52 Cognitive Distortions!

1.  Personalizing

Taking something personally that may not be personal.  Seeing events as consequences of your actions when there are other possibilities.  Example:  Believing someone’s brusque tone must be because they’re irritated with you.

2.  Mind reading

Guessing what someone else is thinking, when they may not be thinking that.

3.  Negative predictions

Overestimating the likelihood that an action will have a negative outcome.

4.  Underestimating coping ability

Underestimating your ability to cope with negative events.

5.  Catastrophizing

Thinking of unpleasant events as catastrophes.

Example:  Imagine you're preparing for a big work presentation, and you accidentally mess up a small detail during your practice session.  You start thinking, "If I make this mistake during the actual presentation, everyone will think I'm incompetent.  I'll probably lose my job, and then I won’t be able to pay my bills. My whole life will fall apart!"

6.  Biased attention toward signs of social rejection, and lack of attention to signs of social acceptance

Example:  During social interactions, paying attention to someone yawning and assuming you're boring them, but not paying the same degree of attention to other cues that suggest they are interested in what you’re saying (such as leaning toward you).

7.  Negatively biased recall of social encounters

Remembering negatives from a social situation while not remembering positives.  Example:  Remembering losing your place for a few seconds while giving a talk but not remembering the huge clap you got at the end.

8.  Thinking an absence of effusiveness means something is wrong

Believing an absence of a smiley face in an email means someone is mad at you.  Or, interpreting “You did a good job” as negative because you were expecting to be told that you did a "great" job.

9.  Unrelenting standards

The belief that achieving unrelentingly high standards is necessary to avoid a catastrophe.  Example:  The belief that making any mistakes will lead to your colleagues thinking you're useless.

10.  Entitlement beliefs

Believing the same rules that apply to others should not apply to you.  Example:  Believing you shouldn’t need to do an internship even if that is the normal path to employment in your industry.

11.  Justification and moral licensing

Example:  When you've made progress toward a goal and therefore feel that it’s alright to act in a way that is inconsistent with it.

12.  Belief in a just world

Example:  Believing that poor people must deserve to be poor.

13.  Seeing a situation only from your own perspective

Example:  Failing to look at a topic of relationship tension from your partner’s perspective.

14.  Belief that self-criticism is an effective way to motivate yourself toward better future behavior

Research in suggests that self-compassion – treating oneself with understanding and kindness after a failure – is actually a far more effective approach for motivation and growth.  It allows people to reflect on their mistakes without judgment and use them as a platform for improvement.  This shift can make all the difference in bouncing back stronger!

15.  Recognizing feelings as causes of behavior, but not equally attending to how behavior influences thoughts and feelings

Example:  You think, “When I have more energy, I’ll exercise” but not, “Exercising will give me more energy.”

16.  All-or-nothing thinking

Example:  "If this recipe doesn't turn out right, I'm no good at cooking and will never cook again."

17.  "Shoulds" and "musts"

Example:  "I should always give 100 percent."  Sometimes, there are no important benefits of doing a task beyond a basic acceptable level.

18.  Using feelings as the basis of a judgment, when the objective evidence does not support your feelings

Example:  "I feel depressed, so going for a walk is not a good idea."

19.  Basing future decisions on “sunk costs”

Example:  Investing more money in a business that is losing money because you’ve invested so much already.

20.  Delusions

Holding a fixed, false belief, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  Example:  Believing the earth is flat.  Another example:  Believing you’re overweight when you’re 100 pounds.

21.  Assuming your current feelings will stay the same in the future

Example:  “I feel unable to cope today; therefore, I will feel unable to cope tomorrow.”

22.  Cognitive labeling

Example:  Mentally labeling your sister’s boyfriend as a “loser” and not being open to subsequent evidence suggesting he isn’t a loser.

23.  The Halo Effect

A cognitive bias where our overall impression of a person, company, or product influences how we perceive their other traits.  Essentially, if we view one aspect positively, we tend to assume other aspects are equally positive, even without evidence.

Example:  Imagine you meet someone who is physically attractive.  Because of their appearance, you might unconsciously assume they are also intelligent, kind, or capable, even though you have no proof of these traits.  Their attractiveness "casts a halo" over your perception of their other qualities.

24.  Minimizing

Example:  “Yes, I won an important award, but that still doesn’t really mean I’m accomplished in my field.”

25.  Magnifying (aka cognitively exaggerating)

Magnifying is making a mountain out of a molehill, but not quite to the same extent as catastrophizing.  Example:  Blowing your own mistakes and flaws out of proportion and perceiving them as more significant than they are.

26.  Cognitive conformity

Seeing things the way people around you view them.  Research has shown that this often happens at an unconscious level.

27.  Overgeneralizing

Generalizing a belief that may have validity in some situations.  Example:  Applying the strategy of, “If you want something done well, you should do it yourself” to every situation.  This is a type of lack of psychological flexibility.

28.  Blaming others

Example:  "I grew up to be a criminal because of my parents.  They raised me wrong.  It's their fault."

29.  Falling victim to the “foot in the door” technique

When someone makes a small request to get a “Yes” answer, then follows up with a bigger request, people are more likely to agree to the big request than if only that request had been made.

30.  Falling victim to the “door in the face” technique

When someone makes an outlandish request first, then makes a smaller request, the initial outlandish request makes the smaller request seem more reasonable.

31.  Focusing on the amount saved rather than the amount spent

Example:  Focusing on the amount of a discount rather than on whether you’d buy the item that day at the sale price if it wasn’t listed as on sale.

32.  Overvaluing things because they're yours

Example:  Perceiving your baby as more attractive or smart than they really are because they're yours.  Another example:  Overestimating the price of your home when you put it on the market because you overestimate the added value of renovations you've made.

33.  Failure to consider alternative explanations

Coming up with one explanation for why something has happened and failing to consider alternative, more likely explanations.

34.  The self-serving bias

People's tendency to attribute positive events to their own character but attribute negative events to external factors.

35.  Attributing strangers' behavior to their character and not considering situational/contextual factors

Imagine you’re driving, and another car cuts you off abruptly.  Your immediate thought might be, "What a reckless and inconsiderate driver!"  Here, you’re attributing the stranger’s behavior to their character traits (e.g., carelessness or rudeness).  However, you’re not considering the potential situational factors.  Perhaps they’re rushing to the hospital due to an emergency or simply didn’t notice you because they’re distracted by stress or bad news.

36.  Failure to consider opportunity cost

Example:  Spending an hour doing a low ROI (Return On Investment) task and thinking, "It's only an hour" and not considering the lost potential of spending that hour doing a high ROI task.

37.  Assumed similarity

The tendency to assume other people hold similar attitudes to your own.

38.  In-group bias

The tendency to trust and value people who are like you, or who are in your circle, more than people from different backgrounds.

39.  "You don't know what you don't know"

Getting external feedback can help you become aware of things you didn't even know that you didn't know.

40.  The tendency to underestimate how long tasks will take

41.  The belief that worry and overthinking will lead to problem-solving insights

In fact, overthinking tends to impair problem-solving ability and can lead to avoidance coping.

42.  Biased implicit attitudes

Example:  In the workplace, a manager may unconsciously assume that older employees are less adept at learning new technologies compared to their younger counterparts.  As a result, they might assign tech-related tasks to younger employees more often, while overlooking older employees who are equally capable or even more experienced in adapting to new systems.

43.  The peak-end rule

A psychological heuristic where people judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its most intense moment (the "peak") and at its conclusion (the "end"), rather than the entire experience as a whole.

Example:  Imagine you’re attending a day-long seminar.  For the most part, it’s dull, but midway through, there’s an inspiring speaker who captivates the audience (the "peak").  The seminar ends with a surprise giveaway of a popular gadget that you win (the "end").  Despite the overall mediocrity of the event, you remember it as a highly positive experience because of those two impactful moments.

44.  The tendency to prefer familiar things

Familiarity breeds liking, which is part of why people are loyal to certain brands and may pay inflated prices for them instead of switching.

45.  The belief you can multi-task

When you're "multi-tasking," you're actually task (and attention) shifting.  Trying to focus on more than one goal at a time is self-sabotage.

46.  Failure to recognize the cognitive benefits of restorative activities and those that increase positive emotions

Example:  Seeing humor or breaks as a "waste of time."

47.  Positively biased predictions

Example:  Expecting that if you sign up for a one-year gym membership, you will go, even though this hasn't been the case in the past.

48.  Cheating on your goals based on positive behaviors you plan to do later

Example:  Overeating today if you expect you'll be starting a diet next week.  Often, the planned positive behaviors don't happen.

49.  Repeating the same behavior and expecting different results, or thinking that doubling down on a failed strategy will start to produce positive results

Example:  Expecting that if you nag more, someone will change their behavior.  Another example:  Someone is irrefutably proven to be incorrect, but they double down on their position.

50.  "I can't change my behavior" (or "I can't change my thinking style")

Instead of telling yourself "I can't," try asking yourself how you could shift your behavior (or thinking style) by just five percent.

51.  Overconfidence bias:   

This happens when someone assumes they understand a topic or situation fully, failing to recognize areas they lack knowledge in.  This can lead to poor decision-making because critical unknowns are overlooked.

52.  The Dunning-Kruger Effect  

This bias involves individuals with limited knowledge or competence overestimating their abilities in a particular area because they don't yet know enough to recognize their own limitations.

Source:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-practice/201301/50-common-cognitive-distortions

(I made needed modifications to some of the descriptions and examples from the above site.)