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Objective: The present study aimed to examine the effectiveness of wisdom-based couples therapy on the sense of coherence, cognitive-affective empathy, and emotion regulation in conflicted couples. Methods: The research method was quasi-experimental, utilizing a pre-test–post-test design with a control group and follow-up. The statistical population included all couples with less than five years of marital life in Tehran who sought counseling at Andisheh, Athena, and Golchin Raz counseling centers during the summer and fall of 2023 to improve their intimate relationships. For sample selection, an announcement regarding session formation and initial registration conditions was disseminated to clients and consulting colleagues for referrals. After registration, eligible couples were selected through an initial interview based on the inclusion criteria. A total of 40 individuals were selected using convenience sampling and were randomly assigned to an experimental group (n = 20) and a control group (n = 20). Notably, each group consisted of eight couples experiencing conflict. The research instruments included the Marital Conflicts Questionnaire (Barati & Sanai, 1996), the Sense of Coherence Scale (Antonovsky, 1993), the Empathy Scale (Baron-Cohen, 2004), and the Emotion Regulation Scale (Williams et al., 1997). Descriptive statistics (charts, tables, frequency, percentage, mean, variance, etc.) were used to organize, summarize, and present the collected data. To test the research hypotheses, repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Bonferroni post-hoc tests were employed for pairwise comparisons among research groups. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS version 24. Findings: The results indicated that wisdom-based couples therapy significantly influenced the sense of coherence, cognitive-affective empathy, and emotion regulation in conflicted couples. Conclusion: Based on the research findings, it can be concluded that wisdom-based couples therapy contributes to the improvement of the sense of coherence, cognitive-affective empathy, and emotion regulation in conflicted couples.

Objective: The purpose of the current research was to identify the factors and contexts leading couples to mutual divorce. Method: This study was qualitative, utilizing descriptive phenomenology. The population consisted of couples seeking mutual divorce at counseling centers in Tehran. Among these, interviews with couples were conducted through purposive sampling until theoretical saturation was achieved. Qualitative data were collected using descriptive phenomenology and semi-structured interviews. Then, data analysis was performed using content analysis. Findings: The results of the content analysis of the data collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews showed that the contexts leading to mutual divorce could be categorized into eight classes: 1) extramarital relationships, 2) domestic violence, 3) childlessness, 4) conflicts, contradictions, and differences, 5) criminality, 6) addiction, 7) age, and 8) economic status. Conclusion: The results indicated that the factors leading to mutual divorce could be classified into two categories: personal factors and interpersonal or non-personal factors.

Objective: The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of foreign language anxiety (FLA) on English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) students’ cognitive processing of linguistic stimuli. Methods: The participants were 179 upper-intermediate or advanced EFL learners from different branches of an English language teaching institute. They were asked to fill out the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) questionnaire and then, considering their scores, were randomly assigned to high-anxiety and low-anxiety groups. To analyze the EFL learners’ cognitive processing of linguistic stimuli, a semantic decision task was used in the present study. In this task, participants saw a pair of words presented one after each other and were asked to decide whether the target word was related in meaning to the preceding prime word. Mixed Factorial Repeated Measure ANOVA was run on error rate (ER) data to establish the potential interaction between primes and targets. To reveal any potential anxiety effects, anxiety was run as a between-subject factor in the analysis. Results: The findings showed a statistically significant effect of anxiety on cognitive processing of linguistic stimuli with respect to ER. More specifically, the EFL students in the low-anxiety group made fewer errors in comparison to their counterparts in the high-anxiety group. Conclusion: The findings are attributed to the attentional control theory and cognitive overload of working memory, cognitive interference theory, and the specific nature of the task used in the present study. The results emphasize the fact that FLA could result in deficits in cognitive processing of linguistic stimuli by foreign language learners.