personal goal. The scale included questions such as ‘I doubt whether I should continue fighting for my goal or disengage from it’ and participants responded on a scale ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’.

Participants were then told that they would participate in a second studyunrelated, on the effect of rote writing exercises. Half of the participants were asked to write about a time when they felt confident in their thinking. The other half were asked to write about a time when they experienced doubts about their thinking.

After completing the writing exercise, all participants were asked to rate their level of commitment to achieving their most important personal goal, on a scale from ‘not at all committed’ to ‘very committed’.

Doubt more doubt equals less doubt

The results showed that the writing exercise made people feel more confident or more doubtful in their own thoughts about their goal identity, even though the writing exercise was not directly related to their goals.

Here’s how it worked: Participants who doubted their goal identity and then wrote about an experience that made them feel safe showed less commitment to their goal. In other words, the writing exercise gave them more confidence in their doubts about achieving their goal.

On the other hand, who doubted his goal and wrote about that experiencethey actually showed a greater commitment to their goals. Writing about doubt made them question their own doubts about achieving their goal.

In a sense, it might seem that doubt is additive. Doubt plus doubt equals more doubt. But this study revealed the opposite: Doubt more doubt equals less doubt.

Carroll replicated the findings in another study, with 130 university studentswhich used a different way of inducing doubt. In this study, Carroll used a technique developed by researchers at Ohio State University, in which participants completed the action crisis scale with their nondominant hand.

“Previous research has shown that using the nondominant hand leads participants to have doubts about their own thoughts because they use their shaky handwriting as a signal that their thoughts must be invalid,” Carroll says. And that’s exactly what this study found.

In two different studies, researchers found that induce metacognitive doubt can lead people to doubt their own doubts. In practice, it can be difficult for people to induce doubt about their own doubts. One reason it worked in this study is that participants were not aware that the doubt induction was related to their doubts about the target.

This might be more effective if another person (a therapist, teacher, friend, or parent) can help a person question their own thoughts and doubts. “You don’t want the person to be aware that you are forcing them to question their doubts about their goals.”explains Carroll who states that this technique should be used carefully, because it could potentially undermine good judgment if overused or misapplied.