Is it Possible to Stop being a Black and White Thinker?

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Earlier this week, I was describing some situation to my therapist (I forgot what). She replied, “That’s inflexible, black and white thinking”. Immediately, I thought, “Well, of course. That's how I think”. She next asked if this was something I wanted to change.

I was about to ask her, “How would I go about that?”. Before I did, I started to wonder if I really could change the way I think. And, if I could change that, could I also change to be less inflexible? How about becoming less detail oriented? How about giving up my inclination towards routine?

Yes, yes, and yes. It is possible.

In a word, it's about learning how to "relax." Relaxing standards and relaxing routines.

I am not perfect at relaxing, and my body is almost never completely relaxed. BUT, I am so much better off than when I was a teenager. In the midst of learning how to "relax", I also learned how to laugh - at absurdity and at myself.

Things don't bother me as much as they used to, though I am still a bit more sensitive than other people. But I would say that I am in a place now where I can better differentiate when it is time to "put on" my black-and-white thinking and when it is time to let it go; when it is time to be a stickler for routine and when it is time to go with the flow; when it is time to demand that others live up to expectations and when it is time to overlook some "failure"; when it is time to scold myself and when it is time to give myself a break.

Rigid thinking is not always bad. In fact, I believe it is important. The problem arises when one is rigid *all the time* (the opposite is also bad.) The trick is learning when rigid thinking is appropriate and when it is not.

It sounds like your therapist sees this as something you could learn.

In a book dealing with "outside the box" thinking, there was a good tip.

Person One: I either do X or Y.

Person Two: What if NEITHER of those options are available?

Person One: ????


We often think there's only two outcomes to a given situation. It's not just an AS thing. When those preconceived options are removed, we are forced to find NEW options.

For someone with AS, I suppose STEP ONE is to accept that there are more than just "two" ways to deal with something. There's black, white, and a billion shades of gray in between. So, if you can do that, then operate from the premise that the black and white options are not available to you. Now what? This should trigger creative thinking to see if there's a "compromise" that will solve a problem.

Based on my personal life experience: yes.

Here is an approach I take that often works for me: let's talk high school geometry.

Point A is the "white" option or outcome.
Point B is the "black" option or outcome.

Now I was taught that between any two points there can be a straight line, and on that line there are an infinite number of other points.

So that being the case, I would expect there to actually be an infinite number of options, not just two. Moreover, if each point (or option) has an equal likelihood of occurrence, then the likelihood of either Option A (white) or Option B (black) occurring might be thought of as almost infinitesimally small. Therefore, to allow my thinking to overly focus on only those two options or outcomes is illogical and a waste of my time.

Once I get to that point it can almost become fun to brainstorm some of the other options or outcomes that may exist along that line.

An alternative approach is to use the binary thinking in a different framework that yields more options.

For example you can think of it as 0 or 1, black or white....

Or 0 or 1 for black and 0 or 1 for white...

white 1, black 0 = white
white 1, black 1 = grey
white 0, black 1 = black

Add bits as needed to yield the required levels.

For most things, I am probably not going beyond about five grey levels

e.g.,
Black
Dark grey
Medium grey
Light grey
White

This seems to work fairly well. I like marky9's infinite degrees, but my mind can't hold infinity as anything but an abstraction, so I usually approximate down to 3 or 5 levels of grey.

Another useful concept is fuzziness or vagueness. If you note the it's imprecisely black, this allows for some future refinements of distinction in the tentative "black" assignment. If you see what I mean?

Edited to fix misattribution

Last edited by Adamantium on 05 Jun 2015, 11:25 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yes I think it's possible and I know I have gotten more flexible as I have gotten older and discovered a lot of gray areas.

Here was an example I realized that isn't black and white:

Sometimes rules are in place as a guideline and it's not absolute. One example is fast check out lanes, the item limit may be 15 items or less. That lane is for people with a few items and they don't want someone coming to that checkout lane with a cart full of stuff so if someone comes and they are a few items above the limit, they won't make a big deal about it. They just need a number so people know.

Another rule I remember I took too literal when I was 16 was one of our rules we had for softball was "no tossing or throwing equipment" and kids would toss them anyway and the coach did nothing about it. I would do it when upset because it was a rule we could break. I was an adult when my mom told me not too long ago that rule just meant they don't want you tossing them when you are mad. Why didn't it say that? They are fine if you toss someone a helmet they want to use or tossing the bat aside when you are up to bat. I had this issue a lot when I was a kid, when a rule would be broken and not enforced it would confuse me so I would break that rule and then be even more confused when it would be enforced on me. I wonder how much of the discrimination I got as a kid was actually discrimination. But anyway my mom told me you won't always get tossed from the team if you break a rule and instead you will be given a warning but if you have a bad temper and you cause trouble and always making trouble, you can be tossed from the team after breaking one rule but someone else can get away with it if they are good players and a good team mate so they are let off with a warning than being kicked off. I realized then why people are given different treatment sometimes, it depends on what kind of person you are so it's not like people are treating you different to be discriminatory. I do wonder now how much of the different treatment was actually due to what kind of person I was than treating me different to be discriminatory. But my own black and white thinking didn't make me see it from another perspective and taking a look at myself and wondering what I did wrong. I was always the victim instead and being treated different because I am different and had it written all over me. I think this is common aspie thinking. But we can learn to overcome it.


I think we can all learn to be less black and white over time through life experience.

I don't understand what is meant by black and white thinking.
The descriptions posted seem like 2-alternative forced choice eggsperiments instead of eggsperiences from daily life.

Thanks everyone for your replies.

It’s interesting. I asked my wife earlier today if I am a black and white thinker. She said, “Of course”. She went on to say that my thinking was quite inflexible.

I guess this brings up another more important question. What if I don’t, at the time I am thinking my thoughts (and perhaps expressing them to others), believe my thinking to be inflexible and black and white? That is, at the time I am thinking my thoughts, I am convinced that they are spot on. How do I know it’s black and white thinking, unless someone mentions it to me?

Just as importantly, if that someone comments about my black and white thinking and I disagree with that opinion, am I then being inflexible?

Last edited by Rocket123 on 05 Jun 2015, 11:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

League Girl - This reminds me of a situation that occurred many years back. My wife and I were at the grocery store and we actually got in a fight about whether or not we should be in the "fast check out lane". We had more than the minimum. I considered it rude (to others) to cheat. My wife said, "It's OK, we are only a couple of items over". From my perspective, I was thinking about how I would feel if someone else was cheating in front of me, generalized it to others and considered it to be the wrong thing to do. I think I made a scene. LOL.

To this day, I still believe that she was in the wrong (to use the fast check out lane). And, from my perspective, I don't consider that incorrect thinking. After all, if everyone cheated in that situation, why have rules at all?

I have a feeling that I don't either.

Really? That's interesting. I would think this term would be part of your work. Maybe I don't understand it either.



That's because the question was asked in the abstract. When you reduce and idea like this to algebra, it is going to come off that way.

A real life example might be a disagreement between me an my wife that I see as clearly giving the two choices: A) she is right and I am wrong or B) I am right and she is wrong.

But what often turns out to be the case is C) I am partly right and she is partly right but we are talking about different aspects of a thing without verifying that the other means the thing we think they mean.

So there is a third area that I don't see, but I can say: "suppose there is a third possibility: the one where we are both right." I may look at that proposition as possibly true or possibly false, and so also subject to black and white thinking, but considering the possibility that it might be true allows me to step back from the initial binary opposition and see things in a more complicated and realistic way, hopefully. At least some of the time.

Thanks for eggsplaining.
The situation of you are right vs. she is right seems like a most common conflict between humans.

Black and white thinking is not a scientifically defined term, it seems more like a colloquial term.
I don't intuitively understand it and can't recall any eggsamples from my life in which it clearly applied.
Usually, there are many options in any situation, so two choices are two of these many, and there is no black vs. white.

[quote="Adamantium"So there is a third area that I don't see, but I can say: "suppose there is a third possibility: the one where we are both right." I may look at that proposition as possibly true or possibly false, and so also subject to black and white thinking, but considering the possibility that it might be true allows me to step back from the initial binary opposition and see things in a more complicated and realistic way, hopefully. At least some of the time.[/quote]

I think one of the things that has helped me be less black-and-white with my thinking is that, in music, I have been under constant scrutiny (juries, auditions, graded performances, evaluations of compositions, etc.) All "good" or all "bad" does not exist. Those who are evaluating pick apart what you have presented and comment on BOTH the good and bad. It is helpful to look at things from many angles.

It is almost an interesting intellectual exercise in finding as much as possible to observe and evaluate. If one can do this before making a verbal judgment, it will help to create a multi-faceted opinion.

When I teach, I also follow the rule "don't say anything negative before first saying something positive."

This example makes sense to me. Though, it is never about ME being right or wrong. Or, HER being right or wrong. It’s usually about what is the appropriate action to take. Or, perhaps what is the right thing to do. And, for me, this is always an analytical process, based upon the information at hand.

If my wife presents new information (that I had not previously considered), I am willing to alter my viewpoint, based upon that new information. As that would be the logical/prudent thing to do. There are times when I don’t have an opinion on matters. Perhaps in those cases, logic wouldn’t dictate an appropriate course of action.

Generally, I don’t consider that black/white thinking. I just consider that having thoughts based upon logic.

Your thinking process is logical and analytical.
I think possibly your therapist doesn't understand this and just applies a label of black and white thinking to it.
Don't listen to her, she seems slightly stupid to first say that you had social anxiety, then this failure to understand analytical thinking for what it is.

I just try my best to remember I am prone to black/white thinking. Sometimes I can recognize it and sometimes I find out the hard way after I make a sub-optimal choice.