The role of loneliness, self-esteem, age, gender and relationship status on the university student?s cognitive distortions about their relationships

In the current study, effects of loneliness, self-esteem, age, gender, and relationship status were investigated in predicting the cognitive distortions on the relationships of university students. Sample consisted of 970 university students from Faculties of Education, Architecture and Engineering, Literature, Science, Fine Arts, Communication and School of Foreign Languages at Anadolu University during 2008-2009 academic year.Experimental group fullfiled the Cognitive Distortions on Relationships Scale, UCLA Loneliness Scale, Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory and demographic questions. Pearson?s correlation coefficient and hierarchical regression analysis were conducted by using ?SPSS 15.0 for Windows? to the data. In the study .05 significance cut point was accepted.Result revealed that self-esteem and loneliness were the significant predictors of cognitive distortions on the relationships. However, gender, age, and relationship status did not significantly predict cognitive distortions on the relationships. Directions of the significant relationships yielded that lower levels of self-esteem were found to be associated with higher levels of cognitive distortions on the relationships. Furthermore, decreased levels of loneliness were significantly related to lower levels of cognitive distortions on the relationships.