Black and white thinking is sometimes called absolutist or dichotomous thinking. In this type of thinking, something is right or wrong, all right or all wrong. If you are not a complete success, then you are a complete failure. There is no middle ground, regardless of the situation or context. It is as if there was only hot water or cold water, without degrees of warm water. There are times when this kind of thinking is useful, even important. For example, for children who live in a house near busy streets, not playing in the street is an absolute rule. There is no middle ground there, there are no exceptions. Another example of when black and white or dichotomous thinking can be positive is in time management. For example, if you set a time limit in which you must complete a project, then it doesn’t serve that bottom line to introduce shades of gray or excuses. When the time limit arrives, the project is finished or not. Yet another example may be in terms of personal behaviors. We can take the attitude that there is absolutely no excuse for domestic violence. Domestic violence is never tolerated, never accepted. That is absolute; there are no shades of gray.
However, for the most part, black and white thinking is problematic, and there are far more cons than pros. The following list addresses some of the major drawbacks of absolutist, dichotomous, and black-and-white thinking:
- Limitation of options. When you only have two options, good or bad, right or wrong, success or failure, etc., your freedom and responsiveness are significantly limited. It would be as if we only see the sky as one shade of blue, when in fact, if we look up from the horizon, we see many shades of blue. That perception of numerous shades of blue gives rise to different words to categorize those shades of blue. Similarly, if we have begun to recognize various shades of gray between black and white, or degrees of success and/or failure, we have more options, are able to respond with a broader range of behaviors, and are likely to feel less depressed, anxious, or frustrated.
- Depression and anxiety. In black and white thinking, if you’re not the smartest person in class or at work, then you’re the stupidest. That, of course, is not logical or rational, but neither is black and white thinking. However, such thinking is commonplace and gives rise to depression and anxiety on a regular basis. The use of the words ‘always’ and ‘never’ are also part of this paradigm of absolutist thought. If we tell ourselves that we will ‘always’ fail or ‘never’ succeed, we will not only limit our chances for success, but we will also fail to recognize that success can be measured in many different ways and within many different contexts. Because we tend to become complacent when we are successful, it is sometimes said that ‘nothing fails like success’.
- Anger. It is very easy to get frustrated and angry when we don’t get what we want or expect. In black and white thinking, we usually want something totally, completely, and act like we don’t get it if we only partially get it. For example, if a student wants an A on a test but only gets a B, that can be seen as total failure and lead to intense anger or depression. If, in a marriage, one partner believes that the other should behave in a certain way, and in fact does most of the time, when they don’t, that indicates complete contempt and disrespect, which can lead to a lot of anger or depression.
So what is the solution to this problem of black and white thinking? There are two methods that can be helpful in reducing this type of dichotomous thinking.
- Know the context. What is often right, good, or successful in one context may not be so in another. For example, it is clearly ‘bad’ to kill. But is it wrong to kill in self defense? If someone treats you badly, does it mean that he is going to be like this to you all the time or could it be that he just had a bad day?
- Use a Likert scale. A Likert scale is a way of measuring something, with 1 being the lowest value and 10 being the highest value. So, if you didn’t perform at your best on a given day, instead of saying you failed or you were wrong or unsuccessful, rate your performance on a scale. Maybe it wasn’t a 10 or 9, but it wasn’t a 1 or 2 either. Maybe it was a 6 or 7. Using a Likert scale can be used in many situations. If someone asks how you are today, instead of saying ‘fine’, which doesn’t really say anything, say ‘on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is ecstatically happy and 1 is terribly depressed, I’m at a 7 (or wherever you rate yourself).
Using these two approaches, Context and the Likert Scale, can help minimize the kind of black-and-white thinking that leads to limitations, depression, anxiety, and anger. It will help expand your awareness out of a restrictive dichotomy and into the rich, multidimensional shades of gray that our consciousness contains.