Hello r/UFOs
[You may know me from my thread about how to spot a forum disinformation agent/cognitive biases.](https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/s/ltVb6SOMH7)
I see a fair amount of skeptics and skeptical analysts on this sub. The path of any truth demands rigour the ability to evaluate critically evidence and deduce from information given.
Unfortunately many claimed skeptics seem to fall into various traps – cognitive distortions- which perhaps betray a deeper insight into their core motivations. Rather than an accurate appraisal of evidence and testimony. In a good faith sense there seems to be a strong bias rooted in negativity, poor mental health, and depressive thoughts – these mental distortions can lead to distortions in appraisal of information and tend to negative bias.
The original use of this list was to aid with depression diagnosis but if we transposed the concept onto truth seeking we see these distortions play out in arguments toward evidence, the subject of UAP this community and the ego. Perhaps an emergent property of ontological shock the list below should help any truth seeker to look inside and outside with more clarity. It will also help to spot disinformation, bad faith arguments and shady agendas.
See how many of these you can spot in the sub and in yourself.
All-or-Nothing Thinking / Polarized Thinking
Also known as “Black-and-White Thinking,” this distortion manifests as an inability or unwillingness to see shades of gray. In other words, you see things in terms of extremes – something is either fantastic or awful, you believe you are either perfect or a total failure.
Overgeneralization
This sneaky distortion takes one instance or example and generalizes it to an overall pattern. For example, a student may receive a C on one test and conclude that she is stupid and a failure. Overgeneralizing can lead to overly negative thoughts about yourself and your environment based on only one or two experiences.
Mental Filter
Similar to overgeneralization, the mental filter distortion focuses on a single negative piece of information and excludes all the positive ones. An example of this distortion is one partner in a romantic relationship dwelling on a single negative comment made by the other partner and viewing the relationship as hopelessly lost, while ignoring the years of positive comments and experiences.
The mental filter can foster a decidedly pessimistic view of everything around you by focusing only on the negative.
Disqualifying the Positive
On the flip side, the “Disqualifying the Positive” distortion acknowledges positive experiences but rejects them instead of embracing them.
For example, a person who receives a positive review at work might reject the idea that they are a competent employee and attribute the positive review to political correctness, or to their boss simply not wanting to talk about their employee’s performance problems.
This is an especially malignant distortion since it can facilitate the continuation of negative thought patterns even in the face of strong evidence to the contrary.
Jumping to Conclusions – Mind Reading
This “Jumping to Conclusions” distortion manifests as the inaccurate belief that we know what another person is thinking. Of course, it is possible to have an idea of what other people are thinking, but this distortion refers to the negative interpretations that we jump to.
Seeing a stranger with an unpleasant expression and jumping to the conclusion that they are thinking something negative about you is an example of this distortion.
Jumping to Conclusions – Fortune Telling
A sister distortion to mind reading, fortune telling refers to the tendency to make conclusions and predictions based on little to no evidence and holding them as gospel truth.
One example of fortune-telling is a young, single woman predicting that she will never find love or have a committed and happy relationship based only on the fact that she has not found it yet. There is simply no way for her to know how her life will turn out, but she sees this prediction as fact rather than one of several possible outcomes.
Magnification (Catastrophizing) or Minimization
Also known as the “Binocular Trick” for its stealthy skewing of your perspective, this distortion involves exaggerating or minimizing the meaning, importance, or likelihood of things.
An athlete who is generally a good player but makes a mistake may magnify the importance of that mistake and believe that he is a terrible teammate, while an athlete who wins a coveted award in her sport may minimize the importance of the award and continue believing that she is only a mediocre player.
Emotional Reasoning
This may be one of the most surprising distortions to many readers, and it is also one of the most important to identify and address. The logic behind this distortion is not surprising to most people; rather, it is the realization that virtually all of us have bought into this distortion at one time or another.
Emotional reasoning refers to the acceptance of one’s emotions as fact. It can be described as “I feel it, therefore it must be true.” Just because we feel something doesn’t mean it is true; for example, we may become jealous and think our partner has feelings for someone else, but that doesn’t make it true. Of course, we know it isn’t reasonable to take our feelings as fact, but it is a common distortion nonetheless.
Relevant: What is Emotional Intelligence? + 18 Ways to Improve It
Labeling and Mislabeling
These tendencies are basically extreme forms of overgeneralization, in which we assign judgments of value to ourselves or to others based on one instance or experience.
For example, a student who labels herself as “an utter fool” for failing an assignment is engaging in this distortion, as is the waiter who labels a customer “a grumpy old miser” if he fails to thank the waiter for bringing his food. Mislabeling refers to the application of highly emotional, loaded, and inaccurate or unreasonable language when labeling.
Personalization
As the name implies, this distortion involves taking everything personally or assigning blame to yourself without any logical reason to believe you are to blame.
This distortion covers a wide range of situations, from assuming you are the reason a friend did not enjoy the girls’ night out, to the more severe examples of believing that you are the cause for every instance of moodiness or irritation in those around you.
In addition to these basic cognitive distortions, Beck and Burns have mentioned a few others (Beck, 1976; Burns, 1980):
Control Fallacies
A control fallacy manifests as one of two beliefs: (1) that we have no control over our lives and are helpless victims of fate, or (2) that we are in complete control of ourselves and our surroundings, giving us responsibility for the feelings of those around us. Both beliefs are damaging, and both are equally inaccurate.
No one is in complete control of what happens to them, and no one has absolutely no control over their situation. Even in extreme situations where an individual seemingly has no choice in what they do or where they go, they still have a certain amount of control over how they approach their situation mentally.
[With access to so many good resources, fantastic posts with references](https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/s/ULGJWq7KYz), [testimonials under oath from decorated military officers](https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/s/ULGJWq7KYz), [insight from seniors, politicians](https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/s/mjqi198vqm) and [legislators drafting laws](https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/s/syKqCXa0dr) – to deny these aspects as being credible evidence really does require an extraordinary debunk – which has yet to be provided.
In if you’re honestly in good faith looking for undeniable proof then get busy.
[This thread will teach you how to get active, contact your representatives and what the legality of disclosure means.](https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/s/Cj9ULlzwBY)
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