The effectiveness of mindfulness training on emotional regulation of high school students

The aim of the current research was to investigate the effectiveness of mindfulness training on the cognitive regulation of emotion in secondary school students. The research method is semi-experimental with a pre-test and post-test design with a control group. The statistical population of the research included all male students of the second secondary level of Mofid High School in Tehran. The subjects of the research were first selected by purposeful sampling in the number of 30 students and then randomly assigned to two groups of 15 people, experimental and control. The purpose of mindfulness training in this research was to present Kabat-Zinn et al.'s (1992) mindfulness training method, which was presented to the experimental group in 8 sessions, each session lasting 60 minutes. The meaning of cognitive regulation of emotion in this research was the score obtained by subjects in the 36-question questionnaire of cognitive regulation of emotion by Garnevsky (2001). After conducting the pre-test in both groups and completing the cognitive emotion regulation questionnaires, mindfulness training was provided to the experimental group in 8 sessions, each session lasting 60 minutes, and then the subjects were given a post-test.The obtained information was analyzed by covariance analysis using SPSS V_23 software. The results showed that mindfulness training improves the positive cognitive regulation of students' emotions (P<0.05). However, mindfulness training did not have a significant effect on improving negative emotion cognitive regulation skills. Considering the effectiveness of mindfulness training on the positive cognitive regulation of emotion, the officials of educational counseling centers and schools should benefit from the results of this research, because the need to use educational and psychological interventions, including mindfulness training, for better results will bring in the process of managing emotions.