The Effect of Critical Thinking on Cognitive Regulation of Emotions of Female Students at Third Grade of High School in Isfahan

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of critical thinking training on cognitive regulation of emotion of female students at third-grade of high school. The method of present study was of quasi experimental and pretest posttest type with control group and follow-up test. The statistical population consisted of all female students at third grade of high school in Isfahan City (first semester, 2014-2015). 40 students were selected through the phased cluster sampling and assigned randomly into experimental and control groups (20 subjects in each group). The experimental group were exposed to 8 sessions,1/5 hour of critical thinking training and the control group was not exposed to any intervention. The data collection instruments employed in this study consisted of a questionnaire of 26 items based on the cognitive regulation of emotion strategies (Garnefski, Kraaij & Spinhoven, 2001 ). The data collected were analyzed by covariance analysis. The results indicated that no significant difference was found between control and experimental groups during posttest phase regarding cognitive regulation of emotion strategies (p>0.05). But in follow-up phase, there was significant difference in general cognitive emotion regulation strategies, subscales of (self-blame and catastrophizing, other-blame) between control and experimental groups (p0.05).