Why is that defensiveness is on the increase. Has positivity been overshadowed by negativity in today's?

[Patrick_version2b]

I gather two questions here - why are cognitive distortions on the rise, and, am I personally the sort to be on the defensive or give otherss benefit of doubt?

Cognitive distortions include subcategories like "mind reading", when an individual walks into a room and suddenly "thinks" everyone who looks at him is thinking something nasty about him, with no shred of proof such is actually the case. Your "everyone is out to get me" falls into this "mind reading" category.

Attitude is a like pair of glasses - they filter how we perceive and interpret reality. I would argue that as hope gives way to pessimism, awe and wonder to cynicism, concern to indifference, enthusiasm to apathy, child-like innocence to savvy jadedness... of course on such cultural path more and more people will interpret everything from negative standpoint. In the simple aforementioned "mind reading" example, an enthusiastic exuberant optimist would interpret other people's glances as compliments - only to later in the evening, looking into the mirror, notice huge ketchup smear on his nose from an earlier hot-dog he ate, and even so, consistent with his "filtering attitude", would have a lighthearted laugh over his child-like presumptuousness... Now the same situation, but involving one with "negative filter", enters the room, interprets other's looks in some hostile or judgmental manner; gets home, and discovers nearly unnoticeable dill speck between his teeth - mind you, he never once smiled, so no one saw it, still, in his negative mindset would additionally feel horrible what a grotesque spectacle he presented himself to others by neglecting to remove the small speck of dill weed.

Of the above two, I can imagine the optimist being less on the defensive, always giving others benefit of doubt, or putting a positive spin on reality, while the pessimist being quite the opposite. IMHO. -Pat