by Brianna Cheney, M.A.
The Atlantic recently published Coddling the American Mind, which identified several cognitive distortions widespread among American college students and speculated about the negative effects on education. It was argued that “mental filtering” (i.e., selecting a negative detail of a situation and subsequently perceiving the whole situation as negative) is ubiquitous in academia. As an example, the authors cite the increasingly common occurrence of students’ petitioning that certain commencement speaker guests be “disinvited” if the speaker holds a job position or belief that is incongruent with the mainstream values of that campus. Condoleezza Rice is discussed as a powerful example of a disinvited speaker whose positive qualities (such as her potential to be a strong role model to minority and female students) were completely disqualified by critics who evaluated her solely based upon her actions as secretary of state. The authors acknowledged the right of these critics to question Rice’s actions, but simultaneously posed an important question: “Should dislike of part of a person’s record disqualify her altogether from sharing her perspectives?” The authors discuss how this line of thinking and consequential behaviors may lead to deleterious effects in academia, such as increasingly homogenous views on college campuses.
Globally evaluating others is not only a routine practice in academia and politics, as exemplified in Coddling the American Mind, but is also normative behavior in mainstream culture, as can be heard in everyday language. How often do you find yourself or others labeling someone (e.g., “He is such an idiot!” or “She is a selfish person!”)? In RE&CBT, this tendency to globally evaluate and label oneself or others as entirely ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is viewed as irrational and is theorized to be a major cause of unhealthy negative emotions, such as depression and dysfunctional anger. REBT emphasizes the reality that people are complex and, thus, maintains the importance of separating individuals (“the whole”) from their actions (“the parts”). For example, imagine that your boss criticized you in the presence of several coworkers, then consider how you might feel after thinking each of the following thoughts:
1) Global evaluation – “My boss is a terrible person for criticizing me in front of others.”
2) Alternative, flexible thought – “I wish my boss wouldn’t have criticized me in front of others, but it does not make him all bad — he is a person who may make mistakes, but who retains the capacity to act both badly and well.”
Chances are, you might feel more depressed or enraged after reading the global evaluation thought than after reading the alternative thought! REBT argues that global evaluations like Thought #1 are not only irrational but also lead to unhealthy emotion and self- defeating behaviors. REBT would predict you to be more likely to respond to the situation in an effective, assertive manner after acknowledging that your boss isn’t all bad (Thought #2).
So next time you find yourself labeling someone in your life, challenge yourself to generate a more accurate, flexible belief about the person you are judging. You may be pleasantly surprised by how changing your thoughts about others’ actions can change your emotional and behavioral responses to them!
