How to Improve Cognitive Ability: Overgeneralization and Concrete Thinking

The common irrational beliefs in cognition mainly include absoluteness, extremely bad and excessive generalization. Conversely, once these three kinds of common unreasonable cognition are deeply understood, they will become effective ways to improve cognitive ability.

As I said before, absolutization is a reflection of a single causal relationship and the causal law of past experience. We stubbornly pursue the law of causality and forget the relevance. You know, in the psychological world, relevance is king.

What is terrible is the reflection of extremely disastrous imagination and the reflection of the purpose of future life. Set too high a goal while forgetting the bottom line thinking, and know that the bottom line security of the psychological world is king.

In the same way, let's take a look at the common unreasonable concept of over-generalization. Popular discourse is characterized by generalization as a whole.

Compared with single causal thinking and extreme purpose thinking, the concept of generalization is over-generalized thinking. It is king to pursue the simplicity of people and things at present and forget the specific thinking, knowing that concretization is in the psychological world.

Our psychological phenomenon is manifested in the transformation of external physical stimuli into mental information of the brain, which finally reaches the level of thinking through feeling, perception and memory. Thinking is characterized by indirectness and generality, and one can express one's thoughts with the help of language forms, but the consequences of over-generalization are also very serious, that is, it is efficient but not specific, which may easily lead to irrationality or even mistakes.

The purpose of generalized thinking is to improve communication efficiency and express one's intention concisely, but in view of special circumstances such as psychological confusion, it must be restored to specific situations, and the more details, the better.

Therefore, concrete thinking is an indispensable key when facing problems.

For example, a child says that he can't remember anything, showing amnesia, but after simple and concrete communication, his memory is no problem.

Asked if he could remember what he did yesterday, he habitually shook his head and asked if he didn't know, then asked if he had gone out and who he met, and replied that he had helped his family go downstairs to get pure water. Then he asked how the process went, saying that he went out with an empty bucket, took the elevator to the first floor, drew water from the left tap, carried it into the elevator and carried it home.

I remember this process very carefully. It is ok to ask questions and interact with people.

Finally presented to each other, not only can remember, but also remember more carefully. This proves with examples that the other person's over-generalization of ideas is unreasonable, and you can write down the important things in your life.

Any confusion in the heart can only be presented in concrete expression and the root of the problem can be found. The so-called "get to the bottom of the casserole" is concrete and operable, and so is Socrates' midwifery.

Self-centered thinking and people who are not pleasing to the eye are often manifestations of over-generalization of thinking.

For example, we teach children to study hard and make progress every day, because it is too general, which is useless for specific children. The correct nonsense, especially when children encounter learning difficulties, must be invalid.

For another example, when we are dissatisfied with others, when we can't let go of one of our own problems, we think that this person is not good, we feel inferior, anxious and depressed, and so on. , including evaluation and judgment, many of them are over-generalized.

For another example, it is said that filial piety is the first of all virtues, and everyone will say so. But just ask a few specific questions, such as what the elderly like, what they care about, what they lack, what attitude they have when they are sick, what they have done and what they have done.

Sociology has barrel theory and Jin Gangzuan theory. The barrel theory thinks that we should improve the shortcomings and ensure the maximum capacity of the barrel, but Jin Gangzuan's theory is more effective, that is, give full play to our own advantages, foster strengths and avoid weaknesses, and obtain the best results by comparative advantages. This is actually the concretization of personal interests, not the generalization of barrel theory, which seems to pursue all-round development, but it is ineffective.

As the need to ensure normal life, causal thinking, purposeful thinking and generalized thinking are essential, but it is easy to form an inertial thinking mode. Therefore, we should be alert to these three kinds of thinking: absolute causal thinking, terrible extreme purpose and excessive generalization, and accept relevant thinking, bottom line thinking and specific thinking, so that life can be better.