Journal of Psychology
Year:2009 | Volume:12 | Issue:1 (48)|Papers Count:11

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of stress inoculation training on the general health of coronary heart disease patients. The subjects consisted of 28 patients with coronary heart disease, who were randomly selected from the cardiovascular center of the Therapeutic Research Center of Isfahan, through systematic sampling method. Patients were randomly assigned to experimental (n= 14) and control (n= 14) groups. There were 7 females and 7 males in each group. The experimental group received 8 weekly sessions of stress inoculation training while the control group did not received any psychological intervention. The General Health Questionnaire-28 was administered to both groups before and after training. The results of analysis of covariance showed that stress inoculation training significantly improved the general health in the experimental group as compared with the control group (p< 0.0001). Also, compared with the control group, the experimental group showed significantly lower scores on the somatization (p= 0.005), anxiety and insomnia (p= 0.007), social dysfunction (p= 0.01) and depression (p= 0.008). In conclusion, as results showed that the stress inoculation training had a significant effect on different components of general health, of the coronary heart disease patients, it is suggsted that this method can be used together with usual medicine care for the improvement and rehabilitation of cardiovascular diseases.

Survey of parenting styles and determining the relationship between these styles and children's education were the main aims of this research. The subjects were students (grade five) and their parents in Chahar Mahal-va-Bakhtiary province. The students were selected based on stratification method, but the parents were selected purposely. Data were gathered by the "Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire" (PSDQ). Data were analyzed by statistical procedures such as t- test, Pearson correlation and analysis of variance in general linear model with SPSS II software. Analyses showed that the majority of authoritative styles were the most frequent parenting style among fathers as well as mothers. Both fathers and mothers were more authoritative with their daughters, while, they were more authoritarian with their sons. There was no significant difference between the fathers' authoritative style in the privileged .and non-privileged areas. However, in the non-privileged areas, fathers had more authoritarian style. Finally, there was a correlation between parenting styles and the children's educational achievement, but the correlation was positive only between authoritative style and the children's educational achievement.

This exploratory, quasi-experimental study compared the impact of art psychotherapy with narrative therapy approach on the self-esteem and self-efficacy of 20 male juvenile orphans. The age range for the participants was from 13 to 16 years old. A control group pre-test/ post-test design was implemented for this study. It was hypothesized that if children receive art psychotherapy services, they will exhibit marked improvement in self esteem and self efficacy. The participants who volunteered for this study were randomly assigned to the control and experimental groups (10 in each group). The experimental group received 12 sessions of narrative art psychotherapy services. The control group did not receive any psychological interventions. Both group were administered the pre-and post assessments. the scale developed by Rosenberg and self-efficacy was measured by the Sherer's scale. Results revealed that the self-efficacy and self-esteem of the experimental group were significantly increased in the post tests. 

This study was conducted to normalize the Crumbaugh and Maholick's questionnaire of Purpose-In-Life (PIL) for an Iranian sample. 250 students of Isfahan University (125 males and 125 females) were selected by stratified sampling method and completed the PLI. Reliability was measured by Cronbach's alpha (reliability coefficient = 0.92). There were positive and significant correlations between PIL scores and scores of the Life Satisfaction and Vitality scales. In terms of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule expanded from (PANS-X) it was demonstrated that all subscales of the positive affect (past, present, future & total) had positive correlation with the PIL scores and all subscales of the negative affect (past, present, future & total), had negative correlation with the PIL scores.However, there was no significant correlation between the PIL scores and those subscales of the positive- negative affect (past, present, future & total). The factor analysis indicated that theorical structure of the questionnaire included one factor. The raw scores; 121 and 71 were determined as 90% and 10% the cut off points, respectively.

The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of an anger management training program on general health in a sample of high school boys. To do this, one school was selected randomly from Tehran (number 1 district). The students in the second and third high school grades answered to the State Trait Anger Expression Inventory-2 (Spielberger, 1996) as a screening instrument. The students who the score at the 75th percentile and higher in anger expression Index, as persons who can be expected to have anger management problems and were at high risk to produce serious negative consequences were defined as the study population. Accordingly, in the second step, 32 students selected randomly among this defined population and assigned randomly in the experimental and control groups. In the third step, pre-intervention data, using GHQ (Goldberg, 1979), was gathered from all the subjects. Then, sixteen participants as experimental group took part in 14-sessions (each session lasted for 90 minutes) of anger management program, while members of the control group did routine program. After the treatment, post-tests or post-intervention evaluation for both groups were done. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and t-test were used the determine the effectiveness of determine the effectiveness of psycho educational intervention and the results evidently indicated that anger management training had a strong effect on anger self-regulation skills and that general health (R2y.1 = 0.49) can be developed by anger management intervention. So these findings can be generalized to the target population.

This study was carried out in order to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Persian version of the Modified Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale (MSEIS) in Iranian sample. MSEIS is a self-report 41-item questionnaire to assess the trait emotional intelligence. For this purpose, the MSEIS, SCL-90-R, GHQ-28 and NEO-FFI-R were completed by a sample of 677 Tabriz University students (304 males, 373 females) aged 18-30 years (mean, 21). As it was predicted, there were significant correlations between the MSEIS and the above questionnaires. This correlation was negative and significant with the subscales of the SCL-90-R, GHQ-28 and its subscales and nearoticism (N). Also there were positive and significant correlations with the conscientiousness (C), extroversion (E) and agreeableness (A). Form the three models that suggested by exploratory factor analysis, only the four factor model was confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis (p>0.01). This finding was consistent with the revised model of Mayer and Salovey (1997). The overall reliability coefficient (internal consistency) of the MSEIS was 84 and this index for the four factors was .78, .65, .61, and .62. In general, the MSEIS have a satisfactory psychometric property.

The aim of this study was to investigate the psychometric characteristics of the Metacognition Questionnaire - 30 (MCQ-30). MCQ-30 was translated from English into Persian using the standard procedure for translating psychological tests. A group of 258 normal participants (118 females and 140 males from different colleges of Shiraz University), took part in this study. In addition a clinical sample including twenty-five patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), 25 patients with generalized anxiety disorder and 25 normal participants also took part in this study. All participants completed the MCQ-30. The results of the principal component analysis with varimax rotation for the MCQ-30, extracted five factors which labeled positive worry beliefs, beliefs about uncontrollability and danger of thoughts, memory competence, cognitive self-consciousness and beliefs about the need to control thoughts. However for this scale, three others types of validity (concurrent validity, correlation between the subscales, the whole scale and among the subscales and deferential validity) and three reliability (test retest, internal constancy and half splitting reliabilities) were reported. It was concluded that MCQ-30 contains good psychometric properties in Iranian population, and can be used as a valid measure in psychological researche.

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between achievement goals and epistemological beliefs with computer anxiety. 375 undergraduate students (218 females and 157 males) from the University of Tehran were chosen through relative class sampling. They completed the Achievement Goals Scale, The Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire, and the Computer Anxiety Scale. Results showed that mastery and performance-avoidance goals directly and epistemological beliefs indirectly, i.e.; through the mediating role of achievement goals, can significantly predict computer anxiety. Results also showed that there was no significant difference between male and female students in computer anxiety. However there were differences in terms of their fields of study; that is, technical & engineering and humanities students had respectively the least and the highest amount of computer anxiety. Finally, according to the findings, a predictive model for computer anxiety in terms of achievement goals and epistemological beliefs is presented.