The Psychology of "WYSIWYG"

Source: geralt/Pixabay Commons

You may be familiar with the line “what you see is what you get” from a popular song from the 1970s, the kind of tune that sticks in your head whenever you hear it (Google it). Or perhaps you’re familiar with the term WYSIWYG (pronounced wiz-ee-wig), a widely used acronym in computer programming that also stands for “what you see is what you get.” Software developers apply the term to computer programs that enable the user to display a document on a screen or in a printout that corresponds directly to what the user has typed or edited. With WYSIWYG, users don’t need to bother with computer formatting to know what the final product will look like.

Let me offer a psychological variation of WYSIWYG: “What you say (to yourself) is what you get.” That is, what you say to yourself under your breath determines how you feel. And what you say to yourself reflects what you think. So we circle back to the thoughts that bounce around in your head. Your thoughts reflect how you perceive reality, and because perception trumps reality, what you say to yourself becomes your reality. Your perceived reality may be an accurate rendering of the way things truly are or merely your own perspective on things, which may be subject to distortions, biases, and exaggerations.

Though many people may be hesitant to admit it, we all talk to ourselves, continually chatting away in the private echo chamber called the human mind. In our private conversations with ourselves, we pass judgment on ourselves and the experiences of the day.

The Chatty Mind

We continually read ourselves and everything around us that leaves any impression in our mind as we try to explain and understand the events of the day. The great philosopher Aristotle began his Metaphysics with the words, “All human beings, by nature, desire to know.” We are indeed inquisitive creatures who continuously evaluate everything happening to us and around us. We need to know the what, why, and wherefore of our daily experiences. We try to make sense of things that happen to us, although we sometimes make nonsense out of them, such as by selectively filtering them by focusing only on the negative side of events, exaggerating the importance of negative events, dismissing the importance of positive events or explaining them away, or guilting or shaming ourselves by pinning nasty labels on ourselves such as lazy, dumb, or loser. It is part of our nature, as Aristotle recognized, to want to know, and so we continually size things up.

Changing How You Think Can Change How You Feel

The psychology of WISYWYG focuses on the effects our inner voices have on our emotions and self-worth. If you check out other entries in this blog, you’ll find examples of negative thoughts that undermine our self-esteem and trigger negative emotions such as fear, anger, guilt, and worry.

Are you a good mind reader when it comes to your own mental life? Have you taken inventory of the thoughts that trigger your negative emotions and the self-doubts that keep you stuck in place? The good news is that thinking is malleable. Like raw clay, we can mold how we think by talking back to our negative thoughts and replacing them with sensible alternatives.

Many great thinkers recognized how our thoughts and beliefs affect our emotional health and well-being. “The wise only possess ideas,” penned the 19th-century English poet Samuel Coleridge, but ”...the greater part of mankind are possessed by them." Some 1,500 years earlier, Confucius expressed this sentiment by writing, “Your life is what your thoughts make it” and “You are what you think.”

As discussed in several other posts in this series (see 5 Nuggets of Ancient Wisdom We Rely on Today, 5 Tips from a Roman Emperor on Living the Good Life, and Control What You Can and Let Go of the Rest), ancient Stoic philosophers emphasized the importance of the judgments we impose on life events. As the Stoic sage Epictetus put it, “People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them.”

The teachings of Epictetus greatly influenced another Stoic philosopher who was to become the most powerful ruler of his time, the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Like other Stoics, Marcus recognized the importance of distinguishing what we can control from what lies beyond our ability to control, which is basically everything outside our own mind. Writing in the Meditations, Marcus teaches us that “You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” Returning to Epictetus, we are reminded that we act foolishly when we become preoccupied with worries about things beyond our control, as worrying about such things is futile.

Whose Mind Is It Anyway?

It’s up to us whether we stop and think long enough to capture the negative thoughts that bring us down and make us miserable. In working with patients in my clinical practice, we drill down to the triggering thoughts and the core beliefs that give rise to these thoughts. A young man I treated for depression, let’s call him Dan, was constantly putting himself down, finding fault with himself, and heaping criticism on top of criticism. The voice in his head was a drumbeat of criticism that began with his father and transferred to other important influences—teachers, bosses, and eventually his wife. Through a process of capturing and challenging these thoughts, identifying the common threads that connect them to his underlying core beliefs, and substituting different ways of thinking, he was able to finally move forward with his life.

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Putting WYSIWYG Into Practice

If what you say to yourself is what you get, then thinking out loud can help you catch yourself in the act of thinking negatively. Have you ever talked back to the voices in your head? Have you ever stopped for a moment and said to yourself, “Wait a minute. Why am I thinking that way? Must it be so? Might there be another way of thinking about ____?”

Remember, nobody is in your head unless you invite them in. Isn’t it time to take ownership of your own thoughts?

You may not be able to change the world, but you can change how you think about yourself and the world around you. The psychology of WYSIWYG directs you to listen to your inner voice, taking stock of what you say to yourself and sizing up your inner dialogue by examining your thoughts in the light of reality. When you capture a disturbing thought, ask yourself these types of questions:

• Is it necessarily so or does it just seem that way?
• What thoughts can I substitute for these negative thoughts?
• Whose voice does this sound like? Whose words are these?
• Who says I must think this way? Why not some other way?

We cannot eliminate negative emotions; they are built into our nervous system. Emotions are residues of our evolutionary past, and, frankly, we’re better off with them than without them. Without fear, we might ignore dangerous threats. Without turning our head away in disgust, we might consume rotten food that makes us sick. Emotions are useful and adaptive, but they can become maladaptive when our thoughts turn against ourselves. We can learn to control negative emotions by changing our thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs, by not bothering with things we cannot control and by focusing only on what we can control—what we do and how we think. We can replace the thoughts that make us miserable with thoughts that help us cope.

(c) 2022 Jeffrey S. Nevid