A number of investigations have been conducted to examine social cognition
and psychopathology among adolescents, yet little is known about the social cognitive
reasoning of adolescents identified as having severe behavioral disorders. The
purpose of the present study was to explore the social cognitive reasoning of
adolescent boys with behavioral disorders in comparison to their peers without
behavioral disorders. Group differences were examined with respect to epistemic
reasoning and the dimensions of adolescent egocentrism. In addition, the relation
between social cognition and social relationships was investigated. Finally, the
relation between social cognition and psychopathology was explored.
Thirty-one adolescent boys with behavioral disorders and 32 of their peers
without behavioral disorders (matched forage, race, and SES) participated in the
study. All participants were individually administered measures designed to assess
epistemic reasoning, imaginary audience and personal fable ideation (i.e.,
invulnerability, omnipotence, personal uniqueness), and personal-intimacy and groupintegration
with peers and family. In addition, boys with behavioral disorders
completed a measure of internalizing, externalizing, and total problem behaviors.
Teacher-ratings of problem behaviors were also completed for each participant in the
study.
Results revealed that adolescent boys with behavioral disorders were lower in
epistemic reasoning than were adolescent boys without behavioral disorders. Groups
were not found to differ with respect to imaginary audience or personal fable ideation.
For boys with behavioral disorders, no relation was found between social cognition
and social relationships. In contrast, for boys without behavioral disorders, personal
uniqueness was negatively related to group-integration with peers and omnipotence
was positively related to group-integration with family. Social cognitive reasoning was
found to predict self-reported problem behaviors for boys with behavioral disorders
and teacher-re ported problem behaviors for boys without behavioral disorders.
Overall, these results suggest the importance of epistemic reasoning in understanding
the relation between social cognition and psychopathology.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/9815 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Beaudoin, Kathleen Mary |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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