Effect of metacognitive strategies on the treatment of

behavioral disorders in adolescents

Maryam Hasirbaf

and Shamim Maalavi

MA in General Psychology

Shiraz Welfare Administration, Iran

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of metacognitive strategies on the treatment of behavioral disorders in

adolescents. Anxiety and aggression disorders are common behavior among young people who study the effects of meta-

cognitive strategies we examined the two types of disorder. This is descriptive and analytic study. The study population

are young people who have referred to psychotherapy and counseling centers in Tehran. The sample size consisted of

220 patients who were randomly selected.T-sample method was used for calculating variables.Also, questionnaires and

interviews were used to collect data. The questionnaire consisted of 45 questions, and each of the variables were studied.

SPSS software was used to analyze the data. The level of signi cance for both variables equals 0.01 which is less than

0.05. As a result, both hypotheses were con rmed at 95%.In this study, it was found that metacognitive strategies have a

signi cant and positive effect on the treatment of behavioral disorders, especially anxiety and aggression in adolescents.

KEY WORDS: METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES, BEHAVIORAL DISORDERS, ANXIETY, AGGRESSION, TEENAGERS

267

ARTICLE INFORMATION:

*Corresponding Author: Shamimmaalavi@gmail.com

Received 27

Dec, 2016

Accepted after revision 2

March, 2017

BBRC Print ISSN: 0974-6455

Online ISSN: 2321-4007

Thomson Reuters ISI ESC and Crossref Indexed Journal

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Online Contents Available at: http//www.bbrc.in/

Biosci. Biotech. Res. Comm. Special Issue No 1:267-271 (2017)

INTRODUCTION

Teenager is the period from childhood to adulthood and

emotions and feelings are changed. In this period, emo-

tional states get stronger and sensitive, so as irritability,

anxiety, depression and aggression are observed more

in young people (Golshani, 2015). Teens are living in

a period of transformation that rapid changes in the

 eld of biological, behavioral, cognitive and emotional

characteristics are obvious in this period. The unwanted

developmental changes impose pressure on teenagers.

Part of this pressure is due to physical changes and some

other changes caused by social-cultural factors (Beshkar,

2009). One of the complex issues that is concerned by

many researchers, psychologists and experts is the con-

tributing factors in behavioral problems in children and

adolescents. These problems have long been common in

human societies and are widespread at the present time.

268 EVALUATION OF THE PROTECTIVE EFFECT OF VITAMIN C ON HEPATIC DAMAGE BIOSCIENCE BIOTECHNOLOGY RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS

Maryam Hasirbaf and Shamim Maalavi

Cognitive psychology has begun its rapid progress since

the second half of the twentieth century;and it was in

peak condition when the opponents like Watson had

rejected it. But meta-cognitive psychology is the idea

of founding a new  eld that dates back to 1970 (Salehi,

2001).

Metacognition is a multifaceted concept. This concept

includes knowledge, processes, and strategies that recog-

nizes, monitors, and controls the cognition (Wells, 2009

translated by Mohammad Khani, 2013).Metacognition

refers to the structures, knowledge, and the psychologi-

cal processes that control, modify and interpret thoughts

and knowledge.Metacognition is de ned as the knowl-

edge that how a person learns, knowing how to use avail-

able data to achieve a goal, ability to judge cognitive

processes in a particular task, knowledge of which strat-

egies should be used, and evaluating the progress dur-

ing and after the performance (Salarifar & Pouretemad,

2011). Metacognitive beliefs refer to the part of metacog-

nitive knowledge that connect the person’s beliefs about

cognition, cognitive, and emotional experiences (Wells,

2009 translated by Mohammad Khani, 2013).

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

Adolescence is a period of physical, cognitive, social,

and emotional changes; it is a dynamic and excite-

ment period for individuals. The ability to think, the

onset of puberty and changes in relationships with fam-

ily, friends, school and community, peers, family roles,

responsibilities, efforts to acquire new emotional and

social roles, management responsibilities without exces-

sive dependence on other people and new direction for

the future are formed in this period (Shaffer, 2014). The

adolescents take family a special way to express their

con icts that caused by their cognitive and often they

are reluctant to change their con ict styles over time

(Canary & Lakey, 2010). In other words, it seems that

the con ict style is dependent on in an environment

where con ict occurs in it. Teenager in the family envi-

ronment during a particular way to express the con ict

thatInteractions between family members and cognitive

emotion regulation strategies that are used can affect the

practices of con ict resolution (Jalali and Rafei, 2011). In

recent years, tendency towards the use of cognitive and

metacognitive therapy on children and adolescents has

been rising.Results of researches show that this method

is effective in the treatment of anxiety and aggression

disorders.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

MCT has been proposed in recent years, and it is con-

cerned from different aspects, such as having a regu-

lar structure, a limited number of sessions, emphasis on

process rather than content knowledge, and developing

speci c techniques such as attention training.MCT by

changing maladaptive thinking styles controls the  ex-

ibility in cognitive control.MCT has been welcomed by

speci c models for each disorder and experimental eval-

uation so that despite the short time after the emergence

of this approach, many researches have been conducted

on evaluation of basic theory and techniques of meta-

cognitive therapy (Wells, 2008).

This method has been the most applied treatment

of social anxiety disorder (Clark & Wells, 1995; Wells

& Papageorgiou, 2001), post-traumatic stress (Wells

& Sembi, 2004), generalized anxiety disorders (Wells,

2008), obsessive-compulsive disorder (Fisher and Wells,

2008).Lobban et al., (2002) reported that metacognitive

beliefs in patients with anxiety disorders, particularly

generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and obses-

sive-compulsive disorder are effective.

Metacognition is the one’s information about his cog-

nitive system. According to Thomson et al (2011), meta-

cognition judgment plays an important role in making

people feel good and their analytical thinking. Cognitive

strategies refer to any behavior or action that the learn-

ers use, and these strategies aim to help learning, organ-

izing and storing knowledge and skills, as well as ease

of operation in future (Weinstein & Hume, 1988).Meta-

cognitive strategies are known as ways to guide and

monitor. Metacognition is also a variable that can be

in uenced by visual capabilities. Metacognition is high

level of cognitive function that can be de ned as any

kind of consciousness or cognitive process to inform and

or control every aspect of cognition (Vargas et al., 2012).

In fact, metacognitive knowledge refers to beliefs

and knowledge stored in memory of person, duties, and

selecting strategies (Rosenzweig et al., 2011). Through

knowledge and metacognitive strategies,metacognition

works by changing beliefs and interpretation of speci c

symptoms such as intrusive thoughts, emotional pro-

cessing and response to injury. The main idea of this

approach is that in psychological disorder, beliefs consist

of meta-cognitive components that directs the thinking

and coping style; these beliefs in uenced by the think-

ing and coping style (Salarifar et al., 2011).

Social psychologists de ne aggressive act as the

conscious behavior that is aimed to cause physical

or mental pain (Aronson, 2007). In 1993, according

to Berkowitz, aggression is relative constant desire to

express with aggression by one’s behavior in various

situations (Mohseni Tabrizi & Rahmati, 2002). Aggres-

sion may arise in many different forms; its verbal and

physical represents the behavioral aspect, anger repre-

sents the emotional aspect, and hostility represents the

cognitive aspects of aggression (Naghdi et al., 2010).

Several factors contribute to the incidence of aggression

BIOSCIENCE BIOTECHNOLOGY RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS EVALUATION OF THE PROTECTIVE EFFECT OF VITAMIN C ON HEPATIC DAMAGE 269

Maryam Hasirbaf and Shamim Maalavi

Table 1. Mean comparison test

VariableMean

difference

statistic

Sig.Con dence

interval 95%

Lower

bound

Upper

bound

Anxiety

disorder

.58414.05.001.503.667

such as environmental factors like social observations,

media, and video games (Akbari, 2009). Family factors

such as: how to deal with the needs of children, inap-

propriate patterns, and parents and teachers’ encourage

(Mohammad Khani, 2006). Biological factors, such as:

inheritance factor (Mirza Beigi, 2011) and physiological

factors (Richard, Haljyn, 2009). Anger and aggression

are the most common problems in children and adoles-

cents, and these problems are the most important rea-

sons that people refer to counseling and psychotherapy

centers (Bornmann et al., 2007; Goodwin et al., 2003).

In most studies conducted on aggression boys than girls

are more aggressive than girls (Spencer, 2000).

The anxiety disorder is considered as the introspective

disorders (Shokouhi Yekta, 2005). This has negative feel-

ings with a sense of concern about the danger.Anxiety

symptoms are the same in children and adults but can rep-

resent differently at different ages (Butcher et al., 2009).

Anxiety can be de ned as a set of behavioral responses,

physiological and cognitive phenomena with concerns

about possible negative results or failure in a test or

evaluation conditions (Sadock & Sadock, 2003; Naderi,

2010)

There are several de nitions of anxiety, one of the

de nitions is “fear in real situations or  ction”. Although

anxiety and fear are similar, but they have obvious dif-

ferences. Fear refers to mishaps happening or will hap-

pen soon, while anxiety refers to the unjusti ed fear

(Atwell, 2006 translated Rahmati, 2009). The main fea-

tures of anxiety is worry that is the concern about the

uncertain consequences. It is harmful because it disrupts

the human ability to take action to solve the problem

(Huberty, 2010).

OBJECTIVES

Study of the metacognitive strategies effect on the treat-

ment of behavioral disorders in adolescents1. The effect

of metacognitive strategies on the treatment of anxiety

disorders in adolescents2. The effect of metacognitive

strategies on the treatment of aggression in adolescents

Hypotheses

The  rst hypothesis: metacognitive strategies have a

signi cant and positive effect on the treatment of gen-

eralized anxiety disorder in adolescents. The second

hypothesis: metacognitive strategies have a signi cant

and positive effect on the treatment of aggression in

adolescents.

METHODOLOGY

This is a descriptive-analytic method. The study popu-

lation are young people who have referred to psycho-

therapy and counseling centers in Tehran. The sam-

ple size consisted of 220 patients who were randomly

selected. T-sample method was used for calculating

variables.Also, questionnaires and interviews were used

to collect data. The questionnaire consisted of 45 ques-

tions, and each of the variables were studied. SPSS soft-

ware was used to analyze the data.

RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY

In this study, Cronbach test was used to test the reliabil-

ity of the questionnaire. In order to calculate Cronbach’s

alpha coef cient, the variance of each score of the ques-

tionnaire and the total variance of the questionnaire

should be calculated. Then, the alpha value is calculated

by the following formula.

Then, the data of questionnaires were calculated by

SPSS software, Cronbach’s alpha equaled 0.735 for the

questionnaire (after distribution of a sample n = 20).

Since alpha is larger than 0.70, the reliability of the

questionnaire is con rmed. To assess the validity, pro-

fessors and experts’ views were asked. According to their

opinions, questionnaire is valid.

DATA ANALYSIS METHOD

To analyze the data, one-sample t was used for the

impact of each variable.

INFERENTIAL STATISTICS

The  rst hypothesis: metacognitive strategies have a sig-

ni cant and positive effect on the treatment of general-

ized anxiety disorder in adolescents.

One-sample t-test

The test has ben designed to compare the mean of a

variable with the constant value. The hypothesis is as

follows:

Maryam Hasirbaf and Shamim Maalavi

270 EVALUATION OF THE PROTECTIVE EFFECT OF VITAMIN C ON HEPATIC DAMAGE BIOSCIENCE BIOTECHNOLOGY RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS

As the signi cant level of this test is 0.001 which is

less than 0.05, the null hypothesis is rejected at the level

of 0.05. The average of the variable does not equal 3

and it is signi cantly different. The mean difference is

0.584. As the con dence level is at 95%, it can be con-

cluded that the mean is greater than 3 for this variable.

As a result, metacognitive strategies have a signi cant

and positive effect on the treatment of anxiety disorder.

The second hypothesis: metacognitive strategies have

a signi cant and positive effect on the treatment of

aggression in adolescents.

One-sample t-test

The test has been designed to compare the mean of a

variable with the constant value. The hypothesis is as

follows:

and aggression show that the defective metacognitive

strategies are signi cantly associated with aggression

and cognitive trust is a strong predictor for aggression

(Sarvghad and Daneshpour, 2010). Other studies sug-

gest that improving metacognitive can reduce anger and

aggression (Steven, 1992).

Cognitive - behavioral therapy is a psychological term

that is used to describe therapeutic interventions that

alter cognitive processes with the aim of reducing psy-

chological distress and maladaptive behavior.Cognitive

- behavioral therapy is based on the fundamental premise

that feelling and behavior are largely the products of

cognition, so the cognitive and behavioral intervention

can make a change in thinking. Thus, the main elements

of cognitive behavioral therapy cognitive and behavio-

ral theories involve (Stallard, 2005 translated by Aliza-

deh, Rouhi and Goudarzi, 2010). Cognitive psychologists

deal with gathering the information of the world, way of

representing the information and turning it into knowl-

edge, storing it and use it for directing behavior.Cogni-

tive psychology includes a range of cognitive processes

such as feeling, perception, recognition of schemes,

attention, learning, memory, concept formation, medita-

tion, guided imagery, remembering, language, emotion,

and behavior that help to understand the nature of the

thinking mind (Rouhi, 2006).

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Table 2. Mean comparison test

VariableMean

difference

statistic

Sig.Con dence

interval 95%

Lower

bound

Upper

bound

Aggression

disorder

2,116.73.0011,482.73

As the signi cant level of this test is 0.001 which is less

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metacognitive strategies have a signi cant and positive

effect on the treatment of aggression disorder.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

In the  rst hypothesis with a con dence level of 95%,

it was found that the cognitive strategies have a signi -

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