Psychological Achievements
Year:2017 | Volume:23 | Issue:1|Papers Count:7

The present study has investigated the sources and domains that give meaning to old people's life, from their point of view, presence of and search for meaning and the differences between women and men in these components. Old people aged over 60 in Tehran formed the statistical population of this research. From this population 287 old individuals, aged over 60 years (M: 67.43, Std: 4.75, 54% females), were selected using available sampling method and they completed two instruments of the Schedule for Meaning in Life Evaluation and Meaning in Life Questionnaire. Chi square and analysis of variance tests were applied to analyze the data. The results showed that "family" (92.3%) and "partnership" (54.7%) are the areas that have been reported most frequently as sources of meaning by old people. Moreover, two new categories of sources of meaning in life have been identified in this study, using content analysis method: "morality" and "the need for social approval". Old female and male participants differed in the frequency of mentioning some of the sources of meaning and the dimension of search for meaning. These findings have been discussed in the context of developmental and meaning in life theories.

The purpose of this study was testing a model of causal relationships of family communication patterns (conversation and conformity), metacognition and personality traits (openness to experience and conscientiousness) with critical thinking disposition mediated by epistemic beliefs of female high school students in Ahvaz, in 2016. The sample consisted of 402 high school students who were selected by multi-stage random sampling method. In this study, five questionnaires were used for collecting data, Family Communication Patterns of Koerner and Fitzpatrick, Metacognitive Awareness of Schraw and Dennison, NEO Five-Factor Questionnaire, Epistemic Beliefs of Bayless and Critical Thinking Disposition of Ricketts. Structural equation modeling (SEM) method was used for analyzing the data. The results showed that all the path coefficients were statistically significant. The relationships of conversation, metacognition, conscientiousness, openness to experience and epistemic beliefs with critical thinking disposition were positive and significant and the relationship of conformity with critical thinking disposition was significant but negative. The model fit indices showed that the model fitted the data properly. The indirect paths were also tested, using bootstrap procedure of Preacher and Hayes. The results indicated that all the indirect hypotheses have been confirmed.

Female-headed households, due to many difficulties and diverse roles, are one of the vulnerable groups in society and at risk for mental disorders, such as depression. Thus, they require more support, including psychological treatment and empowering programs. Hypnotherapy based on strengthening the ego can be a useful strategy for empowerment and also as a way to reduce the symptoms of depression. So, this research is an experimental study to determine the effectiveness of hypnotherapy in treating depression based on ego strengthening of female-headed households. Participants in this study were 30 women who were covered by the Imam Khomeini Relief Committee. They were randomly divided into control and experimental groups. The strength of ego and depression were measured by Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-2) and Psychological Ego Strengths Scale. The results of Multivariate ANOVA with Repeated Measures showed that there are significants difference between the pretest, posttest and flow up in experimental group, compared to control group, in terms of dependent variables (p<0.001). The result of this study indicates that ego-strengthening based on hypnotherapy can be effective in order to reduce depression.

This study aimed to investigate the causal relationship between personality traits and academic performance with mediating role of study strategies in students of Farhangian university of Khuzestan. The study population included all of the students of Farhangian University in the academic year of 1392-93. From this population, nine classrooms (214 students) were selected as sample, using clustering sampling method. The research instruments in this study were NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-FFI), Approaches to Study and Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST) and grade point average of students. For analysing data, the AMOS-16 was used. Results showed that openness and conscientiousness, by pushing students to deep study approach, promote academic performance. The agreeableness, by adopting a strategic study approach in students, improves academic performance. In addition, the findings indicate the positive relationship of trait neuroticism with both the surface study approach and the low academic performance of students. In general, the results showed that personality traits, both directly and indirectly through study strategies, associated with academic performance.

Emotion regulation is an important factor in psychological well being, and successful performance in social interaction and deviation from it can lead to delinguent behaviors. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of coping skills' training on emotional adjustment of juvenile offenders. The study population consisted of all juvenile offenders residing in the Correction and Rehabilitation Center in Tehran. The sampling mothed of this study was a convenience sampling type. The sample size was 50 patients who were selected and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Eight 90-minute sessions were conducted to train the experimental group, but control group received no training. The subjects were evalualed by the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale before and after training. The results of multivariate analysis of covariance showed that mean scores of emotion regulation difficulties, in the experimental group, was significantly different from control group (p<0.0001). The mean score of the control group did not change significantly from pre-test to post-test, which showed that the adolescents who receive coping skills' training act in an appropriate emotion regulation style. Thus, it is suggested that correcting and training centers' teachers should be taught coping skills so that they can use these sklils for clients.

The main purpose of current study was to predict work efforts and organizational citizenship behaviors through multi-dimensions of work motivation (including, amotivation, social extrinsic, material extrinsic, introjected, identified, and intrinsic motivations). This study was a descriptive-correlational method, and the study population included all of the employees in Welfare Organization in Isfahan province. 285 employees were selected through convenience sampling method. Research instruments consisted of 5-item scale of Work Efforts by Kuvaas, et al., 19-item scale of Multi-Dimensions Work Motivation by Gagne, et al., and the 16-item of Organizational Citizenship Behaviors by Lee and Allen. The data were analyzed using Pearson correlation and multiple regression analyses. The findings demonstrated that there were negative relationship between amotivation and material extrinsic motivation and positive relationships of intrinsic, identified and introjected motivations with work efforts. There were negative relationship between amotivation and positive relationships of material extrinsic, identified, introjected and intrinsic motivations with organizational citizenship behaviors (p<0.01). Moreover, amotivation, material extrinsic and intrinsic motivations predicted work efforts significantly (p<0.01), and amotivation, social extrinsic and intrinsic motivations predicted organizational citizenship behaviors significantly (p < 0.01), which explained 15.8 and 26.2 percent of the variances of work effort and organizational citizenship behaviors respectively. Based on the results of this study it can be concluded that the work effort and organizational citizenship behaviors could be increased by work motivation.

Develomental assets consist of opportunity, values and skills that increase adolescents' achievements at school and result in reduction of risky behaviors and play a protective role in psychological well-being. Current study aims to review mediating role of psychological capital in relationship between developmental assets and academic achievements. For this purpose, 463 students (junior and senior high-school) of Bushehr city (259 boys and 204 girls) were selected by cluster sampling method and they responded to Developmental Assets Scale of Minnesota and Psychological Capital Scale of Luthans. Structural equation modeling was used and the results of analyzing data indicated that there was a meaningful and positive relationship between psychological capital and developmental assets. Also, meaningful relationship between psychological capital and educational achievements, mediated by developmental assets was obtained. The results of structural equation modeling suggests that the model fitted the data. With regard to these findings, it can be said that psychological capital has a mediating role in the relationship between developmental assets and educational achievements. Accordingly, with regard to such variables as developmental assets and increase of psychological capital, the rate of students' academic achievements could be increased.