Many Chinese sports fans last month felt frustrated when the China women's national football team failed to qualify for the Paris Olympic Games. There was the typical roller coaster of emotional reactions with the usual talking heads on social media shouting for the chief coach Shui Qingxia to be fired. Similarly, at the Hangzhou Asian Games, Chinese national team athlete Wu Yanni came under attack for having been disqualified because of a false start. Facing pressure, she had to post an open letter to deeply apologize to all her "friends."
Strangely enough, many of these armchair en tics and "friends" were the very people who had sung the praises of Shui's and Wu's performance not long ago. Unfortunately, this phenomenon of polarized thinking, also referred to as black-and-white thinking, is by no means unique to the world of competitive sports, where successes and failures can happen in an instant.
Polarized thinking occurs when emotions run high and people use the lower part of their brain. This was very useful in the early stages of human development when, back in the Stone Age, our ancestors were forced to categorize everything into either good or bad because they lived in constant fear of being attacked by larger animals. Their lives were always on the line. There was no time to consider the nuanced (微妙的) middle ground or to put themselves in other people's shoes.
Since those old days are long gone, why do we still need to be so extreme in our thinking? The consequences of giving into polarized thinking are dangerous. Adopting extreme positions can distort (歪曲) yourself-image and worldview (like judging yourself or other individuals based on a single event), both of which will lead to failure in life.
What if you were verbally (口头上地) attacked by those polarized types? An effective way to deal with it is to apply the technique of summarization: "So what you're saying is...Is that correct? Could you be more specific?" This is a type of mental jujitsu (柔术), where you use the attacker's energy and strength against themselves. Emotional people are not good at being specific, so if you calmly ask them for a detailed explanation of their position, their argument will often reach a dead end. By that time, just smile and tell them, "Thank you for sharing."
