August 6, 2025

Was Epictetus Right? Do Feelings Really Result from Thoughts? (Preprint)

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MAIN FINDING: Belief in negative thoughts significantly causes emotional suffering, confirming cognitive therapy principles.
KEY EVIDENCE: In a study of 290 beta testers and 6,690 users, strong causal links between negative thoughts and feelings were observed.
APPROACH: Nonrecursive structural equation modeling was used to analyze real-time data from a chatbot-guided app.
SIGNIFICANCE: Results indicate that digital cognitive therapy tools may effectively improve mental health, rivaling traditional therapy.

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Experiments show belief in negative thoughts strongly influences negative feelings, suggesting digital tools can enhance cognitive therapy outcomes.

Burns et al. (2025) studied this question.

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Experiments show belief in negative thoughts strongly influences negative feelings, suggesting digital tools can enhance cognitive therapy outcomes.