Talk:Minimisation (psychology)

Minimisation/Magnification/Cognitive distortion

This is a confusing but very interesting area. There are several issues:

• there is obviously overlap between defense mechanisms and cognitive distortions - it looks like cognitive distortions may be a subset of defense mechanisms. To make it even more confusing some defense mechanisms such as rationalisation are also listed as fallacies.
• "Disqualifying the positive" in cognitive distortions. I cover that as an example of minimization in Minimisation (psychology) but my supporting citation is second rate.
• The academic literature is very inconsistent when referring to the opposite of minimisation and often just refers to "exaggeration". The natural name would be "maximisation" which i have seen a few times. But I will use "magnification" if that is the best name. I was working on a sandbox article see User:Penbat/exaggeration_(psychology) --Penbat (talk) 08:52, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I am no domain expert. Just a user trying to make sense of things. Cognitive distortion has magnification and minimization in the same list item but I'm not sure that is correct or that magnification is really the mirror of minimization or that exaggeration is the opposite of minimization in cause as well as effect. Feel free to go back to exaggeration instead of magnification. Jojalozzo (talk) 19:38, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

This article appears to be describing a more conscious phenomenon ("used by an abuser") rather than a cognitive distortion which I understand to be more unconscious. If the article is describing a mostly unconscious phenomenon then it would be better to replace "used by an abuser" with something more passive like "presented in abusers". Jojalozzo (talk) 19:38, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Actually "magnification" is something new for me to investigate and may be the right word. But i will be researching for as long as it takes. I find this stuff very interesting. There isnt actually much content to write and the idea are not difficult but i think it is made more difficult by the fact that different academic sources sometimes use different words for the same thing.--Penbat (talk) 19:51, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Expert review

This article appears to emphasize minimization in the behavior of abusers and "manipulators" - as a behavior of criminals and sociopaths. I would like an expert's help in giving appropriate weight to minimization behavior in everyday normal psychology. The article also appears to emphasize conscious intention ("used by an abuser") and may not capture all the psychological (and unconscious) aspects of the behavior. Jojalozzo 20:00, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

I do mention that it is a coping mechanism. Anyway as discussed on the Exaggeration (talk) page, we may have to wait a long time for an expert to come along.--Penbat (talk) 20:23, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Edits by User:Jojalozzo here and in exaggeration

I am irritated that you have truncated my carefully written text on minimisation (psychology) and exaggeration. Also you have chosen to separate both minimisation (psychology) and exaggeration in terms of a manipulative technique and as a cognitive distortion when i dont think a clear distinction exists. Cognitive distortion is in turn linked to from Template:Psychological manipulation, psychological manipulation, Template:Defence mechanisms and Defence_mechanism#Level_1_-_Pathological. I think you believe that one is conscious while the other is not, where i dont think there is a meaningful distinction. I am tempted to believe that you have some sort of POV personal sensitivity in this area. Also as you have put in a "Expert-subject" template you are obviously not yourself sure you have got it right.--Penbat (talk) 21:10, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

As I understand it, one of the distinctions between psychological manipulation and cognitive distortion is that a manipulator is acting consciously and may or may not be experiencing cognitive distortions while a person experiencing cognitive distortion is not conscious they are doing so. As I understand it, the main problem of cognitive distortion is that it is unconscious - it occurs internally in cognitive processing and is not the result of cognition. If that is so, then cognitive distortions are quite different from conscious manipulation of another person and it is incorrect to confound the two. One person exaggerating something to influence others not a form of cognitive distortion.

In my view the main reason for linking psychological manipulation and cognitive distortion is that the former may result in the latter, i.e. one person may manipulate another such that the other's cognition is distorted, but that does not mean that psychological manipulation is cognitive distortion. There are a wide variety of ways that cognitive distortions may arise and from my perspective an emphasis on manipulation and abusers in this and other articles is confusing and introduces a bias and non-neutral POV. In addition, if we want to introduce the causes of cognitive distortions we should be doing so in a separate section from one that describes the distortions themselves as well as ensuring we do not give undue weight to abusers and manipulators.

I am not sure why you have pointed out the links between various articles and templates. From what I can tell they are mostly ones you created yourself so I do not believe we should consider them as lending weight to your position. If you had some other reason for bringing them up please explain.

If wanting to make sure the article is accurate is a point of view then I plead guilty. I am open to the possibility that I am the one who is wrong here and if you can provide valid sources that describe psychological manipulation as a form of cognitive distortion or that identify abusers as the primary cause of cognitive distortions then I welcome the correction. Jojalozzo 01:56, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I have seen plenty of citations that refer to cognitive distortions by abusers such as this one which is in Child sexual abuse:

"Offenses may be facilitated by cognitive distortions of the offender, such as minimization of the abuse, victim blaming, and excuses.(ref)Ward, T., Hudson, S. M., & Marshall, W. L. (1995). "Cognitive distortions and affective deficits in sex offenders: A cognitive deconstructionist interpretation," Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 7, 67-83.(/ref)"

As it applies to abuse (which only a minority of us do) it certainly also applies to manipulation (which we all do from time to time at a subtle or blatant level).

The defense mechanism "distortion" i did not do myself. Distortion is considered an important defense mechanism. Yes i did do the psychological manipulation link but that was based on at least 2 cited sources that say that psychological manipulation involves cognitive distortion.--Penbat (talk) 14:06, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you misunderstood my point that distortions occur in everyone for many reasons most of them unrelated to abusers and manipulators. Emphasizing abusers and manipulators as the cause of of distortions in others or the subject of distortions themselves introduces a bias that we should avoid. I suggest we separate the causes from descriptions of the distortions themselves and add a section on the causes of distortions with equal weight for all causes without an emphasis on abusers and manipulators. Jojalozzo 21:36, 27 March 2010 (UTC).

Google scholar gives me 2,140 results for "cognitive distortion" with any form of the word "abuse".[1] It gives me 4,380 results for "cognitive distortion" with or without any form of the word "abuse".[2]

I think it is basically like blame and self-blame, criticism and self-criticism, rationalisation and self-rationalisation. I previously referred to "self-minimisation" as an internal coping mechanism. The "self" versions operate internally and the normal versions operate externally - the "self-" version is just a variant of the normal version and uses the same basic mechanics. You could of course have some external forms of cognitive distortion due to things like physical illness or drug taking but in general it is the role of cognitive distortion in the context of abuse which has most significance as they may facilitate very serious abuse. I recently heard the word "minimisation" used twice in the current Catholic Child abuse stories in the news.

There are probably quite a few Google scholar refs for "cognitive distortion" and "manipulation" as well but i would have to spend time weeding out irrelevant uses of the word "manipulation".

It is not a matter of bias or undue weight for cognitive distortion in the context of abuse and manipulation - there was nothing invalid with what i had before. If you have some cited material relating to cognitive distortion not relating to abuse or manipulation, by all means add it in. It is not a question of balance and whatever the context of the cognitive distortion, the mechanism is basically the same.--Penbat (talk) 22:52, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

In fact I remember that in the exaggeration article i mention exaggeration (catastrophisation) by depressives, neurotics, and paranoids. This deserves to be covered in more detail but in no way invalidates the material I had on exaggeration in the context of abuse or manipulation.--Penbat (talk) 23:00, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I am glad to see we agree that abuse is only one of many contexts and causes for cognitive distortion. As such, mentioning only abuse as a cause or context of cognitive distortion is WP:UNDUE. Until we can add in all the most important causes and contexts, bringing up any one of them creates bias. I hope you agree that you have more personal interest in the dynamics of abuse than you have in other factors related to many of the topics you contribute to and, given that, I hope you will do your best to recognize and avoid biasing articles towards your personal area of interest when those articles are focused more widely than just abuse and abusers. Jojalozzo 20:55, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

We seem to be in danger of having an endless pointless circular discussion like you started in my sandbox version of exaggeration. I had already covered a diverse variety of contexts for minimisation and exaggeration in their articles as you must have noticed. The information i gave from Scholar suggests that nearly half the scientific papers on cognitive distortion are in the context of abuse and it seems clear that study of cognitive distortion in the context of abuse is the single most widely studied context by quite a wide margin. But that is not to say that it is the only context. Your talk of bias seems garbage to me. If you want more non-abuse related material in there it is up to you to add it in with citations - it in no way impacts the existing abuse-related material.--Penbat (talk) 21:32, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Can you see that one interpretation of your response is that you think that other editors are responsible for counterbalancing your POV? Two ways of dealing with bias are 1) to add equal weight to all the other sides of an issue and 2) to pare down the elements that create the undue weight. Avoiding the paring down of elements that you feel are important may involve improving the balance yourself. Perhaps Google Scholar would help in that (e.g. there are almost 3000 refs for CD and depression). Jojalozzo 22:40, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

It is completely worthless talking to you. Your insistence that there is some sort of bias is a complete figment of your imagination. If I come across a good source covering, say, CD and depression, i would have no qualms whatsoever about putting it in myself. I am completely neutral. I am just saying that if you yourself or anybody else find a good source for something not adequately covered already by me then feel free to add it in.--Penbat (talk) 15:26, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

It makes sense to me that you are not familiar with sources for CD and depression since it does not appear that your focus is in that area. Perhaps I am mistaken but I have inferred from the fact that almost all of the sources you reference are related to abuse that your main focus is that topic. Is that incorrect? Jojalozzo 00:16, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

For about the 10th time I do NOT have any intentional bias. You are wasting my time and giving me a serious headache. Please go away. --Penbat (talk) 08:57, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I did not mean to imply you had any intentional bias or POV. I have never said that you were biased but that your edits give undue weight to abuse. It is my understanding that you have a deep interest in the dynamics of abuse and therefore have been contributing what you can based on what you have learned and are learning about it. This very focused approach to the project is unintentionally producing an undue weight on the dynamics of abuse in topics that have a much broader scope. I'm sorry if this is giving you a headache. Jojalozzo 22:58, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

But what you have done with your changes is seriously warp my original text by truncating some of it and suggesting that only bits of text in exaggeration and minimisation relate to CD.

In the CD article it refers to exaggeration in the intro as a variation from the mean (up or down). Later it refers to magnification as exaggeration to the upside and minimisation as exaggeration to the downside. This may be technically accurate but in its everyday usage, most people understand exaggeration as only exaggeration to the upside and this usage of "exaggeration" is also widely used in the psychology literature.

But you have compounded this confusion by more confusion suggesting that only a tiny bit of the psychology section in the exaggeration article and only a chunk of the minimisation article has any relevance to CD when it is all to do with CD in both cases, as reinforced by the info on Google scholar. Magnification was already listed as a possible alternative word for exaggeration in the introduction. --Penbat (talk) 12:46, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I am reading here that there are particular problems with my edits but not with my reasons for editing. Can I infer from this response that we agree that a focus on abuse in topics which have many additional important facets creates imbalance and that in order to maintain balance we need to either withhold some info on abuse or balance it with an appropriate amount of info from other important areas? If so, let's discuss particular edits in new talk sections in the corresponding articles. Jojalozzo 20:03, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Bulking-up

I have added a certain amount of ballast, but the article may still be a little lite on the cognitive side - not my strongest suit Jacobisq (talk) 04:23, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks - its good work. Same for exaggeration ? --Penbat (talk) 07:55, 10 April 2011 (UTC)