by Brianna Cheney, M.A.
Each time I sit down to write blog entries, I think to myself that it takes much longer than I expected to write a brief blog. This thought is typically ensued by self-demanding thoughts (I should be able to write more quickly!) and unhealthy negative emotions (UNEs) like self-directed anger and anxiety which serve only to impair my concentration and increase the overall time I spend on the blog.
This scenario is a helpful example of how our evaluations of situations (i.e., what we think about them) affect our emotions. Researchers have found that we tend to base self-evaluations on three types of relative information: how our performance compares to others’ performances, how our present performance compares to our past performances, and how our performance compares to our expectations and ideals (Goolsby & Chaplin, 1988). People tend to vary in the extent to which they are affected by each type of information based on their personalities and values.
There is no right or wrong way to evaluate events in our lives; however, it can be important to pay attention to the standards we use to self-evaluate in order to avoid falling into the trap of irrational thinking. Comparing ourselves to others can be rational and helpful in some situations (e.g., realizing that you studied less than most of your classmates may motivate you to study more) but can lead to unhelpful and irrational thoughts in others. For example, my fellow doctoral students and I frequently catch ourselves panicking after hearing that someone has completed papers or projects before we have done so, even if the deadline for the given project is months away. We make the evaluation that –because a peer has done more than we have– we therefore should have already completed it, which leads to unnecessary anxiety! Furthermore, evaluating how we are doing relative to others or relative to how we expected to do can pave the path to the types of global self-evaluations which, according to RE&CBT, lead to UNEs like anxiety and depression.
So, which types of evaluative information are most important to you? Becoming aware of how you are evaluating yourself and of whether these comparisons are helpful or harmful may help you to reduce irrational thinking and the UNEs that follow!
Reference:
Goolsby, L. L., & Chaplin, W. F. (1988). The impact of normative, ipsative, and idiothetic information on feelings about academic performance. Journal of Research in Personality, 22(4), 445-464.
