Overgeneralization is a common cognitive distortion whereby individuals make a sweeping judgement or conclusion based on just one experience or a small number of incidents.
Offers theory, guidance, and prompts for mental health professionals. Downloads are in Fillable PDF format where appropriate.
Includes client-friendly guidance. Downloads are in Fillable PDF format where appropriate.
Cognitive distortions, cognitive biases, or ‘unhelpful thinking styles’ are characteristic ways in which our thoughts can become biased (Beck, 1963). Overgeneralization is a cognitive distortion where individuals draw broad, self-defeating conclusions about themselves, others, and the world based on isolated incidents. Consequently, a single event may be incorrectly viewed as part of an ongoing, pervasive pattern in a person's life (Tolin, 2016). This type of thinking often includes global terms like "always," "never," and "everyone."
This Overgeneralization information handout forms part of the cognitive distortions series, designed to help clients and therapists to work more effectively with common thinking biases.
Overgeneralization is a common cognitive bias. This resource helps clients:
Negative self-related overgeneralizations.
Negative situation-related overgeneralizations.
Negative other-related overgeneralizations.
Provide psychoeducation on cognitive distortions and automatic thoughts.
Explore whether the client experiences overgeneralizing thoughts.
Help the client notice when they are overgeneralizing.
Address mind reading thoughts using techniques such as searching for exceptions.
Catching automatic thoughts and (re)appraising cognitions is a core component of traditional cognitive therapy (Beck et al, 1979; Beck, 1995; Kennerley, Kirk, Westbrook, 2007). Identifying the presence and nature of cognitive biases is frequently a helpful way of introducing this concept – clients are often quick to appreciate and identify with the concept of ‘unhelpful thinking styles’, and can easily be trained to notice the presence of biases in their own automatic thoughts. Once biases have been identified, clients can be taught to appraise the accuracy of these automatic thoughts and draw new conclusions.
Overgeneralization involves making sweeping, self-defeating conclusions about ourselves, other people, and the world based on isolated events. Beck (1976) suggests that overgeneralizations often emerge in situations tied to individuals’ vulnerabilities and sensitivities, such as those involving rejection, failure, or loss. Additionally, other factors may contribute to this style of thinking. These include confirmation bias (the tendency to look for evidence that supports our generalizations while ignoring contradictory information), recency effects (focusing on recent events that align with these conclusions and overlooking contradictory experiences), biased attributional reasoning (using an internal, stable, global reasoning style), and biased expectancy judgments (Harvey et al., 2004; Leahy, 2017).
