Cognitive Distortions: Definition, List, & Examples

By Charlie Huntington, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate
​Reviewed by Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.

Learn the definition of cognitive distortions, see examples, and understand how to challenge them.

*This page may include affiliate links; that means we earn from qualifying purchases of products.

Try to recall the last time you were waiting for a friend, or maybe your partner, to join you for dinner. As you sat at the restaurant, resisting the urge to check your phone, did you have a thought such as, “they always do this”, or “they’re never on time”? If so, you were experiencing a cognitive distortion – an immediate and inaccurate thought about a situation.​

It’s unlikely that your partner or friend is late every single time you make dinner plans. If I had asked you the day before about their punctuality, you would probably have said that they are usually on time. In the moment, though, you experienced a very human – and very impactful – phenomenon. Cognitive distortions affect all of us every day. Read on to learn more about recognizing cognitive distortions, how they impact our lives, and how we can challenge and overcome them.

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What Are Cognitive Distortions? (A Definition)

Cognitive distortions are unrealistic or irrational thoughts. Typically, they are exaggerated and negative perceptions of our lives or the world. For reasons you’ll see below, all of us experience cognitive distortions – they are so common and unavoidable that therapists often call them “automatic thoughts.” 
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Sometimes we can catch a cognitive distortion as it’s happening or recognize it in hindsight; often we carry on with our lives without recognizing the inaccuracy of the thought. The more that we perceive these thoughts as truthful, the more difficult our lives are likely to be, as these distortions make us see the world as a more negative or dangerous place than it really is.

Causes of Cognitive Distortions

The idea of cognitive distortions took its current form with the creation of cognitive therapy (Beck, 1963). Coming from a long tradition of philosophical traditions that have tried to understand how thinking and feeling interact (Ellis, 1962), cognitive therapy tells us that thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are interrelated (Beck, 1964). Experiencing a certain emotion, for example, can lead us to a thought that would not have been prompted by a different emotion. 

While we can change our thoughts to change our emotions (more on that below), it is also natural and automatic for us to think after we feel. Emotions are generated by older and more primitive parts of the brain than the more cognition-oriented brain regions, and those older parts evolved not to be logical, but to keep us alive (Gilbert, 1998). Most cognitive distortions are related to experiences of negative emotions, such as feeling threatened (Beck, 1963), and with good reason: we have evolved to make quick decisions about whether we are safe, so we can take quick action to protect ourselves. 

In other words, our brains evolved to bypass slow, logical thinking when immediate, gut reactions are required (Krebs & Denton, 1997). This is especially true when our brains aren’t fully developed; in fact, it is as children that we first develop these cognitive distortions (Beck, 1963). Do you remember all the “rules” you learned about gender roles growing up? If you were raised as a boy and knew that “boys don’t cry” – an example of all-or-nothing-thinking – then you probably felt shame or guilt when you did cry. We often carry these cognitive distortions from our childhoods into the present day.

Types of Cognitive Distortions (A List)

Here is a definitive list of ten types of thinking errors (Burns, 1980). How many of these can you recognize from your own thinking?

• All-or-nothing thinking: Remember the example in the opening paragraph of this article? All-or-nothing thoughts (sometimes called black-and-white thinking, too) categorize the world into absolutes, leaving out the possibility of any gray area. 
• Mindreading: When we mindread, we assume that somebody else is having certain thoughts, often negative, about us. Anytime you’ve decided your partners, supervisor, or even just a person on the street is judging you – without consulting them to find out whether it’s true – you’re engaged in mindreading. 
• Catastrophizing: When you create a disaster scenario in your head, based on little or no concrete evidence that the event will actually happen, you are catastrophizing.
• Emotional reasoning: We engage in emotional reasoning when our thoughts are driven by our emotions, not objective facts.
• Labeling: When you classify yourself as a categorically bad or unworthy person because of one event that happened, you are engaged in labeling.
• Mental filtering: Cognitive distortions can be driven by focusing only on negative information and ignoring or devaluing positive information.
• Overgeneralization: Similar to catastrophizing, overgeneralizing means expecting more bad things to happen because one negative event has occurred.
• Personalization: The act of blaming yourself for events that you aren’t (fully) responsible for is called personalization.
• Should statements: Thoughts based on the idea that the world “should” or “shouldn’t” be a certain way are cognitive distortions, too.
• Disqualifying the positive: When you dismiss positive things that have happened, you are distorting the way things are.

Examples of Cognitive Distortions

As somebody with a lot of training in therapy, I am constantly looking out for cognitive distortions in the language around me – including the words I say to myself. Since some of the types of cognitive distortions listed above may seem abstract, let’s consider some examples in more detail.

As a couple therapist, I am very accustomed to hearing all-or-nothing thinking when couples describe conflicts in their relationship. Phrases such as “you never listen to me” or “you don’t care about our kids’ education” are surprisingly common in these discussions. Maybe the upset partner was painfully ignored on a certain occasion, but they are not completely ignored by their partner. All-or-nothing thinking leaves out the possibility that the other person could “often” or even “occasionally” fold the laundry, make a reservation for dinner, or remember your birthday.

Emotional reasoning can be a harder one to catch in action. One example, which is common in people experiencing depression, is saying something like, “I just don’t think it will work out.” Often, this statement is based not on any concrete evidence, but rather on the person’s mood. 
Our brains are great at combining cognitive distortions, too. Imagine you are out on a walk around town. You see a good friend far down the other end of the street, make brief eye contact, and wave at them. The friend makes no response and just keeps walking.
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While at times we can easily reason this away – “they just didn’t see me” – if we’re in a bad mood, the cognitive distortions might come flying in: “they must be bad at me” (mindreading); “I must have done something to upset them” (personalization); “they probably don’t want to be friends anymore” (catastrophizing).

Cognitive Distortions in Anxiety

If you’ve read this far, it’s probably quickly become apparent to you how central cognitive distortions are to certain mental health issues, such as anxiety. Across all ages, people with anxiety report high and impairing levels of cognitive distortions (Clark & Wells, 1995; Leitenberg et al., 1986; Weems et al., 2001; Wong, 2008).
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Remember how emotions can lead to thoughts? It’s likely that when we are anxious, our fear generates cognitive distortions, which in turn make us more fearful (Matthews & McLeod, 2002). This vicious cycle, which repeats and reinforces cognitive distortions, helps explain why anxiety can be so difficult to overcome. 

Cognitive Distortions in Depression

While fear is the emotion driving cognitive distortions in anxiety, it is sadness that lurks behind cognitive distortions in depression. A consistent and defining component of depression is having cognitive distortions about oneself, the world, and one’s future (Beck, 1963; Beck & Beck, 1995).

In fact, cognitive distortions are so characteristic of depression that researchers have been able to distinguish how vulnerable people are to becoming depressed by measuring how many cognitive distortions they express in their everyday language (Al-Mosaiwi & Johnstone, 2018; Bucci & Freedman, 1981). Perhaps this is something you’ve noticed in yourself or in others: the experience of being around constantly negative thoughts is depressing, and the effort required to counteract all those negative thoughts is substantial.

Cognitive Distortions in CBT

The gold standard psychotherapy treatment for depression is Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) (Hofmann et al., 2012). CBT aims to reduce our vulnerability to painful emotions by teaching us to change our thoughts and behaviors. By focusing on how emotions, thoughts, and behaviors are related to and reinforce each other, CBT techniques can help people with anxiety, depression, and many other mental health issues (Hofmann et al., 2012). Addressing one’s cognitive distortions, through a process called cognitive restructuring, is a central task in CBT.

Challenging Cognitive Distortions

Thankfully, successful use of cognitive restructuring is associated with decreases in symptoms of depression (Gotlib et al., 1993). Here’s how to do it.
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If you have identified a thought that you think might be a cognitive distortion, ask yourself some of these questions:

• How do I know what I’m thinking is true? Simply “feeling like” it’s true isn’t enough. What is the evidence that someone else, who isn’t feeling the way you are and isn’t in your situation, would see or not see? If you’re thinking, “I am a bad person,” what is all the evidence that you have both positive and negative qualities? Cognitive distortions usually have very little concrete evidence — things other people would agree are facts — to support them.
• What other explanations might there be? Would you feel this way if you were experiencing a different emotion? How much of this situation is truly in your control (and what’s your evidence for that?)?
• What’s the worst that could happen? How likely is that to actually happen? How would you deal with it if it did happen? (Hint: you would find a way to be okay.) 

Ultimately, the goal is to recognize that the thought is a distortion in some way, and then come up with a different coping thought that successfully challenges the cognitive distortion.

Challenging cognitive distortions: Example 1
A client of mine had success in this domain in challenging some of their “should” thoughts. This client felt frustrated, guilty, or fearful when their expectations for how they “should” be, or how the world “should” be, weren’t met. We discussed together how there is no actual evidence that any particular thing “should” be. At their core, “should” statements are just things that we want to be true.

So when this client thought to themselves, “I shouldn’t get angry at my partner”, they learned to restructure their thinking to acknowledge the reality of the situation: “I don’t want to be angry at my partner, but I am.” Saying “I shouldn’t” made them ashamed of their thoughts and feelings, but accepting their anger allowed them to respond to it more effectively.

Challenging cognitive distortions: Example 2
I’ll give you another example from my own life. Across all the romantic relationships I’ve had, I’ve sometimes been reluctant to share my feelings with my partners. In situations where I need to disclose my feelings to a partner, I often have the thought, “They won’t like this, and it will either be too painful for me, or they will decide to leave me.” Over time, I’ve come to recognize the mindreading and catastrophizing present in this cognitive distortion, and I’ve gotten better at counteracting it. (One piece of evidence that has helped is realizing that my partners almost always respond positively when I open up.)

Video: How to Stop Cognitive Distortions

Articles Related to Cognitive Distortions

Want to learn more? Here are some related articles that might be helpful.

• ​Cognitive Dissonance: Definition, Theory, & Examples
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Definition & Techniques
• Availability Heuristic: Definition, Examples, & Bias
• ​Metacognition: Definition, Strategies, & Skills
• ​Hindsight Bias: Definition, Examples, & How to Avoid It​
  
• ​The Halo Effect: Definition, Examples, & Theory​​​

Books Related to Cognitive Distortions

To keep learning more, here are some books to explore:​​

• Retrain Your Brain: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in 7 Weeks: A Workbook for Managing Depression and Anxiety
• Stop Overthinking: 23 Techniques to Relieve Stress, Stop Negative Spirals, Declutter Your Mind, and Focus on the Present
• The Comprehensive Clinician's Guide to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
• ​The CBT Workbook for Mental Health: Evidence-Based Exercises to Transform Negative Thoughts and Manage Your Well-Being

Final Thoughts on Cognitive Distortions

Cognitive distortions are an inevitable part of our daily lives – they’re not going anywhere. And they’re often thoughts with a history, going back years. If you hold the belief that you’re a bad person, you didn’t come to this conclusion overnight. That cognitive distortion grew over a number of years as you interpreted other situations using – you guessed it – other cognitive distortions.
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I hope this article has helped you recognize where cognitive distortions impact your daily life. Each of us can catch some of these thoughts and expose their distorted natures – and now you know some useful tools for doing that. However, if they feel overwhelming or are especially hard to challenge and overcome, I encourage you to seek professional help in dealing with them.  

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References

• Al-Mosaiwi, M., & Johnstone, T. (2018). In an absolute state: elevated use of absolutist words is a marker specific to anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. Clinical Psychological Science, 6, 529-542.
• Beck, A. T. (1976). Cognitive Therapy and the emotional disorders. New York, NY: Meridian.
• Beck, A. T. (1963). Thinking and depression: I. Idiosyncratic content and cognitive distortions. Archives of General Psychiatry, 9, 324–333. 
• Beck, A. T. (1964). Thinking and depression: II. Theory and therapy. Archives of General Psychiatry, 10, 561–571.
• Beck, J. S., & Beck, A. T. (1995). Cognitive therapy: basics and beyond. New York, NY: Guilford Press. 
• Bucci, W., & Freedman, N. (1981). The language of depression. Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 45, 334. 
• Burns, D. D. (1980). Feeling good: The new mood therapy. New York, NY: Signet.
• Clark, D.M., & Wells, A. (1995). A cognitive model of social phobia. In R.G. Heimberg, M.R. Liebowitz, D.A. Hope and F.R. Schneider (Eds.), Social phobia: Diagnosis and treatment (pp. 69–93). New York: Guildford Press. 
• Ellis, A. (1962). Reason and emotion in psychotherapy. New York: Lyle Stuart.
• Gilbert, P. (1998). The evolved basis and adaptive functions of cognitive distortions. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 71, 447-463.
• Gotlib, I. H., Lewinsohn, P. M., Seeley, J. R., Rohde, P., & Redner, J. E. (1993). Negative cognitions and attributional style in depressed adolescents: An examination of stability and specificity. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 102, 607-615.
• Hofmann, S. G., Asnaani, A., Vonk, I. J. J., Sawyer, A. T., & Fang, A. (2012). The efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy: a review of meta-analyses. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 36, 427-440.
• Krebs, D. L. & Denton, K. (1997). Social illusions and self-deception: The evolution of biases in person perception. In J. A. Simpson & D. T. Kendrick (Eds), Evolutionary Social Psychology, pp. 21-47. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
• Mathews, A., & MacLeod, C. (2002). Induced processing biases have causal effects on anxiety. Cognition and Emotion, 16, 331–354. 
• Weems, C.F., Berman, S.L., Silverman, W.K., & Saavedra, L.M. (2001). Cognitive errors in youth with anxiety disorders: The linkages between negative cognitive errors and anxious symptoms. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 25, 559–575.
• Wong, S.S. (2008). The relations of cognitive triad, dysfunctional attitudes, automatic thoughts and irrational beliefs with test anxiety. Current Psychology, 27, 177–191. ​

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