How to Perform Behavioral Experiments to Open Your Mind

What you think and believe isn't always true. But holding onto some of those beliefs might cause you to suffer.

When this happens, psychotherapists sometimes encourage clients to perform behavioral experiments that test the reality of their beliefs. It’s a powerful cognitive behavioral therapy technique that can help people recognize that their assumptions aren’t necessarily accurate.

For example, someone who believes they are destined to be an “insomniac” might try several different behavioral experiments in an attempt to uncover whether specific strategies might help them sleep better, like exercising in the morning and turning off their screens an hour before bedtime.

So, how can you learn these behavioral techniques to break yourself out of your self-limiting beliefs? Read on to find out.

How It Works

The behavioral experiments we are talking about are rooted in cognitive behavioral therapy, a technique that focuses on your thoughts and beliefs that are negatively affecting you and learning to reframe those thoughts and beliefs so that they aren't so negative. Cognitive behavioral therapists help you become aware of your problems and the thoughts, emotions, and beliefs about your problems.

In CBT, your therapist helps identify inaccurate thoughts and thought patterns that contribute to the problem. Then, they help you challenge your irrational or unproductive thoughts by asking questions and encouraging you to consider alternative ways to view an issue.

Therapists often ask questions that help clients look for exceptions to their rules and assumptions. For example, if you say, "No one ever likes me," your therapist might ask, “When was a time when someone did like you?” This can help you see that your assumptions aren’t 100% accurate.

But changing thought patterns isn't always effective in changing deeply held core beliefs. This is in part because we’re constantly looking for evidence that supports our beliefs. For example, someone who believes no one ever likes her might automatically think not getting a response from a text message is further proof that people dislike her. Meanwhile, she may view an invitation to a party as a “sympathy invite” from someone who feels sorry for her, not as proof that people actually like her.

If you accomplish something you assumed you couldn’t do, you may begin to see yourself differently. Or seeing that people don’t respond the way you assumed they would may help you let go of your unhealthy beliefs about other people.

Using behavioral experiments to gather evidence can chip away at self-limiting beliefs and help you begin to see yourself, other people, or the world in a different manner.

Studies show that cognitive behavioral therapy is effective in treating a variety of issues, including anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, substance abuse issues, and PTSD.

Follow Now: Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Google Podcasts

The Process

Behavioral experiments can take many forms. You might conduct a behavioral experiment by taking a survey to gather evidence about whether other people hold certain beliefs; this presents you with insight into others that contradicts your own assumptions. Or it might involve facing one of your fears head-on, to realize that the outcome is not as bad as you originally believed.

No matter what type of behavioral experiment you are conducting, you and your therapist usually work together on the following process:

1. Identifying the exact belief/thought/process the experiment will target
2. Brainstorming ideas for the experiment
3. Predicting the outcome and devising a method to record the outcome
4. Anticipating challenges and brainstorming solutions
5. Conducting the experiment
6. Reviewing the experiment and drawing conclusions
7. Identifying follow-up experiments if needed

You and your therapist will work together to design the experiment. Then, you'll conduct the experiment and monitor the results. You and your therapist will then debrief together and discuss how the results affect your belief system.

Your therapist may prescribe further experiments or ongoing experiments to continue to assess unhealthy beliefs.

Examples

Psychotherapists may assist you in designing a behavioral experiment that can counteract almost any distorted way of thinking. Here are a few examples of behavioral experiments:

• A woman believes people will only like her if she is perfect. Her perfectionist tendencies create a lot of stress and anxiety. She agrees to conduct a behavioral experiment that involves making a few mistakes on purpose and then monitoring how people respond. She sends an email with a few typos and sends a birthday card with a grammatical error to see how people respond. When she sees that people still like her after making a few mistakes, she can recognize that she doesn't have to be perfect all the time.
• A man believes he’s socially awkward. Consequently, he rarely attends social events—and when he does, he sits in the corner by himself. His behavioral experiment involves going to one social event per week and talking to five people. He then gauges how people to respond to him when he acts outgoing and friendly. This can help convince him that he can, in fact, function in social settings.
• A woman worries her boyfriend is cheating on her. She checks his social media accounts throughout the day to see what he is doing. Her behavioral experiment is to stop using social media for two weeks and see if her anxiety gets better or worse. This can help her realize that her previous behavior was actually fueling her anxiety, not mitigating it.
• A man struggles to stay asleep at night. When he wakes up, he turns on the TV and watches it until he falls asleep again. His behavioral experiment is to read a book when he wakes up to see if it helps him fall back to sleep faster. This can help him practice better sleep hygiene and teach him that the way he was dealing with his insomnia was worse for his health, not better.
• A woman with depression doesn’t go to work on days when she feels bad. On these days she stays in bed all day watching TV. Her behavioral experiment involves pushing herself to go to work on days she’s tempted to stay in bed to see if getting out of the house improves her mood. This teaches her that she is actually able to function better than she originally assumed, which can help her deal with her depressive episodes in the future.
• A man with social anxiety avoids socializing at all costs. He thinks he won’t have anything worthwhile to contribute to conversations. His behavioral experiment is to start attending small social events to see if his interactions with others go as poorly as he anticipates. This can help him understand that there isn't as much to worry about in social settings as he was afraid there was, and helps him practice facing his anxiety head-on so that it doesn't keep him from being social in the future.

A Word From Verywell

If you’re interested in testing some of the potentially self-limiting beliefs you’ve been holding onto, try designing your own behavioral experiment. If you’re not certain how to get started, want some help designing the experiment, or would like to learn more about how to recognize irrational beliefs, then contact a cognitive behavioral therapist.

If you aren’t sure where to find one, speak to your physician. Your doctor may be able to refer a cognitive behavioral therapist who can assist you.