A Look Into The Psychology of Human Behavior

“He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.” - Benjamin Franklin

Deliberate living starts at the cornerstone of awareness. Our behaviors, our patterns, even our lives, are a byproduct of underlying drives that we often fail to examine. A little psychology, and a little more attention to our own emotional reactions, can help us transform reaction into intention.

Benjamin Franklin, perhaps unknowingly, stumbled onto a version of this. In his autobiography, he described a fellow legislator who actively opposed him, and Franklin wanted to win him over. Instead of flattery, he unconventionally asked to borrow a rare book from the man's library. That one small favor was enough to shift the rival's coldness into warmth. 

And guess what? The two men became lifelong friends. 

It sounds counter-intuitive. However, psychologically, that instinct to keep our beliefs and behavior in sync is called cognitive dissonance. Learning to recognize it, in ourselves and in the people around us, is one of the more practical steps toward living on purpose instead of drifting through habit.

How It Shows Up in Decision-Making 

In daily life, we don’t often label our inconsistencies as “cognitive dissonance.” Instead, we feel that nagging feeling of guilt, shame or anxiety. We may even end up creating excuses, or doing things we may have never done otherwise.

Let me draw a clearer picture. Say you make a mistake at work. The simple admission is that you got it wrong. But sitting with that clashes with your self-perception of someone competent and reliable. So instead of owning it, you find yourself irritated at your boss for "not explaining things clearly enough.” Here, the frustration becomes a detour around the discomfort of admitting fault.

Or consider that moment you buy something expensive and luxurious. Your bank account is falling behind, but the order receipt sits right in front of you. You feel that tension, maybe in your heart or tugging at your shoulders. Feeling guilty, the reviews start to “click”. You convince yourself that the product is rare, beneficial and a must-have. And, for a moment, the tension eases slightly. 

Here’s when our inability to notice and hold the tension becomes problematic. Think of life-altering decisions that have you stuck. Staying in an unhealthy relationship, finding difficulty taking a break from work, putting off a health change your body has been warning you about.

This is where cognitive dissonance overlaps with what is known as “the sunk cost fallacy.” Walking away becomes difficult the more we invest parts of ourselves in a situation, even once the signs are obvious. Leaving would mean losing, in part, the self-perception we’ve worked so hard to preserve. So, many stay, and collect reasons to ease the tension of guilt and shame. 

Practical Tips to Manage It

This is exactly the loop emotional intelligence interrupts. Rather than rationalizing away the discomfort, EQ skills help individuals name, regulate and communicate their emotions. The pause in noticing your patterns without jumping to resolve them is the difference between a decision made on autopilot and one made with intentionality.  

While one blog can only share so much, here are some tips you can rely on, starting today:

Don’t run away from the discomfort.

All emotions are information, and discomfort is a sign that something in your life doesn't line up. Someone with stronger self-awareness can catch that tug in real time and ask, honestly, “Am I staying because this is still right for me, or because leaving would mean admitting I was wrong?”

Notice your patterns of avoidance.

Deflecting blame once will make it easier to deflect again, until rationalizing becomes reflexive. Left unchecked, the pattern hardens, making the discomfort harder to face later on. Instead of avoiding, start by asking yourself, “Am I changing my belief because it's true, or because it's easier?"

Journal or talk it through with someone as a reality check.

Write. Truly, write. Shying away from your emotions will only make them louder. Force your vague discomfort into specific words. And talking it through with someone you trust adds a second perspective that is often not as invested in protecting your self-image as you are. 

Practice. Pick one area of dissonance and address the behavior.

Here’s my guess: You may even start rationalizing the moment you finish this blog. You may start to wonder if your situation is somehow the exception or tell yourself you'll start once things settle down. So, start today. Choose a single area where the mismatch is clearest, and change the behavior itself rather than the story around it. Small, repeated follow-through rebuilds trust in your own decisions faster than any realization. 

Intentional Living

Franklin's rival simply woke up one day liking a man he used to resent. That's how dissonance operates without asking permission, without inviting you to reflect back. The goal here is to make you curious enough, once in a while, to actually look at the gap between what you believe and what you do.

And perhaps, you won't be able to catch every rationalization. And that’s normal, because nobody does. At the same time, next time frustration shows up where an apology should be or a receipt earns a little too much justification, you'll have a name for what's happening. And a name is usually the first thing intentional living actually needs.