REALITY DISTORTION in psychology: what it is, examples and how to avoid it

In our daily life, we encounter situations that cause us discomfort and distress more than once. In most of them we perceive reality as it is, but there are others in which things are not as they seem to us. The facts are as they are and represent a concrete reality, but the causes and effects that we attribute to them may not be true, thus resulting in a version distorted of it, and this makes the negative emotions we feel in such situations are not justified and inflict suffering on us Useless.

In this Psychology-Online article we will see what is the distortion of reality with examples and we explain how to avoid it.

The question is important because our behavior depends on the idea that we have formed of the situation, and if this is not correct, it can lead to unwanted and unjustified consequences: frustrations, personal conflicts, disappointments, inappropriate behaviors, misgivings or misunderstandings, which could be avoided if instead we contemplated the authentic version.

We all build consciously or unconsciously a mental representation of any event we observe, either as subjects of the same or as witnesses. The question focuses on finding out if this representation coincides with the true one and thus arriving at the conviction that the affliction and concern that it causes us are justified, because if they are not, we would be facing unnecessary suffering and unsuccessful.

Mental representations are the result of our perception of the facts, not of the facts themselves. This explains why there are times when only we "see" the conflict where other people do not see it (due to complexes, shame, prejudice, ...), then We have a strong predisposition to take as a true reference our conception of ourselves and the world to explain the events that occur. happen.

For example: "I have been fired because I am incompetent, I will not get any more jobs"; when the cause has really been due to the economic problems of the company.

Another example of this is the case presented by Sigmund Freud of a woman who suffered from a delirium of cellopathy and was convinced that her husband was cheating on her, and for this she reproached him for her infidelity. Certainly her husband had never cheated on her. That woman was behaving not in accordance with external realityBut according to her psychic reality, she was convinced that her internal reality was the true and authentic reality.

With this premise, when we feel an emotional disturbance caused by a specific event, we should ask ourselves: what is the nature of the event that is affecting me, is it real or is it a creation of my mind? To obtain an answer, it is advisable to first determine what we should consider as "reality".

The objective point of view indicates that reality is that which exists and develops, contains in itself its own essence and its own laws, as well as the results of its own action and growth. However, from psychology, constructivism defends all those theories that do not consider human beings as passive receivers of experiences and learning, but as active constructors of their reality and experiences, that is, they that reality does not depend on what is outside of us, but on how we see that which is outside.

For its part, science tells us that real things have properties independent of those that the human mind attributes to them, thus, everything that surrounds us, everything in Nature (animals, plants and minerals) is colorless, odorless and tasteless, and it is the human being who, Through his senses, he gives things color, taste and smell thanks to the fact that he has the ability to manipulate their internal representations of the world.

Therefore, we can conclude that there are two types of reality: one physical and independent of the observer and another "psychological" generated by each person from it, assigning it an interpretation and a specific meaning. In the first case, the events that occurred would constitute an event, while in the second they would form an experience, that is, a distinction is made between what happens and the way in which the person it lives.

Several factors intervene in the mental representation of an event, some related to the context and the circumstances in which it occurs, and others with the characteristics of the person who lives them. All these factors are welcomed and organized through various mental processes resulting from an evolutionary strategy in being. aimed at survival, which allows him to shape a reality of the external world and of himself as an integral part of he.

From a psychological point of view, each person adds to their perception of the event an interpretation and a meaning, building a representation of it, through the various mental mechanisms that it has at its provision. Among these mechanisms, the most relevant are: sensory perception of the information received from the event and interpretation of the same through the reasoning process that attributes a meaning to it. Both have a great influence on the way we "understand" and "explain" our world and, consequently, on our behavior.

Sensory perception of information

To construct the representation of an event, the mind uses its sensory capacity and captures the elements that intervene in it, paying attention to those it considers most relevant. Attention is the most important element of perception, since events have many aspects and it is not possible to focus on all of them. The more suitable in quantity and truthfulness the information received, the closer our subjective reality will be to the objective one.

Interpretation

It is carried out through a reasoning process that interprets and assigns a meaning to the perceived facts and, in addition, gives them an assessment depending on:

• The context in which they take place (family, economic, social, work, religious).
• Environmental circumstances.
• The personal factors that are inherent (personality, emotional sensitivity, self-esteem, ...).

The mind gathers perceived sensory information, evaluates and organizes it, taking as reference the information stored in memory (knowledge, memories, beliefs, past experiences, motivations, expectations) and using various cognitive operators (logical, semantic, inductive, deductive, comparative). By virtue of the result of the evaluation and subsequent assessment of the consequences of the event, a series of afflictive emotions in greater or lesser intensity (fear, anger, sadness, anguish, hatred, ...).

Keep in mind that the facts do not have any valuation by themselves, are not inherently good or bad, in this sense they are neutral, and It is each person who, based on what he perceives of them and how he interprets them, assigns them a meaning and an assessment according to your value system. But there are times when the reasoning process can result in several options, of which we have to choose one, and to decide we need to come to the conviction that we have chosen the true. The most powerful source of conviction is sensory information, since our physical sensations are the most reliable criterion we have of reality (it is the natural mechanism generated by evolution), so for example, if we are told that the bowl of broth is hot, our information is verbal and we could doubt it, but if we drink and burn, the certainty will be total. Likewise, if they tell us that they have seen our partner with someone, we can doubt, but not if "we have seen it with our own eyes."

Although several factors intervene, the most relevant have to do with the way in which we process the information to create our own version of events, and what interests to find out is what factors are involved and how make. For this, it is advisable to answer these questions:

• Can I ensure that the facts that I perceive are true and sufficient to develop a correct idea of ​​the situation? If the information is insufficient, erroneous or biased, it can cause the error in the interpretation
• When interpreting them, am I influenced by personal aspects unrelated to the situation that prevent me from having a faithful vision of it and judging it with equanimity?

It must be borne in mind that the interpretation of an event usually follows the interests of the person who observes it, he will normally choose for that interpretation that best consolidates and confirms his ideas about himself and about the reality that he has inscribed in his patterns mental. The confirmation bias is one of the most influential, and in this sense, psychologists Norbert and Ross (1980) they state:

"People tend to find, remember, and interpret data in a way that supports their own beliefs."

An excellent guide to knowing if we are influenced by inappropriate personal aspects when interpreting the events, is to focus on the known ones cognitive distortions by the psychologist Aaron Beck, who defines them as “Wrong ways of thinking that appear in the form of automatic thoughts (products cognitive) in certain situations, and that cause negative emotional states and behaviors inappropriate ". Distortions act as a kind of "psychological forces" that enter our thoughts. Because of them, we misinterpret the facts and we generate multiple disturbing and conflictive situations. Among these distortions are:

• Pay attention to a single aspect or detail of the situation. The positive aspects are often ignored, giving more importance to the negative aspects.
• Valuing events in an extreme way: good / bad, black / white, all / nothing, etc.
• Draw conclusions from a situation that are not supported by the facts, even when the evidence is contrary to the conclusion.
• Draw a conclusion without sufficient basis general of a particular fact.
• Tendency to exaggerate the negative of a situation (an event or an own quality) and to minimize the positive.
• Have the habit of relating the facts of the environment with oneself, being susceptible.
• Advance events and, among the different options, to think that the worst is always going to happen.
• Maintain rigid rules and demanding about how things should happen.
• Put global labels to ourselves or to others without taking into account other nuances.
• Assigning oneself or others all responsibility events, ignoring other contributing factors.

The interesting thing about this approach is that if we could eliminate the factors distorting, we would be able to create a mental representation that matches or approximates the authentic reality. This would avoid the harmful consequences that they originate, for example: feeling guilty or ashamed for a specific action without there are reasons for it, to feel frustrated by something that we think has gone wrong, or to cause a misunderstanding that generates a conflict with another person. However, it is important to bear in mind that these distortions are not easy to detect and control, as they are deeply entrenched in the person's unconscious.

It is obvious that we cannot change the events that have already occurred (the laws of Nature do not allow us to go back in time), and the Situations created by them are also difficult to correct, so striving to change them often leads to frustration and disillusion. But yes we can change the way we see things, substituting the psychological factors that have given rise to the current disturbing version with others that are adequate to build a more objective experience of the situation, which eliminates disturbance and discomfort associated.

From a physiological point of view this is possible because our brain is endowed with the ability to adapt to circumstances of the environment through the mechanism of neuronal plasticity (ability of the brain structure to change with learning). Neural plasticity allows us to change the processing routes, and with it, the way of interpreting events, from qualify them, attribute responsibilities and guilt, etc., which can open the way to another way of "living" them less unpleasant.

If we contemplate from other perspectives the concept we have of ourselves, our relationship with our living environment, with our children, partner, friends and colleagues, it may be that the situations that we consider problematic would stop be.

The solution to achieve this is in our hands, and if we do, the experiences of the events of our daily lives will be less disruptive and more rewarding, and will make our lives more pleasant.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Distortion of reality in psychology: what it is, examples and how to avoid it, we recommend that you enter our category of Cognitive psychology.

• Beck, A. T., Rush, A. J., Shaw, B. F., & Emery, G. (1983). Cognitive therapy for depression. Brouwer.