Cognitive Distortions

"Cognitive distortions ... cause individuals to perceive reality inaccurately. These thinking patterns ... reinforce negative thoughts or emotions. Cognitive distortions tend to interfere with the way a person perceives an event. Because the way a person feels intervenes with how they think, these distorted thoughts can feed negative emotions and lead ... towards an overall negative outlook on the world and consequently a depressive or anxious mental state."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion

Was wandering around the internet looking for something that would interest me, and I stumbled upon a reference to cognitive distortions. I've seen these lists before, but it continues to amaze and trouble me that so many of the people one encounters every day have one or more of these traits. I see these in the media, especially television. Here are just a few:

• Always being right
• Blaming
• Disqualifying the positive
• Filtering
• Mind-reading (being God)
• Fortune-telling (more being God)
• Magnification
• Personalization
• Splitting

I see these, sadly, in myself of course. I am happy that I see fewer of these today than three years ago, but also it reinforces to me how toxic the environment we live in is. These traits are thrown at us so constantly in media and daily relationships that we accept them as normal. We adopt them for ourselves. We model them to our children.

Although, I suppose not solely so, cognitive distortions are often narcissistic defenses, and it occurs to me that if we live in an essentially narcissistic society, then it makes sense that that society's inhabitants adopt these unconsciously.

Armchair psychology. 

But as I think about writing real, flesh and blood characters, I feel that I should see more of these traits than fewer of them, and that these traits and the related acts should probably drive some of the relationships and plot points.