Seeing Things in Black‐and‐White: A Scoping Review on Dichotomous Thinking Style¹

Abstract

Dichotomous thinking is a propensity for individuals to understand events as opposites, in a binary way. There are currently two inventories that accurately measure this construct, the Dichotomous Thinking Inventory, and the Dichotomous Thinking in Eating Disorders Scale. The present study aimed to carry out a review process to compile all the empirical studies that have made use of either of these instruments. To achieve this goal, we carried out a scoping review. We conducted a search using the keywords “Dichotomous Thinking Inventory,” “Dichotomous Thinking in Eating Disorders Scale,” and “Thinking Style” in the databases PubMed, Science Direct, and PsycInfo. No limits were imposed on the review. We found 19 articles that met the pre‐established criteria; the concentration of research occurred in the last 10 years. It was possible to clarify that the dichotomous way of understanding events occurs, in general, in the presence of maladaptive traits of personality.

“All or nothing”

“…Hence, our investigation adds new evidence that individuals who score high on the Dark Triad variables typically tend to perceive social stimuli in a rigid and binary fashion, in which events or persons are evaluated as either good or bad, loyal or betrayer, helpful or useless. Such relationships reinforce previous descriptions of the binary thinking process as intrinsically tied to maladaptive outcomes (Bonfá-Araujo et al, 2021;Oshio, 2009Oshio, , 2012.…”

“…We hypothesize, in this study, that an individual who displays dichotomous thinking will likely also exhibit extreme responding to selfreport items. Although no empirical evidence so far is available to support this claim, it is reasonable to expect that a dichotomous view of social reality could be accompanied by exaggerated representations of one's own public personality and inner experiences (Bonfá-Araujo et al, 2021).…”

“…Moreover, dichotomous thinking is not necessarily a socially positive or constructive style, given that it implies an oversimplification of reality, with individuals avoiding the consideration of facts as multidimensional or ambivalent (Bonfá-Araujo et al, 2021;Oshio, 2009). Accordingly, binary thinking might be associated with pathological personality characteristics.…”

Images of controversy: Examining cognition of hydraulic fracturing among policy elites and the general public

“…Cognition distortion (Knapp & Beck, 2008) is a reliance on contrasting constructs to organize information (Berlin, 1990). It is affect-driven and a somewhat rigid way of processing that leverages bipolarized aspects of an issue in cognitively useful ways that support decision making (Bonfá-Araujo et al, 2021). The process involves using affective feelings to assign valence to mental images as a way to tag, store, and recall information.…”

“…Applied to understand how cognitive processing may factor into the formation of policy positions around HF, it is likely that affect is a necessary component in policy-oriented cognition. The valenced nature of affective processing tends to support dichotomous thinking or cognitive distortion (Knapp & Beck, 2008) which involves a rigid processing of information that relies on beliefs to support decision making under conditions of ambiguity or uncertainty (Bonfá-Araujo et al, 2021) by reducing complex constructs into contrasting categories for organizing information (Berlin, 1990). A number of previous studies have reported contrasting policy positions toward HF that emphasize environmental and economic outcomes related to HF.…”