Using Cognitive Dissonance to Promote Healthier Eating Attitudes Among Heavy Social Media Users: The Moderating Role of Learned Helplessness

Social media use has been identified as a significant risk factor for the development and maintenance of eating disorders, particularly among young adults. Despite the growing urgency of this public health issue, effective prevention strategies remain limited. This study investigated whether a cognitive dissonance-based intervention, specifically the induced hypocrisy paradigm, could promote healthier eating attitudes and reduce problematic social media use among university students, and whether learned helplessness moderates the intention to change. A total of 104 participants (M age = 19.4 years, SD = 1.52; 85.6% female) were randomly assigned to either a high-dissonance experimental condition or a low-dissonance control condition. Eating attitudes (EAT-26), social media addiction (BSMAS), and learned helplessness (LHS) were assessed before and after the intervention. Results showed no significant effect of cognitive dissonance on eating attitudes or social media use. Paradoxically, a significant improvement in social media attitudes was observed in the control group. However, learned helplessness was positively and significantly correlated with the absence of behavioral intention to change eating habits (r = .30, p < .05), and eating attitudes and social media use together predicted learned helplessness scores (R² = .10, p < .05). These findings suggest that cognitive dissonance interventions require refinement to be effective in this domain, and that learned helplessness constitutes a meaningful barrier to behavior change in eating disorder prevention. Implications for designing more effective public health interventions are discussed.