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Arbitrary inferences tend to derive from emotional disturbances one experienced and gave a distorted meaning. Most of the time that distorted meaning involves blaming the self. In the book Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy a book by David D. Burns, a student of Aaron T. Beck, discusses more in detail the cognitive distortions.Burns explains arbitrary inference or "jumping to conclusions" with two of the most common examples of arbitrary inference "Mind Reading" and "The Fortune Teller Error". When "Mind Reading" in arbitrary inference one will believe other's are thinking negatively about them. When "Mind Reading" one is so convinced others are thinking negatively about them, they do not even bother confirming. This acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy when the person avoids or counterattacks the other person, and as a result creating a tension that would not exist had they not applied the arbitrary inference. In "The Fortune Teller Error" one would imagine something failing or bad happening, and suddenly they are convinced it will happen, despite the irrationality of it. Similarly to "Mind Reading" it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

According to Beck(1967), a person goes through life with detrimental schemas and pessimistic point of view, they reinforce their harmful thoughts. People's Prior beliefs along tend to reinforce that way of thinking when they focus on information that is in alignment with their belief and disregard equally relevant facts that do not align with their schemas. These schemas that dominate the cognitive processes consist of 1) Feeling inadequate and faulty, 2)Believing all actions and experiences will lead to failure, and 3) The future is discouraging. Overtime, these thought processes become automatic. Without time to reflect on the cognitive process, one believes that their illogical reasoning to their conclusion is valid. Attributing the negative and distorted meaning of an event results in latent schemas that are later activated by events and influence how information from the event is processed. When a person creates an arbitrary inference it intervenes and is seen as effective response to the event.

In a particular study that attempts to understand cognitive processes like arbitrary inference on depression, they compared 42 patients with chronic depression, 27 patients with major depressive disorder (non-chronic), and 24 patients that had never been psychiatrically ill before. The study included the Attributional Style Questionnaire, a ruminative response style questionnaire, the Schema Questionnaire, and the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale. While studies showed that both of the depressed groups were significantly elevated in every cognitive measure compared to the control group, the depressed group scored hire in the attributional style.

Cognitive Therapy for Arbitrary Inference Aaron T. Becks approach to helping people with arbitrary inference is to ask them questions about the inference. Beck Leads the people to think about the rationality of the automatic thoughts that happen when one is using arbitrary inference as an explanation to an event. When a person creates an arbitrary inference it intervenes and is seen as effective response to the event.

Cognitive distortion history
In 1957, Albert Ellis thought he did not know it yet, would aid cognitive therapy in correcting Cognitive Distortions and indirectly helping David Burns in writing The Feeling Good Handbook. Ellis created what he called the ABC Technique of rational beliefs. The ABC stand for (A)Activating Event, (B)beliefs that are irrational and (C) the consequences that come from the belief. Ellis wanted to prove that the activating event is not what caused the emotional behavior or the consequences, but the beliefs and how the person irrationally perceive the events that aids the consequences. With this model Ellis attempted to use Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) with his patients, in order to help them "reframe" or reinterpret the experience in a more rational manner. In this model Ellis explains it all for his clients, while Beck helps his clients figure this out on their own. Beck first started to notice these automatic distorted thought processes when practicing psychoanalysis while his patients followed the rule of saying anything that comes to mind. Aaron realized that his patients had irrational fears, thoughts, and perceptions that were automatic. Beck began noticing his automatic thought processes that he knew his patients had but did not report. Most of the time the thoughts were biased against themselves and very erroneous. Aaron believed that the negative schemas developed and manifested themselves in the perspective and behavior. The distorted thought processes lead to focusing on degrading the self, amplifying minor external setbacks, experiences other's harmless comments as ill-intended, while simultaneously seeing self as inferior. Inevitably cognitions are reflected in their behavior with a reduce desire to care for self, to seek pleasure and give up. These exaggerated perceptions due to cognition feel real and accurate because the schemas after being reinforced through the behavior tend to become automatic and do not allow time for reflection. This cycle is also known as Beck's Cognitive Triad, focused on the theory that the person's negative schema applied to the self, the future, and the environment.