The Effectiveness of Attachment-Based Intervention in Reducing Aggressive and Law-Breaking Behavior among Adolescent Girls

S. Rezaee Farahabadi

M. A. Mazaheri, Ph D

S.  Amiri, Ph D

H. Talebi, Ph D

The purpose of this research was to study the effectiveness of attachment-based intervention in reducing aggressive and law-breaking behavior among adolescent girls. This is a quasi-experimental study with experimental and control groups. The population of the study included all high school girls in Tehran in 2013-2014 academic year. The samples of the study comprised 42 high school girls with high levels of aggressive and law-breaking behavior alongside their mothers. The samples were selected through cluster sampling and were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The CBCL questionnaire was used to measure aggressive and law-breaking behavior and the IPPA scale was administered for the purpose of assessing the extent of attachment in adolescents. The intervention included 8 sessions of attachment-based therapy for mothers in the experimental group. The results of multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) showed that attachment-based therapy reduced aggressive and law-breaking behavior in the experimental group.

Key words: attachment-based intervention, aggressive behavior, law-breaking behavior, adolescent girls