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Glflegolas
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01 Aug 2019, 6:16 pm

I'm not 100% convinced that this is a symptom of anything other than some sort of mental disorder that might be accompanying Asperger's rather than a feature of the condition itself.

While I am not an expert on this topic, I have heard that a common goal of CBT is to try to get this type of thinking under control, as it tends to be a major contributing factor to anxiety/depression.

I for one don't experience this to any significant degree.


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Mona Pereth
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01 Aug 2019, 6:41 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
Joe90 wrote:
Yes, I'm not 100% clear on what black-and-white thinking is either. I'd like to see some examples on what sort of things an autistic may typically think in black-and-white about versus what an NT may typically think in black-and-white about.


It aint rocket science.

Its "black and white thinking" as opposed to "shades of gray thinking".

BW is "all or nothing" as someone above aptly put it. As opposed to seeing nuances and gradations.

The basic meaning of "black-and-white thinking," as you've summarized it above, is not what's in question in this thread. What's in question is, as you put it:

naturalplastic wrote:
I don't know how much the dichotomies correlate with NT vs AS though.

That's the interesting question. I think the answer may vary with the specific type of dichotomy, as detailed in my posts on the previous page.

You also mentioned one specific dichotomy:

naturalplastic wrote:
"Everyone who doesn't like me, must hate me". As opposed "folks may not think or feel about me at all, and if they do only a few are beyond neutral about me good or bad".

This seems to me like an anxiety-based dichotomy.


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01 Aug 2019, 6:59 pm

Black and white thinking... It maybe a form to protect oneself if one is a naturally over emotional person?
I tend to be either switched on or switched off to a subject. If I am switched on, I usually go deep. If switchef off I barely skim the surface.


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shortfatbalduglyman
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02 Aug 2019, 4:28 am

Myers Briggs "judgmental" type are prone to black and white thinking

When entitled lil dipshits like something , they say "cool"

When they don't like it they say "sucks"

When they don't understand they say "why", like there is a correct reason, but your reason is not correct

Compliments are judgmental and manipulative

They act like they have the moral right to veto anything just because they don't like it

Ass holes

"A good person"


They're the ones with black and white thinking



livingwithautism
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02 Aug 2019, 2:08 pm

Black and white thinking means thinking at one extreme or another with nothing in the middle. Like black and white are opposites.



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02 Aug 2019, 3:32 pm

livingwithautism wrote:
Black and white thinking means thinking at one extreme or another with nothing in the middle. Like black and white are opposites.

Yes. But the question is whether autistic people are more prone to black-and-white thinking than NT's. Or are there some specific kinds of black-and-white thinking that autistic people are more prone to, while there may be other kinds of black-and-white thinking that NT's are more prone to?


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Tim_Tex
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02 Aug 2019, 3:43 pm

I think we should all try to see grey areas when we can.

In this current global political climate, it's very difficult to do, unfortunately.


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02 Aug 2019, 4:15 pm

I think I am good with seeing gray but I've been told I am black and white. :(

In fact I feel it's lot of people that are black and white and I have seen damage it causes.


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07 Sep 2021, 4:30 am

I just now came across a Twitter thread about "black-and-white thinking" and autism.

Most people in the thread were puzzled as to why autistic people are perceived, by NT's, as being prone to "black-and-white" thinking.

One person with the username of autistictic had the following interesting take on this question:

Quote:
I can often think in nuanced ways when I‘m alone and can write my thoughts down in my own time.

I don‘t have the same ability in live interactions with people.

t takes me much longer to process things than considered acceptable or realistically practical in live interactions.

Replies are expected quickly, new points are made constantly. I just can‘t process that fast.

When writing on my own I don‘t have to react or rush.

This means in live interactions I have to stick with what I know. I can‘t quickly figure out new ideas, views, thoughts etc.

[...]

So I often appear to be a black and white thinker to people because they only experience me in live interactions.


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07 Sep 2021, 8:08 am

There seems to be the tendency, amongst many people (especially these days within the Internet), to think all liberals must be "owned," or that all conservatives are potential Nazis.



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07 Sep 2021, 10:19 am

Plenty of neurotypical extroverts answer "cool" and "sucks" (or the equivalent). They act like black and white thinking. They are impulsive in speech and action.

They act like the sole function of the universe is to make them happy

Snap judgments

Manipulative

They don't realize that sometimes it appears that they have all the relevant information but they don't


Not everything is the way it seems (appears)

Except in emotional situations, I hardly ever do that, (although I am not perfect).



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07 Sep 2021, 12:01 pm

I think black and white thinking is common in most people. A lot of NTs seem to think that you're either normal or a complete lunatic, without considering that you can be neither of those (ie, if you have a disorder like autism). They also see other things as an ''all or nothing'' case instead of looking at the grey areas.


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07 Sep 2021, 9:10 pm

Joe90 wrote:
I think black and white thinking is common in most people. A lot of NTs seem to think that you're either normal or a complete lunatic, without considering that you can be neither of those (ie, if you have a disorder like autism). They also see other things as an ''all or nothing'' case instead of looking at the grey areas.

Exactly. A lot of the invalidation I received was b/c my family wrote me off as "overreacting". Yes, I reacted big to most everything, but it wasn't right to dismiss or disregard all my reactions (which they did). My daughter tends to underreact and my son tends to overreact, so in both cases I'm considerate of underlying needs - not just turned "off" like my family did.



Offset
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16 Sep 2021, 12:41 am

Is black and white thinking a bad thing though? Like with black and white thinking, you can probably see a situation, which if you were more non observant or careless, or dismissive, you wouldn't see.

For example, you're the only black person in class, the teacher/instructor/professor, and the rest of your classmates are white. You guys have an essay or writing assignment, and the topic is about, "Discuss an issue wrong with the world today."

You decide to write about racism/injustice/BLM/oppression/prejudice. You assume based on how well written your report was, you are going to get a passing grade. You read your report or thesis/theory to the entire class. The class being all white, don't seem very understanding, or appreciate the points you were trying to make. Long story short, you end up getting a failing grade, as the instructor felt your assignment caused people to feel uncomfortable, and they also come up with a half assed excuse that it wasn't written correctly, or your points were all over the place etc.

Now you can just say, okay, maybe the instructor is right, and my assignment sucked.

Or, with black and white thinking (which I, myself, personally, seem to always exhibit quite often) you can see that the paper you wrote, everything is going full circle, and it's becoming reality. The instructor is probably being racist against you for being black, and the class also isn't sticking up for you being black either. This is why sometimes black and white thinking can help, because it turns out, another unrelated writing assignment comes up on Global Warming or Pollution or Taxes, or Elections or whatever, and the instructor fails you again.

With black and white thinking, you can quickly withdraw yourself out that class, and hopefully your credits wont be tarnished, and if possible, take this issue to the Dean, and talk to them about it, because something isn't right here.

Now all the above was an example, and was for entertainment purposes only. I'm not going to say whether it was based on a true story, or if names and events have been changed to protect the innocent, or if any correlation or comparison is strictly coincidental, but yeah lol.

I also feel black and white thinking in this case, helps. Because maybe this is an unpopular opinion, and yeah there are exceptions, but I would rather jump to conclusions first, and usually you can tell if things/ideas/topics aren't right, and if people are trying to belittle you, or "they aren't going to see what I'm trying to do, hehehe" etc. damn right, I'm going to go to black and white thinking.

Now black and white actions is another thing. I feel black and white thinking is okay, but any rash judgments or actions, or performances, unless if the situation calls for it, I wouldn't do that. I would realize what the issue is, but any actions I take, usually I will do civilly and quietly, and there is no argument, or "exposing people", and don't get me wrong, if the situation calls for it, I will most definitely and absolutely throw a scene or an episode, but generally, not really. So yeah.

So that's kinda my thing defending black and white thinking, but not really. As I do understand how black and white thinking isn't always good, but I just wanted to mention how in some cases, it could be seen as a positive or detrimental or vital or useful or therapeutic, or visionary, or spiritual or a self importance thing lol.

That's all. Thank you. :)



ezbzbfcg2
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16 Sep 2021, 1:06 am

Offset wrote:
The class being all white, don't seem very understanding, or appreciate the points you were trying to make. Long story short, you end up getting a failing grade, as the instructor felt your assignment caused people to feel uncomfortable, and they also come up with a half assed excuse that it wasn't written correctly, or your points were all over the place etc.

Good example. When the teacher says, "Write a paper about any topic you like, as long as it uses correct grammar and cites all sources," then proceeds to base your grade on how she relates to the topic and how it makes your classmates feel, she's not using black-and-white thinking. She may be oblivious to her own hypocrisy, but her self-purported claims of how she intends to grade the paper vs her thought process in actually grading it are an example of this gray-area thinking.

As a black-and-white thinker, you're not necessarily oblivious to what's going on. Rather, you're probably a little insulted. Nothing you did violated her self-purported standards, but you can see her actions don't match what she purports. You took the assignment at face value and satisfied her proclaimed requirements. In black-and-white thinking, nothing about your paper violated what was required. But in reality, these unspecified criteria also come into play in her thinking.

Black-and-white thinking isn't about all-or-none and not being able to see exceptions to the rules. Rather, it's a sense of straight-forward procedure. "If you want me to do X, I'll do X. But don't get upset with me when I didn't also do a little Y. You never told me to do Y and I've done X exactly as you stated."

Based on this understanding of the concept, Aspies are indeed more black-and-white thinkers. This is usually why so many of us are confused, upset, baffled, mystified by unspoken/unmentioned factors that we're simply supposed to somehow know.



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16 Sep 2021, 1:18 am

For me, B&W thinking was a useful professional discipline; a technique to refine my work. If something made my stuff even a little bit worse in certain ways, it was BLACK, and not to be considered. Of course, there were other tradeoffs - it got harder to build sometimes.
There are also instances when I just can't see any nuance - I don't have any refinement of taste necessary to identify the grey areas. I can't distinguish between English accents, nor those from China to the south-east where I also miss racial variations. If pressed, I might be able to tell an expensive suit from a cheap one, but not from memory - I only see "a suit."