How to become an Optimist Part III: Avoid Thinking Errors

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“A man is but the product of his thoughts - what he thinks, he becomes.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi.

 As human beings we take in such a large amount of information daily that we cannot process each situation from scratch each time, so we have developed mental shortcuts based on previous experience. While these mental shortcuts are effective in preserving our brain power, they sometimes lead us astray. They sometimes result in us drawing the wrong conclusions from the information, leading to thinking errors.

Coupled with this is the fact that we tend to filter out information that does not support our belief and filter in only that information that does support our belief. This leads to inaccurate explanatory styles as discussed in the article on The Different Explanatory Styles of Optimism and Pessimism.

This article will discuss some common thinking errors as explained by the Reaching In…..Reaching Out project of The Child & Family Partnership (Canada).

While you might have experienced each of these thinking errors at some point in time, you will likely be vulnerable to a few specific ones. Each of these thinking errors leads to pessimistic thinking rather than optimistic thinking.

Jumping to Conclusions

The thinking error of jumping to a conclusion is the act making an evaluation before you consider all the information. All thinking errors occur as a result of jumping to conclusions.

Adversity: Mary walks into her office and sees a large stack of new jobs in her ‘in’ tray.
Belief: “They are giving me all the work to do while they slack off.” 
Consequence: She feels undervalues and taken advantage of.
Her supervisor stops by and informs her that Eddie’s mom is sick in hospital so they are all sharing up his workload equally to help him out.

Personalizing

The thinking error of Personalizing is taking on blame inappropriately.

Adversity: Sharon’s friend Jim is really grumpy today.
Belief: “If I were a good friend he would not be grumpy.”
Consequence: She feels sad and guilty.

Externalizing

The thinking error of Externalizing is the opposite of personalizing. It is where we blame others when they are not chiefly responsible.

Adversity: Jessie accidentally knocks over breaks a glass.
Belief: “If Mike had only put the glass somewhere else I would not have knocked it over and broken it.”
Consequence: She feels angry, quarrels with Mike and deepens their relationship problems.

Mind-reading

The thinking error of Mind-reading involves assuming either that we know what others are thinking or that others know what we are thinking without communicating with them. This particular thinking error tends to lead to several problems in relationships.

Adversity: Vishi walks into the room and his two co-workers become silent.
Belief: “They are talking about how much they hate my report.”
Consequence: He feels isolated and rejected.

Adversity: As she arrives home Ousha’s husband suggests they go out for a nice dinner.
Belief: “If he loved at all, he would realize that I had a long day and don’t feel like going anywhere”
Consequence: She gets angry and feels unloved.

Emotional Reasoning

The thinking error of Emotional Reasoning involves drawing a conclusion about an experience based on your emotions rather than on the facts of the situation. It is related to beliefs about what you or others should do.

Adversity: Zelda is late for her appointment with a client.
Belief: “I should be able to manage my time better but I never can.”
Consequence: She feels miserable and hopeless.

Adversity: Mary explains fractions to her son once but he gets some sums wrong.
Belief: “He should be able to understand this. It is not that hard. He must be really stupid.”
Consequence: Mary labels her son as stupid and treats him as such.

Over-generalizing

The thinking error of Over-generalizing involves making a judgment based on only one or two experiences. Again this may be directed at yourself or others. Over-generalizing is also assuming the cause of a problem is due to a character flaw rather than a person’s behavior.

Adversity: Joe tries to quit smoking but only lasts two days before smoking again.
Belief: “Look how easily I gave in. I am never going to be able to quit.”
Consequence: He feels dejected and loses confidence in himself.

Adversity: Neil sees a new intern resting his head on the desk.
Belief: “Those interns are a lazy bunch. They don’t deserve the opportunity.”
Consequence: He mistrusts the interns and judges them harshly.

Magnifying/Minimizing

This thinking error has to do with magnifying either solely the positive or the negative aspects of a situation, rather than taking a more balanced view.

Adversity: Ling’s wife tells him that she is really fed up with his repeated misbehavior.
Belief: “We have been married for a long time – she’s not serious. Am sure she will get over it shortly.”
Consequence: His marriage fails because he won’t acknowledge or treat the problems.

Adversity: Mira’s boyfriend Jim is usually loving towards her but had a bad day at work and was irritable.
Belief: “He treats me so awfully. He never does anything nice for me.”
Consequence: She feels neglected and unloved.

Catastrophizing

The thinking error of catastrophizing (as explained in How to be an Optimist Part II: Disputing Pessimistic Beliefs) is expecting something bad to happen and exaggerating the consequences of a stressful event.

Adversity: Jimmy got a C in math
Belief: “I will never be any good at math, I will never get into college. I will have to beg for a living and end up living on the streets”
Consequence: He feels hopeless, anxious, worried and stressed.

As you can see, these thinking errors are a result of extreme inaccurate thinking in the three dimensions of explanatory style – Permanent (forever/not forever); Pervasive (everything/not everything) and personalization (me/not me). These were discussed in the article on The Different Explanatory Styles of Optimism and Pessimism.

Now that you are have started to pay close attention to your thinking patterns in reaction to adversity, I am sure you already realise which of these thinking errors you engage in. You will soon be able to quickly identify when you are falling into any of these thinking traps and correct your thinking using the techniques in How to become an Optimist Part II: Disputing Pessimistic Beliefs.

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Related Articles:

• How to become an Optimist – Part I
• How to become an Optimist Part II: Disputing Pessimistic Beliefs
• How to be Happy – Training yourself to enjoy life
• The Power of Realistic Positive Thinking
• Your Capacity for Change
• Optimism vs. Pessimism
• The Different Explanatory Styles of Optimism and Pessimism
• Coping with Stress – Part I
• How to Fight Depression Naturally

Posted in A New Start, Choices, Depression, Optimism and Positive Thinking, Self Discipline |   1 Comment »

This entry was posted on Friday, September 22nd, 2006 at 3:26 pm and is filed under A New Start, Choices, Depression, Optimism and Positive Thinking, Self Discipline . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.