Investigation of the relationship among acceptance, control, avoidance and anxiety and gender differences in anxiety

According to a host of evidence, anxiety is prevalent among students and it has devastating effects on the diverse dimensions of health. On the other hand, many factors can influence the level of stress including flexibility. Flexibility is a transdiognostic factor and contributes in mental health. Not only is the lack of research evident in Iranian society, but also a large body of evidence confirm the role of culture in the aforementioned variables. On the other hand, there is inconsistent evidence on the role of gender in anxiety. Hence, this paper is aimed at the investigation of the impacts of the acceptance and its components in anxiety in Iranian culture
This cross-sectional research is carried out on the 210 students of Shahed University. These students were chosen based on the clustering sampling. They answered to AAQ and STAI questionnaires. The results were analyzed by Smart-PLS2 and SPSS-23.
The results indicated that there is a significant relationship among psychological inflexibility, control and avoidance, and anxiety. These variables predicted 46 per cent of the variance of anxiety. On the other hand, the role of gender in anxiety was not proved in this research.
Generally, it seems that flexibility and its components are really important in health. The relationship between anxiety and psychological inflexibility proves the transdiognostic role of psychological inflexibility. In some settings, however, avoidance orsuppressed reaction can be considered as a self-protective strategy which prevents seemingly disastrous results. At the end, the theoretical and clinical implications of the results will be discussed. Related explanations will be presented.