The effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on self-regulation and emotion control in adolescents with high-risk behaviors

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on self-regulation and emotion control in adolescents with high-risk behaviors. The research method was experimental with a pretest-posttest design with a control group. The study's statistical population included all-male high school students in the second year of Ardabil city in the academic year 2020-2021. The research sample consisted of 30 members of the statistical population who were selected by the purposive sampling method and randomly replaced in two groups (experimental group of 15 people and control group of 15 people). The experimental group received eight 75 -minute sessions of acceptance and commitment therapy. To collect data in pre-test and post-test, Iranian adolescent’s risk-taking scale (Soleimani Nasab et al., 2018), Emotion Control Scale (Williams et al., 1997), and Bouffard's Self-Regulation Questionnaire (1995) was used. Data were analyzed by multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA). Findings showed that acceptance and commitment therapy had a significant effect on improving self-regulation (P<0.01, F=23.11) and emotion control (P<0.01, F =18.94) in adolescents with high-risk behaviors. According to the results, it can be stated that this treatment can be used as an effective intervention to improve self-regulation and emotion control in adolescents with high-risk behaviors.