Abstract

The purpose of this study was to validate the mediated effects of automatic negative thoughts with respect to the problems associated with interpersonal relationships and complex trauma among adolescents. A total of 640 adolescents, who attended one of the three middle and high schools in Kwangju area in Korea, participated in this study. As measuring instruments, Trauma Antecedents Questionnaire (TAQ), school violence scale, Korea Children's Automatic Thoughts Scale (K-CATS), and Korea Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (KIIP-SC) were used. This study analyzed the correlation between collected data and descriptive statistics, verifying the mediating effect by conducting multiple regression analysis. According to the analysis, there was a positive relationship among complex trauma experience, negative automatic thought, and interpersonal problem, which were all meaningfully related to one another. Moreover, as a result of verifying the mediating effect for different sex, complex trauma experience and interpersonal problem were partially mediated by negative automatic thoughts in both males and femals. In additon, limitations and implications of this study were discussed based on these results.