MEASURING COGNITIVE DISTORTION IN ANTISOCIAL YOUTH - DEVELOPMENT AND PRELIMINARY VALIDATION OF THE HOW I THINK QUESTIONNAIRE

The present study describes the development and preliminary validation of the ''How I Think'' questionnaire (HIT), a new measure of self-ser ving cognitive distortion. The HIT is based upon Gibbs and Potter's [G ibbs, 1993; Gibbs et al., 1995] four-category typology of cognitive di stortion: Self-Centered, Blaming Others, Minimizing/Mislabeling, and A ssuming the Worst. The preliminary HIT exhibited high test-retest and internal consistency reliability, and generally good construct validit y. Correlations between the HIT and self-reported antisocial or extern alizing behavior remained significant after controlling for internaliz ing disorders [Achenbach, 1991]. The four typological categories perfo rmed comparably well. The HIT was partially successful in discriminati ng criterion groups. The findings are discussed in terms of theory, re search, and application. (C) 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.