Types of Cognitive Errors and the External Locus of Control in Adolescent Girls
Kiran Bashir Ahmad, Dr. Zainab F. Zadeh

Abstract
The present study aimed at exploring the types of cognitive errors and their relationship with the locus of control in adolescent girls. A total of 50 participants from Karachi, aged 13 to 15 years, participated in the study. A demographic information questionnaire along with the Urdu Translation of the Nowicki – Strickland Locus of Control Scale for Children (CNSIE) by Nangiana (2002), while a set of four questions to assess the cognitive errors of overgeneralizing, personalizing, selective abstraction and catastrophizing, were administered to all individuals. It was hypothesized that there would be a significant relationship between the levels of locus of control and the cognitive errors made by adolescent girls. The results were tabulated using SPSS Version 16 where a Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was computed to assess the relationship between the levels of locus of control and cognitive errors. The results show an inverse correlation r = -.346, n = 50, p = .014 indicating a significant relationship between the variables at the 0.05 level. The study has implications for CBT professionals in being culture specific and age specific with respect to the possibility of fewer cognitive errors occurring in conjunction with a higher degree of external locus of control in collectivistic nations like Pakistan while dealing with adolescent girls.

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