Step Work

Page 67: Mistakes

I have faulty thinking. I write about this when answering the question about ‘mistakes’. The following may help

Belief in fortune-telling

Believing one can read the future.

Belief in mind-reading

Believing one can intuit or work out what someone else is thinking.

Belief in signs

Belief that the universe provides signs to enable decision-making, e.g. seeing a poster for holidays in Thailand and believing this is a sign that God wants you to move to Thailand.

Catastrophising (overreaction)

Exaggerating risk or other negative circumstances.

Emotional reasoning

Assuming that emotions are a faithful guide to objective reality.

False interpretation

Interpreting situations in a distorted way or based on insufficient data

Fallacy of fairness

Believing that everything should be fair at all times, namely that one’s own ideas and preferences should prevail at all times.

False generalisation

Generalising based on insufficient evidence.

Filtering out counter-evidence

Filtering out any evidence opposing one’s view to leave only evidence in support of one’s view.

Filtering out the positive

Filtering out any positive events to leave only a negative evaluation.

Inappropriate blame

Holding others entirely responsible when one has had a part to play in a situation, either practically or in terms of one’s emotional reaction.

Mislabelling

Inferring the presence of a steady trait in someone’s character based on an individual action instead of evaluating the person as a whole.

Moralisation

Establishing and attempting to enforce a set of arbitrary rules of a moral nature regardless of situational factors. (A form of rule-based thinking.)

One-track thinking

Obsessive focus on a single idea, train of thought, or area of subject matter to the exclusion of others.

Personalization

Believing one has a greater impact on others or is more of a causal factor in others’ behavior or external events than is the case.

Presumption of rightness

Starting from the premise that one is right then looking for evidence to justify it rather than examining the evidence to see if one is right.

Rule-based thinking

Establishing and attempting to enforce a set of arbitrary rules regardless of situational factors.

Splitting

All-or-nothing, black-or-white, always-or-never thinking.