The Effects of Teaching Positive Thinking on the Anxiety of Students of Psychology at the Islamic Azad University of Birjand

Under different circumstances, people are faced with different factors such as anxiety, stress, depression, etc. which are present in all age groups. It seems that positive thinking can be a proper solution to reducing anxiety.
Aim: In this paper, the aim is to see the effectiveness of an innovative positive thinking educational protocol on the anxiety and optimism of university students.
This study was had a quasi-experimental design with a pre-test, post-test, and a control group. All bachelor and master students of psychology at the Islamic Azad University, Birjand Branch, were voluntarily given Beck Anxiety Inventory. Forty-six students with scores above 8 were selected and randomly assigned to 2 homogeneous case and control groups (with 23 students in each). Both groups took optimism-pessimism tests. The case group received seven 80-minute sessions of Positive Thinking -training program by the researcher, while the control group had no training.
Findings: The data were analyzed in SPSS (version 17) using the parametric independent t-test. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to examine normality and Fi test was used to study equality of the two groups.
Discussion and Teaching positive psychology, findings indicate, reduced students’ anxiety and increased their optimism significantly. Thus, this educational program can be suggested for consultation centers in order to decrease anxiety and increase optimism.