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Open Access 01-02-2011 | Original Article

Distorted Cognitive Processing in Youth: The Structure of Negative Cognitive Errors and Their Associations with Anxiety

Authors: Marija Maric, David A. Heyne, Brigit M. van Widenfelt, P. Michiel Westenberg

Published in: Cognitive Therapy and Research | Issue 1/2011

Abstract

The Children’s Negative Cognitive Error Questionnaire (CNCEQ) is commonly used to measure four errors in young people’s thinking, but research has failed to support the factorial validity of the measure. The primary objective of the present study was to examine the factor structure of a refined and extended version of the CNCEQ. Revision of the CNCEQ involved the exclusion of items rated as contaminated, and the addition of items measuring cognitive errors closely associated with anxiety (‘threat conclusion’ and ‘underestimation of the ability to cope’). A secondary objective was to determine the relation between the negative cognitive errors and anxiety. Principal component analysis of data from 481 children and adolescents indicated five distinct negative cognitive error subscales labeled ‘underestimation of the ability to cope’, ‘personalizing without mind reading’, ‘selective abstraction’, ‘overgeneralizing’, and ‘mind reading’ which contained the new ‘threat conclusion’ items. Confirmatory factor analysis in an independent sample of 295 children and adolescents yielded further support for the five-factor solution. All cognitive errors except ‘selective abstraction’ were correlated with anxiety. Multiple regression analysis indicated that the strongest predictors of anxiety were the two subscales containing new items, namely ‘underestimation of the ability to cope’ and ‘mind reading’. The results are discussed with respect to further development of the instrument so as to advance the assessment of distorted cognitive processing in young people with internalizing symptoms.

Overgeneralizing’ resulted from the combination of Beck et al.’s (1979) ‘overgeneralizing’ and ‘presuming temporal causality’; ‘personalizing’ was a combination of ‘excessive responsibility’ and ‘self-reference’; ‘selective abstraction’ was a combination of ‘selective abstraction’ and ‘dichotomous thinking’; and ‘catastrophizing’ was able to be maintained as an independent category (i.e., without merging it with other categories).

We thank our colleagues from University of Amsterdam, Professor Pier J.M. Prins, B.M. Meulema and L.N. Houwer, for their initial work on the translation of the CNCEQ items.

English and Dutch versions of the CNCEQ-R are available on request from the first author.

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Title: Distorted Cognitive Processing in Youth: The Structure of Negative Cognitive Errors and Their Associations with Anxiety
Authors: Marija Maric
David A. Heyne
Brigit M. van Widenfelt
P. Michiel Westenberg
Publication date: 01-02-2011
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Cognitive Therapy and Research / Issue 1/2011
Print ISSN: 0147-5916
Electronic ISSN: 1573-2819
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-009-9285-3

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Distorted Cognitive Processing in Youth: The Structure of Negative Cognitive Errors and Their Associations with Anxiety

Abstract

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