Black and White Thinking

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Yes, this is a difficult question, but can anyone describe an example of black and white thinking as it might occur in daily life? I've never considered my own thinking to be black and white. I always try very hard to see all the aspects of an issue or problem. Currently, though, I'm in the midst of a situation at work that I think may stem from black and white thinking on my part and I'm trying to wrap my head around it. Some other people's examples might help.

My situation is rather complicated and I can't go into details due to corporate proprietary issues, but basically something has come up that I see in a very concrete way that is obvious to me -- and apparently only me. The rest of my team is seeing it in a completely different light. I see this issue as being a serious one and am being told that it's nothing and I am just being egoistic and not being a team player, but my arguments are being countered by simple negations without any evidence or reasoning offered, just, "Well, that's not the way it is." Basically, I feel like I'm being told that the sky is orange and I should just accept that. This is bothering me so much that I'm not eating or sleeping well and I'm afraid I'll either lose my job or have to quit over ethical concerns (yeah, I think it's that serious), but now I'm starting to wonder if it really is an example of me being locked into a black and white pattern of thought, at least in this instance.

Sorry if this seems over-complicated, but if some real-life examples could be given, I'd appreciate it. The only imaginary examples I've been able to find are so simplistic as to be useless.

Regards,

Patricia

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" -- Upton Sinclair

A good example in recent history was George W. Bush's infamous, "You're for us, or you're against us" line.

A good example here on WP is the belief that you either have AS or you don't. Or this one from a recent thread: "you either grasp the non-verbal intuitively or you don't. There's no neurological middle."

Black and white thinking means so many different things.

In black and white thinking, you might not see the gray areas without them being spelled out to you.
People with black and white thinking might not respect your opinion or point of view. They may think they're right and you're wrong.


The example of black and white thinking is in religion and politics. Now that's where lot of people are black and white.

This may be true, but I've never understood that kind of thinking.

Regards,

Patricia

What some call black and white thinking, others call "calling a spade a spade." If you believe something firmly, without question, why even consider any other view when yours is the correct one? Unshakable faith in something; God, politics, etc...; is sometimes the product of an uncomplicated mind. Other times it's simply the result of a life that lead one to that opinion. If you look at your own views, you'll find some things you simply won't put up for debate, either. "Black and white" is how we tend to describe those who hold the 'wrong' opinion and won't change it.

To me, black and white thinking means not seeing the shades of gray (like Spokane Girl said) and thinking that whatever is being considered must be either this or that and there can be no in-between. This works very well with math and physics but not so well in other areas. So many things depend on context and whether something is or isn't may be true in one context but not true in another and it may be true when looked at from one perspective but not when looked at from another perspective.

This isn't just a human social invention. It happens in biology too. Consider cancer. You might think that this is a fine example of black and white. You have it or you don't. But hold on. It's not so simple. Once MRI machines and other methods of screening became ubiquitous, it was discovered that perfectly healthy people often have tiny little tumours, previously undetectable. It turns out that cells go wonky pretty often and the immune system just comes along and disposes of them. What we call "cancer" is actually an indeterminate point along a continuum when the number of cells going wonky has outstripped the immune system's ability to contain them. It isn't black or white exactly when this happens and most people can go through their entire lives with no health problems because their immune systems can handle the cancerous cells in a timely fashion.

That was just an example to show that shades of gray is not an NT construct. Another example would be evolution.

Back to humans. Many things can be looked at from many different angles and it will be unclear what the correct or moral course of action is. Fiction and movies wrestle with this all the time. A movie out now which wrestles with this is "Her Sister's Keeper".

When it comes to problems which aren't about ethics but rather are about what the best course of action is to reach a desired outcome, that's where black and white thinking can get you in trouble. (And will get you in trouble at work, where I suppose it already has, though you can't reveal obviously- I understand that). If you use black and white thinking to problem solve, this means you have envisioned two possible paths and have chosen the one of those two which you think is the right one. But when it comes to problem solving, there are rarely only two paths. Which means the best course of action is rarely as simple as picking "right" over "wrong". When you seee only "the right way" and "the wrong way", you are blind to all the other paths because they are off your binary radar.

I like the above example of Bush's "You're either with us or against us". That is an excellent example of "only two paths- pick the right one" thinking that got the U.S. in a heap of trouble.

Another example. We have a neighbor who's an old woman and originally I thought that she was OK. I then found out that her political views were way WAY to the right and, amongst other things, she thought that Adolf Hitler did a mighty fine job of running Germany. From that moment on it was as if a switch had been thrown and I changed from liking the woman to hating her.

She now has Parkinsons Disease, my opinion of her has not changed.

When she dies (and she will die soon) I will not attend her funeral because I will not grieve for her.

I like a lot of people and I hate one or two, there appear to be no shades of gray.



Vanilla_Slice

My thinking is very un-black-and-white. People who think in black and white terms tend to lack awareness of inconsistencies and biases in their thinking. I prefer to constantly refine my thinking so that it best matches reality, almost to a detriment.

It's my emotions that tend to be black and white. I'm prone to develop strong hatreds for people who disregard me or cause me grief. I'm unforgiving when I feel someone disrespects me.

There's a world of difference between the two, thinking vs. emotions.

Last edited by marshall on 01 Jul 2009, 4:29 pm, edited 3 times in total.

I know I think this way all the time. I have learned to recognize it and diffuse it a bit of late.

One good example that I see often is my boyfriend - we often play an online game together that is based around puzzle games (Bejeweled-type puzzle games) and gives you a score based on how well you did on the game. My boyfriend will spend hours playing a particular puzzle trying to get a perfect score and getting increasingly frustrated each time he gets close but doesn't quite make a 'perfect score.' I try to tell him that he is getting a great score and is much better than me at the game but that doesn't matter to him. If he doesnt get a perfect score, he gives himself absolutely no credit.

Another word for Black-And-White thinking is All-Or-Nothing thinking.

That has more to do with emotions than thinking. Your boyfriend places more emotional importance in getting a perfect score than you do. I'm the same way. I'm a perfectionist. It's not that I don't realize other people can be satisfied without perfection. It's just that I'm not like other people. I have different needs in terms of mental rewards.

^ I understand that. But I still believe it is an example of black and white thinking. I can be a bit of a perfectionist myself. My point was just that he is not happy with a score of 'Good' or even 'Excellent'.. he is not even entirely happy with 'Incredible.' Anything less than perfect is a failure. It's either success or failure, no middle ground.

I think this is an excellent example of black and white thinking. There are only two options: perfection or failure. The person who sees shades of grey (you, in this example) can see lots and lots of options: good, pretty good, not good, better than I did last time but I could still do better, terrible, etc. ad infinitum.

I dont like to think in "black and white" it just leads to leading to fundamentalist views such as thinking a group of people as bad/good, without considering parts of their view.

I understand your issue, here. I have to consciously adjust my thinking sometimes. Yesterday I was very upset with another person who had done something to upset me and then said something about us being friends. My thinking was, "How can she call herself my friend if she thinks what she does about me? She's not my friend at all, she just tells herself that." I had to consciously explain to myself that just because we have a difference in this area doesn't mean that she can't feel friendly towards me in a general sense.

There's also the issue of my definition of "friend," which I'm beginning to see doesn't quite match the rest of the world's, but that's another issue. Personally, I don't see myself as having friends, but several people have recently told me they consider me their friend, even though our relationship doesn't match my definition. It's odd.

Regards,

Patricia

I can see the other options but as a perfectionist I don't get as much satisfaction out of them. It isn't a cognitive process that causes me to seek perfectionism. It's an emotional process. It's perfectly logical to seek perfection if that's where I perceive the greater reward / emotional payoff. I've had this argument many times with family members when they accuse me of being ridiculous for having a different kind of mental reward system. I get depressed / bored / unmotivated when I'm forced to do things in the standard half-assed NT way.

Yes. I agree that I'm often inflexible. However I don't agree that changing this aspie personality trait is as simple as "showing me the errors in my thinking". That's a very patronising approach that frankly gets on my nerves. Thinking is not where the error lies. It goes much deeper than simple logic.

Oh, and another thing. I might say "I failed" when my score is still good. What I'm really saying is "I'm not satisfied" which to me is the same thing. I don't put as much emphasis on other people being satisfied by what I do. If I'm not satisfied it doesn't matter what others think. I may pretend to accept their satisfaction out of politeness but that doesn't translate into being satisfied myself.