How Cognitive Distortions Fuel Your Stressors

Cognitive distortions are when our mind puts a ‘spin’ on the events we see and attaches a not-so-objective interpretation to what we experience—it happens all the time. We all have cognitive distortions, which are simply tendencies or patterns of thinking or believing, and they are especially common in people with depression and other mood disorders.

Psychologist Aaron T. Beck originally developed the theory of cognitive distortions in the 1960s. Since then, many therapists have helped clients live more positive lives by hunting down their cognitive distortions and correcting them. (It’s one of the tenets of a very successful and fast-working mode of therapy called cognitive therapy.)

An interesting thing to note is that several cognitive distortions can work to our advantage. The key is to know when and how to do so.

Here are the 10 most common (and officially recognized) cognitive distortions, with examples of how they relate to stress. You might smile as you recognize one or two as familiar "friends." If you look for them and gently correct them in the coming days, you’ll be well on your way to reducing your reactivity to the stress in your life.

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All-or-Nothing Thinking

This distortion is the culprit when we think in extremes, with no gray areas or middle ground. All-or-nothing thinkers often use words like "always" and "never" when describing things. “I always get stuck in traffic!” “My bosses never listen to me!” This type of thinking can magnify the stressors in our lives, making them seem like bigger problems than they may, in reality, be.

Overgeneralization

Those prone to overgeneralization take isolated events and assume all future events will be the same. For example, an overgeneralizer who faces a rude sales clerk may start believing that all sales clerks are rude and that shopping will always be a stressful experience.

Mental Filter

Those who tend toward mental filtering may gloss over positive events and hold a magnifying glass to the negative. Ten things can go right, but a person operating under the influence of a mental filter may only notice the one thing that goes wrong. (Add a little overgeneralization and all-or-nothing thinking to the equation, and you have a recipe for stress.)

Disqualifying the Positive

Similar to mental filtering, those who disqualify the positive tend to treat positive events like flukes, thereby clinging to a more negative worldview and set of low expectations for the future. Have you ever tried to help a friend solve a problem, only to have every solution you pose shot down with a "Yeah but..." response? You’ve witnessed this cognitive distortion firsthand.

Jumping to Conclusions

We do this all the time. Rather than letting the evidence bring us to a logical conclusion, we set our sights on a conclusion (often negative) and then look for evidence to back it up, ignoring evidence to the contrary. The kid who decides everyone in his new class will hate him and ‘knows’ that they’re only acting nice to him to avoid punishment is jumping to conclusions.

Conclusion-jumpers can often fall prey to mind reading (where they believe that they know the true intentions of others without talking to them) and fortune-telling (predicting how things will turn out in the future and believing these predictions to be true). Can you think of examples of adults you know who do this? I bet you can.

Magnification and Minimization

Similar to mental filtering and disqualifying the positive, this cognitive distortion involves emphasizing negative events more strongly and downplaying the positive ones. The customer service representative who only notices customers' complaints and fails to notice positive interactions is a victim of magnification and minimization.

Emotional Reasoning

This one is a close relative of jumping to conclusions because it involves ignoring certain facts when drawing conclusions. Emotional reasoners will consider their emotions about a situation as evidence rather than objectively looking at the facts. “I’m feeling completely overwhelmed, therefore, my problems must be completely beyond my ability to solve them,” or “I’m angry with you; therefore, you must be in the wrong here” are both examples of faulty emotional reasoning.

Should Statements

Those who rely on ‘should statements’ tend to have rigid rules, set by themselves or others, that always need to be followed — at least in their minds. They don’t see flexibility in different circumstances and put themselves under considerable stress trying to live up to these self-imposed expectations. If your internal dialogue involves many ‘shoulds,’ you may be influenced by this cognitive distortion.

Labeling and Mislabeling

Those who label or mislabel will habitually place labels that are often inaccurate or negative on themselves and others. “He’s a whiner.” “She’s a phony.” “I’m just a useless worrier.” These labels tend to define people and contribute to a one-dimensional view of them, paving the way for overgeneralizations to move in. Labeling cages people into roles that don’t always apply and prevents us from seeing people (ourselves included) as we really are. It’s also a big no-no in relationship conflicts.

Personalization

Those who personalize their stressors tend to blame themselves or others for things over which they have no control, creating stress where it need not be. Those prone to personalization tend to blame themselves for the actions of others or blame others for their own feelings.

If any of these feel a little too familiar, that’s a good thing: recognizing a cognitive distortion is the first step of moving past it.