Selective Abstraction: Maximizing The Negative And Minimizing The Positive
Selective abstraction is a distortion of thinking that causes you to think that the negative is more important and more present in situations than the positive. It is not something that you have decided, it has just become an automatic form of dealing with reality. It is very likely that you adopted this way of thinking by “educational heritage” and that you did not think of questioning it.
When you’ve lived in environments where you highlight the negative in each person or situation, you get used to thinking that this type of analysis is the one you should follow. In addition, this perspective is gradually fixed in your brain and it is for this reason that you fail to detect the flaws that exist in your reasoning.
You may even have incorporated some justifications for thinking this way. You might think that by focusing on the negative, you won’t be as likely to be disappointed or frustrated by failing to achieve a goal, or by discovering other people’s mistakes and shortcomings. You may also think that seeing the negative is a more analytical and critical attitude, because one should not touch what is good and, on the contrary, improve all that is bad.
Selective abstraction in everyday life
People who maintain this distortion in thinking are frequently angry. It is normal to see them with a whole catalog of what they cannot stand or what unworthy them. They don’t tolerate lack of punctuality, let alone lying, conformist people tire them out, and stuff like that. They feel both outraged and attacked by the mistakes of others. This, moreover, can be a way of thinking that they are proud of.
Selective abstraction does not relate only to the external world but also and especially to oneself. And the end result is seen in people who are said to be “making movies”. In other words, they are the ones who are used to seeing the outcome of any situation as something terrible or, in any case, negative for them.
This can be an example: the boyfriend takes a long time to arrive at the date with the young woman / young man. He begins to despair and imagines that this is a way for him / her to tell him that he is not so interested in this relationship anymore.
He ends up thinking that he is a disrespectful, selfish man / woman and, moreover, that they don’t like him, as he has repeated to himself so many times in his head. When the boyfriend arrives, he throws precisely all these accusations at him, without taking into account that the delay was due to a car accident, something which is totally beyond the control of the little one. friend but that they had to endure.
Another example, applied at work, is that of a person who carefully prepared a presentation and, as she hopes, it is successful for her. However, one of the assistants makes a criticism about a minor aspect of the presentation. In this way, our presenter eliminates the feeling of triumph and, in his memory, only this criticism remains, which will be repeated internally several times over the following days.
This person comes out thinking that the others also had objections, but that the only one who expressed them out loud was the one who formulated the criticism. She comes to think that all her efforts were made in vain, because the presentation did not meet her expectations, that at all times they were conditioned by respecting the expectations of others.
Fight against selective abstraction
Keeping the mind in the grip of selective abstraction inevitably leads to states of frustration and anger. It is neither something that enriches our life in any way, nor a type of thought that needs to be cultivated. On the contrary: the best is to eradicate this automatism from our mind, to lead a healthier life. But how do you get there?
As with all mechanical behavior, the first thing to do is realize that we have fallen into it. It’s a good thing to ask yourself the following question: How much value am I placing the negative in people or in situations? Do I think the negative deserves more consideration than the positive?
Once we recognize the existence of this selective abstraction in our thinking, the next step is to carry out a process of self-observation to detect if it occurs with everything and all or if it is activated only under specific circumstances. This attitude of self-monitoring will allow us to realize the cause of the distortion. We will probably find that this mechanism is triggered in situations that make us insecure.
When that moment comes when we think, “Hey, you just see the wrong side,” we’ll be ready for the next step. Why not try to see the bright side, the positive ?
Try to turn it into a permanent exercise, almost another automatism: to every negative judgment you make of something or someone, respond by providing a positive judgment. “I found this flaw, now I have to find a quality”. You will then be on the right path to overcome the terrible weight of thought with selective abstraction.
