Polarized Thinking

Polarized Thinking

Section A

List five every-day polarizations you use. What can you do to avoid polarizing in those areas? Do other people polarize you (your attitudes, politics, etc?) What can you do from a communication standpoint to stop other people from polarizing? Why is it important in normal/everyday communication to identify and avoid polarizations? What type of polarizations might derail a critical incident negotiation? 

Introduction

Human beings tend to exchange opinions, ideas, beliefs and values with one another in their everyday life. This process of exchanging of opinions not only widens our perspective but in fact it actually tends to check our partiality hence allowing us to slip into other's shoes and view things from their standpoint while at the same time broadening the horizons of our visions which we bring along with us at home every day. The benefit from all this lies in the fact that none of us can possibly know everything or make all the same inferences as others, thus discussion here proves to be an adequate way of both combining information and at the same time enlarging the range of our arguments. (Allport, F. 1924)

Polarization

Polarization in terms of psychology and communication is referred to the process within which either a political or a social group is segregated into two main opposing sub groups that have very less and less members that tend to remain within the group holding either a neutral or an intermediate position. It can be depicted as the process that occurs when both the opposing sides in an argument resort to an increasing number of disagreeable statements through the pendulum effect. Thus, it is commonly observed in polarized groups, that judgments made after group discussion will be more extreme on a given subject than the average of individual judgments made prior to discussion. (Sheriff. 1936)

Discussion

Polarized thinking is a false dilemma leading to the misconception in an individual's way of thinking that all things and events are either good or bad, black or white or even all or nothing. This fallacy or erroneous belief can often lead to unbending and detrimental rules in an individual's life based on their primal thinking derived as a result of compressed complex thinking where they conveniently categorize information into simple-minded categories in order to accelerate their decision making and is often noticed during times of stress, conflict, threat or even in fight or flight scenarios.

One of the most common cognitive distortions that seem to be prevalent within our everyday life is polarized thinking. This way of thinking which can form out of habit tend to limit our thinking by placing our most significant life events into either all or nothing terms. Thus it not only influences our decisions or our behavior but in fact it ultimately tends to limit our happiness. (Sunstein, Cass. 1999)

Polarized thinking can in fact be found almost anywhere. For instance at work when managers or supervisors tend to utilize this style by being extremely decisive and tolerating no such nonsense from anyone at ...