The application of the emerging media, virtual reality(VR) and augmented reality(AR), to the field of health psychology requires multidisciplinary work. This paper intends to promote such capacity of communication and collaboration with other experts in health psychologists and to help brainstorm ideas to utilize the technology. First, this paper defined the nature of VR and AR and it presented an overview, designed for the health psychologist, nontechnical reader, of the hardware and equipment used to create VR and AR. Then, the viability of VR and AR as a treatment or an assisting tool of treatment in the field of health psychology was discussed after a brief review of the literature on the treatment efficacy study of VR and AR. Possible applications of VR and AR in the field of health psychology were also explored. Finally, related issues were discussed.
The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy(ACT) on Body Image Esteem, Avoidance, and Self-Esteem of College Women with Negative Body Image. Three hundred fifty nine women college students who lived in chonbuk province completed the Body Esteem Test, the Body Cathexis Scale, the K-BICSI and the Self Esteem Scale. Eighteen patients who selected by those scales were randomly assigned to 9 in the ACT group and 9 in the waiting-list control group. All participants completed Body Esteem Test, Body Cathexis Scale, K-BICSI and Self Esteem Scale at pretreatment, end of treatment, and at 4 weeks follow-up periods. ACT program was administered for 8 sessions. The results of this study were as follows: Body Esteem, Self Esteem of therapy group were increased more than those of the waiting-list control group , and Avoidance was decrease in therapy group. Finally, the implications and the limitations of this study, and the suggestions for future study were also discussed.
This study examined the effects of loving-kindness meditation as an intervention for cultivating various positive affects for adult women. This study recruited urban women performing nonprofit activities and had them practice loving-kindness meditation for 8 weeks. The participants in this study were 29 women(15 in the experimental group and 14 in the control group). Measures were self-compassion, cognitive and affective mindfulness, self-esteem, positive and negative affect, and perceived stress, which were measured three times: before the study, at week 4, and at week 8. The major findings are as follows: self-compassion significantly increased for the experimental group after 8 weeks in comparison with the control group. Participants of the experimental group who had been practicing meditation over 3 times per week showed significantly increased self-compassion and mindfulness, and significantly decreased negative affect and perceived stress after 8 weeks. On the other hand, participants of the experimental group who had been practicing meditation under 3 times per week tended to show positive changes in many dependent variables, but they were not statistically significant. This study appears to verify the effects of loving-kindness meditation for increasing self-compassion. It was meaningful to show that loving-kindness meditation seems to increase mindfulness and other positive effects when practiced more than 3 times per week.
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among Hwa-byung symptoms, perceived stress, coping strategies and forgiveness likelihood. Participants included 768 adults (316 males, 452 females). Structural equation model was employed to find out how the perceived stress affects Hwa-byung symptoms being mediated by coping strategies and forgiveness likelihood. Result showed that perceived stress affected directly Hwa-byung symptoms. Also, problem-focused coping and forgiveness likelihood mediated negatively the relationship between perceived stress and Hwa-byung symptoms, whereas avoidant coping mediated positively the relationship between perceived stress and Hwa-byung symptoms. Multiple group analysis was accomplished to investigate the difference between genders. As a result, cross-validation was proven. The result suggested that Hwa-byung can occur regardless of gender and psychological intervention would be effective for treatment and prevention of Hwa-byung. Lastly, the limitations of this study were discussed.
This study is to investigate the relation of spiritual well-being and psychological well-being among Korean college students. The purpose of the study is to examine the importance of clients' spirituality in counseling and psychotherapy. The participants were 667 Korean college students (320 males and 347 females), ages ranged from 19 to 30 (M=22.33, SD=2.21). The psychological tests used in this research are the followings: the Korean version of the Spiritual Well-Being Scale and the Psychological Well-Being Scale. In the results, female students showed higher score of spiritual well-being than male students, and male students showed higher score of autonomy, environmental mastery than female students. The score of psychological well-being was found to be higher as the age and economic level of participants. Correlational analysis revealed that Spiritual well-being is positively related to psychological well-being and psychological sub-factors of well-being, and existential well-being is positively related to all psychological sub-factor well-being, and religious well-being is not necessarily related to autonomy. To contemplate over the study, stepwise regression is used. It revealed as religious well-being score gets higher, the scores of autonomy, environmental mastery, self acceptance, purpose in life of college students decrease if it was adjusted by existential well-being. The result agrees with previous studies that the religious well-being is negatively related to the psychological well-being as adjusted by existential well-being. These findings indicate the importance of spiritual well-being to help clients who are religious and have religion in counseling and psychotherapy. The mental health practitioners are suggested to be concerned about the psychological trait of clients especially when they deal with autonomy of clients.
This study explored whether forgiveness have any effects on the relationship between shame and depression in survivors of sexual abuse. To examine this, 580 male and female college student-participants were asked to complete the questionnaires of sexual abuse, shame, depression and forgiveness. 120 participants who were sexually abused presented high of shame and depression and low of forgiveness. The depression of the sexually abused group was positively related to shame, and negatively related to overall forgiveness, the forgiveness of self and situations. However, the forgiveness of others was not correlated. Based on the correlations above, we tested mediating effects of overall forgiveness, the forgiveness of self and situations on the relationship between shame and depression. The results show that overall forgiveness and the forgiveness of self and situations had partial mediating effects, whereas the forgiveness of others, which correlation was insignificant, was not mediated. These findings suggests the necessity of a forgiveness approach by means of a therapeutic intervention for sexually abused survivors, especially suggesting that forgiveness of self and situation might be important. Finally, we discuss the implications and limitations of this study and suggest future directions for this research.
The purpose of this study was to clarify the relationships among overvaluation of shape and weight, depression, body dissatisfaction and binge eating and to verify the mediating effect of the depression and body dissatisfaction in relation to the overvaluation of shape and weight and binge eating. For this study, 336 female undergraduate students were asked to complete Shape and Weight Based Slef-Esteem Scale, Weight and Shape Based Self Value Test, Body Shape Questionnaire, Bulimia Test Revised and Beck Depresson Inventory. The results of this study are summarized as follows: First, overvaluation of shape and weight, depression and body dissatisfaction had positive relationships with binge eating. Second, a stepwise strategy in multiple regression showed that body dissatisfaction, depression and Shape and Weight Based Self Esteem(SAWBS) predicted binge eating. Third, mediating effect of depression and body dissatisfaction between overvaluation of shape and weight and binge eating by structure equation modeling was significant. Fully mediating model of depression and body dissatisfaction was more fitted to the data than partially mediating model of depressoin and body dissatisfaction. Fourth, t-test and chi-square analysis showed that among the people with high level of overvaluation of shape and weight, participants with high level of depression and low level of body dissatisfaction were different from those with low level of depression and high level of body dissatisfaction in the body mass index and restraint eating which are risk factors of binge eating. Finally, the clinical implications and several limitations of the present study were discussed.
The present research aims at identifying risk factors and protective factors of problematic game use among Korean adolescents and exploring implications for primary, secondary and tertiary prevention. In-depth interviews were conducted for three kinds of groups. The first group includes adolescents who are currently using games without any problems or making a good use of games. The second group includes adolescents who have developed key symptoms of problematic game use. The third group includes adolescents who had used games problematically in the past but currently do not exhibit such problematic symptoms. These groups were analyzed using a grounded theory approach, leading to a paradigm model consisting of 13 categories, 35 subcategories and 61 concepts. The analysis showed that phenomena of "problematic game use" were developed due to the influence of causal conditions of "reasons for playing games" as well as contextual conditions of "stress in daily lives", "environmental factors that make it hard to control game use" and "lack of other recreational activities". The action and interaction aspects were classified into "lack of intentions, motives or preparation to control game use" and "efforts to control game use". Intervening conditions that affect action and interaction were "situational factors that are helpful for controlling game use", "personal resources needed for controlling game", "environmental resources needed for controlling game use" and "other recreational activities that can substitute games". By developing the storyline of phenomena, a core category of "the processes of problematic game use of adolescents and improvement processes" was derived. The risk factors and protective factors in problematic game use were discussed in relation to primary, secondary and tertiary prevention.
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between perceived discrimination and depression, and the mediating effects of coping strategies and social support among Chinese students studying in Korea. After 201 participants answered four questionnaires, path analysis was done in order to find out mediating effects. The result of this study showed the direct effect of perceived discrimination on depression. Also, supressive coping and reactive coping, which are maladaptive coping strategies, mediated positively, and social support, which is the interpersonal variable, mediated negatively between perceived discrimination and depression. The path analysis showed that the direct effect of perceived discrimination was the largest, and among indirect effect of mediators, effect of supressive coping was the largest. This study suggested that perceived discrimination caused depression among Chinese students studying in Korea, and the intervention should be done about decreasing maladaptive copings and increasing social support. Lastly, the limitation and the significance of this study was discussed.
The purpose of this study was to develop and validate the Korean Forgiveness Scale-Short form(KFSS). The sample consisted of 1560 adults who had been hurt by others(age range: 20-60 years old). The measures included the KFSS, one-item forgiveness question, Heartland Forgiveness Scale(HFS), Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory(TRIM), Spielberger Anxiety and Anger Scale, and CES-D. The results showed that the KFSS had relatively good internal consistency(Cronbach α=.86) and test-retest reliability(r=.78). Both explanatory and confirmatory factor analyses suggested that the KFSS had one factor which explained 44.80% of total variance. The KFSS was highly correlated with one-item forgiveness question. It also had significant correlations with other forgiveness measures(HFS and TRIM). In addition, the forgiveness group had significantly higher KFSS scores than the non-forgiveness group. Finally, the KFSS was negatively correlated to anger, anxiety, and depression. These results suggested that the KFSS had good reliability and validity.
This study was to investigate the concept of alcohol use as coping, developing items which measure alcohol use as coping with stresses directly. Participants were 413 college students (208 males and 205 females) whose ages ranged from 18 to 31 (M=21.65, SD=2.05). For this study, coping motives for alcohol use, and expectancy of enhancing sociality and tension-reduction from alcohol use as well as life stresses of college students and alcohol use as coping. Factor analysis revealed that 12 items of measuring alcohol use as coping retained just 1 factor and showed satisfactory internal consistency. Especially, alcohol use as coping was correlated with interpersonal stresses, and it only accounted approximately 7% variance of life stresses of college students. Concept of alcohol use as coping was discussed with results of this study and previous studies.
The purpose of present study is to examine the moderating effect of happiness on the relation between mental disorders and suicidal behavior. The participants were 1165 college students (652 males, 513 females) in Seoul. They were administered the Korean Mental Disorder Inventory (K-MDI), the Suicidal Behavior Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R), and the Concise Measure of Subjective Well-Being (COMOSWB). The results showed significant moderating effects of happiness on the relation between mental disorders and suicidal behavior. In particular, the effects of happiness enhancement on reducing the possibility of suicidal behavior were greater for the group with mental disorders than the group without mental disorders. Based on these findings, it was suggested that, even for those with more severe mental disorders, suicide prevention programs should include the efforts to enhance happiness as well as therapeutic intervention aimed at reduction of mental illnesses.