The Cognitive Distortion I Believe Explains Prejudice
I believe it is our brain’s subterfuge that forms and perpetuates entrenched prejudice
I sometimes think about prejudice, about Islamophobia, xenophobia, transphobia, and attempt to understand the reasoning, the justifications, the chain of events that could turn a person’s beliefs so bitter, so removed from reality. Denouncing and denigrating an entire section of society seems so extreme and unwarranted, harmful to one’s own mental peace.
So much hatred. So much vitriol. And for what?
On a parallel track, because I have had clinical depression for over a decade, I have had to acquire a rudimentary understanding of human psychology, which includes knowledge of cognitive distortions.
According to researchers Caroline M. Pittard & Patrick Pössel’s Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences:
Cognitive distortions are unrealistic, inflexible, or extreme interpretations of information that are caused by systematic errors in the logic of an individual. Cognitive distortions are often evidencing a negative bias and perpetuating negative beliefs about the self in relation to the world.
I think of cognitive distortions as filters that manipulate facts and corrupt our…
