Distorted perception of reality. Typical distortions of perception and understanding of people. Genre "fantasy" - hysterical perception of reality

human brain It is arranged in such a way that it perceives the surrounding reality in certain categories. These categories (or patterns), as a rule, are laid down in early childhood and are instilled in the child by parents, reflecting their own worldview, that is, they are inherited.

The principle of the brain is such that when faced with a certain event, it by default selects a category already familiar to it, projects it onto the situation and automatically interprets the likely development of events, drawing parallels with what it had to deal with before. Therefore, patterns, clichés and stereotypes are not bad, but just the normal work of the brain, which honestly does its job. He adapts to the surrounding reality.

The process of imposing the same categories on more or less similar situations leads to the fact that a person develops a well-established attitude to events, a certain perception, worldview. This worldview becomes the backbone of the brain, its "backbone". And having acquired such a core, it becomes more and more difficult to be flexible.

But how does a person with an established perception react if the situation begins to develop outside the box? A systemic failure begins, called cognitive dissonance. At first, the brain refuses to believe what is happening, interpreting the event as a mistake and looking for a convenient logical explanation for why everything turned out the way it did. And then he begins to build a "parallel reality" - there is a distortion of perception.

If a person whom we really want to consider a friend says that he is going to kill us, we will not believe him, although all the words will be uttered in plain text. The brain will bring a bunch options why the "friend" behaved this way.

It's some kind of mistake! It can not be! Perhaps he was misunderstood. Or forced to behave in such a way, for example, by threats. He doesn't say what he really thinks. We do know that his true intentions peaceful. Or maybe he was in bad mood or not feeling well. Well, I exaggerated a little, with whom it does not happen. Or offended by something. So we did something wrong. We need to do something so that he forgives us. And so on.

Perceptual distortion much more widespread than we think. And sometimes people who sincerely and wholeheartedly believe in certain ideals do not even understand that they live in a parallel reality. So what if their naive attempts to influence something over which they have no control constantly fail? This is no reason to give up.

How can I admit to myself that I have lived my whole life in error? The brain is configured in such a way as to protect the psyche, so it will cling to the last, pick up any, even the most wild explanations emerging events instead of just making it clear to a person that his current perception is inadequate.

This is how it happens that the same events can receive a radically different interpretation. I wrote more about this on the Strip. Read

Remember that conflict is perceived incompatibility of actions or goals. In many conflicts there is only a small core of truly incompatible goals. the main problem- a distorted perception of other people's motives and goals. The Eagles and the Rattlesnakes did indeed have conflicting goals, but the teenagers' subjective perception of reality exacerbated their differences (Figure 23-3).

[Distorted Perception, Genuine Incompatibility]

Rice. 23-3. In many conflicts, the core of the true incompatibility of goals is surrounded by an outer layer of distorted perception.

In previous chapters, we have looked at the roots of these perceptual distortions. Passion for playing to your advantage makes individuals and groups proud of their good deeds and avoid responsibility for evil deeds by not giving such benefits to other people. trend towards self-justification makes people even more inclined to deny the harm from their evil deeds, which cannot be discounted. Thanks to fundamental attribution error each side sees the other side's hostility as a reflection of its vicious nature. The person then filters the information and interprets it to suit their needs. prejudice. Groups often polarize their tendencies to play in their own favor, self-justification and prejudice. One of the symptoms groupthink - perceive one's own group as moral and strong, and opponents as malevolent and weak. Terrorist acts are for most people a senseless cruelty, but for some it is " Holy war". Undoubtedly, the very fact of being in a group leads to the preference of your group. And the negative stereotypes, once formed, they often evoke resistance to what proves otherwise.

So we are rather not surprised, but only saddened by the discovery that the parties to the conflict form distorted images of each other. Even the modes of these distortions are predictable.

Mirror perception

The perceptual biases of those involved in the conflict are surprisingly mutual. Both sides of the conflict similarly ascribe to themselves only virtues, and to opponents - solid vices. When the American psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner (1961) visited Soviet Union and talked to many ordinary people, he was surprised to hear from them the same words about America that the Americans spoke about the Soviets. The Russians believed that the US government was made up of aggressive militarists, that it was exploiting and oppressing the American people, that diplomatic relations he cannot be trusted. “Slowly and painfully, it dawns on a person that the distorted perception of America by Russians, as a mirror image, is like our perception of Russia,” concludes Bronfenbrenner.

When two parties have conflicting perceptions, at least one of them perceives the other incorrectly. "Such distortion in perception," notes Bronfenbrenner, "is a psychological phenomenon, unparalleled in the tragic consequences ... since it is characterized by such a representation that is self-confirming." If A expects B to be hostile, A can treat B in such a way that B will fulfill A's expectations, thereby completing a vicious circle. Morton Deutsch (1986) explains:

« You have heard false gossip that your friend is saying unpleasant things about you; you treat him with disdain; and then he really begins to speak badly of you, confirming your expectations. Similarly, if the politicians of the East and West believe that things are heading for war and one of them is trying to increase their security in the face of the enemy, the reaction of the enemy will be the justification for this initial step.»

negative mirror perception has become an obstacle to peace in many cases:

Both sides in the Arab-Israeli conflict insisted that "they" only wanted to ensure their security and protect their territory, while "the others" wanted to destroy them and seize their lands (Heradstveit, 1979; R. K White, 1977). With such deep distrust, it is extremely difficult to conduct negotiations.

Hunter and colleagues (J. A. Hunter & others, 1991) showed Catholic and Protestant students at Ulster Northern Ireland University videos of Protestant attacks on Catholic funerals, as well as Catholic attacks on Protestant ones. Most of the students attributed the attack of the opposite side to its "bloodthirsty" motives, and the attack of their own was explained by retribution or self-defense.

Muslims and Hindus in Bangladesh exhibit exactly the same group bias (Islam & Hewstone, 1993).

The destructiveness of mirror perception is manifested in conflicts both between small groups and between individuals. As we saw in the dilemma games, both sides can say, “We want to cooperate. But their refusal to cooperate forces us to take protective measures". When Kenneth Thomas & Louis Pondy (1977) asked business leaders to describe a recent major conflict, only 12% of business leaders reported that opposite side was ready to cooperate; 74% believed that they themselves sought cooperation, while those others did not. The vocabulary used at the same time was as follows: the leaders themselves "offered", "reported" and "recommended", while those others "demanded", "rejected everything, no matter what we offered" and "refused everything".

Group conflicts are often engendered by the illusion that main leader opponents has evil intentions, but his people - although they are controlled and manipulated - are, in essence, "for us." This notion of "malicious leader - good people was characteristic of both Russians and Americans during the Cold War. “The American people are good, they just have a very bad government,” one Baghdad grocer explained after his country was bombed in 1998 (Kinzer, 1998).

Another type of mirror perception is hyperbolization of the opponent's position. People with opposing views on certain issues, such as abortion or death penalty often differ less than they think. Each side overestimates the radicalism of the other's views, believing that its beliefs follow from facts, while "their" beliefs dictated"their" interpretation of facts (Keltner & Robinson, 1996; Robinson & others, 1995). Cultural wars spring from such exaggerations. Ralph White (1996) argues that the Serbs started the war in Bosnia partly out of an exaggerated fear of the secularization of Bosnian Muslims, who claim that they are unfairly associated with Middle Eastern Islamic fundamentalism and fanatical terrorism.

Change in perception

Since perceptual distortions accompany conflict, they must come and go as the conflict flares up and goes out. It does so, and with amazing ease. The same process that creates the image of an enemy can invert that image when the enemy becomes an ally. Thus, the "bloodthirsty, cruel and perfidious Japanese" of the Second World War, in the perception of the Americans (Gallup, 1972) and the American mass media, soon turned into "our intelligent, hardworking, disciplined and resourceful allies." And "our Soviet allies" in World War II soon turned into "militant and treacherous."

The Germans, first hated by Americans during the two world wars, then admired, then hated again, are again admired, apparently no longer burdened by what was previously considered brutality. national character. At a time when Iraq was at war with Iran (although at the same time it used chemical weapons and carried out genocide of its own Kurds), many countries supported it. The enemy of our enemy is our friend. But as soon as Iraq ended the war with Iran and invaded oil-rich Kuwait, Iraq's actions suddenly became "barbaric." Obviously, the images of our enemies not only justify our actions, but also vary with unusual ease.

The degree of perceptual distortion during conflict is a sobering reminder that people don't have to be insane or morbidly evil to form a perverse image of their opponents. When in conflict with another country, with another group, or simply with neighbors or parents, we easily perceive a distorted image that allows us to consider our own motives and actions as unconditionally positive, and the actions and motives of our opponents as truly diabolical. Our adversaries usually form a mirror image of ourselves. Thus, trapped in a social dilemma, competing over limited resources, or feeling unfair to themselves, the parties are in conflict until someone helps them correct the distorted perception and tries to reconcile their real differences. I would like to give advice: when a conflict arises, you should not think that others lack your virtues and your morality. Better compare perceptions, while assuming that those others are likely to perceive the situation in a completely different way than you.

Distorted perception of reality

noun, number of synonyms: 1

Illusion (28)

• - in reality In reality, everything turned out to be much more complicated ...

  merged. Separately. Through a hyphen. Dictionary-reference

• - actually adv. quality.-conditions...

  Dictionary Efremova

• - ...

  Spelling Dictionary

• - adj., number of synonyms: 1 life ...

  Synonym dictionary

• - Adverb, number of synonyms: 2 vividly believable...

  Synonym dictionary

• - ultimately, in essence, de facto, in fact, in fact, really, in fact, it turns out, practically, really, in fact, right, in practice, ultimately, in essence, in fact, positively,...

  Synonym dictionary

• - adj., number of synonyms: 4 far from life looking-glass lifeless unreal ...

  Synonym dictionary

• - Adverb, number of synonyms: 1 in truth ...

  Synonym dictionary

• - adj., number of synonyms: 2 idealized embellished ...

  Synonym dictionary

• - adj., number of synonyms: 20 exaggerated slanderous idealized distorted twisted lacquering devoid of credibility false deliberately exaggerated not ...

  Synonym dictionary

• - adj., number of synonyms: 19

  Synonym dictionary

• - noun, number of synonyms: 3 improbability inconsistency with the truth deceit ...

  Synonym dictionary

• - adj., number of synonyms: 5 who turned out to be in fact turned out to actually prove himself proved himself ...

  Synonym dictionary

• - adj., number of synonyms: 5

  Synonym dictionary

• - adj., number of synonyms: 1 twisted ...

  Synonym dictionary

• - 1) One of the reasons for the deviation from the logic of speech, due to ignorance of the subject of speech or the impossibility of knowing the object of speech in certain situation 2) One of the elements of the information model of the logic of speech, ...

  Dictionary of linguistic terms T.V. Foal

"distorted perception of reality" in books

Genre "fantasy" - hysterical perception of reality

From the author's book

Genre "fantasy" - hysterical perception of reality The existence of this genre was clearly linked by Freud with psychoanalysis, behavioral traits and incentives. “In neurosis, there is no shortage of attempts to replace an undesirable reality with another, more desirable one.

Negative perception of reality

author Adizes Itzhak Calderon

Negative perception of reality The arsonist is driven by emotions and nervous energy, often negative. He feels an urgent need to create a new one, and this often involves the destruction of the old. It seems to him that he will be able to “master” his own idea,

Perception of reality

From the book Management Styles - Effective and Ineffective author Adizes Itzhak Calderon

Perception of Reality The Pyro often wishes for reality. It's hard for him to come to terms with reality. If you are able to dream about it, you can make your dream come true. Walt Disney So, -E– can say: "We are leaders in our industry." "But it is not

How to develop a correct perception of reality

From the book Habits in a Million author Ringer Robert

How to Develop a Correct Perception of Reality The purpose of the above examples is to emphasize the idea that great success comes only to those who have a habit of avoiding the temptation to choose the world of illusion. And rest assured it is difficult task. The truth is often

From the book of Kabbalah. upper world. The beginning of the way author Laitman Michael

DISTORTED SENSE OF TIME

From the book Gods, Heroes, Men. Archetypes of masculinity author Bednenko Galina Borisovna

DISTORTED SENSE OF TIME Hermes men have a rather strange sense of time. Many of them live in the present and a little in the future, while the past does not seem to exist for them. All they need to do is here and now. Peter Pan doesn't sense time either. After returning

Distorted Perception

author Colbert Don

Distorted Perception People with learned helplessness quickly give up. They are convinced that the black streak in life will never end. For them, if it's bad, it's always without good, and if something happens, it's only from bad to worse. Future for them

What is distorted thinking?

From the book Deadly Emotions author Colbert Don

What distorted thinking? The character of the famous comic book series of the forties - Pogo the possum - gained popularity because he very accurately conveyed the traits of a human character. Once he wisely remarked: “We meet the enemy - and this enemy is ourselves!” Unfortunately,

Distorted self-perception - low self-esteem and pride

From the book Gods in every man [Archetypes that control the lives of men] author Bolen Jin Shinoda

Distorted Self-Perception - Low Self-Esteem and Pride The cultural stereotypes in society about what a boy or man should be make the young Dionysus think that something is wrong with him. This boy soon realizes that too

Distorted Perceptions and Group Favoritism

From the book Conflict Management author Sheinov Viktor Pavlovich

Distorted perceptions and group favoritism A significant role in the development of intergroup conflicts is also played by the distorted perception of each other by people belonging to different groups. The basis of such a distortion is again the very group affiliation and

Check your perception of reality

From the book How to Overcome NO: Negotiations in difficult situations by Uri William

Check the perception of reality The most effective and cheap way to educate the other side is to allow them to educate themselves. Ask questions that are worded in such a way that the opponents think about the consequences of breaking the agreement. Let their teacher

Distorted perception of self

From the book Phenomenal Intelligence. The Art of Thinking Effectively author Sheremetiev Konstantin

Distorted Perception of Yourself Whenever you feel like something is going wrong in your life, it good reason check your self-concept. The main signs of a wrong self-concept: you do not enjoy life; your life seems boring and monotonous to you; then,

7.4. Perception of reality

author Laitman Michael

7.4. Perception of reality 7.5. degree of awareness

7.4. Perception of reality

From the book International Kabbalah Academy (Volume 2) author Laitman Michael

7.4. Perception of reality In order not to tire the reader, we will explain the concepts of "good" and "evil" in general sense as they are described in the article "The Giving of the Torah". hallmark of all evil is nothing but selfishness, which is called egoism. It is opposite in

Distorted perception of reality

From the book Road of Transfiguration the author Liber Vitaliy

Distorted perception of reality When you are attached to someone, it seems to you that this person is absolutely positive. This is inconsistent with reality. If your friend you thought wonderful person deliberately hurts you, you suddenly

Image copyright Thinkstock

Anxiety tendencies can greatly influence how we perceive the world. The reviewer wondered if it would help new method treatment to get rid of constant anxiety.

All sorts of disturbing thoughts rush through your head, your pulse quickens and your breathing gets out of hand. Anxiety gives way to fear, and then you suddenly panic.

You feel confused and overexcited. If these symptoms are familiar to you, then know that you are not alone.

Actresses Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone, musician Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and singer Taylor Swift, artist Vincent van Gogh and poet Emily Dickinson suffered from paralyzing anxiety attacks.

Everyone knows that anxiety affects emotional condition human and prevents him from interacting with the outside world.

Anxiety can shape a person's worldview and value system in a certain and predictable way.

However, few people know about the impact that anxiety has on our attention in Everyday life. Because of it, the priorities of attention are shifted, which entails a change in the information entering the brain and, consequently, our perception of reality.

This can have far reaching consequences. By influencing attention, anxiety can shape a person's worldview and value system in a certain and predictable way. It can also affect our beliefs without our knowledge.

To avoid the distortion of reality caused by anxiety, you first need to understand the mechanisms that regulate attention and how to control them.

In a metaphor inspired by the work of the talented and progressive 19th-century American psychologist William James, our visual attention system is much like a searchlight "scanning" the world around us.

This "spotlight of attention" is a limited area of ​​space that is in the center of attention at a certain moment. What gets into it, the brain consciously processes, but what remains outside it does not.

Looking at the world around, a person focuses on the subject that he would like to consider better. Our brain is not able to process in detail an object, text or environment if they are not in the center of attention.

Image copyright iStock Image caption Our consciousness works like a searchlight, helping us to notice important details

To understand how this works, you can use the example of a person reading a book in a crowded train car. His eyes move across the page from left to right, line by line. At the same time, the "spotlight of attention" moves from word to word.

The word on which a person focuses attention is clearly perceived by his consciousness, while the words that lie outside the "spotlight of attention" seem blurry and mostly illegible.

Such localization is necessary because the simultaneous perception of all visual information about environment would lead to an "overload" of the brain, which is a system with limited resources, like a computer.

"Spotlight" allows the brain to concentrate only on the important, ignoring all unnecessary information. Thanks to this, we are able to perceive the reality around us.

In most cases, we consciously choose where to focus our attention, but this process is not always under our voluntary control.

At the same time, not all objects and phenomena around us are perceived by us in the same way. For example, a bright flash of light or flick where it shouldn't be, automatically attract our attention, and it moves to the point where they arose.

Few people like it when something sharply distracts their attention, but this does not happen by chance. The involuntary switching of attention is necessary in order to immediately notify a person about what is vital for his survival.

For ancient man the reason for the automatic switching of attention could be a passing prey or, if less lucky, an approaching danger - a predator or a dangerous enemy, for example.

Image copyright iStock Image caption Without the "attention spotlight" we would not be able to read, because thanks to it we concentrate on a few words, ignoring the rest.

Thanks to evolution, our visual attention system automatically responds to various types of dangers.

Snakes, spiders, angry or frightening faces, threatening postures, and weapon-like objects are all capable of drawing our attention. We can say that visual attention prioritizes threats in the interests of self-defense.

Undoubtedly, this function helps a person to survive, but anxiety can make the system of fast and effective detection of threats hypersensitive, as a result of which the "spotlight of attention" begins to work to the detriment of a person.

So, for example, you can lose some control over your own attention, because it focuses too quickly on what the brain perceives as a danger, regardless of whether it really is or not.

And when a person focuses only on danger, negative information takes over his consciousness.

To understand exactly how anxiety can completely change a person's worldview, changing the priorities of attention, think about what it is like for a person with high level anxiety about traveling by train in a densely populated metropolitan area.

Imagine that you are standing on a crowded subway platform, looking out into the crowd around you. Your attention is automatically attracted to people with an unfriendly expression, while you simply ignore cheerful faces.

As a result, it seems to you that everyone around you is a little upset, and your mood deteriorates.

On the train back home, you are waiting for your stop, when you suddenly notice that big man in a hooded sweatshirt, sitting next to you, abruptly puts his hand in his pocket, as if trying to get a weapon.

Luckily, he pulls out a cell phone from his pocket, but this whole situation makes you wonder what would happen if it was a gun.

As a result, you are further strengthened in the opinion that the subway is a dangerous place, full of dubious characters and annoyed people.

Image copyright iStock Image caption In the process of evolution, we have developed the ability to notice potentially dangerous objects in the environment - for example, spiders, which can be poisonous.

Now imagine that this happens all the time. Due to the fact that the threat is a priority, we filter out all the good and perceive only the bad. The cognitive system is overwhelmed with excitement and fear.

This leads to the fact that anxiety begins to exert too much strong influence how we evaluate the environment. In fact, to anxious people, the world literally seems to be a frightening and dysfunctional place.

These radical changes in perception can shape a person's worldview, including their political and ideological beliefs.

For example, a 2009 study showed that anxiety can affect a person's attention in such a way that all people from the Middle East begin to seem dangerous to him. This undoubtedly influences his political views regarding immigration.

As part of the experiment, the researchers asked participants from Western countries with different levels of anxiety to take a computer test. It consisted of pressing a key in response to visual stimuli appearing on the screen.

First, the subjects saw a word flashed on the screen, and then two faces - an Arab and a European, on each of which a dot from the sight could appear.

The results showed that people with high anxiety responded more quickly to dots that appeared on the faces of people with an Arab appearance if they were previously shown a terrorism-related word - for example, "bomb".

This means that when an anxious person was made to think about terrorism, the faces of people from the Middle East were at the center of his visual attention, which indicates the expectation of danger.

The findings of scientists explain why people with increased level Anxieties often take the side of politicians who promise to protect the country by banning immigration and imposing tough national security measures.

This is confirmed by the results of another study conducted in 2012 by a group of scientists from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

They found that people who paid more attention to negative images tended to lean politically to the right.

In one experiment, researchers showed liberal and conservative participants computer-generated collages of pictures with positive and negative connotations.

At the same time, they tracked the movements of the subjects' eyes to understand what they were paying attention to.

Image copyright iStock Image caption If a person is prone to anxiety, the whole world may seem dangerous to him.

They found that those whose attention was immediately and permanently drawn to unpleasant and repulsive images, such as traffic accidents, dead bodies, and open wounds- more often considered themselves to be conservatives.

The authors of the study consider it logical that people who are more attentive and susceptible to threats often support center-right politicians who promise to protect society from external threats by strengthening military power and national security by imposing tougher penalties for criminals and discouraging immigration.

In its extreme manifestations, anxiety can have a serious negative impact on human health, but you can change the situation by training your attention.

Moreover, today it can be done with the help of convenient computer programs and even smartphone apps.

The most popular form of training is Attention Bias Modification Training (ABMT for short), also commonly known as Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM for short).

It may include different tasks, united by one goal. In standard training, patients see pictures with positive and negative images on the computer screen. As a rule, these are happy and gloomy faces, replacing each other hundreds of times.

Since anxiety is associated with focusing on negative stimuli, patients are asked to select positive images by pressing a key or a screen.

By doing this over and over, and ideally for several days or weeks in a row, they get into the habit of paying attention not to the threat and negative information, but to what is positive.

Image copyright iStock Image caption Can we find a way to correct this distorted threat perception and get rid of the anxiety?

Dozens of studies have confirmed the effectiveness of this method. Of particular interest is one published in the Journal of the Association for Psychological Sciences, Clinical Psychological Science.

It showed that a 25-45-minute session of ABMT therapy in the form of a game on mobile phone reduces the level of attention to threats, subjective anxiety and observed sensitivity to stress.

Now patients suffering from anxiety disorders, but unable to receive treatment in the clinic, may also receive psychological help, spending just a few minutes on an exciting mobile game on the way to work.

However, some scientists are skeptical about ABMT. In some recent studies, the effectiveness of this type of therapy has been called into question.

Scientists have proven that single sessions of ABMT are no more beneficial than other cognitive-based treatments for anxiety disorders, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, and in some cases even placebos.

Scientist, professor, and licensed psychologist Per Karlbring of Stockholm University acknowledges that these criticisms are valid, but notes that mindfulness training should not be abandoned entirely.

He explains that according to a meta-analysis, adjusting for attentional nice results in the treatment of patients under 37 years of age, especially if it is carried out in a clinic or laboratory, and not remotely.

Carlbring noticed that the only time ABMT did not reduce anxiety levels was if it failed to adjust the attentional priorities associated with danger.

Therefore, to increase the effectiveness of this treatment method, he suggested using more dynamic tasks with realistic stimuli.

Carlbring set out to improve the reliability of this treatment and received a grant to develop and test a new attention training method using virtual reality. This method works in a more natural way and provides a sense of presence.

"It seems to me that moving the training to conditions close to real, can help us reach a completely new level says Carlbring. “I wouldn’t be surprised if attention training becomes commonplace by 2020.”

Doing exercises to help get rid of constant search threats and by being aware of the impact of anxiety on our attention, we can avoid the consequences of anxiety such as distorting reality, constant feeling fear and changing belief systems.