Investigation of the relationship between cognitive distortions, childhood traumas and attachment styles

This research is prepared to determine the relationship between individuals' cognitive distortions, childhood traumas and attachment styles, examine how these variables differ according to demographic variables and determine if childhood traumas have a relationship with the attachment styles. 540 adults between 18-72 years old living in Turkey were randomly chosen as sample of the research. Data were collected using Socio-demographic Information Form, Cognitive Distortions Scale, Childhood Mental Trauma Scale and Adult Attachment Styles Inventory in this research. IBM SPSS v.25 package program was used in the evaluation and analysis of the collected data. In the findings of the study, it was found that there is a strong and positive relationship between physical abuse which is a subdimension of childhood traumas and catastrophizing, labeling, mental filtering, overgeneralizing, personalization and obligatory statements which are subdimensions of cognitive distortions. A strong and positive correlation was found between all subdimensions of cognitive distortion and secure attachment which is a subdimension of attachment styles. The results of the research were discussed in the light of literature.