Jumping to Conclusions

When it tends to show up

• When you guess how someone feels from their expression or how fast they reply
• When a reply to your message takes longer than usual
• Before something whose outcome is still unknown, like a presentation or an interview

A hint for another view

List one fact that supports your conclusion and one that doesn’t. A guess you haven’t checked is still just one possible explanation.

What is Jumping to Conclusions

Jumping to Conclusions is a habit of deciding, without clear evidence, that people feel badly about you or that things are going to turn out badly. Broadly speaking, this habit has two sides.

One is "Mind Reading." This is when you take someone's expression, how little they say, or how quickly they reply, and decide what they feel without checking: "They must be angry," "They don't think much of me." The other is "Fortune Telling." This is when you treat a bad ending to something that hasn't happened yet as if it were already settled: "It won't work out anyway," "I'm sure I'll fail."

Being able to predict what comes next and imagine how others feel is essential for getting along with people and making plans. But when those guesses are treated as "facts" without being checked, your mind gets worn out by things that haven't happened yet, and you may feel down more easily. There is nothing strange about having this habit. Noticing that you haven't been able to leave a guess as just a guess is the first step toward seeing things differently.

Everyday examples

Mind Reading often shows up in moments like these. At work, imagine you give your manager an update and they barely react. They may simply have been thinking about another task, yet you feel "They must be unhappy with something," and you can't settle down for the rest of the day. A quick "Thanks" from someone who is busy can easily be read as displeasure.

With friends or in dating, just because a reply to your text takes longer than usual, you may decide the other person's feelings in the worst direction: "Maybe they're tired of me," "Did I say something that bothered them?" You might think the same way on social media when someone who always reacts to your posts doesn't react this time.

Fortune Telling often shows up before something whose outcome is still unknown. Before a presentation at school or a job interview, you may keep picturing only bad outcomes again and again: "My mind is going to go blank," "I won't get it anyway." The more often you replay the bad version, the more it starts to feel like a memory instead of a guess.

At home, you may want to talk something over with your family but predict "They're obviously going to say no," and give up before you even bring it up. Deciding "I won't stick with it" before you have even started a new class or hobby is also a form of Fortune Telling. The prediction feels like it is protecting you from disappointment, but it can also keep you from finding out what would really have happened.

When it tends to get stronger

Jumping to Conclusions tends to get stronger when information is scarce and the outcome stays unknown for a while. While you are waiting for a reply, or waiting to hear whether you passed or got the job, your mind starts guessing as if to fill in the blank.

Mind Reading also shows up more when you care a lot about your relationship with the other person. The smaller the reaction from someone you like, or someone whose opinion matters to you, the more you try to read meaning into it. When you are tired, or when you have been through a similar painful experience before, it is also easy to imagine a bad turn of events in advance.

Questions that help you find another view

When you are about to jump to a bad conclusion, try asking yourself questions like these:

• Can you name one fact that supports the conclusion and one fact that doesn't?
• What other reasons could there be for why the other person acted that way?
• Is that prediction something you actually checked, or something you imagined?
• What would the worst outcome, the best outcome and the most likely outcome each be?
• Is there a way to ask the person directly, or to wait and see a little longer?

A guess you haven't checked is still just one possible explanation. Lining up other possible explanations next to it can give your mind a little breathing room. "They're angry with me" can sit next to "They're busy," "Their phone is dead" and "They haven't seen it yet."

How it differs from similar patterns

Jumping to Conclusions often shows up together with Emotional Reasoning. Emotional Reasoning is a habit of reaching a conclusion based on your own feelings: "I feel uneasy, so something bad is sure to happen." Jumping to Conclusions is a habit of building a guess out of the other person's behavior or a few small clues. The difference is whether your evidence is "a feeling" or "a handful of clues."

It is also similar to Overgeneralization. Overgeneralization is a habit of using one or two past events as evidence and stretching them into "this always happens." What sets Jumping to Conclusions apart is that it runs ahead and decides based on the situation in front of you, regardless of how many times something happened in the past.