PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES
Year:2006 | Volume:1 | Issue:4-5|Papers Count:12

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the development of theory of mind in normal children and children with mild mental retardation, and also to determine the relationship between some demographic variables such as age, sex, SES, and theory of mind, The subjects of study consisted of 80 boys and girls (40 mentally retarded and 40 nonretarded) aged 7 to 9 years, which were selected from special schools and regular schools. Participants assessed by the Theory of Mind Test, Levels I, II, and III. The results were analyzed by descriptive statistics, one way ANOVA, post-hoc tests, Hest, two way ANOVA, and multivariate regression. The result revealed that TOM test performance improved with age, and older children performed better than younger children. There was no significant difference between boys and girls on the test. The result also revealed that there was a significant difference between performance of normal children and children with mental retardation. Some demographic variables such as father's education and age were predictors of performance of children in TOM test .This pattern was the same for normal children and children with mental retardation.    

The purpose of the present research is to investigate the relationship between leadership style and organizational climate with the productivity of managers' services in educational, higher educational and industrial organizations, in order to present a suitable management pattern. The population of the research consists of all managers who work in Tehran high schools, managers of different sectors in ]Islamic Azad University, Zone 8, managers of the national company petrochemical industries. Two hundreds forty five high school principles, two hundreds managers of Islamic Azad University, and three hundreds forty nine managers of national company of petrochemical were selected. The research tools were the questionnaires of leadership style (Luthans), the organizational climate (Litwin and Stringer), and productivity (Smith et al). The leadership style questionnaire was given to managers, and the organizational climate questionnaire and the managers' productivity questionnaire were given to the staff. For each manager, three clerks were chosen to complete the questionnaires. Multi-regression analysis showed: A) There is a relationship between the organizational climate and the productivity of the managers' services. B) The math patterns for the productivity of the managers' services are as follows: In educational organizations: Productivity= 0.64 × Organizational Climate+ (-22.62) In higher educational organizations: Productivity =0.85 × Organizational Climate+ (-11.219) In industrial organizations: Productivity= 0.65 × Organizational Climate+ (-29.19)      

For identifying the effect of personality disorders -types and its severity - and copying styles on the attitudes towards use and selection of drug used, a sample including 375 male adults belonging to various groups of drug users who visited Behzisti governmental organization drug treatment centre, depending on the drug they used, was selected by using stratified sampling method. Evaluations were based on: Behzisti's preliminary questionnaire, personality disorder questionnaire (PDQ4), copying style (Carver et al), and attitude on drug use questionnaire. Research hypotheses were then assessed by chi square test and multivariate regression. Results confirmed that a meaningful relationship does exist between: personality disorder and attitude towards drug use, copying style and attitude toward drug use. It also become apparent that differences between copying style and drug type used are not meaningful. Results also indicated that the role of each person's attitude in prediction of personality disorders. Finally, the findings of this research emphasize the necessity of prevention programs for reduction of personality disorders, copying style for drug dependant persons and effective attitude-altering programs related to drug use. At last, the research paid special attention to addition among men as the drug abusers.      

The present study was aimed to investigate the psychological characteristics of perpetrators of domestic violence. The sample included 30 couples involved in marital violence who were referred to the family court of justice, and 30 couples who were selected randomly from the ordinary families living in the 7th educational district of Tehran. The questionnaires used in this research were the following: I) Spousal Assault Risk Assessment Guide (SARA). 2) The questionnaire of violence against women, and 3) MMPI test. The following statistical methods were employed for the data analysis: Pearson's correlation coefficient, and independent T-test. The results of this research showed a significant correlation between the subscales of MMPI test (Hypochondriasis, Depression, Hysteria, Psychopathic Deviate. Paranoia, Psychasthenia, Schizophrenia, & Hypomania) and spousal violence. On the whole the outcome of this research showed that the personality characteristics of men and the violence against their spouses were significantly related.      

The aim of the current research was to investigate and compare the efficiency of three methods of changing the negative attitude toward mathematics: 1- social inoculation, 2- cognitive dissonance, and 3- attribution restructuring. Therefore, 100 high school girls who had negative attitudes toward math were randomly selected and were assigned in four groups (3 experimental groups and I control group). Results indicated the efficiency of these three methods, but the attribution restructuring was the most effective one.    

Occupational burnout is a syndrome that emergences as a response to chronic stress and mostly in human professional services. It includes three dimensions: Affective exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal dis-achievement. They appear under different personal factors and certain situations. Among the main factors that affect on the occupational burnout, are coping strategy to stress and demographic factors. In this research we evaluated the relationship between these factors with three dimensions of occupational burnout. Subjects were 200 nurses who were selected randomly from Kordestan's Hospitals and they completed Mazlack Burnout Scale and Lazarus Coping Strategy Scale. Results showed that there was a positive and significant correlation among affective exhaustion and depersonalization with personal achievement and problem base coping, but there were no relationship between personal achievement and emotional base coping. T-test showed that although, there were no difference between men and women in using emotional based coping, men used problem base coping significantly. Man showed significantly more burnout than women. Also, nurses who worked based on shift rather to those didn't work based on shift showed significantly more occupational burnout, but marital status had no effect on burnout. Other results showed that age and years of work experience had negative correlation with occupational burnout. Finally, ANOVA, showed significant deference in depersonalization and personal achievement according to type of employee and place of working.      

Several investigations have shown the existence of anxiety and depression in infertile couples. The aim of this research was to 'determine the level of anxiety and depression in infertile couples and to determine the relationship between anxiety and depression with variables such as age, education and the time span after marriage. Moreover, it was examined the difference between infertile men and women regarding their anxiety and depression. For this purpose, among the clients referring to the fertility and infertility centre in Esfahan province, 56 subjects (24 men, 32 women) who had no biological or adopted child were selected randomly. They were considered as infertile by the diagnosis of the infertility expert. Their level of education was at least up to guidance school. Subjects were asked to answer Beck's anxiety and depression inventories. The results revealed that about 27 percent of them had moderately high level of anxiety and about 68 percent of them were experiencing moderately high level of depression. The frequency and the level of anxiety and depression were higher in women than men. Anxiety had a reversed and significant correlation with age but anxiety and depression had no significant correlation with time span after marriage. The level of education had no effect on the experienced anxiety and depression.      

To study the relationship between self-esteem, achievement motivation, and academic achievement, a sample through cluster random sampling size of 856 11th grade high school students were selected from Tehrān school districts of 1, 8, 12, and 17.They underwent the Eysenck self-esteem and Herman achievement motivation tests. Their last semester's GPA was employed as academic achievement point. The results obtained by descriptive and inferential statistical methods, showed: There was a significant relation between student's self-esteem. Achievement motivation and academic achievement; between self-esteem and achievement motivation; between self-esteem and academic achievement; and between achievement motivation and academic achievement, but not such a relationship was founded between self-esteem, achievement motivation and academic achievement of groups of male and female students, as well as between students of human sciences and natural sciences.          

The level of attention deployed in a text-reading situation is said to be playing an important role latter. In this research, this study intended to find out how divided attention in adult students' learning situation can have an impact on their overall performance when controlling for their short-term memory, prior knowledge and their recall in long term memory. In a group of 100 Al-zahr University students, aged between 18-49 years old, a computer program was designed to test learning from reading and a concurrent pictorial task on computer monitor in different settings. Exploring empirically how attention can be important in adult students' pattern of learning, it was found that involving the short term memory (STM) capacity together with prior knowledge (PK), the second variable more directly influences their later recall. In a divided attention situation, where most STM capacity would be expected to be involved in processing of text reading, recall was only better in more knowledgeable people. Paired t-test analyses were used to compare the high PK people versus the low ones among high and low capacity STM students in divided and undivided attention situations. It was found that the differences between recall of participants in a divided and undivided attention are only statistically significant when higher capacity STM participants were remembering the content. Other results indicated that while the higher PK groups remembered statistically more than the lower PK students, higher STM capacity groups did not remember significantly more than the lower ones. These results are indicating the role of PK in adult students' recall of text reading.      

There have been some suggestions concerning the subject matter of Islamic psychology. It seems that these suggestions could not overcome the theoretical barrier for providing a subject matter for psychology. Some have considered the divine Spirit (Run) within the human as the subject matter, some others have regarded the Soul (Nafs)and still others, the divine creation of the human (Fitrah) as the candidates for doing the job. However, these suggestions could be challenged in different ways on being able to provide a suitable subject for scientific studies of psychology. The present essay is an introductory attempt to give an alternative. Accordingly, an alternative to the three abovementioned suggestions seems to be the important Islamic concept of Action. We can consider Action as the suitable subject matter for psychology. This is because action is so wide that it could cover all the humans whether believers or non-believers in God, whether their Fitrah is active or silent. An action, as it is used in the Islamic texts, refers to a behavior (being observable or non-observable) that is based on, at least, three kinds of foundations: cognition, emotion, and will. In addition to being a suitable subject for psychology, action is a key concept in referring to the human nature or identity.