RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH
Year:2012 | Volume:6 | Issue:1|Papers Count:11

This study has been carried out with the aim of studying and recognizing the role of attachment to God in Resilience and mental health of the parents of trainable mentally retarded children. In this descriptive, correlational research performed in 296, 2010 parents of trainable mentally retarded children were selected based on Morgan table and through stratified random sampling from the desired population and were then investigated. To collect the data three questionnaires were used: attachment to God, resiliency and checklist of behavioral signs. Analysis of the data through correlation coefficient and regression analysis showed that there was a positive meaningful relationship between secure attachment to God and resilience and mental health. Furthermore, there was a significant negative relationship between anxious, inevitable attachment to God and resilience and mental health. Also the result of regression analysis showed that the variable secure attachment to God can explain 70 percent of the variable resilience. Secure attachment to God had a significant positive relationship with resilience and mental health, and anxious and inevitable attachment to God had a significant negative relationship with resilience and mental health. Therefore it is likely to improve the individuals’ mental health by changing the quality of their attachment to God.

The current study investigates the mediating role of basic psychological needs (autonomy competence and relatedness), motivational self-regulation (intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and academic demotivation) and academic excitement (class enjoyment and learning hopelessness) in the relationship between environmental factors supporting student's academic autonomy and school well-being. Through multi stage cluster sampling, 520 male and female students were selected from Karaj’s high schools. The tools used in this study included teacher’s supporting student’s autonomy scale, parents’ supporting student’s autonomy scale, the scale of relationship with classmates, basic psychological needs scale, academic motivation scale, school well-being scale, and academic emotions questionnaire. Data were analyzed by confirmatory factor analysis, cronbach alpha and structural equation modeling. Findings of the study demonstrated that teacher’s supporting student’s autonomy; parents’ supporting student’s autonomy and the relationships with the classmates had a significant and direct effect on the basic psychological needs. Furthermore, teacher’s supporting student’s autonomy through mediatory variables of the study didn’t have direct and significant effect on school wellbeing. However the indirect effect of parents’ supporting student’s autonomy was significant. Autonomy, relatedness, academic demotivation and class enjoyment had significant direct effect on school well-being. In addition, autonomy, competence, relatedness, academic intrinsic and extrinsic motivation had an indirect, significant effect on school wellbeing. Therefore, it can be concluded that basic psychological needs, motivational self-regulation and academic emotions played a mediating role between the environmental variables supporting student’s autonomy and school well-being.

The current study investigated the causal relationship between the sense of coherence (SOC) and psychological hardiness, coping strategies and mental health. 405 women from Ahvaz City, with ages ranged between 25-55 years participated in the study. Flensborg-Madsen et al.'s sense of coherence scale, Najarian et al.'s hardiness scale, Moss and Billings stress coping strategies, and Godberg's mental health scale were administered. The results of path analysis indicated that the proposed model which linked sense of coherence, psychological hardiness, coping strategies and mental health fitted the data. Direct and non-direct path coefficients of the sense of coherence and mental health were also significant. Furthermore, path coefficients of the direct effect of hardiness on emotion-centered coping strategies, SOC on emotion-centered coping strategies and emotion-centered coping strategies on mental health were also significant. Findings indicated that the SOC and psychological hardiness had a determining role in mental health. Also, causal modeling path analysis demonstrated that some variables made their relationship complicated.

According to the last edition of APA (DSM-IV-TR), the cancer has been known as a traumatic stress that can affect on Psychological and cognitive health in spouses as a caregiver and might show the signs of PTSD. Attention to this aspect is very important for treatment in cancer patients. This study examined the effect of cancer (during treatment and after treatment) on the emotional performance (anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder) and cognitive performance (autobiographical memory) on their spouses. 120 individuals in 3 groups (spouses of cancer patients (during treatment), spouses of cancer patients (after treatment) and the healthy group), that have been matched in sex; age and intelligence attend to the research. The instruments of the research include the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R), the Persian versions of the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) and the Autobiographical Memory Inventory (AMI). Results indicated that no significant difference in depression was found between all three groups but the target group (during treatment) showed more psychological distress than the control group. Both of target groups indicated no significant difference in PTSD at all and control group showed higher levels of episodic specificity, episodic memory and autobio-graphical memory scores than the other groups. The findings are discussed in terms of the proposed theory about interaction of emotion and cognition, especially PTSD.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of neuroticism on processing of emotional faces in adolescents. The subjects of the study (30 subjects with high neuroticism and 30 subjects with low neuroticism) were selected based on their scores in Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (JEPQ) and also a semi-structured clinical interview was performed. Then computerized pictorial version of modified dot-probe task was carried out on them. The data were analyzed through mixed analysis of variance. The results of this study indicated that adolescents with high neuroticism showed significant vigilance to angry emotional face while adolescents with low neuroticism showed significant avoidance from angry face. The findings of this study demonstrated that personality trait of neuroticism in adolescents can cause attention biases to emotional faces.

Adolescence is one of the most challenging periods of human life. Personal, biological and psychological experiences cause extreme changes in this period of life. During these changes adolescences discover new and different behavioral and emotional stimuli for their adulthood. The main purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between sensation seeking, decision-making styles and risky behaviors among the adolescents in Dezful city. Descriptive correlational method was used in this study. 450 Dezful’s high school students (16.3 and 1.08 were the average age and standard deviation respectively) were selected through multi-stage random sampling. In this study, Young’s risky behaviors scale, Zuckerman sensation seeking scale (a 40-item scale), and questionnaire of general decision making styles were used. Analysis of Pearson correlation coefficient test showed that there was significant positive relationship between the risky behavior and the total score of sensation seeking and its subscales. also, there was significant positive relationship between the risky behavior and the intuitive and dependant decision making styles, and there was negative relation between the risky behavior and rational decision making style. Furthermore, the intuitive and immediate decision-making styles were positively in relationship with sensation seeking and were negatively in relationship with rational decision making style. The results of multiple regression analysis showed that the sensation seeking, decision making, gender and age together can explain 40% of the changes of risky behaviors variance.

The aim of this research was to investigate the Factor Structure and Psychometric Properties of the Persian version of State Adult Attachment Scale (SAAS). Using stratified random sampling method, 321 students (148 male and 173 female students) from Shiraz University were selected. Participants completed Persian version of State Adult Attachment Scale (SAAS), revised version of the adult attachment scale (RAAS), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI–II) and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI). The construct validity of the Persian version of State Adult Attachment Scale (SAAS) was assessed via factor analysis and internal correlations. Also, Concurrent validity coefficients of this scale were calculated based on the correlations of this scale with the revised version of the adult attachment scale (RAAS), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI–II) and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) scores. Moreover, using Cronbach’s Alpha the reliability of the Persian version of State Adult Attachment Scale (SAAS) was assessed. Principal component analysis with Varimax-rotation showed the three factors including Secure, anxious and avoidant attachments which were in accordance with factor structure of SAAM in major population. Result of internal correlations and correlations with BAI, BDI-II and RASS, revealed good construct and Convergent validity. Finally, reliability of these subscales were reached between 0.72-0.84 according to the Cronbach’s Alpha. According to the results of this study, SAAM can be used for the Iranian population in clinical and research fields as a reliable and valid scale.