دکتر ابراهیم احمدی

Previous researches about the relationship between religious belief and morality have reached conflicting findings and this shows that the effect of religious belief on morality cannot be direct. Therefore, for the pathology of religious belief, it is necessary to see which characteristics of religious belief can contribute to which forms of immorality under which conditions. The present study hypothesized that attribution to God makes it easier to justify passive immorality (omission of actions) and makes passive immorality seem more acceptable. With the purpose of testing this hypothesis and in a correlational design, 499 participants (230 men) with an average age of 37 years were selected among 30,000 subscribers of Hamrahe Avval and Irancell living in Tehran and Karaj and were randomly assigned into two groups of passive immorality (who read six stories about passive immorality) and active immorality (who read six stories about active immorality). Religious belief was measured with the Supernatural Beliefs Scale (Jong, Bluemke, & Halberstadt, 2013), and attribution to God and acceptance of immorality were measured with a researcher-made questionnaire. Regression analyses showed that the subjects who had more religious belief attributed passive immorality to God more than the subjects who had less religious belief, attribution to God predicted the acceptance of immorality, and religious belief had a negative relationship with the acceptance of immorality after excluding the variance of attribution to God. Also, the Moderated Mediation Model showed that attribution to God can explain why religious believers accept passive immorality more easily. These findings show tha

A ritual is a certain chain of behaviors, whose characteristics are arrangement and repetitiveness. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of performing rituals on increasing self-control, and to test the hypothesized mechanism of this effect, that is, increased self-discipline. In an experimental design, 111 female students of Islamic Azad University-Karaj branch, were randomly selected and assigned into three groups: ritual movements, non-ritual movements, and control. The ritual movements group performed movements that had sequence and repetitiveness, but the non-ritual movements group performed movements without these two features. Then, the three groups were asked to choose one for eating from cream bread and broccoli, and the selection of broccoli was indicator of higher self-control. Feelings of self-discipline were measured by four questions from Duckworth and Seligman (2005). Logistic regression analysis showed that participants who performed ritual movements, chose broccoli more than participants who did not perform any movement or just performed non-ritual movements. Moreover, mediation analyses showed that rituals have a positive effect on self-control through increased self-discipline.

Previous findings have shown the many functions of nostalgia, for example, increasing mental health, and the current research aimed to explain those findings by testing the theoretical explanation that the benefits of nostalgia come from the fact that nostalgia reminds us of our intrinsic self. Aiming to investigate the effect of nostalgia on authenticity (intrinsic self-expression) and extrinsic self-definition (concern about meeting society's standards and the expectations of others), Out of 30,000 mobile phone subscribers in Tehran and Karaj, 451 (200 men) with an average age of 40 years were sampled by the convenience method and in an experimental design were randomly assigned to two groups of nostalgia (who thought of a nostalgic memory) and no nostalgia (who thought of an ordinary memory). Intrinsic self-expression was measured by the Authenticity Inventory (Kernis and Goldman, 2006) and extrinsic self-definition by the Extrinsic Contingency Focus Scale (Williams et al., 2010). T-tests showed that the nostalgia group rated their past personality more authentic and reported less extrinsic self-definition and Conditional Process Modelling showed that nostalgia reduced extrinsic self-definition by increasing authenticity. Based on these findings, nostalgia can help in the treatment of mental disorders.

Previous findings have shown the many functions of nostalgia, for example, increasing mental health, and the current research aimed to explain those findings by testing the theoretical explanation that the benefits of nostalgia come from the fact that nostalgia reminds us of our intrinsic self. Aiming to investigate the effect of nostalgia on authenticity (intrinsic self-expression) and extrinsic self-definition (concern about meeting society's standards and the expectations of others), Out of 30,000 mobile phone subscribers in Tehran and Karaj, 451 (200 men) with an average age of 40 years were sampled by the convenience method and in an experimental design were randomly assigned to two groups of nostalgia (who thought of a nostalgic memory) and no nostalgia (who thought of an ordinary memory). Intrinsic self-expression was measured by the Authenticity Inventory (Kernis and Goldman, 2006) and extrinsic self-definition by the Extrinsic Contingency Focus Scale (Williams et al., 2010). T-tests showed that the nostalgia group rated their past personality more authentic and reported less extrinsic self-definition and Conditional Process Modelling showed that nostalgia reduced extrinsic self-definition by increasing authenticity. Based on these findings, nostalgia can help in the treatment of mental disorders.

Previous research has shown that if we look at our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors from the perspective of others, rather than our own, that is, if we move away from ourselves, we can more easily control them, and current research hypothesized that if we use non-first-person pronouns (e.g., "he") and our own name to name ourselves instead of first-person pronouns (e.g., "I"), It becomes easier to get away from ourselves and then control ourselves. In order to test this hypothesis, a pilot experiment and a main experiment were performed. The Pilot experiment showed that the non-first-person group reported more than the first-person group seeing themselves from the perspective of others. In the main experiment, 86 female students with an average age of 21 years from Payam Noor University of Qom were sampled by convenience method and randomly assigned to two groups of first person (who thought about future stressful events with first person pronouns) and non-first person (who thought about the future stressful events with non-first-person pronouns and their names). Trait anxiety was measured by the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (Leary, 1983) and state anxiety was measured by a researcher-made test. participants then performed a social interaction, and five judges rated their social performance. Repeated measures ANCOVAs showed that after social interaction, non-first-person group's state anxiety decreased faster than that of first-person group and non-first-person group received better scores in social performance.

Research has shown a negative correlation between mindfulness and defensive reactions to the reminder/thought of death, and the purpose of the present study was to illuminate the effect of meditation and mindfulness on these reactions using an experimental method. The call for participation in the study was sent to 30,000 subscribers of Hamrahe Aval and Irancell in Tehran and using the convenience sampling, 127 of them (53 males) with a mean age of 37 years were selected to participate in this study and were randomly assign to four groups of Meditation-Death Thought, Meditation-Without Death Thought, Without Meditation-Death Thought, and Without Meditation-Without Death Thought. After teaching Buddhist mindful breathing meditation and measuring mindfulness using Toronto Mindfulness Scale (TMS), death thought was created in participants using the method of Burke et al. (2010) and then death thought Suppression, as an immediate defense, was measured using the method of Arndt et al. (1997) once after creating death thought and once after a delay, and worldview defense, as a delayed defense, was measured using the method of Greenberg et al. (1990) after a delay. ANOVAs showed that meditation increased mindfulness and was able to prevent the effect of death thought on death thought suppression

According to history, humans have never stopped fighting with each other and this endlessness and permanence of wars cannot have only external causes (threats) rather, it also has internal and psychological causes and identifying these causes is essential to reducing wars. The present study aimed to identify one of the psychological causes of the endlessness of human wars and assumed that war gives meaning to human life and therefore, humans do not like to end it. In order to test this hypothesis, 397 participants (190 males) with a mean age of 35 years were employed for this study among 30,000 subscribers of Hamrahe Aval and Irancell in Tehran and Karaj. In an experimental study, participants were randomly assigned to experimental group (which the Iran-Iraq war was highlighted in their minds) and control group (which the scientific advances of the Iranians were highlighted in their minds) and then meaning making from wars (mediating variable) was measured by Tedeschi and Calhoun (1996) test and agreement with militarism/permanence of wars (dependent variable) was measured by Vail and Motyl (2010) test. ANOVAs showed that experimental group makes meaning from wars and agrees with militarism/permanence of wars more than control group, and conditional process modeling showed that the salience of war in the minds of the subjects has led to agreement with the militarism/permanence of war "through" the meaning making from wars. So, humans get the meaning of life from war, and this is one of the reasons why human wars are endless.

Most psychologists believe that happiness is having too much of pleasant emotions and too less of unpleasant ones, but according to Aristotle, humans are happy if they have the emotions that they want to have, even if those emotions are unpleasant. With the purpose of examining this theory of Aristotle, the present study tested the hypothesis that the discrepancy between the emotions that the individual have and the emotions that he wants to have, has a positive correlation with depression and a negative correlation with well-being. In a correlational design, a call for participation in this study was sent to 30,000 subscribers of the Hamrahe Avval and Irancell in Tehran, and 1410 (564 men) people with an average age of 26 years participated in the study. The research tools were a researcher-made questionnaire to measure the desired and experienced emotions, the Center of Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, and the Satisfaction with Life Scale. Correlation and regression analyses showed that the absolute discrepancy between desired and experienced emotions (which showed that how much each participant has experienced his/her desired emotions), can predict more depression and less well being, even in participants that experienced more pleasant and less unpleasant emotions than they desired, and even after statistically controlling experienced emotions. Therefore, happiness is not just the pleasant emotions, but any emotion, if desired, can increase our happiness.

The present research intended to examine the relationship between lifestyles and the degree of sensation-seeking (excitement-seeking) based on personality traits among Islamic Azad University-Buin Zahra Branch. A descriptive correlation design was employed in this study in which the statistical population consisted of 2120 Master students from all disciplines at Islamic Azad University-Buin Zahra Branch, Iran. Through random sampling, the sample size was determined and then using Krejcie and Morgan Table, a sample of 322 subjects were selected as the participants in the study. The results revealed that there was a significant relationship between lifestyles and the degree of sensation-seeking (excitement-seeking) based on personality traits among the participants at P<0.01.

 Why do so many people believe fake cyberspace news? What are the mechanisms underlying these misconceptions? Current research tests a possible answer to this question: previous encounters (being familiar) with false news. Because news are so easily spread in cyberspace, people see news in different contexts of cyberspace (such as Instagram, Telegram, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), and this means that they see one news more than once.

The study included 1,455 participants with that the mean and standard deviation of their age was 27.10 and 3.88, respectively, with a range of 18 to 39 years, and 631 of whom were male. The instrument of this study were 24 false news headlines. With a dependent true experimental design (or repeated measures), the participants were tested in a four-step experiment: • In the familiarizing phase, eight false news headlines were shown to the subjects and they were asked if they wanted to share the news with others. • In the assessment phase, sixteen false news headlines were shown to the subjects, that eight of them had been seen in the familiarizing phase and eight headlines were new, and the subjects were asked to rate the familiarity and accuracy of each news. • In the follow-up phase, twenty-four false news headlines were shown to the subjects, that eight of them had been seen in familiarizing phase and in assessment phase (i.e., twice), eight of them had been seen only in the evaluation phase (i.e., once), and eight headlines were new, and subjects were asked to rate the familiarity and accuracy of each news.

Repeated measures ANOVA showed that the confrontation effect was significant, i.e., the familiarized news were rated more accurate than the non-familiarized news. Additionally, in the follow-up phase, repeated measures ANOVA showed that the effect of the confrontation was significant, so that were rated more familiar than once familiarized news and non-familiarized news.

The current study showed that the familiarized news were more believable than the new news. The impact of confrontation on believing the news not only lasted for ten days, but also increased with the second confrontation. The mechanism of illusory truth effect is that human beings seek the easiest way to judge the rightness /wrongness of propositions, and one of these easy ways is the processing fluency, i.e., the human beings easily believe whatever they easily understand, and being familiar with propositions helps to easily understand them.

When a behavior leads to two outcomes, one of which is good and the other is bad, how do we know which outcome was intentional and which was unintentional? With the purpose of identifying the mechanism of detecting behavior intention and in an experimental design, 132 children (61 girls) with a mean age of 55 months were selected from four preschools in Tehran's second district by the convenience sampling method and were randomly assigned to three groups of intentionless (who were not told anything about the intent of protagonist), good intention (who were told that the intention of protagonist was good), and bad intention (who were told that the intention of protagonist was bad). The research tool was a childish version of the Trolley Story in which the protagonist behaved in a way that had a good outcome and a bad outcome, and the subjects were asked to judge that: 1) Was the bad outcome intentional? 2) Did the protagonist have a duty to do that behavior? 3) Was the behavior of the protagonist good? Chi-square and ANOVA tests showed that in all three types of moral judgment, the intentionless and good intention groups were not different, but the difference between the intentionless and bad intention groups was significant. The findings show that the subjects used the presumption of innocence or the principle of innocence to detect the intent of the behavior, i.e. they perceived the behavior's good outcome as intentional and the behavior's bad outcome as unintentional.

This aim of this study was to investigate the effect of rational reasons on moral decisions. For this purpose a call for participation in the study was sent to 75000 email addresses of residents of Tehran and its suburbs. Eventually 765 volunteers participated in the study. By using a moral dilemma (Stanley, Dougherty, Yang, Henne & De Brigard, 2018)in an experimental design, the participants were asked to say which option they would choose if they were in this moral dilemma (their initial decision). Then the participants were randomly assigned to three groups: one group was given the reasons affirming their initial decision, one group was given the reasons opposing their initial decision, and one group was given all reasons (affirming and opposing). Participants were asked to evaluate these reasons. Then they were asked to choose one of the two options again (their final decision). Fisher's exact test, logistic regression analysis, and variance analysis showed that very few participants changed their initial decision after examining the reasons, the initial decision explained a large proportion of the final decision's variance, and participants evaluated affirming reasons better than opposing ones. These findings suggest that rational reasons do not help to change individual’s moral decisions.

When people want to make an emotional decision, they may avoid information that can make a rational decision stronger. With the aim of investigating information avoidance as a strategy to facilitate emotional decisions and in an experimental design, a call for participation in this study was sent to thirty thousand mobile phone subscribers in Tehran and Karaj and finally 383 people (149 men) with a mean age of 32 years participated in this research. First, participants were faced with rational and emotional choices, and then their information avoidance was measured. Participants were then randomly assigned to three groups and were given the same information they had avoided in three different ways. Finally, participants chose one of the two options and their desire for emotional choice was measured. Z Test and logistic regression analysis showed that most of the participants avoided information, but the same information affected their decisions, the participants who avoided information, chose more emotional choices, and the more the participants desire for emotional choice, the more their information avoidance. So, people avoid information to make emotional decision making easier.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of rational reasons on ethical decision making.

In order to investigate the effect of rational reasons on moral decisions, the call for participatingin this study was sent to 75000 email addresses of residents of Tehran and thesuburbs, which 765 volunteers participated in the study. The research tool was a moral dilemma. In an experimental design, the participants were asked to say which option they would choose if they were in this moral dilemma (their initial decision). Then the participants were randomly assigned itnto three groups: one group was given the reasons confirmingtheir initial decision, the secondgroup was given the reasons opposing their initial decision, and the thirdgroup was given all reasons (confirmingand opposing). Participants were asked to evaluate these reasons. Then theywere asked to choose one of the two options again (their final decision).

Fisher's exact test, logistic regression analysis, and variance analysis showed that afew participants changed their initial decision after examining the reasons; the initial decision explained a large proportion of the final decision's variance, and participants evaluated affirming reasons better than opposing ones. These findings suggest that rational reasons do not help to change the people's moral decisions.

There are Various motives that some of them can help to resolving interpersonal conflicts and others may prevent its resolve. According to the regulation style theory, the motivation for change, i. e. the desire to come out of the current state of conflict, can help to conflict resolution, but there is an opposite motivation, one that prevents the resolution of the conflict, and it is the motivation for contemplation, i. e. the desire to explore and review existing state. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that for the conflict to be resolved, the change motivation must be stronger than the contemplation motivation. In a correlational design, first the change and contemplation motivations were measured in a sample of 97 undergraduates from Islamic Azad University-Buin Zahra Branch (N » 4000) using the Motivation Style Questionnaire, and then the participants were presented with hypothetical stories about interpersonal conflicts. Regression analyses showed that the priority of change motivation to contemplation motivation: 1. Has a positive relationship with reconciliation motive and a negative relationship with bad feelings, and 2. Reduces the damaging effects of bad feelings on reconciliation motive.

This study aimed to test the hypothesis that men who know gender roles as inflexible (compared to men who know gender roles as flexible), defend more of the discrimination that exists between women and men in society, but in women there is not such a relationship between knowing gender roles as inflexible and defending gender discriminations. In a descriptive-correlational design, 122 of undergraduate students of Islamic Azad University-BuinZahra Branch (3900 = N) were randomly sampled and responded to Perceived Immutability of Gender Roles scale and Gender Discrimination Advocacy scale. Pearson correlation coefficients showed that in men, knowing gender roles as inflexible has significant relationship with defending gender discriminations (p

With the purpose of testing the hypothesis of the effectiveness of a psychoeducational intervention and using an experimental design, 46 newly childbearing couples, admitted to Sarem hospital in Tehran, received an intervention for facilitating the transition period from being couples to being parents. The data collected by a researcher-made questionnaire and were entered to repeated measures ANOVA and regression analysis. In the experimental group, three months after the intervention compared to the control group and pretest, the men`s pleasant feelings during conflict increased, the men`s unpleasant feelings during conflict decreased, and the insult of men and women to each other was less. The amount of increase in men`s pleasant feelings at three months after the intervention, could predict the increase in women's pleasant feelings in one year after the intervention, and the amount of decrease in men`s unpleasant feelings at three months after the intervention, could predict the decrease in women's unpleasant feelings at one year after the intervention. Thus, firstly, the improvement after intervention can become apparent gradually (rather than immediately), secondly, men improve sooner than women, and thirdly, early improvements predict later ones.

The purpose of this study was to answer the question of whether the themes of salvation in the life stories (ie, the person experiences unpleasant life events as causing positive changes in his character) is different in alcoholics who are successful and unsuccessful in alcohol withdrawal. The population for this study were all alcoholics of Mashhad in 1992 (N=3000), and 127 alcoholics were selected by convenience sampling method. The main research tool were life stories of participants. Control variables were measured using revised life view test (skier, Carver, and Bridges, 1994), depressive feelings subscale of Epidemiological Research Centre depression scale (Radlaf, 1977), positive and negative emotions timing test (Watson, Clark, and Tleejen, 1988), anxiety subscale of short scale of symptoms (Dyragtys, 1975) subscales of the ability and efforts of multidimentional causality scale (Lfkvrt, Van Byayr, Weir, and Cox, 1979), alcohol dependence scale (Skinner and Allen, 1992), the scale of participation in Alcoholics anonymous (Tvnygn, Kanrs, and Miller, 1996), a five-point scale general health of short version health survey (Weir and Sherborne, 1992). Using a causal-comparative design, the life stories of alcoholic who had four or more years of alcohol withdrawal (ie were successful in alcohol) were compared with life stories of alcoholics who were 6 months or less of alcohol withdrawal (ie, unsuccessful in quitting alcohol). The data were analyzed using χ2, rpb, and F. Results showed that successful alcoholics significantly more than unsuccessful ones pointed in their life stories that bitter experience of last alcohol caused positive developments in their characters (p>0/001). This difference remained significant even after statistically controlling for unrelated variables (personality traits, severity of alcohol dependence, physical and mental health, and other themes in the story) (p=0/04). This study proved for the first time that the perception of the unpleasant events of life as factors that have contributed to positive changes in a person, can help to quit alcohol addiction.

The aim of this study was to compare the ethical self-superiority in terms of doing good deeds and in terms of not doing bad deeds. moral self-superiority has two forms: (1) the belief that "I do good things more than others", and (2) the belief that "I do bad things less than others", and the intensity of moral self-superiority can be different in these two areas. The research design was experimental and within-subjects and the research population were students of Islamic Azad University of Buin Zahra in 2016-17 academic year (N=5000) among which 73 were selected using random sampling. The research tool was a researcher-made scale in which the subjects were asked to determine whether they or others are more likely to do seven moral and immoral behaviors. One-sample t-test showed that when the subjects are confronted with unethical behaviors, they confirm that they are less likely than others to perform the behaviors (self-superiority), but when they encounter ethical behaviors, they do not announce that they are more likely than others to perform the behaviors (do not have self-superiority).

Te present study aimed to investigate an undesirable and harmful aspect of creativity. It was hypothesized that creative people have the ability to find creative ways for justifying their unethical behaviors, and thus they can better convince themselves to commit immoral behaviors. One hundred and sixty five undergraduates (66 males, 99 females) were selected using multistage random sampling. The participants completed the Abedi Creavity Test (2003) and the Raven`s Progressive Matrices (1995). The participants were exposed to an ethical dilemma in two ways: justifying unethical behavior (dishonesty) was easy in justifiable group and was difficult in unjustifiable group. Consistent with research hypothesis, the results of moderated regression analysis indicated that creativity predicted dishonesty even after controlling for intelligence and this prediction is stronger in the unjustifiable group than the justifiable group. The findings suggested that creativity had negative aspects besides positive aspects.

The purpose of present study was to demonstrate the undesirable and harmful side of creativity with the assumption that creative people are able to justify their unethical behaviors. Therefore they are more able to convince themselves to commit unethical behaviors. Research method was correlational and statistical population was all undergraduate students of the Qom Payame Noor University (N=8100) that 165 of whom were selected using a multistage random sampling and were placed in an ethical dilemma to choose between self-interest and moral self-concept in two ways so that justifying unethical behavior in justifiable group was easy and in unjustifiable group was hard. Research tools were Abdi’s creativity test (1372) and Raven`s progressive test and data were analyzed using moderated regression analysis. Findings showed that creativity, even after statistical control of IQ can predict dishonesty, and that this prediction is very stronger in unjustifiable group than justifiable group. Creativity has negative and harmful aspects that must be considered and led to positive ones using planning and education.