Doing the Opposite, the Hebb’s Rule and Paradoxical Thinking

George Costanza, the self-absorbed Seinfeld figure, arrived at Monk's diner in a Season 5 episode and announced to Jerry, “I’ve decided to do the opposite!” 

Jerry looked at him unbelievingly and said,”Really.” 

George’s instinct avoiding some stories about himself while embellishing others had failed him in every dimension of life. He claimed his new go-to strategy: Do the opposite of what he’d done before. 

Noticing a beautiful woman sitting at the coffee shop counter, Jerry coaxingly nodded, “Okay, go talk to her.”

George sized-up the situation, then boldly walked over to the woman. “Hi,” he said. “I am George. I am unemployed, live with my parents and have no good qualities.” 

The woman looked him up and down and flirtatiously said, “Fascinating.” 

The episode unwound with George reaching milestones in his development by grating against his old ways. Even the smallest ritual ingrained in him, such as always ordering a chicken salad sandwich, had him doing the opposite, and ordering a tuna. 

The long running comedy was referred to as the show-about-nothing, but in reality was a sitcom about being human.  

George was on to something. Doing the opposite is a recommended treatment strategy for mental health disorders, such as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but is also good medicine for many conundrums of choice.

In his Best Seller, The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything, Father James Martin writes the Latin, for doing the opposite, agere contra, is defined as “to act against.”  

Father Martin points out, Saint Ignatius, the Spanish theologian who founded the Society of Jesus in the 1500’s, advised, “when you are confronted with an unfreedom (that mindset which constricts proper action) one remedy is to act in the opposite manner.”

 As a young priest Father Martin had health anxiety and feared the smells and sights of a hospital. Upon telling his novitiate director about his concerns, the Director promptly assigned him to work in a hospital. This strategy, Martin said, approaching fear-versus-avoiding it, enabled him to move past his unfreedom of having debilitating health anxiety.

Doing the opposite is a tenet of paradoxical intervention, which suggests to get a desired action, resist doing what you usually do. In other words, move toward your discomfort.

Katie d’Ath, a British cognitive therapist who has a number of videos about treating Obsessive Compulsive Disorder( OCD) says, telling oneself to do the opposite of what the OCD mind says, is a cardinal strategy to getting better. 

Classically, Obsessive Compulsive sufferers attempt to flee their scary thoughts by performing rituals to alleviate the anxiety; rituals such as checking, mental reviewing or washing. Situations which trigger scary thoughts are often avoided too.

For example, in the case of a person, a mother, with OCD who has intrusive harm-thoughts of hurting her child, in doing-the-opposite, d’Ath suggests for her to pick up a kitchen knife despite a thought she might stab her child. The handling of the knife will desensitize the mother to the fear-thought they might do harm.

Evidence based studies claim that OCD persons obsess on a theme (such as harming another) because that’s the action they fear the most. 

Understanding that characteristic of OCD and that a fear-thought is a long way from the act of doing what the thought suggests, helps to contend with the disorder. But understanding the Hebb's rule as it relates to doing-the-opposite is also a key to modifying behavior.

The Hebb’s rule, or law, connects the psychology of behavior to neuroscience. Named after the Canadian psychologist, Donald Hebb,1904 to 1985, who claimed neurons that fire together wire together, he provided a framework for understanding the neural network system. 

In the 1940’s, Hebbs popularized  the concept of neuroplasticity, or the brain’s capacity to make new neural pathways. Useful repetitive messages, strengthens good pathways or circuitry. Fearful repetitive messages strengthen bad circuitry. 

The psychology blog Neuro Quotient, explaining Hebb’s rule, theorized that repetitive doing, thinking and feeling deepens neural grooves, just as water flowing in a stream 

“When we conduct ourselves in a certain way ( thinking, feeling, doing) the underlying neutral linkage is activated and reinforced,” according to the researchers of the Neuro Quotient blog. 

Thus, in the case of an OCD sufferer who compulsively washes their hands to alleviate the anxiety of the obsession of contamination, the neural grooves are deepened each time someone engages in this repetitive behavior. 

With the mother who avoids picking up a knife for fear of stabbing her child, that avoidance behavior deepens neural grooves associated with that circuitry. Given the nature of neuroplasticity, it follows that non engagement with these compulsive/avoidant behavior creates new circuitry. 

The question arises, when is it worthwhile to engage in this paradoxical strategy of doing-the-opposite. That contemplation isn’t just relegated to OCD sufferers. It can apply to all non useful behaviors. The answer: If the present neuro-behaviors bring us little or no satisfaction, if they limit us, it is worth changing.

In subsequent Seinfeld episodes, doing-the-opposite proved to be short-lived for George Constanza. The circuitry grooves of his old patterns of thinking were too deep and called him back to his neurotic, self absorbed way. 

While doing-the-opposite seems a simple concept, changing one’s behaviors is difficult. With many situations the call when to utilize this strategy isn't always obvious. To start, it is useful to make a short list of those behaviors which are problematic, then ask, would it be beneficial doing-the-opposite of what is usually done. Start with small concerns. And measure your outcomes. 

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