I want to tell a story about a dog suffering from depression first. This is an experiment made by psychologist seligman in 1960s.
Seligman is the former president of the American Psychological Association. Known as the father of positive psychology, he has published many books about China's happiness. However, he became famous in academia for studying how dogs get depression.
How to study?
He drove two groups of dogs to cages A and B and electrified the cages. Cage a and cage b are connected by an iron bar, so the dogs in the two cages receive the same electric shock. The only difference is that cage A has a lever to cut off the power supply, but cage B does not.
Being electrocuted was painful, so the dog ran around in the cage to find a way. The dog in cage A soon learned to press the control lever to cut off the power, while the dog in cage B could do nothing but wait for the dog in cage A to cut off the power.
Then, he put two groups of dogs in cage C. C cage has no lever, but it is very short, and the dog can jump out of the cage in one big leap. When cage C was electrified, the dog in the original cage A quickly learned to jump out of cage C, while the dog in the original cage B lay prone in the cage, whining about being shocked and motionless.
Learned helplessness is an abstraction of harm.
Why is the dog in cage B motionless after being electrocuted? Is it because of the previous electric shock? However, the dogs in cage A and cage B received the same electric shock before. Why does the dog in cage A always want to jump out of the cage?
The answer is that the dog in cage B was not only electrocuted, but also formed the belief that "nothing I can do is useless".
It was not electric shock, but this belief formed under electric shock that made the dog in cage B give up the struggle. Seligman created a famous psychological concept to summarize the performance of dogs in B cage, which is called "learned helplessness".
In fact, people often fall into this kind of learned helplessness. For example:
The pressure of work will make us feel that no matter how hard we try, we can't keep up with the progress of work in learned helplessness, so we just shut down.
Lovelorn will also lead to learned helplessness, and I no longer believe that I can find a good love.
Behind any avoidance behavior and depression, there is learned helplessness's shadow. Behind this learned helplessness, we often think that "nothing can be done", which is the absolute thinking we are going to talk about today.
It's a bit like, every time we encounter something that makes us miserable, we bury a mine in our hearts. This mine is very dangerous. When touched, it will trigger our emotional response.
Therefore, in order to avoid contact with these traumatic events, we abstract the danger, set warning signs in our hearts, and mark the dangerous areas that we should not approach easily.
The greater the pain we have felt, the greater the danger zone we have marked with warning signs. Over time, our own activity space is getting smaller and smaller, and there is no way out gradually.
For example, let's assume that there is a young man named Luo Xiao who just graduated and works in a startup company.
Because this startup company has just started, it has to work overtime late every day, and the boss is very picky about him and has a lot of pressure. After working for half a year, I was scolded by my boss and fired.
It was a traumatic event for him and left a psychological shadow on him. What would he think?
If he is less hurt, he may think: I am not suitable for this company. It is normal that he is afraid to return to this company.
If we expand the scope of defense a little more, Ronaldinho may think: I am not suitable for working in a startup company. In this way, he ruled out all startups.
If his defense is expanded a little, he may think: I am not suitable for working in a company, maybe I should take an examination of public institutions or civil servants.
What if it expands again? He may think: I am not suitable for work, I can't cope with interpersonal relationships and work pressure in the workplace. Then his defense will extend to all jobs, and he may choose not to work at home and become a neet.
From "my company is terrible", to "startups are terrible", to "companies are terrible" and to "work itself is terrible".
The greater the damage caused by being expelled, the more abstract the creed in his heart, the more absolute his way of thinking and the greater the scope of his defense.
or vice versa, Dallas to the auditorium The more absolute he feels about this frustration, the greater his emotional reaction, the more pessimistic and depressed he will be.
Three abstract ways of pessimistic thinking
This absolutization of setbacks is also the essence of pessimistic thinking. Seligman pointed out that pessimistic thinking will deal with setbacks in three directions: permanence, universality and personification.
For example, the company is busy recently and often needs to work overtime. Of course, you are very unhappy. What would you think? You can tell yourself that you are busy with your work recently, or you can tell yourself that this work is never finished.
Pay attention to the difference between these two statements. The former statement is to limit busy work to a certain time range, but recently, it also means that it may be different after a while, which leaves room for change.
What about the latter statement? This work is endless, and the time judgment it gives to this state is permanent. Once a thing is made permanent, there is no hope of change, and naturally it will be pessimistic and depressed.
The eternity of time is also reflected in how we describe ourselves or others.
If you are tired because you often work overtime, then you can either say to yourself "I'm not in good shape, I'm tired" or "I'm useless, I'm finished".
"Tired" is a temporary state, which actually implies a solution. You are tired, so maybe you should have a rest. But if "you are finished" is a permanent judgment, there is no possibility of change.
This permanence will also be reflected in the judgment of others.
In my consulting room, quarrelling couples often like to say "you are always like this, you are always like that".
For example, a wife will accuse her husband that "you always think only of yourself and never go home every day". The husband will respond, "I don't go home every day. I only socialize occasionally for a day or two, and you are always so fussy and unreasonable. "
"Always" is a permanent expression in time. At this time, I will ask them, are there any exceptions? Is there any time when your husband comes home early, or when your wife is considerate of you? If there is, you can't say "always".
Replace "always" with "sometimes". Do you feel that "you always don't go home" and "you sometimes don't go home"? Is the last sentence a lot less interesting?
If someone is unfair to me, it is that the world is unfair to me. Ronaldinho, the example we cited earlier, this startup is not good, and all the work is not good. This is a general example.
Let me give you an example. I had a friend who came to consult me for work. He is engaged in the financial industry and calls many customers every day to recommend their wealth management products.
Of course, these customers' enthusiasm for telemarketing is not very high, some will euphemistically say that they don't need it, and some will simply hang up when they hear that it is a sale. He is a little depressed and thinks he is annoying and will be rejected. He is useless. This is a kind of personalization.
I asked him, "Does the person who received the call know who you are?" He said he didn't know, and some hung up when he heard the word "hello".
I asked, "What about other colleagues?" He said almost.
I said, "since they don't know who you are, and since other colleagues have had similar experiences, why should they target you?" Those people have their own needs and they don't want to be disturbed. This is understandable, but if you say it's all personal and your fault, then you think too much. "
He thought for a moment and said, it seems so. Later, in order to remind himself, he made a card that read: It's not my fault. I won't be so depressed every time my phone call is rejected.
When there is a problem, it is a common psychological reaction to think that "it is all aimed at me and it is all my fault". Maybe you've seen such a movie clip. When the protagonist encounters unlucky things, he will shout at the sky: "God, why are you targeting me?" What did I do wrong! "
This is a kind of personalization. We often have a strange sense of guilt about bad things, and sometimes we think it's our fault when we are the victims. This expands our defense scope, but it makes us fall into unnecessary guilt and self-blame.
Looking back, the biggest problem of absolute thinking is to guard against possible dangers, seal life in a vacuum, so that we dare not contact reality, thus losing the opportunity to heal from reality and life.
Just like a depressed dog, it can jump out of the cage with a light jump, but never dare to try again. If life is a river, absolute thinking makes life a passive water. This is the biggest problem of absolute thinking.
In these lessons, we talked about three kinds of defensive thinking: rigid thinking, should thinking and absolute thinking. These three ways of thinking seem different, but in fact they are closely related.
For example, parents praise a child for being smart, which is an abstract evaluation, which will make the child fall into the trap of self-proof, and the child will try to maintain his image, thus avoiding challenges. This is rigid thinking.
Then children will develop this way of thinking: I should be smart, or no one will like me anymore. Should ... otherwise ... this is what we should think of.
Then, if the child doesn't do well in something, such as failing the exam, he will think: I can't even pass the exam, which proves that I am not smart enough and it is useless to do anything else. This is absolute thinking.
Therefore, rigid thinking, responsive thinking and absolute thinking usually appear at the same time. Their core feature is to prevent us from contacting reality with abstract way of thinking.
Maybe you are curious, what should I do if I have defensive thinking?
Summary of this chapter
1. The essence of absolute thinking is related to people's abstract thinking ability. This kind of abstract thinking ability is good at summing up laws and improving survival rate, but it is also easy to abstract injuries and expand the scope of defense. And absolute thinking is the abstraction of injury.
2. Pessimistic thinking will deal with setbacks from three directions: permanence, universality and personification.
3. The so-called permanence means that in the time dimension, I feel that this situation will always happen; The so-called generalization is from a crow black to the crow black all over the world. From an unreliable man to all unreliable men in the world; The so-called personification means that all the bad things are aimed at me, and it is my fault that will make these bad things happen.
ask
What is absolute thinking? How to understand, is there absolute thinking in your life?
Absolute thinking is to expand the scope of damage. Ronaldinho in the article was under great pressure because he went to work in a startup company. He was often scolded by his boss and finally fired. An optimistic person will say that he is not suitable for working in this company, but if he continues to expand the scope of injury, he will rise to, not suitable for working in an entrepreneurial company, not suitable for working in a company, not suitable for working, gradually expanding the scope of injury and banning himself step by step. Finally, the mood will become more and more depressed, and people will become more and more pessimistic. There are three aspects of pessimistic thinking here: permanence, universality and personification.
In the past, absolute thinking was quite serious, and it was easy to limit yourself. Enlarge a small matter infinitely, and finally lead to timidity. Because one thing is not done well, you will deny it and feel that you can't do anything well.