My sister and I were discussing a new intellectual idea that I had some concerns about because I was using a form of binary thinking in my assessment. Either I would accept the idea, or I would not.
As a philosophy major, she suggested: “sometimes, you have to spit out the bones.” What she meant was that, just as one eats fish, and does not eat the bones, it works the same way with ideas. You can take the meat of an idea and discard the bones in the process. In this way, I was engaging in binary thinking. Using a both/and analysis would have been more helpful.
What is binary thinking? Binary thinking is the examination of scenarios from an either/or perspective. It allows individuals to simplify cognitive processes by seeing a situation in black or white, but not gray. This allows them to clearly see major advantages and disadvantages of a situation, but they may miss the finer details to make an informed decision.
Jack Wood and Gianpiero Petriglieri discussed the evolutionary basis for binary thinking. Our ancestors learned to categorize their world as either/or because it could save time and reserve mental resources for basic needs such as hunting and gathering food. They could use binary thinking to guide how they lived, and it would save them from danger in certain situations.
Our brains interpret events at an emotional level and at a rational level. The amygdala is mainly responsible for our emotions, and the cerebral cortex aids our logical processes. These parts of the brain talk to each other and allow us to make decisions balanced with emotions and logic. Thus, we are hardwired for comfort with binary thinking (source).
The best way to conceptualize binary thinking would be the case of any coin. It has two sides, but it is the same coin. They are both equal in their worth. In order to spend it, you must give up the entire coin, not just one side. Along the same lines, either/or binary thinking is incomplete without considering both/and binary thinking.
Benefits of Binary Thinking
Peter Elbow proposed that we could use a form of binary thinking that is both/and, as it welcomes cognitive flexibility. He suggested that a both/and mentality would counter the either/or mentality. While both are types of binary thinking, the both/and notion should be our ultimate goal.
The private/social world is provided as an example of how this would look. Lev Vygotsky suggested that private thought stems from what was initially social language. Consequently, no one is completely social or completely private.
One example that we can all relate to in which binary thinking bodes well for us is language. Code-switching is knowing how to speak in given situations. For instance, some African Americans might speak Ebonics (African American Vernacular English) among their friends and family, and marketplace English at school and in professional settings.
Some Latinx Americans may consider when to speak English and when to speak Spanish, dependent on their environments. The nuances involved in code-switching might be considered as well. For example, what version of Spanish should be considered – the one most familiar if they are talking to their Mexican friends or their Puerto Rican families? (source)
The yin/yang symbol is also representative of binary thinking. This is another example of equal and co-existing sides.
Framing Binary Thinking
There are five ways we can handle binary thinking. The first is either/or thinking, second is resolving the difference (in line with the Georg Hegel tradition), third is ignoring the conflict, fourth is acknowledging the necessity of both (for instance, we need the sun and the moon) and the fifth is to seek alternatives so that more than two things can exist at the same time.
While the first three might be considered less than optimal and feed into binary thinking bias, the last two are more likely to lead to flexible thinking.
Binary thinking in the workplace would be an asset. This is where work-life balance comes into play. Hybrid notions of work exemplify binary thinking, according to Colin Williams.
He suggested that these hybrids might have always been here, but due to seeing work as either formal or informal, it may have kept us from using both/and binary thinking. Seeing work as hybrid also contributes to diverse ways of viewing how people live their lives.
Examples of Binary Thinking
Peter Elbow offers seven examples of how binary thinking works. He acknowledges at the outset that there are times when right and wrong do exist.
Putting this into perspective, one of the examples involves doubting/believing; they are two sides of the same coin. Children tend to believe what we adults say about most things. It is when they get to school that they realize that parents/adults are not right about everything. Doubt becomes an essential part of the formal education process.
Unfortunately, individuals who express a belief in something are sometimes derided for not exhibiting doubt. People who give them a hard time may not realize that those individuals have struggled with doubt.
Realizing that people do not get to belief without experiencing some doubt is intellectual sophistication at its highest level. We can all strive to allow doubt and belief to co-exist in our respective spaces.
Teaching is another area in which binary thinking is exhibited. Teachers can be positive and critical at the same time. Previous researchers have consistently found that teachers with high expectations, meaning they believe that all children can do well, are teachers to whom students gravitate, because they tend to be inviting as well.
Teachers critically assess the work of their students, as that is part of the job. Having high expectations, unfortunately, is not. Some educators excel at both and manage to encourage students toward excellence, with caring (source).
Binary Thinking Bias
Is binary thinking biased? It can be! It is human nature to categorize our complex world. But when we assign meaning to those categories as positive or negative, that is where the bias comes in.
You can see bias in binary thinking of consumers who make decisions about products. Matthew Fisher, George Newman, and Ravi Dhar found in a series of experiments that when a product is rated an average of 3 on a 5-point scale, and if most of the scores are 4 or 5, potential customers rated those more highly compared to those with mostly 1 or 2 ratings. All of this occurred, despite the same rating average of a 3.
They also found the same sort of binary thinking bias when they asked participants in one of their studies to both estimate the GPAs and assess the academic achievement (from poor to very good) of students (who unbeknownst to them had a C average).
The bias was apparent in that participants based their answers on how often certain grades appeared. If they saw mostly As and Bs, they assumed that the students were good; on the other hand, if they mainly saw Ds and Fs, they categorized those students as poor. This occurred, despite the fact that the GPAs were average (source).
M. Martinez Mateo, M. Cabanis, J. Stenmanns, and S. Krach suggested that the way that some MRIs are interpreted may also be due to binary thinking bias. When we use either/or as opposed to both/and, this feeds into the bias of binary thinking.
An unintended consequence of binary bias is that it leaves out entire groups of people in discussions about Western vs. non-Western ways of thinking. They noted that expectations about differences between Americans and Chinese eliminate Latinx, African, and other populations.
The researchers also found that binary thinking can be primed. They reported that using prompts such as an American flag or a Chinese dragon can cause a bicultural individual to automatically think in terms of independence vs. interdependence, feeding into binary thinking bias (either/or).
On the other hand, Sarah Gaither’s research was about priming people to ascribe to multiple identities (both/and), leading to their increased creativity in problem-solving exercises (source).
Either/or binary thinking excludes populations. For example, to say that we are a nation of immigrants ignores people of African descent and indigenous people who predated Europeans’ arrival. Chimamanda Adichie gave a TED talk about the dangers of a single story, and this is an example of that.
Binary thinking bias can cause us to forget people in a conversation on everything from health policy to educational concerns. Once we understand that, it helps us to overcome binary bias.
Polarization is a negative side effect of binary thinking. It may cause people to view others as more extreme than they actually are and also encourages an either/or binary thinking that may be dysfunctional for organizations. Narratives of work, such as formal vs. informal work (as suggested by Colin Williams) can feed into the polarization encouraged by either/or binary thinking (source).
Colin Williams goes beyond either/or binary thinking by suggesting that the implicitness of a hierarchy in his offering on the future of work. While either/or choice thinking implies an equality, hierarchical thinking insinuates that one is more important than the other. An example would be how a service economy is tethered to a management economy.
Consequently, implicit in either/or binary thinking may be a tendency toward hierarchy. This, too, is a disadvantage of either/or binary thinking. For example, believing that individuals providing services through occupations from janitorial/maid service to wait staff at restaurants or bars are below, or less than, managers of these same sorts of occupations could present a problem.
The disdain that some people have for individuals employed in these types of occupations would present itself so that some may think they are better than others who serve their food, cook their meals and clean their homes. This has implications for how we raise our children.
Once again, going back to our analogy of the coin in our description of binary thinking, we can look at one side as the service industry and the other side as management. Teaching our children both/and binary thinking expands their cognitive processes and openness to treating people well, regardless of their station in life.
Susan Robbins proposed that true binary thinking involves a mutual exclusivity. This would mean an either/or mentality as well, such as north/south and hot/cold. She suggested that in addition to a hierarchy, binary thinking could lead to discriminatory behavior. An instance of binary thinking leading to discrimination and based on hierarchy would be us/them or us (positive and better) vs. them (negative and worse) (source).
A Binary Thinking Continuum
The use of a continuum alleviates the problem of either/or binary thinking and would be an extension of both/and binary thinking. Tackling binary bias in this way would go a long way toward positive interpersonal and intergroup communication. At the end of the day, the way we get to the complete truth is to accept binary thinking when it is presented as “both/and.”
Going beyond binary thinking is the acceptance that both sides offer invaluable contributions to specific issues; Susan Robbins offers the field of social work as an example of how this works. If we use both/and binary thinking, it allows us to embrace the complete human experience.
Robbins discusses how she was encouraged to take both macro- and micro-level courses in social work. Similarly, psychology employs the use of quantitative and qualitative research methods. Because I wanted a more complete understanding of the field, I decided to take a both/and binary thinking approach by enrolling in courses that were both quantitative (required) and qualitative (optional).
Often, scholars in the social sciences ascribe to an either/or binary thinking. Empiricism, usually based on statistics, could leave out valuable information that could be acquired using qualitative methodology. Robbins suggested transcending such binary thinking as one side would be marginalized and could fail to include other perspectives.
While both/and binary thinking offers more flexibility, in some ways, it may still inadvertently ignore other perspectives that may not fit the mold.
Perhaps, binary thinking should be used cautiously so that we do not unwittingly forget about different ways to think about particular issues. Both/and binary thinking, therefore, may be a good start on our way to more diverse ways of thinking.
Final Thoughts
In summary, we should ascribe to binary thinking that is both/and rather than either/or. Beginning with either/or binary thinking is a safe bet, but it is not where we should end. We should consciously shift toward both/and binary thinking, as it allows us to recognize cognitive thought as a continuum (source).