the research
The research. And its limits.
Cove borrows one idea from clinical research and applies it outside a clinic. Here is the idea, the work it comes from, and what that work does not tell you.
What Cove actually asks you to do
Write down what you expect before you act. Afterwards, record what happened so you can compare the two.
You predict
Before you act, you write down what you expect to happen. It is dated and it is kept.
You act
You do one small, specific thing in your own life. It happens away from the app, on an occasion you choose.
You record what happened
Afterwards you write down what actually happened, and it sits next to what you predicted. What you make of the comparison is yours.
Where the idea comes from
In cognitive behavioural therapy, a behavioural experiment is a planned test of a specific belief: you predict what will happen, you try it, and you compare. Work on exposure therapy describes the useful part as the gap between the prediction and the outcome, which is why the prediction is written first.
What that work supports is narrower than it might sound. It describes how a belief can be tested, and what seems to help when a clinician designs the test. It does not say that a belief must change, or that any particular test will change one. Outcomes vary, and a test that confirms what someone feared is a normal result rather than a failed one.
Sources
Two papers, with what each one actually studied, so you can see how far it reaches.
- Craske, M. G., Treanor, M., Conway, C. C., Zbozinek, T., & Vervliet, B. (2014). Maximizing exposure therapy: An inhibitory learning approach. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 58, 10–23.doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2014.04.006A framework paper for clinicians, not a trial. It sets out how to apply an inhibitory learning model during exposure therapy, and lists expectancy violation first among its strategies: designing the exposure so that what happens departs from what the person expected. It is illustrated with case studies across obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, social phobia, specific phobia and panic disorder, all of it therapist-led.
- McManus, F., Van Doorn, K., & Yiend, J. (2012). Examining the effects of thought records and behavioral experiments in instigating belief change. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 43(1), 540–547.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbtep.2011.07.003A single-session study with 91 non-clinical participants, comparing a behavioural experiment, a thought record and a control condition. Both interventions beat the control on beliefs, anxiety, behaviour and a standardised symptom measure. The behavioural experiment changed the target belief earlier, and that change generalised to beliefs about other people as well as about the self.
What this does not show
Cove draws on behavioural experiments used in cognitive behavioural therapy. Research informs the approach; it does not establish that Cove itself is effective.
The papers above describe the research Cove draws on. They do not test Cove.
Cove is for general wellbeing and self-reflection. It is not therapy, not a medical device, and not a substitute for professional care. If you are in crisis, it is the wrong tool, and crisis resources are here. If you are being treated for a mental health condition, the person treating you is better placed than we are to say whether something like this fits alongside it.