Effect of Acceptance and Commitment Training on Cognitive Flexibility and Self-compassion among Employees of the Welfare Office of Varamin City

Improving the psychological characteristics of the staff of the Welfare Office, who experience high levels of tension, is very important. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of acceptance and commitment training on cognitive flexibility and self-compassion of the employees of the welfare office of the city of Varamin.
This quasi-experimental study had a pre-test and post-test design with experimental and control groups. The statistical population consisted of all employees of the Welfare Office of Varamin during year 2016. Of these, 30 volunteers entered the study and were randomly assigned to two equal groups. The experimental group received eight sessions of 90 minutes with the acceptance and commitment method. Both groups completed the "Dennis & VanderWal's Cognitive Flexibility Inventory" and "Neff's Self-Compassion Scale" in the pre-test and post-test phases. Reliability for both instruments was measured by Cronbach's alpha method. Data was analyzed using the SPSS version 19 software.
There was a significant difference in cognitive flexibility and self-compassion variables in the post-test stage between the experimental and control groups. In other words, acceptance and commitment training significantly increased the cognitive flexibility (F = 49.040, P Acceptance and commitment training increased cognitive flexibility and self-compassion among employees of the Welfare Office of the city of Varamin. Therefore, the use of this educational method is recommended to improve cognitive flexibility and compassion.