which cognitive distortion is this?

[GingerSue]

any thoughts?

"If I gain two pounds, I know everyone will notice it."

The cognitive distortion is:

a) personalization - person believes that what occurs in the environment is related to them even when no obvious relationship occurs

b) magnification - attributing a high level of importance to unpleasant occurrences

c) overgeneralization - person takes information or an impression from one event and attaches it to a wide variety of situations; using words like everybody,, always, never, nobody

the answer is: magnification

[TakeTwoAspirin, MSN, RN, APRN]

There is a subtle clue. If you skim the question, the obvious answer would be personalization. But if you read the description carefully, a) cannot be the correct answer: "person believes that what occurs in the environment is related to them". Her weight gain did not occur in the environment. c) has no relevance to the question at all, so that leaves the only possible correct answer as b).

Good lesson in not skimming problems too quickly!