THE EFFECTS OF COGNITIVE RESTRUCTURING TECHNIQUE IN THE MANAGEMENT OF EXHIBITIONISM AMONG FEMALE ADOLESCENT STUDENTS IN LAGOS STATE

The study of exhibitionism among the youths, especially adolescents, has been a major concern of parents, school administrators, counsellors, and society. Hence, the study investigated the effectiveness of the Cognitive Restructuring Technique (CRT) in managing exhibitionism among female adolescents in Lagos State. The study adopted a pre-test, post-test, and control group quasi-experimental design with a 2 x 2 factional matrix. The researcher utilized a multi-stage simple random sampling technique to select participants for the study. A sample size of 60 participants was drawn from two educational districts in Lagos State. The training programme lasted for eight weeks. The two validated instruments used for data collection were Adolescent Exhibitionism Scales (AES) r 0.64 and Social Economic Status Scales (SESS) r = 0.87. Two hypotheses were formulated and tested at a 0.05 level of significance. The two hypotheses were rejected. Data were analyzed using the analysis of Covariance and t-test. The findings discovered that Cognitive Restructuring therapy is very effective in curbing exhibitionism, the findings also imply that socioeconomic status has implications on the manifestation of exhibitionism behaviour of the participants. Based on the findings, it was suggested that conscious efforts be made by school counsellors, school administrators, parents, and other stakeholders to adopt (CRT) when handling adolescents with behavioural problems such as exhibitionism, as this would reduce deviant behaviour in adolescents.