POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH
Year:2016 | Volume:2 | Issue:3 (7) |Papers Count:6

The aim of this research was to determine the effect of social interest training on lifestyle of bullying and victim adolescences. The research design was quasi-experimental with pretest posttest, two month Follow-up, and experimental and control groups. The population of the study consisted of bullying and victim male high school students in second and third grades in Abarkooh in the academic year 2015-2016. After administering sociometry and the Olweus Bulling/victimization Revised Questionnaire, on the basis of the results of sociometry those students who were classified as bully and victim were selected.40 bullying students were assigned to bullying group and 40 students were assigned to victimization group. Then each group was randomly divided into two experimental and control groups. All groups were asked to complete Kern Lifestyle Questionnaire as the pre-test. The experimental groups participated in social interest training for 12 sessions (two sessions per week) separately. The control groups were placed on a waiting list to receive training. At the end of the sessions, all groups were reassessed via reappraisal. Mixed intra-between group multivariate variance analysis and pairwise comparisons results indicated that social interest training improve the lifestyles in the experimental groups as compared to the control groups both in the post- and follow-up tests. The results showed that increasing social interest is certainly a beginning toward positive direction and would encourage the individual to create a lifestyle based on empathy, responsibility, cooperation goals as these would increase the probability of successfully solving the life task problems.

This study was conducted to study the effect of positive thinking training on happiness and irrational beliefs of blind adolescents. The sample consisted of 30 subjects (in experimental group, n=15 and control group, n=15), that were selected using available sampling. All subjects were asked to answer the Oxford Happiness Inventory and Jones Irrational Beliefs questionnaire as the pretest and post tests. The experimental group received eight session of positive thinking training. The control group did not receive training. The results of analysis of covariance showed that training had a significant effect on all the subscales of happiness and irrational beliefs (The necessity of others approval and support, high self-expectations, tend to self-blame, reaction to failure, affective irresponsibility, too much concern associated with anxiety, avoidance of problems, dependency, frustration toward change, perfectionism). It was concluded that the positive thinking skills training can be used as an efficient way to increase positive thinking, happiness and decrease irrational beliefs in blind students.

This study aimed to investigate the role of self-compassion in prediction of forgiveness and empathy in young adults. Therefore 250 young adults, aged 18-30 years, were selected from those visiting cultural and public centers in Isfahan, using multistage random sampling. The participants completed the self-compassion, forgiveness, and interpersonal reactions inventories. The results showed that self-compassion was positively correlated with forgiveness and perspective taking, and negatively with personal distress. In addition, self-compassion was not significantly correlated with empathic concern in women. Results from stepwise multiple regression revealed that self-compassion could predict forgiveness, perspective taking, personal distress, and empathic concern in men and women. According to the results, improvement of self compassion, as a positive characteristic, can enhance forgiveness and perspective taking skills and relieve emotional distress.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of perfectionism on psychological well-being with the moderating role of mindfulness and acceptance in university students. The sample included 341 students selected by multistage cluster random sampling. Questionnaires used to gather data were: the Ryff Scales of Psychological Well-being, Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, Mindful Attention Awareness Scale, Acceptance & Action Questionnaire II. Analysis of acquired data via A. F. Hayes PROCESS procedure extension in the regression analysis showed that mindfulness and acceptance were positive predictors of psychological well-being and perfectionism in combination with mindfulness was a significant predictor of psychological well-being but in combination with acceptance was not a significant predictor of psychological well-being. The moderating effect of mindfulness was more significant than the moderating effect of acceptance in predicting psychological well-being on the bases of perfectionism; however, statistically, the moderating roles of mindfulness and acceptance, regarding the relationship between perfectionism and psychological wellbeing were not significant. Thus, it can be said that decreasing in perfectionism is associated with increases in psychological well-being; and it is expected that higher levels of mindfulness and acceptance in students would result in an increase in psychological well-being.

The aim of the research was to study the effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on improving self-esteem of female patients who suffered from coronary artery disease. The research was a experimental study which was applied on two-groups and in three stages on a total of 30 female patients with coronary artery disease who were randomly assigned in to an experimental and a control group. The experimental group received eight 2-hour sessions of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy intervention which were held once a week for a period of two months. Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale was applied as the data gathering tool. Co-variance analysis was used to obtain the results. The participants were assessed before and after the intervention and in the follow-up stage by the Scale. The findings suggested that mindfulness- based cognitive therapy has had a meaningful effect on improving the self-esteem of the patients. These results were also preserved in the follow-up stage. The findings supported the effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on improving the self-esteem of female patients with coronary artery disease. Therefore, it can be concluded that the method has improved the self-esteem of females with coronary artery disease.

The aim of this study was to determine the role of positive psychological capital and family functioning in predicting happiness among adolescence. The design was correlation. The sample comprised of 290 high school students who were selected by the convenience sampling. In this research Snyder’s Hope Scale, Nezami and Colleagues Self-efficacy Scale, Scheier and Carver's Optimism Scale, McMaster's Family Functioning Scale, Connor and Davidson's Resiliency and Oxford Happiness Questionnaire were used to collect data. Pearson correlation and stepwise regression were used to analyze data. The finding showed that there was a significant positive relationship between family functioning components and happiness and between positive psychological capital and happiness. The results of stepwise regression showed that roles, resiliency, self-efficacy, optimism and emotion expression had significant and important roles in predicting happiness and totally, explained 35% of the variance in happiness. In conclusion, these findings indicate the importance of the roles of family and positive psychological capital in adolescence's happiness.