Cognitive Distortions Flipcards

Cognitive Distortions Flipcards

Cognitive distortions, or thinking errors, can lead to faulty reasoning and hinder critical thinking. Recognizing and avoiding these distortions—along with logical fallacies—is essential for writing a persuasive and fact-based essay.

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Personalization is when someone takes unrelated events personally or believes everything others do is a direct response to them.

Blaming involves assigning full responsibility for problems or emotions either to others or to oneself, ignoring shared or external factors.

This distortion occurs when someone draws a broad conclusion based on one isolated incident or piece of evidence.

This distortion involves expecting the worst possible outcome and exaggerating the potential consequences of a setback.

Also called “black-and-white thinking,” this distortion views situations as all good or all bad, leaving no room for nuance or balance

Over generalization

Catastrophizing

Personal-ization

Blaming

Polarized Thinking

Cognitive Distortions Flipcards

Cognitive distortions, or thinking errors, can cloud judgment and interfere with critical thinking. Recognizing these patterns helps individuals reason based on logic and evidence rather than emotion or bias.

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Global labeling occurs when someone takes one negative event or trait and applies it as a sweeping judgment about themselves or others.

This distortion involves the belief that being wrong is unacceptable, and individuals will go to great lengths to prove their correctness, even at the expense of logic or relationships.

This distortion stems from rigid expectations about how one or others “should,” “must,” or “ought to” behave, often leading to guilt or frustration when these standards aren’t met.

This distortions happens when people assume their emotions reflect reality—believing something must be true simply because they feel it.

Filtering happens when individuals focus solely on negative details of a situation while ignoring positive aspects, distorting overall perception

Shoulds

Emotional reasoning

Global labeling

Always being right

Filtering

Cognitive Distortions Flipcards

Feeling nervous before a presentation and assuming, “I’m bad at public speaking,” despite past success.

“It’s my group’s fault I failed,” instead of recognizing your own contribution to the outcome.

Dwelling on one critique in feedback while overlooking several praises.

A student insists their point is right despite clear evidence to the contrary

Blaming

Always Being Right

Filtering

Emotional Reasoning

Understanding and avoiding them is essential for crafting a persuasive, well-reasoned essay that effectively convinces the audience.

After making one mistake at work, a person concludes, “I’m such a failure,” ignoring all their previous accomplishments.

Thinking a friend didn’t text back because you did something wrong, when they were simply busy.

Thinking, “If I’m not perfect on this project, I’m a complete failure.”

Personalization

Thinking, “I should never make mistakes” or "Everyone should do X"

Polarized Thinking:

Global Labeling

Shoulds