DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY (JOURNAL OF IRANIAN PSYCHOLOGISTS)
Year:2018 | Volume:14 | Issue:56 |Papers Count:13

This aimed to examine maternal representation and sensitivity changes as key elements of caregiving system during development. Sixty mothers and their children, aged between 18 and 60 months, were assessed using the Adult Attachment Questionnaire (Hazan & Shaver, 1987), the Working Model of the Child Interview (Zeanah, Benoit, Hirshberg, Barton & Regan, 1994), the Maternal Behavior Q-Sort (Pederson., Moran & Bento, 1999), and the Attachment Q-set (Waters & Deane, 1985). The results of Chi-Square test indicated significant differences between observed and expected values among the variables in differentages. Mothers of 36-40 month children, in comparison with younger and older children’ s mothers, were more likely to show "nonbalanced"representation and low sensitivity. This result may be due to emerging negativity and independency during this age periodand the mother's difficulty to adjust herself with these behavioral alterations. So caregiver may not be able to maintain her role as asensitive and secure base as before. These findings suggested the impact of mother-child communication on child attachment securityduring development and the need to provide mothers with age-appropriate educational interventions.

In order to construct and standardize a School Maladjustment Scale, 405 students (261 girls, 144 boys) were selected from junior high schools of City of Tehran by cluster sampling method. The participants completed the School Maladjustment Scale. Examining the item-total correlation led to elimination of 23 items. The results of principle components analysis and varimax rotation indicated that 24 items had factor loading less than 0. 3, so these items were eliminated. The Cronbach's Alpha reliability coefficient for 88 item scale was 0. 979. The results of factor analysis led to extraction of six factors: 1) academic indifference and lack of attention, 2) inappropriate behaviors toward teachers and classmates, 3) destructive and indiscipline behaviors, 4) bullying and antisocial behaviors, 5) deception and violation of rules, and 6) withdrawal and victimization by bullies, which explained 57. 80 percent of the total variance. The concurrent validity of the scale using comparison to the Student Adjustment Inventory (Sinha & Singh, 1993) was 0. 405. The results of confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the 6-factor model was supported by more than seven fit indices. All of the six components yielded high reliability coefficient.

The aim of this study was to explore strategies for passing through midlife crisis. Based on a qualitative approach and grounded theory methodology, the data were collected using theoretical sampling. In each step, according to the analysis of previous data, twenty middle-aged females and males who were volunteer to interview were selected. The results were presented based on coding, including “ the core of the middle-aged crisis process formation” which involves assessing the life process and comparing it with personal and social standards. The consequences of midlife crisis were studied in three sections: Behavioral, cognitive and emotional. Passing through midlife crisis components were discussed with three strategies: effective personal constructs, kind of human look about individual capabilities, and achievements of life and midlife period. Eventually, underlying factors in the formation of efficient personal structures and the kind of human look in the process of passing the midlife crisis were explained in two categories: Religious coping strategies and selective and practical personality. Given the problems of middle-aged people, midlife period needs more attention from therapists and consultants.

The aim of the present study was to compare executive functions (cognitive flexibility and working memory) of first grade students who had pre-school experience and those of children without preschool experience. This study was a causal-comparative one. Using random multi-stage cluster sampling, 90 first grade students with preschool experience and 90 first grade students without preschool experience were selected from elementary schools of Tehran in 2016-2017 academic year. Cognitive flexibility was assessed by the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (Grant & Berg, 1948), and working memory was assessed by the Wechsler Digit Span Test. The results of two-way analysis of variance indicated that there was a significant difference between executive functions (cognitive flexibility and working memory) among the two groups of participants. There was no significant difference between girls and boys in executive functions The students who attended pre-school were better than the students without preschool experience in cognitive flexibility and working memory. The findings suggested that pre-school education had been effective in strengthening executive functions of children,

The aim of this study was to examine the efficacy of mindful parenting program on parenting stress and parental self-efficacy among mothers who had high conflicts with their adolescents. Four hundred and eighty three female students were selected from three volunteer junior high schools in Yazd, Iran. The participants completed the Conflict Behavior Questionnaire-Adolescent Form (Robin & Foster, 1989). One hundred and fifty seven students whose conflict scores with their mothers were higher than 50 were selected. After applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, 32 mothers were selected and randomly assigned into either the experimental or the control group. The experimental group received mindful parenting based on Bö gels and Restifo (2014) package. Both groups completed the Parenting Stress Index (Abidin, 1995) and the Parental Self-Agency Measure (Dumka, 1996) during threestages. The results of analysis of variance with repeated measures indicated that MP significantly reduced parenting stress andincreased parental self-efficacy. The findings suggested that the mindful parenting approach was influential in variables related tomaternal parenting.

The aim of this study was to develop a structural model to determine the relationships among components of religiousness, hope, and patience. The study method was correlational. Five hundred and twenty seven students were selected from Shiraz University using multi-stage cluster sampling. The participants completed the Religiousness Questionnaire (Glock& Stark, 1965), the Patience Scale (Khormaei, Farmani & Soltani, 2014), and the Hope Scale (Snyder, 1996). The results indicated the proposedmodel fitted the data well. Religiousness had a direct effect on patience and patience had a direct effect on hope. Religiousness relatedto hope indirectly through patience. The finding suggested that the emphasize should be more on religious beliefs (such as divineknowledge) and religious affection (such as attaching to God) than on religious rituals and consequences. In other words, if differentdimensions of religion are accompanied with patience, the level of individuals’ hope will raise up and this will create more fulfilledand purposeful youth lives than the practice of religiousness education alone. The outputs of these processes will be generation oftheories and models that may be useful and effective for applying in educational, counseling, and therapeutic settings.

The aim of this study was to examine the relationships among psychological well-being, religiosity, self-compassion, and death anxiety in the elderly. A nonrandom and volunteer sample of 300 elderly people from Mehregan part-time elderly care center in Kermanshah, Iran participated in the study. The participants completed the Psychological Well-being (Ryff, 1989), the Self-Compassion Scale (Raes, Pommier, Neff & Gucht, 2011), the Muslim Attitudes toward Religion Scale (Wilde & Joseph, 1997) and the Death Anxiety Scale (Templer, 1970). Pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise regression were used to analyze the data. The results indicated that psychological well-being positively related to self-compassion and religiousness. The psychological well-being negatively related to death anxiety. The results of stepwise regression analysis indicated that over-identification, personal help, mindfulness, isolation, death anxiety, self-judging and Islamic rituals accounted for 59% of variances of psychological well-being. The findings suggested that psychological well-being in elderly people may be increased by strengthening self-compassion and religiosity and weakening death anxiety.

The aim of this study was to examine the moderating role of coping styles in the relationship between attachment styles and obsession death in the elderly. Three hundred and twenty six elderly people (185 males, 141 females) were selected from Noorabad Mamasani, Iran by convenient sampling. The participants completed the Adult Attachment Style Questionnaire (Hazan & Shaver, 1987), the Coping Styles Questionnaire (Park, 2007) and the Death Obsession Scale (Abdel-khalek, 1998). The data analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and multivariate regression. The results indicated that secure attachment style and positive coping style related to obsession death significantly and negatively. The insecure attachment styles and negative coping style related to obsession death significantly and c positive The. positivelyoping style predicted lower scores in obsession death. The positive coping style moderated the relationship between attachment styles and obsession death. The findings suggested that increasing level of positive coping style weakened the relationship between insecure attachment styles and obsession death.