title: "Why is everyone always angry with me?!": When thinking 'why' leads to generalization.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The degree of (over)generalization (to the self, over situations) is an important characteristic of depression and anxiety disorders. Little is known about cognitive mechanisms underlying this (over)generalization. In this context, the present study examined the effect of an abstract processing style (compared to a more concrete processing style) on generalization of angry faces to the self. An abstract processing style refers to thoughts about the meaning, causes and consequences of events or situations ('Why'-thinking).
  
  
  METHODS
  To test the impact of an abstract processing experimentally, images of angry faces were paired with the name of the participant and happy faces were paired with another person's name while participants adopted either an abstract ('Why') or a concrete ('How') processing style. A surprise recognition task, where participants were asked to indicate whether they had seen the faces before, served as a test of generalization of angry faces to the self.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Results indicated that participants who adopted an abstract processing style showed more generalization of angry faces to the self and a trend towards more generalization of happy faces to the other person, relative to participants who adopted a concrete processing style.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our sample was a non-clinical student sample and thus conclusions about the generalizability to clinical samples should be done with caution.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results suggest that abstract thought may underlie the generalization of bad/failure/angry feelings toward the self ('Everyone is always angry with me') and of good feelings towards other people ('Everyone is always nicer to other people') that is often seen in depression and social anxiety disorder.
authors.affiliation: KU Leuven, Belgium. Electronic address: jens.vanlier@ppw.kuleuven.be.
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Van Lier
authors.affiliation: KU Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Bram
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Vervliet
authors.affiliation: KU Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Yannick
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Boddez
authors.affiliation: KU Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Filip
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Raes
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000786:Anger; D003071:Cognition; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013850:Thinking; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Abstract and concrete processing; Depression; Generalization; Rumination; Social anxiety