Introduction to Cognitive Bias: Crash Course

Your brain is lying to you all of the time. And psychology and neurology prove it. Every thought that you have is filtered, distorted, and shaped by your past experiences. So it's not objective reality that you're living in. It's a distortion through your perception. The problem is you don't feel like it's a distortion. You think that it's true, you think that it's logical, you think that it's justified. But what if the anxiety that you feel, the insecurity that you replay, the assumptions that you make about other people are all just mental glitches that your brain has normalized? Well, that's what we're going to be talking about today is I'm going to go into the cognitive distortions that may be running your life without you even knowing it. And so I'm going to go through the six most common cognitive distortions that exist. Now, we've all heard that perception is reality, right? The fact is, that's not true at all. Your perception is what you think is reality. Your perception is not absolute reality. In fact, your perception is usually not reality at all. Your brain filters and distorts everything that comes into your brain through your five senses. And then it filters everything through your conditioning after that, and the millions of experiences that you've had in your entire life. Every single thing that comes in through your five senses is filtered through those conditionings of your entire childhood, your adolescence, your adulthood. And so, like I said in psychology, these are called cognitive distortions, and they are actual, real distortions. Cognitive distortions are biased ways of thinking that reinforce your beliefs about yourself, about the world, about other people, and reinforce your most common emotions that you're used to feeling. And so understanding your cognitive distortions is probably, if not the most critical, one of the most critical steps in improving your life, in improving your mental health, in creating better self awareness. You cannot improve your life if you don't improve your perception. And so when you look at cognitive distortions, they are irrational, biased thoughts that perpetuate negative thinking patterns. In most cases, they're basically errors in your thinking that can distort your perception of reality. And they're automatic, they're unconscious, you don't even notice them. And they are deeply ingrained into who you are. And they usually happen without you even being aware of it. And they go unnoticed unless you pay more attention to them. And so what you have to do as I go through these six today is learn to question the validity of your thoughts. Okay, so let me go through the six most Common. And what I want you to do is I want you to start to self identify and say, is that something that I do? Is that something that my spouse does, my wife does, my husband does, my brother, sister, mother? And start just thinking about yourself and the world around you. Okay? And we will be right back. Hey, I want to interrupt today's episode to tell you about my sponsor. It is me, myself, if you didn't know. I obviously have some coaching programs outside of the podcast to help you learn and grow and become a better version of yourself. Step by step programs and processes to help you become better in your life and create the life that you want. If you want to learn more about it, you can go to coachwithrob.com once again, coachwithrob.com, check it out and let's get back to the episode. So the first one that's very common is something that's called all or nothing thinking. It's also known as black or white thinking. And this distortion involves seeing things in absolute terms. So it's either everything or it's nothing. So an example would be something like, if I'm not perfect, then I'm a total failure. Or if I don't get an A on on this test, then I must be stupid. Or if you miss a deadline at work, you think, I'm never going to get a promotion. If you're in fitness and you're trying to lose weight and you mess up and eat badly one time over the course of one day, right? You think, I'm never going to hit my fitness goals. And so it's like one little tiny thing and you distort everything and say, oh, well, because of this one event, my, my entire life is screwed up. Or because this one person cheated on me, everybody's going to cheat on me and I'll never find love, right? So that is what's called all or nothing thinking. Number two is called overgeneralization. Now, it involves a broad conclusion based off of a single event. Now, just so you have an idea, this one is very, very similar to all or nothing thinking. So they kind of sound the same, but you'll notice the difference between the two of them. Okay, so for instance, it would be, I failed this test, so I'm going to fail all of my tests. So it's like this thing happened now it's going to happen over the course of everything. I felt awkward at this party, so I'm always awkward in social situations. Or I failed this exam, so I'm going to fail all of my exams. And so that's the second one. The third one is called negative mental filter. This is also called negativity bias. Like how I would say pretty much every person has a bit of this that lives inside of them. I've done entire episodes just specifically on negativity bias before. So this distortion involves focusing solely on the negative aspects of a situation and ignoring all of the positive aspects of a situation. And so an example would be something like, I made a mistake in my presentation. So the whole presentation was a disaster, right? Like, you could have had people say that you did a great job, but because of that one mistake, you think you screwed everything up. Or, you know, you get a work review and it says, you did a great job of this. You did a great job at this. You did a great job at this. This thing needs improvement. You did a great job at this. And all of your focus goes to the one thing that needs improvement, and you just don't pay attention to anything. That said, you did a great job. Right? Or I've done this before. I've literally done this before where you post something online and you get a bunch of positive comments and maybe one negative comment, and you're focusing on that. I remember probably about eight years ago, I posted something and I had so many positive comments, and I had one negative comment. And I remember about two hours later, I was thinking about that one negative comment, and I was like, this is crazy. Like, there was like 999 positive comments and one negative comment, and my brain just forgot about 999 positive ones and went, well, what's this one negative one? Right? So that's like the negativity bias. It could also be like, you have a great time at a party and you say one weird thing, right? We've all done it before. And you go home and you dwell on that one negative thing, that one thing where you're like, oh, my God, they must think that I'm so awkward after that. Okay, so that's the third one. So the fourth one is called discounting the positive. And this one involves dismissing all of your positive experiences by basically insisting that they don't count. And so, for example, like, you would say something like, oh, I only did well on that assignment because it was easy, and I'm sure everybody did well on it. Or you do a presentation on work, and everybody's like, you did such a great job. You did such a great job. And you're like, well, they only said that I did a great job because they felt Bad for me, or because they felt like they needed to. Or you get a compliment and you're like, oh, they're just being nice. They don't actually think that I look good, Right? And so it's like, it's taking a positive thing and being like, nah, that doesn't count. No, it doesn't count at all. Like, if you're a type of person who has trouble taking compliments from other people, discounting the positive could be a cognitive distortion of yours. That's the fourth one. The fifth one that's very common is something called labeling. It involves attaching a negative label to yourself and based off of a behavior. And so you take your behavior, something that you did, and make it your identity, which is who you actually are. And so you label yourself. And so, like, you might mess something up, which is a behavior, and then you make it your identity. And you say, I'm such an idiot. Or you fail a math test, and then you say, I'm terrible at math. Or you screw up at work and you say, I'm terrible at my job. You know, you. You have the whole thing happen at a party. You're questioning yourself after the party, and then you're like, I'm so awkward. Or you lose your temper with your children one time, and you say, I'm a terrible mother, right? Or you sleep in one time. You say, I'm just lazy. So you're taking a behavior in making it your identity. And that is basically what labeling is. And then the last one I want to cover with you before we go deeper into how to work through these is something called catastrophizing. This is a cognitive distortion where a person expects the worst possible outcome in any situation. And so you basically imagine the absolute worst that can happen, and it leads to increased anxiety, stress, helplessness. And, you know, if you've had somebody very fearful in your life, like, if your parents are very fearful, they're probably like this as well. Like, you know, oh, if you look at, like, job performance, for instance, right? Maybe make a small mistake at work. Catastrophizing thought would be like, I messed up this project. I'm gonna get fired, right? It's like, no, it's just a small mistake. You're not gonna get fired. That would be catastrophizing. Maybe you will go back to saying something awkward at a party again, right? And you're like, oh, you say something awkward, a party. Or you think it might have been perceived as awkward. And so it's like, everyone now thinks that I'M an idiot. You know, they're never gonna wanna talk to me again. It's like, where did that come from? It's too much. It's like so, so far fetched if you think about it, or in like a relationship. Like your partner doesn't reply to your text message for a few hours and you're like, they must be angry, then they want to break up with me. That's catastrophizing. So when you look at cognitive distortions, why do we have them? Like, why do these exist in the first place? It comes down to something in psychology that's called secondary gains. It's actually doing something for us, even if we don't know what it is, it's doing something. Usually what it's doing is protecting us. It is a defense mechanism in some sort of way. And so in most cases, it's usually protecting you most the time. And so, you know, most of the time what it's, what it's doing is it's keeping you inside of your comfort zone so that you feel safe. So the secondary gain is feeling safe. You know, it makes us not get into another relationship because of, you know, being cheated on the past or being heartbroken. So it makes you not get into another relationship so that you don't get hurt again. So the secondary gain is not being hurt again. There's always some sort of secondary gain, which is what you have to understand. The problem with this though is that in the long run it means that you're not going to have the life that you want. It'll make you feel safe in the short run, or it'll make you feel right in the short run or whatever it might be in the short run. But in the long run it's going to make your life miserable. Like you're going to miss out on a lot of opportunities. You're going to hold yourself back and speak negatively to yourself and think small of yourself. It will keep you in your comfort zone if you don't recognize it and question it and work against it. So, you know, in the short run it's a defense mechanism. In the long run, you know, if you're not paying attention, these things become part of your identity and it can throw your entire life off course. And so short term avoidance turns into long term suffering. And that's usually what a cognitive distortion does is it makes you avoid something in the short term for the secondary gain of protection, but that turns into long term suffering. Okay, and so let's talk about the step by step process of how to get past your cognitive distortions once you identify them, the first thing you need to do is you need to become aware of your thinking. Like the amount of people in this world who think they think clearly but don't is like 99% of people, like we everybody listening to this podcast, we think, we think clearly and logically and based off of fact, but we don't at all. Like most people do not think clearly. And so you need to become aware of your thinking. You need to write your thoughts down, down on piece of paper and get clear on what you're actually thinking. That's the first thing. And then ask yourself what short term benefit of thinking this thought exists. Like find the short term benefit, find the secondary gain for you. Is it defending you from something? Is it protecting you from something? Remember that short term safety always turns into long term suffering, right? So ask yourself, what are the long term consequences of me believing this? And then the third thing that you want to do is now that you have it on paper and you're starting to look at it clearly, challenge it, right? This is super important, is to start challenging your distorted thinking. Is ask yourself, like, is this absolutely true? Not like true to me, but is this written into the fabric of the universe? Is this objectively true? Like, would a friend say this? Like, would they agree with me 100% on this? Or would they have a different perspective? Would they believe the same thing? Or would they think something different? Right? You try to start challenging it so that you can change your perspective. If you can see a different perspective than the one that you've been stuck in, you can start to free yourself. And then what you want to do is to practice something that's called opposite thinking. Now that I've become clear of what I've been thinking, what's going on in my head, I want to ask myself this question. What's the exact opposite of what I'm thinking? Like, the exact opposite. And how would my life be different if I believe this instead? And you challenge those thoughts and you find the exact opposite and you say something like, okay, well you know, if we go back to the one of like, they're just being nice, I screwed up the presentation completely. Okay, what if I actually crushed it and I did really good on this presentation? What becomes possible at that point in time? What if I really actually did do well in the presentation? So now I'm seeing like a completely different perspective than what I've been stuck in my entire life. I say it's so much on the podcast But I really don't think people understand it. You need to challenge your thoughts as often as you possibly can. If you want to free your mind, if you want to free yourself from your beliefs, from your conditionings, from your past, and rewire yourself, you need to rewire your thoughts by challenging them. And then what you do is number five. If a belief is, is not written in the fabric of the universe, if it's not objectively true, then what if I just started thinking something different? What if I just decided to believe something different? Because all too often your beliefs come from someone else. Like your, your beliefs, like 95% of your beliefs probably are your parents beliefs. So you've just, you're just getting other people's beliefs just built into you from childhood. Why don't you just decide what you want to believe from now on? What if you just decide who you want to be from now on? What if you replace the thought with the thought you prefer, which is the fifth step. Like, I have a really good friend, a couple really good friends actually, whose mothers are very, very fearful, definitely catastrophizers. And when you go up and you find about, about their mothers, it's like multiple generations of very, very fearful people. And then you look at my friends, a couple of them I'm thinking of, and they're very fearful people. And it's like, okay, well if your grandmother catastrophizes and your mother catastrophizes and now you're full of fear, you can live that way the rest of your life if you want to. That's full your prerogative. If you want to just put yourself into misery by constantly being negative and fearful and scared of the world. Do it, go for it, see how it works for you. Or you can say, you know what, that's their thoughts. I'm going to replace the thought with the one that I would prefer. I don't want to think that the world is evil. I don't want to think that this happened. I want to think that and you just become an adult. And part of becoming an adult, like actually not turning 18, but I mean like being an adult mentally is deciding what you want to think and what you want to believe and actually starting to root that into who you are. Otherwise you're just gonna be copy and pasted from your mother and your father. Make sense? And so what you wanna do is start to replace your thoughts that you don't want with the thoughts that you prefer. And if you do that, you'll start to notice your cognitive distortions more often. You'll get to work through them and then you'll actually get to rewire yourself and become the person that you want to become, not to be. Person that you have learned to be through other people and through the rest of society. Hey, thanks so much for watching this video. Based off of what you have been watching recently, YouTube thinks out everything I've ever created that this is the best video for you. 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