“How are you?” asked one of my co-workers as I walked into the office this morning.
“Oh,” I said, “I’m exhausted. How are you?”
And I can’t remember how she answered that question because I was too busy thinking about what I’d just told her about being exhausted. Was I really exhausted? Not so much, I determined, after a little more thought. I was a bit sleepy, maybe, but I’d gotten eight hours of sleep. Why did I tell her I was exhausted?
Okay, grab a paper & pen. Give this little challenge a try: below, you’ll find several pairs of opposites. Some of them are grade-school simple; some are a little more complex. However, these are words that you probably use on a daily basis. Here’s the challenge: write down each of the below pair of opposites on a piece of paper. Then, write down a word — a SINGLE word — that accurately describes the middle ground between the pair of opposites.
Example: hot and cold. A good answer here would be “warm”, “lukewarm”, or “temperate”.
Ready? Promise not to scroll down until you complete this entire activity? Good. Okay, here we go:
1. black and white
2. large and small
3. up and down
4. left and right
5. fast and slow
6. easy and hard
7. young and old
8. loud and quiet
9. good and bad
10. near and far
11. pass and fail
12. happy and sad
13. clean and dirty
14. shy and outgoing
15. calm and anxious
Got your list? Alright, take a good look at all of the words you’ve written down. Do they have anything in common? If your list is anything like mine, all of the “middle ground” words are similar in a way: they’re all a bit muddy and bland. Let’s go over some possible answers: obviously, the color “gray” falls between black and white, and I’ll bet you wrote that one down. Where are you if you’re not left nor right? Well, you’re “moderate” or in the “center”. If you’re not young or old, perhaps you’re “middle-aged”. What if you’re buying a shirt and it’s not small or large? It’s probably a medium.
Medium, middle-aged, moderate, average, gray. Maybe you even wrote the words “normal”, “so-so”, or “average” on your paper. Most writers try to avoid using these words & other gray-colored language altogether. (Unless they’re, um, writing a blog entry about those very words.)
Did you have trouble nearing the end of the activity? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. I couldn’t find any way to describe the middle ground between “shy and outgoing” or “calm and anxious” with a single word. Or even with a bunch of words. There’s no convenient word or phrase in the English language, it seems, to describe the middle ground between several sets of the polar opposites listed above. How does this deficiency of the English language harm us?
Take a look at the word list again. How often do you use words like “happy and sad”? You’ve probably uttered most of them today without even realizing it. After all, simplifying our stories for others with polar words like “sad”, “bad”, and “far” is convenient. It’s easier for a student to lament that his or her research paper is “far” from being completed (especially if they’re seeking empathy) than to get into the details of exactly how much is done and how much is left to write. And we’re all guilty of watching a movie or reading the news and calling someone “the bad guy” — it sounds a lot more poignant than qualifying your statement & balancing it with a list of their positive attributes. Resorting to polar words (in cases where a middle-ground word would more accurately describe the situation) can change the truth of the situation that we are describing.
Each of the above pairs of opposites (and many, many more) can induce dichotomous thinking. It’s commonly referred to as “black and white” thinking and it can have negative effects on the way we see ourselves or the situations that we are using language to describe.
Back to my morning conversation with my co-worker: I told her I was exhausted, but it wasn’t a truthful statement. It’s not like I meant to lie to her. I mean, why would I lie about my level of tiredness? There’s no good reason for that. What I did do was unconsciously utilize dichotomous language. I exaggerated my own feelings of sleepiness.
I’ll face it; I like being descriptive. And “exhausted” packs more of a verbal punch than words like “sleepy” and “drowsy.” But again, using dichotomous language boosts dichotomous thinking, and the latter is a type of cognitive distortion that can negatively influence the way you feel about yourself. If you’re dealing with anxiety, casual usage of extremely polar words can lead you to magnify thoughts and events through a distorted lens that can ultimately make you more anxious.
Here’s a classic example: “I think I totally failed my math test.” The word “fail” falls at the polar end of the pass/fail continuum. If you find yourself saying or thinking something similar, stop. Step out of your brain for a second and engage in some meta-cognition, or thinking about thinking. How’d you come to the conclusion that you failed? Maybe you didn’t pass, but are you sure that you failed? Might your performance have fallen somewhere in the middle of pass and fail?
Luckily, in academia, there are letter grades from A through F that can break down the continuum a bit & help you to avoid dichotomous thinking. But in other contexts, it’s not so easy: Let’s say you tell a friend that you’re feeling anxious. Perhaps you’re certain that you’re not calm, but how far from calm are you? Are you truly anxious — with a racing heart, rapid breathing, and sweaty palms — or are you somewhere in the middle of calm and anxious?
How can you decrease your black and white thinking? The answer is pretty simple: remember to add shades of gray.
There’s no good word to describe the middle ground in the above scenario with anxiety — not one that I can think of, at least — but if you can coin one, use it. Or, try using a number scale to describe where you fall on the calm/anxious continuum. If the worst anxiety you’ve ever felt is a 10, perhaps public speaking is only a 7 and thinking about a deadline at work is a 5.
Try to catch yourself using this type of black-and-white thinking for the next few days. Jot down the situation in which you used an exaggerated word; then, take a step back, assess your word choice, and improve your story with a gray-colored word. You’re turning 40 today and you just called yourself old. How true is this? Do you know anyone who is older? Might you simply be middle-aged? You told yourself today that you’re shy; but, are you only shy in a particular situation? Where do you fall on the shyness scale of 1 to 10?
Catching yourself using dichotomous thinking (and correcting yourself) can transform an unrealistic thought into a more truthful (and probably less stress-inducing) one. Unglamorous adjectives like “middle-aged” or “in-between” and low-impact phrases like “moderately shy” probably won’t win you any grand literary awards, but they do stand a good chance at helping you view the world through a more accurate lens.
(31 votes, average: 4.32 out of 5)
Loading ...You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Links to This Article
7 Ways to Soothe your Shyness - efeedyourmind (7/19/2009)
2 Ways To Banish Food Guilt (Or At Least Start To!) « Healthy Girl (10/29/2009)
Have You Ever Dreamed About Food? « Healthy Girl (11/17/2009)
25 Comments to
“Cognitive Distortion: How Does Black-and-White Thinking Hurt Us?”
I found your blog quite interesting. I thought I would share my “results” with you.
1. black and white - gray
2. large and small - medium
3. up and down - middle
4. left and right - center
5. fast and slow - medium
6. easy and hard - moderate
7. young and old - middle aged
8. loud and quiet - moderate
9. good and bad - content
10. near and far - middle
11. pass and fail - borderline
12. happy and sad - medium
13. clean and dirty - mild
14. shy and outgoing - neutral
15. calm and anxious - content
When I was extremely suicidal about 10 years ago, I used two scales–one was for how many times per hour I thought of suicide (30 was typical) and the other was for how suicidal I felt on a scale of one to ten. It was useful back then to say to myself, “Ok, you’re a 7 at the moment–try to get to a 6.” I couldn’t explain the exact points on the scale to anyone else, but they had meaning for me.
Interesting! I agree with people over-using colorful words to over emphasize an idea. Although, I think it may go both ways. It can change the way you feel or change the feel of the word itself. What if the word “exhausted” becomes overused to the point that it is no longer adequate to describe how tired someone thinks they are?
“How are you this morning?”
“Oh man, I feel obliterated.”
Inaccurate communication is inaccurate existence.
When I did your list it did feel awkward to find the gray area words. For the pair up and down I used the word horizon - that just seems awkward, but it is more interesting than middle…
I did have one suggestion for the mid-ground between calm and anxious: unsettled. That word suggests less than calm, but not truly nervous/ anxious.
Your article makes really good points on the need for accuracy in how we think and speak. Having struggled with depression and anxiety in my life I have seen how “extreme” are the words I used and how much they kept me stirred up inside.
My daughter has trouble with “catastrophizing” and we made up a saying that helps her, “It’s not Armageddon, it’s just Tuesday”!
I seen a forensics medical examiner on TV.
I was so impressed by her word choice.
She was so precisely clear and descriptive.
With each word came such accuracy and clarity as if it was the perfect word to describe her thought. It was really a joy and stimulating to listen to her talk. Her volume was also loud enough to hear her clearly. She used gestures. She spoke with staccato and accent and rhythmic cadence. I also noticed her ability to think as she spoke, you could see her think about which word would best describe her thought. Her eyes were also very actively moving as she thought of proper word choice.
Wise King Solomon of the Bible also sought to find delightful and precisely accurate words to use:(Ecclesiastes 12:10) . . .The congregator sought to find the delightful words and the writing of correct words of truth.
So thank you for your blog on this topic.
My friend asked me a question and I said: “Oh I was just thinking “stupid thoughts”….
Why did I say “stupid”–they were not stupid thoughts, they were curious thoughts! Why did that word just fall out of my mouth? I corrected myself immediately.
Good article. I’ve found from working with fearful fliers that most engage in black and white thinking. Flying, they think, is “safe or unsafe”. Black and white thinking is not only polar; it is absolute. Thus, for something to be safe, it has to be absolutely safe. Bring in one crash, and flying becomes automatically unsafe.
It’s like Dustin Hoffman’s character in “Rainman”. He would only fly Qantas because, “Qantas never crash.”
He didn’t consider the fact that Qantas has only flown about one-million flights, and a good airline has one crash per five-million flights.
The stats at Qantas mean very little. If after another four-million flights they are still accident-free, only then would the accident-free status be meaningful, that is to a person who is thinking in a balanced way, rather than black and white.
If interested in fear of flying, I’ve posted several articles at http://www.fearofflying.com/wordpress/
Dichotomous thinking is also a critical factor that keeps intolerant people thinking in terms of “we vs. them”. One of the primitive reptilian brain tendencies is “to make sense” of whether or not a stranger is “friend or enemy”. In my course on “The Challenge of Intolerance” we spend lots of time understanding instinctive brain processes that lead us to hate, conflicts and violence in societies. Since the first job of our brain is “survival” we make dualistic categorical and impulsive thinking decisions all the time. Why are there so many enduring, multi-generation “blood feuds” between sects, tribes and hostile nations? We would do well to understand primal brain patterns that keep societies and individuals fearful of people who are “different” or “strangers” to us. I suggest we can learn to overcome this type of rigid, categorical survival brain instincts. Peace and survival of our world depend on understanding that intolerance stems from a primal brain function that originally helped keep our ancestors alive. Unfortunately that same instinct keeps us at odds and at war. We need widespread public educational programs that help people understand the neurological basis for bias, prejudice and intolerance. Perhaps its one reason our coping skills website, http://www.copingskills4kids.net is so popular in many countries with long histories of inter-tribal conflict such as So. Africa and those in the Middle East.
For the middle of calm and anxious, I came up with “alert”.
The tendancy to want to classify people as completely good or completely bad is a real troublemaker, justifies extreme reactions.
Probably best to see yourself and others as a mixture, often hard for me.
1. black and white - grey
2. large and small - medium
3. up and down - level
4. left and right - straight
5. fast and slow - safe
6. easy and hard - comfortable
7. young and old - adult
8. loud and quiet - comforting
9. good and bad - neutral
10. near and far - manageable
11. pass and fail - ungraded
12. happy and sad - neutral
13. clean and dirty - wearable
14. shy and outgoing - ordinary
15. calm and anxious - apprehensive
There’s nothing wrong with shades of grey… they’re very healthy. 
I can understand not using the “extreme” word or phrase when it is on the negative end of the spectrum described….what about when the word or phrase is on the positive side? It seems that the positive choice between “great” and “awful” could lead to positive feelings and attitudes. Your thoughts?
I am a “black and white” thinker and I tell others that for me things are “black or white” or “right and wrong”. Most people like me are perfectionists who believe you always go beyond what is “necessary” to ensure excellence. My perfectionism comes from growing up under a verbally-abusive father. Nothing I ever did was right or good enough. I was stupid, clumsy, unlovable, not allowed to have an opinion on anything because no one cared what I thought or wanted, unwanted, he wished I had never been born, I was nothing but an expense to him, and on it went from the time I was a toddler until he died last year. He never lost a chance to torment me, and as most abusers, was a coward who only said these things when no one else was around.
As a child you want to be loved, so I tried everything to please him. I became a perfectionist but, of course, it did not matter for he was never going to let me get any acceptance from him.
I lived in a state of anxiety because I never knew when he was going to fly into a rage - not anger - pure terrifying rage. I was always watching him to judge his mood. I watched his facial expressions, the tone of his voice, and his body language. I only realized I had been doing this once I was an adult. I avoid all confrontation because it raises my anxiety that it will turn to rage.
I am now 52 years old. I have been through 6 years of therapy and a stay in a Pysch treatment hospital for my list of disorders. Although I have learned a great deal about myself my core beliefs were formed a long time ago. When you are told on a daily basis that you are stupid, ugly, fat, worthless and so on, you believe it. It is as true to you as the fact that the grass is green.
I had an excellent therapist but we did not get very far with CBT and similiar exercises as listed in this article. I can rationally look at myself and see I am very intelligent, had a very successful career, was a great Mother to my daughter, and lived my life as a total opposite to what I had seen in my father. However, the emotional damage was done. Deep inside I still believe everything my father told me.
I appreciate and understand what CBT tries to do and it does work for many people. It never worked for me and we could never make a dent in my core belief system about myself. I could play the games like those listed above over and over but when it came down to it I was still a “black and white” thinker.
It as futile as trying to convince me the sky is orange when my belief system is solidly set in concrete tha the sky is blue. The sky is blue and no matter what cognitive games we play or the hours we spend discussing it, that sky is always going to be blue.
The therapy was not a total waste. I learned a lot about myself and my father and that none of this was my fault. I learned techniques to control my anxiety and to work through a panic attack. I was anorexic and I now can eat again under a regimented system created to help me to remember to eat.
I suffer from clinical depression which is a cyclical disease. I can tell when an episode is returning. I never know how long it will last - 2 weeks or 2 months - but like the woman who commented earlier I have tools to help me deal with my suicidal thoughts.
I have learned coping mechanisms for my problems but I have been doing this long enough to know I am not going to win the war. I can just work to survive the battles. I know which of my thoughts are rational/irrational or true/false and I see nothing my father told me was true. However, regardless of my knowledge and therapy, I am a perfectionist. I still believe what my father taught me about myself as a worthless individual.
My father died last year and the tormenter is gone and the torment has stopped. What he did to me. What he made me believe about myself is still there. I can play all the CBT games, be drugged with all the anti-depressants on the market, and look back on my adult life and see rationally that I was nothing my father told me —- but the sky is still blue and no therapy or drug is going to change my inner belief system.
Firstly, to the lovely Beverly, who I believe has more beauty than she realizes on a cellular level: Please, before announcing that “NO” therapy will help (black or white thinking, as I’m sure you can’t possibly have exhausted all of your resources. May I suggest trying Thought Field Therapy? For such vile treatment that you endured for so long, these “memories” and “conditioning” and “bonding” get captured into the very fiber, the cells of your being. THought Field helps to clear these things out of your muscles, your bones, your entire body. Please consider it. There is also EMDR….this has worked for me. http://www.tftrx.com/ and http://www.emdr-therapy.com/
As for this article, I found it quite helpful. I realized how much I think in B & W, and this will help me evolve. My boyfriend is a VERY black and w hite thinker, who thinks he is NOT, which makes communication difficult. If he likes what I’m saying, or how we’ve been getting along, then we are “meant to be” and I am the best thing since sliced bread; however, if we are arguing, or not getting along, then we are “wrong for each other” and I have “issues”.
Is there any research concerning a link between Polar thinking and Name calling? Ha ha….but really, is there? It would seem to me that, if a person is a VERY polar thinker, than they would be more prone to categorizing and name calling.
Thoughts?
By the way….my answer to “clean and dirty” was “livable” ha ha. Spoken like a true mom.
I sympathize with Beverly! I am not in a hospital but many times think that I should be.
The article is awesome! I had no difficulties finding an accurate word to discribe the in between. I am a “gray” thinker and find that many people don’t know how to react to that. Many people throughout my life have said that I’m argumentative, a know-it-all, optimistic, or some other inaccurate phrase of my personality. I used to find this offensive, I felt like I was being attacked verbally - I made a conscious decision to “laugh” at them and realize that they are “black and white” thinkers.
I have recently become seperated from the love of my life, who is a “black and white” thinker to the core! The way we think was actually one of the best things about our relationship, it was just one more way that our personalties complimented one another and made our connection that much stronger.
Good Afternoon and thank you for sharing your guidance. I appreciate getting Emotional Health in my email, and it often provides useful information that I am interested in knowing.
I would just like to share my answers and tell you that the exercise helped me to think of what to say when speaking to others, during reading the explanation following the exercise.
My answers were as follows:
1. black and white - gray
2. large and small - medium
3. up and down - between
4. left and right - around
5. fast and slow - moderate
6. easy and hard - copable
7. young and old - middle-aged
8. loud and quiet - mellow dramatic
9. good and bad - fair
10. near and far - reachable
11. pass and fail - average
12. happy and sad - content
13. clean and dirty - dingy
14. shy and outgoing - cautious
15. calm and anxious - confident
God willing we can all learn Assertive Communication skills, which involves working hard to create mutually satisfying solutions, and for me, I believe this exercise should help.
I am a mother and a wife, and I’ve experienced many different things in life as we all have, so I know that we all are aware of the challenges of human interactions.
I am thankful for the ability to hear, accept,
know, and change things and myself when and if possible, and I experience a sense of security and contentment in seeking a higher power to do so, (God).
God Bless to all and take care!
Peace
@Lisa D.: “It’s not Armageddon, it’s just Tuesday!” I really enjoy this statement and I’m so glad it helps your daughter! Catastrophizing is another unfortunate forte of mine. And, truthfully, I think many types of cognitive distortions — especially dichotomous thinking and catastrophizing — go hand-in-hand. Let’s say you’re suffering from OCD, for example (or any other mental health issue). You might be quick to determine that because you have a disorder, you’re “sick” and you become terribly unhappy that you’re not “healthy”. Sick and healthy are quite the opposite from one another, so says Webster, & so it’s easy (albeit ultimately incorrect) to see them as mutually exclusive. And so, based on this use of polar language (”I’m sick; I’m not healthy”), it becomes alarmingly easy to catastrophize one’s own level of sickness. Continual rumination of (what one perceives to be) an absence of health can amplify the sickness. And so on, and so on, ad nauseum.
This is only one hurried example of many. Each individual cognitive distortion is difficult enough to recognize on its own — but when they start working in cahoots against you is when the process of detangling them really does become more difficult.
With the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder I have a serious problem with dichotomous thinking. What has helped a whole lot was DBT (dialectical behavioral therapy). It took a full year but after learning the skills I got much better. We learn things like how to accuratly describe our emotions and other people and situations. For all those people who struggle with this topic just remember that it is possible to change the way you think and talk, but it takes a lot of work. The payoff though is well worth it. Not only can I better communicate with my freinds and family but I can also communicate better with my doctor when taking about how my medications make me feel and where my emotions are. Keep working at it! It works!
To Beverly, You are right in saying that no amount of therapy can change the fact that the sky will always be blue, but it is also true that no amount of verbal abuse will ever change the fact that you are a beautiful person. I just want to share with you that you have a Father in heaven who created you in his image, and he is perfect. Although we are not perfect because of circumstances in our lives, and choices we make His love for us is perfect. In reading your blog I was taken back to a time when I went through the same type of abuse, and no amount of therapy worked until I came to the knowledge and saving grace of our lord Jesus Christ. He loved me when I was unlovable, He comforts me when I dont think there is comfort. And he can do the same for you. God bless you
Ms. Beretsky: Thank you for this article. I guess I’ve been a “black and white” thinker most of my life. But after my ruptured aneurysms/brain bleed/surgery and resulting brain injury, that kind of thinking for me (and speaking) has gotten even more pronounced. I’m sure this is as problematic for my family as it is for me. If you can, please tell this brain injured (frontal lobe to be exact) person where I can get help (from the somebodies who are trained/educated in brain injury) so I can learn techniques and develop habits to avoid this kind of thinking/speaking. Thank you.
And Maggie: God spared my life, and without my faith in His Son, Jesus Christ, I would not make it through most of my days. I trust your words were of comfort to Beverly. Thank you for reaching out to her.
This article was very appropriate for me (as with others here), and I also enjoyed reading the comments. -Not only was the article useful, but it’s also useful to be reminded that others sometimes struggle with the same things I sometimes struggle with. Thanks everyone!
1. black and white - color
2. large and small - medium
3. up and down - middle
4. left and right - center
5. fast and slow - steady
6. easy and hard - moderate
7. young and old - mid years
8. loud and quiet - perfect
9. good and bad - even
10. near and far - distant
11. pass and fail - average
12. happy and sad - content
13. clean and dirty - smelly
14. shy and outgoing - normal
15. calm and anxious - excited
Imagine using in every-day situations percentages of a specific color spectrum instead of the concepts given by normal language. How abstract or concrete ones chosen concepts have to be depends on the requirements of economy (speed, capacity, etc.). Polar opposites are the highest form of abstraction for different positions on a given continuum. Furthermore, where a middle position is acknowledged, there must be necessary left and right, good and bad, black and white, etc. Logic, and with it our whole civilization, would be impossible without “black-and-white thinking”!
1. black and white Grayscale
2. large and small Medium
3. up and down Sideways
4. left and right Backwards
5. fast and slow Normal
6. easy and hard Simple
7. young and old Middle aged
8. loud and quiet Talkative
9. good and bad Sour
10. near and far A Distance
11. pass and fail Average
12. happy and sad Content
13. clean and dirty Lived
14. shy and outgoing Nice
15. calm and anxious Cool
the most detailed and helpful article i’ve read on this subject. i’m planning on posting portions of it above the kitchen sink, across from the toilet, on the bathroom mirror–the places where i find myself with “mulling over” time–and on the front door as a reminder/affirmation as i go into other venues.
i’m on the cusp of entering a major (bipolar) depression and have been trying to i.d. things to change my thinking (and hopefully help out my brain chemistry), so i can avoid a full dive into the black hole if at all possible.
thanks to the author and all those who participated in its publication.
Hi Beth! It was so nice to read your comment. I love the idea of tacking up reminders around the house — keep us posted & let us know how things work out.
Join the Conversation! Post a Comment:
Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 19 May 2009
