Prediction of Defense Mechanism Styles Based on Executive Functions

Combining psychoanalysis and neurology feels peculiar at first. The combination that tries to bind concepts of psychoanalysis with neuroscience in order to provide an integrates knowledge for better understanding of human mind. However, interaction between psychoanalysis and neuroscience has come to attention during past three decades. Purpose of this study is to investigate and find correlation between three styles of defense mechanism, Mature, immature and neurotic defense mechanism with executive functions within universities students of Tehran. For this matter a study performs on a sample of 140 students (including 76 women and 64 men) by available sampling. The instruments of this research were The Defense Styles Questionnaire (DSQ40) and four computer base test for executive functions including Continues Performance Test (CPT), Strops, 1-back, Go-No Go. The data was analyzed by Pearson correlation and multiple regression method. This study demonstrated significant relation between styles of defense mechanism and executive functions and also forms a model to estimate executive function shares in neurotic and growth defense mechanisms. As a result, the findings suggest that one’s performance on executive functions can affect their style of defense mechanism.