Jj. Horan, EFFECTS OF COMPUTER-BASED COGNITIVE RESTRUCTURING ON RATIONALLY MEDIATED SELF-ESTEEM, Journal of counseling psychology, 43(4), 1996, pp. 371-375
Fifty-six 11th- and 12th-grade students with below-average self-esteem
were classified by gender and randomly assigned to either computer-ba
sed cognitive restructuring or a relaxation-training control condition
. The computer intervention (laden with multimedia features such as co
lor video clips, stereo music, digitized speech, and engaging graphics
) targeted irrational beliefs linked in previous research to low self-
esteem. Participants were assessed repeatedly as they progressed throu
gh the program; depending on the tenacity of each belief held, the pro
gram provided a variety of cognitive restructuring responses. Multivar
iate and univariate effects on four measures of rationality and self-e
steem favored computer-based cognitive restructuring.