Deconstructing Mental Distortions, Fallacies And Heuristics

We co-create reality. Moment by moment, the mind secretes thought after thought. Researchers have identified a region of the brain called the "gestalt cortex" which appears to play a role in this co-construction (Lieberman, 2022). By identifying common fallacies, cognitive distortions, biases, and heuristics, we can look more deeply into our conditioned ways of seeing. With awareness, we can challenge and change these perceptions. By changing our perceptions, we can reframe our experiences.

Transcript

Moment by moment,

The mind secretes thought after thought.

We co-create reality with thought.

Some are positive,

Others negative.

Some are beneficial,

Some benign.

Some are constructive,

Others destructive.

Some are encouraging,

Others discouraging.

Many are non-native and unoriginal.

Biologist Richard Dawkins calls these discrete units of thought memes.

Memes spread from person to person within a culture.

Songs,

One-liners,

Idioms,

Hand gestures,

And sound bites are some examples of memes.

Many become building blocks for the thoughts we take to be ours.

Researcher Lieberman has identified a region of the brain called the Gestalt Cortex,

Which appears to play a role in this co-construction.

Parts of the brain responsible for processing vision,

Sound,

And touch interface with a structure called the Temporo-parietal Junction,

Which is part of the Gestalt Cortex.

The Temporo-parietal Junction helps people integrate and create meaning from the world they see.

Perceptions,

Memes,

Biases,

Memories,

And assumptions influence our thought.

Few investigate them,

However.

Most assume them to be true and an accurate representation of reality.

Researchers call this phenomenon naive realism.

In meditation,

We recognize this as plays of the mind,

Movements of mind.

Sometimes we'll even call it Maya,

This delusional sense,

This delusion,

This distorted reality.

On computer science,

The acronym GI-GO stands for garbage in,

Garbage out.

The quality of the input determines the quality of the output.

In other words,

The quality of data coming in is only as good as what went in.

Teachers,

Parents,

Clerics,

Professors,

Scholars,

Journalists,

Pundits,

Influencers,

Experts,

And others influence what and how we think.

A child receives these inputs on faith,

But as we mature and grow and experience and learn,

We have the opportunity to investigate,

Deconstruct,

And reflect on what we've learned.

In some cases,

We must unlearn what we've been taught,

And this is our work.

Thoughts arise on and off the cushion.

During meditation,

You're simply more aware of the busyness of mind,

The disjointed thoughts,

The meandering stream.

Purifying the thought stream is itself a practice.

Each technique has its own instructions for handling intrusive thoughts and mental elaborations.

In focused meditation,

The instruction is to acknowledge,

Cut,

And reorient attention.

In open monitoring,

We simply watch the flow of thoughts,

Like an observer standing on the bank of a river.

If we're using a labeling technique,

We can label thoughts as thoughts,

Or we can be more specific.

We may be storytelling,

Analyzing,

Imagining,

Or predicting,

For example.

We can go further by recognizing cognitive distortions and habitual ways of thinking that are characterized by negativity and bias.

They're often illogical and exaggerated,

And these thought patterns perpetuate psychopathological states such as depression and anxiety.

These emotions seem involuntary beyond our control,

But it's at the level of thought that we can exercise choice to a degree.

What we do is an extension of what and how we think.

We can't absolve ourselves from our work by giving autonomy to feelings or instincts.

It's difficult to deconstruct and unlearn the biases,

Fears,

Or lessons we were taught.

Recognizing disabling patterns of mind,

Though,

Is a first step in freeing ourselves from them.

Are there many analytical techniques we can use off the cushion to examine and deconstruct conditioned thought patterns?

What follows is not exhaustive.

We can label or identify distortions,

And I'll share some of them,

The most common ones,

With you.

From here,

We have choices.

We can simply cut or ignore them.

We can question them,

Demanding specificity or evidence.

Byron Katie asks these questions when cognitive distortions arise.

First,

Is it true?

Then how do I know it's true?

How do I react,

Or what happens when I believe the thought?

And where would I be,

Or how would I feel without this thought?

Another strategy is to identify the needs behind the distortions.

Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication is a very useful framework and facilitates this sort of strategic thinking.

If for example I fail at a project and overgeneralize thinking I'm a failure or catastrophize,

Telling myself I'll never succeed,

I can recognize the feeling behind the words.

Going deeper into the feeling,

I may recognize disappointment.

And behind that feeling is a need,

Maybe to be competent,

To contribute to the well-being of others,

To find purpose or joy or something else.

And once I identify the need,

I may find other ways to satisfy that.

Reattribution is still another strategy.

If a close friend or someone dear to you was berating themselves the way we often berate ourselves,

What would you say to them?

And when we befriend ourselves,

We can direct that same empathy inside.

Semantics can be another strategy for dissecting cognitive distortions,

And the work of Carol Dweck on mindsets can be useful here.

The statements I'm a failure and I haven't succeeded yet are two very different ways of seeing the same setback.

The statement I'm a failure can be characterized as low-performance self-talk.

To say I haven't succeeded yet invites patience and persistence.

I'll never succeed and this approach didn't work,

Let me try another,

Yield different results both in affect and attitude plus outcome.

Quitting versus persisting,

For example.

So language we use to frame our perceptions matters.

The writer Bertrand Russell highlighted this in the example,

I am firm,

You are obstinate,

He's a pig-headed fool.

I am righteously indignant,

You are annoyed,

He's making a fuss over nothing.

I have reconsidered the matter,

You've changed your mind,

He has gone back on his word.

So here are some of the most common distortions.

I will start with those,

Then move on to fallacies and then heuristics and biases.

As far as distortions,

There are quite a few.

One of them is all or nothing thinking,

Sometimes called polarized thinking or black and white thinking.

This distortion manifests as an inability or unwillingness to explore some possibilities.

We see things in terms of extremes.

People are either good or bad,

Something is either fantastic or awful.

You're either with us or against us.

These are some examples of this distorted way of thinking.

And that last one,

You're either with us or against us.

You could be for a particular end in mind,

But object to the means to that end.

Pressed thinking though,

Cuts us off from exploring other possibilities.

Overgeneralization is a second one.

This distortion takes one instance or example and generalizes it.

For example,

If I receive a C on a test and conclude that I'm stupid or failure,

That would be an example of overgeneralizing.

And that can lead to overly negative thoughts about oneself or the environment based on only one or two experiences.

Third one is mental filtering.

It's similar to overgeneralization.

The mental filter distortion focuses on a negative event or experience and excludes the positive.

If,

For example,

I'm in a romantic relationship and dwell on a single negative comment made by my partner and view the relationship as lost while ignoring the years of positive comments and experiences,

This would be an example of how that works.

The mental filter can foster a pessimistic view of everything around you by focusing only on the negative.

Disqualifying the positive is a fourth one.

And that's a distortion which acknowledges positive experiences,

But rejects them instead of accepting them as doing so might challenge the validity of one's emotions.

For example,

A person who receives a positive review at work might reject the idea that they are a competent employee and attribute the positive review to political correctness or to their boss simply not wanting to talk about their employees' performance problems.

This is an especially malignant distortion since it can facilitate the continuation of negative thought patterns even in the face of strong evidence to the contrary.

Researcher Paul Ekman calls this refraction.

When we're under the spell of an emotion,

The mind will look for evidence to justify the continuity of that emotion.

So if I'm angry with you,

I may not acknowledge the muffins you baked for me,

But will hyper focus on the event that triggered my anger.

Fifth one,

Jumping to conclusions or mind reading.

It's the belief that we know what another person is thinking.

Now it's possible to have an idea of what others are thinking,

But this distortion refers to the negative interpretations that we assume.

Having a colleague with an unpleasant expression on their face,

For example,

And assuming that they're upset with us is an example of that distortion.

They may very well be,

Or they may just have been told that they were demoted,

Which has nothing to do with you.

Number six,

Jumping to conclusions or fortune telling.

It's similar to mind reading.

It refers to the tendency to make conclusions and predictions based on little to no evidence and holding them as a truth.

A hypothetical example could be of a young single woman predicting that she will never have a committed or loving relationship based only on the evidence that she hasn't found it yet.

There's simply no way for her to know how her life will turn out,

But she makes a prediction and takes this as fact.

So it's quite possible then that her predictive brain will manifest precisely what she doesn't want.

Seventh distortion is magnification,

Sometimes called catastrophizing or minimization.

Distortion involves exaggerating or minimizing the meaning,

Importance,

Or likelihood of something.

An athlete who's generally a good player but makes mistakes may magnify the importance of those mistakes and believe he's a terrible player.

While an athlete who wins a coveted award in her sport may minimize the importance of the reward and continue to believe she's only mediocre.

An eighth type of distortion is called emotional reasoning.

It's one of the most important to identify and address.

It refers to the acceptance of one's emotions as fact.

It can be described as,

I feel it,

Therefore it must be true.

Just because we feel something doesn't mean it's true,

However.

If I feel anxious around a person of a different race,

Religion,

Class,

Or nationality,

Because of the biases I've held about people of that category,

My apprehension and defensiveness may be unwarranted.

We know it isn't reasonable to take our feelings as fact,

But it's a common distortion nonetheless.

A ninth type of distortion are should statements.

Should statements are statements that you make to yourself about what you should do,

What you ought to do,

What you must do.

They can also be applied to others,

Imposing these beliefs or expectations that will likely not be met.

And when we hang on too tightly to our should statements,

The result is often guilt that we can't live up to them.

When we cling to our should statements about others,

We're generally disappointed by their failure to meet our expectations,

Which leads to anger and resentment.

Interestingly within the brain is a pea-sized structure called the habenula,

Which down regulates the neurotransmitter dopamine,

Sometimes called the pleasure molecule,

Inaccurately I might add.

But when we have an unmet expectation,

The habenula is activated.

At the experiential level,

This feels like disappointment or frustration.

We had an expectation that something should happen,

That someone should behave in a prescribed way,

Or that we should do or not do something.

And when this doesn't come to pass,

The habenula down regulates dopamine.

We don't get enough of that pleasure molecule.

Our reality is not indexed to the ideal we had in mind.

And then we feel that as disappointment,

As frustration.

A tenth distortion is labeling and mislabeling.

These are extreme forms of over-generalization in which we assign judgments of value to ourselves or to others based on one instance or experience.

Personalization is another.

As the name implies,

This distortion involves taking everything personally or assigning blame to yourself without any logical reason to believe you're to blame.

It covers a whole bunch of situations,

From assuming you're the reason a friend didn't enjoy an event to more severe examples of believing you're the cause for someone's moodiness or for someone's irritation.

Control fallacy is another one,

Which manifests as one of two beliefs.

First,

We have no control over our lives and are helpless victims of fate.

Or second,

That we are in complete control of ourselves and our surroundings,

Giving us responsibility for the feelings of those around us.

Both beliefs are harmful,

And both are inaccurate.

No one is in complete control of what happens to them,

And no one has absolutely no control over their situation.

Even in extreme situations,

And I think of the work of Dr.

Viktor Frankl,

Where an individual seemingly has no choice in what they do or where they go,

They still have a certain amount of control over their choices.

Second type of distortion is called a fallacy of fairness.

While we would all prefer to live in a world that's fair,

It's not based on reality,

And can foster negative feelings when we're faced with proof of life's unfairness.

A person who judges every experience by its perceived fairness has fallen for this fallacy,

And will likely feel anger,

Resentment,

And hopelessness when they inevitably encounter a situation that's not fair.

Rhapsody of change,

Another type of distortion,

Involves expecting others to change if we pressure or encourage them enough.

This distortion is usually accompanied by a belief that our happiness and success rests on other people doing what we expect them to do,

Leading us to believe that forcing those around us to change is the way to get what we want.

So a woman in a relationship who thinks if she can encourage her husband to stop doing those things that irritate her,

She'd be happier,

Is exhibiting this fallacy of change.

Always being right is another distortion.

It's the belief that we must always be right.

For those struggling with this distortion,

The idea that we could be wrong is threatening.

So we attack or defend,

Insisting on our authorship of reality.

For example,

On the internet,

Oftentimes people spend hours arguing with one another over an opinion far beyond the point where reasonable individuals would conclude that they should agree to disagree.

In those cases,

They're engaging in this always being right distortion.

To them,

It's not simply a matter of difference of opinion.

It's a battle that must be won at all costs.

Heaven's reward fallacy is another popular distortion.

And it manifests as a belief that one's struggles are suffering.

And one's hard work will result in a just reward.

And it's obvious why this type of distortion can be so attractive.

But sometimes no matter how hard we work or how much we sacrifice,

We won't achieve what we hope to achieve.

To think otherwise is potentially damaging.

And that can result,

Again,

In disappointment,

Frustration,

Even depression when the awaited reward doesn't materialize.

So those are some examples of cognitive distortions.

Next we have logical fallacies.

Logical fallacies can also distort clear thinking.

They can corrupt thought and in extreme cases,

Weaponize language.

Politicians,

Demagogues,

Lawyers,

Marketers,

Manipulators,

And others use these quite masterfully,

Whether knowingly or unknowingly.

When illogical thought patterns infect populations,

We can get xenophobia,

Racism,

Mass hysteria,

And extreme political discord,

Which can lead to violence.

When others see the world differently than we do,

It can serve as an existential threat to our own contact with reality and often leads to anger and suspicion about others,

According to Matthew Lieberman,

Professor at UCLA.

So here's some logical fallacies,

Quite common,

Especially in the political arena.

Ad hominem fallacy.

It replaces logical argumentation with attack language.

The ad hominem is a fallacy of relevance where someone rejects or criticizes another person's view on the basis of personal characteristics,

Background,

Physical appearance,

Or other features irrelevant to the argument at issue.

It's more than an insult.

It's an insult used as if it were an argument or evidence in support of a conclusion.

In politics,

It's called mudslinging.

Suppose,

For example,

And it's a silly example,

But imagine someone wanted to target me for exposing these fallacies.

They started calling me Lying John.

That would be an ad hominem fallacy or attack.

The point of the tactic would be to get the nickname Lying John to stick such that anything I said could then be easily discredited or tainted with suspicion.

Another type of logical fallacy is the straw man argument.

Straw man arguments mischaracterize the opponent's arguments to make them easier to refute.

Stricter gun control legislation can be mischaracterized by advocates on the right as a plot to confiscate all guns.

And a lowering of the corporate tax can be mischaracterized by advocates on the left as a plot to destroy the middle class.

Appeal to ignorance is another type of fallacy which argues that because something cannot be proven to be true,

It must be.

Conspiracy theories are often built on this.

The 2003 war in Iraq was premised on an appeal to ignorance.

The Bush administration argued that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,

Even though independent international auditors found no such evidence.

But it was the absence of evidence which was offered as proof that this devious Hussein did in fact have them.

And they argued that we just hadn't found them yet.

This was the appeal to ignorance.

False dilemma,

False dichotomy is another fallacy.

This line of reasoning limits options or possibilities to two,

Where there may be a range of options.

For example,

You either support this legislation or you're against us.

Now one can have objections to the legislation and still support the platform,

The position or the intent of it.

This is similar to either or polarized thinking.

Slippery slope fallacy works by moving from a seemingly harmless premise or starting point and working through a number of small steps to an improbable extreme.

If for example,

An opposing candidate is elected,

The country will become a sanctuary for criminals and thugs,

Civil strife will erupt,

The economy will implode and the nation will fail.

And we often hear that from politicians.

Circular reasoning is when an argument assumes from a premise already stated,

The president says it's true,

So it must be true because he said it was true.

Or this holy book is the word of God because it says so in this holy book.

Hasty generalizations are general statements without sufficient evidence to support them.

For example,

These two opposing parties never agree.

When the truth is they sometimes do.

In fact,

They may often agree on end goals but disagree on strategy.

Both may want a more prosperous,

Peaceful country,

A more educated citizen,

A more educated citizenry,

Better infrastructure.

Hardly anyone disagrees with these things.

It's just the strategies that are different.

Red herring fallacies are distractions that are introduced to divert a topic.

If a politician is asked a specific question about one policy,

They might launch into something tangentially related without ever answering the question.

Tu kuoke,

Or the U-2 fallacy,

Dismisses an argument by pointing out the opponent's hypocrisy.

If a head of state is presented with evidence of lying,

He can divert blame by pointing out his opponent's lies.

Causal fallacies come in different varieties.

There's the non-causa pro-causa,

Not the cause for a cause fallacy.

For example,

If someone's last name is O'Malley,

He must be Irish.

Another is post hoc ergo prompter hoc,

After this,

Therefore because of this.

This fallacy happens when you mistake something for the cause just because it came first.

Many superstitions are based on post hoc fallacies.

For example,

If I walk under a ladder and I get sick the following day,

I might think that walking under the ladder caused the illness.

The third type of causal fallacy is cum hoc ergo prompter hoc,

Which is Latin for with this,

Therefore because of this.

This fallacy happens when we mistakenly interpret two things found together as being causally related.

This often happens in science and scientific investigations.

Two things may correlate without a causal relation,

Where they may have some third factor causing both of them to occur.

Or perhaps both things just coincidentally happen together.

Correlation doesn't prove causation.

So we have distortions,

Logical fallacies.

Another one is heuristics.

And heuristics are mental shortcuts we use to solve problems and make decisions.

Overall,

They're helpful.

If it's raining outside,

For example,

You grab an umbrella.

Or choosing not to drive after having one too many drinks are some examples of heuristics.

Mental shortcuts that allow us to solve problems and make judgments quickly and efficiently.

Now,

Sometimes they can blindside our judgments and selecting one interpretation,

The gestalt cortex inhibits other solutions,

Other possibilities or perspectives and ways of saying.

One common heuristic is called the availability heuristic.

It involves making decisions based on how easy it is to bring something to mind.

When you're trying to make a decision,

You might quickly remember a number of relevant examples.

Since these are more readily available in your memory,

You'll likely judge these outcomes as being more common or frequently occurring.

If for example,

You fly often and suddenly think of a number of recent airline accidents,

You might feel like air travel is too dangerous and decide to travel by car instead,

Even though statistically it's much safer to travel by plane.

Because those examples though of air disasters come to mind so easily,

The availability heuristic leads you to think that plane crashes are more common than they actually are.

Another heuristic is the representativeness heuristic,

Which involves making a decision by comparing the present situation to the most representative mental prototype.

When you're trying to decide if someone is trustworthy,

You might compare aspects of the individual to other mental examples you hold.

The sweet older woman might remind you of your grandmother.

So you might assume she is kind,

Gentle,

And trustworthy,

Even though she may not be.

The affect heuristic involves making choices that are influenced by the emotions that an individual is experiencing at that moment.

Research has shown that people are more likely to see decisions as having benefits and lower risks when they're in a positive mood.

Negative emotions on the other hand lead people to focus on the potential downsides of a decision rather than the possible benefits.

The anchoring bias involves the tendency to be overly influenced by the first bit of information we hear or learn.

This can make it more difficult to consider other factors and lead to poor choices.

For example,

Anchoring bias can influence how much you're willing to pay for something,

Causing you to jump at the first offer without shopping around for a better deal.

Psychologists have identified hundreds of biases that distort our perceptions.

They go by many names.

Confirmation bias,

The spotlight effect,

The endowment effect,

The misinformation effect.

The University of North Carolina School of Government published this cognitive biases codex and there are hundreds of them grouped by these tendencies of mind.

For example,

To get things done,

We tend to complete things we've invested time and energy in.

That's called the sunk cost fallacy.

In relationships,

For example,

Someone may be hesitant to leave if they've invested an excellent number of years in that relationship or it could be a job or a project.

So they'll stick with it because they've already invested so much time,

Effort,

And energy.

So we have distortions,

Fallacies,

Heuristics.

Our thoughts spring from the assumptions,

Perceptions,

Biases,

And experiences stored in consciousness.

Many form maladaptive schemas that are based on cognitive distortions or fallacies.

Maladaptive schemas refer to negative thought patterns that bias our perceptions and beliefs.

These schemas increase the probability of developing mental health problems or mood disorders like depression or anxiety.

Our unexamined fallacies or biases,

Prejudices,

Assumptions,

And heuristics color our perceptions.

In another talk,

I shared some information on the science of sane.

Photons of light are converted to electrical signals that are sent to the visual cortex.

Information flows from the retina through the thalamus to the visual cortex.

In the visual cortex,

Information gets processed in multiple stages.

However,

It's not just raw data.

90% of the connections coming into the visual cortex carry predictions from neurons and other parts of the cortex.

And this is from a 2017 book by Lisa Feldman Barrett.

Only a fraction of what we see is raw visual output.

The mind is filtering the content and deciding how to respond.

So what we see is filtered with predictions,

Evaluations,

Memory,

Emotion,

And identification that are pulled from other parts of the mind.

In other words,

We co-create what we see.

It's a representation augmented by biases,

Heuristics,

Memes,

And thoughts that go unquestioned,

Unchallenged,

And unexamined.

The brain reacts to feedback between neurons in different parts of the visual system.

Interestingly,

Some neurons may reverse course and send information back to the first stage for processing such that one can see things that aren't there.

And examples abound.

A young anorexic woman peers at her image in a mirror and sees herself as grossly obese.

A policeman testifies that he saw a gun that turned out to be a wallet.

Psychopathological dictator can be seen as a benevolent or dear leader.

And we project virtues onto those we like,

Seeing those we dislike as irredeemably despicable.

So by identifying these common fallacies,

Distortions,

Biases,

Heuristics,

We can look more deeply into our conditioned way of seeing.

With awareness,

We can challenge and change these perceptions.

By changing our perceptions,

We can reframe our experiences.

Thank you for listening.

Wishing you a clear mind.

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