The Effects of Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) on Fear of Negative Evaluation, Changing Attitude towards Life and Assertiveness in Neglected Adolescents

The family is the core of society, which is very effective in promoting the development of children in various aspects. The child who enjoys full love of the parents will be more adaptable, comfortable, elf-confidient, and ethical. This study was done to investigate the effectiveness of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) on fear of negative evaluation, change of attitude toward life, and assertiveness in neglected male adolescents.

It was a pretest-postest experimental study with control and 1-month-follow-up group.The sample included 30 neglected teenagers studying at Imam Khomeini School of Bazargan city during the academic year 2016-2017, who were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups . The experimental group received ten 90-minute sessions of MBSR. The research instruments were Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (Leary, 1983), Quastionare on Attitude Change (Bautista, 1973), and Assertiveness Inventory (Gambrill & Richie, 1975). Data were analyzed by repeated measures ANOVA. 

Findings showed that MBSR was effective in reducing the fear of negative evaluation, changing the attitude towards life, and experiencing assertiveness in the participants of the experimental group (P≤.001).

Based on the results of the present study, it can be concluded that through increasing awareness of the present experiences and enhancing the attention to the cognitive system and by more efficient processing of the information, the intervention used in this study led to the reduction of worry and anxiety and change of attitude towards life. Besides, whereas mindfulness causes emotion regulation without prejustice, increases the individual's awareness of his physical and mental feelings and helps in dealing with different emotions and problems, therefore, it can play a role in regulating the mental health and decreasing the fear of negative evaluation.