Human beings are drawn to clarity: we crave certainty, order, and moral simplicity. Since our brains are constantly filtering vast amounts of information about the world (from economic policy and immigration debates to family dynamics and personal relationships), polarizing ideologies and black-and-white thinking can ‘feel easier’ than nuance; as it reduces mental strain and provide us with a blueprint for how to interpret the world.

Holding competing truths in our mind demands more prefrontal cortex activation, working memory, and emotional regulation. Truly, it takes significant effort to sit with ambiguity, which is why many find themselves attached to packaged viewpoints. While this a relief from a ‘mental output’ perspective, the reality is that the “grey areas” of life (complexity, contradiction, and uncertainty) do in fact exist.

In this post, we’ll explore why we gravitate toward these thinking patterns, starting with our earliest attachment experiences, then turning to the neurobiology of cognitive shortcuts, and finally looking at the psychological concept of splitting. By the end, we’ll explore how to move toward more integrated, nuanced thinking while still feeling safe and grounded.

Attachment: Our First Template for Seeing the World

From birth, our survival depends entirely on caregivers. The infant brain is wired to seek proximity, safety, predictability, and consistent attachment. To help regulate the nervous system, children often develop an internal representation of caregivers as “good” and reliable.

This process is called idealization, and is considered a healthy developmental stage. Seeing caregivers as safe and trustworthy allows the child to focus less on danger and more on growth, exploration, and learning. From a neurobiological perspective, children idealizing their parents quiets the amygdala (the brain’s threat detector) and supports the maturation of the prefrontal cortex.

As cognitive capacities expand, children begin to recognize that their caregivers are complex humans, capable of both love and mistakes. This process of integration (holding both the “good” and “bad” qualities of a parent at once) is a major developmental task often referred to as individuation. When it’s successful, the child develops a more nuanced worldview and a stronger sense of self.

However natural, this transition is often times difficult. For many, the complexity of assessing their family of origin is experienced as threatening or dysregulating to the central nervous system. As a result, the mind is tempted to fall back to all-or-nothing thinking. This “mental shortcut” keeps things simple: absolute and complete versions of good versus bad, safe versus unsafe, right versus wrong.

But this comfort comes at a cost. It can prevent growth, fracture relationships, limit our capacity for empathy, and reinforce abusive systems as binary thinking can also be exploited (by political movements, extremist ideologies, or even dysfunctional family systems); because it bypasses critical thought in favour of emotional certainty, and cognitive ‘safety’.

The Neurobiology of All-or-Nothing Thinking

All-or-nothing thinking, also called dichotomous thinking, is a cognitive shortcut that simplifies reality into two extremes. As we said above, from a neuroscience perspective, it’s energy-efficient…. Here’s why:

• The brain loves efficiency: The prefrontal cortex (responsible for reasoning and integrating multiple perspectives, amongst other complex things) is metabolically expensive. Binary thinking reduces cognitive load, freeing up resources for other survival functions.
• The amygdala is soothed by clarity: The amygdala, which constantly scans for threat, is calmer when the world is divided into predictable categories (“safe” vs. “unsafe,” “us” vs. “them”). Complexity can keep the amygdala firing, as the brain tries to sift through the stimuli. Is that person safe? Is that political party safe? Am I safe? This chronic scanning can create anxiety, often prompting individuals to pick a side, a packaged ideology, a myth, a belief.
• Dopamine rewards certainty: Neuroscientific research shows that dopamine neurons fire in response to the expected precision of our predictions about the future. In other words, when the brain feels confident that it knows what will happen next (or how to act to get what it wants), dopamine strengthens that behavioural strategy.
  

This is why we are drawn to polarizing doctrines, ideologies, and even rigid family roles: they can help the nervous system feel settled, even when reality is far more complicated.

Splitting: When Polarization Becomes a Defence

In psychology, ‘splitting’ describes a process where an individual is unable to integrate positive and negative qualities into a cohesive whole. Instead, they view people, situations, or even themselves in extremes: all good or all bad.

• Idealization and devaluation: Someone may initially see a person as perfect, but after a disappointment, flip to seeing them as terrible or unsafe.
• Defense against anxiety: Splitting protects the psyche from the discomfort of ambivalence. If a person is “all bad,” we know how to protect ourselves; if they’re “all good,” we know we can trust them.
• Short-term relief, long-term cost: While splitting can temporarily reduce anxiety, over time it can disrupt relationships, create instability, and make it harder to see ourselves and others accurately.
  

Splitting is typically correlated with certain personality disorders, however it is not limited to that. Under stress, almost anyone can slip into polarized thinking — especially when facing threats to safety, belonging, or identity.

Moving Toward Integration

The work of becoming a more integrated thinker is not about abandoning conviction, or even saying that there is no such thing as a “truth”. It’s about developing the capacity to hold complexity, see multiple truths, and stay grounded in the discomfort of ambiguity. Some ways to start doing this work include:

• Noticing extreme language: Watch for words like “always,” “never,” “perfect,” or “ruined.” Replace them with softer, more accurate terms like “sometimes” or “partly.”
• Practicing dialectical thinking: Train your brain to hold two truths at once — for example, “My parent hurt me and that’s not ok," with, "I can still love parts of them and know they did the best they could.”
• Strengthen emotional regulation: Practices like mindfulness and somatic grounding help the nervous system tolerate ambiguity without panicking; they help us stay in the present and teach the amygdala that it is safe.
• Seek support: Therapy can provide a safe place to explore ambivalence, challenge rigid thought patterns, and slowly build the capacity for nuance.
  
  

A Call to Action

The world is complex, and complexity asks something of us: it asks that we resist the seductive pull of oversimplification, polarization, black or white thinking, and recognize that there can be many coexisting truths, even when they appear to contradict one another.

When we step out of binary thinking, we open ourselves to deeper empathy, complex problem-solving, authentic relationships, and most importantly: empathy and compassion for others lived stories. The “grey areas” are not a threat — they are humanity. They are where wisdom, growth, connection and love exist. If you need a supportive space to do this work, we are here for you.