COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS IN ADOLESCENTS PRESENTING WITH EXTERNALIZING BEHAVIOURAL PROBLEMS

Abstract

The aim of this research was to assess impact of cognitive distortions, gender and age on presenting complaints of externalizing behavioural problems as assessed through How I Think Questionnaire,  and Youth Self Report respectively. A group of adolescents (n = 1258) were initially screened for presentation of problematic behaviours from colleges of Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Attock District of Pakistan. Result Analysis revealed that 17.17% (216/1258) scored high on self-centred;13.83 %( 174/1258) on Blaming others subscale; 11.48 % (148/1258) on the “assuming the worst” subscale and 14.1% in the minimizing/ mislabelling subscale in terms of cognitive distortions in adolescents presenting with behavioural problems. Gender difference analysis in terms of cognitive distortions revealed that males had higher mean scores on the HIT (M = 2.64, SD = 0.52) as compared to females (M = 2.41, SD = 0.53), d = .23.   Multiple analysis of variance however, indicated that gender, age, and cognitive distortions were significantly predictive of behavioural symptoms.