In a video posted on Instagram, renowned clinical psychologist Dr. Julie Smith demonstrates one of our cognitive biases: this unfortunate tendency we must generalize the negative.
Good weather, a successful project at work, lunch with friends… It’s one of those days where everything goes great. Everything except for a little tantrum at the end of the afternoon. Despite all the positive things around us, our perception of the day is getting darker and darker. “One event can suddenly seem to represent both your past and your future,” describes Julie Smith, star clinical psychologist and international bestselling author. Why didn’t anyone tell me about this before? (1). This is what he calls the “domino mentality.” He details about it in the video published on Instagram on March 14.
Spirit of Domino
Every day, the successes and positive events that we experience during the day pile up in our brain like dominoes until they build a tower, depicts the clinical psychologist, filming himself behind a pile of colored rectangles. Being on time for a meeting or remembering a friend’s birthday… These small details help to swell the feeling of satisfaction and joy. Then a simple thing goes wrong, and our internal dialogue takes a completely different course: “everything is going wrong with me”, “I don’t know why I am getting into such trouble”… “In our mind this: This is what is happening. the whole tower of dominoes is collapsing, the psychologist declares, dropping the stack in front of him. You instantly erase everything positive from the day.”
” data-script=”https://static.lefigaro.fr/widget-video/short-ttl/video/index.js” >
If a psychologist calls this mechanism the “domino mind”, then in psychology it has another name: “overgeneralization”. Dr Julie Smith explains: “It’s about taking one event and using it to judge past events or predict the future. We then draw conclusions that are not necessarily justified by the event that just happened.
Cognitive bias
This mechanism of the brain can cause a number of sufferings, warns the specialist. “Have you noticed the sense of defeat, hopelessness and temptation to give up that this brings you?” he asks his 1.9 million subscribers.
While it’s impossible to prevent this cognitive bias from occurring, we can at least remove its power by “simply noticing these thoughts and labeling them as biased,” concludes the clinical psychologist.
(1) Why didn’t anyone tell me about this before? by Dr. Julie Smith, Leduc Publications, 352 pages, €19.90.
Source: Le Figaro
