Cognitive Distortions: All-or-Nothing Thinking
Of all the ways our minds can distort reality, all-or-nothing thinking is one of the most common and can be one of the most damaging. It’s also referred to as polarized thinking, black-and-white thinking, and binary thinking. We engage in it every time we oversimplify a complex issue or topic in our minds by thinking of it as either being one thing or the other, and not considering anything in between. We all do it on some level, and becoming aware of it is a crucial first step. Polarized thinking tends to become the most dangerous when an all-or-nothing belief system is adopted by a group.
A classic example of all-or-nothing thinking is labeling a person as being good or bad, when the truth is almost always somewhere in the middle. Most people have good qualities and bad qualities. A life decision is usually not right or wrong, but rather has a combination of pros and cons. You aren’t attractive or unattractive, you are a human being with attributes that will be attractive or unattractive to some and not others. All-or-nothing thinking shares a lot in common with overgeneralization, jumping to conclusions, and other cognitive distortions, which I will write about in future posts. The common thread is that complexity is abandoned in favor of simplicity, providing us with a feeling of certainty that soothes the discomfort of confusion and uncertainty.
“Your emotions are important and provide good information, but they are not good fuel for rational thought.”
We see this all the time in the circus that has become our polarized political discourse. If someone endorses a progressive idea, people tend to label them as a “lefty” and assume what their entire belief system is. If someone holds a conservative view, the same thing happens. People are even shamed and ridiculed for holding a combination of right-leaning and left-leaning viewpoints, as though there is something inherently shameful about not falling perfectly in line with one of the two binary political ideologies; they are urged to “pick a side.” This is all-or-nothing thinking on a societal level, and the damage it is causing is apparent to anyone paying attention.
The good news is that there’s a remedy for this. The bad news is that the remedy involves a lot of self-reflection and emotional regulation, which is not a priority for the majority of the world right now. People are far more interested in being right and certain than they are in being receptive to new information. As with correcting almost any form of cognitive distortion, being able to question your own conclusions is critical. Additionally, this is best accomplished when one’s emotions are more or less soothed. If you are in a state of active fear, stress or anger, there are observable, neurological consequences that result in impaired thinking. My motto to clients is, “If you’re upset, it’s not a great time to think.”
This is not to say you need to be in a state of spiritual bliss to do any thinking. Just know that the more emotional you are, including positive emotions, the more likely you are to have thinking that is skewed or distorted by that emotion, which is likely to push you into an all-or-nothing thought process. Your emotions are important and provide good information, but they are not good fuel for rational thought.
If you notice your thoughts and beliefs being accompanied by intense emotions, it is always worth it to first soothe those emotions through any number of stress-reducing activities. Afterwards, you can take a more objective view at the issue you have strong beliefs about. It may be that you are more able to see the gray area in between the all-or-nothing thinking. The reward of this is that you are now able to have more understanding of where people with opposing views are coming from. This can help you develop compassion for them and perhaps even find a way to get through to them with your point of view by first acknowledging and validating theirs.
This is not easy--and there are some issues where there is very little gray area, but the fundamental advice still stands. Keep your emotions in check and be willing to look at the issue as objectively as possible. All-or-nothing thinking can lead to hostility, aggression, unnecessarily extreme solutions, and harmed relationships. If your thoughts are as correct as you feel they are, they should stand up to objective scrutiny.
References:
Arnsten, A. F. (2009). Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function. Nature reviews neuroscience, 10(6), 410-422.