The black-and-white thinking divides reality into light and dark with a clean-cut, canceling its complexity, ambiguity, and every nuance. It makes us think in terms of “all or nothing”.
Exercising all-or-nothing thinking means believing that things can be completely right or totally wrong, that people are either friends or foes, that the days are perfect or a nightmare, that all that is not a success is a failure, and that all that is not virtuous is vicious. It is now or never. We are beautiful or ugly, that you love or you hate, and so on.
In short: black-and-white thinking tends to define a situation by making clear, rigid, and permanent distinctions. It reduces the multiform, complex, and sometimes indecipherable chaos to “this” or “that”. It tends to define the reality of people and events with only two opposing categories: good or bad.
All-or-nothing thinking is very reassuring, especially if the thinker automatically puts him/herself on the side of reason, intelligence, justice, beauty, and truth.
Just open the newspaper, listen to a piece of news, and make a list of how many examples of dichotomous thought you found. You will be surprised to see how many individuals think in black and white.
If you want some empirical criteria to recognize them quickly, then here are three examples:
Thus, black-and-white thinking is a cognitive distortion: one of the many biases that can obscure our ability to judge and make good decisions. They deform or erase all elements not congruent with the “black and white” vision, which instead should reasonably be considered.
The black-and-white thinking is reassuring, at least, in the short term, but in the long run, it has several disadvantages:
And yet, we are surrounded by interesting dichotomous schematizations: Nature and Culture. East and West. Peace and War. Public and Private. Masculine and Feminine. Vice and Virtue. City and Countryside. Freedom and Oppression. Right and Left. Health and Illness. Reason and Sentiment. Youth and Old Age. And so on.
But those dichotomies express the extreme polarizations of reality that are a continuum. Between one pole and the other, there is not a chasm but a more or less wide and variously shaded area of gray.
Small doses of black-and-white thinking can, therefore, be useful in life. And as long as you commit to paying attention to all the thousands changing shades of gray (and the thousand rainbows), you can have a reasonable and balanced view of the world we live in.
The power of thought is one of the most important tools that man can use to understand life and shape it. Constructive thoughts transform, renew, and model.
Positive thinking does not mean having a blind optimism, superficiality in addressing problems or indifference. It is a way of understanding and enjoying life by following a sum of realistic and fair principles.
Each one of us has the power to change their own level of personal happiness. This explains why people with positive thinking are more successful, have better mental and even physical health. As a matter of fact, studies have shown that patients affected by serious and even fatal illnesses but who have retained positive thinking have survived more than those who have seen reality more objectively.
So, let’s look at 4 steps you could take to change your black-and-white attitude towards life:
The ability to see something from many points of view gives an individual the ability to accept and understand a situation much better and find more solutions. Instead of saying “Today is going to be a bad day! Look at these clouds!”, try to say “Finally, some fresh air!”.
Open-minded people are willing to listen to someone without judging or develop certain conclusions before they finish talking. Do not assume you know someone just because they shared with you a few details of their story.
Do not think that a story or a piece of information contains all the knowledge you need. Research the information from more resources, ask questions, and compare. This skill will also help you deal with challenges as it can encourage you to develop better strategies for understanding and solving issues.
People who are open-minded try not to spend too much of their energy and time thinking of their past negative experiences as this doesn’t help their personal evolution. On the other hand, they also try not to worry too much about the future because there are too many possibilities to be taken into account that can change the plans or the course of a story in a few seconds.
Thus, the best way to walk through life’s challenges is to focus your energy and attention on what you have now in the place where life has taken you at this moment.
Although the reasons why we choose to think in black and white may vary, we must always remember that there can be infinite ways to resolve a situation and so many aspects that can influence a person’s behaviour or story.
So next time before you put aon someone or something, take a step back and reconsider if you really understood the root cause and all the details.
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You can never solve any problem with the same Consciousness that got you into the problem in the first place. Many Bi-Polar and Borderlines exclusively use this technique of Friend or Foe, Black or White, My way or the Highway mindset to deal with life. Life and Emotions are complex. Simplifying them makes it easier for those that have these disorders. They call them Disorders for a reason. Its doesn't make these people Bad or Wrong, that would be judgment! It means they don't have a full set of tools to work with, in the shed.
Someone with a Cognitive Disorder will read my words and take it as an attack. How do you take them?
Cognitive Dissonance tends to run very deep at times.....
Life is not all nothing....Black or White.....there is a whole lot grey in between.
Black and white thinking, for me, is like living in a tunnel. There are only two ways to go. I prefer to live in the vastness of gray, where there are many options and possibilities. Who is to say what is right or wrong as long as no harm comes to others? To each his own, we all must find our own way to travel through life. I prefer to be neither a friend nor a foe, just a good person traveling down the path of many colors who causes no harm to others. I believe black and white thinking leads to judgement, and judgement has divided us as a species. Why is it, that the way it is, can't just be the way it is? Why does it always have to be either good or bad and labeled as such? What was bad today may turn out to be a good thing tomorrow. With an open mind, one travel far along the path of gray