ARTICLE INFO

Article Type

Original Research

Authors

Shirzad   S. (1)
Koushki   Sh. (*)
Ghanbari Panah   A. (1)
Farzad   V. (1)






(*) Psychology Department, Psychology & Educational Sciences Faculty, Tehran-Center Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
(1) Psychology Department, Psychology & Educational Sciences Faculty, Tehran-Center Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

Correspondence

Address: Psychology Department, Psychology & Educational Sciences Faculty, Tehran-Center Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
Phone: -
Fax: -
shirin_kooshki@yahoo.com

Article History

Received:  August  11, 2018
Accepted:  October 28, 2018
ePublished:  December 31, 2018

BRIEF TEXT


Emotional divorce is considered as the beginning of other types of divorce and indicates marital breakdown leading to alienation.

… [1-5]. In marriages, where families are happier, adolescents may learn that criticism can result from loss of emotional control [6]. Teachers believe that a higher level of anxiety, academic failure, inability to adapt, irrelevant discussion, and neglect can be observed in adolescents who come from divorced families. … [7,8]. Seligman believes that psychological capital covers the positive aspects of human life [9]. … [10-24].

The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the role of mediating coping strategies in male adolescents in families of NAJA personnel with emotional divorce.

This research is a correlational study.

The present study conducted on all male adolescents aged 15 to 18 years in families of NAJA personnel, who were referred to the NAJA clinics and counseling centers and were diagnosed with emotional divorce.

300 subjects were considered as the sample size, due to the minimum sample size (100 to 150 subjects) for a Structural Equation Modeling method. It should be noted that 29 questionnaires were not completely answered that were not analyzed.

Emotional Divorce Questionnaire: It was developed by John Gutman in 2000. It is a 24-item scale, which is scored by answering items with two options: yes (score 1) and no (score 0). The scores more than 8 obtained from “yes” questions (8 or more) indicate the signs of emotional divorce in marital life. In the studies by Mousavi and Rezazadeh, its reliability was obtained 0.93 using Cronbach's alpha. The face validity and structural validity of this questionnaire were approved by factor analysis [25]. Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ): It is a 24-item scale with 4 subscales including hope, optimism, self-efficacy, and resiliency, which was developed by Luthans, Youssef and Avolio in 2007. Each subscale includes 6 questions. PCQ is scored on a 5-point Likert scale from totally disagree (1) to totally agree (5). … [26]. Its validity in Iran was measured by Cronbach's alpha and obtained 0.91, 0.89, 0.83 and 0.70 for self-efficacy, hope, resilience and optimism, respectively [27]. The NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI): it is a 60-item scale, which has obtained based on the analysis of scores obtained from the long version of (-R NEO-PI) in 1986. This questionnaire examines a person's big five personality traits, and reports on six subcategories of each big five personality trait (30 traits), thus a comprehensive assessment of the personality can be achieved by NEO-FFI. It is answered on a five-point Likert scale (strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, and strongly agree). Cronbach Alpha coefficient of the scale has reported between 0.68 (agree) and 0.86 (neuroticism) [28]. … [29]. The coping strategy questionnaire (CSQ): It is a 32-item scale and was developed by Billings and Moos in 1981 to examine behavioral strategies to cope with stressful events. The items are answered on a 3-point Likert scale, from "Never do that (0)" to "Always do that (3)." The questionnaire includes two types of coping strategies including, "problem-focused coping strategies" and "emotion-focused coping strategies". The internal consistency of this questionnaire has been reported from 0.41 to 0.66 [30]. Cronbach's alpha coefficient in high school students obtained 0.54 for emotion-focused coping strategies and 0.01 for problem-focused coping strategies [17]. To conduct the research, we first referred to the Department of Health of NAJA and they were informed about the research, its necessity and benefits, and the coordination was made to do the research. A list containing all clinics and counseling centers of the NAJA was obtained and the researcher referred to the centers and prepared a list consists of all families with a boy child and the reported family or marital problems in their records. Phone calls were made with the considered cases and if possible, they were assured about the confidentiality of information and were entered the study. Pearson correlation test and structural equation model were used for data analysis using SPSS 19 and LISREL 8.80 software. To estimate the model, the maximum likelihood estimation, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), comparative fit index, normed fit index, goodness of fit index, and adjusted goodness of fit index were used.

The skewness and kurtosis indices of all observed variables were between 2 and -2, indicating that the distribution of the variables was not excessively over the normal distribution (Table 1).Neuroticism compared with other personality traits had a negative and significant relationship with psychological capital. Neuroticism also had a negative relationship with the cognitive appraisal and problem-solving coping styles, while it was positively correlated with somatization and emotional appraisal. On the other hand, other personality traits such as extraversion, flexibility, agreeableness and conscientiousness had a positive and significant correlation with psychological capital and two cognitive and problem-solving styles, whereas they had a negative correlation with emotional appraisal and somatization (Table 2).According to the Box Plot, there was no outlier. Table 3 shows the goodness of fit indices of the final model.Neuroticism had a negative direct (-0.15) and indirect (-0.33) effects on psychological capital. In addition, the personal traits, including flexibility, agreeableness and conscientiousness had a direct and indirect positive impact on psychological capital. However, the extraversion had no significant effect on psychological capital. Moreover, problem-focused coping strategies had a positive and direct effect on psychological capital (0.66), whereas emotion-focused coping strategies had a negative and direct effect (-0.26). Neuroticism had a negative and direct effect on the problem-focused coping strategies (-0.31) and had a positive and direct effect on the emotion-focused coping strategies (0.47). Extraversion did not have a direct and significant effect on emotion and problem-focused coping strategies. However, flexibility, agreeableness and conscientiousness had a significant positive and direct effect on the problem-focused coping strategies and a direct negative effect on the emotion-focused coping strategies.

… [31]. Extroversion, flexibility, agreeableness and conscientiousness had a positive and significant relationship with psychological capital, cognitive appraisal and problem-solving styles, whereas they had a negative relationship with both emotional appraisal and somatization. These findings are consistent with the results of previous studies [32-35]. According to the results of studies, personality traits, including flexibility, conscientiousness and agreeableness had a positive and significant relationship with psychological capital. … [36, 37]. However, neuroticism has a negative relationship with psychological capital and extroversion has no significant relationship with psychological capital [32], which confirms the findings of this study. The results of the other investigations show that the hope and resilience from psychological capital, and personality traits had an effect on risky success in entrepreneurship, and the two predictor variables were strongly associated [38]. … [39].

It is suggested that this study be conducted on other students of governmental organizations and be compared with the results of this research.

The first limitation of the present study was that the findings were obtained through the questionnaire and self-report and it is not clear to what extent they are similar to the real behaviors of their everyday lives.

Neuroticism, flexibility, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and coping strategies have a positive effect on psychological capital that can be used to strengthen the psychological capital of adolescents in families with emotional divorce.

Researchers are grateful to all adolescents participated in this research.

None declared.

None declared.

This research was supported by the authors.

TABLES and CHARTS

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