Perception vs. Reality

One of the greatest roadblocks to clear, rational thinking is faulty perception. We often make the assumption that our perception of events is the same as what is actually happening, when, in reality, humans tend to filter out as much information as they take in. Or, as one writer put it, “It’s not so much that we believe what we see, but that we see what we already believe. Consider the following sequence: A. An event occurs. B. Based on all of our life experiences we attach certain thoughts to the event. C. Based on those thoughts, a feeling or mood ensues. D. Based on the feeling or mood, we respond to the event. Though many believe that the feeling and response are a direct result of the event, they are actually the result of the perception of the event.
For example: A. Bob’s daughter is on the basketball team, but doesn’t get to play much. B. His daughter works hard and never complains, but he believes this is yet another injustice in his life and his daughter is not getting a fair shake. C. Bob becomes incensed. D. He angrily confronts the coach, embarrassing his daughter. Another person’s sequence might be: A. John’s daughter is on the basketball team, but doesn’t get to play much. B. His daughter works hard and never complains.
John believes that the coach wants to win and most likely plays the girls that will help him reach that goal. C. John feels proud of his daughter’s commitment to the team. D. John offers to help his daughter improve her basketball skills. Clearly the event is the same in both cases. The critical factor is the perception, Bob’s belief in rampant unfairness and John’s belief general fairness, not the event itself. In the book, “Mind Over Mood: Change How You Feel by Changing the Way You Think,” authors Dennis Greenberger, Ph.D. and Christine Padesky, Ph.D. note that “Once a mood is present, it is accompanied by additional thoughts that support and strengthen the mood. Angry people think about ways they have been hurt, depressed people think about how unfortunate life has become, and anxious people see danger everywhere. This does not mean that our thinking is wrong when we experience an intense mood, but we are more likely to distort, discount or disregard information that contradicts our moods and beliefs.” Cognitive restructuring, or changing the way we think, is not the same as positive thinking; positive thinking requires you to put a positive spin on negative events, while cognitive restructuring simply asks you to put no spin at all on events, to embrace the facts. It requires only that we recognize and correct our faulty thinking. Drs. Greenberger and Padesky suggest keeping a “thought record,” with seven columns in the following order from left to right: Column 1. Situation. Describe the distressing event, including the who, what, when and where. Column 2. Rate moods. What did you feel? On a scale of 0 to 100 percent, how strong was that emotion? Column 3. Automatic thoughts. What thoughts were going through your mind before you started to feel this way? Identify the “hot” thought, the thought that contributed the most to the emotion. Column 4. Evidence supporting the hot thought. What actual evidence do you have that supports the hot thought? Column 5. Evidence that does not support the hot thought. Have you had any experiences that show this thought to not be completely true all of the time? Are you jumping to any conclusions that are not justified by the evidence? Column 6. Alternative, balanced thoughts. Is there an alternative way of thinking about or understanding this situation? Taking both the evidence that does support the hot thought and the evidence that does not support it, create a new more balanced thought about the situation. Column 7. Re-rate moods. Re-rate the intensity of the moods in column 2, as well as any new mood. The more thought records a person completes, the easier it will be to think more flexibly about situations without automatically discarding the evidence. A great deal of the battle is being able to acknowledge that there is often a gap between our perceptions and reality, and it takes practice to narrow that gap.