Happy Daze: Cognitive Distortion
Picture this: You studied all week for an exam in a class worth 30 percent of your grade. You felt that you did well on it, but upon getting your grade back, you think to yourself you could have done better. Let’s say you got a B+ instead of the usual A/A+. Your thoughts shift in your head, and you can’t help but think, “I did awful” because you did worse on this exam than you normally do. These negative thoughts then start to influence your feelings and outlook, and you begin to believe you are a failure. You then adopt the idea that the rest of your exams will go poorly in this class for the rest of the semester. This is an example of black-and-white thinking, negative mental filtering and overgeneralizing —or cognitive distortions.
These are common examples of irrational thought patterns that our brains use to trick us into believing in a false sense of reality. Why does this happen? Well, our brains have become accustomed to finding connections with past ideas, feelings and experiences to understand the present ones. This shortcut can help us try to make sense of things almost immediately; However, this is not without fallibility. Distortions can be reinforced due to this habit of shortcuts. We tend to catastrophize, overgeneralize, and over-simplify things, especially those of us who struggle with anxiety, OCD, depression, and imposter syndrome.
Picture this: You are at Dana with your friends, eating a meal and having a conversation. Suddenly, people start to look at their phones or get up from their seats to get more food. There could be many reasons why they may behave like this. However, you identify that they are actively trying not to engage with you and don’t want to be friends with you. You then come to the conclusion that you don’t belong and eventually stop hanging around them because you are unworthy. This is an example of personalization, jumping to conclusions and labeling.
Even though we are all guilty of cognitive distortion errors every day, we may not always be aware of the negative effect it has on thought patterns or habits that ultimately affect how we move about the world daily. Namely, cognitive distortions can affect one’s thoughts and internal dialogue and thus impact one’s emotions, outlook and behavior. This is because “[o]ur thought patterns have a significant influence on [our] emotions and feelings” according to Mind My Peelings. This can damage our mental health, relationships and well-being as we perceive reality in unhealthy ways. To understand our feelings, one must understand our thoughts.
Picture this: you have been working at a job on campus for a while now because you struggle with financial hardship. You work very hard; maybe you believe you work harder than others, and thus, you are expecting a raise. You think to yourself, “I should get this raise.”
One of your colleagues then gets the raise you wanted, and they don’t need the money as badly as you. You might feel jealousy or a sense of unfairness that you need it; you worked for it, and you should have gotten it. These are examples of should statements, the fallacy of fairness and the heaven’s reward fallacy.
A brief history of cognitive distortions may be in order. Aaron Beck first recognized that his patients who struggled with depression engaged in more distorted thinking patterns. It wasn’t until 1989 that David Burns popularized the treatment of “identifying, correcting, and replacing distorted systems and thinking patterns” in his book Feeling Good- The New Mood. This can be thought of as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is popularized as a therapy you can do yourself. Basically, this is a concrete step that you can take today to work on your health and thinking patterns. Both Beck and Burns recognized that we can change our mood and outlook by changing our thoughts and recognizing negative thought patterns. Overall, there is a multitude of cognitive distortions that we can have. However, I hope that in naming a few cognitive distortions and actively defining them, one can recognize their own negative thinking traps and start to avoid them. This will disrupt the bad habits we have acquired and move toward improving our overall well-being.