Mr. A’s investments have failed in the past two years and his business has suffered losses. Rationally, he knows to maintain positive thinking, and his family has encouraged him many times, but he can never get rid of the idea of ”I am a loser” and increasingly thinks he is really a loser.
Mr. A’s thought process is full of fallacies. The first is attribution error, which is to mistakenly attribute the result of an event (such as investment or business profits/losses) solely to personal ability or effort while completely ignoring various other factors. This includes external environmental factors that are unpredictable or uncontrollable. In addition, when faced with difficulties, labeling a person (self or others) as a failure: needing to take full responsibility for the failure without any suggestion of a way to remedy or improve it.
In today’s society, more and more people fall into ideological fallacies like Mr. A does. Why? This is closely related to modern social trends and concepts. In the past society, for a farmer who lost everything due to a natural disaster, or a businessman who lost everything during a war, everyone would consider them unfortunate and worthy of sympathy. This kind of thinking focuses on what happens to a person. It also recognizes that human abilities are limited and not everything in life is within the control of people, thus, resulting in sympathy. On the contrary, in modern society, there is great emphasis on personal abilities and achievements, and society firmly believes that everything can be controlled through science, technology, and human rationality. In addition, society vigorously praises successful people and spreads the image of those people through information technology. As a result, it is easy to fall into this ideological fallacy and attribute personal achievements entirely to personal abilities. This social atmosphere, when combined with economic adversity, will lead many people to become ashamed of themselves, depressed, and even world-weary due to financial difficulties. The situation is like a “psychological virus” pandemic.
When facing current economic difficulties, everyone should remind themselves and each other: don’t take it personally, focus on solving the problem, discern the various causes at a macro level, and be careful not to make things personal.
Written by: Dr. William Chui
Originally posted on: HKEJ Health
Translated by: Cheuk Long Chan
