Concepts
Health psychology/Cognitive distortions · CBT distortion
Overgeneralisation
What it means
Seeing a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat, often signalled by "always" or "never".
Worked example
After one rejection: "I’ll never find anyone — this always happens to me."
In the exam
After a single date does not work out, a man declares "I always get rejected, I’ll never find a partner."
What settles it
Overgeneralisation makes one event a universal rule. All-or-nothing splits a single situation into two absolute categories.
Classically confused with
All-or-nothing thinking
Source: Burns; CBT