20 Cognitive Distortions: Your Cloudy Thinking Is Being Used To Manipulate You

1. All-or-Nothing Thinking: Viewing situations as black or white, without shades of gray, leading to unrealistic expectations or perceptions.

2. Overgeneralization: Drawing broad conclusions based on limited evidence, magnifying negative experiences to apply them universally.

3. Mental Filter: Focusing exclusively on negative details while discounting positive aspects, distorting perceptions and overall mood.

4. Disqualifying the Positive: Ignoring or dismissing positive experiences or feedback, reinforcing negative self-perceptions and undermining self-esteem.

5. Jumping to Conclusions: Making assumptions or predictions without sufficient evidence, leading to unwarranted conclusions or anxiety.

6. Magnification and Minimization: Exaggerating the significance of negative events while downplaying positives, distorting reality and fostering negativity.

7. Emotional Reasoning: Believing that feelings reflect objective reality, leading to irrational decision-making based on emotional reactions.

8. Should Statements: Imposing rigid expectations or rules on oneself or others, fostering guilt, frustration, and unrealistic standards.

9. Labeling and Mislabeling: Attaching negative labels to oneself or others based on behavior, overlooking complexities and potential for change.

10. Personalization: Assuming responsibility for events outside one’s control, leading to undue guilt or self-blame.

11. Catastrophizing: Expecting the worst-case scenario in situations, amplifying anxiety and stress disproportionate to actual risk.

12. Mind Reading: Assuming knowledge of others’ thoughts or intentions without evidence, leading to misunderstandings and conflict.

13. Fortune Telling: Predicting negative outcomes without evidence, perpetuating anxiety and avoidance of potentially rewarding experiences.

14. Discounting the Positive: Minimizing or disregarding positive experiences or accomplishments, reinforcing negative self-perceptions and low self-esteem.

15. Control Fallacies: Believing one has excessive control over external events, leading to frustration or anxiety when outcomes are beyond control.

16. Comparisons: Judging oneself unfavorably based on comparisons with others, fostering envy, inadequacy, or superiority complexes.

17. Blaming: Holding oneself or others responsible for negative events beyond their control, perpetuating feelings of resentment or victimhood.

18. Selective Attention: Focusing on certain details while ignoring others, distorting perceptions and reinforcing existing beliefs or biases.

19. Selective Abstraction: Drawing conclusions based on isolated details while ignoring broader context, leading to distorted interpretations.

20. Tunnel Vision: Fixating on a single aspect of a situation while disregarding broader perspectives, leading to narrow-mindedness and misunderstandings.