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what exactly is black and white thinking?

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ker08
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03 Apr 2013, 2:24 pm

i've always had this; my most recent slip-up was thinking "only girls could like Taylor Swift". Yep, I stepped in it big time when I laughed when a coworker told me his little brother (who has downs syndrome which I didn't know at the time) was a fan of hers. I only realized my mistake that he wasn't joking when a month later another coworker later said he was a big fan of Taylor's. This is just one example of many....

i brought this up to my brother when I was questioning what was wrong with me last summer and he said that he thinks that way too, and it's just something in our family; i'm the eldest of five. Now with our youngest sister diagnosed AS, I think it's just that we're all AS. Who knows about our parents...I'd bet my mother's father for sure is, her mother may have been.



Verdandi
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03 Apr 2013, 2:56 pm

For me it's a thing where I want people to be consistent, and often people refuse to be consistent or their "consistent" is not like my "consistent." Like I see people constantly making exception to their all or nothing rules and they always have excuses for why other people deserve those exceptions but I do not, or how those exceptions can't apply to me.



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03 Apr 2013, 3:43 pm

lady_katie wrote:
I have a good personal example...I just spent about 3 months working my tail off to re-finish my deck. When it was finished, I could see that it looked great, at the very least it looked much much better than it had (which was my goal)...but being that it wasn't absolutely perfect, I feel like my project was a complete failure. I'm disappointed in it, and feel like it was a waste of time. Every single person who has seen it said that it looked great, but one of these people pointed out a mistake :evil: so now, when I think of peoples opinions of the work I did, the only one I can remember is the person who pointed out the mistake.


You share that with most actors, writers, artists and musicians: The one bad review is the one that is going to dominate your experience, - if you let it. It´s human, first of all.


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Adamantium
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03 Apr 2013, 3:54 pm

I used to think I didn't have this.
My wife helped me to see that I have it quite intensely, but in a way that I could not perceive.

I can be very open to a spectrum of ideas as long as they are theoretical. In practical details of my own life I am extremely black and white, with options running the gamut form 0 to 1... and this is sometimes a problem, especially when I don't see it because I mistake my conceptual models and thoughts for reality.



Chloe33
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03 Apr 2013, 4:08 pm

jonny23 wrote:
I believe it's when you think in absolutes, sort of all or nothing and seeing the world in extremes.

Examples:
If you're not a genius you're a moron
If you're not skinny you're fat
If it's not strong it's weak


Good examples! Reminds me of diagnosis of a Borderline Patient.. they tend to think in black and white.

Heres a good article:
"And to say that all autistic people are black-and-white thinkers, as though there were no variation among us and no variation in the thought patterns within us is, in itself, black-and-white thinking par excellence."

http://www.journeyswithautism.com/2012/ ... l-passion/

What is an example of thinking in shades of grey?



seaturtleisland
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03 Apr 2013, 8:02 pm

I have a single constant black-and-white belief. I can see shades of gray in many situations but this one thing always comes up.

The belief is that if I am not willing to sacrifice everything for something I must not really want it. I want something else more and therefore the thing I want less isn't really wanted at all.

I end up being extremely persistent and investing ridiculous amounts of time, energy, and resources into things even when it's not necessary just to prove to myself that I really want what I think I want. If I'm not willing to sell my legs for something than I don't want it so I need to cut sell my legs just to feel like I do.