A preliminary examination of Beckʹs cognitive theory of personality disorders in undergraduate analogues

The purpose of these three studies was to conduct an initial investigation into Beck, Freeman, and Associatesʹ (1990) cognitive theory of personality disorders in an undergraduate population of personality disorder analogues. In Study 1, preliminary support for the reliability and validity of a measure of the dysfunctional thought patterns (i.e. Thoughts Questionnaire) was gathered. In Studies 2 and 3, specific dysfunctional thought patterns, as proposed by Beck et al. (1990), were found to correlate with corresponding SCID-II personality disorder scales. However, many thought patterns lacked specificity to their corresponding personality disorder, with thought pattern scores being intercorrelated. These results are consistent with those of other published studies, using both university analogue and clinical outpatient samples.