Effect of the Psychological Resilience Education Program on Causal Attributions and Cognitive Coping Strategies among University Students

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the Psychological Resilience Training Program on university students ‘causal attribution styles, cognitive emotion regulation strategies, health behaviors and psychological well-being. In this true-experimental study with pretest-posttest control-group design in company with follow up stage, 60 students in experimental (30 students) and control (30 students) groups responded to the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ) and the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ). The experimental group received 10 Psychological Resilience Training Program sessions (2 hours a session). The results statistical procedure of multivariate covariance analysis indicated that Psychological Resilience Training Program was effective in increasing positive causal attributions, adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies, health behaviors and scales of psychological well-being and in decreasing negative causal attributions and non-adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies in short term and long term. These findings suggest that Psychological Resilience Training Program by reducing or eliminating stressors, tolerating or adjusting to negative events or realities, maintaining a positive self-image, maintaining emotional equilibrium and continuing satisfying relationships with others could result in mental immunization in students.