Married female adolescents are the most vulnerable people that culturally marry with their parents’ permission in Iran. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of stress inoculation training (SIT) on cognitive emotional regulation (CER) in these women. The method of this research was semi-experiment with pretest and posttest. The statistical society was the married adolescent female students from Qom high schools (80 people). First, they were assessed by cognitive emotional regulation questionnaire to find the subjects under the CER cut of point (55 people). Then 30 participants were randomly selected and were equally divided into experimental and control groups. The entry criteria for samples were female married students between 17 and 19 from low socioeconomic income. The experimental group received 8 sessions of SIT training while there was no intervention for control group. Results from MANCOVA analysis showed that there were significant differences between groups on cognitive emotional regulation in post-test. The data of pretest were the covariate factor. Finding suggests SIT is effective for cognitive emotional regulation in vulnerable married female adolescents. In addition, this training method elevates positive emotional strategies, which correlate with planning, focusing and organizing the emotions. In contrast, except self and the others blaming, negative emotional strategies differed slightly.
Family is the smallest unit of the community, which is so important in terms of personal and social effects [
All negative strategies result in affective and emotional disorders such as depression and anxiety. Instead, anxiety is uniquely characterized by exaggerated threat and damaged assessment. In addition, depression is specifically identified by negative assessment of self, past, and future events [
Studies have shown that SIT reduces marital stress and specially diminishes perceived stress in women [
The present study was conducted aimed at training SIT to improve CER in vulnerable married female adolescents. It should be noted that a few research has been carried out SIT training in our country. Hence, there is a clear gap between studies in this field. On the one hand, it is not surprising that young couples are considered as at-risk groups despite the given life challenges. Obviously, they drew researchers’ attention to the fields of behavioral problems and psychological stress. On the other hand, vulnerable married female adolescents are exposed to all dimensions of pressures such as husbands, parents and society expectations. CER training might be important and useful for this group for they experience high stress among people in our community. CER can help couples in high-pressure situations (references). If couples are engaged with the appropriate level of CER, they can manage the challenges better when they are faced with stressful negotiations. The current study is going to find the answer to the following research question:
Is exposure to SIT effective on positive and negative CER of married female adolescent students?
The present study method was a semi-experimental study with pretest-posttest and control group. The statistical population was the vulnerable married female adolescents that were students at the age of 17 to 19 in high schools of Qom. The reason for choosing this age was that they were among the most challenging period due to their age level (adolscence) and cultural conditions. Furthermore, they did not receive any structural training to enter the common life. In this regard, they are subjected to divorce, to conflict and to sacrifice in corporal and psychological torture. In this research, the randomly sampling method was used; all vulnerable married female students in high schools of Qom were tested (80 women). First, they were assessed by cognitive emotional regulation questionnaire to find the subjects under the CER cut of point (55 persons). Then, 30 of them were randomly selected and were equally assigned into two experimental and control group according to the ethical considerations (e.g. participants’ informed consent, security, safety and parental permission for they were under 21 years old). The entry criterion for choosing the subjects were being female, lower than mean score in CER questionnaire, age between 17 and 19 years, the marriage length between 1 to 24 months, and low socioeconomic status (the family income was less than one and a half million Tomans per month). Moreover, the group with lower positive CER scores was placed in the experimental group. The exclusion criteria were being single, and female with less than 1 month of marriage or more than 24 months. Besides, having a marriage under the age of 17 and above 19 was another exit criterion. Finally, those whose family income was more than one and a half million per month were excluded from this study.
CER questionnaire has 36 items and involves 9 sub-scales [
SIT Protocol. It includes 8 sessions of SIT (90 minutes in each session every week), that were presented in
Participants were interviewed according to the ethical considerations (e.g. participants’ informed consent, security, and safety). For the experimental group, 8 sessions of SIT, (90 minutes in each session) were trained and, in contrast, the control group did not receive any training. All data were analyzed with SPSS-24.
Participants’ mean age was 17.67 and the mean income was 920.000 Tomans. The mean and standard deviations of the variables discussed in the two groups are as in
According to
The inferential data were analyzed by multivariate covariance analysis test to find the significant differences between groups according to SIT intervention. Notably, all the required assumptions for the covariance analysis were considered. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality test was applied to evaluate the
Target | Sessions |
---|---|
Familiarity and introduce, describing goals and group rules, the need for such educational programs, motivating and getting involved | 1 |
Acquaintance with cognitive concepts, features of auto negative thoughts and introducing cognitive errors | 2 |
Relaxation and decline tension training | 3 |
Learn how to encounter with negative thoughts | 4 |
Self-talk guided training and the role of negative self-talk in creating stress | 5 |
The focusing of thought methods and distraction techniques training | 6 |
Problem solving skills training | 7 |
Practicing learned skills and applying these skills in stressful situations | 8 |
Experimental | Control | Variables | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Post-test | Pretest | Post-test | Pretest | |||||
SD | M | SD | M | SD | M | SD | M | |
1.88 | 9.13 | 2.41 | 11.33 | 1.90 | 9.26 | 1.98 | 9.06 | Positive Refocusing |
2.23 | 10.00 | 2.89 | 13.46 | 1.68 | 10.40 | 1.84 | 9.86 | Refocus on Planning |
1.66 | 9.93 | 2.57 | 12.26 | 1.58 | 10.66 | 2.12 | 10.33 | Positive Reappraisal |
2.80 | 11.00 | 2.14 | 13.80 | 2.47 | 10.60 | 2.35 | 10.46 | Putting into Perspective |
6.20 | 61.26 | 5.23 | 47.42 | 5.71 | 51.13 | 5.86 | 49.73 | Positive CER |
2.32 | 15.13 | 2.60 | 11.73 | 1.50 | 15.40 | 1.86 | 15.00 | Self-Blame |
2.91 | 15.33 | 3.03 | 10.93 | 3.23 | 15.73 | 2.73 | 15.20 | Blame the Others |
3.18 | 13.46 | 2.34 | 9.73 | 2.39 | 13.00 | 3.06 | 12.86 | Rumination |
2.41 | 14.53 | 2.68 | 13.06 | 2.76 | 14.06 | 1.95 | 14.33 | Catastrophizing |
1.65 | 10.20 | 2.72 | 10.40 | 1.67 | 9.66 | 1.43 | 9.73 | Acceptance |
5.65 | 45.46 | 6.31 | 57.40 | 4.98 | 58.20 | 4.95 | 58.46 | Negative CER |
positive CER and negative CER data respectively, which showed the null hypothesis was rejected on the lack of data normality (K-S = 0.19, 0.14; p < 0.20, <0.20). Therefore, variables are of normal distribution. The Levene’s test applied to evaluate the homogeneity of the positive CER and negative CER variances revealed the null hypothesis was rejected on lack of data homogeneity (F(1,13) = 3.68, 4.25; p < 0.07, <0.08). Results of this test represented the variances were homogeneous. Next, it was necessary to testing residuals’ normality. For this end, residual diagram was applied and represented the residuals were of normal distribution. Based on testing of the required assumptions we could use the parametric tests. Therefore, multivariate covariate analysis was applied for equal groups. The results of multivariate covariance analysis are presented in
As shown in
The results of
The purpose of the present study was to explore the effectiveness of SIT on CER of vulnerable married female adolescents. Moreover, we aimed to extend the knowledge boundaries of couples’ training. The researchers found interesting findings after performing the intervention. The main findings are the following.
First, one of the most important findings is the result of significant increase in CER after intervention; however, we found the remarkable result, which was the effect on the cold cognition, rational system and participants’ information processing. According to the findings, participants accepted the common life
Significance Level | F | Mean Squares | Degrees of Freedom | Sum of Squares | Effect | Variables |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
.004 | 6.84 | 303.05 | 1 | 303.05 | Group | Positive CER |
.001 | 15.41 | 106.24 | 1 | 106.24 | Post Test | |
19.66 | 26 | 530.88 | Error | |||
30 | 101488 | Total | ||||
.001 | 6.65 | 150.97 | 1 | 150.97 | Group | Negative CER |
.009 | 3.34 | 75.88 | 1 | 75.88 | Post Test | |
22.68 | 26 | 589.80 | Error | |||
30 | 76765 | Total |
Sig. | F | Mean Squares | Df. | Sum of Squares | Variables | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
0.001 | 14.27 | 53.61 | 1 | 53.61 | Self-Blame | Negative CER |
0.005 | 9.48 | 38.62 | 1 | 38.62 | Blame the Others | |
0.13 | 2.45 | 14.90 | 1 | 14.90 | Rumination | |
0.96 | 0.00 | 0.01 | 1 | 0.01 | Catastrophizing | |
0.20 | 1.7 | 3.69 | 1 | 1.70 | Acceptance | Positive CER |
0.004 | 9.93 | 39.48 | 1 | 9.93 | Positive Refocusing | |
0.001 | 18.44 | 103.98 | 1 | 18.44 | Refocus on Planning | |
0.002 | 11.30 | 46.66 | 1 | 11.30 | Positive Reappraisal | |
0.001 | 15.71 | 61.34 | 1 | 15.71 | Putting into Perspective |
responsibility after intervention. Obviously, marriage at this age is due to the family culture and it causes double pressure on the adolescent women. Therefore, it results in many problems in their CER. This finding is in line with the Valadkhani, et al. [
Second, according to the research findings, the participants positive CER changed significantly after the intervention. This suggests that they progressed after the intervention in positive CER and benefited more from the positive strategies. The most effective subscales that are affected by the intervention are re-focusing on planning, putting into perspective, positive reappraisal, positive re-focusing respectively. Actually, all positive CER are reinforced by SIT. The most important is the SIT effects on planning, organizing, focusing or in the other words, it effected on meta-cognition which called cold cognition. It seems that immunizing against stress will grow up brains information processing system; nevertheless, its effect on rumination was not significant. Wells believed in rumination as the most important part of negative moods etiology [
Third, negative CER turned slightly. Self-blame and blame the others are the subscales that decreased significantly against the other negative subscales. It could be explaining that, when a vulnerable adolescent girl drops into a marriage without real rational support, she blames herself and her parents against the stressful marriage necessity. These negative CERs brings her more stressful against spousal tasks. As a result, she feels inefficient and become more negative in emotional regulation. We cannot change cultural structures immediately. However, it is possible to reinforce adolescent women to control their negative emotions and to upgrade their metacognitions. These will help structural conversion in future for they will be the next mothers. Moreover, there has been no change in the acceptance of participants because catastrophizing and rumination did not improve significantly. It seems these subscales intertwine, and as long as the participants do not improve their schema of catastrophizing and rumination, they cannot increase their acceptance.
Finally, it is likely that the participants could find improvement faster in positive strategies for it is related to their moods. While negative emotions are related to their childhood and schemas. Consequently, it would be slowly improved. Therefore, positive CER are associated with superficial mental layers of the human; whereas, negative CER are correlated with deeper mental layers of the brain [
The present study has several strengths. It also has several practical implications. First, since there are a few research in this field, the results of this study can be indirectly consistent with studies indicating the effectiveness of SIT treatment on improving the psychological health of vulnerable married women. Second, the results of this study can be consistent with a small number of studies that show the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral treatments on improving the psychological problems of married female adolescents. Both in the literature review in Iran and overseas, there are few research which examine the effectiveness of SIT on married female adolescents between 17 - 19. In this intervention, the concept of adolescent women stressful life has attracted the attention of women community in Iran. Finally, the present study showed that if women become skilled, ignoring the effect size, CER will improve and possibly, we could see cultural conversion in future.
Regarding the limitations of this work, the present study has several implications. First, one of the limitations is that it was done only in the female married adolescents so its generalization to the single adolescents needs further research in this regard. Second, low socio-economic level was considered in this study and therefore, other socio-economic levels were not considered. Finally, and unfortunately, it has not been possible to compare the results obtained in this study with the results of previous studies. Because, the participants did not have any training about life and marital skills, and they are considered as children in accordance with UNICEF. In addition, the lack of follow-up stage due to administrative constraints prevented the possibility of examining the effectiveness of the intervention in the long term. Therefore, supplementary studies on gender, age and socio-economic levels are recommended in the field of SIT therapies with follow-up stages. Moreover, charities and women’s rights activists have to establish community-based organizations that can take effective action to support the empowerment of the psychological skills of girls and women.
Generally, SIT training course, relaxation skills, identifying auto-negative thoughts and cognitive distortions, replacing reasonable thoughts, learning problem solving methods, and other SIT skills control stress in vulnerable married female adolescents. These skills could reinforce the positive CER and consequently, decline the negative CER. SIT training could reduce self and the others blaming and increase planning, focusing, and organizing the emotions of vulnerable married female adolescents.
Funding for this work was provided by Refah University. The authors thank the participating vulnerable female married students who assisted in interpretation of the results. The authors declare that they have no competing or potential conflicts of interest. All ethical considerations (e.g. participants’ informed consent, security, safety and parental permission for they were under 21 years old) were regarded. The third author takes full responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analyses.
Bahaodini, H. and Zandekarimi, G. (2018) Stress Inoculation Training on Cognitive Emotional Regulation: The Effect on Vulnerable Married Female Adolescents. Journal of Behavioral and Brain Science, 8, 329-338. https://doi.org/10.4236/jbbs.2018.86021