International Journal of Behavioral Sciences
Volume:12 Issue: 1, Spring 2018

The purpose of the present study was to prepare a Persian version of the Integrated Hope Scale along with examining its reliability and validity. Therefore, 230 Master’s and Ph.D. students of the Tarbiat Modares University were selected, 10 participants for each item (total: 23 items). The convenience sampling method was used in the study, and participants filled out the translated version of the Integrated Hope Scale (IHS), General Health Scale (GHS), and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). Factor analysis, face and content validity, as well as the convergent and divergent validity, were used to assess the overall validity of the questionnaire. Results of the factor analysis, that was performed using the parallel analysis method, confirmed that there were four factors in the scale: trust and confidence, lack of vision, positive orientation towards the future, and social communication and personal values. These four factors were similar to those in the original scale. The split-half method showed that the reliability of the scale was 0.83, and the internal consistency index (Cronbach's alpha) indicated that the validity of the total scale was 0.72 and that of the subscales ranged from 0.74 to 0.84. Based on these results, it seems that the IHS enjoys good validity and reliability and has the necessary adequacy to be used in future studies.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of attachment-based parent training on anxiety syndrome in 2- to 6-year-old children. A quasi-experimental design was conducted in this research. 278 mothers completed The Spence Preschool Anxiety Scales (SPAS). 74 mothers that their children’s anxiety scores were one standard deviation above the population’s mean were selected. They completed The Conner’s Behavioral Rating Scale, investigating the absence of any other psychological problems in those children. Finally, 61 mothers were selected and assigned to the experimental and control group and received the training package for eight sessions, 2-hour-long each. Three months after finishing finishing the trainin g sessions for the experimental group and 3 months later, The SPAS were completed by mothers in both groups. Repeated mesures ANOVA was used to analyze the data. The results showed that Parent Training Package diccreased generalized, social and separation anxiety subscales and total anxiety score in the experimental group more than the control group (p<0.0001). This reduction was sustained during the three months of follow-up, but no significant reduction in problems related to obsessive compulsive disoder and physical injury phobia was found after the intervention. It can be concluded that attachment-based parent training can decrease anxiety in preschool children. These results suggest that child therapists can use this method in order to prevent and treat children’s anxiety.

Elderly is a sensitive period of human life that pose high risk and problems to aged people.However, elderly people who have a high level of psychological well-being will be able to deal with these problems and disorientation. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the relationship between Self-Compassion and Death anxiety with psychological well-being in the elderly. The present study is a descriptive correlational research. The population was all old men in the part-time center for keeping elderly in Kermanshah. A nonrandom and volunteer sample of 300 elderly people from the Mehregan part-time elderly care center in Kermanshah (Iran) participated in the study. To collect data, Ryff’s Psychological Well-being Questionnaire (1989), Short Self-Compassion Forms of Raes et al. (2011), and Templer’s Death Anxiety (1970) were used.Collected data were analyzed using the Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regression analyses by the stepwise method. The results showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between self-compassion and Psychological well-being (r = 0.61) while there is a negative significant relationship between Psychological well-being and Death anxiety (r = -0.20). The results of multiple regression analysis using stepwise method showed that in the order of their importance,Over-identified, Self-kindness, Isolation, Mindfulness, Death anxiety, and Self-judgment, all together are capable of predicting 57% of changes in psychological well-being. According to the results of this study, enhancing Self-Compassion and elaboration and implementation of strategies to reduce the Anxiety of Death can enhance the Psychological well-being of the elderly,especially in the center that keep the elderly.

Research findings in the last decades have shown that anxiety and its debilitative consequences exert damaging effect on learning. Enjoying a profound theoretical foundation in Vygotskian theories of cognitive development and psychological therapy, dynamic assessment and interventions propose a framework for promoting student’s learning through mediation and support in the zone of proximal development of mind. The present study was an attempt to use this framework to remove anxiety and psychological barriers to mastering speaking in English classes. To this aim foreign language classroom anxiety scale (FLCAS) was adopted and administered to 250 first grade high school students in Qom and the researcher selected 10 students with highest anxiety score, serving as experimental group (n=10). The research used an experimental design, in which experimental group’s anxiety scores in pre-test (before dynamic intervention) and post-test (after dynamic intervention) was calculated. Also, the group was given a speaking exam in pre-test and post-test conditions to trace learning after dynamic intervention. Data were analyzed through paired t-test procedure. the findings of the study showed that the intervention significantly relieved anxiety symptoms (t (9) =18.974, p =0.000) and promoted learning speaking (t (9) =-8.508, p =0.000). Furthermore, descriptions of treatment showed the way the intervention treated anxiety symptoms and resulted in internalization of learning. In sum, the current study identified major anxiety symptoms and introduced a fast, non-obtrusive, and time and money saving method for treating anxiety. Findings have implications for psychologists, counselors, teachers and health and education decision makers.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the role of Behavioral activation/inhibition Systems and Social Anxiety in prediction of Students' Internet Addiction. The study uses a descriptive-correlative design. For this purpose, 356 students were selected through random cluster sampling from Arak University (172 males and 184 females). They were asked to answer the Behavioral Inhibition/Activation Systems Scale, Internet Addiction Test and Social phobia Inventory. Then, the correlation and regression analyses were employed. The results indicated that Social Anxiety were significantly and positively correlated with Internet Addiction, there was no significant relationship between Internet Addiction and Behavioral Activation System, and Behavioral inhibition System were significantly and positively correlated with Internet Addiction. Regression analysis showed that Social Anxiety and Behavioral inhibition System could predict Internet Addiction. Based on the present study results, it can be concluded that Social Anxiety and Behavioral inhibition System predicted higher levels of Internet Addiction.

The main objective of this study is to investigate the role of attachment styles in body dissatisfaction with the mediating role of negative affects in male students at Allameh Tabataba'i University. In this paper, a cross sectional study was employed to survey convenience sampling method on 250 male students from March to May 2017. They were answered Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21), Revised Adult Attachment Scale (RAAS) and Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire-Appearance Scales (MBSRQ-AS). Structural equation modeling was utilized in this study. Analysis of the data indicated that the proposed model had adequate goodness-of-fit indices. In addition, the findings demonstrated that attachment style was directly related to the body dissatisfaction. It should be noted that attachments style predicted slightly body dissatisfaction by mediation of negative affects. As a result, men with insecure attachment styles are likely to look more critical towards their bodies and experience more negative affects which may maintain body dissatisfaction.

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of parental behavior training of mothers with autism spectrum disorder, on reducing anxiety, depression and stress in mothers. This was an experimental study with pretest, posttest, and a control group. The statistical population of the research was consisted of all mothers who have children with autism disorder. The sample of the research was compromised of 30 mothers with autistic children who were selected through available sampling and were blind matched in the form of two groups based on different variables such as age, education, economic status. The research tools were included Beck Depression Inventory- (BDI, II), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) And Parenting Stress Index (PSI). The parents were trained during 9 sessions in examination group, each of which lasted for 90 minutes. Finally, both groups answered to the questionnaires as post test. The data was analyzed using ANCOVA test. The results analysis shows the impact of experimental application on reducing the level of anxiety and depression of mothers in experimental group comparing control group (p<0/05). Parents’ behavioral training also led to reduce parenting stress in examination group (p<0/05). In general, results show that mothers’ behavioral training will reduce their psychological problems and prevent the parenting stress from increasing in mothers with autistic children.