The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of enrichment of interpersonal relationship skills program on university students’ causal attributions, interpersonal conflict solution strategies, cognitive emotion regulation strategies and perception of positive relations with others. In this experimental study with pretest-posttest control-group design and follow up stage, 72 students participated, 40 students in the experimental group and 32 students in the control group. The participants completed the Attribution Style Questionnaire (ASQ; Peterson & et al., 1982), the Conflict Resolution Styles Inventory (CRSI; Kurdek, 1994), the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ-SF; Garnefski, Kraaij & Spinhoven, 2001), and the Positive Relationships with Others Scale (PROS; Ryff, 1989). The experimental group received 10 sessions of enrichment of interpersonal relationship skills program (1 hour a session). The results of multivariate and univariate covariance analysis indicated that enrichment of interpersonal relationship skills program was effective in increasing positive causal attributions, positive problem solving strategy, adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies and positive relations with others and in decreasing negative causal attributions, non-adaptive interpersonal conflict solution styles and non-adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies in short term and long term. The findings suggest that enrichment of interpersonal relationship skills program may result in mental immunization in students through increasing positive thinking strategies, adaptive emotional management skills and interpersonal relationships skills enrichment.

Purpose: The purpose of the present study was to develop and evaluate psychometric properties of the Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Skills of Couples Scale (IISCS). Methods: In terms of testing, the research method was of descriptive type and the sampled statistical population included married men and women living in the city of Tehran, Iran. In this respect, 470 Iranian married men and women (277 women and 193 men) volunteered to participate in the given study. The resulting scale in this study was the Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Skills of Couples Scale (IISCS). To develop this scale, the first step involved planning for the subject matter of the test and the second step contained designing a questionnaire based on theoretical foundations and reviews of existing questionnaires. The given scale was implemented in two stages and the final questionnaire was analyzed in order to assess its construct validity through measurement methods including internal consistency (Cronbach’ s alpha coefficient), Pearson correlation coefficient, test-retest method, exploratory factor analysis, as well as confirmatory factor analysis. Findings: According to the findings of this study, Cronbach’ s alpha coefficients (internal consistency) were from 0. 65 to 0. 78 and the results of the test-retest method confirmed the correlation coefficients between 0. 54 and 0. 81. In this regard, the results of confirmatory factor analysis revealed a goodness of fit index (GFI) equal to 0. 95. Likewise, the goodness of fit index (GFI) was 0. 95 and the adjusted goodness of fit index (AGFI) was equal to 0. 91 which showed a favorable goodness of fit for the model. The normed fit index (NFI) and the comparative fit index (CFI) were respectively equal to 0. 93 and 0. 95 indicating the desirable goodness of fit for the model. Furthermore, the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) was 0. 43 which suggested a favorable goodness of fit for the given model. Result: The results of this study showed that the Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Skills of Couples Scale (IISCS) benefited from sufficient reliability, validity, and goodness of fit to measure such constructs among Iranian samples.

Background: Depression symptoms are among the most common psychological problems in students. Short-term treatments are important in preventing depression from turning into a disorder. Objectives: The current study aimed to investigate the eff, ectiveness of interpersonal counseling (IPC) in depression symptoms, emotional expression, and social skills of students in comparison to interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT). Methods: A pretest and posttest design with follow-up was used in this study, with two experimental groups and a control group conducted in Mashhad, Iran, in 2021. A total of 51 subjects who scored 14 or higher on the Beck Depression Inventory-Second Edition (BDI-II) were randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups. Finally, the information obtained from 41 subjects was analyzed. The experimental groups underwent 7 sessions of 45 minutes of IPC and 12 sessions of 90 minutes of IPT every week. At the beginning of the study, after the end of the intervention, and after one-and three-month follow-up periods, all the subjects were evaluated with the BDI-II, emotional expressiveness, and social skills questionnaires. The fi, ndings were analyzed using the repeated measurement method and Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests. All the analyses were carried out with SPSS software (version 23). Results: Both IPC and IPT treatments were eff, ective in depression symptoms (M: 31. 76, 20. 41, 22. 94, and 24), emotional expression (M: 32. 94, 40. 26, 38. 47, and 37. 23), and social skills (M: 224. 9, 265. 2, 254. 4, and 253. 7) (P < 0. 05). The comparison of the two treatments showed no signifi, cant diff, erence in the variables (P > 0. 05). Conclusions: The fi, ndings of the present study can be considered a useful step in the fi, eld of short-term and eff, ective interventions.