فصلنامه روان شناسی و دین
سال پنجم شماره 4 (پیاپی 20، زمستان 1391)

The present paper tries to analyze the degree of educator's knowledge and skill to answer pre-elementary and elementary student's questions about God. The statistical sample includes 44 seminary students who are trained as educators and religious instructors of children in two private elementary schools one in Tabriz and the other in Qom. The research method is a descriptive-field study. A semi-organized interview was used in this study and a content analysis method was used to analyze the data. The unit of analysis was individual. Descriptive statistics like frequency and percentage, and central indexes like mean were used in this research. The research findings show that the degree of instructor's knowledge and skill in all categories was between average and good. The instructor's score was the highest with regard to the knowledge of the principles and method of teaching the concept of God and regarding the characteristics of a successful instructor, and their score was the lowest with regard to the knowledge of development of kid's religiousness and their questions about God.

The present paper aims at investigating the effectiveness of the course of religion-based transactional analysis on the degree of love, affection, and respect to the spouse and on marriage satisfaction. From among the spouses who have family and marital problems and who visited researcher's counseling center, thirty spouses were selected through available sampling and were divided into two groups: experimental and control. The experimental groups attended an eight-session course of learning transactional analysis but the control group did not take part in this course. A measurement scale of love and affection, a questionnaire about respect to spouse, and Enrich's questionnaire of marriage satisfaction were used in this research. The results show that there was a significant difference between the experimental group and control group in terms of degree of love, affection and respect to the spouse and concerning marriage satisfaction (R<0.001). That is, the degree of love, affection and respect to the spouse, as well as marriage satisfaction in the experimental group is significantly more than that before the test or that of the control group. These results are also significantly consistent in the follow up period (p<0.001).

The aim of the present research is to investigate the role of religious attitude in the feeling of loneliness and feeling of meaningfulness of the life of the old. 221 of the old completed a questionnaire concerning religious attitude designed by Khodayarifard et al, Russell's questionnaire on loneliness and Salehi's questionnaire about meaningfulness. The results obtained by MANOVA and Scheffes's follow up method show that the stronger the religious attitude of the old is the stronger their feeling of meaningfulness in life (p<0.051) will be. Furthermore, the old who have a rigid religious attitude feel less lonely than those whose religious attitude is negative or not favourable. Religious attitude is considered a preventive factor which affairs help to decrease the problems of the old. Accordingly, those who are in charge of strengthen the religious beliefs of the old and prepare good grounds for them to participate in religious activities by designing some kinds of programs which contribute to improving their psychological condition.

The present research is concerned with designing a questionnaire to evaluate belief in the life after death, based on the theoretical foundations of Islam. 70 items were included in the questionnaire after investigating the content and formal validity by experts and after testing the different aspects of the problem. 259 people who were selected randomly completed the questionnaire. A factor analysis was conducted with four factors and promax circuit. Cornbach's Alpha was used to check the validity of the test. In addition to the evaluation of the content of questionnaire by religious experts, the method of the correlation between total score and sub-tests was used to investigate the reliability of the questionnaire. The results show that the validity of the test is acceptable and it can be used as a valid scale for evaluating belief in the life after death together with an extensive research. The test includes five subscales: escaping duty, preparation, hereafter centredness, transcendence, hedonism.

The present paper investigates the relationship of the four-fold aspects of identity (personal identity, relational identity, social identity, and corporate identity) with internal and external religious orientation. A descriptive- correlational method is used in this research. The statistical sample includes 150 high school students from both sex between the age of 16 and 18 who were selected by simple sampling to complete a questionnaire about Identity aspects –IV verstion (AIQ-IV) and a questionnaire about religious orientation (Allport and Ross, 1950). Correlation and regression analysis were used to investigate the relationship between the variables and the effect of identity aspects on internal and external religious orientation. The results of regression analysis on both sex show that personal identity, corporate identity, and social identity predict internal religious orientation (p<0.01, R=0.568). From among the aspects of identity, only personal identity predict external religious orientation (p<0.05, R=0.273).

The present paper tries to investigate the theoretical basis of satisfaction from the view of Islam. The research is based on content analysis and psychological study of Islamic texts. The first approach to satisfaction lays emphasis on pleasure and avoiding pain. Then, another approach which based on happiness, cognition, and internal virtues came and replaced the first one and underlined its defects. The research findings show that Islam considers that the theoretical basis of satisfaction is "to believe in good" which is, on one hand, founded on the theological fact that all affairs are determined through divine "providence" and all that God determines is "good", and which, on the other hand, depends on human behavior. That is if man believes in this theological fact, he will attain satisfaction. Accordingly, people's belief in the good effect of divine providence contributes to the attainment of satisfaction.

The present paper tries to investigate the role of religious orientation and external control center in providing a model for achieving happiness. Five hundred high school students in the academic year of 1390-1391 (2012-2013) from the city of Khoosf were selected by a multistage method to complete scales of religious orientation, external control center and happiness. Factor analysis method and path analysis were used for analyzing the results. The findings show that only external religious orientation can indirectly decrease one's happiness in life by means of increasing the external control center, and can directly decreases happiness with regard to social relations. Therefore, it is important to study the role of external religious orientation in achieving happiness as well as the control center, which explains the role of religious orientation in happiness.