Relationships between irrational thinking and psychiatric symptomatology

Previous research on the clinical theory of Rational Emotive Therapy has shown that irrational belief systems are associated with global indices of psychopathology such as state and trait anxiety and depression. In an extension of this earlier work a correlational study was conducted on the relationships between irrationality and a self-report measure of highly specific indices of psychiatric symptomatology, the Symptom Checklist-90. The sample consisted of 62 undergraduates (37 female, 25 male, means age = 21 years) enrolled in an upper-level psychology course. Seven of the nine correlations were statistically significant, indicating that greater irrationality was associated with higher levels of psychiatric symptomatology. These results provide additional evidence in support of the clinical theory of Rational Emotive Therapy.