Tag: cognitive distortion

  • What Has Changed my Political Beliefs

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    I think it’s safe to say that political beliefs are one of the most sticky types of beliefs we commonly hold. By some measures partisan polarization is at record highs for the modern era (though these figures are also debated). Politics are also beliefs that provoke some of the strongest arguments between differing viewpoints, and…

  • Hypothetical Apostasy on Nutrition

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    As many of you know, I am a major proponent of paleo/primal/ancestral/etc type diets. At this point the term “paleo” has come to be applied to many very different diets, but for the record my own personal beliefs coincide most strongly with the Perfect Health Diet. Whatever you want to call it, it is certainly…

  • Motivated Forgetting

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    One of the creepier phenomena I’ve encountered as a human is motivated forgetting. And one of the more powerful moments of my life was the first time I noticed myself doing it. I was with my boyfriend at the time. I can’t remember whether we were having an argument in the moment or I was…

  • How I Think Pathological Guilt Works

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    “If I do something wrong, I have to feel bad about it forever.” I used to believe that, and that belief has been on my mind because I really don’t believe it anymore, and I was just talking to someone who expressed pretty much that exact belief.

  • Heuristics for Spotting Distorted Thinking: “It Would Be One Thing If… But…”

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    I have a whole bunch of heuristics I use to notice distorted thinking. I’ve covered some of them here. Today, I wanted to highlight the speech pattern “It would be one thing if X, but Y,” typically used to describe why someone’s behavior is objectionable. The language can vary a little: “I know that she…