The purpose of this study was to examine the roles of university students' cognitive distortions in their sense of autonomy. One hundred and three third-year university students from Shanghai, The People's Republic of China, responded to the Cognitive Distortion Scales [Briere, J. (2000). "Cognitive Distortion Scales: Professional manual". Lutz, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc.] and to the Iowa Developing Autonomy Inventory [Jackson, L. M., Hood, A. B. (1985). The Iowa Developing Autonomy Inventory. In A. B. Hood (Ed., 1997), "The Iowa student development inventories" (2nd Ed), (pp. 32-43). Iowa City, IA: HITECH Press]. Results suggested that in general, cognitive distortions have a significantly negative impact on Chinese students' sense of autonomy. However, there was also an indication that cognitive distortions could play the roles of psychological defense mechanisms, which provided some support to Bowins' [Bowins, B. (2004). "Psychological defense mechanisms: A new perspective." "American Journal of Psychoanalysis", 64 (1), 1-26] recent argument that cognitive distortions may not always be dysfunctional. Implications of the present findings are discussed in relation to students, faculty members, and university counselors.