DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY (JOURNAL OF IRANIAN PSYCHOLOGISTS)
Year:2016 | Volume:12 | Issue:46|Papers Count:11

The aim of the present study was to examine mediating effect of ego strength on the relationship between attachment styles of secure, avoidant, and ambivalent and cognitive emotion regulation strategies. Five hundred and eleven students (269 females, 242 males) voluntarily participated in the study. All participants were asked to complete the Adult Attachment Inventory (AAI; Besharat, 1384, 2011), the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ; Garnefski & Kraaij, 2006), and the Ego Strength Scale (ESS; Besharat, 1386). The results indicated that the secure attachment style had significant positive association with adaptive cognitive emotion regulation and and negative association with maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies. Additionally, the avoidant attachment style was positively associated with adaptive cognitive emotion regulation and ambivalent attachment style was negativelyassociated with adaptive cognitive emotion regulation. The results of regression analysis indicated that the ego strength partially mediated the relationship between attachment styles and both adaptive and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies. The secure and insecure attachment styles predicted changes of adaptive and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies in opposite directions through ego strength.

The aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy of group interventions and compare the efficacy of behavioral group therapy, cognitive group therapy and cognitive-behavioral group therapy in social anxiety disorder by using meta-analysis method based on the Hunter and Schmidt approach. Forty seven studies which were accepted methodologically and conducted within the last 20 years in Iran were included in the meta-analysis. The checklist of meta-analysis with 1743 participants and 51 effect sizes were used. The results indicated that the effect size of the group interventions on social anxiety disorder was 0.62, and this was true of children, adolescents and adults groups. The effect size of behavioral group therapy, cognitive group therapy, and cognitive-behavioral group therapy were 0.59, 0.69, and 0.68, respectively. This study suggested that the effect size of group interventions on social anxiety disorder was large, and this was true of all age groups. Although all group therapies were effective, the efficacy of cognitive group therapy and cognitive-behavioral group therapy were more than behavioral group therapy.

This study aimed to investigate the mediating role of emotional maturity in the relationship between family communication patterns and empathy. Three hundred students (179 females, 121 males) were selected by multistage random cluster sampling method. The participants completed the Family Communication Patterns Questionnaire (Fitzpatrick & Ritchie, 1994), the Emotional Maturity Scale (Singh & Bhargava, 1974), and the Empathy Scale (Mehrabian & Epstein, 1972). The results of simultaneous multiple regression indicated that: a) dimensions of family communication patterns were the positive and significant predictor of empathy, b) the conversation orientation was negative and significant predictor of all components of emotional maturity, c) the conformity orientation was positive and significant predictor of emotional instability and social maladjustment, and d) the emotional maturity partially mediated the relationship between family communication patterns and empathy. Given the strong role of the conversation orientation in predicting empathy, it is argued that educating and promoting conversation orientation may increase the emotional maturity and empathic behavior in families.

The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of behavioral therapy with speech therapy approach in improving autistic children’s communication skills. Thirty children with autism were selected. Participation was voluntarily. The participants assigned equally in three groups: Two experimental and one control group. The participants completed the Word Health Organization Communicative Skills Scale (1980). The study design was pretest- posttest. One of the experimental group received 12 session of pivotal response behavioral therapy (each 90 minutes) and the other experimental group received 48 sessions of melodic speech therapy (each 30 minutes). The results of analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) indicated that both pivotal response behavioral therapy and melodic speech therapy increased communication skills in the experimental groups in comparison with the control group. There was a significant difference between the pivotal response behavioral therapy and melodic speech therapy communicative skills development, with pivotal response behavioral therapy was more effective than melodic speech therapy.

The present study investigated the effects of instruction and reinforcement on preschool children's decision making. The participants were 94 children (48 boys, 46 girls) ages between 4 and 6 years selected from preschools of Shiraz. In the first phase, the Iranian Adapted Pre-school Short Form of Wechsler Intelligence Scale (Razavieh and Shahim, 2008) administered to participants. Then, the participants were assigned randomly into instruction, reinforcement and control groups and completed the Decision Making Task (Howse, 2003). The results indicated that children who were in the instruction group performed better in their decision making in comparison with reinforcement and control groups. The age moderated the effect of instruction on decision making strategies. The findings suggested that appropriate teaching strategies may promote preschool children's decision making.

This causal-comparative study aimed to compare the children's internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems in terms of birth order and age spacing. Five hundred and thirty six elementary students and their parents were selected by multistage random cluster sampling from city of Yazd. The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001) and a demographic information form were used in the study. The results of the two-way analysis of variance indicated that the age spacing between siblings and birth order had significant impact on externalizing behavioral problems. The children with under two years age space had most problems of externalization. Furthermore, the fourth-born child onward and the firstborn child had the highest scores of externalizing problems, respectively. The findings suggested that 2-3 years of age space was appropriate and the behavioral problems of children in families with three children were lower than other groups.

The present study aimed to construct a test to assess students' academic adjustment. A set of 152 items were generated with six subscales including type of university, field of study, social and interpersonal skills, emotional and academic adjustments, self-discovery, and objective oriented. Four hundred and eleven college students were selected by stratified sampling from city of Ghazvin. The participants completed the 152 items questionnaire. The results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis indicated that items within each subscale were highly correlated with each other. Additionally, the items within each subscale had low correlation with items of other subscales which indicated high independence of subscales. The reliability of the test using Cronbach's Alpha was 0.94. The final version of the test consisted of 138 items after removing items with low and double loading.

This study aimed to examine the measurement invariance of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ, Garnefski, Kraaij & Spinhoven, 2001) among male and female students. Three hundred and forty nine university students (182 females, 167 males) completed the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine the factorial invariance of the CERQ for both females and males. The results of single-group confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the nine-factor model of CERQ consisted of self-blame, acceptance, rumination, positive refocusing, refocus on planning, positive reappraisal, putting into perspective, catastrophizing and other-blame fit to the data for the total sample and also for male and female groups, independently. The results of multi-group confirmatory factor analysis indicated cross-group invariance of measurement residuals, structural covariances and regression weights of the CERQ for both male and female. The findings suggested that multiple factors of the CERQ were perceived equally across the two gender.