The Effects of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy on Students’ Social Anxiety and Aggression in High-School Female Students

Anxiety and aggression, as the indicators of non–adjustment, can present adverse effects, such as impaired functioning and health conditions. Social anxiety disorder is a pervasive condition in which an individual experiences severe fear in the company of others or when functioning in front of them. There exists a high prevalence and destructive consequences of such disorders concerning social functioning, education, and interpersonal relationships. Extensive investment has been performed in therapeutic interventions. One of these interventions that have received the most scientific support is Mindfulness–Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). Recently, due to the high prevalence of social anxiety disorders and aggression and the consequences of these conditions on the quality of social life of patients, psychological therapies are expanding in this area. Accordingly, this study aimed to evaluate the effects of MBCT on social anxiety and aggression in first– and second–grade female students.

This was a quasi–experimental study with a pretest–posttest and a control group design. The study population included all first– and second–grade high–school females in Kerman City, Iran, in the academic year of 2019–2020 who were referred to the counseling center of the General Directorate of Education (Department of Education) due to psychological problems. The sample size was selected based on the research type. Accordingly, 36 individuals were selected as the research sample by random sampling method and assigned to the experimental and control groups (n=18/group). For gathering data in pretest and posttest phases, we used the Social Phobia Inventory (Connor et al., 2000) and the Aggression Questionnaire (Bass & Perry, 1992). The experimental group received 8 two–hour sessions (twice a week) of MBCT as per Kocovski et al.’s package (2015). Descriptive statistics, such as mean and standard deviation and inferential statistics, including Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) were used to analyze the obtained data in SPSS. The significance level of the tests was considered 0.05.  

The ANCOVA results indicated that after removing the pretest effects, there was a significant difference in social anxiety and aggression between the control and experimental groups in the posttest step (p<0.001). The relevant effect size was measured as 0.38 and 0.14 for social anxiety and aggression, respectively.

According to the research results, MBCT reduced social anxiety and aggression in the examined students. Thus, psychologists and counselors can use this technique to reduce students' psychological problems.