When Our Thinking Betrays Us

The way of perceiving and reasoning about reality is sometimes distorted. These are due to anxiety, unconscious fears, anger, sadness or some intense emotion that invades the consciousness. Sometimes these patterns become habits and are mechanically repeated regardless of their validity. Here we present ten of the most frequent distortions in thinking.

Polarize

It occurs when someone tries to put situations in black and white, disregarding any form of nuance. It is an erroneous thought because the same reality proves that there are a multitude of approaches to the same fact. As stated by María Nieves Vera, a professor of Psychology at the University of Granada, polarizing is “the tendency to classify everything in extreme and opposite categories: black / white, all / nothing, good / bad”.

Vera asks us some questions in this regard: “Am I seeing things in extremes? Am I aware that the absolute does not exist and that everything is in a continuous line, that it is a matter of degrees?” . Asking ourselves if our thinking is polarized will help us realize that sometimes we are too radical. Without a doubt, if instead of thinking in extremes, we think that everything can be evaluated through a continuum, our mind will become much more flexible.

Filter

Filtering consists of arbitrarily selecting the negative aspects of a situation or of a person and emphasizing these, leaving aside the positive elements that may exist. It is generally intended to justify a depressive position in life. It is also known as selective attention. María Nieves Vera, once again, invites us to reflect on this: “Am I considering all aspects of the situation? Am I paying attention only to what has gone wrong, ignoring what has gone well? , Is there nothing positive in this situation? ” .

Overgeneralize

This distortion occurs when conclusions are drawn from a single situation that are valid for all other similar situations. For example, when someone fails an exam and thinks they will fail the others; or when one person is deceived by another and believes that it is impossible to trust others.

Humbelina Robles, professor of Psychology at the University of Granada, argues that in these cases “terms are usually used as always, never, everything, nothing, ever . ” Robles, affirms that it is above all about the generalization of negative events: “this distortion occurs when from an event or a few negative events we consider that everything will always turn out just as badly . “

Overinterpret

It occurs when someone assumes that they know perfectly what others think or feel, even without having consulted their opinion or perception. It is a reductionist thinking that does not take into account the circumstances, but is applied as dogma. It is also called “thought reading.” According to Humbelina Robles “we assume what others think, without proof, without verifying it; we attribute an intentionality to the behavior of others ” .

Overvaluing control

It comes in two ways. In one, the person thinks that he lacks any autonomy and that everything that happens to him is the product of the action of others. In another, on the contrary, the person believes that the well-being of others depends on what he does. In both cases there is a distortion of the scope of control.

Blame

In this case, people are looking for someone to vent their anger or frustration in the face of adverse or conflictive situations. They are always on the hunt for a culprit and even blame themselves in order to explain the existence of a problem. In this case, self-criticism and the observation of events from the cold, will help us to establish what has happened.

Guilt leads nowhere, only to whip us and “throw balls out.” If we replace the feeling of guilt with responsibility, we will be giving a fresh air to the situation. What has happened? Whose responsibility is it? How can we solve the situation? Instead of looking for culprits, it is better to look for solutions.

Normalize

There are those who have a rule for everything. He applies it, but he also expects others to apply it and finds any transgression intolerable. This rigidity is not evidence of foolproof character or morals, but of insecurity and intolerance.

Catastrophic vision

Those who take this way of thinking are seeing tragedies everywhere. They hope that the outcome of all situations will be a disaster or, in any case, a deeply painful situation. María Nieves Vera affirms that this type of thinking leads us to feel dysfunctional emotions of fear and anxiety. If we imagine that everything will always go wrong, our fear of error can paralyze them. So the same goes for anxiety.

So instead of focusing on catastrophic thoughts, it is much more beneficial to contemplate all possible outcomes. Things can also turn out well, can’t it? One strategy to dismantle this type of thinking is the search for evidence: “What evidence do I have that everything will turn out in the worst possible way? What do I base myself on to reach that conclusion?”

Delegate the change

There are those who think that they should or can only change when others do. That is their excuse every time they are faced with the situation of transforming something. If others don’t, why would that person have to? Finally they hide behind others to avoid responsibility.

divine justice

These people keep an inventory of their sacrifices and selfless deeds, assuming that there is a higher power that is also keeping these accounts and will one day make up for their deprivations. They resent when time passes and nothing changes.

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