Abstract :
Background: Married women in Pakistan often navigate complex domestic, social, and emotional stressors shaped by cultural expectations, gendered household roles, and limited psychosocial support. Such high-stress environments are strongly associated with cognitive distortions and impaired decision-making, yet empirical evidence from the Pakistani context remains limited.
Objective: This study aimed to (a) identify the most prevalent cognitive distortions among married Pakistani women aged 23–45, (b) examine how perceived stress influences decision-making patterns, and (c) analyze the predictive role of emotional factors fear, anxiety, and rumination on irrational decision-making.
Method: A quantitative correlational design was employed with a sample of 250 urban Pakistani housewives selected through purposive and random sampling. Standardized measures included the Cognitive Distortions Scale, Perceived Stress Scale, Rumination–Reflection Questionnaire, General Decision-Making Style Scale, and the DASS-21 Anxiety Subscale. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlations, and hierarchical regression.
Results: Catastrophizing, overgeneralization, and emotional reasoning emerged as the most dominant distortions. Perceived stress significantly predicted maladaptive decision-making (? = .41, p < .001). Emotional variables, particularly rumination (? = .28, p < .001) and anxiety (? = .22, p = .004), contributed additional variance in irrational decision patterns.
Conclusion: Married women experiencing high domestic stress in Pakistan display elevated cognitive distortions and compromised decision-making abilities. Stress, rumination, and anxiety significantly increase vulnerability to maladaptive decisions. These findings underscore the need for culturally sensitive cognitive and emotional interventions to support women’s mental health and decision-making capacities in stressful home environments.