Cultural Psychology
Year:2018 | Volume:1 | Issue:2 |Papers Count:6

Personality is a determining factor in moral judgment, emotions, and behaviors. Regardless of what construct of personality affects what ethical variables, an important question is what similarities and differences are among these relationships across cultures. The current study investigates the relationships between moral foundations, work ethics, normal personality factors, dark personality traits, social cynicism, and anomie in an Iranian and a Canadian sample. Although the personality variables’ correlations with moral foundations were different in the two contexts, in both contexts personality was a better predictor than moral foundations in predicting work ethics. Findings in the Iranian sample showed that work ethics was negatively correlated with anomie and Machiavellianism, and positively correlated with Honesty-Humility. In the Canadian sample, work ethics was negatively correlated with psychopathy, and positively correlated with Honesty-Humility, Extroversion, and Conscientiousness. Controlling for job experience did not make any difference in these relationships. Findings of this study support the conclusion that work ethics is a culture dependent construct. In collectivistic cultures such as Iran, ethical decision making and behaviors are mainly influenced by personality factors related to reciprocal altruism and collectivistic values like fairness in interactions with others. However, ethical decision making and behaviors in more individualistic cultures such as North America, in addition to reciprocal altruism, are influenced by personality factors related to task based efforts, and individualistic values like order, organization, perfectionism, and persistence. By highlighting the role of culture in the relationships among variables, this study shows the necessity of considering the interaction between culture and ethics for having a more accurate picture of the ethical aspect of the human experience.

The present research had two main goals: first, designing a short psycho-spiritual intervention based on a pattern of Religious Reconstructing Model and focused on religious guil; and secondly, assessing its effectiveness on the components of mental health of individuals with religious guilt. 14 volunteers participated in this study. The participants were randomly assigned to a treatment or a control condotion. The members of the experimental group received religious reconstructing intervention in 4 sessions and together with the control group, completed the scales in three stages: pretest, post-test and a four-week follow-up. The variables of this research were evaluated with a 42-item scale of psychological well-being, DASS scale, religious obsession scale, and religious perfectionism scale. This research had two main hypotheses: first, the participants in the experimental group will have more improvement than the control group in the components of guil and mental health, and secondly, the psychological impact of the current intervention will remain at least for four weeks. To test these hypotheses, the researchers used univariate covariance test, multivariate analysis test, and repeated measures ANOVA. According to the findings, the participants in the experimental group have been more improved regarding the mental health components, and this improvement lasted for four weeks. Also, the findings showed that the present intervention-from the viewpoint of experts-has an acceptable content validity, and the participants also have an appropriate assessment of the content of the sessions and the feasibility of implementing them.

Today, college education has become as a value and an important factor for social mobility and that is why entrance to university is an important event in one's life. Entering the stage of higher education, especially public universities, has always been competitive and in recent years, the tendency of students and their parents and the process of credentialism resulted in a focus on Universities Entrance Exam (UEE) and preparing students for passing it. This study examines the impact of UEE on the Iranian students and families. The research method was qualitativequantitative (mixed). The study population consisted all the students of the secondary schools in Tehran in the academic year 2014-15 as well as their parents. In the qualitative phase of the study, 60 students and 60 parents were interviewed with open-ended questions and in the quantitative phase, 1096 students and 1096 parents were selected as sample groups by using cluster sampling method. The study tools were ‘ the impact of exam on student’ s questionnaire’ and ‘ the beliefs of parents about the effects of entrance exam questionnaire’ . Results showed that UEE had impact on the methods of study and learning, study content, motives and aims of study and learning, attitude of students to UEE, their physical and mental health, and their entertainments and interactions. The motives and aims of study and learning in girls are more affected by UEE, but in other components, there is no significant difference between girls and boys. The results also showed that from the perspective of parents, UEE is significantly effective on family scoping and planning, family interactions and entertainments, determining the criteria for success, and the lifestyle/ life preferences of students.

The purpose of this study was to determine the relations between the early maladaptive schemas from one hand and the moral traits of greed and arrogance from the other hand. The research method was descriptive-correlation type and the statistical population includes students of Islamic Azad University of Qom and Damghan. 478 students from various diciplines (including 112 male and 366 female) were selected through non-randomizied convenience sampling, and responded to the early maladaptive schemas questionnaire and the Islamic scales of greed and arrogance. The data were analyzed using methods such as Pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise regression. The results showed that total score and all areas of the early maladaptive schemas have positive relations with greed and arrogance. Also areas of disconnection and rejection, and impaired limits could explain a significant part of the variance of greed and arrogance. It seems that assessing and reducing the impact of early maladaptive schemas could be used to identify and possibly modify deep moral disorders such as greed and arrogance.

Social and cultural context have a direct impact not only on the signs and symptoms of mental disorders, but also on their emergence and development. Anxiety disorders are one of the most common psychiatric disorders which largely affected by race, ethnicity and cultural factors. With regard to the growing view of the DSM toward culture, there are evidences of the effects of culture and the socio-cultural view on psychopathology in each revision of the DSM. In the present article, which is a review article, cultural differences in anxiety disorders have been discussed. In this regard, two components of cultural factors have been investigated: (1) ethnopsychology/ ethnophysiology factors that refer to the beliefs of each cultural group toward the body functions; and (2) contextual factors which might be responsible for cultural differences in experiencing of anxiety. In this regard, this research includes: a discussion on the role of stigma in anxiety disorders; an evaluation of the reliability and diagnostic accuracy of panic disorder and generalized anxiety disorder from the perspective of cross-cultural researches; a discussion on the changes in DSM-5 regarding cultural issues in anxiety disorders, and also on the researches conducted in Iran. Finally, it can be concluded that by improving the existing classification system, DSM diagnostic sensitivity can be increased to the intra-cultural anxiety disorders – a problem that requires more cross-cultural researches on anxiety disorders.

This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of a critical approach-based Endemic Cultural Intelligence Training Program (ECITP) on academic alienation in Iranian English language learners. The present study was a quasi-experimental research based on a pretest-posttest experimental design with a control group. For this purpose, 40 language learners were selected from Tabriz English language institutes by using cluster sampling method. The ECITP was implemented on experimental group in 8 sessions; both the control group and the experimental group answered an academic alienation questionnaire in two pretest and posttest levels. The findings of multivariate covariance showed that the teaching intervention was effective on the reduction of meaninglessness, powerlessness and isolation in the experimental group. In conclusion, the results generally demonstrated the effectiveness of the ECITP on the maintenance of self-identity and reduction of academic alienation in the Iranian English language learners.