PsychologicalReports, 2004,95,291-303.

O Psychological Reports 2004

THE INTERPERSONAL COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS SCALE:

DEVELOPMENT AND PSYCHOMETRIC CHARACTERISTICS '

ZEYNEP HAMAMCI AND SENER BUYUKOZTURK

University of Gaziantep University of Ankara

Summary.-In this study, an Interpersonal Cognitive Distortions Scale was devel-

oped to assess cognitive distortions in individuals' interpersonal relationships. The
sample comprised 425 university students. A factor analysis yielded three factors: Inter-
personal Rejection, Unrealistic Relationship Expectation and Interpersonal Mispercep-
tion. To examine construct validity the correlations between the scores on the Inter-
personal Cognitive Distortions Scale and the Automatic Thoughts Scale (.54), the Irra-
tional Belief Scale (.54), and the Conflict Tendency Scale (.53) were estimated. The
first factor, the second factor, and the total scale discriminated married individuals
who had low and high conflict intensity and conflict frequency. The reliability of the
scale was estimated by performing a test-retest correlation (.74). Cronbach internal
consistency coefficient alpha was .67.

According to the cognitive behavioral approach, thoughts regarded as

irrational beliefs or cognitive distortions are important factors for the emer-
gence and continuation of dysfunctional behaviors and psychological disor-
ders (Ellis, 1962; Beck, 1976; Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979). Since the
1980s, the literature has focused on beliefs about relationships; these have
been investigated in situations in which people are having extramarital af-
fairs, in couples (Emmelkamp, Krol, Sanderman, & Ruphan, 1987; Jones &
Stanton, 1988; Metts & Cupach, 1990; Moller & Van Zyl, 1991; Epstein,
Baucom, & Rankin, 1993; Haferkamp & Claudia, 1994; Debord, Romans, &
Krieshok, 1996; Moller & Van der Merwe, 1997; Moller & De Beer, 1998;
Moller, Rabe, & Nortje, 2001; Addis & Bernard, 2002; Stackert & Bursich,
2003), as well as in mothers, fathers and children (Bernard & Joyce, 1984;
Robin & Foster, 1989).
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy proposes that a disturbed marriage
results when one or both spouses hold irrational beliefs, "irrational" being
defined as highly exaggerated, inappropriately rigid, illogical, and absolutist
(Dryden, 1985; DiGuiseppe & Zee, 1986; Ellis, 1986). Ellis, Sichel, Yeager,
DiMattia, and DiGuiseppe (1989) have identified the following irrational
beliefs in relationship: (a) demandingness, i.e., dogmatic "shoulds" about a
spouse's behavior and the nature of marriage; (b) neediness, i.e., spouses be-
lieve that they need to be lovingly
- - mated because otherwise they are worth-
less; (c) intolerance, i.e., spouses convince themselves that they can't stand
'Address correspondence to Assistant Professor Dr. Zeynep Hamamci, Gazi Mahallesi Karacao-
tan Caddesi Siikrii Ercan, Apt. A Blok No. 4, Gaziantep/Turkey or e-mail (zeynephamamciC3
otmail.com).
the problems they experience or anticipate in their relationships; (d) awfuliz-
ing, i.e., being intolerant when things are not all they are supposed to be;
and (e) damning, i.e., taking the partner's feelings as a mirror of one's lov-
ability and human value.
Derived largely from Beck's (1976) and Ellis's (1962) cognitive theories
of maladaptive behavior, Baucom, Epstein, Sayers, and Sher (1989) have
described five categories of cognition that play roles in marital maladjust-
ment: selective attention, involving each partner's idiosyncratic perception of
events; attributions, partner's explanations of events that they notice; expect-
ancies, predictions that each partner makes about the probabilities that
particular events will occur in the future; assumptions, the basic beliefs that
each partner holds about the nature of the world and correlations between
events and characteristics of intimate relationships; and standards, each part-
ner's beliefs about the characteristics each thinks a partner or relationship
should have.
Based on their clinical observation of individuals and couples seeking
counseling for relationship problems, Kayser and Himle (1994) have identi-
fied irrational beliefs about intimacy. They are summarized as follows: (a) if
I become close to someone, he leaves me; (b) if I have any conflict in a rela-
tionship it can't be intimate; (c) I will lose all personal control and power in
relationships if I am intimate; (d) I am solely responsible for the lack of inti-
macy in my relationships; (e) I must do everything my partner wants to be a
truly intimate person and to achieve intimacy; ( f ) If I am a good father or
good mother and wife I will get intimacy in return; (g) I must always have a
strong loving feeling before I can be intimate; (h) I can't experience intimacy
without having sex in a relationship.
The scales currently used for evaluating cognitive distortions in inter-
personal relationships have been developed for people involved in romantic
affairs. One inventory which is often used is the Relationship Beliefs Inven-
tory (Eidelson & Epstein , 1982), which assesses cognitive distortions in rela-
tion to the following subscales: (a) Disagreement is destructive; (b) Misread-
ing is expected; (c) Partners cannot change; (d) Sexual perfectionism is nec-
essary; (e) Sexes are different. Another scale is the Relationship Beliefs Ques-
tionnaire (Romans & DeBord, 1995). This scale measures cognitive distor-
tions in relation to the following subdimensions: ( I ) we should be open and
honest with each other at all times; (2) we should be able to read each oth-
er's minds; (3) we should do everything together; (4) we should be able to
meet each other's needs; (5) we should be willing and able to change for
each other; (6) things should be always be perfect between us; (7) good rela-
tionships should be easy to maintain; (8) one can never be complete without
being involved in a romantic relationship; (9) romantic idealism. Similarly,
the Family Beliefs Inventory (Roehling & Robin, 1986) was developed to
 INTERPERSONAL COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS SCALE 293

measure cognitive distortions in mothers, fathers, and adolescents with re-

spect to their relationships. O n this scale, cognitive distortions of mothers
and adolescents are measured separately. The subdimensions for mothers
and fathers are ruination, obedience, perfectionism, malicious intent, ap-
proval, and self-blame, while for adolescents the subdimensions are ruina-
tion, unfairness, autonomy, and approval.
These scales were developed to evaluate cognitive distortions adopted
by individuals in their particular relationships. However, these individuals
may also have cognitive distortions, which could lead them to generalize
about every kind of relationship they experience. For example, an individual
may adopt a highly idealistic belief, such as "I want everyone that I am in
contact with to share his (or her) thoughts and feelings with me," or else
they may adopt a belief that relies on reading another person's mind, such
as "I can understand from looking into a person's eyes what he (or she)
feels.''
To date, no scale has been described in the literature that could mea-
sure cognitive distortions that occur in all types of relationships. The only
scale developed in this field is the Relationship Beliefs Scale (Fletcher & Ki-
ninmonth, 1992). However, this scale does not measure cognitive distortions,
but rather measures the thoughts of individuals regarding issues of commu-
nication, love, trust, independence, support, acceptance, sex, and equity.
The theoretical basis for this scale is derived from principles of social psy-
chology.
The aim of this study is to develop a scale that does not measure spe-
cific cognitive distortions displayed by individuals in relationships with par-
ticular persons, but rather, general cognitive distortions that individuals dis-
play across all their relationships. Further, the study aims to investigate the
psychometric characteristics of this scale. This study investigated the factor
structure in the Interpersonal Cognitive Distortions (ICDS) scale, test-retest
correlation, item-total correlations, internal consistency, and criterion-based
validity.
METHOD
Participants
The research sample was comprised of 425 students (288 women and
137 men) studying in three different universities in Ankara, Turkey. The
mean age of the participants was 21.5 (SD= 1.75, range = 18 to 31). Among
these students, 137 (32.2%) were in the second year of study and 288
(67.8%) were in their third year of university training. The scales were dis-
tributed to students during their classes and were completed in one session.
Measures
Conflict Tendency Scale (Dokmen, 1986).-This scale was developed to
294 Z. HAMAMCI & S. BUYUKOZTURK
measure an individual's tendency towards conflicts in communication and is
based on the types of conflict addressed by the model of Harary and Batell
(198 1). The scale is comprised of 10 subdimensions, including Active con-
flict, Passive conflict, Existence conflict, Total refusal conflict, Bias conflict,
Density conflict, Active-bias conflict, Passive total refusal conflict, Humanis-
tic approach, and Personal characteristics. Active conflict occurs in situa-
tions in which two people who do not llke and are angry with each other
criticize and do not listen or care about what the other says. Passive conflict
is the situation in which two people have no communication. Existence
conflict occurs in a situation where the person gives an irrelevant message as
a response to what the other says when not listening or when misunderstand-
ing. Total refusal conflict occurs when the person rejects the idea completely
and claims the opposite. In Bias conflict, the person starts a discussion with
prejudice about any topic. Density conflict is the situation in which two peo-
ple have partial agreement on their views. In Active-bias conflict, two people
do not like each other and have different points of view. Passive total refusal
conflict occurs when two people blame each other and cut communication
between them. The Humanistic approach suggests that people with positive
emotions toward others have fewer conflicts than those with negative emo-
tions. Some personal characteristics can lead to conflict in communication.
The scale contains 53 statements, of which 31 are positive and 22 are nega-
tive. The scale's test-retest correlation is 3 9 . For the validity of the scale, a
topic for free discussion was given to students, and all dialogues were re-
corded. Experts listened to recorded dialogues and scored them for type of
conflict. Correlations were calculated between the scores obtained from ex-
perts and the Conflict Tendency Scale. Experts' ratings were correlated with
six of the 10 subscales. The following correlations were obtained: Active con-
flict .73; Existence conflict 3 8 ; Total refusal conflict .73; Active-bias conflict
.64, Density conflict .69, and Bias conflict .82.
Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire (Aydin & Aydin, 1990; $ahin &
$ahin, 1992). This scale is the Turkish version of the Automatic Thoughts
Questionnaire developed by Hollan and Kendall (1980). This scale of 30
items was used to assess automatic thoughts related to depression. Cronbach
coefficient alpha for internal consistency was .93 ($ahin & Sahin, 1992). The
coefficient obtained from a sample group of 114 individuals, of whom 57
were depressed and 57 nondepressed, was .95 (Aydin & Aydm, 1990). For a
student group, the test-retest reliability coefficient for the scale was .77 (Ay-
din & Aydin, 1990). Correlations between scores on the Automatic Thoughts
Scale and on the Turkish version of the Beck Depression Inventory were .75
(Sahin & Sahin, 1992) and .70 (Aydin & Aydin, 1990). The scale discrimi-
nated between groups with and without depression (Aydin & Aydin, 1990).
Irrational Beliefs Scale (Tiirkiim, 2003).-This scale was used to mea-
 INTERPERSONAL COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS SCALE 295

sure irrational beliefs of adults. There are 15 items under the three subdi-
mensions including Approval, Human Relations and Self. Coefficient alpha
of internal consistency of the scale administered to 498 university students
was .75. Test-retest reliability coefficient for the scale was found to be .81
over a 10-wk. interval. The correlation between the scale scores and those on
the Turkish version of the Beck Depression Inventory was .16. The correla-
tions between the scale and the Turkish version of the Dysfunctional Atti-
tude Scale was .40.
Married L$e Questionnaire (Tezer, 1986).-This scale was developed to
measure conflict behaviors between married individuals. The scale provides
four different scores: Conflict Intensity, Conflict Frequency, Stress Level,
and Loading on himselfherself and spouse of incidents involving conflict.
The Conflict Frequency score indicates the number of conflicts spouses ex-
perience and the Conflict Intensity score indicates the intensity of couples'
conflicts. The scale discriminated married and divorced people in terms of
the number of conflicts and conflict intensity. The test-retest reliability coef-
ficient for Conflict Frequency was .75 for over a 3-mo. interval and for Con-
flict Intensity 3 9 .
Interpersonal Cognitive Distortions Scale.-This scale measures cognitive
distortions in individuals who are in relationships and has 19 statements re-
lated to cognitive distortion. The scale uses a 5-point Likert-type scale, an-
chored by 1= I strongly disagree and 5 = I strongly agree. High scores repre-
sent high cognitive distortion in personal relationships.
RESULTS
ICDS Development
During the development of the scale, 30 university students from differ-
ent classes were asked to write sentences using words that would remind
them of relationships (llke humans, close relations, in a relationship) on an
open-ended form. Using the sentences obtained from students and the clas-
sifications related to relationships beliefs from the literature (Baucom, et al.,
1989; Ellis, et al., 1989; Kayser & Himle, 1994) and Beck's definitions of
cognitive errors (DeRubeis, Tang, & Beck, 2001), there were 71 distorted
statements. One psychiatrist, two clinical psychologists and two counselors
evaluated the items to assess whether items include cognitive distortions.
When they thought that an item included a cognitive distortion about rela-
tionships, they described the appropriateness of items using a 3-point Li-
kert-type scale using anchors 3 = appropriate, 2 = partially appropriate and 1
=not appropriate. After evaluation, 45 items with an average rating above
2.5 were included in the scale.
Factor Structure of the ICDS
Principal components analysis was used to examine the factor structure
296 Z. HAMAMCI & $. BUYUKOZTURK

of the ICDS. This is a statistical technique for a single set of variables when
the researcher is interested in discovering which variables in the set form co-
herent subsets that are relatively independent of one another (Tabachnick &
Fidell, 2001). In this analysis, factor loadings greater than .6 are generally
considered high or moderately high if they are above .3 (Kline, 2000). Ac-
cording to Tabachnick and Fidell (2001) only variables with loadings of .32
and above are interpreted. In this study, only variables that had factor load-
ings greater than .3 were included. The results showed that items in the
scale have high loadings on multiple factors. However, in attempting to cre-
ate simple structures that can be defined by factor analysis, it is necessary to
isolate items with high loadings on one factor only (Tabachnick & Fidell,
2001). Therefore, items which had high loadings on more than one factor
were not included in the scale. Consequently, in choosing items, the differ-
ence between the loading values of the items in the factors and other factor
loading values was limited to a maximum of 2 0 .
Principal components analysis was conducted to determine the factor
structure of the ICDS and indicated that there were 16 factors whose eigen-
values were > 1.00, explaining 60.2% of the variance. To observe the factor
structure of the scale more clearly and decrease the correlation between the
factors, principal component analysis was conducted again using varimax ro-
tation. Following this analysis, the items that had low loading values (< .30
loading) on single factors or high loading values on more than one factor
were removed from the scale, and the analysis was then repeated. At the
conclusion of analysis, after 20 items were removed from the scale, the scale
was made up of 25 items in four factors. However, four of the five items
making up the fourth dimension overlapped with the other factors in terms
of content. One item containing a realistic statement (not a cognitive distor-
tion) in the second factor was also observed. Following expert opinion after
the conclusion of the analysis, the items in the fourth factor and an item in
the second factor which did not contain cognitive distortions were removed
from the scale. Then a scale of three factors comprising 19 items featuring
cognitive distortions was obtained.
The three factors of the ICDS were named in accordance with the con-
tent of the items in the factors; the first factor explaining 15.5% of the
variance with eight items, the second factor explaining 13.1% of the vari-
ance and containing eight items, and the third factor explaining 9.5% of the
variance with three items were respectively labeled Interpersonal Rejection,
Unrealistic Relationship Expectation, and Interpersonal Misperception. Table
1 presents the item factor loadings for the three factors determined through
the factor analysis.
 INTERPERSONAL COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS SCALE 297

TABLE 1
FACTOR OF FINAL19 ITEMS
LOADINGS OF THE ICDS
Factor/Item Factor

Interpersonal Rejection
2. People do not understand me.
19. It is always useful to keep superficial our relationships with
others.
13. It is beneficial to be alert to people around us.
12. I believe that people do not accept me when I am in a social
environment.
4. There are no real friends in this life.
3. I believe that I will be rejected if I reveal my feelings and
thoughts to people around me.
10. People do not keep their promises.
1. Being intimate with people usually creates problems.
Unrealistic Relationship Expectation
17. I always want people to show understanding to me.
9. To feel ood, other people's thoughts and feelings about me
should Ee positive.
5. I want people that I am in contact with to share their feel-
ings and thoughts with me.
16. I always want somebody to be around me.
11. I should always belong to a social group.
18. People should meet each others' expectations in relation-
ships.
14. I should be tolerant of others in order not to offend them.
15. I should behave as others want me to behave in order to
make them happy.
Interpersonal Misperception
7. I feel what they think even if people do not show it.
6. I understand from someone's eyes what kind of a person
they are.
8. Other people should know what I think even if I do not re-
veal my thoughts.
Total Variance 38.03

Item Analysis
The correlation values between each item's factor and other factors were
measured (Table 2). The corrected item-total correlations ranged from .49 to
2 0 , and bivariate correlations between the items and other factors ranged
from .05 to .20. To control for Type I error across correlations, the alpha
level of significance was adjusted from .05 to .0008 according to Bonferroni
correlation. This more conservative alpha level was derived by dividing the
standard alpha level (.05) by the total number of comparisons made (Green,
Salkind, & Akey, 1997).
Correlations Between Factors
Table 3 presents the correlations measured between the factors of the
298 Z. HAMAMCI & '$. BuYUKOZTURK

TABLE 2
ITEM-TOTAL
CORRELATIONS
WITHINICDS FACTORS
-

Factor/Item Factor
1 2 3
-

Interpersonal Rejection
2. People do not understand me.
19. It is always useful to keep superficial our relationships with
others.
13. It is beneficial to be alert to people around us.
12. I believe that people do not accept me when I am in a social
environment.
4. There are no real friends in this life.
3. I believe that I will be rejected if I reveal my feelings and
thoughts to people around me.
10. People do not keep their promises.
1. Being intimate with people usually creates problems.
Unrealistic Relationship Expectation
17. I always want people to show understanding to me.
9. To feel ood, other people's thoughts and feelings about me
should Ee positive.
5. I want peo le that I am in contact with to share their feel-
ings and tioughts with me.
16. I always want somebody to be around me.
11. I should always belong to a social group.
18. People should meet each others' expectations in relation-
ships.
14. I should be tolerant of others in order not to offend them.
15. I should behave as others want me to behave in order to
make them happy.
Interpersonal Misperception
7. I feel what they think even if people do not show it.
6. I understand from someone's eyes what kind of a person
they are.
8. Other people should know what I think even if I do not re-
veal my thoughts.

scale, the average scores on the factors, and standard deviations. The bivari-
ate correlations between the different factors of the ICDS ranged between
.O7 and .15, which shows that the correlations between the factors are very
low.

TABLE 3
CORRELATIONS
BETWEEN
FACTORS
OF THE ICDS AND MEANS
AND STANDARD
DEVIATIONS
Factor M SD r

1. Interpersonal Rejection 19.09 5 17

2. Unrealistic Relationship Expectation 23.56 4.92 .15
3. Interpersonal Misperception 8.78 3.28 .13 .07
 INTERPERSONAL COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS SCALE 299

Reliability of the ICDS

The reliability of the scale was measured through internal consistency
and the test-retest method. The correlation coefficients, measured for total
scale and each dimension, and test-retest coefficients over a 15-day interval
were calculated. In addition, the whole sample was randomly split into two
separate files. Then, correlation coefficients were calculated for the first and
second halves of the sample. Cronbach alphas are presented in Table 4.
TABLE 4
RELIABILITY OF ICDS FACTORS:
COEFFICIENTS CRONBACH
ALPHAAND TEST-RETEST
Cronbach a* Test-Retest
Overall First Half Second Half
Total ICDS .67 .63 .72 .74
Interpersonal Rejection .73 .71 .75 .70
Unrealistic Relationship Expectation .66 .65 .67 .76
Interpersonal Misperception .43 .39 .56 .74
"Overall N = 425, first half of sample n = 212, second half of sample n = 212.

Principal components analysis was performed both on the first and sec-
ond halves of the sample after items were eliminated. The results show that
three factors of the scale were extracted for both samples. The item factor
loadings for the factors on the first half of the sample ranged from .38 to .66
for Interpersonal Rejection, .36 to .65 for Unrealistic Relationship Expecta-
tion, and .60 to .81 for Interpersonal Misperception, respectively. The ex-
plained total variance on the first half of the sample was 39.9% for the three
factors: 17.4% for Interpersonal Rejection, 12.8% for Unrealistic Relation-
ship Expectation, and 9.6% for Interpersonal Misperception.
The item-factor loadings for the factors on the second half of the sam-
ple ranged from .45 to .63 for Interpersonal Rejection, .35 to .60 for Unreal-
istic Relationship Expectation, and .28 to .83 for Interpersonal Mispercep-
tion, respectively. The explained total variances on the second half of the
sample were 37.9% for the three factors: 15.8% for Interpersonal Rejection,
12.1% for Unrealistic Relationship Expectation, and 9.8% for Interpersonal
Misperception.
Also, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to examine if
there was a defined model with three factors using LISREL 8.30. Confirma-
tory factor analysis produces many indicators of the model fit. Some of these
are Chi-square Goodness of Fit (x2),Goodness of Fit Index (GFI), Adjusted
Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI), Root Mean Square Residuals (RMR), Root
Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) (Mars & Hocevar, 1988;
Joreskog & Sorbom, 1993). For acceptable fit the ratio x2/df should be be-
low 5, GFI and AGFI above 0.90, and RMR and RMSEA below 0.05. The
300 Z. HAMAMCI & S. BUYUKOZTURK

TABLE 5
SUMMARY
OF CONFIRMATORY
FACTORANALYSIS
ON THE ICDS
Indices First Half of Second Half of
Sample (n = 212) Sample (n = 2 13)
x2 (df) 288.99t (149) 280t (149)
x2/df 1.94 1.88
GFI 0.87 0.88
AGFI 0.84 0.84
RMR 0.09 0.12
RMSEA 0.06 0.06

results of the confirmatory factor analysis in Table 5 confirmed that the pro-
posed model fits the data well enough for both samples.
Validity of the ICDS
The validity of the scale was estimated by the correlation between the
scores on the ICDS and the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire (n=80)
which measures automatic thoughts related to depression. To provide more
data about validity of the scale, the correlation between ICDS and the Irra-
tional Beliefs Scale ( n = 80), measuring general beliefs, was calculated. More-
over, since we expected that if there were more cognitive distortions related
to relationships there would be more tendency to conflict for individuals,
the correlation between the ICDS and the Conflict Tendency Scale ( n = 85)
was calculated. Pearson correlations are presented in Table 6.

TABLE 6
PEARSON OF ICDS WITHRELATED
CORRELATIONS SCALES
Irrational Automatic Conflict
Beliefs Thoughts Tendency
Total ICDS .54+ .53$ .53$
Interpersonal Rejection .36$ .51$ .47$
Unrealistic Relationship Expectation .34t .94$ 32
Interpersonal Misperception .26" .28t .17t

To provide more evidence of validity, the Married Life Questionnaire

was administered to 158 married individuals (79 women, 72 men and 7 un-
known). The mean ICDS scores were compared for groups with High and
Low Conflict Frequency and Conflict Intensity. Low and High Conflict Fre-
quency and Conflict Intensity groups were defined by median splits on the
scores (Mdn for Conflict Frequency = 16.00, Mdn for Conflict Intensity =
24.50). The group of couples with High Conflict Frequency scored signifi-
cantly lower on Interpersonal Rejection (t= 1.98, p < .05), Unrealistic Rela-
 INTERPERSONAL COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS SCALE 301

tionship Expectation (t = 5.15, p < .05), and the Total ICDS (t = 2.37, p < .05)
but not on Interpersonal Misperception (t = 0.82, p > .05) of the ICDS than
the group of couples with Low Conflict Frequency. The group of couples
with High Conflict Intensity had significantly lower scores on Interpersonal
Rejection (t = 2.59, p < .05), Unrealistic Relationship Expectation (t = 2.10, p <
.05), and the Total ICDS ( t = 2.56, p < .05) but not on Interpersonal Misper-
ception (t=O.43, p > .05), than the group of couples with Low Conflict
Intensity.
DISCUSSION
The current study investigated the psychometric characteristics of the
ICDS. The factor analysis showed that the scale could be defined by a three-
factor structure. The first factor, labeled Interpersonal Rejection, comprised
eight items. This factor showed that the individuals in question have nega-
tive attitudes toward others. In addition, if they are very close to others in
their relationships, this situation can have negative consequences. The sec-
ond factor, Unrealistic Relationship Expectation, comprised eight items and
implies that the individuals have high expectations in their relationships con-
cerning both their own behavior and the behavior of others. The third fac-
tor, ~ L t e r ~ e r s o n Misperception,
al comprised three items. The items of this
scale imply the idea of attempting to understand interpersonal relationships,
feelings, and thoughts using unrealistic methods.
The rotated factor loadings for the 19 items of the ICDS show high
loading on their own factors and low loading on the other factors. In ortho-
gonal rotations the factors are rotated by using the same angles. This means
that factors would be uncorrelated. This result suggests that each of these
factors are relatively independent of one another and may measure different
aspects of a construct "cognitive distortions related to relationships" (Kline,
2000). The variance explained by the three factors of the scale was 38.2%
and the variance not explained 63 %. This result is considered a limitation of
the scale.
In the current study, a moderate correlation was found between the
ICDS and the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire. But the latter was desig-
nated to measure automatic thoughts related to depression. For this reason,
the correlation between the ICDS and the Irrational Beliefs Scale was exam-
ined, and a moderate correlation was found. The correlation between the
ICDS and the Conflict Tendency Scale demonstrates that the ICDS has cri-
terion-related validity. The correlations between Interpersonal Mispercep-
tion, -the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire, the Irrational Beliefs Scale,
and the Conflict Tendency Scale were lower than correlations with Interper-
sonal Rejection and Unrealistic Relationship Expectation.
Except for Interpersonal Misperception, the Total ICDS score and oth-
er factor scores discriminated married individuals with High and Low Con-
302 Z. HAMAMCI & S. BUYUKOZTURK

flict Frequency and Intensity. This result can be considered another evi-
dence of validity of the ICDS.
The test-retest correlation of the ICDS was above .70 for the Total scale
and for each factor, which shows that the scale is stable over time. Cronbach
alpha for Unrealistic Relationship Expectation was relatively low, but accept-
able given that the test-retest correlations are high. Cronbach alpha for In-
terpersonal Misperception was not acceptable, as the items shared only 9.5 %
of their variance, possibly because the number of items was small.
This study demonstrates that the ICDS is valid and reliable for Inter-
personal Rejection and Unrealistic Relationship Expectation. But Interper-
sonal Misperception is not reliable and requires more development. This can
be seen to be a limitation of this study. Another limitation of this study was
that the scale was developed on scores of university students. The results
must not be generalized to all individuals with relationship problems. It wdl
require further validation of the measure on different groups.
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Accepted June 16, 2004.