“An exaggeration is a truth that has lost its temper.”
-Kahlil Gibran1
Overgeneralization seems to be the evil twin of all-or-nothing thinking (well, okay, they are both evil twins).
Overgeneralization means that you tend to exaggerate faults and failings. (See? Another form of extremist thinking.) You also tend to interpret a single negative event as a pattern that will always be true.2
Here are some examples:
- “My tire blew out this morning. Bad stuff ALWAYS happens to me.”
- “Of course he got the promotion instead of me. I NEVER get recognized for my work.”
- “Why are you taking so long? You ALWAYS make us late!”
- “Why do you NEVER listen to my suggestions?”
When something goes wrong, we turn it into something that has always been, and will forevermore, be true.
And for me, this distortion has always been the next logical leap from all-or-nothing thinking:
“I got a B on that test. That means I failed. And I will just keep on failing because bad stuff ALWAYS happens to me and I will NEVER succeed in accomplishing my goals.”
See how neatly I pulled that off? Oh yeah, I’ve had a lot of practice with these two.
Do you have the distortion of Overgeneralization?
If your own thoughts often include words like “always” or “never,” you too may be dealing with this distortion.
Just like all-or-nothing thinking, overgeneralization can cause a toxic buildup of negativity in various forms: demoralization, frustration, fear, anxiety, and despair.
What is the solution to Overgeneralization?
Here are a few tips for overcoming overgeneralization:
- Think like a scientist.
- Think like a realist.
- Think like an economist.
- Think like a good friend.
Think like a scientist.
Even if you are not a scientist, you probably learned back in elementary school about the scientific method. If this was more than a few years ago, let me refresh your memory on the basic steps: 1) We observe something happening, 2) we form a hypothesis about how why we think it happened that way and how likely it will continue to happen, 3) we collect more data under as unbiased and controlled conditions as possible to test our hypothesis, 4) we analyze our unbiased data, and 5) based on our analysis, we form a working theory that either accepts or rejects the starting hypothesis.
Overgeneralization is a decidedly non-scientific approach – it skips the middle part by moving straight from the observations to the theory.
Not only that, but the observations on which the theory is based are usually sparse and selective. We tend to pick the worst possible outcomes and then say, “See?! SEE?! This is what ALWAYS happens to me. And it ALWAYS will.”
Let’s geek out together for a minute and test this theory in a scientific way. To do this, ask yourself the following questions:
- How many times has this same thing happened to me in the past? In other words, how many observations am I basing my theory on? One hundred? Fifty? Five? One?
- What evidence do I have for drawing my conclusion? Am I comparing ALL the times in my life when I have been in a similar situation, or am I basing my theory on a subset of observations?
- If I am using a subset, what were my criteria for picking those specific observations?
It may be helpful here to know that those of us with depression tend to preferentially recall negative memories over positive ones.3
Likewise, we tend to view life with a cynical eye. Day-to-day living seems rife with struggle and conflict that we believe will continue indefinitely. For this reason, we tend to pay more attention to negative circumstances that line up with our cynical worldview than the positive circumstances that do not. This enhances our radar for the rainstorms in life while simultaneously dampening our awareness or pleasure in life’s sunshine and rainbows – a phenomenon called “positive blockade.”4
And so a vicious cycle forms – the fact that we are paying more attention to the rainy, mucky side of life means that that side is more likely to be encoded as future memories.5
My point here is this: any rational and logically sound theory must, by definition, be based on ALL available data, not just the data that happens to corroborate the theory. The fact that depressed individuals tend to cherry-pick data points in their heads, either from past memories or current events, means that they are not that great at developing sound theories.
But you and I can improve our theory-making skills by being aware of and fighting against the negative biases described above.
Think like a realist.
We often think we are seeing patterns in events or interactions that do not really exist.6 If we find ourselves thinking along the lines of “This is what ALWAYS happens,” it’s best to immediately challenge that thought. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Is there any evidence AGAINST this pattern?
- Could other reasons (and not necessarily related to each other) explain why these events occurred?
- Do others see the same pattern? Why or why not?
A lot has been made of the phenomenon of “depressive realism” – the fact that those with depression often can make more accurate judgment calls about life events than those without depression. But it’s important to realize that depressive realism is limited only to certain contexts. While depressed individuals may more accurately assess things like their current state of health or their control over current events, they are no better at predicting the future than anyone else.7
And we all pretty much suck at predicting the future. The difference is, non-depressed people believe that things are bound to get better, whereas depressed people believe that things will stay a lousy mess.8 And there is a second, telling difference: the non-depressed will accept and latch onto encouraging information that supports their sunny prediction much more readily than any downer-type information that opposes it, but the depressed show no such optimistic bias.9
Who’s right and who’s wrong?
Who knows? Neither group has any more concrete information than the other.
When I was depressed, I tended to think that my pessimism was a more “realistic” way of looking at life. But at least in the case of overgeneralization, it’s not. Really, it’s not.
Exaggerating events based on an isolated incident, and viewing such generalizations as water-tight facts are actually antithetical to realistic thinking.
A true realist understands that life is a mixed bag of good and bad. Bad stuff is bound to happen once in a while, but that doesn’t mean it will continue to happen forever. And the good stuff is bound to happen, too.
Look back on your own life. Are you able to see both?
Here’s a realistic, rational replacement to one of the distorted thoughts above:
“He got the promotion instead of me. I am disappointed (that’s a realistic statement, right?), but that does not mean that I can’t be happy for his success, or strive for improvement in my own work (also real, valid points). Perhaps I should meet with my boss in the next quarter and ask him/her what I can do to increase my own chances for promotion.”
For sake of argument, let’s say that you still disagree with me. You may believe it’s better to view the world in a pessimistic way than the ignorantly cheery way others do. I can totally understand that because I used to feel the same way. Sometimes I still do, if I’m honest.
So there are two more ways of thinking that may be helpful for you and me.
Think like an economist.
The first is to perform a cost-benefit analysis for using this way of thinking. What are the benefits vs. risks of being right vs. being wrong?
If you turn out to be right in your overgeneralizations, what benefits will you have gained? Will you be better prepared for future bad events, or do you think they might hit you just as hard? Now think about the potential cost to you (and others close to you) for this way of thinking. What emotional toll, in terms of anxiety and depressed mood, do you think this might take over time?
And what if you turn out to be wrong, and things turn out better than you expected. What benefits were there in thinking this way? What (ultimately unnecessary) costs did you pay?
Think like a good friend.
Pretend that a close friend of yours is struggling with overgeneralization. He or she comes to you and explains the circumstances and then proceeds to draw the same sort of sweeping conclusions.
What would you say to him or her?
Is it different than what you are saying to yourself?
If so, ask yourself why. And then consider giving yourself the same consideration, wise counsel, and empathy that you would give your good friend.
Conclusion and Action Steps
- Look for problems with overgeneralization in your life. Do you often draw sweeping conclusions about yourself or others? In your thought journal, do you often see words like “always” or “never?”
- Use the four approaches above to address each distorted thought in your journal and replace it with a valid, realistic, and healthy thought.
- Read the next part of this 101 series. Or you can start at the beginning here.
11 Gibran, K. (2014). Sand and Foam. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
2 Burns, D. D. (2009). Feeling good: the new mood therapy. New York: Harper Publishing. pp.33-34.
3 Reviewed in: Disner, S. G., Beevers, C. G., Haigh, E. A., & Beck, A. T. (2011). Neural mechanisms of the cognitive model of depression. Nature reviews. Neuroscience, 12(8), 467-477.
4 Kellough, J. L., Beevers, C. G., Ellis, A. J., & Wells, T. T. (2008). Time course of selective attention in clinically depressed young adults: An eye tracking study. Behaviour research and therapy, 46(11), 1238-1243.
5 Koster, E. H., De Raedt, R., Leyman, L., & De Lissnyder, E. (2010). Mood-congruent attention and memory bias in dysphoria: exploring the coherence among information-processing biases. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 48(3), 219-225.
6 Leahy, R. L. (2017). Cognitive therapy techniques: A practitioner’s guide. Guilford Publications. p.175.
7 Bortolotti, L., & Antrobus, M. (2015). Costs and benefits of realism and optimism. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 28(2), 194–198.
8 Strunk, D. R., & Adler, A. D. (2009). Cognitive biases in three prediction tasks: A test of the cognitive model of depression. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 47(1), 34-40.
9 Korn, C. W., Sharot, T., Walter, H., Heekeren, H. R., & Dolan, R. J. (2014). Depression is related to an absence of optimistically biased belief updating about future life events. Psychological Medicine, 44(3), 579-592.
Dr. Pamela Coburn-Litvak has published research articles on exercise and stress in Neuroscience and Neurobiology of Learning and Behavior. Her latest book, Leaving the Shadowland of Stress, Anxiety, and Depression, was published in 2020.
After receiving a Ph.D. in Neurobiology and Behavior from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, she served as both Assistant Professor of Physiology & Pharmacology and Special Assistant to the Vice President for Research Affairs at Loma Linda University in Loma Linda, California. She then joined the Biology department at Andrews University and developed courses in human physiology as well as the neurobiology of mental illness. She also founded Rock @ Science LLC, a company that specializes in health and science education and web development. She co-developed the brain and body physiology segment of the Stress: Beyond Coping seminar with its creator, Dr. William “Skip” MacCarty, DMin.
Dr. Coburn-Litvak currently lives in California with her husband. Their two daughters are mostly grown and attending school elsewhere.
When she’s not studying or teaching about stress, she enjoys stress-relieving activities like puttering around the garden, taking nature walks with her family, knitting, cooking, and reading.
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