Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on internalized Shame and fear of failure in female students at elementary school

Puberty coincides with the transition to high school is an important challenge for Sixth-grade students in Iran that can lead to negative emotions such as shame and fear of failure in girls. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on internalized shame and fear of failure in sixth-grade girls. The present study was a quasi-experimental research with a pretest-posttest design with a control group. The statistical population of this study included all sixth-grade female students of primary schools in Babol, Mazandaran province in the academic year 1397-98, 30 of whom were selected based on the inclusion criteria by convenience sampling method and randomly divided into experimental and control groups. The Internalized Shame Scale (Ferguson et al., 2000) and the Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory (Conroy, 2002) were used to collect data in pre-test and post-test. The experimental group received eight 60-minute sessions of acceptance and commitment therapy weekly, while the control group did not receive training. Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance. The results showed that group therapy based on acceptance and commitment was effective in reducing internal shame (p <0.001; F = 36.94) and fear of failure (p <0.001; F = 34.50). Based on the findings of this study, it can be said that acceptance and commitment therapy can be used as an effective intervention to reduce the fear of failure and internalized shame of female students.