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The present study investigates academic stress in two different cultures, the Iranian as a collectivist culture, and the Swedish as an individualist culture. A total of 616 university students (312 Iranian and 304 Swedish) participated in the study. The results show that Swedish students experience more academic stress than Iranian students. Academic stress was found to be related to difficulties in and outside class, and managing work, family and leisure activities. There was no cultural difference in terms of interacting with the university administration, teachers and friends. There was a gender difference, with females experiencing more academic stress than males, an effect that was more pronounced in Sweden than in Iran. Subset analyses (92 Swedes and 100 Iranians) revealed a tendency of Iranian students to balance positive and negative emotions in comparison to students from Sweden. Partial correlations showed that negative affect was the sole affect to significantly correlate with academic stress in Sweden. Negative and positive affect correlated in unison with academic stress in Iran. These results are discussed on an individualist-collectivist dimension. Cultural differences between the educational systems in the two countries may also explain the differing emotion/affect-health relationships.

Introduction: Polycystic ovary syndrome causes a decrease in sexual function and health-promoting behaviors. The present study compared the effectiveness of emotionally focused therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy on sexual function and health-promoting behaviors in women with polycystic ovary syndrome. Method: This semi-experimental study was carried out on women with polycystic ovary syndrome referred to the infertility clinic of Afzalipur Hospital in Kerman, in 2022. For this purpose, 45 patients were selected using convenience sampling and were then randomly placed into two experimental groups and one control group (15 people in each group). The experimental groups were subjected to the interventions of emotionally focused therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy. The questionnaires on sexual function and promoting lifestyle were used. Data were analyzed using SPSS21 software and variance analysis. Results: Findings revealed that the cognitive-behavioral therapy of emotionally focused therapy had significant effects on sexual function and health-promoting behaviors (P<0.05). The comparison of two therapies revealed that the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy on sexual function and health promoting behaviors is more than emotionally focused therapy. Moreover, there was no statistically significant difference between post-test and follow-up scores (P>0.05), which shows the lasting effect of the interventions on sexual function and health promoting behaviors in mothers with polycystic ovary syndrome. Conclusion: According to the results, the use of cognitive-behavioral therapy can be more effective on sexual function and health-promoting behaviors in women with polycystic ovary syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the current study was to examine the effects of bilingualism on letter and category fluency tasks. Participants were 1,600 monolingual and bilingual children from three cities in Iran: Tehran (Persian monolinguals), Tabriz (Turkish-Persian bilinguals), and Sanandaj (Kurdish-Persian bilinguals). We separately presented nine Persian letters and thirty-one categories to the participants, and asked them to generate as many words as possible using each of these initial letters and categories within a maximum of three minutes. Bilingual children generated more words than monolingual children in the letter fluency task; this effect was more pronounced in Grade 1 and for Turkish-Persian bilinguals. However, Persian monolinguals generated significantly more words than both bilingual groups in the category fluency task. Thus, bilingualism can be of both advantage and disadvantage, and produce a dissociative effect. We discuss the results on the basis of the specific nature and different cognitive demands of letter and category fluency tasks. We suggest that the degree of language proficiency of bilinguals should be considered as an important variable in future research on bilingualism.