<story><title>Language records reveal a surge of cognitive distortions in recent decades</title><url>https://www.pnas.org/content/118/30/e2102061118.full</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Zak</author><text>The phrases that the study treats as overgeneralizing are:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;all of the time, all of them, all the time, always happens, always like, happens every time, completely, no one ever,
nobody ever, every single one of them, every single one of you, I always, you always, he always, she always, they
always, I am always, you are always, he is always, she is always, they are always&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not &lt;i&gt;always&lt;/i&gt; overgeneralizing to use one of these. &amp;quot;Every single one of them wore black&amp;quot; is (potentially) completely factual. A large increase in their use in books, however suggests that authors are overgeneralizing more than they did previously.&lt;p&gt;Phrase list: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.pnas.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;pnas&amp;#x2F;suppl&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;22&amp;#x2F;2102061118.DCSupplemental&amp;#x2F;pnas.2102061118.sapp.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.pnas.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;pnas&amp;#x2F;suppl&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;22&amp;#x2F;210206111...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>zaptheimpaler</author><text>If you look up at the sky and say &amp;quot;oh its sunny today&amp;quot;, you are overgeneralizing because you haven&amp;#x27;t seen the rest of the city. If you had worn masks or started being cautious before COVID was widely acknowledged, you were catastrophizing. If you ever talk or act based on a mental model you have of a friend, you are mindreading.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Cognitive distortions&amp;quot; are the only tools we have to reason about &lt;i&gt;anything&lt;/i&gt; in the presence of limited information (which is basically always). Its basically a toolbox to let you discredit &lt;i&gt;any&lt;/i&gt; thought whatsoever, which is convenient when a patient writes down negative thoughts and the psychiatrist can just hand them a list. But it would work just as well on positive thoughts or any thought whatsoever.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jhoechtl</author><text>I call this talking in superlatives. It probably isn&amp;#x27;t exactly the same as the article is talking about but it is related. Especially the youth today prefers talking (and thinking?) in black and white. I think it is the effect of two things:&lt;p&gt;* Media which tries to sell rather mundane news as sensational (exaggerating)
* Management literature which tried the last 30 years hard to push people to the limits, to walk the last mile, to strive for the best, greatest, mediocrity is the evil.</text></comment>
<story><title>Language records reveal a surge of cognitive distortions in recent decades</title><url>https://www.pnas.org/content/118/30/e2102061118.full</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Zak</author><text>The phrases that the study treats as overgeneralizing are:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;all of the time, all of them, all the time, always happens, always like, happens every time, completely, no one ever,
nobody ever, every single one of them, every single one of you, I always, you always, he always, she always, they
always, I am always, you are always, he is always, she is always, they are always&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not &lt;i&gt;always&lt;/i&gt; overgeneralizing to use one of these. &amp;quot;Every single one of them wore black&amp;quot; is (potentially) completely factual. A large increase in their use in books, however suggests that authors are overgeneralizing more than they did previously.&lt;p&gt;Phrase list: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.pnas.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;pnas&amp;#x2F;suppl&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;22&amp;#x2F;2102061118.DCSupplemental&amp;#x2F;pnas.2102061118.sapp.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.pnas.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;pnas&amp;#x2F;suppl&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;22&amp;#x2F;210206111...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>zaptheimpaler</author><text>If you look up at the sky and say &amp;quot;oh its sunny today&amp;quot;, you are overgeneralizing because you haven&amp;#x27;t seen the rest of the city. If you had worn masks or started being cautious before COVID was widely acknowledged, you were catastrophizing. If you ever talk or act based on a mental model you have of a friend, you are mindreading.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Cognitive distortions&amp;quot; are the only tools we have to reason about &lt;i&gt;anything&lt;/i&gt; in the presence of limited information (which is basically always). Its basically a toolbox to let you discredit &lt;i&gt;any&lt;/i&gt; thought whatsoever, which is convenient when a patient writes down negative thoughts and the psychiatrist can just hand them a list. But it would work just as well on positive thoughts or any thought whatsoever.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>BeFlatXIII</author><text>Folks who overgeneralize like that are incredibly easy (and unsatisfactory, due to the predictability of a negative response) to troll. Merely be pedantic, provide a counter example, or suggest a thought experiment in which their generalization may not be true.</text></comment>