Cognitive Error

Cognitive Error It's always the same thing with motorcyclists, they think they own the road" said David as he sat in his car stuck in mid-morning traffic. The motorcyclist zoomed past him through the narrow gap between him and another car. David looked over at the other driver who was on the cell-phone.

He gestured at the motorcyclist and shook his head at his fellow car driver in a bid to say, "Jerks, the?" David figured the other driver probably felt the same way, because he too shook his head and continued with his conversation on the phone. David was getting fidgety as the traffic showed no signs of easing up. Probably some accident he thought, then said out loud, "Probably some woman not looking where she's going. It's always a woman." He slapped his steering wheel and looked at the clock.

11:42 it said. He was definitely late. David knew they were very firm on tardiness, but he figured they liked him so it wouldn't matter. It wouldn't matter that he's always late, but they liked him so it was okay. It didn't matter that he had been written up twice now for being late either he thought, because they appreciated his work and wouldn't fire someone who worked as hard as him.

Besides, he rationalized, he works plenty of overtime hours on the weekend and late at night, being a little late in the morning shouldn't matter too much. The traffic eased a little and David could see the flashing lights up ahead. He wondered how serious the accident was. He couldn't see any debris or crunched up cars, so figured it couldn't be too serious. David wondered if there was going to be a body on the road.

There was too much traffic stopped up for a simple bumper incident, or flat tire. David cringed; he didn't want to see any blood or bodies. Things like that made him squeamish and always made him wonder if it could happen to him. "I'm too young to go through something like that," he found himself saying out loud, "I haven't had kids yet." David's lane started to move, and he tried not to look as he passed the scene, but he couldn't help it.

There were no bodies, thank goodness, but some bails of hay that had fallen off a truck. A woman was standing talking to a police officer "Typical," he thought, "Some people should just not be allowed on the road." In the above dialogue, David expresses five kinds of cognitive errors: denial, projection, overgeneralization, rationalization and catastrophizing. The most evident of these is overgeneralization where David believes a woman always commits an accident.

He does this twice (regarding women), and in turn in the last occurrence this could also be considered rationalization when he believes the woman talking to the officer justifies his previous statement. He also over generalizes about motorcyclists. David projects his feelings about the motorcyclist on to the other driver that is speaking on the phone while he is in denial regarding losing his job for being late. He rationalizes to himself that being working late and on weekends should justify coming to work late.

He also commits the cognitive error of catastrophizing when he considers his own mortality and assumes that the accident was fatal. David could avoid these errors by taking responsibility for his actions. Instead of making excuses for coming into work late, he should work it out so that he comes into work on time, regardless of working late or on weekends. If he feels this is justified, he should make.