فصلنامه خانواده و پژوهش
سال هفتم شماره 1 (تابستان 1389)

This study was conducted with the aim of investigating the effectiveness of family problem solving method in the improvement of the marital relationship between parents with deaf children. The design of this quasiexperimental research was a pretest-posttest one with control groups. The participants who were selected through convenience sampling were 60 parents from Karaj with deaf sons and daughters. The subjects were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental groups received a 15-hour's training in family problem solving method. The instrumentation included a demographic form, MSI-R questionnaire and the family problem solving scale. The results revealed that there was a significant difference between experimental and control groups at 0.01 level of significance. Accordingly, the relationship between parents with deaf children improved in experimental groups compared to control groups with regard to global marital satisfaction, global chaos, conflict over child rearing, and family problem solving method. The gender variable does not exert any effects in the groups considering the obtained results. The findings of the study is indicative of the fact that providing training in family problem solving method is effective in increasing global marital satisfaction and it improves the relationship between parents with deaf children. This is due to its simplicity, the necessity of the presence of only of one the spouses and its application in all life situations. It appears that this method can be a common and prevalent way of solving problems of families with deaf children.

In recent years, fundamental changes have taken place in women's status. These changes have resulted in modification of women's roles and social status in some sections of society, thereby women experience multiple roles. Some researchers suppose that multiple social, career, and family roles are different resources which accrue much benefit to individuals and bring about numerous privileges and rewards. The main purpose of this article is to demonstrate that multiple roles do not necessarily result in contradiction of roles. On the other hand, they might lead to role balance. This pioneering research, which was carried out based on the theoretical principles of Mark's role balance theory, aims to investigate the factors and components of balance between women's career and family roles. The target population of the study consisted of married, employed women with children who lived in Ghazvin. The sample was drawn through random quota sampling method and it comprised 218 women employed in Ghazvin's education directorates. The findings of the study indicate that there is a significant relationship between the extent of role balance in career and family roles and the amount of energy, time experience, role commitment and cultural acceptability. The results of multiple regression revealed that the extent of commitment and cultural acceptability of the role account for much of the variance in role balance variable. The findings also showed that the mental importance of the roles is effective in the amount of energy and time. Hence, the abovementioned variables, which are not in fact scarce, are a function of culture and social functions. In addition, the cultural acceptability of the roles, which is based on a hierarchy of social importance, play a key role. Therefore, women's enjoying an emotional, supportive and friendly atmosphere in social relationships results in the release of much energy. More specifically, the extent of pressure exerted by multiple roles decreases when women enjoy material and emotional support of their spouses as well as the support of their managers and colleagues as sources of social support for supervising and fulfilling their multiple roles. Accordingly, individuals potentially possess abundant and renewable sources of energy which can be released undercertain social-cultural circumstances.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of group cognitive-behavioral training in reducing the symptoms of Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS). To achieve this goal, the cluster sampling method was utilized and 2 kindergartens were randomly selected in District 3 of Tehran. In this district, 60 mothers who suffered from Premenstrual Syndrome were chosen through self-selected sampling and were divided into two experimental and control groups. The experimental group received group cognitive-behavioral training in 10 sessions. The instrumentation consisted of a questionnaire and an observation form adapted from Abraham and Taylor’s Menstural Symptom Questionnaire. The comparison between the two groups, which was drawn at the end of the cognitive-behavioral intervention through the Analysis of Covariance, indicated that the provided training significantly reduced the behavioral symptoms of Premenstrual Syndrome such as stress, mood swings, irritability, trouble sleeping, and food cravings.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between family communication patterns (conversation orientation and conformity orientation) and communication skills of adolescents. Random multistage cluster sampling method was utilized and as a result 367 students including 232 girls and 135 boys were chosen from first and second graders of high school in District 1 of Tehran. The participants completed the Revised Family Communication Patterns Questionnaire" (Koerner & Fitzpartick, 2002) and the "Communication skills Questionnaire" (Queendom, 2004). For the purpose of data analysis, first Pearson correlation and simultaneous regression analysis were used in order to predict communication skills through dimensions of family communication patterns. Then according to high and low grades of dimensions of family communication patterns, four types of family were identified and the extent of student's communication skills in various family types was compared through one-way ANOVA. The regression analysis results indicated that the family conversation orientation has a significant, positive relationship with adolescent's communication skills and predicts it positively. In addition, family conformity orientation has a significant, negative relationship with adolescent's communication skills and predicts it negatively. The results of variance analysis were indicative of a significant difference between the groups and revealed that children of consensual and pluralistic families possess more communication skills compared to those of protective and laissez-faire families. These families focus on conversation and free, comfortable interaction between family members and in such families children learn how to establish healthy relationships in their family environment.

The interaction between parents and children particularly the attachment of mothers to their children forms the basis for social relationships and children's mental health in the following years of life. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the relationship between attachment styles, emotional intelligence and test anxiety. The target population of the study comprised Zanjani high school boy students in 2009-2010 academic year. Simple random sampling method was utilized and 244 subjects were chosen. The participants completed Hazan and Shaver's attachment style questionnaire (AAQ), Bradberry and Greave's emotional intelligence questionnaire, and Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI). The data were analyzed through one-way analysis of variance and Scheffe's Test. The findings of the study revealed that there is a significant difference between the emotional intelligence degree of individuals with different patterns of attachment. More specifically, students with secure pattern of attachment possess higher emotional intelligence compared to those with insecure attachment style (avoidant and anxious-ambivalent). In addition, there is a significant difference between the means of emotional intelligence components (selfmanagement, social awareness and relationship management) among students who have different patterns of attachment. Self-awareness, as a component of emotional intelligence, did not yield the same result and was an exception in this regard. There is a significant difference between the extent of test anxiety among individuals with different patterns of attachment. In fact, students with secure attachment style have less test anxiety compared to the ones who have insecure pattern of attachment.

The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between ego identity and life satisfaction in 14 to 18-year-old high school students and to examine the mediatory roles of family functioning and its different components. A descriptive method of correlational type was utilized in order to achieve this goal. The target population of the study was high school students of different cities of West Azerbaijan Province and the sample was drawn through multistage cluster sampling method. The instrumentation comprised objective measures of ego identity status (EOM-EIS), multidimensional students’ life satisfaction scale (MSLSS) and family functioning scale (FFS). Step-wise regression was used for the purpose of data analysis. The obtained results indicated that identity status correlated with family function components and could predict those. There was a relationship between different components of family functioning, life satisfaction, and different types of identity status. A study of the mediatory role of family functioning components in the relationship between identity status and life satisfaction revealed that all of family functioning components could not increase identity status predicting power and hence are not able to fulfill a mediatory role. From among the components of the above-mentioned variable, cohesion played a mediatory role for all the components of life satisfaction and could significantly increase the predicting power. Family sociability, disengagement, enmeshment, family idealization, conflict and parenting styles were the other components of family functioning which could significantly increase the power of regression equation for some dimensions of life satisfaction.

Scientists and scholars of education have constantly approved of theindispensable and vital role of family in different aspects of children’s growth. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the psychological (cognitive, affective, behavioral and social) impact of motherchild separation on 5 to 7-year-old kindergarten children among employed and non-employed mothers. This research was carried out in two different phases. In the first descriptive phase, simple random cluster sampling method was utilized and a number of 177 children were selected from kindergartens located in the northern, western, southern, eastern and central parts of Tehran (School Districts 1, 3, 5, 7 and 15 of the department of education and state welfare organization). In the second phase, 43 and 34 children were respectively selected as the criterion and control groups using the casualcomparative method. The instrumentation in the cognitive, social, affective and behavioral domains consisted of Raven's Test, Wyland Test, Randolph’s Test and a self-devised questionnaire, respectively. The tests were administered to the children and their mothers. The descriptive results indicated that in the cognitive domain most 5 to 6- and 6 to 7-year-old children obtained average and above-average intelligence scores. In the affective domain, most children (55 percent) were in an insecure state of attachment and suffered from attachment disorder whilst the rest of the children were in a secure attachment condition. Regarding the children’s behavior, most children suffered from reactive attachment disorder. The social age of most 5 to 6-year-old children was normal and above average; however, it was below average for most 6 to 7-year-old ones. The t-test results and the comparison of the control and criterion groups indicated that children attending kindergarten compared to non-attending ones were in a better state intelligence-wise. Nevertheless, these children suffered from more attachment and behavioral disorders compared with the children of non-employed mothers. The comparison of children attending kindergarten (of both employed and non-employed mothers) showed that there was no difference among them considering all the variables under study; nonetheless, children of the employed mothers suffered from more behavioral problems in comparison with those of non-employed ones. Regarding the gender variable, it was shown that there was only a significant difference in the attachment test. In other words, the attachment disorder was more common and observable among the boys compared to the girls.