Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Abstract
Background & Objectives: Bullying is one of the problematic behaviors of adolescence. Much research has been conducted on the etiology and treatment of this phenomenon. A common theme of the bullying literature is the disorder in the social-cognitive development of adolescents. Researchers believe that bullying on several levels is associated with a low perception of social competence. Therefore, it seems that one of the antecedents of bullying behavior is a violation of social competence. Another psychological variable that is disturbed in bullying students is the issue of emotional regulation disorder. In recent years, due to the effectiveness and urgent need to prevent and intervene in youth problems, an increasing number of research studies and applications of mindfulness in educational environments have been observed. So, the present study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of mindfulness training on social competence and emotional dysregulation of bully students.
Methods: The research method was quasi-experimental with a pretest-posttest design and a control group. The study's statistical population included the 12^th-grade male students of Sarab High School in the academic year 2020-2021. Among them, 30 qualified volunteers were included in the study as a sample by available sampling method and after obtaining the entry criteria. Then, they were randomly divided into two groups of 15 people. The inclusion criteria were as follows: informed consent, studying in boys' schools of the 12^th grade, low social competence and emotional dysregulation more than the cut-off point of the questionnaire, and absence of an acute mental problem. The exclusion criteria included receiving psychological interventions before entering the research, unwillingness of the student to continue cooperation in each of the research stages, absence from training sessions, receiving other interventions at the same time as the study, using psychiatric drugs at least two weeks before the start of the intervention, suffering from severe physical or mental illnesses and not participating in all meetings. The instruments used in this study were the Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire-Revised (OB/VQ-R) (Olweus, 2006), the Social Competence Questionnaire (Flanner et al., 1990), and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) (Gratz & Roemer, 2004). The experimental group received training on mindfulness skills during 8 sessions of 90 minutes per week, 2 sessions as a group, and during this period, the control group did not receive any training. Data analysis was done using covariance analysis in the SPSS program at a significance level 0.05.
Results: The results show that mindfulness skills training effectively improved social competence (Eta =0.259, p=0.009) and reduced emotional dysregulation (Eta=0.264, p=0.006) of bullying students.
Conclusion: Based on the research findings, mindfulness skills training effectively increases social competence and reduces bullying students' emotional dysregulation.