Definitions 1
Assuming you know what others are thinking, making a prediction even without evidence.
Jumping to Conclusions
- Mind Reading
- Fortune Telling
Believing that your opinion is an objective fact and putting in a lot of effort to prove it's correct.
Make a conclusion based on one negative incident and assuming all similar events will be the same way.
Overgeneralization
"If I'm not successful at everything I do, I am a complete failure."
Polarized Thinking
"I stayed up all night working on my art project but I didn't get first place. I put so much work in it, so I should've gotten the best prize."
- Heaven's Reward Fallacy
- Fallacy of Fairness
Believing that you will get the ideal outcome based on how hard you work, even though sometimes realities in life are unfair.
Heaven's Reward Fallacy
Having rigid rules and expectations that others or yourself must be a certain way or do something a certain way.
"Should" Statements
Blaming
"Wow I can't believe you just tripped. You're such a klutz."
Labeling
"I just completely failed my piano performance because I made two mistakes while I was playing."
- Mental filtering (disqualifying the positive)
- Catastrophizing (minimizing positives)
Going to extremes with an "all or nothing" or "black and white" thinking pattern.
Polarized Thinking
Assumingly you have been intentionally targeted or excluded, even if that is not necessary aligned with reality.
Personalization
Magnifying negative aspects while minimizing positive aspects. Or finding a way to turn a positive into a negative.
Mental Filtering
- Negative Mental Filtering
- Disqualifying the Positive
"That conversation was so awkward. I always embarrass myself. I'm never gonna speak up again because I'll probably seem weird in every interaction."
Overgeneralization
"I feel extremely anxious about my exam, that must mean I'm gonna fail."
Emotional Reasoning
Judging the entire person's character based on one negative incident.
Determining your reality based solely on how you are feeling. Taking those feelings are pure fact without considering the logical side.
Emotional Reasoning
Escalating to the worst case scenario, or reducing the importance of a positive experience.
Catastrophizing
- Magnification
- Minimization
"My friends are hanging out without me because they don't really like me. They must think I'm boring."
- Personalization
- Jumping to Conclusions (mind reading)
"Once I move out of my family's house, then I will be okay. Until that happens, there's nothing I can do to feel better."
- Control Fallacy (external locus of control)
Believing external factors or other people need to be different in order for you to be happy.
Fallacy of Change
Believing that everything in life should be based on equality, even though some things don't work out the way we expect.
Fallacy of Fairness
Believing that life "happens to you" and you can't do anything to influence it, or believing that you are completely responsible for everyone/everything else.
Control Fallacies
- Internal Control Fallacy
- External Control Fallacy
"Christmas is the best holiday because I love it so much. We all gotta play Christmas music because that's tradition and that's how it's always been done."
- Always Being Right
- "Should" Statements
"You never listen to me, and that's why I've always struggled to express myself."
Blaming