Selective abstraction
In clinical psychology, selective abstraction is a type of cognitive bias in which a detail is taken out of context and believed whilst everything else in the context is ignored.[1] It commonly appears in Aaron Beck's work in cognitive therapy. Another definition is, "focusing on only the negative aspects of an event, such as ‘‘I ruined the whole recital because of that one mistake’’ [2] . "Also known to be a cognitive distortion in the Generalized Anxiety Disorder, "when a person makes a judgment based on some information but disregards other information. Example: Someone attends a party and afterward focuses on the one awkward look directed her way and ignores the hours of smiles." [1].
Cognitive Errors and Anxiety
Selective abstraction is also related to child depression. For instance, when a team of researchers analyzed the association between cognitive errors in youths with anxiety disorders, they found that "measures of anxiety (i.e., trait anxiety, manifest anxiety, and anxiety sensitivity) and their cognitive errors (i.e., catastrophizing, overgeneralization, personalizing, and selective abstraction)" had significant connections with the depressed child participants" [2]
See also
References
- ^ Sundberg, Norman (2001). Clinical Psychology: Evolving Theory, Practice, and Research. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0130871192.
- ^ a b Weems, C. F., Berman, S. L., Silverman, W. K., & Saavedra, L. M. (2001). Cognitive errors in youth with anxiety disorders: The linkages between negative cognitive errors and anxious symptoms. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 25(5), 559-575.
 | This psychology-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |