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Classic Cognitive Distortions or Assumptions (Brief Version)
(Click here to view an example of a completed form.)
All or Nothing Thinking
You think of things in “black or white” categories. Perfectionism. Rigid thinking.
Over Generalizing
You think of a single negative event as a never-ending pattern.
Mental Filtering
You dwell on a single negative detail, and ignore moderate or positive things that may occur.
Disqualifying the Positive
You reject positive experiences... “They don’t count”.
You maintain a negative view in spite of contradictory evidence.
Mind Reading
You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you,
and don’t bother to check this out with them.
Fortune Telling
You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and feel convinced that your prediction is a fact.
Catastrophizing
You believe the worst-case scenario will happen.
Magnifying or Minimizing
You exaggerate the importance of certain things (e.g. your mistakes or other’s successes) and minimize other things (e.g. your own desirable qualities or other’s imperfections).
Emotional Reasoning
You assume that the way you feel reflects the way things are.
“Shoulds”
You believe you must live up to certain perfectionist expectations
and may also have excessively high expectations of others.
Labeling/Mislabeling
“ Over-Generalizing”. Instead of describing an error, you put a negative label on yourself/others. e.g. Instead acknowledging your small error, you label yourself a “Loser”.
Personalization
You see yourself as responsible for events around you that had little/no responsibility for.
e.g. Your friend is sad b/c her boyfriend left her, and you criticize yourself for having a boyfriend.
Maladaptive Thought
Any belief you have that is not useful to you in a given situation.
Compensatory Misconceptions
The belief that you need to inflate your achievements to be socially successful.
Adapted from: Cognitive Distortions (1999). The Shyness Institute 4370 Alpine Rd, Portola Valley, CA 94028