Bahria Journal of Professional Psychology

1-9

Authors: Sehr Khalid & Dr. Tahira Yousaf

The present study aims to explore the effect of positive religious affirmations as an intervention in combination with Positive Group Psychotherapy, among subjects with depression. In a pre-post quasi experimental design, 14 depressed individuals were approached from Karachi, Pakistan through purposive sampling technique. Randomly, seven individuals were assigned to Group A and seven were assigned to Group B. Group A received 7 therapeutic group sessions consisting of religious affirmations along with positive psychotherapy. Group B received 7 therapeutic group sessions including purely positive psychotherapy interventions. Comparison of depression levels was made between pre intervention and post intervention. Siddiqui Shah Depression Scale was used for the measurement of level of depression. Results of the study indicated that positive religious affirmations in combination with positive group psychotherapy lead to a significant decline in depression level when compared pre-test and post-test, but post test results indicated insignificant level of difference between depression level of Group A and Group B. Current study has important implications for clinical and psychotherapeutic settings.

20-26

Authors: Sehrish Nawaz, Dr Muhammad Naveed Riaz, Shamshad Basheer

The present study was carried out to examine the impact of acculturation attitudes, acculturative stress, and cross-cultural capital on socio-cultural adaptation among Chinese academic sojourners. East Asian Acculturation Measure (Berry, 2001), Acculturative Stress Scale for International Students (Sandhu & Asrabadi, 1994), Cross-cultural Capital Scale (Nawaz, 2017), and Revised Socio cultural Adaptation Scale (Wilson, 2013) were used for data collection. The participants of the study comprised of 200 academic sojourners that were approached by using purposive sampling. Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression analysis were used to examine the hypothesized relationship and prediction of variables. Results indicated that acculturation attitudes, acculturative stress and cross cultural capital have a significant impact on the prediction of socio-cultural adaptation. The present study is insightful in understanding the process of adaptation among Chinese academic sojourners in the indigenous context.

44-56

Authors: Rabia Zonash Mir, Dr. Kehkashan Arouj, Anum Rehman, & Zainab Naqvi

Individual characteristics and manner of emotional expressivity are basic factors behind improving the overall emotional wellbeing of the individual. For that this quantitative study was conducted to explore the impact of personality traits and negative expressivity on psychological distress among university students. Participants of the current study comprised of 150 students (Male n= 80; Female n= 70) who were approached from different educational institutes though convenient sampling technique. The measures of the study comprised of Big Five Inventory, Brekely Expressivity Scale and Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS). Major findings of the study indicated that extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness has positive and neuroticism has negative relation with psychological distress i.e. depression, anxiety and stress whereas, negative expressivity has negative relationship with psychological distress i.e. depression, anxiety & stress. The regression analysis highlighted that personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, & openness) explained 5% variance in depression, 10% variance in anxiety and 9 % variance in stress. The value of regression analysis highlighted that negative expressivity explained no variance in psychological distress. Mean differences on T-test showed that female scored higher on extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness and negative expressivity whereas male scored higher on psychological distress. This study has important implications in clinical setting.