The Effectiveness of Mindfulness Training on Cognitive Flexibility and Interpersonal Sensitivity in Adolescent Male Students with Symptoms of Social Anxiety

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Ph.D. student in General Psychology, Department of Psychology, Islamic Azad University, Ilam Branch, Ilam, Iran

2 Associate Professor, Department of Educational Sciences and Psychology, Faculty of Literature and Human Sciences, Ilam University, Ilam, Iran

3 Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Islamic Azad University, Ilam Branch, Ilam, Iran

10.22091/jrim.2025.11624.1131

Abstract

This research was conducted with the aim of the study of the effectiveness of mindfulness training on cognitive flexibility and interpersonal sensitivity in adolescents with symptoms of social anxiety. The research was semi-experimental type with a pre-test, post-test design with a control group. The statistical population of the research included all adolescent male students with symptoms of social anxiety disorder in the city of Koohdasht in the academic year of  2023-2024, among them were 30 adolescent students with symptoms of social anxiety disorder who had low scores in flexibility. They had cognitive adaptability and high scores in interpersonal sensitivity; thus, they were selected by available sampling and randomly assigned to two experimental (15 people) and control (15 people) groups. Data were collected using the Adolescent Social Anxiety Questionnaire (SASA), the cognitive flexibility questionnaire by Dennis and Vanderwaal (2010), and the interpersonal sensitivity questionnaire by Boyce and Parker (1989). The experimental group underwent mindfulness training during 8 sessions of 70 minutes. The data were analyzed using multivariate covariance analysis in SPSS software (version 24). The results showed that mindfulness training had a significant effect on the cognitive flexibility and interpersonal sensitivity of the experimental group (p<0.01), in other words, mindfulness training improved cognitive flexibility and reduced interpersonal sensitivity. The experimental group was effective (p<0.01). It can be said that one of the useful and effective trainings in order to strengthen cognitive flexibility and to reduce interpersonal sensitivity of adolescents with social anxiety disorder is mindfulness training.

Keywords

References

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History

  • Receive Date: 10 November 2024
  • Revise Date: 23 December 2024
  • Accept Date: 19 January 2025

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