Overcoming Patterns of Faulty Thinking
Posted February 2nd, 2015
We pride ourselves on the use of our reason. It is what makes us unique in the universe. But we have emotions too, and often our emotions control our reason, with the result that we are not as rational as we could be.
There are many ways this can happen, and psychologists have mapped out a number of these faulty patterns of emotional thinking that distort our view of ourselves and the world. We need to recognize these faulty patterns, so we do not succumb to them. Here are a few.
1. Seeing the world only in black and white.
We see the world simply as a duality, with nothing in between. Things are either good or bad. Here we are falling prey to our emotions – things are obviously not black and white. The world is a complex, complicated place, with a lot of ambiguity and paradox. It is more a blending of many shades of gray, and things can seldom be categorized so easily.
2. Universalizing
This is taking one incident and blowing it up into a norm of life. If you’ve done poorly on a test, you begin to think you are a bad test taker. If you have had difficulty working with a particular group of people, you think you are socially inept.
3. Exaggerating the bad things.
We may go through the day and have a number of good things happen. But then something not so good happens. What is it that we remember at the end of the day? Often, even though there may have been more good than bad, the one bad thing usually sticks out and ruins our mood.
4. Guessing what other people are thinking.
You may have said or done something that you think is rather dumb, and so you believe others will think so too. But that may not be the case. You cannot know what they are thinking. They are not you – they have their own experiences, thought processes and emotions, and may see things differently.
5. It’s the end of the world thinking.
This is when something goes wrong and we blow it all out of proportion, as something signaling dire consequences for our life. This kind of thinking takes over when a person, for example, fails to land a sale and so begins to think he or she is just a lousy salesperson, will never succeed in the job, and end up on the streets.
These are all faulty patterns of thinking that develop when we allow our emotions free reign. We must be vigilant with our reason to prevent this kind of thinking.
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