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These thinking errors, also known as cognitive distortions in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), are common patterns of unhelpful thinking:
All-or-Nothing Thinking:
Viewing situations in only two categories instead of on a continuum. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.
Overgeneralization:
Seeing a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat. You use words like "always" or "never" when thinking about it.
Mental Filter:
Picking out a single negative detail and dwelling on it exclusively, so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like a drop of ink that discolors an entire glass of water.
Discounting the Positive:
Rejecting positive experiences by insisting they don't count for some reason. You maintain a negative belief despite evidence to the contrary.
Jumping to Conclusions:
Making negative interpretations even though there are no facts that support your conclusion. This includes mind reading (assuming you know what others are thinking) and fortune telling (predicting things will turn out badly).
Magnification/Catastrophizing:
Exaggerating the importance of things (such as your mistakes or someone else's achievement) or inappropriately shrinking things until they appear tiny. This is also called the "binocular trick."
Emotional Reasoning:
Assuming that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are. "I feel it, therefore it must be true."
Should Statements:
Trying to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn'ts, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could do anything. Musts and oughts are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt.
Labeling:
An extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself. Instead of saying "I made a mistake," you tell yourself "I'm a loser."
Personalization:
Seeing yourself as the cause of some negative external event which you were not primarily responsible for. You take things personally even when they have nothing to do with you.
For more detailed explanations with examples, see our complete guide to thinking errors.
How to use this test:
Common Thinking Errors Covered:
