Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Skills Education on Internalization Symptoms and Self-Control in Adolescents with Tendency to Risky Behaviors

Subject Areas : Journal of Excellence in counseling and psychotherapy

Farhad Akbarpour ¹ , Mehdi Zare BahramAbadi ² , Mehdi Davaei ³ , Fariba Hasani ⁴

1 - PhD Student of Counseling, Department of Counseling, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
2 - Associate Professor, Department Behavioral Sciences, The Institute of Humanities Research and Development, SAMT Organization, Tehran, Iran
3 - Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
4 - Department of Psychology, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

Received: 2021-04-27 Accepted : 2021-08-04 Published : 2021-08-23

Keywords: adolescents, emotion regulation, Self-Control, risky behaviors, Internalization Symptoms,

Abstract :

Purpose: The aim of this research was determine the effectiveness of emotion regulation skills education on internalization symptoms and self-control in adolescents with tendency to risky behaviors. Methodology: This study was a quasi-experimental with pre-test and post-test design with control group. The research population was adolescent students with a tendency to risky behaviors in the 15 district of Tehran in the 2019-20 academic years. The research sample were 50 people who were selected by random sampling method and randomly assigned to into two equal groups (each group 25 people). The experimental group received 8 sessions of 60 minutes of emotion regulation skills education (two sessions per week) and the control group did not receive training. To collect data were used from risk-taking scale (Zadeh Mohammadi & et al, 2011), behavioral problems scale (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001) and revised self-control scale (Grasmick & et al, 1993) and to analyze them were used from multivariate analysis of covariance method in SPSS-26 with significant level of P˂0.05. Findings: The results showed that emotion regulation skills education significantly led to reduced physical complaints and increased self-control (P˂0.001), but had no significant effect on reducing anxiety/depression and isolation/depression (P>0.05). Conclusion: According to the results of the present study, using the training emotion regulation skills can reduce the tendency to risky behaviors in adolescents prone to high-risk behaviors and other vulnerable groups by reducing internalization problems and increasing self-control.