Now there is an information war. Slogans are so driven into people's heads that critical thinking simply disappears. Let's try to analyze them from the point of view of cognitive errors. Black and white thinking. It is characterized by the fact that the situation is assessed only from two positions, and not as a continuum. In the modern world, everyone is drilled into the idea that one country is good, another country is bad. But that doesn't happen. In any conflict there are two sides, each of which plays a certain role in the emergence and maintenance of this conflict. Catastrophization. We are talking about predicting probable scenarios for the development of negative events and one’s attitude towards these events as something that will be impossible to survive. In our case, that we will all starve, we will live terribly, we will all die, etc. We actually don't know how it will be. Of course, there is a possibility of famine and universal death, but how big is this probability? Has anyone from the current generation of Russians, besides our old grandparents who went through the Second World War, actually ever gone hungry? Even in the same notorious 90s? And in general, does thinking about how bad everything will be help anyone? Maybe it's better to focus on solving today's problems, and solve the rest as they come? Overgeneralization. It is characterized by the fact that people make a general negative conclusion based on specific examples. Examples of overgeneralizations: - The whole world now hates us. - We will never be forgiven for this. - No one will want to deal with us. All, never, no one are the words-signs of this cognitive error. Hates the whole world? Well, no, there are countries that support Russia, and many support Russians even within those countries where the policy is anti-Russian. It’s just that their voice is not heard against the background of information noise. Will they never forgive? Everyone has long forgotten something about the Nazi Germans, and a lot of other things. It will all end someday. No one will want to deal with it? Someone won't want it, but someone continues to want it. Now we see that even many Western companies still want to work in the Russian market, but for political reasons this is not yet possible. Personalization. When some common global event supposedly depends on each individual person. “Every Russian is to blame for what is happening in Ukraine.” Well, this is as true as every drop of water is to blame for the tsunami, or every person is to blame for the fact that children in Africa are starving. A must. When a person has clear ideas about how other people should or should not behave. “You must clearly voice your position. You must decide whether you are for yours or for ours. You must go to rallies,” etc. These requirements are similar to the requirement that it rain tomorrow at 6 pm, that the sun shines throughout the next month and that the temperature be +12 all week - no more, no less. Well, you can demand, of course, but is there any point in this?? Does it help in any way? Or, on the contrary, does it make the opponent want to send these demands, along with the one who puts them forward, to hell? Making demands on others usually causes resistance and does not contribute to improving relationships. In the next article I will share what other cognitive errors there are.