Sena Ohene

MYP Personal Project

Cognitive Distortions Among Adolescents
December 2022
TLDR (TOO LONG DIDN’T READ)
● Cognitive distortions are irrational or negative ways of thinking that are not based on fact
or reality.
● It is important to be aware of them especially as adolescents because our minds are
very vulnerable and may be corrupted by them.
● They make us feel bad about ourselves and others, and fuel anxiety, misery, depression,
negativity and poor overall mental health.
● They may also lead to depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorders, anti-social
behaviour and addiction.
● You can identify and check cognitive distortions through various online worksheets,
exercises and therapy.
● Talking to someone about your thoughts and taking time to rationally process your
thoughts helps to overcome cognitive distortions as well.

COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS AMONG ADOLESCENTS (TLDR)

INTRODUCTION
Our brains are put through the stress of processing different kinds and large amounts of
information. It sometimes becomes almost impossible to keep up, so it creates shortcuts to filter
out some of the information and ease up pressure on itself. These are known as cognitive
distortions. They make us feel bad about ourselves and badly affect our mental health in the
long term. We have to look after ourselves properly as adolescents so we can be ready to face
all that is ahead of us (Grinspoon, MD).
DEFINITION AND IMPORTANCE OF COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS
● Definition and Explanation
Cognitive (thought) distortions are irrational or negative ways of thinking that are not based on
fact or reality (Stanborough). They fuel a lot of anxiety and misery within us. People experience
them consciously or unconsciously to cope with life events but they occur very automatically
and may not be very noticeable. The concept of cognitive distortions was discovered by
American psychiatrist, Aaron Beck in the 1960s and 70s. They are categorized into two types:
self-debasing and self-serving cognitive distortions.
● Importance of Knowing About and Correcting Cognitive Distortions
In adolescence, we go through many periodic changes, such as mood changes and identity
crises, and so it is important to deal with these rationally to protect ourselves and our minds. It is
also a time when we feel pressured because of high academic expectations and worries about
the future, relationships and other important issues. These worries and pressures are caused by
ourselves and the people around us, but we must make sure to deal with them properly or else
we can slip into recurring thought distortions like “overgeneralization” or catastrophizing”. These
can easily make us slip into anxiety or depression and long-term mental health challenges. We
must handle our challenges properly to keep us from spillover problems with our mental health
(BUĞA and KAYA).
COMMON EXAMPLES AND EFFECTS ON ADOLESCENTS
● Common Examples of Cognitive Distortions
Some of the cognitive distortions we experience in different situations include:
Sena Ohene
MYP Personal Project
Cognitive Distortions Among Adolescents
December 2022
1. Overgeneralisation: Making a broad conclusion only based on one or two events
(GoodTherapy Staff). We assume that one negative experience means all events before
and after are automatically negative. Eg. you fail one math test and you think you’re
hopeless at math (Stanborough). Words like “always”, “never”, “everything” and “nothing”
are usual with this distortion (Casabianca).
2. Black-and-White Thinking (All-or-nothing thinking): This type of thinking only sees
things in extremes; things are either a success or a failure, or good or bad. It doesn’t
consider any “shades of grey” between the extremes (GoodTherapy Staff). For example,
you got a B on your last test, so you think you’re a bad student despite getting only A’s
before that. It gives very unrealistic perceptions of things(Casabianca).
3. Catastrophizing: It causes people to assume the worst when faced with the unknown,
even without evidence (Stanborough). It often uses “what if” questions and creates a
horrible hypothetical outcome and causes many worries to pop up in our minds
(Casabianca). Eg. you randomly think of your [one of] parents dying and become very
worried.
Other examples include control fallacies, discounting the positive and mind-reading
(Casabianca).
● Effects of Cognitive Distortions on Adolescents
Cognitive distortions occur very often for some and rarely for others. They affect our moods and
make us biased towards ourselves or others. They distort our judgement and may cause us to
develop antisocial behaviour (Chabrol et. al). They may cause us to be egocentric and lead to
depression, anxiety, panic attacks, post-traumatic stress disorders, anger and over-aggressive
behaviour (Keelan). They also cause us to internalize our problems and affect our interactions
with others. They cause us to stop looking after ourselves and may lead to suicidal thoughts
(Talino).
IDENTIFYING, MEASURING AND CHECKING COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS
One simple way to notice cognitive distortions is to be aware of what they are and careful of
how we’re framing things for ourselves (Grinspoon, MD). We have to make sure that we are
always thinking in a positive and realistic light. This helps to easily identify when our thinking
patterns connect with a cognitive distortion and then snap out of it and remind ourselves to think
realistically. Another way to identify them is through self-tests like the Cognitive Distortions
Handout (Ackerman).
It might be difficult to understand how our cognitive distortions work in our lives in detail. Some
exercises such as the Cognitive Distortions Questionnaire (CD-Quest), Cognitive Error
Questionnaire (CEQ) and the Cognitive Distortions Scale (CDS) (Kostoglou and Pidgeon) can
help to analyze a person’s cognitive distortions and help them understand themselves better.
Some of these are available online.
When cognitive distortions happen on an intense scale, they can be very destructive and
harmful, and they may cause serious mental health disorders. The main way intense cognitive
distortions are treated is through therapy. The main therapy methods are Cognitive Behavioural
Therapy (CBT) and Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy (REBT) (The Decision Lab). Therapy
can be rigorous, but it has been proven to work very well. CBT is also available on online
platforms like Quenza (Ackerman).
Sena Ohene
MYP Personal Project
Cognitive Distortions Among Adolescents
December 2022
When experiencing a thought that is affecting your mood, you can first identify the thought
distortion you are experiencing, reframe the situation (think about different ways the event
you’re thinking of could turn out), think about how your thought pattern has helped you
cope with your worries in the past (did it cause you to do what you had to do or to neglect
your responsibility?), get rid of absolutes and stop generalizing (replace “I always get things
wrong” with “I make mistakes sometimes.”), label the action only (replace “I’m bad at math”
with “I didn’t do too well in this math test.”), check for evidence to justify what you are
thinking (is it fact-based?) and look for positive aspects in every situation.
Another helpful practice is talking to a trusted person about your thoughts; getting a rational
perspective can help you reshape your thinking (Coban). You can learn about exercises that
help reverse cognitive distortions here (Ackerman). Healthy practices such as mindfulness,
exercise, sleep, gratitude, connecting with others and self-empathy also help (Grinspoon, MD).
RESEARCH
Some research was carried out amongst 39 adolescents (people between ages 10-19) in
Ghana to find out about their experience with cognitive distortions. The study tried to discover
the things that make them feel bad, and also considered a set of 9 of the most common
cognitive distortions and asked the participants to rate the extent to which they think they
experience them. It also tried to explore how often they experience thought distortions in a
week, how much they believe what they are thinking and how these distortions affect them and
their moods.
Research Question
The research question guiding this study was “In what ways do common cognitive distortions
affect some adolescents in Ghana?”
Questionnaire
To collect data from the subjects, I sent out this questionnaire for the audience to fill out.
● Results and Analysis
The respondents were from ages 14-18. Many of the things they admitted that caused them to
overthink and feel bad had to do with schoolwork, interactions with others/socialization,
disappointing themselves and other personal stresses. About 38% of respondents listed
schoolwork, and over 40% listed relationships and socialization as triggers for feeling bad or
overthinking. The respondents rated how true a set of nine cognitive distortions were about
themselves on a scale of 1-5 (where 1= very untrue and 5= very true). The thought distortion
participants rated most true of themselves was personalization— sixteen participants gave it a
rating of 4 or 5, with ten giving a rating of 5. Fourteen participants also gave black-and-white
thinking a rating of 4 or 5, although only 4 gave a rating of 5. The chart below shows the
distribution of ratings of 4 or 5 for all nine cognitive distortions.
● Figure 1.1: Column Chart Showing the Distribution of Ratings of 4 or 5 Among the
Nine Cognitive Distortions
Sena Ohene
MYP Personal Project
Cognitive Distortions Among Adolescents
December 2022

The thought distortion that people rated least true of themselves was the “mental filter”—
twenty-five respondents gave a rating of 1 or 2, with 11 of them rating it a 1. Only three
respondents gave it a rating of 5. Even so, labelling, discounting the positive and blaming
had the most ratings of 1 (14). Twenty-one respondents also gave labelling and blaming a
rating of 1 or 2. The chart below shows the distortions with the most ratings of 1 or 2.
● Figure 1.2: Column Chart Showing the Distribution of Ratings of 1 or 2 Among the
Nine Cognitive Distortions

Ten respondents (25.6%) said they experienced cognitive distortions frequently in a week, 19
respondents (48.7%) said they experienced them sometimes, three (7.6%) said they
experienced them almost all the time, and five (12.8%) said they rarely experienced them.
Over 53 per cent (22) of the respondents said they felt sad or discouraged when they
experienced these thoughts intensively, while thirteen (31.7%) said they felt like being alone.
Other people said they felt anxious or overwhelmed, and others described feeling deflated or
empty. This chart shows how the respondents said they felt after experiencing cognitive
distortions:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Dh9_OCcTvvdZPKcSFMhZkLJ8A5J06I3t3cJhjKGO4k
c/edit#gid=1046686584.
Thirty-two respondents (82.1%) admitted that they kept to themselves when they had thoughts
that were like cognitive distortions, four (10.2%) said they spoke to others, and three of them
Sena Ohene
MYP Personal Project
Cognitive Distortions Among Adolescents
December 2022
(7.7%) said they did a bit of both. Twenty-seven respondents (69.2%) also said that these
thoughts made them lose confidence in themselves, four respondents said it didn’t affect
their confidence, five said it affected their confidence sometimes, and others said it affected
them rarely or in some situations.
Twenty-one subjects said it affected their academic performance, fifteen said it didn’t affect
their academics and three said it affected them sometimes. The chart below shows the effect
of these thoughts on their academic performance:
● Figure 1.3: A Chart Showing the Effect of Cognitive Distortions on the
Respondents’ Academic Performance

The respondents also rated how accurate they think their thoughts are when they have them.
Six of them (15.3%) said that they believed their thoughts were very true, while 23 (58.9%) said
they believed their thoughts were true. Ten respondents (25.6%) felt their distorted thoughts
were untrue when they had them.
Figure 1.4: A Chart Showing How True Respondents Believed Their Distorted
Thoughts Were

Lastly, respondents also said that when they experienced distorted thoughts, they became
unproductive, questioned themselves a lot, stopped eating and had low self-esteem. Others
also said they stopped interacting with others, felt like giving up on everything or had
Sena Ohene
MYP Personal Project
Cognitive Distortions Among Adolescents
December 2022
mental/emotional breakdowns and others experienced other things like confusion Someone also
said they became more confused about everything.

CONCLUSION
Cognitive distortions create negative biases in our thinking and can have many effects on us.
They are very common, especially among adolescents, and can cause a lot of anxiety,
overthinking and other mental and emotional challenges. It is crucial for our mental health that
we process our thoughts correctly and seek help where needed.