Type of Submission
Poster
Keywords
Cognitive distortion, juvenile delinquent, institutional misconducts
Abstract
It has been found that juvenile delinquents usually possess inaccurate explanations or thoughts about their experiences, which are called as cognitive distortions. The prior findings also suggested that juvenile delinquents’ antisocial behaviors are associated with their cognitive distortions. Therefore, many juvenile centers utilized cognitive treatment programs and tried to reduce juvenile delinquents’ cognitive distortions. Thus, it is useful to measure the changes of juvenile delinquents’ cognitive distortions in a rehabilitation center to design treatment plans and evaluate its effectiveness.
The present study aimed to measure the changes of cognitive distortions in a group of 43 adolescent juvenile delinquents at a secure, long-term, juvenile Rehabilitation Center in a Midwestern state. The juveniles were given the How I Think (HIT) questionnaire to measure their cognitive distortions at the beginning of and at the end of their treatment. Their daily institutional misconducts were also recorded during their residency in the center. The pre- and post-test scores were compared and the analysis result indicated that the posttest scores were significantly lower than the pretest scores revealing the effectiveness of the treatment of the Rehabilitation Center in lowering cognitive distortions. Secondly, the relationship between the cognitive distortion pretest scores and the number of these juvenile delinquents’ institutional misconducts were examined. A significant positive correlation was found between these two variables. Thirdly, a regression analysis was conducted and the HIT subscales of angry/irritable and lying pretest score were significant factors in predicting the number of misconducts at the Rehabilitation Center. Lastly, the relationships between specific cognitive distortions (i.e. self-centeredness, blaming others, minimizing/mislabeling, and assuming the worst) and specific misconduct categories will be examined. We plan to report the results during the symposium.
Faculty Sponsor or Advisor’s Name
Dr. Di Wu, Dr. David Leitch
Campus Venue
Stevens Student Center
Location
Cedarville, OH
Start Date
4-1-2015 11:00 AM
End Date
4-1-2015 2:00 PM
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Cognitive Distortions and Institutional Misconducts in Juvenile Delinquents
Cedarville, OH
It has been found that juvenile delinquents usually possess inaccurate explanations or thoughts about their experiences, which are called as cognitive distortions. The prior findings also suggested that juvenile delinquents’ antisocial behaviors are associated with their cognitive distortions. Therefore, many juvenile centers utilized cognitive treatment programs and tried to reduce juvenile delinquents’ cognitive distortions. Thus, it is useful to measure the changes of juvenile delinquents’ cognitive distortions in a rehabilitation center to design treatment plans and evaluate its effectiveness.
The present study aimed to measure the changes of cognitive distortions in a group of 43 adolescent juvenile delinquents at a secure, long-term, juvenile Rehabilitation Center in a Midwestern state. The juveniles were given the How I Think (HIT) questionnaire to measure their cognitive distortions at the beginning of and at the end of their treatment. Their daily institutional misconducts were also recorded during their residency in the center. The pre- and post-test scores were compared and the analysis result indicated that the posttest scores were significantly lower than the pretest scores revealing the effectiveness of the treatment of the Rehabilitation Center in lowering cognitive distortions. Secondly, the relationship between the cognitive distortion pretest scores and the number of these juvenile delinquents’ institutional misconducts were examined. A significant positive correlation was found between these two variables. Thirdly, a regression analysis was conducted and the HIT subscales of angry/irritable and lying pretest score were significant factors in predicting the number of misconducts at the Rehabilitation Center. Lastly, the relationships between specific cognitive distortions (i.e. self-centeredness, blaming others, minimizing/mislabeling, and assuming the worst) and specific misconduct categories will be examined. We plan to report the results during the symposium.
