Cognitive distortions: 10 types, examples and causes
CareOps editorial team · · Updated · 11 min read
Mental wellness information and service guidance published by CareOps.
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Read our full editorial standards →Have you ever decided a friend was angry with you just because they replied late? Or stumbled once in a presentation and spent the day thinking "I'm hopeless"? Habits of thought that tilt away from the facts like this are called cognitive distortions.
At a glance
- Cognitive distortions are habits of thought that make situations look more extreme or more negative than they are. Everyone has them; they shake your mood when they repeat often and strongly.
- The ten common types are all-or-nothing thinking, overgeneralization, mental filter, disqualifying the positive, jumping to conclusions, catastrophizing, emotional reasoning, should statements, labeling, and personalization. Mental filter means picking out one bad detail until the whole picture looks dark.
- Cognitive behavioral therapy works with them through thought records and cognitive restructuring: write down the situation, thought, and feeling, look at the evidence for and against the thought side by side, then find a more balanced one.
What are cognitive distortions?
Cognitive distortions are habits of thought that lead you to interpret reality as more extreme or more negative than it is. In the 1960s, psychiatrist Aaron Beck described how similar distortions kept recurring in the thinking of people with depression, which became the starting point of cognitive therapy (today's cognitive behavioral therapy). David Burns later grouped them into ten in *Feeling Good*, which made them widely known.
Cognitive distortions show up mixed into automatic thoughts, the thoughts that flash through your mind on their own when something happens. Because they're so fast they feel like facts, so it's easy to miss that they're pulling your mood down. Everyone has them; the problem is when the same distortion repeats often and strongly. For what automatic thoughts are and how to record them, see Automatic thoughts: meaning and examples.
What are the 10 types of cognitive distortions?
| Type | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| All-or-nothing thinking | If it isn't perfect, it's a failure | "I got one question wrong, so I failed the test." |
| Overgeneralization | Turning one event into "always" or "never" | "I got turned down again. It's always like this." |
| Mental filter | Holding on to the one bad thing | Replaying one criticism all day instead of ten compliments |
| Disqualifying the positive | Writing off good things as luck | "I only did well because it was easy." |
| Jumping to conclusions | Deciding what others think (mind reading) or what will happen (fortune telling) without evidence | "No reply yet. They must be disappointed in me." |
| Catastrophizing (magnification and minimization) | Blowing small things up to the worst case and shrinking your strengths | "I'm going to get fired over this mistake." |
| Emotional reasoning | Treating a feeling as proof | "I feel anxious, so something must be going wrong." |
| Should statements | Pushing yourself or others with "should" and "must not" | "I must never make a mistake." |
| Labeling | Putting a label on a whole person after one action | "I'm a failure." |
| Personalization | Taking responsibility for things that aren't your fault | "The team's bad result is all my fault." |
You don't need to memorize the list. Writing down a thought from a hard moment and checking "which of these is it closest to?" is enough to put a little distance between you and the thought.
What is a mental filter?
A mental filter is the habit of picking out one negative detail of a situation and dwelling on it, while filtering out everything else. Like a single drop of ink that seems to color a whole glass of water, one small flaw becomes the color of the entire day.
- After a presentation you hear several compliments, yet spend the night replaying the one question you could not answer well.
- A trip was mostly enjoyable, but one rainy day leaves you remembering it as “a bad trip.”
- On a report card the subjects you did well in barely register, and you keep thinking about the one low grade.
It is a little different from disqualifying the positive, which can look similar. With a mental filter, the good parts barely come into view. With disqualifying the positive, you see the good parts but write them off as luck or something anyone could do. If you notice a mental filter, try sorting the day into three columns: what went well, what was ordinary, and what was hard. The scenes that were filtered out start to reappear.
Examples of cognitive distortions: what do they look like in a day?
Cognitive distortions rarely come one at a time; several often overlap in a single moment. Below is a day in the life of Seoyun, a fictional person. Each scene shows the thought that came up and the distortion it is closest to.
| Scene | Thought | Closest distortion |
|---|---|---|
| In the morning meeting, the team lead only nodded without expression | "They must not like my report." | Jumping to conclusions (mind reading) |
| A single typo in the report was pointed out | "Another mistake. I'm always like this." | Overgeneralization |
| A coworker said "nicely organized" | "They were just being polite." | Disqualifying the positive |
| On the way home, only the typo kept coming back | "Today was a complete disaster." | Mental filter · All-or-nothing thinking |
| A notice said the team schedule slipped by a day | "It's because I submitted late." | Personalization |
| Feeling anxious all evening | "Feeling this anxious means something will definitely go wrong tomorrow." | Emotional reasoning · Catastrophizing |
Rewritten with facts only, the same day looks like this: “I fixed one typo, I was told my work was well organized, and the schedule slipped for several people’s reasons.” Without scolding yourself for the thoughts, simply separating facts from interpretations often changes how heavy the mood feels.
Why do cognitive distortions happen? (causes)
There is no single cause you can point to. The cognitive model of Aaron Beck, which underlies cognitive behavioral therapy, explains it like this.
- Long-held beliefs: experiences over a lifetime can leave deep beliefs such as “I am not enough” or “people always leave” (the cognitive model calls these schemas or core beliefs). In similar situations these beliefs switch on first and tilt the interpretation.
- Mental shortcuts: thinking uses shortcuts to judge quickly. They are usually useful, but when you are tired or anxious they can lead to conclusions that are too absolute.
- Your current mood and state: when your mood is low, sleep is short or stress is high, attention tends to drift toward what fits that mood, so negative interpretations come up more often and more strongly.
- Repeated habits: the more often you think a certain way, the faster and more naturally that thought appears, which is why distorted thoughts can feel like facts.
So cognitive distortions are less a flaw in your character and more a habit of thought that was learned and set in. Because they are habits, they can change with practice, which is the starting point of cognitive behavioral therapy.
How do you handle all-or-nothing thinking and catastrophizing?
These are two of the most common. For all-or-nothing thinking, practice finding the shades of gray between 0 and 100. Instead of "it was a total disaster," ask, "out of 100, how many points was today's presentation?"
For catastrophizing, write three outcomes side by side: the worst case, the best case, and the most likely case. In your head only the worst case looms large, but putting all three together brings the most likely one into view.
How are cognitive distortions treated? Changing them with CBT
The best-known approach to cognitive distortions is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Within it, the process of examining distorted thoughts and finding more balanced ones is called cognitive restructuring. It isn't about forcing yourself to think positively; it's about checking how well the first thought fits the facts and finding a more accurate explanation.
1. Write it down in a thought record
The most widely used tool is the thought record. Fill in these six steps in order.
- Situation: write only the facts: when, where, and what happened.
- Thought: write the thought that flashed through your mind, as it was.
- Feeling: name the feeling and rate how strong it was from 0 to 100.
- Evidence for: write the facts that suggest the thought is true.
- Evidence against: write the facts that don't fit the thought, too.
- Another view: looking at both, write a more balanced thought in your own words, then rate the feeling again.
You can see each step filled in at CBT thought record: how to fill it in, with examples, and try one right away without signing up in the thought reflection worksheet. For how to catch the thought for the first step, see Automatic thoughts: meaning and examples.
2. Examine the thought with questions
Rather than arguing with a thought right away, cognitive behavioral therapy uses questions so you can examine it yourself. When you get stuck, questions like these help.
- What would I tell a friend in the same situation?
- Is this thought true every single time? Was there a time it wasn't?
- How might someone else explain the same scene?
- Will this matter as much a year from now?
- Does holding on to this thought help me?
3. Check it with a small behavioral experiment
A thought that contains a prediction, such as “they’ll be annoyed if I talk to them,” can be checked with a small experiment. Write the prediction first, try it once in a low-pressure situation, then write down what actually happened and compare. It moves a thought you were arguing with in your head into real experience.
Reviews that pool many meta-analyses have found cognitive behavioral therapy helpful for a range of difficulties. Thought records and the evidence for cognitive behavioral therapy are covered in more detail in What is cognitive behavioral therapy?.
When to get support from a professional
If the same thought stays with you all day and shakes your daily life, or you feel like hurting yourself, reach out directly to a psychiatrist or a counseling center. Diagnosis and medication are decided in clinical care, and you can keep up practices like this while you are in treatment or counseling.
Can you practice with cognitive distortions in an app?
CareOps Maeumi is an AI counseling app. When your conversations work with cognitive behavioral therapy, you fill in the six steps above (situation, thought, feeling, evidence for, evidence against, another view) together inside the conversation, one at a time. You find the other view in your own words by following Maeumi's questions. If circling thoughts are the harder part, see When you think too much as well.
Frequently asked questions
- Are cognitive distortions the same as cognitive biases?
- They're similar but used in different places. Cognitive bias broadly refers to common tilts in how people make judgments, while cognitive distortion is mostly used in counseling and cognitive behavioral therapy for habits of thought that make your mood harder.
- What is the black-and-white thinking fallacy?
- It's seeing the world in only two boxes, such as "perfect or a failure" or "good person or bad person." Because it leaves no middle ground, even a small mistake can feel like you ruined everything. Re-rating things on a scale from 0 to 100 helps.
- What does catastrophizing mean?
- It means blowing a small event up into one that leads to the worst possible outcome. Writing the worst, best, and most likely outcomes side by side helps you find balance.
- Who came up with the 10 cognitive distortions?
- Aaron Beck first described the distortions that kept recurring in the thinking of people with depression, and David Burns made them widely known in Feeling Good by grouping them into ten: all-or-nothing thinking, overgeneralization, mental filter, disqualifying the positive, jumping to conclusions, magnification and minimization, emotional reasoning, should statements, labeling, and personalization.
- What is a mental filter?
- It is the habit of picking out one negative detail of a situation, dwelling on it, and filtering out the rest. Remembering a single criticism after hearing several compliments is a typical example. It differs a little from disqualifying the positive, where you see the good parts but write them off.
- Why do cognitive distortions happen?
- No single cause explains them. The cognitive model describes several working together: deep beliefs formed over a lifetime, mental shortcuts for quick judgments, being tired or low, and thought habits that have been repeated.
- How are cognitive distortions treated?
- Cognitive behavioral therapy works with them through thought records and cognitive restructuring. You write down the thought, look at the evidence for and against it, and find a more balanced one. Thoughts that contain predictions are sometimes checked with small behavioral experiments.
- Can cognitive distortions be changed?
- They're habits of thought, so practice can change them. Regularly writing your thoughts down and checking the evidence, as in a thought record, helps the thoughts that come up in the same situations gradually find balance. If it's hard alone, you can practice together at a counseling center or with a psychiatrist who offers cognitive behavioral therapy.
Sources
- Beck (1963), Thinking and Depression: I. Idiosyncratic Content and Cognitive Distortions, Archives of General Psychiatry 9(4), 324–333
- David D. Burns, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (author's book page)
- Beck & Haigh (2014), Advances in Cognitive Theory and Therapy: The Generic Cognitive Model, Annual Review of Clinical Psychology 10, 1–24
- Hofmann et al. (2012), The Efficacy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: A Review of Meta-analyses, Cognitive Therapy and Research
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