Volume 12 - Articles-1401                   MEJDS (2022) 12: 249 | Back to browse issues page

XML Persian Abstract Print

Download citation:
BibTeX | RIS | EndNote | Medlars | ProCite | Reference Manager | RefWorks
Send citation to:
Rostami Sani B, Seadatee Shamir A, Mohmmadi Aria A. Effectiveness of Mindfulness on Cognitive Flexibility and Agreeableness in Students with Low Emotional Intelligence. MEJDS 2022; 12 :249-249
URL: http://jdisabilstud.org/article-1-2037-en.html
Effectiveness of Mindfulness on Cognitive Flexibility and Agreeableness in Students with Low Emotional Intelligence
Behzad Rostami Sani1 , Aboutaleb Seadatee Shamir * 2, Alireza Mohmmadi Aria3
1- MA Student in Personality Psychology, Faculty of Literature, Humanities, and Social Sciences, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
2- Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology, Faculty of Literature, Humanities, and Social Sciences, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
3- Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology, Department of Pre-school Education, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Abstract:   (1527 Views)

Abstract
Background & Objectives: Because of the high importance of mental health in different sections of society and the pivotal role of psychology students, so promoting their mental health can improve mental health in society. Mindfulness is one of the factors affecting self-acceptance and positive interaction with others. Mindfulness-based interventions emphasize flexible attention, openness and curiosity. Psychological flexibility is the ability of individuals to focus on the current situation and use the opportunities of that situation to step in the direction of internal goals and values despite the presence of challenging or unwanted psychological events. Agreeableness is one of the five main personality traits of each person that indicate the inner desire and tendency of the person to respect, coordinate, and adapt to others. Psychological flexibility and agreeableness are among the examples of mental health. Emotional intelligence, on the other hand, is one of the psychological characteristics of an individual. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of mindfulness on cognitive flexibility and agreeableness by moderating the role of emotional intelligence.
Methods: This applied research was a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest and a 3-month follow-up design, and a control group. The study population consisted of students of Psychology studying in the academic year of 2019-2020 at the Science and Research Branch Tehran Islamic Azad University, Tehran City, Iran. Data were collected using Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory (Bar-On, 1980) and 60 students with emotional quotient score less than 3 standard deviations below the mean were purposively selected and randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups (30 students in each group). The inclusion criteria were to be a student in the Master's level of 2018-2019 Islamic Azad University of Science and Research Branch Tehran in the field of Psychology, age range from 20 to 60 years, and willingness to participate in the research project. The students selected as samples participated in the research knowingly and with full consent. The exclusion criteria were the absence of more than two sessions from the training program, unwillingness to continue attending the training program, and not doing the homework and exercises of the training program for two consecutive weeks. In the pretest, posttest, and follow-up, both groups completed the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (AAQ-II) (Bond et al., 2011) and the Subscale of Agreeableness in NEO-Personality Inventory (NEO-FFI) (Costa & McCrae, 1985). Then, the experimental group received 8 sessions of mindfulness, whereas the control group did not receive any intervention. In the descriptive statistics section, central and dispersion indicators such as mean and standard deviation were calculated, and in the inferential statistics section, variance analysis with repeated measures and Bonferroni post hoc test were performed. To compare two groups in terms of gender, marital status, and age (demographic variables), the Chi-square test was used. All statistical analyses were conducted in SPSS version 22 software. The significance level of the tests was considered 0.05.
Results: The results showed that the variance analysis of psychological flexibility and agreeableness variables was significant for the intragroup factor (time) (p<0.001) and intergroup factor (p<0.001). In the experimental group, the mean scores of the variables of psychological flexibility (p<0.001) and agreeableness (p<0.001) in the posttest and follow-up phases were higher than in the pretest phase. Also, significant differences between the posttest and follow-up stages were observed in the mean scores of psychological flexibility variables (p=0.035) and agreeableness (p=0.011). The results indicated that the effectiveness of mindfulness training in the follow-up phase in the experimental group was not permanent for both variables and significantly decreased in the follow-up.
Conclusions: According to the results, mindfulness training can effectively improve the psychological flexibility and agreeableness of students with low emotional intelligence.

Keywords: Mindfulness, Cognitive flexibility, Agreeableness, Emotional intelligence
Full-Text [PDF 408 kb]   (327 Downloads)    
Type of Study: Original Research Article | Subject: Psychology
References
1. Molaei Yasavoli M, Ghanbari Z, Molaei Yasavoli H, Khajavi D. The structural model to explain the quality-of-life Students based on the combination of physical, social physique anxiety and mental health. Knowledge & Research in Applied Psychology. 2019;20(4):79–88. [Persian] [Article]
2. Afshari Z, Rakhshani M. Factors related to mental health of students in Zabol university of medical sciences. J Neyshabur Univ Med Sci. 2014;2(3):28–36. [Persian]
3. Lomas T, Medina JC, Ivtzan I, Rupprecht S, Eiroa-Orosa FJ. The impact of mindfulness on the wellbeing and performance of educators: a systematic review of the empirical literature. Teaching and Teacher Education. 2017;61:132–41. [DOI]
4. Alipoor S, Zeqeibi Ghannad S. Investigation of the relationship of mindfulness with psychological well-being: the role of strategic engagement regulation and self-esteem. Positive Psychology Research. 2017;3(2):1–18. [Persian] [Article]
5. Sadri Damirchi E, Cheraghian H. Modeling of mindfulness and quality of sleep by the mediation of psychological well-being in high school students. Journal of School Psychology. 2017;6(2):100–23. [Persian] [Article]
6. Ahmadvand Z, Heydarinasab L, Shairi MR. Prediction of psychological well-being based on the components of mindfulness. Health Psychology. 2012;1(2):60–9. [Persian]
7. Firth AM, Cavallini I, Sütterlin S, Lugo RG. Mindfulness and self-efficacy in pain perception, stress and academic performance, the influence of mindfulness on cognitive processes. Psychol Res Behav Manag. 2019;12(1):565–574. [DOI]
8. Taheri S, Sajjadian I. Effectiveness of mindfulness based cognitive therapy on symptoms of fatigue, self-compassion and mindfulness on employers with chronic fatigue syndrome. Career & Organization Counseling. 2017;9(30):145–71. [Persian] [Article]
9. Simou P, Moraitou D. The association between mindfulness and romantic relationship satisfaction in adults. Hellenic Journal of Psychology. 2018;15:289–301.
10. Sharifi Daramadi P, Aghayar S. Hush hayajani va behbud rabete khod va digaran [Emotional intelligence and improvement communication with others]. Tehran: Sepahan; 2008. [Persian]
11. Salovey P, Mayer D. Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition and personality. 1990;9:121-85. [DOI]
12. Schutte NS, Malouff JM. Emotional intelligence mediates the relationship between mindfulness and subjective well-being. Personality and Individual Differences. 2011;50: 1116-9. [DOI]
13. Zou Y, Li P, Hofmann SG, Liu X. The mediating role of non-reactivity to mindfulness training and cognitive flexibility: a randomized controlled trial. Fron Psychol. 2020;11:1053. [DOI]
14. Latzman RD, Masuda A. Examining mindfulness and psychological inflexibility within the framework of big five personality. Personality and Individual Differences. 2013;55(1):129–34. [DOI]
15. Kabat-Zinn J. Mindfulness-based intervention in context: past, present, and future. Clinical Psychology Science and Practice. 2003;10(2):144–56. [DOI]
16. Ghasemi Jobaneh R, Mousavi SV, Zanipoor A, Hoseini Seddigh MA. The relationship between mindfulness and emotion regulation with academic procrastination of students. Educ Strategy Med Sci. 2016;9(2):134–41. [Persian] [Article]
17. Thompson BL, Waltz J. Every day mindfulness and mindfulness meditation: overlapping constructs or not? Personality and Individual Differences. 2007;43(7):1875–85. [DOI]
18. Babakhani V. The effectiveness of mindfulness skills training on adjustment and mental health of students. Rooyesh. 2019;8(5):171–8. [Persian] [Article]
19. Bar-On R. The Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i): rationale, description and summary of psychometric properties. In: Geher G; editor. Measuring emotional intelligence: common ground and controversy. New York: Nova Science Publisher; 2004.
20. Nesari AJ, Karimi L, Filinezhad N. On the relationship between emotional intelligence and vocabulary learning of Iranian EFL learners at the intermediate level. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences. 2011;28:900–3.
21. Bond FW, Hayes SC, Baer RA, Carpenter KM, Guenole N, Orcutt HK, et al. Preliminary psychometric properties of the acceptance and action questionnaire–II: a revised measure of psychological inflexibility and experiential avoidance. Behavior Therapy. 2011;42(4):676–88. [DOI]
22. Hashemi SE, Asheghi M, Naami A. Relationship of mindfulness and cognitive defusion to burnout, openness to change and adaptive performance with mediating role of psychological flexibility: a case study of Iran south railway company. NeuroQuantology. 2019;17(06):22–9. [DOI]
23. Costa PT, McCrae RR. Personality in adulthood: a six-year longitudinal study of self-reports and spouse ratings on the NEO personality inventory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1988;54(5):853–60. [DOI]
24. Joshanloo M, Afshari S. Big five personality traits and self-esteem as predictors of life satisfaction in Iranian Muslim university students. J Happiness Stud. 2011;12(1):105–13. [DOI]
25. Qiao L, Xu M, Luo X, Zhang L, Li H, Chen A. Flexible adjustment of the effective connectivity between the frontoparietal and visual regions supports cognitive flexibility. Neuroimage. 2020;220:117158. [DOI]
26. Gordon A, Young-Jones A, Hayden S, Fursa S, Hart B. Dispositional mindfulness, perceived social support, and academic motivation: exploring differences between Dutch and American students. New Ideas in Psychology. 2020;56:100744. [DOI]
27. Mousavinejad SM, Sanagouye Moharer G, Zarban A. The effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on cognitive flexibility and perceived stress of type II diabetic patients. Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies. 2018;8(14):10. [Persian] [Article]
Add your comments about this article : Your username or Email:
CAPTCHA
Send email to the article author

Rights and permissions
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

© 2025 CC BY-NC 4.0 | Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Designed & Developed by : Yektaweb