Generalization, a strategy that helps us and betrays us

Maybe you don’t know… but You have a software or mental program that makes you constantly generalize things… Anyway, do you know the effect this has on your life?

We all have a system of generalizations that operates like autopilot, allowing us to be quick and consistent with our own identity.. Thanks to these we package and label all information with which we are bombarded every second, to immediately think and act.

Otherwise, if we paid attention to each piece of information individually, no matter how tiny, every minute of our lives would become an exhausting process. and extremely slow to analyze and digest, leaving us so overloaded to the point of collapsing and no longer being able to function mentally.

How does generalization work?

For example: you are tending your store, when someone comes through the door dressed strangely, with a cheap tattoo on his face, a tense face that looks to the sides checking the premises, and also comes carrying a package in his pocket that clearly resembles a revolver

At that moment you probably already know that he is a thief, that he can hurt you. or take your money with them. In a fraction of a second you look around to make sure who is in the business and immediately press the button under the counter, alerting the police and protecting yourself from them.

This all happened in maybe less than 5 seconds.thanks to a fantastic and effective system that generalized all the sensory data that you obtained from that situation to reach the conclusion that it was an assailant.

If you had thought long and hard about what you perceived, the result could have been very different.. You could have made many assumptions such as: perhaps he is poorly dressed because he lives on the street; Maybe he has a tattoo on his face because maybe he was in prison, and if he was in prison, why would he have been?

Maybe you are tense because you just had a fight with your partner or because you have a financial debt; or perhaps what he carries in his pocket is a simple screwdriver because he is fixing his car, that is precisely the reason for his dirt, etc. etc
Wanting to know more about him, who he is, and why he is there, could have led you to death, or on the contrary, at the same time it could have led you to meet a charming person who in the future would help you fix your car. .

As human beings we have created ways to decide, formulas that guide our thoughts and actions effectively leading us to assume who we are and what surrounds us. We can also call these generalizations beliefs or convictions. What is money? What is love? What is the best soccer team? How would the problems of your country be solved? Why did my friend tell me this?

Your answers to these questions, what you assume, are your particular beliefs, your own original way of interpreting the world, it is not anyone else’s, no matter how impossible it may seem that it is not how you see it from your perspective.. Of course… they make sense because they are your beliefs, your conclusions, they even give the impression that they are the only way in which reality is expressed, the pure truth.

However, this is not so. These generalizations that have been formed in the past, based on interpretations of that specific moment (again, just interpretations, not reality itself) only help you to be yourself and act quickly and unconsciously based on them. There are no unique beliefs, probably only yours.

This system works perfectly defending the status quo, the prevailing situation, maintaining the established course, your old and habitual vision of the world: “I have the ideas well put in your head!” But… What happens when the results you get are not what you want? What happens when your reality is not what you dreamed of?

What would happen if you believed that all French people were all dirty and moody, when you met a beautiful French woman? What would happen if I did not send a resume to apply for a job that exceeds my current training? What would happen if I didn’t try calamari because I’ve never liked fish?

Yes… I would probably miss out on meeting a beautiful person who could potentially be the woman of my life simply because she is French; or I would miss the chance to find a job that is better than I expected, in which I will learn more than I expected, because I believed it was impossible to hire someone without sufficient knowledge.

I would even be missing out on a great opportunity to eat squid just because, generalizing, I assumed that I wouldn’t like it because I don’t like fish that comes from the sea, therefore I don’t fancy anything that comes from the sea.

Any type of change you seek in life will, by nature, have to contradict certain pre-established assumptions. (in forms of generalizations) so that you obtain a different result than the one you were having. It will no longer serve you to know EVERYTHING you know, because that is a mirror of your reality, of what has already been given, of the facts.…and if you want some kind of change, it is not reality that you want.

Therefore… watch what you assume, what you generalize, what you believe.

Depending on where you want to go, what you want to be different, ask yourself:

What meaning do I give to this event?
Is it the only possible meaning?
What have I based it on?
What would happen if the perspective changed?
If instead of generalizing the fact, I stopped to think about other possible perspectives, what would it be like?
What if I judged with other people’s perspective as if it were my own?

Generalizations help us survive, be faithful to our identity, and be more functional. But, definitely, they are big obstacles to change, even to be open to new experiences. When they don’t let you move forward: (men/women are…., life is….., work is….., money is….. etc.) you must question them and open yourself to new experiences.

In conclusion, generalizations are a double-edged sword; On the one hand, they allow us to quickly draw conclusions from many situations, arriving at general premises.

However, on the other hand, generalizing may limit our direct experience with the environment, since we believe that our thinking is the only one and that it is fixed.