I previously wrote a post on how to see clearly when you’re worried based on The Resilience Factor: 7 Keys to Finding Your Inner Strength and Overcoming Life’s Hurdles by Karen Reivich and Andrew Shatte. This post looks at a different part of the book that discusses thinking traps.
Thinking traps are inaccurate or distorted ways of thinking that lead to depression or less resilience to life’s problems. We all have different ways of thinking about problems in our lives. Many of the ways we think about our problems are useful, but sometimes we fall into these thinking traps.
By becoming aware of these thinking traps, you can recognize when you fall into a trap and then free yourself. Let’s look at each of the eight thinking traps.
1. Jumping to Conclusions
Supposed you received the following email from your boss:
I need to see you in my office at 2pm today.
What’s your immediate thought? If you’re like many people, you may think “Oh no, this has to be bad news. I must have done something wrong”. In other words, you jump to a negative conclusion about the meeting without any further details. The meeting could really be about anything: a problem, additional work, praise, or many other things. Even if it’s about a problem, the problem may have been another employee’s fault or nobody’s fault.
To counteract this thinking trap, you can review the facts and recent information. You can ask additional probing questions:
- When you think back to yesterday, did you do something wrong or poorly?
- What else could the meeting be about?
Jumping to Conclusions is a catchall for the other traps. In other words, the other traps are really just more specific cases of jumping to conclusions.
2. Tunnel Vision
Suppose you’re giving a presentation in a meeting with Mary, Joe, Bill, and Sue. Mary and Joe are paying careful attention to everything you’re saying. Bill, your boss, asks a few questions during the presentation and yawns once. Sue’s cell phone rings two-thirds of the way through the presentation, she answers the cell phone, and permanently leaves the meeting.
How is the meeting going? If you’re like many people, you may conclude that the meeting is going poorly which will negatively impact your presentation. You assume Sue doesn’t want to be in the meeting and Bill is bored.
But is that an accurate assessment? You have tunnel vision because you’re only focusing on negative cues. Mary and Joe are paying close attention. Bill is asking intelligent questions. Maybe Bill had a late night. Sue’s phone call could have been about a crisis that she needs to immediately resolve.
Nobody can pay attention to every person in every meeting at every moment, but you have tunnel vision if you see ONLY the negative or positive.
To counteract tunnel vision, try to focus on the big picture. Ask yourself if the you’ve made an accurate and fair assessment of the situation.
3. Magnifying and Minimizing
Suppose you’re being considered for a promotion. You remember you’ve managed ten large projects and you spectacularly completed nine of the projects. You failed to complete one of the projects due to circumstances beyond your control.
Will you get the promotion? If you like some people, you’ll magnify the one failed project and minimize your nine successes. As a result, you’ll believe you won’t get the promotion. This attitude can be self-fulfilling and make it difficult to maintain a positive outlook.
Similarly, you may magnify the good and minimize the bad. If the statistics above were reversed, you may only focus on the one successful project.
Magnifying and minimizing is different from tunnel vision. With magnifying and minimizing, you’re aware of all the relevant events, but you choose to enhance or diminish each event. In tunnel vision, you are only SEEING selective information. You’re not even aware of the other information.
To counteract magnifying and minimizing, you can ask what are the good (or bad) things that have happened with the projects? How is your overall performance?
4. Personalizing
Suppose you’re working jointly with Bob, a co-worker, on a business proposal for an important client. The proposal involves customizing and selling a customer relationship management software solution. You write the section on the business reasons the client should buy the solution and Bob writes the technical overview for the solution. You both present the proposal to the client in a meeting. The client rejects the proposal because
- The business section you wrote didn’t contain enough detailed cost saving information.
- The technical section that Bob wrote was too technical and failed to provide a high level overview.
Who caused the failure? If you personalize, you will believe you’re at fault and completely ignore the problems that Bob created. You may say something like “We didn’t get the business because I screwed up.”
To counteract personalizing, you must consider other causes for the failure. Yes, you caused some of the problems, but Bob also created his share of problems.
5. Externalizing
Externalizing is the opposite of personalizing. Given the same circumstance described in Personalizing, you believe that Bob caused the failure. You may think “We would have gotten the business if Bob hadn’t screwed up.”.
To counteract externalizing, you must consider how you contributed to the problem.
6. Overgeneralizing
Overgeneralizing involves making a broad assumption based on specific evidence. Given the same circumstances described in Personalizing, you conclude that you are (or Bob is) a “bad employee”. Therefore, you take one specific failure and generalize the overall abilities of yourself or another.
To counteract overgeneralizing, you ask questions that can narrow down the situation. Is there a more specific explanation than the one you chose? For instance, maybe you are (or Bob is) just having a bad week or you need (or Bob needs) to improve a particular skill.
7. Mind Reading
Mind reading means you jump to conclusions about what people are thinking. Given the same circumstance described in Personalizing, suppose later in the day you pass Bob’s cube and he is whispering something to another co-worker. If you believe Bob is criticizing you for your work on the client proposal, then you’re mind reading. Bob could be talking about anything: a personal matter, another project, his boss, and so on.
To counteract mind reading, you can think of other reasonable explanations for the behavior. If possible, you can directly communicate with the person and test your mind reading assumption.
8. Emotional Reasoning
Emotional reasoning occurs when you let your feelings influence your judgment. For instance, going back to the Personalizing example, suppose you exit the client meeting feeling really good. You’re relieved and happy that the meeting is over. If you decide the meeting went really well because you feel happy, then you’re using emotional reasoning.
To counteract emotional reasoning, you have to separate your feelings from your judgment. You can probe yourself with question like “How did things really go if I ignore how I feel?”. You can also reevaluate the situation after your feelings have subsided.
The most common thinking traps I fall into are overgeneralizing and mind reading. What thinking traps do you fall into?
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Tags: Anxiety, Fear, Psychology
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A while back I wrote about these over on my site and I think they are SO important to think about and remind ourselves of all the time. It’s so easy (for me) to fall into these traps and I really need to be careful when it comes to my thinking. I love your descriptions of each. Very well done!
Thanks for this, Roger. The first step in combatting depression is knowing when you have fallen into one of these traps. So many people don’t even realize that the traps exist, much less that they’ve fallen into one. Posts like this help soooo many people.
@Positively Present (aka Dani): Thanks! I missed the post on your site. I’ll go take a look.
@Jay: I agree. It’s really hard to know when you’re actually in the trap, but it’s easier to see in retrospect. I think having labels for the traps makes it more likely that you’ll identify the trap while your in it.
Hi Roger,
What a great post. Jumping to conclusions is one I come across very often, together with generalising. Me? I tend to mind-read, sometimes wrongly, and have to tell myself to stop it and just ask directly. Often I’m surprised with the answers I get.
You actually DID read my mind, Roger! I was just thinking of a post I’d like to write about jumping to conclusions when we think we know what others are thinking. Hm… I guess the message for this week is: Don’t jump to conclusions!
Lisis,
Great minds think alike.
What I found amazing as I studied the book was the NUMBER of ways that we can jump to conclusions.
Thanks for the tips, I think that we all need to keep an eye our for these traps in our action and reactions.
#7 Mind Reading is one of the biggest in my experience. It seems that we will react because we “know” that someone thought something and that is the cause of whatever it is that is bothering us. We all seem to know a great deal about what happens in other people’s minds. Rather, we know what happens in our minds to reach such a conclusion, so we often think that is what went through the other person’s mind. It is very difficult to realize that other people will not come to the same logical/rational conclusions that we would! (if they are in fact logical
Hi Roger,
The human mind is so fascinating…even when it is doing silly thing like falling into one of the above mentioned traps!
My personal favorite is the mind reading. I have done it and I especially do not love it when someone does it to me. Hence, the importance of trying to keep the mind empty like a tea cup. Then you are open to seeing the world as it is without judgment. Gotta love Zen!
Happy Friday to you!
@Daphne: Mind reading is also one my common foibles. Sometimes I think I’m so smart that I must know. It’s a rude awakening when I find out I’m wrong.
@Sean: “It is very difficult to realize that other people will not come to the same logical/rational conclusions that we would!” I think it all depends on your starting assumptions. If you have a different set of assumptions from the other person, you can easily come to different conclusions. Also, nobody (including me) is rational 100% of the time.
@Nadia: Yep…that is one of the things that Zen teaches me, but it’s so hard to do.
This is a fantastic post! You’ll probably see a reference to it at TCOYou.com in the near future.
As for me, thankfully, I am very aware of these traps and do fairly well at walking around them when I recognize one in front of me. Though I’m not perfect at it, by any means, many times I do make it to the other side feeling gratitude for how much healthier and positive I feel in that moment because of doing so.
The only one that is something I might do is Emotional Reasoning. I try to mentally bookmark the good parts while in the moment and think about those only, to the exclusion of the other stuff, when recalling things later. I used to dwell on or beat myself up about what had not went well. That did me no good, since I wasn’t doing it to look for improvement.
I figure, what I keep thinking about is what I’ll keep bringing about, so, there is absolutely no reason to think about what didn’t go as planned.
I’ve become very adept at recognizing my stories, but could use a bit of help identifying how I’ve come to that particular story (or what that story seems to be on instant replay). This post fits the bill perfectly. Whether claiming an illusion, dismantling a biased story, or examining unfolding circumstances mindfully; identifying traps as well as countering said traps helps to ensure authentic consideration.
Thank you. Fantastic post.
@Suzanne: Thank you! It’s great that you already aware of these traps. I think that puts you ahead of most people. Emotional Reasoning is not easy to manage. Fortunately, I don’t usually fall into that particular trap.
@Nelia: You’re welcome! I think being able to label a particular story is helpful.
Roger, this is a wonderful article full of great advice. I really need to get this book I guess. I assume it comes highly recommended by you?
I think I fall into #7 mind reading and #1 jumping to conclusions the most.
Thanks!
Hi Roger,
I only found 8 of the items that I have been guilty of! Great things to think about next time I start “thinking”.
Namaste
@Stephen: Thanks! It’s definitely a worthwhile book. I’ve only touched on a couple of topics and the books contains much more useful information.
@Roger: Welcome and I really like your name.
I know I’ve done all 8 as well at one time or another.
I’m sure I do all of them from time to time. I’m not aware of preferring one over the other … and that’s largely been a long and conscious process of self awareness. I used to personalise frequently and generalise ALL the time. Just as well I NEVER do that now!
I find this whole fascinating .. how we perceive the world around us, think about it, form judgements etc.. Thanks for adding this way of looking at it!
Ian,
I find it fascinating also. It’s amazing how much our thoughts and mind filter reality so that we see what we want to see.
A while back I wrote about these over on my site and I think they are SO important to think about and remind ourselves of all the time. It’s so easy (for me) to fall into these traps and I really need to be careful when it comes to my thinking. I love your descriptions of each. Very well done!
forum,
I agree…it’s important to be self-aware so that you realize when you’re in a thinking trap. Then you have a chance to get out of the trap.
I’m late reading this post but glad I did. I can really relate to the first one, jumping to conclusions, especially when I was younger. If I had received an email like in your example, I’d be stressed all day wondering what I was in for. Nothing was ever as bad as I imagined…and once, it was a surprise birthday party!
Laurie,
I’ve done the same thing. However, I’ve never had a misinterpreted email turn into a birthday party. That’s nice!
Thanks for this. I particularly liked the part about putting moments where someone says to you “we need to talk” in perspective. What that person is expressing may be their own need, but it’s nothing more than that. Remembering that you aren’t required to jump to attention whenever someone else seems agitated, I think, is a very useful way to reduce stress.
Chris,
I’m also likely to jump to negative conclusions when someone tell me “we need to talk”. You’re response is exactly right.
hi Roger, I’m a new follower of your blogs and I found myself soaking up a lot of truth held in this recent blog! I would say I often fall into 1-4 and 8.
emotional reasoning due to past trauma memories sometimes i’ll get anxiety when i have tunnel vision personalizing and magnifying which leads to increased anxiety.
i found even today i was able to hold myself at first when i kept to the larger picture and kept focusing on how much i wanted to hear the speaker i was listening to and the content. this helped! Some thing i’ve also tried lately that works well is to imagine when you are protecting your mind from incoming thoughts as if you are closing four steel doors around your thought field so that nothing can come at you. you are ‘taking back control’ and returning to the headquarters in a sense.. before the cycle can continue to spiral you downward.
thanks! this was a wonderful post and a reminder that i’m not the only one who feels this way and how when you break anything down you can better cope with what you are dealing with!
sincerely,
Jen Zuniga
Jennifer,
You’re welcome! I find it helps me when I realize that my thoughts are not me — they’re just ideas that constantly change.
Being calm and relaxed is a great way too see things though. If you jump into conclusions it tends to make the situation worse. Never Better. Takes a few deep breathes and seeing the situation a something that can be overcome instead of some insurmountable hike. Then it can see resolved, with rationalization and logical thinking.
I love this post! I plan on doing an entry similar to this in the future and will totally link this article to give my readers extra aid. Thank you!
Of one thing I am certain, the body is not the measure of healing - peace is the measure.
Hi Roger,
I’m new to your blog and your post opened my eyes on something -
I’m SOOO careful (though not necessarily successful) at avoiding the traps I’m aware of, that is 1 to 6. But your post made me realize that there is another trap that I did not recognize as such - emotional reasoning. I do that a lot and always felt so bad when later on I had a sinking feeling about “that meeting” (or whatever) - always scolding myself for that sinking (=negative) feeling, when I should have realized that my first (positive) reaction was the irrational one …