چكيده لاتين :
Introduction :
The concept of assertiveness as a very important personal quality means to be able to
advocate for yourself, your own positions, to achieve your objectives, to overcome the
difficulties and to control the aggressive impulses without harming the rights of others. It
has an important role in the effective social communication and healthy interpersonal
relationships. Thus, it should not be surprising that measures of assertiveness are frequently
included in studies of psychopathology and it is often addressed in mental health
treatments. For example, low levels of assertiveness are targeted in treatments of
generalized anxiety disorder (e.g., Brown et al. 2001), social phobia, (Lydiard and Falsetti
1995), posttraumatic stress disorder (e.g ,.Kubany 2002), depression (e.g., Beck 1995;
Young et al. 2001) and bulimia nervosa (e.g., Openshaw et al. 2004). According to the
literature search, the environmental (e.g. family and academic environmental variables)
variables as well as the process of emotion regulation in the field of social behaviors and
skills are significant parameters related to students’ assertiveness. Scholars have devoted
nearly 40 years of research examining these working models of parent-child
communication (or schemata), which are regarded in the theoretical construct of Family
Communication Patterns (FCP). Family communication patterns can be classified into
conversation and conformity orientations. In the conversation-oriented families, children
are encouraged to show feelings and express ideas, even if they disagree with others. In
contrast, in the conformity-oriented families, children are encouraged to avoid controversy
and obey parents' ideas without question (Ritchie and Fitzpatrick ,1990). Family
communication patterns have been found to be associated with communication
apprehension (Elwood & Schrader, 1998; Hsu, 1998), unwillingness to communicate (Avtgis, 1999), shyness (Huang, 1999), and reticence (Kelly et al, 2000). These studies
indicated that individuals who perceive their home environment as low in conversation and
high in conformity are more likely to suffer the problem of communication anxiety than
those who come from high conversation- and low conformity-oriented families. According
to Hsu (2009), communication patterns between teacher and student have also been shown
to be important for the development of some behaviors (Ayres, 1988; Daly & Friedrich,
1981). It is seemed that the concepts of conversation and conformity orientations could also
be applied to teacher-student communications. Conversation-oriented teachers encourage
their students to talk more in class, ask questions, and express ideas, whereas conformityoriented
teachers like their students to be quiet in class, avoid disagreements, and obey
teachers' ideas without question .As well, one mechanism that might explain outcomes of
FCP and TCP on social behaviors is the process of effective emotion regulation. There is no doubt that emotions serve numerous functions, such as evolutionary functions) Tooby &
Cosmides, 1990 ,(social and communicative functions) e.g., Ekman, 1993 ,(and decision
making functions) Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987), among others .There is a growing
appreciation that individuals exert considerable control over their emotions, using a wide
range of strategies to influence which emotions they have and when they have those (Gross,
1998). In this study, two common emotion regulation strategies _ cognitive reappraisal and
expressive suppression _were focused .Cognitive reappraisal is a form of cognitive change
that involves construing a potentially emotion-eliciting situation in a way that changes its
emotional impact (Lazarus & Alfert, 1964). For example, during an admissions interview,
one might view the give and take as an opportunity to find out how much one likes the
school, rather than as a test of one’s worth .Expressive suppression is a form of response
modulation that involves inhibiting ongoing emotion-expressive behavior (Gross, 1998).
For example, one might keep a poker face while holding a great hand during a card game.
Consequently, the aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between
family/teachers communication patterns with students ’assertiveness through the mediating
role of emotion regulation.
Research Questions or Hypothesis This study, in framework of a causal model ,investigated of the assertiveness based on
family/teacher communication Patterns .In this model family/teacher communication
patterns was considered as an exogenous variable, emotion regulation as a mediator
variable and students ’assertiveness as an endogenous variable. So ,the research questions
were;
1- Do family/teacher communication pattern predict students ’assertiveness?
2- Do family/teacher communication pattern predict emotion regulation?
3- Has emotion regulation any mediating role in relation to family/teacher communication
patterns and students ’assertiveness? Method
The Participants were 167 female and 132 male undergraduate students of Shiraz
University selected via random cluster sampling method. Adaptive and Aggressive
Assertiveness (Thompson and Berenbaum), Revised Family Communication Patterns
Inventory (Ritchie and Fitzpatrick), Teacher Communication Patterns (Hsu) and Emotion
Regulation Questionnaire (Gross and John (were used to measure the research variables.
The factor analysis was used to determine the validity of the measures and their reliability
was examined by Choronbach alpha coefficient .The evidence confirmed the validity and
reliability of the scales. A series of simultaneous sequential regression was conducted to
examine the model .Moreover ,Barown and Kenny steps and bootstrapping method in
AMOS was used to examine the mediational effects of intervening variables. Results
The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationships between family/teachers
communication patterns with students ’assertiveness by the mediating role of emotion
regulation .It was found that conversation orientation of FCP can directly or indirectly
predict two forms of assertiveness. Results showed that family conversation had positive ,
significant and indirect effect by mediating effect of cognitive reappraisal strategy. Indeed,
family conversation by mediating effect of cognitive reappraisal strategy had positive ,
significant and indirect effect on assertiveness. Moreover ,the conformity orientation of
FCP is just able to predict aggressive assertiveness. Also, findings revealed that teacher
communication patterns do not have any effect in assertiveness. Only the conformity
orientation predicts the expressive suppression strategy of emotion regulation. Discussion and Conclusion
This research showed that family conversation had positive, significant and indirect
effect by mediating effect of cognitive reappraisal strategy .Indeed, the families with
conversation orientation lead to the better use of the strategy of cognitive reappraisal and
subsequently it enhances adaptive assertiveness. So ,Family communication patterns have
important consequences in social life. Families with a free, comfortable, and rich
conversation orientation have a joyful family life compared with families with a conformity
orientation, resulting in an adaptive assertive behavior in children. If the family has an
acceptable ,compassion and non-punitive atmospheres, one also sees positive emotions and
learns to express her /his emotions (positive and negative ones) and how appraise the event
and difficulties .As a result ,this ability leads to adaptive behaviors .In this study ,these
different patterns and their implications have been discussed.
