15 Cognitive Distortions That All Communicators Should Be Aware Of
by Michele Morrissey
Communicators often tell themselves stories about communication situations — and sometimes they are sensational stories. Understanding the types of sensational and negative narratives, also known as cognitive distortions, can help speakers develop self-awareness and a more objective position. As a result, they can better manage self-sabotaging dialogue, feel more confident, convey executive presence, and achieve better communication outcomes.
Here is an overview of the 15 cognitive distortions that all communicators should be aware of in themselves and others:
Overgeneralization
With overgeneralization, there are one or two instances that are construed as a whole pattern. For example, a professional may receive unfavorable feedback and conclude that they aren't competent enough to perform. Overgeneralization can be an easy habit to pick up in a work setting that is not given to consistent positive feedback or one where there is a high degree of competition or pressure.
Mental Filtering
With mental filtering, the focus is on negative information in the presence of positive information. For example, an employee might ignore the many positives on a performance evaluation and zero in the few suggestions for improvement.
Disqualifying Positives
With disqualifying positives, an individual is not ignoring the positive, but they might totally reject it or diminish the accomplishment. For example, a junior associate may think, “A senior associate gave favorable feedback, but they just came off the golf course and they were just in a really good mood that day. I don't think my performance was really that strong.”
Mind Reading
With mind reading, a professional is sure that they know what someone else is thinking. If the professional has a more passive communication style and they are reluctant to even engage in anything that might feel like conflict, they may jump to conclusions because they never have the conversation. For example, the professional may see an unpleasant expression on the face of a client during a meeting and believe that they are displeased with them. But we know participants of meetings can look unpleasant for various reasons — maybe they just received bad news or perhaps they are hungry.
Fortune Telling
With fortune telling, there’s a belief about the future that is established based on a little bit of evidence. Sometimes we can feed our own sense of status because most people like to believe that they are very intuitive. But that is not always the case. For example, an executive may be certain that they will never find fulfillment in their career because it hasn't happened yet.
Emotional Reasoning
With emotional reasoning, a person believes that because they feel strongly about an issue or belief, it must be true. It’s an easy trap to fall into because when humans feel strongly, they can experience real physiological sensations such as palms sweating and heart racing that make what they are feeling seem true.
Personalization
With personalization, motivation or blame is assigned to oneself, even when it's unreasonable. For example, a firm partner takes a client to a restaurant and the client has an unpleasant experience. The partner might blame themselves for selecting the restaurant and making the reservation, even if the bad food or service was entirely out of their control.
Fallacy of Fairness
With the fallacy of fairness and especially with young professionals who can still be idealistic, they believe that life is going to be fair. But we know that that is often not true. When we have the fallacies of fairness, we can get stuck in thought patterns including anger, resentment, or hopelessness. It is important to recognize that thought patterns are neither right nor wrong, good nor bad. But they are either helpful or harmful.
Catastrophizing
With catastrophizing, a person believes the worst is probably going to happen. If you know anyone who has been through trauma, you may have seen this thought process. It's one way of making sure that the shoe doesn't drop on you unaware — that you're always prepared for something bad that could happen. But typically, the worst does not happen.
“Should” Statements
With “should” statements, we have rigid expectations for ourselves or others. But the problem with “should” statements is that they make us feel shame. And, when we “should on others,” we put expectations on someone else who may not be aligned with our purpose or values.
Labeling
With labeling, a person assigns judgment based on a limited number of experiences. This can happen when instead of describing someone's behavior, we might use a broad generalization. For example, when describing one's characteristics, we can say they "use sarcasm" rather than saying they are “sarcastic." It may sound like semantics, but once we've used a generalized label, it is difficult to see that person any other way and we typically end up disqualifying positives.
Control Fallacies
With control fallacies, there's an imbalanced belief of either being in total control or being entirely at the hands of fate. And in most situations, we do have some element of agency that we can execute in order to bring about the change that is desired.
Fallacy of Change
With the fallacy of change, we expect others to change if we pressure or encourage them enough, but the reality is they cannot successfully make the change with motivation only coming from another person. For example, trying to convince a loved one to stop smoking or eat more healthy foods.
Always Being Right
With always being right, we believe we must always be right. For high-performers who are often right, it can be a common cognitive distortion. But the problem comes when we have such inflexibility that we can't be agile enough to acknowledge and grow when we inevitably are wrong.
All or Nothing
With all or nothing, there is an inability or unwillingness to see shades of gray. When we make these assumptions, we can't engage in creative thinking, problem-solving, or even effective conversation.
Coaching facilitates awareness of cognitive distortions and unhelpful thinking to mitigate situational communication apprehension. If you are experiencing intrusive thoughts or find these patterns of thought to be persistent and/or debilitating, please consult a licensed mental health professional.
Schedule a call to learn how our group training The Emotionally Intelligent and Confident Communicator or coaching options can support folks at your organization to communicate more effectively and achieve better outcomes.
References:
https://www.verywellmind.com/ten-cognitive-distortions-identified-in-cbt-22412