Document Type : Research Article
Authors
Department of Psychology, Neyshabur Branch, Islamic Azad University, Neyshabur, Iran
Abstract
Introduction
Adolescence is one of the critical periods of life, which is associated with extensive changes in physical, sexual, social, cognitive and emotional aspects. These changes can cause them distress. Adolescents' inability to tolerate distress can have physical and psychological health consequences. On the other hand, several therapeutic and educational interventions have been used to increase distress tolerance and related factors such as social cognition and intolerance of uncertainty. Emotion regulation training is another intervention that can be used in this field. Emotion regulation training enhances psychological health and is associated with multiple positive psychological outcomes, including better interpersonal functioning, greater perceived well-being, and better physical health. Therefore, considering the importance of adolescence, the effect of emotions on people's lives and health, as well as the need of educational centers for interventions based on emotion regulation, the aim of present study was to investigate the effectiveness of emotion regulation training on social cognition, intolerance of uncertainty and distress tolerance in adolescents.
Method
This study is applied in terms of purpose and quasi-experimental research with pretest-posttest design and control group in terms of method. The statistical population included all boy students of public elementary schools in Mashhad city in 2022. Thirty boy teenage students of elementary school were selected by available sampling method and then randomly designed into two experimental and control groups. The experimental group participated in 8 sessions of emotion regulation training based on the Gross model (Gross, 2002) while control group was not in any training. Inclusion criteria for the study were being 11 to 15 years, not having specific physical and psychological problems and informed consent. Exclusion criteria were absences of more than two session, participation in the other psychotherapies and unwillingness to participate in the research. Ethical principles were obtaining informed consent from parents, protecting the anonymity and confidentiality of participants, avoid harm to participants. The participants answered to the intolerance of uncertainty scale (Carleton, et al., 2007), social stories questionnaire (1986) and distress tolerance scale (Simons & Gaher, 2005). Data were analyzed by SPSS26 software, using Multivariate analysis of covariance. The significance level was 0.05.
Results
The average age of the experimental group, control group and total participants was 12.06, 12.13 and 12.01, respectively. The results of Multivariate analysis of covariance showed that there is a significant difference between the two experimental and control groups in the variables of social cognition (p= 0.001, F= 12.22) and distress tolerance (p= 0.02, F= 6.02), but there is no difference between groups in the intolerance of uncertainty (P= 0.052, F= 4.16). In other word, mean scores of social cognition and distress tolerance increased in the experimental group compared to the control group.
Discussion
The results of present study showed that emotion regulation training increases social cognition and distress tolerance. Therefore, emotion regulation training might be an efficient way to increases these variables. Also, psychologists and other mental health professionals can use this training to improve and increase social cognition and tolerance of distress in adolescents.
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