issn ;2541450x (online) 1 vol. 1 no. 1 (june 2021), pp. 1-4 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v2i1.2956 the assertiveness of acehnese and javanese university students martini1, syiva fitria 2 1 department of psychology department, universitas malikussaleh, indonesia; 2 department of islamic guidance and counseling department, institut agama islam negeri langsa, indonesia  corresponding author: syiva fitria (email: syivafitria@iainlangsa.ac.id) abstract – the current study aims to determine the differences in the javanese and acehnese students of the psychology study program at the malikussaleh university. this study used descriptive quantitative methods. the participants were 30 active students, equally from acehnese and javanese ethnic backgrounds of the psychology study program at the malikussaleh university recruited using a purposive random sampling technique. the data collected by using the assertive behavior scale. data analysis used statistical analysis of the independent sample t-test. the results of this study indicate that there was no differences in assertiveness between javanese (m= 66,93, sd= 3,474) and acehnese (m= 67,67, sd= 4,254) (t= 0.527, p  0.005) article history: received: june 24, 2021 revised: june 25, 2021 accepted: june 30, 2021 published: june 30, 2021 keyword: assertiveness; acehnese; javanese; university students how to cite (apa 7th edition) martini, m., & fitria, s. (2021). the assertiveness of acehnese and javanese university students. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 1(1), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v2i1.2956 this is an open-access article distributed under the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. this is enabled under the terms of attribution and noncommercial usage of the material ©2021 by martini & syiva fitria 2 the assertiveness of acehnese and javanese university student assertiveness is the individual ability to communicate one’s thoughts confidently without being aggressive (comstock, 2020). being assertive indicates an individual with high self-esteem through communicating needs or preferences to the other party. alberti and emmons (1974) define assertive individuals as individuals who self-assuredly express their stances and act decisively. assertive is the ability being able to communicate though, feelings, and desires. being assertive requires honesty with oneself and honesty in expressing feelings, opinions, and needs proportionately without manipulation. according to llyod (1991), assertive behavior is honest and active behavior in which one can express opinions to others and respect for himself and others. furthermore, atkinson (1997) stated that assertive behavior is where a state of mind also has specific verbal and non-verbal communication skills. assertiveness is about having thoughts and carrying out those thoughts without any coercion. however, assertiveness should not be confused with an aggressive attitude, and assertiveness is honest, objective, not influenced by judgments or emotional things. correspondingly, lioyd (1991) states that there are several assertive characteristics. the first is being able to say no politely and firmly. the second is being able to express honest feelings. the third is that individuals will speak following reality and honestly with others, and the last can express preferences and priorities. thus, assertiveness is behavior that shows the ability to express what is wanted, felt, and thought to others but still maintains and respects the rights and feelings of others. crassini, law, & wilson (1979) analyze the gender effect in assertiveness, resulting in no significant differences between males’ and females’ levels of assertiveness. however, llyod (1991) argued that assertiveness is influenced by gender. since childhood, the roles and education of men and women have been differentiated by society and customizing that boys must be assertive and competitive, while girls must be passive and sensitive, resulting in boys behaving more assertively than girls. furthermore, there were many studies have been conducted on assertiveness. a study conducted by surya, menanti, & siregar (2018) explores the effects of educators’ assertive behavior on the anxiety experienced by foreign language students. additionally, filippello et al. (2014) also examined the relationship between assertive behavior and frustration intolerance, and unhealthy emotions. so, assertiveness is an aspect that occurs in various fields. nevertheless, the current study intended to analyze the cross-culture effect on assertiveness as a previous study known as the globe study argued that assertiveness is one of 9 dimensions of culture (house et al., 2004). furthermore, calza, aliane, & cannavale (2010) conducted a study that culture powerfully influenced assertiveness and determined the success of italian managers in managing algerian employees who are low in assertiveness. additionally, previous research found that assertiveness influences adjustment. a study with university students by parmaksız (2019) found that university student level of assertiveness determined students’ adjustment in many aspects, specifically emotional adjustment, personal adjustment, adjustment to the opposite sex, social adjustment, academic adjustment, and adjustment in general. therefore, this study aims to analyze the differences in assertiveness between acehnese and javanese university students. introduction martini & syiva fitria 3 the current study was quantitative descriptive research. the participants of this study were 30 university students with acehnese and javanese ethnic backgrounds from malikulssaleh university. the participants were recruited using purposive random sampling and participated in this study voluntarily and consciously. this research was conducted for one month and two weeks, from october 2019 to november 2019. the data was collected using questionnaires consist of demographic information items and a 29-items likert scale on assertiveness. the collected data was analyzed using spss 23.0 statistic software. an independent sample t-test was performed to analyzed the difference in assertiveness between the two groups. independent samples t-test was used to assess whether there was a difference between a group of independent samples. based on this analysis, it is known that in the assertive variable, there is no difference between the assertiveness of the javanese and the acehnese (t= .527, p  .005). that javanese’s assertiveness (m= 66,93, sd= 3,474) is similar the acehnese’s assertive (m= 67,67, sd= 4,254). table 1 levene’s test result f p-value t 0,071 0,792 -0,517 based on the output above, it is known that the value of sig. levene’s test for equality of variances is 0.792 > 0.05, which means that the data variance between the javanese and the acehnese is homogeneous (v. wiratna sujarweni, 2014: 99) so that the interpretation of the independent samples test output table above is guided by the values contained in the equal variances assumed table. based on the independent samples test output table in the equal variances assumed section, sig’s value is known. (2-tailed) of 0.609 > 0.05. so as the basis for decision making in the independent samples test, it can be concluded that ha is rejected and ho is accepted. thus it can be concluded that the significant value in the f test is 0.792 greater than 0.05, so ho is accepted. so, it can be concluded that the two tribes between java and aceh are the same. with this test, the t-test uses equal variances assumed (assuming that both variants are the same). the purpose of this study was to determine whether there were differences in assertive behavior between javanese and acehnese on psychology students at malikussaleh university. this research was conducted by using quantitative research methods through likert scale questionnaires for data collection. the research found that there were no differences in assertiveness between javanese and acehnese students. this finding contradicts with the previous study that stated culture, especially research method result discussion 4 the assertiveness of acehnese and javanese university student tribes in assertiveness, such as the study conducted with italian manager with algerian staff that implicitly stated there different in the assertiveness of algerian that increases the assertiveness of manager (calza, aliane, & cannavale, 2010) however, since this study was conducted with a small number of participants, future research needed a larger sample to analyze the cultural differences of assertiveness. further research is also recommended in assessing how assertiveness influencing university students’ behavior. based on the results obtained, it can be concluded that the assertiveness between the two tribes, javanese, and acehnese, is similar. atkinson, j. m. (1997). pengantar psikologi (edisi kesebelas jilid satu). interaksara. alberti, r. e., & emmons, m. l. (1974). your perfect right: a guide to assertive behavior. 2d ed. impact. calza, f., aliane, n. & cannavale, c. (2010). cross-cultural differences and italian firms’ internationalization in algeria: exploring assertiveness and performance orientation. european bussiness review, 22 (2), 246-272 comstock, nancy w. (2020). assertiveness. salem press encyclopedia. retrieved may 2019 from http://0search.ebscohost.com.biblio.url.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&an=100259209&lang= es&site=eds-live. crassini, b., law, h. g., & wilson, e. (1979). sex differences in assertive behaviour? australian journal of psychology, 31(1), 15-19. filippello, p., harrington, n., buzzai, c., sorrenti, l., & costa, s. (2014). the relationship between frustration intolerance, unhealthy emotions, and assertive behaviour in italian students. journal of rational-emotive & cognitive-behavior therapy, 32(4), 257-278. house, r.j., hanges, p.j., javidan, m., dorfman, p.w. & gupta, v. (eds) (2004) culture, leadership, and organizations. sage. lloyd, s. r. (1991). mengembangkan perilaku asertif yang positif. (terjemahan). binarupa aksara parmaksız, i̇. (2019). assertiveness as the predictor of adjustment to university life amongst university students. international journal of instruction, 12(4), 131-148. https://doi.org/10.29333/iji.2019.1249a surya, d., menanti, a., & siregar, n. s. s. (2018). the relationship between self-efficacy and lecturer’s assertive behavior with foreign language anxiety. enlighten: jurnal bimbingan konseling islam, 1(2), 150-164. https://doi.org/10.32505/enlighten.v1i2.784 conclusion references https://doi.org/10.32505/enlighten.v1i2.784 issn ;2541450x (online) 25 vol. 1 no. 1 (june 2020), pp. 25-29 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i1.1721 peers and sources of information and their implications for adolescent sexual behavior khairil fauzan k. department of environmental health, sekolah tinggi ilmu kesehatan bustanul ulum, aceh, indonesia  corresponding author: khairil fauzan k (email: fauni_ozan@yahoo.com) abstract – current study aims to analyze factors that influence adolescents sexual behavior. this study was was explanatory research with associative explanatory methods the participants of this study were 38 high school students that recruited using purposive sampling method. the results reveled that adolescents that were strongly exposed to information sources were 60.5% and weak ones were 39.5%. furthermore, peer influence is felt as strong as 36.8% and the influence is felt as weak is 63.2%. there was significant effect of information resources on adolescents’ sexual behavior (p < 0.05) while there was no significant effect of peers (p > 0.05). article history: received: january 6, 2020 revised: february 8, 2020 accepted: march 8, 2020 published: june 18, 2020 keyword: adolescents; peers; sexual behavior; sources of information how to cite (apa 7th edition) fauzan k., k. (2020). peers and sources of information and their implications for adolescent sexual behavior. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 1(1), 25-29. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i1.1721 this is an open-access article distributed under the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. this is enabled under the terms of attribution and noncommercial usage of the material. ©2020 by khairil fauzan k. 26 peers and sources of information and their implications for adolescent sexual behavior adolescence is transition phase from childhood to adulthood. santrock (2010) stated in adolescence, individual changes and development include emotional, cognitive, moral, social and physiological aspects occur concurrently. kusmiran (2011) proposed that one important aspect of transformations that must be focused is physiological changes which an important period when the occurrence of the first menstruation called menarche in women, while in men is marked by wet dreams. since the body will experience dramatic changes because the body begins to produce sexual hormones which affect the reproductive system. in line with the changes that occur in adolescents, they also challenged with tasks that are different from those in childhood period. as is known, in every developmental phase, including adolescence, individuals have developmental assignments that must be accomplished (santrock, 2010). unfortunately, not all adolescents can accomplish these tasks completely since adolescence is said to be a problematic period where adolescents also encountered with variety of problems. one problem emerges among adolescents is problem around sexuality, such as human immuno deficiency virus (hiv) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (aids) as well as narcotics and other addictive substances (drugs)(bkkbn, 2012). additionally, information about sexual problems should begin to be given during adolescents, thus they do not obtain information from other people or from unreliable and invalid sources. providing information on sexual problems becomes even more important considering that adolescents are in an active sexual potential, because it is related to sex drive that is influenced by hormones. however, they often have insufficient information related to sexual activity which can be dangerous for the mental development of a teenager. moreover, haryanto (2012) stated that most adolescents do not know the impact of their sexual behavior, often adolescents are not mature enough to have sexual intercourse, especially if they have to bear the risks of sexual intercourse. according to pieter (2010) youths spend a lot of time outside the home and with friends. this condition makes adolescents vulnerable to the influence of their friends in choosing their interests, attitudes and behaviors. the most prominent change based on peer influence is the change in heterosexual relationships in which adolescents like the opposite sex. a study among high school student (2015) found that the factors that influenced adolescents to have sexual intercourse were peers who had boyfriends and friends who agreed with premarital sex which encourage friends to do this behavior. furthermore, based on initial interview with some adolescents and teachers revealed that some of students involved in premarital pregnancy and abortion. thus, this study intended to analyzed factors that influence adolescents sexual behavior. the research design used was explanatory research with associative explanatory methods. this research was conducted in sma negeri 1 kejuruan muda. the participants of this study were 38 high school students that recruited using purposive sampling technique with the following criteria; first is third year students, second students who have been dating or currently in relationships and the last one is students who are willing to be research respondents. introduction research method fauzan k., k. 27 results revealed the influence of information factors and peer factors on adolescent sexual behavior. it was found that the percentage of adolescents exposed to information media was 60.5% and adolescents not exposed to information media was also 39.5%. however, based on the 38 adolescents studied, it was found that the majority of adolescents had a weak influence on their peers, namely 63.2%, while the strong adolescents had a strong influence on their peers as much as 36.8%. for sexual behaviors, based on table 4.3 of the 38 adolescents studied, it was found that adolescents who did sexual behavior were 47.4% and adolescents who did not do sexual behavior by 52.6% based on the cross tabulation of information sources with adolescent sexual behavior (see table 1.), it was found that adolescents who were exposed to information sources such as online media, print media and electronic media tended to perform sexual behavior by 47.4%, while adolescents who were not exposed to information media showed no sexual behavior by as much as 47.4%. 34.2%. based on the chi square test, it was found that p <0.05, where there was a relationship between sources of information and adolescent sexual behavior. table 1 crosstabs information sources with adolescent sexual behavior information resources sexual behavior total p (sig) yes no f % f % f % strong influence 18 47,4 5 13,1 23 60,5 0.000 weak influence 2 5,3 13 34,2 15 39,5 total 20 52.6 18 47.4 38 100 based on the cross tabulation of peer factors with adolescent sexual behavior (see table 2.), it is found that adolescents who have strong relationships with their peers will have negative sexual behavior (28.9%) while adolescents who have less strong relationships with their peers will not engage in sexual behavior (28.9%). 39.4%). based on the chi square test, p (0.016) <0.05 was obtained where there was a peer relationship with adolescent sexual behavior. table 2 crosstabs peers with adolescent sexual behavior peers sexual behavior total p (sig) yes no f % f % f % strong 9 23,7 15 39,4 24 63,2 0.016 weak 11 28,9 3 7,9 14 36,8 total 20 52.6 18 47.4 38 100 from the three independent variables, namely the variable knowledge, information sources and peers, it was found that the variables that had a significant influence were the knowledge variable (p 0.03) and the information source variable (0.007) where both variables had a p value (sig) <0.05. stated that this variable has a positive effect on the dependent variable, namely adolescent sexual behavior. result 28 peers and sources of information and their implications for adolescent sexual behavior based on the results of the multivariate test using logistic regression test, it was obtained that the p value was 0.007 <0.05, thus it can be said that the variable information sources had a significant effect on adolescent sexual behavior. this research is in line with previous research conducted by suidhan (2010) regarding the relationship between reproductive health knowledge and late adolescent sex behavior in health and non-health. the results of the study using multivariate analysis showed that the relationship between media exposure (wald = 10.687, p = 0.001) was the dominant factor that led to premarital sex among students. sources of information are the availability of media that can be accessed by teenagers such as online media, electronic media and printed media. adolescent sexual activity and behavior are also heavily influenced by technological advances, such as print and electronic media. teenagers easily get pornographic things from magazines, television, vcd, and the internet, while teenagers tend to imitate or try new things in order to answer their curiosity. in line with this, research conducted in bali (denpasar and singaraja), adolescents have sexual relations due to the desire to experiment because of stimulation from magazines, films, pornographic images of (62.41%), friends (33.69%), teachers (14.18%), and parents (11.7%). accordingly, the ease with which teenagers have in accessing various media nowadays makes teenagers vulnerable to sexual acts. for example, when watching movies in a cinema, it has become commonplace to see kissing scenes that can inspire young people watching to do the same thing as what they see. in addition, the existence of smartphones is a source of online information that has great potential for sexual exposure where adolescents can personally easily access it anytime and anywhere. based on the results of the multivariate test, it is known that there is no peer influence on sexual behavior. in this study, it means that peers do not determine adolescent sexual behavior. according to santrock, conformity with peers during adolescence can be positive or negative. generally, adolescents are involved in all forms of negative conformity behavior such as: using obscene language, stealing, destroying, and making fun of parents and teachers, following dating behavior. however, much of the peer conformity is positive and consists of a desire to be included in the peer world, such as dressing like friends and a desire to spend time with “gang” members. such situations can also involve prosocial activities such as when raising money for meaningful purposes. during adolescence, especially early adolescence, adolescents follow peer standards more closely. thus, according to the researchers' assumptions, peers in this study are not an example and a social model for negative sexual behavior, this can be because there is still a sense of shame and reluctance towards fellow friends. in conclusion, this current study found that there was significant effect of information resources on adolescents’ sexual behavior while there was no significant effect of peers. thus, adolescents are expected to filter accurate information about sexual behavior and educate discussion conclusion fauzan k., k. 29 themselves on sexual behavior so that they are not mistaken and are not trapped in unacceptable premarital sexual behavior. badan kependudukan dan keluarga berencana nasional. (2012). pengelolaan pusat informasi dan konseling remaja dan mahasiswa. darmayanti, d., lestari, y. & ramadani, m. (2011). peran teman sebaya terhadap perilaku seksual pranikah siswa slta kota bukit tinggi. jurnal kesehatan masyarakat andalas 6(1), 24-27. https://doi.org/10.24893/jkma.v6i1.84 hariyanto. (2012). pendidikan seksual pada remaja. retrived august 2018, from belajarpsikologi.com/pendidikan-seksual-pada-remaja/html kusmiran. (2011). kesehatan reproduksi remaja dan wanita. salemba medika. pieter. (2010). pengantar psikologi untuk kebidanan: edisi revisi. prenada media group. ririn. (2009). faktor yang mempengaruhi perilaku seks pranika pada remaja sma di surakarta. retrived august 2018 from http://eprints.ums.ac.id/5959/ santrock, j. w. (2010). adolescence: daur perkembangan hidup. erlangga. tukiran. (2010). keluarga berencana dan kesehatan reproduksi. pusat studi kependudukan dan kebijakan universitas gajah mada. references issn ;2541450x (online) 38 vol. 1 no. 2 (dec 2020), pp. 38-42 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i2.2838 effectiveness of social support with adolescent's self-acceptance in postdivorce parents merri hafni department of psychology, universitas medan area, north sumatera, indonesia.  corresponding author: merri hafni (email: hafnimerri@staff.uma.ac.id) abstract – the study aims to identify the effectiveness of social support to self-acceptance in adolescent post-divorce parents. the samples in this study were 40 students of sma al-ulum medan. the technique of sampling data was to use purposive sampling taken using the criteria of adolescents who are divorced parents and obtained from documentation from the school. the data collection method was the social support scale and the selfacceptance scale. analyze the data using product moment correlation. the findings showed a significant association between social support and self-acceptance, with the coefficient is 0.875 and p-value< 0.001. the results showed that social support contributes to self-acceptance in 76.3%. that was, there were still 23.7% of other factors not studied in this study. the results showed that social support strongly influenced adolescents to accept their parents' divorce conditions. article history: received: august 9, 2020 revised: september 5, 2020 accepted: november 5, 2020 published: december 28, 2020 keyword: adolescent; post-divorce; selfacceptance; social support how to cite (apa 7th edition) hafni, m. (2020). effectiveness of social support with adolescent's self-acceptance in post-divorce parents. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 1(2), 38-42. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i2.2838 this is an open-access article distributed under the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. this is enabled under the terms of attribution and noncommercial usage of the material. ©2020 by merri hafni. hafni, m. 39 family is the first and foremost institution for children; the role of parents is perfect for supporting the child's future. especially the role of a good mother to educate children, in the family we can know life. not to be also missed from the part of a father who can help form the personality of the child. from the parenting pattern received by the child, the child can interpret their own lives and fulfil life in both physical and psychic form. family is also a medium for us to be happy with a whole and prosperous family can make life feel pleased while on the contrary, if the family is less harmonious, there is no happiness. father and mother must always support the opportunities children provide to build their soul and mentality for their future. a child needs the role of parents, and parents must also be able to balance their affection and work in the family. according to cole in ghufron & risnawati s. (2014), the impact of divorce with low selfacceptance is to feel neglected by parents who leave it, having difficulty in accepting reality in the aftermath of divorce, withdrawing from old friends and his favourite activities, losing interest in learning, performing unworkable or unacceptable acts such as stealing, ditching, in addition to starting to use abusive language, being aggressive or rebellious, feeling angry and unsure of his own beliefs regarding love, marriage and family, began to worry about adult issues, such as family financial security, felt obliged to bear more adult responsibilities in the family self-acceptance, according to hurlock (in hadyani & indriana, 2017), defines selfacceptance as the ability to accept everything that is in oneself both lack and excess, so that if there is an unpleasant event, one will be able to think logically about the good or bad of a problem that occurs without causing hostility, feelings, or feelings of inferiority, shame and insecurity. hurlock (1991) added that it is not impossible to arise a lame personality if the individual sees only from one side. the more the individual likes himself, he will accept himself, and he will be more accepted by others who say that individuals with good self-acceptance will be able to get natural characters and not criticize something that cannot be changed anymore. several factors certainly influence one's self-acceptance. according to sari & nuryoto (2017), one of the factors that influence self-acceptance is social support. according to sarason & pierced in happynda (2017), social support is a physical and psychological comfort given by others. with social support, one feels that he or she is loved, cared for, and appreciated by others. according to gottlieb in maslihah (2011), social support is verbal and non-verbal information, advice, real help or behaviour provided by people familiar with the subject in his social environment that positively affects the emotional state that receives such support. in this case, the person who gets social support emotionally feels relieved because he or she is noticed, gets advice, or a pleasant impression on him to find a way out to solve the problem. social support from the family is significant in supporting the future of adolescents after a parent's divorce. social support from the family and the environment is very influential at the end of youth, where this social support has a positive impact. for example, if the child has no place to complain for their anger, the family or the environment is very important to vent the outpouring of hearts that want to listen. the most important social support is from parents and families. although the family is no longer intact, teenagers need protection for both sides between mother and father. teenagers want to be cared for, loved, loved and given the support introduction 40 effectiveness of social support with adolescent's self-acceptance in post-divorce parents that suits the growing age of adolescents. in addition to parents' approval, help from the environment is also vital, namely support from teachers, school friends, peers and neighbours. because in adolescence, it is crucial to give them more attention than their parents, but in reality, their parents have also separated. the teenager had to accept the fact of his life. thus, from the phenomenon and exposure to the above theory when viewed from adolescents with divorced parents, with good social support from the family and from the outside environment, the youth will always accept themselves well if supported by social support. therefore social support is significant for the self-acceptance of teenagers. the method in this study uses the quantitative approach, which is to suppress the analysis of numerical data processed by statistical method. through quantitative methods, there will be significant differences between the variables studied. at the same time, the type of research used in this study is correlational that connects two variables, between self-acceptance (y) in postdivorce adolescent parents with social support variables (x). social support is defined as verbal and non-verbal information, advice, real help or behaviour provided by people familiar with the subject in their social environment who positively affect the emotional state that receives the support. in this case, the person who gets social support emotionally feels relieved because he or she is noticed, gets advice, or a pleasant impression on him to find a way out to solve the problem. self-acceptance is the extent to which an individual can be aware of the personality characteristics they have and is willing to live with those characteristics. the ability to accept everything in oneself lacks and advantages that have, so that if there is an unpleasant event, then one will be able to think logically about the good or bad of a problem that occurs without causing hostility, inferiority, and shame and insecurity. the population in this study was 450 students of class x-xii at sma al-ulum medan with an age range of 15-18 years. the sample in the study was 40 teenagers from divorced parents. the technique used in taking research samples is the purposive sampling technique, a sampling technique with specific criteria. the data analysis used in this study is a quantitative study with the pearson product moment test. the collected data is analyzed to see the research results and then draw conclusions from the investigation results. based on the test results of the measuring instrument known social support scale of adolescents, out of 50 items, there are 34 valid items with a corrected item-total correlation value between 0.305 to 0.597. the reliability index gained 0.873. while the self-acceptance scale trial results, out of 50 items, there are 39 valid items with a corrected value of total correlation between 0.300 to 0.525, and the reliability index was 0.913. normality tests on data distribution are conducted to prove that the research data spreads based on the principle of standard curves. the spread normality test was analyzed using the one research method result hafni, m. 41 kolmogorov-smirnov test. based on the analysis, it is known that both variables follow the normal distribution that is distributed following the principle of standard curves. table 1 is a summary of the calculation of normality of data distribution table 1 normality test results variable mean kolmogorovsmirnov standard deviation p-value explanation selfacceptance 168.25 0.625 13.511 0.830 normal social support 161.75 0.642 14.569 0.804 normal based on the analysis results with the pearson correlation analysis method, it is known that there is a positive relationship between social support and self-acceptance in post-divorce adolescent parents where r= 0.873 with p-value < 0.001. table 2 multiple regression tests correlation r r2 p-value explanation x-y 0.873 0.763 < 0.001 significant the determinant coefficient (r2) of the relationship between variable x and variable y is 0.763. this distribution shows that social support contributed to self-acceptance by 76.3%. to know how the condition of social support, it is necessary to compare between empirical mean and hypothetical mean by paying attention to the magnitude of each variable. for social support variables, the value or sd is 14,569, while the self-acceptance variable value or sd is 13,511. based on the comparison of both mean (hypothetical and empirical mean), adolescents with high social support have the same high self-acceptance. ahyani & kumalasari (2012) find this finding, which states that social support can help adolescent self-adjustment. this means that the higher the social support, the higher the self-acceptance inflicted on adolescents with divorced parents. on the contrary, the lower the social support, the lower the self-acceptance imposed on adolescents with divorced parents. adolescent social support contributed 76.3% to the high low self-acceptance in postdivorce adolescents. this is seen from the determinant coefficient = 0.763. based on these results, it is known that there is still a 23.7% influence of other factors on self-acceptance in adolescents, where other factors include age, education, intelligence, physical state and parenting style. ahyani, l. n. & kumalasari, f. (2012). hubungan antara dukungan sosial dengan penyesuaian diri remaja di panti asuhan. jurnal psikologi: pitutu, 1(1), 21-31. ghufron, m. n. & risnawati s., r. (2014). teori-teori psikologi. ar-ruz media discussion conclusion references 42 effectiveness of social support with adolescent's self-acceptance in post-divorce parents happynda, m. a. (2017). hubungan antara dukungan sosial dengan penerimaan diri remaja dhuafa di panti asuhan. [undergraduate thesis, universitas muhammadiyah surakarta]. hurlock, e. b. (1991). psikologi perkembangan: suatu pendekatan sepanjang rentang kehidupan. erlangga hadyani, i. a., & indriana, y. (2017). “proses penerimaan diri terhadap perceraian orangtua. jurnal empati, 7(3), 303–312. maslihah, s. (2012). studi tentang hubungan dukungan sosial, penyesuaian sosial di lingkungan sekolah dan prestasi akademik siswa smpit assyfa boarding school subang jawa barat. jurnal psikologi, 10(2), 103-114. https://doi.org/10.14710/jpu.10.2.103-114. issn ;2541450x (online) 1 vol. 1 no. 1 (june 2020), pp. 1-5 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i1.1713 self-regulation as a predictor of fear of missing out in emerging adulthood dedy surya1, dara aulina2 1 department of islamic guidance and counseling, institut agama islam negeri langsa, aceh, indonesia; 2 department of psychology, universitas malikussaleh, aceh, indonesia.  corresponding author: dedy surya (email: dedysurya@iainlangsa.ac.id) abstract – the use of social media due to the development of technology has implications for the tendency to know the activity in their social circle. this tendency is called fear of missing out (fomo). this study aims to determine the relationship between self-regulation and fomo in emerging adulthood. by using quantitative correlational research methods, this study involved 99 students of the department of psychology, malikussaleh university, aceh, indonesia with an emerging adulthood age range. the data in this study was collected using two scales, namely self-regulation scale and fomo scale. data analysis using pearson correlation. the results showed that there was no significant association between self-regulation variables and fomo, indicated by the coefficient r = 0.544 and p = 0.000 < 0.05. this result means that there is a negative relationship between self-regulation and fomo. selfregulation contributed to fomo in 4,00%. there were still 96% other factors related to fomo tendency. this research showed that selfregulation is too weak to predict fomo in emerging adulthood. article history: received: january 5, 2020 revised: february 1, 2020 accepted: march 3, 2020 published: june 18, 2020 keyword: emerging adulthood; fear of missing out; freshmen; self-regulation how to cite (apa 7th edition) surya, d., & aulina, d. (2020). self-regulation as a predictor of fear of missing out in emerging adulthood. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 1(1), 1-5. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i1.1713 this is an open-access article distributed under the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. this is enabled under the terms of attribution and noncommercial usage of the material. ©2020 by dedy surya & dara aulina. 2 self-regulation as a predictor of fear of missing out in emerging adulthood advances in technology and information are now evolving. technology and information can make it easier for anyone to get the information they need from anywhere and anytime through the digital world. technology also allows people to be able to interact remotely and communicate with others in their daily life (alutaybi et al., 2019). the ease of obtaining various information is the main reason someone uses the internet. the development of this technology stimulates the increased desire to socialize through the internet (jood, 2017). in addition, social media also grabs the attention of internet users because it allows its users to share photos, videos, and even stories with others online. data survey conducted by the center for communication studies in collaboration with asosiasi penyelenggara jasa internet indonesia (apjii) or association of indonesian internet service providers stated that the highest number of internet users in indonesia ranging in age from 18-25 years. the 18–25-year-old is a transition period from the late adolescence stage to early adulthood called emerging adulthood, especially adolescence. one of the characteristics of this phase is instability in various aspects of life, so many teenagers experience instability in their lives. the development of this technology does not cause problems. its use is now growing into a new problem (dempsey et al., 2019). problems arising from internet users tend to create social difficulties—such as in school and/or work—as well as psychological difficulties (alt & bonielnissim, 2018; beard &wolf, 2001). one of the trends that the internet is causing is fear of missing out (fomo). fomo is a feeling of discomfort or loss as a result of knowing what others are doing and feeling that it is more enjoyable, more valuable than it is (abel et al., 2016). fomo is characterized by a desire to always want to know the activities of others posted on social media, and the tendency to always compare the lives of others to their lives (przybylski et al., 2013). fomo causes one to utilize digital technology to stay online to stay connected to the social activities of those around them (hadlington & scase, 2018). fomo can also result in someone trying to be the same as what someone else posts, whether it's in terms of activity, material, or experience. fomo is also common in adolescents, especially in students, students who experience high fomo, will affect their lives, one of which is decreased productivity, decreased academic achievement, low learning motivation, and it makes the learning process disrupted. furthermore, a study conducted by jood (2017) showed that fomo causes a person to tend to have low life satisfaction. huang (2014) stated that the cause of a person experiencing social media addiction is because they are unable to manage and manage their time, causing boredom and choosing to spend time accessing social media. this study aims to investigate the extent to which self-regulation can be a predictor of fomo tendencies in adolescents growing up. self-regulation is described as a form of an individual's ability to manage his actions on his goals and dreams in the future. furthermore, someone who has good self-regulation will be able to adjust to the demands of society and its environment (matric, 2018). self-regulation can control itself with its cognition and behavior so that the individual can control the anxiety affected by external stimulus. introduction surya, d. & aulina, d. 3 this research was conducted on students of the department of psychology, malikussaleh university psychology, aceh, indonesia as a representation of emerging adulthood in the age range of 18-25 years. the sampling technique used in this study was a total side technique by taking the entire population to be sampled as many as 99 people. the research data was collected using the constructed self-regulation scale of bandura theory and fomo scale from przybylski, et al. (2013). the method of data analysis used in this study is to use the computer program spss (statistical package for service solutions) version 22 using normality tests and correlation tests. the normality test on the data distribution was analyzed using a one-sample kolmogorovsmirnov test. based on the results of the normality test, it is known that the value is significant (asymp. sig. (2-tailed)) for self-regulation of 0.038 and fomo of 0.013, so the significance of both variables is greater than 0.05. thus, it can be concluded that the distribution of data on both variables is normally distributed. pearson's correlation test aims to measure the relationship between two variables linearly and to determine the direction of the relationship occurring (priyanto, 2011). the r-count value for the relationship between self-regulation and fomo is 0.544 (>0.062) accompanied by a significant value (p) of 0.000 < 0.05 which means there is a significant relationship between selfregulation variables and fomo variables. this means the degree of connection is no correlation. based on the results of data testing that has been conducted by researchers, the following will be presented the results of research obtained from two variables, namely self-regulation and fomo. the results showed that there is a significant association between self-regulation and fomo tendencies that arise in adolescent behavior in adulthood. however, self-regulation has a very small contribution to fomo tendencies. thus, it can be decided that self-regulation is not able to predict the tendency of fomo behavior that arises. that is, the high or low self-regulation of an individual has very little to do with the level of fomo. results of previous research conducted by wanjohi, et. al. (2015) explained that students who have high self-regulation can control the use of social media and will avoid negative effects such as attraction to social media to compulsive and addictive use. this study is inversely proportional to research conducted by arnet (2013) which explains that the use of social media in times of emerging adulthood tends to use the internet excessively. the findings of this study are supported by the results of research conducted by sianipar &kaloeti (2019). this study mentions that self-regulation has a negative relationship with fomo in first-year students but with a very small self-regulation contribution (2.9%) contribute to the tendency of fomo in students so it is difficult to mention predicting fomo tendencies that arise through the level of self-regulation owned by individuals. in this study, psychology new students have high self-regulation, so the regulation owned by new students of psychology indicates that they can control the use of technology tends to be research method result discussion 4 self-regulation as a predictor of fear of missing out in emerging adulthood good, including how to utilize technology as a learning tool and socializing tools with the technology environment. time transparency on social media today is one of the triggering factors for fomo so that individuals can easily see and compare their experiences, especially through social media. from the discussion above, it can be concluded that regulation of having a relationship with the tendency of fomo in emerging adulthood. although with very small predictability, this shows that with efforts to increase the level of self-regulation, the tendency of adolescents to experience fomo is decreasing. with the limitations of this study, there are some suggestions that researchers submit for further investigation, such as expanding research samples of various cultural backgrounds to see the influence of culture on fomo tendencies. then, it can also be by adding various other predictors, either in the form of free variables or mediator variables so that the study of fomo is increasingly comprehensive. the current research used a quantitative method, so it has limitations in extracting and conveying data. therefore, it is worth considering to research this with a qualitative approach (either through observation, interview, or fgd) that can test causality relationships more adequately and find models capable of explaining fomo tendencies integrally. abel, j. p., buff, c. l., & burr, s. a. (2016). social media and the fear of missing out: scale development and assessment. journal of business & economics research (jber), 14(1), 33–44. https://doi.org/10.19030/jber.v14i1.9554 alt, d., & boniel-nissim, m. (2018). links between adolescents’ deep and surface learning approaches, problematic internet use, and fear of missing out (fomo). internet interventions, 13(june), 30–39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.invent.2018.05.002 alutaybi, a., arden-close, e., mcalaney, j., stefanidis, a., phalp, k., & ali, r. (2019). how can social networks design trigger fear of missing out? conference proceedings ieee international conference on systems, man and cybernetics, 2019-octob, 3758–3765. https://doi.org/10.1109/smc.2019.8914672 arnet, j. j. (2013). adolescence and emerging adulthood: a cultural approach (5th ed.). pearson education. beard, k. w., & wolf, e. m. (2001). modification in the proposed diagnostic criteria for internet addiction. cyberpsychology & behavior, 4(3), 377–383. https://doi.org/10.1089/109493101300210286 dempsey, a. e., o’brien, k. d., tiamiyu, m. f., & elhai, j. d. (2019). fear of missing out (fomo) and rumination mediate relations between social anxiety and problematic facebook use. addictive behaviors reports, 9(november 2018), 100150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.abrep.2018.100150 hadlington, l., & scase, m. o. (2018). end-user frustrations and failures in digital technology: exploring the role of fear of missing out, internet addiction and personality. heliyon, 4(11), e00872. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2018.e00872 huang, h. (2014). social media generation in urban china (e. yang & n. p. thomas (eds.)). springer conclusion references surya, d. & aulina, d. 5 berlin heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-45441-7 jood, t. e. (2017). missing the present for the unknown: the relationship between fear of missing out (fomo) and life satisfaction. university of south africa. matric, m. (2018). self-regulatory systems: self-regulation and learning. journal of process management. new technologies, 6(4), 79–84. https://doi.org/10.5937/jouproman6-19338 priyanto, d. (2011). buku saku spss: analisis statistik data. pt buku seru. przybylski, a. k., murayama, k., dehaan, c. r., & gladwell, v. (2013). motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out. computers in human behavior, 29(4), 1841– 1848. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.02.014 sianipar, n. a. & kaloeti, d. v. s. (2019). hubungan antar regulasi diri dengan fear of missing out (fomo) pada mahasiswa tahun pertama fakultas psikologi universitas diponegoro, jurnal empati, 8(1), 136-143. retrieved from https://ejournal3.undip.ac.id/index.php/empati/article/view/23587 wanjohi, r. n., mwebi, r. b., & nyang’ara, n. m. (2015). self-regulation of facebook usage and academic performance of students in kenyan universities. journal of education and practice, 6(14), 109–113. http://search.proquest.com/docview/1773217041?accountid=14744 issn ;2541450x (online) 43 vol. 1 no. 2 (dec 2020), pp. 43-48 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i2.2850 the religiosity of hijrah adolescence in muslimah aceh fillah community aceh tamiang indonesia nadya afriyanti1, dedy surya2 12 department of islamic guidance and counseling, institut agama islam negeri langsa, aceh, indonesia.  corresponding author: dedy surya (email: dedysurya@iainlangsa.ac.id) abstract – in the influx of hedonism and consumptive culture due to the development of communication and information technology, extraordinary hijrah flows from the young generation of indonesia. this study aims at the religiosity of adolescents experienced by hijrah adolescents through 5 dimensions of religiosity: experiential, ritualistic, ideological, intellectual, and consequential. this study involved 5 muslimah aceh fillah members selected by purposive sampling techniques using a qualitative approach. in-depth interview techniques and participatory observations obtained the data. in addition to engaging its members, the researchers also took parental data from the study subjects to get a comprehensive picture. then, the data is analyzed through 3 stages: data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion. the results showed that the religiosity of hijrah adolescents is expressed in various dimensions. the most significant change felt by community members is thought in an intellectual dimension that implies an improvement in the other aspect of religiosity. article history: received: august 20, 2020 revised: september 6, 2020 accepted: november 7, 2020 published: december 28, 2020 keyword: aceh; adolescence; community; hijrah; religiosity how to cite (apa 7th edition) afriyanti, n. & surya, d. (2020). the religiosity of hijrah adolescence in muslimah aceh fillah community aceh tamiang indonesia. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 1(2), 43-48. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i2.2850 this is an open-access article distributed under the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. this is enabled under the terms of attribution and noncommercial usage of the material. ©2020 by nadya afriyanti & dedy surya. 44 the religiosity of hijrah adolescence in muslimah aceh fillah community aceh tamiang indonesia adolescence has a critical phase that determines its success is entering the adult phase. it is called the crucial phase because, in this phase, the youth are required to prepare themselves through their potential to face the challenges of their lives in the upcoming phase of development (jannah, 2016). if they can prepare themselves well, then they can meet the problems of life naturally without concern. however, if they fail to develop themselves, their life in the adult phase will run with problems without adaptability and good problem-solving skills. the emerging phenomenon is the tendency of adolescents to show attitudes and ignorance in the context of religion (thobroni, 1993). it is easy to get news of teenagers getting drunk, using drugs, committing theft, rape, even murder. it was coupled with the development of information and communication technology, allowing teenagers to expand their delinquency in the real world and penetrate the virtual world. gambling and online prostitution committed by teenagers is one of the evidence of the spread of crime that occurs in this digital age. this shows that the implementation of religion is not integrated between knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors in daily life. uniquely, during the teenage crime that was later resonated by the sophistication of communication and information media, the phenomenon of hijra emerged among young indonesians. this phenomenon of hijrah is defined as the process of changing behavior that is not following sharia to conduct by sharia (amna, 2019). today there are many hijrah communities formed by artists and celebrities. the community consists of many famous artists who have done hijrah. in addition to the communities, the hijrah millennials phenomenon is also supported by many hijrah events (alamsyah, 2019) to increase religiosity. research on adolescents’ religiosity in the indonesian hijra community has been conducted several times, among others by paninten & indrawati (2020), which reviews the linkage of social support to the religiosity of members of the cah hijrah semarang community. this research showed that social support has an influence on the religiosity of adolescents in the hijra community. dilawati (2020) highlighted the religiosity of the hijrah youth shift community at the great mosque of trans studio mall bandung. this study mentioned that the study activities given to the community positively affect the religiosity of youth. some research that has been done related to religiosity in the hijrah community is still limited to seeing the changes in religiosity that occur in members of the hijrah community in general. meanwhile, differences in religiosity in each dimension have not been studied in depth. this article aims to review changes in each dimension of religiosity as mentioned by glock &starck (1965) teenagers who emigrated to the muslimah aceh fillah community, aceh tamiang, indonesia (maf) the research was conducted with a qualitative approach with a case study pattern. this study involved five members of maf (mela, dea, dana, alfi, and irna) selected through purposive sampling techniques with criteria: 1) have an age range of 12-20 years; 2) have been following studies in maf for at least three months. the current study also involved parents of each research subject as informants to get more information. introduction research method afriyanti, n. & surya, d. 45 the data is collected in 3 (three) ways, namely; 1) observation, 2) interview, and documentation. the observation used anecdotal records, i.e., observing and recording unique activities during observation (arikunto, 2010). the interview was naturalistic interviews, interviewing speakers conducted informally in talking or chatting with various open questions to find the in-depth and complete information to answer the research questions (nazir, 1999). the documentation collected written materials or objects related to a particular event or activity (suprayogo &tobroni, 2003). then the data is analyzed with techniques developed by miles &huberman (2007) through the stages of data collection, data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion or verification. based on information obtained from the five informants, it was found that after participating in activities organized by maf, they experienced an increase in religiosity. changes in experiential dimension occur after obtaining explanations through recitation activities, as explained by mela: “dulu mela sempat melakukan hal syirik seperti menolak bala atau menolak sesuatu hal yang buruk biasanya menurut orang-orang di sekitar mela harus membuat bubur merah putih yang diletakkan di persimpangan jalan sampai bubur tersebut tidak ada lagi. namun setelah mela mengikuti pengajian di maf, mela menjadi tahu bahwa kegiatan itu adalah perbuatan yang syirik dan alhamdulillah sekarang mela tidak melakukan hal itu lagi”. (i used to do shirk things such as refusing reinforcements or rejecting something bad, according to people around me, i should make “merah putih” porridge that was placed at the crossroads until the porridge no longer exists. however, since i am joining maf, i become aware that the activity is a shirk and praise allah, now i do not do that anymore) from the case that mela experienced, it appeared that there is a change that allah is the protector of all things, so the practice of distancing himself from the reinforcements by making porridge placed at the crossroads she now left. it is also the same as dea’s, who left her tradition to bring scissors and garlic as a protector when pregnant. this change occurs because they believe that believing there is a power other than the power of god is a shirk and is a grave sin. irna also explained the change of her belief: “… kalau dulu saya suka ngeluh kalau diberikan ujian sama allah. merasa padahal saya sudah ibadah tetapi allah masih kasih kami ujian dan buat saya malas untuk ibadah karena kami rasa ibadah kami percuma. ternyata, saat kita diuji itu karena allah tahu bahwa kita mampu dan allah sayang sama kita. kitanya saja yang kurang bersyukur, harusnya kita introspeksi diri apa yang kurang dari diri kita.” (… i used to like to complain if i was tested by allah. i feel even though i have worship but he still tested me. it made me lazy for worship because we think our worship is useless. as it turns out, when we are tested it is because he knows that we are capable and he loves us. we are the less grateful, we should introspect ourselves what is less than we are.) this is just as dana and alfi felt that they always wondered when they felt many exams before they joined this community. the change of experiential dimension that they think in the form of submission to the provisions outlined by allah and convinced that the difficulty they feel was a form of allah’s affection see the extent of the quality of their faith. in the ritualistic dimension, maf targets consistency in carrying out worship activities that will be evaluated once a week at each study meeting. some of the assessed activities are five times result 46 the religiosity of hijrah adolescence in muslimah aceh fillah community aceh tamiang indonesia prayer (every day), congregational prayer (at least two times per day), dhuha prayer (at least two times per week, tahajjud prayer (at least two times per week), hajat prayer (at least one time per week), fasting on monday and thursday (at least one time per week), reading the qur’an (minimum one juz per week), memorizing the qur’an (minimum 1 verse per week), memorization of prayers (minimum one prayer per week), alms (every day), attending studies (at least one time per week), and silaturrahim (at least one time per month). evaluation of worship activities increases consistency to the ritual of worship of the informant. irna explained: “…awalnya shalat suka ditunda-tunda. sekarang menjadi lebih tepat waktu untuk mengerjakannya. rasanya ga mau ketinggalan waktu shalat. juga sudah rajin puasa sunnah, dan sekarang sudah memakai pakaian yang menutup aurat…” (at first, i like postponing prayer. now it’s becoming more on time to do it. i feel hard to miss the prayer. i also feel more diligent in sunnah fasting, and already cover my awrah)” it is also felt just as dea said, “… kalau dulu setiap kami shalat, suka-suka hati kami. tapi kalau sekarang, bilang sama diri sendiri kalau shalat harus lima waktu karena itu adalah kewajiban…(i used to prayer only when i want, but now, i tell to myself that i should pray completely in five times because it is an obligation).” even by following this community, dana has now used a purdah. through the evaluation activities conducted by this community, the members who were starting hijrah became accustomed to performing mandatory worship routines and sunnah. while for members who already have an excellent religious understanding, this activity helps them perform worship. ideological dimension was felt in all informants about the sense of a restless heart moments before performing worship and gaining inner peace after completing worship. as alfi said: “sekarang jika tidak shalat, gelisah hati. tenang kalau sudah melaksanakan shalat”. (“now if i do not pray, i feel a restlessness in my heart. i feel tranquil.” the consistency in practicing prayer has caused a sense of peace of mind when doing worship. the dimension the most changes was the intellectual dimension when the individual had known the commands and prohibitions of religion. through routine study activities carried out, the five informants felt a significant change in their religious intellectual. regular meetings conducted by this community alternately discuss tawhid, laws, morals, and the history of the prophet and his followers. in addition, the study also provides time to consult directly the presenters related to the problems that are being faced. changes in the consequential dimensions also occurred in this community members. the interview with the informant’s parents concluded a change in behavior in their child after joining the community. dewi, alfi’s mother, said “ibu lihat setelah dia ikut maf ini banyak perubahannya dari mulai shalatnya. terus, cara berpakaian dia di rumah, dari yang biasanya dia masih suka pakai celana kalau sekarang lebih sopan. (i saw many changes when she joined the community, like her consistency in prayer. and then, the way she dresses at home. she usually likes to wear pants. now she looked more polite).” in addition to behavior, character changes also occur, as ana, mela’s mother, feels that her daughter is now becoming more friendly and polite to others. a similar answer was also given by three other parents who supported their children to join the community because their child experienced a positive behavior change. afriyanti, n. & surya, d. 47 in contrast to afiatin’s research (1998) which stated that the ritualistic dimension became the highest dimension, this study found that the dimension of knowledge became the most central dimension. this study found that the efforts made by maf are to form the obedience of its members who want to do hijrah to religious sharia. this is in line with zahara, wildan, & kamariah’s (2020) research that the hijra community seeks to form a new identity of its members as religious people who obey the rules of religion. the study findings also reinforced the mayasari (2014) view, which states that religiosity grows from the closeness of interaction with god. these interactions give birth to calmness and a positive effect on the individual self. this study has revealed the positive effect of the community in improving the religiosity of its members, following the conclusion of irmansyah (2020), which stated that the hijrah community has a positive impact on the younger generation who follow it through changes in behavior that are more salih and stylish following the progress of the times but still sharia. this research showed the religiosity of hijah adolescence in various dimensions. of all these dimensions, the dimension of intellectual plays an essential role in shaping religiosity. a good understanding of religion will give birth to reasonable religious beliefs and ritual practices. the spiritual practice leaves a deep sense of feeling for the perpetrator, which will ultimately affect them. to the impact, the formed religiosity has also been influenced the adolescent environment that manifested in their behavior. afiatin, t. (1998). religiusitas remaja: studi tentang kehidupan beragama di daerah istimewa yogyakarta. jurnal psikologi, 25(1), 55-64. alamsyah, i. e. (2019). fenomena hijrah kaum milenial. https://www.republika.co.id/berita/puyv6k349/fenomena-hijrah-kaum-milenial amna, a. (2019). hijrah artis sebagai komodifikasi agama. jurnal sosiologi reflektif, 13(2), 331-350. doi: https://doi.org/10.14421/jsr.v13i12.1531 arikunto, s. (2010). prosedur penelitian: suatu pendekatan praktek. rineka cipta glock, c. y., & stark, r. (1965). religion and society in tension. rand mcnally. jannah, m. (2017). remaja dan tugas-tugas perkembangannya dalam islam. psikoislamedia: jurnal psikologi, 1(1), 243-256. mayasari. r. (2014). religiusitas islam dan kebahagiaan (sebuah telaah dengan perspektif psikologi). al-munzir, 7(2), 81-100. miles, m. b. & huberman, a. m. (2007). qualitative data analysis. (terjemahan). ui press. nazir, m. (1999). metode penelitian. ghalia indonesia. paninten, g. a., & indrawati, e. s. (2020). hubungan antara dukungan sosial teman sebaya discussion conclusion references 48 the religiosity of hijrah adolescence in muslimah aceh fillah community aceh tamiang indonesia dengan religiusitas pada komunitas cah hijrah semarang. jurnal empati, 9(4), 262-279. retrieved from https://ejournal3.undip.ac.id/index.php/empati/article/view/28944 suprayogo, i & tobroni. (2003). metodologi penelitian sosial agama. pt. remaja rosdakarya zahara, m. n., wildan, d., & komariah, s. (2020). gerakan hijrah: pencarian identitas untuk muslim milenial di era digital. indonesian journal of sociology, education, and development, 2(1), 52-65. https://doi.org/10.52483/ijsed.v2i1.21 issn ;2541450x (online) 19 vol. 1 no. 1 (june 2020), pp. 19-24 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i1.1720 emotional maturity of early age marriage's woman farahdiba thahura department of guidance and counseling, universitas sains cut nyak dhien, aceh, indonesia;  corresponding author: farahdiba thahura (email: farahdibatahura@gmail.com) abstract – marriage is quite interesting to talk about more and more at this time because at this time many problems arise related to marriage because marriage is a complicated and complex thing. there are many things to be prepared for before someone decides to enter the marriage level, especially for a wife. the purpose of this study is to assess the extent of the role of emotional maturity of young wives in creating harmony in the family. respondents in this study were women, aged 18-20 years in aceh, marriage period of 0-3 years. the number of respondents is 2 people using qualitative research methods. the method of data collection in this study is by observation and interview using tape recorder tools and observation sheets. these internal and external factors affect whether or not the respondent is mature emotionally. this emotional immaturity is a reaction seen in every respondent. the maturity of respondents is different from each other. the respondents were aware of the impact on marriage at a young age but did not make the respondents dissolve in any conflicts that occurred due to immature emotions of the respondent, but rather made efforts to be able to control and overcome all conditions faced wisely and try to make positive efforts to foster family harmony. article history: received: january 3, 2020 revised: february 5, 2020 accepted: march 11, 2020 published: june 18, 2020 keyword: aceh woman; early marriage; emotional maturity; immaturity how to cite (apa 7th edition) thahura. f. (2020). emotional maturity of early age marriage's woman. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 1(1), 19-24. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i1.1720 this is an open-access article distributed under the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. this is enabled under the terms of attribution and noncommercial usage of the material.©2020 by farahdiba thahura 20 emotional maturity of early age marriage's woman marriage is quite interesting to talk about more and more at this time because at this time many problems arise related to marriage because marriage is a complicated and complex thing. complicated because marriage is as easy as many people imagine, and complex because marriage concerns many facets. many things must be prepared before one decides to enter the marriage level, especially for a wife. duval & miller (1985) states that one of the things that must be prepared before entering the marriage level is the ability to master oneself emotionally. mappiare (1983) states that emotional maturity has a big influence on the robustness of domestic marriage. harmony according to gunarsa (1995) is always related to the situation of a household/family in marriage. a family who has emotional maturity will be more flexible and easy to accept changes, such circumstances are very necessary to overcome the problems that must be taken in daily life. hurlock (2004) that emotions can provide color for human life. feelings of pleasure, hate, joy, sadness, and anger can be expressed through the expression of emotions that arise at times where the individual must be able to adjust between emotions to the situation or place in which the individual is located. chaplin (2008) stated that emotions are when circumstances include conscious changes, deep in nature, and behavioral changes. emotions can also master motivated behavior. emotions are usually evoked by external events and emotional reactions are shown at these events (atkinson, richard & hilgard, 1996). according to goleman (1999), emotion is a typical feeling and thoughts, a biological, and psychological state, and a series of tendencies to act. emotional maturity is important to see if a person has been able to escape from dependence on parents or others who have been dominant in their lives. if a wife still trusts or puts her old family first in every problem, or a husband who cannot escape from the care, guidance, and assurance of his parents, then the husband and wife will not succeed in forming a family bond. hawari (2006) states that marriage is a bond between a man and a woman as husband and wife based on applicable laws, religious laws, or customs. in the term of islam, marriage means "to gather" or "collect" which is one of the efforts to channel the sexual instincts of husband and wife in the household, as well as a means to produce offspring that can guarantee the continuity of human existence on the earth. marriage is the inner birth bond between a woman and a man. between emotional maturity and marriage, it is like having a close relationship so that the problems in the household itself can be seen properly and objectively. walgito (2002) the recommended age in marriage as an ideal age, reviewed psychologically in women aged 23-24 years and men aged 26-27 years. in those ages in general psychological maturity has been achieved, especially emotional maturity. a wife is a structure that includes customs, manners, laws, and other norms both rational and irrational around parenting and raising children. hawari (2006) describes a good wife as a wife who serves and takes good care of her husband, meekness, and affection. meanwhile, marriage counselors often add that a good wife is graceful in public, frugal in the kitchen, and warm in bed. it is also explained that the wife organizes and arranges daily household needs as best as possible. the description of the picture of the wife above certainly prepares for the marriage itself should be considered well, especially for wives who marry at a young age. emotional maturity is introduction thahura, f. 21 one of the important aspects that must be thought about before marriage to create family harmony. the above opinions and problems encourage the author to know how the emotional maturity of a young wife to achieve harmony in marriage. therefore, the purpose of this study is to assess the extent of the role of emotional maturity of young wives in creating harmony in the family. a qualitative approach is seen as more appropriate to know how the phenomenon of the number of young women to choose to marry at a young age. according to patton (in poerwandari, 2001) qualitative design has flexible properties, therefore there are no definite rules in the number of samples to be taken for qualitative research. the number of samples depends largely on what is considered useful and can be done with the time and resources available. in this study, the method of data retrieval was conducted with interviews and observations. respondents this study numbered 2 respondents (ic and mv) with characteristics of female respondents, aged 18-20 years, domiciled in aceh, marriage period 0-3 years. the sampling procedure in this study is based on theory-based operational construct sampling. this study will be conducted at the respondent's home. the interview process can be conducted directly at the location according to the respondent's will. the tools used in this study are interview guidelines and a recording device that is a tape recorder and observation sheet. the position of researchers in qualitative research is quite complicated, for that it is necessary to use research instruments or tools to help researchers in collecting data (moleong, 2013). qualitative research data is not in the form of numbers, but more in the form of narratives, stories, written and unwritten documents (pictures or photos), or other non-numerical forms. when entering the marriage level, respondents tend to be emotionally immature. this can be seen from the symptoms that can be seen from the respondents, among others: first, the fickle emotions, namely explosive behavior in responding to a stimulus faced (uncontrolled), can not accept criticism. second, relying too heavily on others tends to be easily influenced and makes hasty decisions. third, expect stimulation or stimulation that demands a lot of attention and can't wait to face something. fourth, egocentric self-centeredness where the individual is more selfish. in response to the above, describing respondents who tend to have emotional immaturity. the immaturity of respondents is reflected in the conflict in the household and the lack of harmony in marriage. things that are factors in the absence of emotional maturity from respondents are influenced among others by internal and external factors. internal factors consist of emotional states where at a young age, the emotional state of each respondent is still unstable, then cooperation, friendship, and willingness, where the subject inevitably has to have tolerance and cooperate in fostering a new relationship with a partner, this tends to be difficult to do because at that age is the period in which the respondents try to find their identity. while external factors are influenced by: first, influenced by physical factors, at a young age respondents tend not to be able to control well their emotions against hormonal changes that research method result 22 emotional maturity of early age marriage's woman occur for example at the time of menarche, then, patterns of control over emotions, respondents tend not to be able to control emotions fairly and by social expectations, respondents tend to do things that suit themselves only, then intelligence. this factor also influences because it affects respondents in giving assessments of others and environmental situations, but it also has an effect to gain insight in solving emotional problems more greater, and the last is age, although age affects emotional maturity, in each individual, the level is not necessarily the same. this is influenced by many other factors such as parenting patterns, social environment, education and so on. these internal and external factors affect whether or not the respondent is mature emotionally. this emotional immaturity is a reaction seen in every respondent. the maturity of respondents is different from each other. the respondents were aware of the impact on marriage at a young age but did not make the respondents dissolve in any conflicts that occurred due to immature emotions of the respondent, but rather made efforts to be able to control and overcome all conditions faced wisely and try to make positive efforts to foster family harmony. both respondents in this study, ic and mv, had different backgrounds when deciding to marry young. at that time ic wanted to marry young because she felt ready to enter the marriage level. the subject also married young on the grounds of not wanting to sin and trying to keep the good name of the parents. in addition, the age of a more mature and more established partner makes the subject not hesitate to decide to marry at a young age. the readiness of the subject to marry young is also supported by the family. the family provides support by giving the subject the freedom to marry. unlike ic, mv married on the grounds of getting pregnant before marriage. mv marriage that was forced to do, caused complex problems, among which the subject lost her youth because of having to marry and take care of the household, in addition, the subject also experienced stress due to losing time studying and playing as did her age friends. free association is one of the factors of young marriage. less supervision and freedom from parents also cause the subject to be detached from parental supervision. in addition to the above, one of the other factors is the existence of a supportive environment. the subject's free social environment reinforces free association behavior. the number of peers who experience the same thing becomes a kind of defense of the subject against the actions. this is in line with adhim's statement (2002) that there are 3 factors of individuals deciding to marry at a young age, namely: the first factor is based on a high moral awareness of religion to protect themselves from derogatory acts, for example, because they already feel like and to avoid themselves from unwanted things or because they are ready to build a home. the second factor is due to compulsion, for example, due to the coercion of the family, the state of the middle and lower economy, or because of pregnancy outside marriage. while the third factor is due to the average environment of carrying out marriage at a very young age. in mv, the condition of the subject and the partner who was not yet established both physically and mentally cause a lot of conflict in marriage. problems that occur, among others, economic problems, this becomes a problem because the couple is not yet financially established and still very dependent on parents, the division of responsibilities between taking care of family discussion thahura, f. 23 and college, self-adjustment in the face of a new environment that suddenly entered the subject because of having to live with in-laws, husband habits that do not meet the expectations of the subject and many other things. as said by hawari (2006) that marriage at a young age, certainly considered not to have passed the stage of development perfectly. in addition, at a young age, an individual is considered incapable of being responsible for taking care of others in his or her life. there is no readiness to conceive, give birth and educate children. judging from the character of each respondent, both have relatively the same character. ic, in the family environment, was classified as a spoiled child. the single child factor in the family is one of the reasons. the needs of the subject are relatively fulfillable. subjects tended to get more attention and affection from the surrounding environment, both family and friends. the subject's jolly character causes the subject to get along easily with the surrounding environment. the subject had also been taught independence from parents since before marriage, for example, the subject is allowed to work and hang out with her friends. after marriage, subjects tended to still have a dependence on parents, but not directly. for example, the subject still lives in a house with both parents after marriage, but the subject still has the will to live independently with the husband without being bound by parents. ic could be said to be immature emotionally, this is because, among others, ic still has fickle emotions, ic had not been able to control its emotions well and has not been able to understand the problems that arise more objectively. impulsive ic characters sometimes caused conflicts in the household. this is reinforced by murray's statement about the characteristics of emotional immaturity. ic met some of the characteristics of emotional immaturity. ic’s characters that are a little temperamental and spoiled were balanced by the character of the pair who tend to be more mature. this could at least dampen the conflict that occurs in the household. ic's home life relatively does not have too much pressure. compared to ic, mv tended to be more emotionally mature. the pressures and problems she faced in marriage led to the subject being wiser in dealing with each problem. problems arising in her marriage make the subject calmer and able to control her emotions well. the subject is also aware of the impact she would face when deciding to get married. this made the subject more responsible and strives to live the marriage as best and positively as possible. poor marital conditions also did not make the subject give up and depressed, but rather make the subject more mature than before. the subject also strives to always give the best assessment of all problems that arise and accept themselves and spouses as they are. in this regard, there is no denying that the subject has emotional maturity in her marriage, as stated by walgito (2002), the subject has fulfilled some characteristics of individuals who have emotional maturity. the condition of both respondents who are both young when married certainly gives rise to certain polemics. the young age, which is said to be physically and psychologically immature, makes the marriage vulnerable to conflict. the influence of emotional maturity is enormous, as stated above, in the presence of emotional maturity, the subject can dampen the conflict that occurs. the subject can also calm down and direct his emotions more positively. in addition, emotional maturity serves as a bridge for couples to see the problem more objectively so that the solution taken is also beneficial for the integrity of the household. emotional maturity also conclusion 24 emotional maturity of early age marriage's woman makes marriage more harmonious, this is due to individuals who have emotional maturity able to understand the partner and able to resolve conflicts as quickly as possible in their household. conversely, emotional immaturity can harm a marriage. many conflicts cannot be viewed objectively and cannot properly solve problems. the personal ego that arises causes conflict cannot be responded to calmly. prolonged conflict and stress in a marriage ultimately cause the couple to become disharmonious and potentially lead to divorce. after conducting the research, the authors realized there were still many shortcomings in the research process, such as lack of rapport, interviews, and observations that were less in-depth and also the least number of informants in the study. this leads to less rich and comprehensive results. adhim, m. f. (2002). indahnya menikah usia muda. gema insani. atkinson, r., richard, a., & hilgard, e. (1996). introduction to psychology. harcourt brace college publishers. chaplin, j.p. (2008). kamus lengkap psikologi. rajagrafindo persada duvall, e. m. & miller, b. c. (1985). marriage and family development 6th ed. harper & row publisher, inc goleman, d. (2007). kecerdasan emosional. gramedia pustaka utama gunarsa, s. d. (1995). psikologi untuk keluarga. gunung mulia hawari, d. (2006). manajemen stress cemas dan depresi 2nd ed. balai penerbit fakultas kedokteran universitas indonesia hurlock, e. b. (2004). psikologi perkembangan. gramedia pustaka utama mappiare, a. (1983). psikologi orang dewasa. usaha nasional. moleong, l. j. (2013). metode penelitian kualitatif. remaja rosdakarya poerwandari, k. (2005). pendekatan kualitatif untuk penelitian perilaku manusia. fakultas psikologi universitas indonesia walgito, b. (2002). bimbingan dan konseling perkawinan. andi offset references issn ;2541450x (online) 105 vol. 2 no. 2 (dec 2021), pp. 105-112 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v2i2.3402 can fear of failure predict academic procrastination? a study of indonesian university students nur fauziah karim1, minarni 2, syahrul alim 3 1,2,3 department of psychology, universitas bosowa, south sulawesi, indonesia  corresponding author: nur fauziah karim (email: nurfazh.karim@gmail.com) abstract – this study aims to determine the ability of fear of failure in predicting academic procrastination in students in indonesia by involving 428 respondents (male = 52.63%). the instruments used are the academic procrastination scale and the fear of failure scale. analysis of this research data uses a simple linear regression technique. this study showed that fear of failure affected academic procrastination significantly with a contribution value of 38.6% positive direction, while 61.4% was influenced by other factors not studied. research confirms that students with high levels of fear of failure tend to have high levels of academic procrastination and vice versa. article history: received: november 12, 2021 revised: november 16, 2021 accepted: december 29, 2021 published: december 30, 2021 keyword: academic procrastination; fear of failure; indonesian university students how to cite (apa 7th edition) karim, n. f, minarni., & alim, s. (2021 can fear of failure predict academic procrastination? a study of indonesian university students. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 2(2), 105–112. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v2i2.3402 this is an open-access article distributed under the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. this is enabled under the terms of attribution and noncommercial usage of the material ©2021 by nur fauziah karim, minarni, & syahrul alim. 106 can fear of failure predict academic procrastination? a study of indonesian university students knaus (2010) suggests that procrastination is the act of an individual who delays essential work that has been planned and needs to be completed promptly to not interfere with other activities. consistent with this, tuckman (1991) also states that procrastination is the act of individuals who spend time doing non-essential activities, delaying the completion of work, and not initiating activities that must be completed immediately. researchers obtained preliminary data by interviewing ten respondents, but all of them said they belonged to the category of people who delayed completing the task. the reason respondents delayed was for fear of being wrong in doing the task or afraid that doing the task alone would result in low scores; therefore, waiting for answers from other friends was one of the chosen options. respondents tend to feel the period of task collection is still long, so there is still plenty of time for other more fun activities. interview results for ten respondents stated that they had used the time they were supposed to work on tasks for fun, such as watching korean dramas, sleeping, sightseeing, accessing the internet such as facebook, youtube, tiktok. and instagram. all respondents realized that delayed behavior could cause anxiety, fear, stress, panic, sadness, and nervousness. although respondents realized that things impacted procrastination behavior, they still did so. ellis &knaus (in ferrari, johnson, &mccown, 1995) says that it is estimated that more than 70% of students participate in academic procrastination. concerning several research results on the high percentage of such behavior in indonesia, including syifa (2020), 64.1% of 103 subjects are included in high category academic procrastination. wahyuniyas, suminarti, & amalia (2019) reached 52% of the 100 subjects included in the academic procrastination of high categories. haryanti & santo (2020) achieved 74% of the 127 subjects in the academic procrastination of the high category. students who have obtained adult status, i.e., 18 to 25 years, should take full responsibility (santrock, 2012). in the early stages of cognitive development, individuals experience more specific changes than the previous stage's development. at this stage, the individual has a better way of thinking, can conclude events, thinks before he or she acts, and can think about the possibility of anything that will happen before doing something (piaget in suparno 2001). santrock (2012) confirms that as an individual with an early adult stage based on cognitive development, he should be able to reason abstractly, idealistically, responsibly, and distinguish good and bad cases when he wants to make decisions and actions. students experience many significant changes in their lives, especially in terms of learning assignments. the impact of students who are challenged to manage time will be stuck with the buildup of tasks. so that the process of working on each of these tasks will be limited. researchers found facts in the field, i.e., when given a task, students will still choose other activities that are more fun than immediately completing the task, so that the task completion process is accompanied by anxiety, nervousness, etc. solomon & rothblum (1984) states that several factors influence procrastination: fear of failure is the fear of the individual to make a goal or tendency to be guilty when it fails. aversiveness of the task is a negative feeling about a task or work that will soon be completed and other factors, such as reliance on others who have the capacity and much help, too much risk, and difficulty making decisions. introduction nur fauziah karim, minarni, & syahrul alim 107 the study of fitriah, hartati & kurniawan (2016) showed that 58% of the 178 subjects at the faculty of education, semarang state university, conducted academic procrastination due to fear of failure factor in the high category with a presentation score of 71%. another study conducted by sebastian (2013) resulted that people who are afraid of failing in the high category consider that the tasks given are unpleasant, so they can be distracted by other things that are more pleasant so that academic procrastination behavior arises. based on the phenomenon that has been obtained before, then the researchers again take data; the results obtained are respondents stated that when there is a difficult task or does not like the task, then the respondent will delay for reasons of fear of wrong and fear if it has an impact on the values of respondents who do not meet expectations. based on the results of other interviews, the results were obtained so that respondents chose to do academic delays because some of them were feared. this fear is like parents who will be disappointed and afraid of being criticized by others. eight respondents stated that criticism from others related to failure could make respondents feel embarrassed, lose spirit and confidence. therefore, academic procrastination is a strategy to overcome the fear of failure. six respondents stated that the expectations or expectations given by parents so that respondents could complete the study as soon as possible made respondents feel anxious when obtaining less than optimal grades. following the interview results, gusniarti (2002) resulted in parents' expectations that their children can motivate them to achieve learning, but can also be a burden for children. many parents' expectations and demands on their children can cause stress and anxiety that will be experienced to impact the fear of failure in terms of learning. conroy, kaye, & fifer (2007) says that fear of failure is the reason for avoidance motives committed by individuals based on shame and anticipation. it is associated with the humiliation to be acquired when individuals fail, or one can say that fear of failure is the tendency of individuals to evaluate threats and feel anxious when they do their work that can allow people to experience failure. solomon & rothblum research (1984) states that major factors due to fear of failure contribute to academic procrastination, ranging from 6.3% to 14.1%. the results of research conducted by sebastian (2013) obtained the results of a significant relationship between fear of failure to academic procrastination. haghbin, mccaffrey, &pychyl (2012) found a positive relationship between fear of failure and delay. based on the description presented, supported by various research results related to fear of failure and academic procrastination, this study aims to find out the ability of fear of failure in predicting academic procrastination in students in indonesia. the subjects in the study were 428 respondents consisting of 207 female respondents and 221 male respondents aged 21-23 years old who lived in makassar, south sulawesi, indonesia. the data collection in this study is a scale of fear of failure and academic procrastination. the fear of failure scale is a modified scale of putri (2019) compiled based on conroy, kaye & fifer (2007) with a reliability value of 0.912, while the academic procrastination scale is a scale adapted by fany (2019) compiled based on tuckman theory (1991) with a reliability value of 0.842. the validity test is carried out in several stages: logical, face and construct. research method 108 can fear of failure predict academic procrastination? a study of indonesian university students data analysis in this study is calculated with simple regression. furthermore, the assumption test was conducted on this study using the kolmogorov-smirnov normality test obtained p = 0.053, which means that the data used in this study has been normally distributed. while the linearity test in this study uses deviation from linearity p <0.001, meaning that the data in this study has a linear relationship. the hypothesis test uses a simple regression test with a value p < 0.001, which means the hypothesis in the study is accepted. figure 1 shows that the fear of failure in most students is at the moderate category level. furthermore, students' academic procrastination level is also at the moderate category level, as shown in figure 2. figure 1 fear of failure level figure 2 academic procrastination level based on the hypothesis test table in table 1, it can be concluded that fear of failure contributes to 0.386 or 38.6% to academic procrastination in students in indonesia. table 1 hypothesis test variable r square contribution p-value fear of failure toward academic procrastination 0.386 38.6% <0.001 based on the analysis results conducted on students in makassar, it is known that fear of failure contributed 0.386 or 38.6% to academic procrastination. in addition, fear of failure also has a significant effect with a positive direction of influence, or in other words, the higher the fear of failure in students in makassar, the higher the academic procrastination, and vice versa, the lower the fear of failure in students in makassar, the lower the academic procrastination. in line with this, the results of the study are obtained, the higher the level of dislike of the task, the academic procrastination will also increase, conversely if the lower they do not like the task, the lower the academic procrastination (linra & fakhri, 2016; ahmad & mudjiran, 2019). many individual causes of academic procrastination, but one of them is for fear of failure (solomon &rothblum, 1984; steel, 2007; van, 2004). based on the results of initial interviews conducted by researchers, it is known that respondents stated that when there is a difficult task, they will choose to delay to start the task very high high moderate low very low very high high moderate low very low result discussion nur fauziah karim, minarni, & syahrul alim 109 for fear of being wrong to get a low score that can disappoint parents. in addition, the respondents also stated that criticism of others for the disobedience experienced by the individual causes the individual to feel embarrassed, insecure, and even discouraged to achieve success. so procrastination is one strategy to overcome fear. in line with the results of the interview, burka & yuen (2008) stated that individuals perform procrastination on the grounds that they fear being judged and criticized by others. individuals also worry about being poorly judged by others, so procrastination is a strategy to overcome the fear of failure. ferrari, jhonson, & mccown (1995) states that fear generally causes individuals to avoid taking action. fear of failure is an attitude of avoidance that can be procrastination. generally, individuals with high fear of failure will experience anxiety when the deadline is near. anxiety can decrease when given a stimulus, i.e., task avoidance or procrastination. sulaeman (1995) states that fear is a psychological state caused by the conflict in the individual because of persistent feelings of worry and uncertain feelings. atkinson (1993) states that negative consequences such as fear can arise due to failure in specific tasks. so the urge to avoid failure is a negative consequence of an individual's capacity to anticipate the shame and humiliation they may have acquired. the study results from fitriah, hartati & kurniawan (2016) showed that 58% of 178 subjects at the faculty of education of semarang state university conducted academic procrastination due to the fear of failure factor that falls into the high category with a presentation value of 71%. another study conducted by sebastian (2013) obtained the result that individuals who have a high fear of failure argue that the task is unpleasant so that it causes them to be distracted by other, more pleasurable things that cause them to perform procrastination behavior. another supporting study conducted by mariana (2021) on students of grades x, xi, and xii of sma x surabaya showed a positive relationship between fear of failure and academic procrastination. namely, if students have a high fear of failure, then academic procrastination will also be higher, and vice versa; students who have a low fear of failure, then academic procrastination will also be lower. research conducted by akmal, arlinkasari & fitriani (2017) on students who are compiling the thesis shows a positive influence between the hope of success and fear of failure with academic procrastination. if students have a high fear of failure, then academic procrastination will also be higher, and vice versa. academic procrastination will also be lower for students who have a low fear of failure. this study confirmed that students who tend to have high levels of fear of failure also tend to have a high level of academic procrastination. similarly, low levels of fear of failure contribute to low academic procrastination tendencies. this study's limitation is that uneven samples are still involved based on factors that influence academic procrastination behavior. therefore, the authors suggest doing a more comprehensive follow-up study. conclusion 110 can fear of failure predict academic procrastination? a study of indonesian university students ahmad, r., & mudjiran. (2019) hubungan task aversiveness dengan prokrastinasi akademik pada mahasiswa bidikmisi fip unp. jurnal riset psikologi, 3, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.24036/jrp.v2019i3.6588 akmal, s. z., arlinkasari, f., & fitriani, a. u. (2017). hope of success and fear of failure predicting academic procrastination students who working on a thesis. jurnal ilmu pendidikan, psikologi, bimbingan dan konseling, 7(1), 78-86. https://doi.org/10.24127/gdn.v7i1.724 atkinson (1993). pengantar psikologi (8th ed), (nurdjah taufik & agus dharma, trans.) erlangga. burka, j. b. & yuen, l. m. (2008). procrastination: why you do it, what to do about it now. da capo press. conroy, d. e. (2002). representational models associated with fear of failure in adolencents and young adults. journal of personality, 71(5), 757-785. https://doi.org/10.1111/14676494.7105003 conroy, d. e., kaye, m. p., & fifer, a. m. (2007). cognitive links between fear of failure and procrastination. journal of rational-emotive & cognitive-behavior therapy, 25(4), 237-253. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10942-007-0052-7 covington, m. v. (1992). making the grade: a self-worth perspective on motivation and school reform. cambridge university press. ferrari, j. r., jhonson, j. l., & mccown, w. g. (1995). procrastination and task avoidance theory, research, and treatment. plenum press. fitriah, z., kurniawan, k., & sri hartati, m. (2017). faktor penyebab prokrastinasi akademik penyusunan skripsi pada mahasiswa fip unnes. indonesian journal of guidance and counseling: theory and application, 5(4), 46-51. https://doi.org/10.15294/ijgc.v5i4.13522 fitriya, f., & lukmawati, l. (2017). hubungan antara regulasi diri dengan perilaku prokrastinasi akademik pada mahasiswa sekolah tinggi ilmu kesehatan (stikes) mitra adiguna palembang. psikis: jurnal psikologi islami, 2(1). http://jurnal.radenfatah.ac.id/index.php/psikis/article/view/1058 gusniarti, u. (2002). hubungan antara persepsi siswa terhadap tuntutan dan harapan sekolah dengan derajat stress siswa sekolah plus. psikologika, 7(13), 53-68. https://doi.org/10.20885/psikologika.vol7.iss13.art5 haghbin, m., mccaffrey, a., & pychyl, t. a. (2012). the complexity of the relation between fear of failure and procrastination. journal of rational-emotive & cognitive-behavior therapy, 30(4), 249–263. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10942012-0153-9 haryanti, a. & santoso, r. (2020). prokrastinasi akademik pada mahasiswa yang aktif berorganisasi. sukma: jurnal penelitian psikologi, 1(1), 41-47. http://jurnal.untagsby.ac.id/index.php/sukma/article/view/3592 hadriana, s. (ed.). (2018, december 14). soal 77% mahasiswa mengakui prokrastinasi akademik, ini solusi dari ketua konseling unhas. identitas unhas. https://identitasunhas.com/soal-77mahasiswa-mengakui-prokrastinasi-akademik-ini-solusi-dari-ketua-konseling-unhas/ references nur fauziah karim, minarni, & syahrul alim 111 jawa pos (2021, 22 february). bukan karena stres, ini salah satu alasan mahasiswa menunda skripsi. https://www.jawapos.com/nasional/pendidikan/22/02/2021/bukan-karena-stres-inisalah-satu-alasan-mahasiswa-menunda-skripsi/ knaus, w. (2010). end procrastination now! get it done with a proven psychological approach. the mcgraw-hill companies. lay, c. h., & schouwenburg, h. c. (1993). trait procrastination, time management, and academic behavior. journal of social behavior & personality, 8(4), 647–662. linra, m. l., & fakhri, n. (2016) hubungan antara task aversiveness dengan prokrastinasi akademik. jurnal psikologi pendidikan dan konseling (jppk), 2(2). https://doi.org/10.26858/jpkk.v2i2.2090 mariana, d. (2021). motivasi berprestasi dan ketakutan akan kegagalan: dapatkah menjadi prediktor prokrastinasi akademik? inner: journal of psychological research, 1(1), 25–34. https://aksiologi.org/index.php/inner/article/view/20 santrock, j. w. (2012). perkembangan masa hidup (13th ed.). erlangga. sebastian, i. (2013). never be afraid hubungan antara fear of failure dan prokrastinasi akademik. calyptra: jurnal ilmiah mahasiswa universitas surabaya, 2(1), 1-8. https://journal.ubaya.ac.id/index.php/jimus/article/view/441 solomon, l. j., & rothblum, e. d. (1984). academic procrastination: frequency and cognitivebehavioral correlates. journal of counseling psychology, 31(4), 503–509. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.31.4.503 steel p. (2007). the nature of procrastination: a meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure. psychological bulletin, 133(1), 65–94. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.65 sulaeman, d. (1995). psikologi remaja dimensi-dimensi perkembangan. mandar maju. suryabrata, s. (2008). metode penelitian. pt raja grafindo. syifa, a. (2020). intensitas penggunaan smartphone, prokrastinasi akademik, dan perilaku phubbing mahasiswa. counsellia: jurnal bimbingan dan konseling, 10(1), 8396.https://doi.org/10.25273/counsellia.v10i1.6309 tuckman, b. w. (1991). the development and concurrent validity of the procrastination scale. educational and psychological measurement, 51(2), 473–480. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164491512022 yuwanto, l. (2013, 21 march). mahasiswa prokrastinasi, mahasiswa dan dosen terbebani. universitas surabaya. https://ubaya.ac.id/2018/content/articles_detail/79/mahasiswaprokrastinasi--mahasiswa-dan-dosen-terbebani.html undang-undang republik indonesia nomor 12 tahun 2012 tentang pendidikan tinggi, (2012). https://peraturan.go.id/common/dokumen/ln/2012/uu12-2012bt.pdf wahyuningtiyas, e. p., suminarti, s., & amalia, s. (2019). hubungan manajemen stres dengan perilaku prokrastinasi akademik pada mahasiswa yang sedang menyusun skripsi. jurnal rap (riset aktual psikologi universitas negeri padang), 10(1), 28-45. https://doi.org/10.24036/rapun.v10i1.105006 112 can fear of failure predict academic procrastination? a study of indonesian university students wardani, a. k., & nurwardani, m. (2019). prokrastinasi akademik ditinjau dari regulasi diri dan adversity quotient pada mahasiswa yang bekerja di perguruan tinggi “x” yogyakarta. jurnal psikologi integratif, 7(1), 14-21. https://doi.org/10.14421/jpsi.v7i1.1665 issn ;2541450x (online) 6 vol. 1 no. 1 (june 2020), pp. 6-12 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i1.1717 the difference of orphanages’ happiness based on gender nur afni safarina1, nurmaulidina nasution2 12 department of psychology, universitas malikussaleh, aceh, indonesia;  corresponding author: nur afni safarina (email: nurafni.safarina@unimal.ac.id) abstract – this study aims to determine the differences in happiness in orphanages in terms of gender. this research uses quantitative research methods through a questionnaire for data collection, then a test is carried out to provide an overview of the research variables. the data collection method in this study uses one scale, namely, the scale of happiness. analysis of data using the t 2 test sample free technique. the participants of this study were 50 children from miftahul jannah orphanage. in terms of the sex of participants for girls taken from the middle-high school range of 25 people, while for men taken from the middle-high school range is as many as 25 people. the results of this study are based on the "independent sample test" output table in the "equal variances assumed" section known to the value of sig. (2-tailed) of 0.83> 0.05. this means there is no difference between man’s happiness and women's happiness " at the miftahul jannah orphanage. article history: received: january 5, 2020 revised: february 1, 2020 accepted: march 3, 2020 published: june 18, 2020 keyword: adolescents; gender; happiness; orphanage. how to cite (apa 7th edition) safarina, n. a., & nasution, n. (2020). the difference of orphanages’ happiness based on gender. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 1(1), 6-12. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i1.1717 this is an open-access article distributed under the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. this is enabled under the terms of attribution and noncommercial usage of the material. ©2020 by nur afni safarina & nurmaulidina nasution. safarina, n.a. & nasution, n. 7 emotion is an outpouring of human feelings. emotions greatly affect human life. emotions give color to human life. there are two kinds of emotions reviewed from the influence it produces. these forms of emotions are positive and negative emotions. both of these emotions can be felt by each individual. negative emotions are described by feelings of fear, sadness, anger, dislike, and other negative feelings, while positive emotions are the opposite (seligman, 2005). one form of positive emotion is happiness. happiness has a positive effect on humans. yulia (2012) said that happiness is a state of mind or a feeling of pleasure and tranquility of life in a meaningful birth and mind to improve self-function. a happy individual experiences tranquility in his or her life, thus feeling precious, both for himself and others. every individual must have the same goal in his or her life. one of these goals is the achievement of happiness. richards (in puspitorini, 2012) explains that the highest purpose of life that individuals want is to be rich and happy. happiness is not only felt by the rich who have everything. a happy individual is an individual who is willing to be grateful for what he or she has. ardian & nashori (2008) who researches happiness in people with disabilities, suggests that if job satisfaction, love and marriage, and social relations can not be fulfilled, then gratitude will bring submission. therefore, individuals can take wisdom from existing problems and then form beliefs and expectations that make people with disabilities able to live life and achieve happiness factors that can not be fulfilled. this is reinforced by the results of rodney and jaredm's research (2008) which explained that religious individuals tend to have feelings of gratitude to enjoy mental and physical health better. many factors affect happiness. putri & yuniarti (2011) revealed in their research that overall the events that make the happiest are family-related events. while other responses establish that loving and being loved is an event that makes happiness, spirituality, friends, free time, earn money, as well as other answers, fall into the category of "others". based on the research, it was revealed that happy events come from events together with family as the closest environment which is then followed by other factors. being happy is the ideal feeling that every human being wants. therefore individuals compete with each other for happiness. king, et al. (michael argyle, 2001) says that happiness and the meaning of life are judged as more important than money in producing a good life, more than moral goodness, and even more than going to heaven. in other words, happiness is an important thing to have compared to the money and goodness that individuals have done. happiness also knows no gender, but the orientation of happiness in adolescent boys and girls varies. following the results of research conducted by yulia woro puspitorini (2011) that the events that make teenage male respondents very happy are events related to achievement, spirituality, friends, and leisure. as for teenage girls, family-related events, love and love, and money. but in seligman's research (2005) it was found that women are happier and at the same time sadder than men. this is because women are more expressive in responding to an event that occurs in their lives. over time, individual needs grow. individual needs affect the happiness obtained from the satisfaction of fulfillment of needs. introduction 8 the difference of orphanages’ happiness based on gender hurlock (1997) reveals that important factors in adulthood are in the areas of family life, friendship, rich cultural life, society, and pleasures in life. while children and adolescents are more concerned with popularity and self-acceptance in the environment of their friends. happiness as a positive emotion obtained through shortcuts will reduce the value of happiness itself. these shortcuts make individuals become other persons. as revealed by seligman (2005) that if positive emotions are separated from the use of character will lead to falsehood, emptiness, depression, and in line with the age of man, there is a disturbing awareness of the heart that is in the form of anxiety throughout human life. such pseudo-happiness can cause anxiety for individuals in living life. the presence of negative experiences can also cause negative emotions. individuals who live by trying to be what others want will make the individual have a distorted concept of self. as a result, the experience experienced by individuals who are not in harmony with the concept of self will cause anxiety (farozin & fathiyah, 2004). the lack of happiness makes the individual moody and like to isolate themselves from the surrounding environment. when somber, individuals become easily suspicious, aloof, and defensively focused on their own needs, whereas selfishness is more a characteristic of sadness than happiness (seligman, 2005). the lack of happiness experienced by individuals results in personality and social life being disrupted. unhappiness leads to the destruction of self-adjustment both socially and personally (hurlock, 1997). unhappy individuals have negative judgments about themselves as well as those around them. therefore, less happy individuals have poor self-adjustment. if this continues to happen, then the individual may experience the failure of developmental tasks, especially in the personal and social aspects. the research approach used in this research is descriptive quantitative research. descriptive research is a study to gather information about the status of existing symptoms, namely the state of symptoms according to what they were at the time of the study (arikunto, 2005). in addition, it is called descriptive quantitative research because this type of research produces data in the form of numbers and which is then analyzed statistically. this study uses a type of survey research. sukmadinata (2006) explained that survey research is used to collect data related to attitudes, values, beliefs, opinions, stances, desires, ideas, behaviors, habits, and so forth. donald ary, et al (in arikunto 2005), surveys can be conducted to collect data of real nature. the data collected in this study is the happiness of miftahul jannah orphanage children with a range of junior high schools. this research was conducted at miftahul jannah orphanage for approximately one month during october 2019. the happiness scale is shared on a specific sample randomly. the participants of this study were 50 children of miftahul jannah orphanage. judging from the gender of participants for girls taken from the range of junior high school as many as 25 people, while for men taken from the range of junior high school is as many as 25 people. the research instrument was a tool used to measure natural and social phenomena observed (sugiyono, 2010). the research instrument used is a questionnaire (questionnaire) scale modification likert. the research instrument was used in the form of the happiness scale. this scale is based on the theoretical study of aspects of happiness and adapted based on the research method safarina, n.a. & nasution, n. 9 subjective happiness scale created by sonja lyumbormirsky and satisfaction with life scale compiled by e. diener. this study used a scale with a type likert scale. the likert scale is used to measure the attitudes, opinions, and perceptions of a person or group of people about social phenomena (sugiyono, 2011). sugiyono (2010) explained that with the likert scale, the variables to be measured are described as variable indicators. the selection of answer scales in this study used a likert scale model with 5 answer options. the scale of the answer is very appropriate (ss), appropriate (s), less appropriate (ks), not appropriate (ts), and very inappropriate (sts). for data analysis, this study employed the independent t-test. these techniques were used to find out the difference between males and females as the differentiating factor. the mann-whitney test is a nonparametric test that does not require normal data distribution. the mann-whitney test was used to test whether there were differences between two independent sample groups. this test is often used as a substitute alternative to the independent t-test if the data is abnormal or used to test differences if the data is an ordinal scale. based on the analysis, it is known that the variable of happiness spreads following the normal spread that is distributed by the principle of normal curves. as a criterion if p > 0.05, then the spread is declared normal. conversely, if the p < 0.05, then the spread is not normal (hadi, 2000). the linearity test is a required test that is usually done if going to do an analysis or intended to find out the degree of variable relationship happiness reviewed from the sex in orphanage children. as a criterion, if the p difference < 0.05 then it is stated to have a linear degree of relationship (hadi, 2000). table 1 linearity test variable f p-value happiness 0,38 0,855 thus, based on the linearity test the relationship can be seen from the variable above has a linear degree of relationship. as a requirement test if going to do a free sample t-test (independent sample t-test) and a one-way variant test (one way anova). test this to see if multiple variants of the data population are the same or not. if the significance value is more than 0.05 then it can be said that the variants of two or more data groups are the same. table 2 homogeneity test levene statistic df1 df2 sig. .231 1 48 .633 the homogeneity test is used as a requirement test if going to conduct a free sample t-test (independent samples t-test) and a one-way variant test (one way anova). test this to see if multiple variants of the data population are the same or not. if the significance value is more than 0.05 then it can be said that the variants of two or more data groups are the same. result 10 the difference of orphanages’ happiness based on gender table 3 independent samples test f sig sig (2-tailed) mean difference equal variances assumed .231 .633 0,83 -9.760 equal variances assumed 0,83 -9760 based on the output table test of homogeneity of variances above, it is known that the pvalue of the happiness variable in children in orphanages is 0.633. because of the p-value of 0.633 > 0.05, then as the basis of decision making in the homogeneity test above, it can be concluded that the variance of happiness result data in children in orphanages is the same or homogeneous. based on the result, it can be concluded that h0 was accepted and ha rejected, which means there is no difference in happiness between the male and female sexes in the orphanage. the purpose of this study was to find out the difference in happiness in orphanage children who were reviewed from the gender. the process of conducting research conducted in the orphanage went smoothly following the original planning. research conducted by quantitative research method through questionnaires for data collection then conducted a test to give an idea of the research variables. in addition, this measurement aims to determine the accuracy of the results of the study with hypotheses conducted by researchers. based on the results of research data testing that has been conducted by researchers, the following will be presented a discussion of the results of research obtained from variables namely happiness. the results of this study illustrate the difference in average happiness in orphanages between men and women who are reviewed from the sex, the average value of happiness for men is 221.16, while for women it is 211.40. the results of this study are supported by the top-down theory that explains that happiness is influenced by internal and external factors. examples of internal factors themselves are like the past, the future, the present, while external factors such as money, marriage, social life, happiness, religion, positive emotions, age, education, gender. this theory explains that the happiness experienced by individuals reviewed by the male gender is related to achievement, spirituality, friends, and leisure time. as for women, namely with family, loved or loved, and money. furthermore, the results of the first main effect show based on the output table "independent sample test" in the section "equal variances assumed" known sig value. (2tailed) of 0.83 > 0.05, then as the basis of decision making in the independent test sample test can be concluded that ho was accepted and ha rejected which means there is no difference in male happiness and women’s happiness at miftahul jannah orphanage. discussion safarina, n.a. & nasution, n. 11 the results of this study are supported by the theory of happiness also does not know the gender, but the orientation of happiness in adolescent boys and girls varies. following the results of research conducted by puspitorini (2011) that the events that make teenage male respondents very happy are events related to achievement, spirituality, friends, and leisure. as for teenage girls, family-related events, love and love, and money. happiness arises from the fulfillment of needs or expectations and is the cause or means to enjoy. (hurlock, 1997). happiness here is how men and women judge their own lives positively overall. happiness as a positive emotion in the lives of orphanage children has a diverse impact. as revealed by seligman (2005) that positive emotions expand intellectual, physical, and social resources. happiness helps to manage self-ability to interact with its social environment. in addition, happiness also helps children living in orphanages to achieve a healthy personality to support the fulfillment of their developmental tasks. the findings of the second main effect show from the output of "independent samples test", the table part "mean difference" is -9760. this shows the difference between happiness outcomes in male and female sexes with average happiness of 211.40-211.16 = -9.760. the results of this study are supported by a top-down theory that explains that women are happier and at the same time sadder than men. this is because women are more expressive in responding to an event that occurs in their lives (seligman, 2005). many factors affect happiness. oetami and yuniarti (2011) revealed in their research that overall the events that make the happiest are family-related events, and achievement events. while other responses establish that loving and being loved is an event that makes happiness, spirituality, friends, free time, earn money, as well as other answers fall into the category of "others". based on the research, it was revealed that happy events come from events together with family as the closest environment which is then followed by other factors. these factors have different tendencies of satisfaction levels. low levels of satisfaction felt by individuals result in reduced levels of happiness as a form of positive emotions. seligman (2005) said that having a positive feeling about someone or something makes us approach it, while negative feelings make us avoid it. thus, happiness is felt not throughout life or only in some factors of life alone. from the description above, it can be concluded that happiness has an important role in happiness in daily life. it means a lot that for happiness in life begins to develop positive emotions against all the gifts received, then strives with happiness that is always present and present in daily life. with the various limitations in this study, there are some suggestions submitted by researchers further to understand and preventive efforts in developing happiness in orphanages. it is necessary to seek a more adequate research design to understand happiness. one of the efforts made is to multiply the variables both free and mediator that serves to explain the factors that affect mental health. this research uses a quantitative method, so it has limitations in extracting and delivering data. therefore, it is necessary to consider researching this with qualitative approaches (either conclusion 12 the difference of orphanages’ happiness based on gender through observation, interview, or fgd) that can test more adequate causality relationships and find training models capable of developing happiness in orphanages. arikunto, s. (2010). prosedur penelitian, suatu pendekatan praktik. rineka cipta. farozin, m. & fathiyah, k. n. (2004). pemahaman tingkah laku. penerbit rineka cipta. hurlock, e. b. (1997). psikologi perkembangan. suatu pendekatan sepanjang rentang kehidupan. erlangga. oetami, p. & yuniarti, k. w. (2011). orientasi kebahagiaan siswa sma: tinjauan psikologi indigenous pada siswa laki-laki dan perempuan. jurnal humanitas 8(2). 105-113. puspitorini, y. w. (2012). tingkah laku prososial dan kebahagiaan. skripsi publikasi: fakultas psikologi universitas katolik soegijapranata putra, a. a. & nashori, f. (2008). kebahagiaan pada penyandang cacat tubuh (sebuah penelitian kualitatif). naskah publikasi: fakultas psikologi dan ilmu sosial budaya universitas islam indonesia rahman, p. a. & siregar, r. h. (2012). hubungan religiusitas dengan kebahagiaan pada lansia muslim. skripsi publikasi: fakultas psikologi universitas sumatera utara. santrock, j. w. (2002). live span development: perkembangan masa hidup 2. erlangga seligman, m. e. p. (2005). authentic happiness. mizan pustaka sugiyono. (2011). metode penelitian administrasi. alfabeta. sukmadinata, n. s. (2006). metode penelitian pendidikan. pt. remaja rosdakarya srark, r. & aier, j. (2008). faith and happiness. review of religious research 50(1), 120-125. references inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research https://journal.iainlangsa.ac.id/index.php/inspira how to cite (apa 7th edition) ihsani, h. & utami, s. e. (2022). the role of religiosity and self-efficacy towards a quarter-life crisis in muslim college students. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 3(1), 31–37. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i1.4109 this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial 4.0 international (cc by-nc 4.0) copyright ©2022 by hanifa ihsani & sabrina etika utami research article the role of religiosity and self-efficacy towards a quarter-life crisis in muslim college students https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i1.4309 hanifa ihsani, sabrina etika utami department of psychology, universitas putra indonesia yptk padang, west sumatera, indonesia corresponding author: hanifa ihsani (email: hanifaihsani@upiyptk.ac.id) abstract being a student is one of the phases of one’s development when entering the emerging adulthood phase. in the transition from adolescence to adulthood, people usually begin to experience problems in their lives. those problems are generally related to the future. this study examines the role of religiosity and self-efficacy on a quarter-life crisis in muslim college students. a total of 116 students from various universities in padang participated in this study. data were analyzed using multiple linear regression analysis. the results of this study indicate that the hypothesis is accepted. religiosity and selfefficacy have a significant role in the quarter-life crisis. that means when religiosity and self-efficacy are high, the quarter-life crisis experienced by students decreases. this result has indicated by the calculated f value of 5.019 and a significance level of 0.008 (p<0.05). the contribution of religiosity and self-efficacy to the quarter-life crisis is 8.2%. this study also found that the partial contribution of religiosity did not have a significant role in the quarter-life crisis. on the other hand, the contribution of self-efficacy partially remains significant to the quarter-life crisis. article history: received 20 june 2022 revised 26 june 2022 accepted 28 june 2022 keywords: emerging adulthood; muslim college students; quarter-life crisis; religiosity; self-efficacy introduction throughout human life, from childhood to adulthood, humans will experience development according to their respective duties. the more mature humans are increasingly aware of their duties and responsibilities in society and the role they play in society as an individual (feist et al., 2018). stage of human development is a change experienced by individuals to become mature with systematic, progressive, and sustainable progress (yusuf ln, 2011). in general, there are several stages of development in humans. each phase has different developmental tasks (yusuf ln, 2011). in the infant phase, developmental tasks are more physical, such as learning to walk and eat solid food. in the childhood phase, one of the tasks of human development is learning to get along with peers. in the adolescent phase, some of the tasks of human development are being able to accept themselves, have confidence in their abilities, and strengthen self-control. while in the adult phase, especially in the early adult phase, some of the developmental https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i1.4309 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6417-6297 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3106-873x 32 tasks are looking for and finding a potential life partner and pursuing a career to have economic stability (dariyo, 2008). each of these developmental tasks must be completed in every phase, and in every phase shift, there will be a psychosocial crisis that humans will pass through (erikson in king, 2010). the crisis that is currently in the spotlight is the crisis that occurs when the adolescent phase is leading to the adult phase because, in the adolescent phase, a person will already think abstractly but has little experience, so an “idealism” appears in this phase (altalib et al., 2013). because in this phase, many things happen before a person fully matures, experts investigate it more deeply and then find a connecting phase between adolescence and early adulthood. this phase is termed “emerging adulthood. “ arnett (2000) suggests that emerging adulthood is a new development concept. the period is from late adolescence to the too early twenties, focusing on ages 18-25. when viewed from the age range of students, they are suitable to be called emerging adulthood in their development (arnett, 2000). according to arnett (2017), a person in the emerging adulthood phase explores various aspects of life, and entering college can allow him to explore various possible majors that will be his focus. these various educational possibilities offer different job prospects (arnett, 2017). even so, a person has a high chance of not being able to get through a crisis at this phase, even though the hallmark of this phase of emerging adulthood is exploratory in various aspects of life. entering the phase of emerging adulthood, a person will experience various psychological problems, feel uncertain in life, and have an emotional crisis commonly known as a quarter-life crisis (robbins & wilner, 2001). the quarter-life crisis phase is characterized by helplessness, doubt, ignorance of something, and fear of the future related to career, finances, relationships, and others that occur when a person enters adulthood (suyono et al., 2021). the quarter-life crisis phase is experienced by a person when they feel trapped by their routine, and it can cause hopelessness. the desire to avoid routine is caused by the fear of failure and the desire to leave responsibilities and try new things (karpika & segel, 2021). when someone successfully goes through the quarter-life crisis, he will grow up with positive feelings where the individual realizes that life changes are needed to get maximum results and can face other life problems (robbins & wilner, 2001). the crisis can be passed by someone if there are some resources. based on research conducted by habibie et al. (2019), religiosity is vital to facing the quarter-life crisis. religiosity is a system of values and actions of a person who has a divine basis associated with a particular religion so that it has guidelines and methods in carrying out worship rituals (amir & lesmawati, 2016). this religiosity helps individuals understand their life experiences (amir & lesmawati, 2016). furthermore, religiosity also changes various dimensions of life (afriyanti & surya, 2020). in line with previous research, tapotubun & rahmah (2021) stated that religion is needed in dealing with the quarter-life crisis. the reason why religiosity plays a role in the quarter-life crisis was put forward by koenig & larson (2001), which stated that increasing religious belief could make individuals feel happy, satisfied in life, and filled with positive feelings. individuals who are satisfied with their lives can overcome anxiety and stress and see life as more meaningful, related to how a person deals with crises. in addition to belief in religion, several factors are related to or can affect life satisfaction; one is self-efficacy (zwagery & yuniarrahmah, 2021). self-efficacy is a person’s belief about his capacity when dealing with events that affect his life (bandura in (montigny & lacharite, 2005). self-efficacy is humans’ most crucial self-reflection mechanism ( feist et al., 2018). tangkeallo et al. (2014) found that the higher a student’s self-efficacy, 33 the more likely he is to have a clear future orientation. a clear future orientation will make a person not confused when facing a crisis. in line with tangkeallo, afnan et al. (2020) found that self-efficacy was negatively related to stress in students in the quarter-life crisis phase. based on interviews conducted by researchers with students who continue their studies in padang city, many of them have experienced a quarter-life crisis. that is a big question because all religions have their own guidelines for dealing with life’s conflicts, one of which is meditation. most studies also show that religiosity positively influences adolescent development (schnitker et al., 2021), which is the phase that intersects with emerging adulthood. self-efficacy should also affect students’ mindsets in dealing with stressors. therefore, this article examines the role of religiosity and self-efficacy in muslim students’ quarter-life crisis method this type of research is quantitative research. quantitative research emphasizes numerical data (numbers) analysis and is processed by statistical methods. the quantitative approach used is a quantitative survey. the research sample was taken using purposive sampling. the subjects’ criteria are students from one university in padang aged 18-25 years (mean=20.8, sd=1.34) who came from various provinces, specifically north sumatra, west sumatra, riau, jambi, aceh, and west java. the total respondents are 116 college students, 10 men, and 106 women. in this study, the quarter-life crisis is the dependent variable, and religiosity and self-efficacy are independent variables. quarter-life crisis is an experience faced by a person with regard to various psychological problems. in this phase, a person feels uncertain in life and experiences an emotional crisis. measurement of the quarter-life crisis is carried out using the quarter life crisis scale, which is modified from the research scale of habibie et al. (2019) using seven dimensions from robbins & wilner (2001), (1) indecision in making decisions; (2) despair; (3) negative self-assessment; (4) stuck in a problematic situation; (5) anxious; (6) depressed; (7) worried about interpersonal relationships that are being and will be built. the scale contained in the research of habibie et al. (2019 ) initially amounted to 23 items. after the researcher conducted the trial, one item failed, so only 22 items were used for this study. the reliability of this modification scale is 0.924, and the item discrimination ranges from 0.313 to 0.810. the items in this scale are all arranged in favorable form. this type of scale is likert, so there are five answer choices, (1) strongly disagree; (2) disagree; (3) neither agree nor disagree; (4) agree; (5) strongly agree. religiosity is a system of values and actions of a person who has a divine basis associated with a particular religion so that it has guidelines and methods in carrying out worship rituals. the measurement of religiosity uses a scale developed by fauziah (2021) using five dimensions of religiosity according to glock and stark in 1968. these dimensions are (1) belief, (2) rituality, (3) religious experience, (4) consequences, and (5) religious knowledge. the scale initially consisted of 23 items. after being modified according to the research context, one item dropped, so the items used in this study amounted to 22. the reliability of this scale is 0.974, with item discrimination ranging from 0.596 to 0.895. items in this scale are entirely favorable. this type of scale is likert, so there are five answer choices, namely: (1) strongly disagree; (2) disagree; (3) neither agree nor disagree; (4) agree; (5) strongly agree. self-efficacy is a person’s belief about his capacity when dealing with events that affect his life. measuring self-efficacy uses the new general self-efficacy scale developed by scherbaum et al. (2006), then adapted by kamilah (2015) into the indonesian version. there are eight items on this scale concerning three indicators, namely: (1) self-confidence to achieve the desired behavior; (2) the 34 ability to self-regulate; (3) belief in one’s abilities. researchers conducted trials on this measuring instrument, then got reliability of 0.924 with item discrimination ranging from 0.625 to 0.908. the items in this scale are all favorable. this type of scale is likert, so there are five answer choices, namely: (1) strongly disagree; (2) disagree; (3) neither agree nor disagree; (4) agree; (5) strongly agree. the data collection uses an online questionnaire platform where the link to the questionnaire is distributed through social media. the data in this study will be in the form of numbers, then processed by multiple regression analysis. data analysis was carried out using the help of a data processing program. result the results of this study were processed using multiple regression analysis techniques. before conducting the primary analysis, the researcher grouped the participants according to demographic data: table 1. demographic data of research participants (n=116) aspect n (%) sex male 10 (8.6%) female 106 (91.4%) age 18-19 37 (31.9%) 20-21 60 (51.7%) 22-23 18 (15.5%) 24-25 1 (0.9%) semester 2-4 65 (56,0%) 6-8 50 (43,1%) 10-12 1 (0.9%) furthermore, the researcher also found that the mean score of the empirical data of the three variables was higher than the mean score of the hypothetical data, which means that the average participant score was higher than the average score of the measuring instrument: table 2. descriptive statistics categorization hypothetical data empirical data min max mean sd min max mean sd quarter-life crisis 22 110 66 14.67 36 107 74.46 14.44 religiosity 22 110 66 14.67 62 110 91.81 9.71 self-efficacy 8 40 24 5.33 22 40 32.61 4.71 this study has also passed the assumption test (normality, linearity, multicollinearity, and heteroscedasticity) so that the requirements for analyzing data using multiple regression techniques can be carried out. from table 3 below, it can be concluded that this research hypothesis is accepted. this result can be seen from the f of 5.976 with a significance level of 0.008 (p <0.05). this value indicates that religiosity (x1) and self-efficacy (x2) together can predict the value of the quarter-life crisis (y). the values of x1 and x2 are inversely proportional to the value of y. that is, the higher the value of religiosity and self-efficacy, the lower the value of the quarter-life crisis. in table 3, it can be seen that the contribution of the two variables is 8.2% (based on the r square value) to the efficacy value (y): table 3. regression test r r square f statistic p explanation 0.286 0.82 5.019 0.008 significant 35 furthermore, in table 4, there is data regarding the role of variables x1 and x2 on y variables separately. the data means that religiosity (x1) does not have a significant role in the quarter-life crisis (y), while self-efficacy (x2) has a significant role. this significance is shown in score of religiosity is 0.640 (p>0.05) and 0.022 self-efficacy (p<0.05). the tables listed conclude that religiosity and selfefficacy can predict the quarter-life crisis score together, but religiosity does not play a significant role. table 4. significant of the role of each variable x to y (t-test) variable t statistic p explanation religiosity -0.469 0.640 not significant self-efficacy -2.318 0.22 significant discussion from the results of this study, it was found that religiosity and self-efficacy can predict the quarterlife crisis score in muslim students aged 18-25 years. the higher the religiosity and self-efficacy scores, the lower the participants’ quarter-life crisis scores. however, the partial contribution of religiosity is not significant. most of the previous studies show that religiosity has a significant role in the level of the quarter-life crisis. an example is a study conducted by koenig (2012), the result of which is that someone who has a high level of spirituality or religiosity has low levels of depression and anxiety and can improve their quality of life. furthermore, research from habibie et al. (2019) shows that a person who has a guide in his life when facing problems has good endurance because of his intense religiosity, and someone who has a good level of religiosity is considered more resilient and established when experiencing indecision or feeling pressured over things that cannot be controlled. religiosity in human life can play a role when influenced by life experiences, learning from parents, and the environment in which the individual is located. believes that god will help him deal with problems so that a person can feel happiness (qolbi et al., 2020). according to thouless (2000), the internal factors that contribute to the quarter-life crisis are personal, emotional, and affective factors; external factors are social and environmental conditions, education level, traditions, and culture, as well as the demands of daily life. other research shows that religiosity can play a role in dropping worry (maisaroh & falah, 2011). apart from religiosity, it turns out that self-efficacy also plays a role in the quarter-life crisis. previous research also explained that self-efficacy could help students to think positively in dealing with their problems, be able to provide self-motivation, have a positive assessment of themselves, and can also help students to know the environment that can have a positive impact on their future lives (hidayati & muttaqien, 2020). it can also be concluded that this study proves that self-confidence to be able to do something and solve problems also influences overcoming problems regarding fear of the future. when individuals can be confident in getting things done, they will face crises in their lives better than individuals who lack confidence in their abilities. religiosity and self-efficacy are a unit that can influence other variables. research conducted by (ula & sholeh 2014) shows that selfefficacy can affect behavior, especially cheating. therefore, religiosity is appropriate when juxtaposed with self-efficacy because it can affect other variables together. concerning the insignificant role of religiosity partially, it could be because students do not consider religion as a coping to solving problems but consider religion as a ritual that must be carried out. the opinion is in line with research by utami (2012); the result is that religiosity has no relationship with the subjective well-being of students on campus and only a tiny contribution of religiosity to the personal subjective well-being of students. however, it is not the religiosity variable related to subjective well-being but the religious coping variable. the higher a person’s religious 36 coping, the higher the students’ subjective well-being. in this study, the items used to measure religiosity were not the same as religious coping. this condition could also be due to other variables that should be present to mediate religiosity and the quarter-life crisis. another variable is self-efficacy. holifah’s (2021) research shows a significant relationship between religiosity and self-efficacy in the sense that religiosity can affect selfefficacy. conclusion this study found that religiosity and self-efficacy can play a role in the quarter-life crisis. however, religiosity partially did not significantly contribute to the quarter-life crisis. the result of this research can be used to reference emerging adulthood quarter-life crisis. the limitation of this research is that female students dominated the respondents, so this study cannot explain the data from gender. further researchers are recommended to conduct mediation analysis on this variable and use the religious coping scale to assess how muslim students perceive religion as a coping strategy. references afnan, a., fauzia, r., & tanau, m. u. (2020). hubungan efikasi diri dengan stress pada mahasiswa yang berada dalam fase quarter life crisis. jurnal kognisia, 3(1), 23–29. https://doi.org/10.20527/jk.v3i1.1569 afriyanti, n., & surya, d. (2020). the religiosity of hijrah adolescence in muslimah aceh fillah community aceh tamiang indonesia. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 1(2), 43-48. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i2.2850 altalib, h., abusulayman, a., & altalib, o. (2013). parent-child relations: a guide to raising children (1st ed). the international institute of islamic thought. amir, y., & lesmawati, d. r. (2016). religiusitas dan spiritualitas: konsep yang sama atau berbeda? jurnal ilmiah penelitian psikologi: kajian empiris & non-empiris, 2(2), 67–73. https://doi.org/10.22236/jipp-21 arnett, j. j. (2000). emerging adulthood: a theory of development from the late teens through the twenties. the american psychologist, 55(5), 469–480. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.55.5.469 arnett, j. j. (2017). adolescence and emerging adulthood: a cultural approach (5th ed). pearson. dariyo, a. (2008). psikologi perkembangan dewasa muda (l. evelina, ed.). grasindo. fauziah, n. (2021). peran religiusitas dalam memediasi pengaruh teman sebaya terhadap ketidakjujuran akademik pada remaja [master thesis, universitas gadjah mada]. http://etd.repository.ugm.ac.id/penelitian/detail/196862 feist, j., feist, g. j. & robert, t. -a. (2018). theories of personality (9th ed). mcgraw-hill education. habibie, a., syakarofath, n. a., & anwar, z. (2019). peran religiusitas terhadap quarter-life crisis (qlc) pada mahasiswa. gadjah mada journal of psychology (gamajop), 5(2), 129-138. https://doi.org/10.22146/gamajop.48948 hidayati, f., & muttaqien, f. (2020). hubungan self efficacy dengan quarter life crisis pada mahasiswa fakultas psikologi universitas islam negeri maulana malik ibrahim malang angkatan 2015. psikoislamedia: jurnal psikologi, 5(1), 75-84. https://doi.org/10.22373/psikoislamedia.v5i1.6302 holifah, u. n. (2021). efikasi diri pada remaja ditinjau dari religiusitas. syifa al-qulub: jurnal studi psikoterapi sufistik, 6(1), 23–34. https://doi.org/10.15575/saq.v6i1.13215 kamilah, s. f. (2015). pengaruh self efficacy, dukungan sosial, dan empati terhadap motivasi mengajar guru abk di jakarta selatan [undergraduate thesis, uin syarif hidayatullah jakarta]. https://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/handle/123456789/37112 karpika, i. p., & segel, n. w. w. (2021). quarter life crisis terhadap mahasiswa studi kasus di fakultas keguruan dan ilmu pendidikan universitas pgri mahadewa indonesia. widyadari: jurnal pendidikan, 22(2), 513 527. https://ojs.mahadewa.ac.id/index.php/widyadari/article/view/1394 koenig, h. g. (2012). religion, spirituality, and health: the research and clinical implications. isrn psychiatry, 2012, 1–33. https://doi.org/10.5402/2012/278730 https://doi.org/10.20527/jk.v3i1.1569 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i2.2850 https://doi.org/10.22236/jipp-21 https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.55.5.469 https://doi.org/10.22146/gamajop.48948 https://doi.org/10.22373/psikoislamedia.v5i1.6302 https://doi.org/10.15575/saq.v6i1.13215 https://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/handle/123456789/37112 https://ojs.mahadewa.ac.id/index.php/widyadari/article/view/1394 https://doi.org/10.5402/2012/278730 37 koenig, h. g., & larson, d. b. (2001). religion and mental health: evidence for an association. international review of psychiatry, 13(2), 67–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540260124661 maisaroh, e. n., & falah, f. (2011). religiusitas dan kecemasan menghadapi ujian nasional (un) pada siswa madrasah aliyah. proyeksi: jurnal psikologi, 6(2), 78–88. https://doi.org/10.30659/p.6.2.78-88 montigny, f., & lacharite, c. (2005). perceived parental efficacy: concept analysis. journal of advanced nursing, 49(4), 387–396. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2004.03302.x qolbi, f. h., musthofa, a., & chotidjah, s. (2020). masa emerging adulthood pada mahasiswa: kecemasan akan masa depan, kesejahteraan subjektif, dan religiusitas islam. psikoislamika: jurnal psikologi dan psikologi islam, 17(1), 44–54. https://doi.org/10.18860/psi.v17i1.8821 robbins, a., & wilner, a. (2001). quarterlife crisis: the unique challenges of life in your twenties (1st ed). tarcherperigee. scherbaum, c. a., cohen-charash, y., & kern, m. j. (2006). measuring general self-efficacy: a comparison of three measures using item response theory. educational and psychological measurement, 66(6), 1047–1063. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164406288171 schnitker, s. a., medenwaldt, j. m., & williams, e. g. (2021). religiosity in adolescence. current opinion in psychology, 40, 155–159. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2020.09.012 suyono, t. a., kumalasari, a. d., & fitriana, e. (2021). hubungan quarter-life crisis dan subjective well-being pada individu dewasa muda. jurnal psikologi, 14(2), 301–322. https://doi.org/10.35760/psi.2021.v14i2.4646 tangkeallo, g. a., purbojo, r., & sitorus, k. s. (2014). hubungan antara self-efficacy dengan orientasi masa depan mahasiswa tingkat akhir. jurnal psikologi, 10(1), 25–32. http://doi.org/10.24014/jp.v10i1.1176 tapotubun, h. h., & rahmah, h. (2021). religiusitas digital dan dimensi perlawanan milenial dalam ruang online. jurnal sosiologi reflektif, 15(2), 298–317. https://doi.org/10.14421/jsr.v15i2.2042 thouless, r. h. (2000). pengantar psikologi agama (m. husein, trans.). rajagrafindo persada. ula, a. h., & sholeh, a. k. (2014). hubungan antara efikasi diri dan religiusitas dengan intensitas perilaku menyontek siswa di mts mazrapatul ulum paciran lamongan. psikoislamika: jurnal psikologi dan psikologi islam, 11(1), 33–38. https://doi.org/10.18860/psi.v11i1.6378 utami, m. s. (2012). religiusitas, koping religius, dan kesejahteraan subjektif. jurnal psikologi, 39(1), 46–66. https://doi.org/10.22146/jpsi.6966 yusuf ln, s. (2011). psikologi perkembangan anak dan remaja. remaja rosdakarya. zwagery, r. v., & yuniarrahmah, e. (2021). psikoedukasi “quarter life crisis: choose the right path, what should i do next?” to maega: jurnal pengabdian masyarakat, 4(3), 272–280. https://doi.org/10.35914/tomaega.v4i3.819 https://doi.org/10.1080/09540260124661 https://doi.org/10.30659/p.6.2.78-88 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2004.03302.x https://doi.org/10.18860/psi.v17i1.8821 https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164406288171 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2020.09.012 https://doi.org/10.35760/psi.2021.v14i2.4646 http://doi.org/10.24014/jp.v10i1.1176 https://doi.org/10.14421/jsr.v15i2.2042 https://doi.org/10.18860/psi.v11i1.6378 https://doi.org/10.22146/jpsi.6966 https://doi.org/10.35914/tomaega.v4i3.819 inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research https://journal.iainlangsa.ac.id/index.php/inspira how to cite (apa 7th edition) sekar arumi, m. & faradilla, n. (2023). adolescent religiosity and pre-marital sexual behavior: the mediating role of pre-marital sexual attitude. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 4(1), 53–65. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.5820 this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial 4.0 international (cc by-nc 4.0) copyright ©2023 by mira sekar arumi & nova faradilla. research article early marriage of madurese women: a case study https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.5820 yudho bawono department of psychology, universitas trunojoyo madura, east java, indonesia corresponding author: yudho bawono (email: yudho.bawono@trunojoyo.ac.id) abstract early marriage in indonesia has become an issue that has attracted the attention of various child and women’s monitoring institutions since the proposed revisions to marriage law number 1 of 1974, explicitly increasing the age limit for women’s marriages from 16 years to 18 years. the effort to submit a revision to the law itself is based on various problems caused by the existence of early marriage. however, in contrast to the conditions in madura, early marriage does not always cause problems such as these findings. madurese women who marry early can also achieve happiness and harmony. this research aims to describe ethnic madurese women who marry early using qualitative methods with a case study approach. the research participants were madurese women who married under 18 years and the age of marriage under 10 years. data collection is done using interviews. the data analysis technique uses the miles & huberman interactive model, starting with data collection, reduction, data display, conclusions, and drawing/ verification. the technique of checking the validity of the data is to test credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. the study found that the participants initially perceived early marriage as unpleasant, but it has become suitable for their lives. article history: received 21 march 2023 revised 19 may 2023 accepted 29 june 2023 keywords: early marriage; happiness; madurese women; marriage law introduction humans in their life span will go through stages of development, from prenatal to adulthood (santrock, 2007; zulkifli, 2001). one of the periods in the human life span is adolescence (hurlock, 1994), which is divided into early adolescence (12–15 years), middle adolescence (15–19 years), and late adolescence (19–22 years) (agustiani, 2009; mönks et al., 2001). in adolescence, this data shows many marriages in indonesia (katalog badan pusat statistik, 2016). adolescents should prepare for marriage and family (havighurst in hurlock, 1994) but carry out marriage. mönks et al. (2001) mention the condition of these adolescents as “adolescence shortened” because they are married and enter adulthood in adolescence. data from the world fertility policies united nations in 2011 shows that early marriage in indonesia ranks 37th out of 73 countries, while in southeast asia, indonesia is in second place after cambodia (kompas, 2017b; rubaidah, 2016). in their development, trihendrawan (2017) and juniman (2017) even suggested that the united nations (un) itself classified indonesia as number 7 in the world for the category of absolute early marriage. this data is also supported by a variety of information about early marriage in indonesia, which can be found in various online media as follows: (1) marriage of a 14-year-old couple in bulukumba, south sulawesi, on 13 july 2017 (bahri, https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.5820 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2662-3965 63 2017); (2) marriage of a 15-year-old couple in baturaja, south sumatra, on 17 may 2017 (kumparan, 2017); (3) a total of 333 adolescents from north luwu regency, makassar city, pinrang district, sinjai regency, soppeng regency, and wajo regency are married throughout 2017 (fitriani, 2017); (4) marriage in jeneponto, south sulawesi, on 29 may 2016, with a 13-year-old bridegroom and 14-yearold bride (liputan6, 2016). early marriages that still occur in madura cannot be separated from the power of islam (fawaid & hadi, 2015; rachmad, 2017) and the culture that is still firmly adhered to by the madurese community (rachmad, 2017; sakdiyah & ningsih, 2013; yunitasari et al., 2016). according to rachmad (2017), madurese consider marriage to be an individual right and obligation, not the state that regulates it. the truth about early marriage is considered a form of moral embodiment in islamic madurese society and has become a cultural convention. therefore, early marriage can be a cultural relativism of the madurese people. furthermore, rachmad (2017) even stated that the government would not easily regulate madurese people with a relatively solid islamic culture because this culture is still upheld and maintained by the next generation. apart from the factors that influence the occurrence of early marriage in madura, several pieces of literature have explored that early marriage can cause problems for couples, such as arguments, constant bickering, and clashes between husband and wife (aryanto, 2017; maemunah, 2008), disharmony, lack of awareness to be responsible in household life (jannah, 2011), cut-off access to education (sakdiyah & ningsih, 2013), impact on reproductive health (salmah, 2016), population explosion, economic and psychological problems, domestic violence, and divorce (kompas, 2017a; setyawan & herdiana, 2016). however, as described above, early marriage’s various problems and negative impacts do not constantly occur in madurese women who marry early. this is because the results of other studies show that madurese women who marry early can also achieve happiness and harmony in their formal marriages (bawono & suryanto, 2019; zumriyah, 2016). based on the description, it can be said that these early marriages can also achieve happiness in their marriages and not end in divorce. this is in accordance with the findings of diananda (2016) that the three research subjects achieved happiness in marriage even though they were teenagers. hidayati and uyun’s research (2017) also found that of the four research subjects, three subjects were happy with their early marriage. besides achieving happiness in their marriage, couples who get married early can also achieve subjective well-being. miswiyawati and lestari (2017) found that young married couples, ranging from parents to siblings, could show satisfaction with their families. young married couples also feel positive effects, including being happy to live in a house with their partner because they feel loved by their partner and get support from the family. at this level, the author captures a mismatch between the results of previous studies. on the one hand, it is said that early marriage has an adverse effect, especially on women. however, on the other hand, it is said that madurese women who carry out early marriages can achieve harmony and happiness in their marriages. furthermore, this study was conducted to determine the factors of early marriage and happiness in the early marriage of ethnic madurese women. method this study used a qualitative method with a case study approach. participants in this study were six madurese women living in madura: two from bangkalan regency, one from pamekasan regency, and three from sumenep regency with criteria including madurese women when married under the age of 18 years and the age of marriage under 10 years. data collection used interviews. data analysis techniques used are the interactive model of miles & huberman with the starting data collection, data 64 reduction, data display, conclusions: and drawing/verification. figure 1 describes the data analysis technique in the research. figure 1. the interactive model of miles & huberman the technique of checking the validity of the data in this study is to test credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. result matchmaking (pajhudan) is one of the factors in early marriage in madura the authors found that two out of six participants from the sumenep regency married early because of an arranged marriage by their parents. they initially refused the match but eventually accepted it, engaged briefly, and finally carried out their marriage. when undergoing their marriage, they can finally feel satisfaction, happiness, and positive and negative effects on their marriage (participant interview 3 lines 27–35, lines 96–99, lines 111–115, lines 117–121, lines 279–281, lines 301–305, and lines 338–342; interview participants 4 lines 21–23, lines 37–39, and lines 46–50). in this study, one participant from sumenep regency said that she married early because of an arranged marriage by her parents. she felt unprepared to get married, but she finally received an arranged marriage because she had to obey her parents. in contrast to z, who initially did not want to be engaged, e, also from sumenep regency, said that if she received her marriage through an arranged marriage for her parents, although initially upset and dizzy, she finally gave up her parents’ marriage. happiness in the early marriage of madurese women in this study, although initially, madurese women objected to their marriage, after undergoing it, they felt happy. it was also found in participants who married early because of their wishes; they also felt happy. the form of participant happiness can be found through answers such as: (a) happy if there are no arguments (participant interview 1 line 108 and row 159; participant interview 4 line 17); (b) happy if not lack of money (participant interview 4 line 18); (c) happy when close to husband (participant interview 2 lines 29-31); (d) happy if spoiled by a husband (interview participant 1 line 361-362); (e) happy if the husband earns income (participant interview 1 line 379-380); (f) happy if husband likes to joke (participant interview 2 lines 36-37); (g) happy when sick take care of each other (participant interview 3 lines 65-66); (h) happy if the husband is not often angry (participant interview 3 lines 307-308; participant interview 4 lines 109-112); and (i) happy when sharing their experiences (participant interviews 4 lines 141-145). discussion marriage usually occurs through careful planning and preparation. however, marriage can also occur without prior planning. several previous studies have shown that teenagers who are still 65 teenagers end their teenage years by getting married early because they are pregnant first. in their research, rahman, syahadatania, aprillisya, and afika (2015) found that early marriage had to be done because young women were pregnant. teenagers who get married because of pregnancy often undergo marriage compulsively, and many do not have any preparation. a marriage that is carried out with compulsion and without preparation will impact psychological and socio-economic conditions (fajriyah & laksmiwati, 2014). adolescents who marry because of pregnancy are often blasphemed, rejected, considered bearers of disgrace, or become material gossip in their environment (ikhsan, 2004). in addition to teenage pregnancy having a psychological impact, as outlined above, sari (in indriastuti, 2017) revealed that pregnancy in adolescents (aged less than 17 years) could increase the risk of medical complications for mothers and children. pregnancy at a very young age correlates with maternal mortality and morbidity. the age at which sexual intercourse first occurs also increases the risk of sexually transmitted diseases and the transmission of hiv infection. marriage at a young age is also a risk factor for cervical carcinoma. furthermore, bety (2013) and thahura (2020) stated that early marriage is also challenging to achieve a successful marriage because, psychologically and spiritually, it is unstable. early marriage causes a shocking role that causes frustration for the actual husband and wife, who are still adolescents, with the demands of their role as adults. this frustration can foster ignorance toward his new family so that a mismatch can end in a family split or divorce (joko in indriastuti, 2017). in the previous studies, it was mentioned that early marriage in madura occurs due to matchmaking (pajhudan) tradition, both in the womb and when children are born (fawaid & hadi, 2015; munawara et al., 2015; rahayu & bawono, 2017; sadik, 2014; sakdiyah & ningsih, 2013). apart from the matchmaking that was initially not approved by madurese women, the tradition of matchmaking that continues with the occurrence of early marriage in madura has continued until now because madurese women feel happy with their marriage. although initially, madurese women refused their marriage, they could accept it and feel happy after undergoing it. this is what she said: “yaa ndaklah. menurut saya, yang lalu biarlah berlalu pak. saya jalani yang sekarang. soalnya saya kan sudah menerima dia. yaa.. alhamdulillah-lah seneng. bikin dia seneng. saya seneng juga. jadi imam yang baik. semoga suami saya menjadi imam yang baik, seterusnya.. ("i do not. in my opinion, then let it go, sir. i live now. the thing is, i already received him. yes .. alhamdulillah, it is happy. make him happy. i am happy too. become a good priest (imam). may my husband be a good priest (imam), so on ... ") (interview with z, lines 338-344). this finding supports previous research, which states that early marriage makes couples happier, even though they are still teenagers (diananda, 2016). the research of hidayati and uyun (2017) also found that three of the four research subjects were happy with their early marriage. happiness in early marriage is also found in madurese women (bawono & suryanto, 2019; zumriyah, 2016). besides achieving happiness manifested in satisfaction in an early marriage, couples who get married early can also positively affect their marriage. based on the results of their research, miswiyawati and lestari (2017) found that young married couples were able to show satisfaction with their families, ranging from parents to siblings. young married couples also feel positive effects, including being happy to live in a house with their partner because they feel loved by their partner and get support from the family. achieving a condition that is “fine” is what makes some people support the occurrence of underage marriage or early marriage. the community considers that it is a human right to get married according to the rules in law number 39 of 1999 concerning human rights article 10, which reads: “(1) every person has the right to form a family and continue the descent through a legal marriage; (2) a legal marriage can only take place at the free will of the prospective husband and wife in accordance with the provisions of legislation” (triyanto, 2013). 66 according to triyanto (2013), religious norms (especially islam) do not forbid or oppose underage marriage because the law is arbitrary (mubah). the marriage law provides dispensation to couples who are not old enough to get married. for muslims, those ready to get married are required to marry rather than commit adultery. in the marriage law, the age limit for marriage for men is 19 years and 16 years for women. whereas in the child protection act, the age of marriage is 18 for both women and men. this is what causes the gap in early marriage. in indonesia, several regions, including madura, still carry out the tradition of early marriage because of the strong culture and teachings of religion (islam) that are held firmly there. thus, efforts to revise the age limit for marriage need to be followed by other efforts. this is as stated by sunarti (2018): an increase in the age of marriage to increase marriage maturity and readiness should be accompanied by a guarantee of child protection from pornography and sexual deviation. without these guarantees, increasing the age of marriage increases the risk of sexual misconduct. based on the explanation above, many factors need to be considered when revising marriage law number 1 of 1974, especially regarding the age limit for marriage. according to riyono (2018), marriage is a solution that is both preventive and constructive at the same time to build a healthy and prosperous society. early marriage is not an age problem but a multidimensional problem that must be solved comprehensively. when we misunderstand this problem, the limitation of the age of marriage, mainly if it is raised to the age limit, will not solve the problem. however, it will complicate the problem and threaten the nation’s future. conclusion this study found that early marriage in madura is inseparable from the tradition of arranged marriages. in one area in madura, even people consider this tradition to be preserved because it is inherited from the ancestors. the tradition of early marriage is ongoing because madurese women, in early marriages, can achieve happiness. this condition makes madura different from other regions in indonesia, so it is necessary to consider how to find solutions comprehensively. though ethnic madurese women in their early marriages can achieve happiness, they still need assistance. this is because, in conditions of marriage age that are not yet ideal but can achieve happiness, their condition needs to be maintained so that it does not lead to divorce. declaration acknowledgment the author thanks research assistants who help in data collection and technical matters. author contribution statement yudho bawono composed the research. funding statement this research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or nonprofit sectors. data access statement the data described in this article can be accessed by contacting the author. 67 declaration of interest’s statement the authors declare no conflict of interest. additional information no additional information is available for this paper. references agustiani, h. (2009). psikologi perkembangan: pendekatan ekologi kaitannya dengan konsep diri dan penyesuaian diri pada remaja. pt refika aditama agustine, n., a. (2017). persepsi laki–laki dan perempuan tentang nikah dini di bangkalan. in n. d. kurniawati, t. h. rachmad, & yuriadi (eds). fenomena pernikahan dini di madura (pp. 113–120). ae publishing aryanto. (2017, september 12). remaja siap nikah belum tentu dewasa. intisari, 660 ,70–78. bahri, s. (2017). pernikahan dini pasangan berusia 14 tahun hebohkan warga bulukumba. http://www.tribunnews.com/regional/2017/07/15/pernikahan-dini-pasangan-berusia-14-tahunhebohkan-warga-bulukumba bahrudin. (2016). konflik intrapersonal remaja putri yang dipaksa menikah dini di desa banjarbillah [undergraduate thesis, universitas trunojoyo madura] bawono, y. & suryanto. (2019). does early marriage make women happy? a phenomenological finding from madurese women. journal of educational, health and community psychology, 8(1), 85–100. http://doi.org/10.12928/jehcp.v8i1.12197 bety (2013). hubungan pernikahan dini dengan perceraian (studi kasus pengadilan agama bengkulu). iain raden patah diananda, e. (2016). makna kebahagiaan dalam pernikahan pada remaja awal yang melakukan pernikahan siri di kelurahan sidodadi samarinda. pskoborneo, 4(2), 416–424. http://doi.org/10.30872/psikobornneo.v4i2.4011 edi, f. r. s. (2017). kemandirian perempuan madura pada pernikahan dini. in n. d. kurniawati, t. h. rachmad, & yuriadi (eds). fenomena pernikahan dini di madura (pp. 57–77). ae publishing. fajriyah & laksmiwati, h. (2014). subjective well-being pasangan muda yang menikah karena hamil. character, 3(2), 1–9. fawaid, f., & hadi, m. h. a. (2015). pelaksanaan nikah ngodheh (studi komparasi hukum islam dengan hukum adat) di desa bangkes kecamatan kadur kabupaten pamekasan madura. panggung hukum : jurnal perhimpunan mahasiswa hukum indonesia, 1(2), 217–247. fitriani, s. (2017, august 16). dalam 7 bulan, 333 remaja di sulsel jalani pernikahan dini. rappler. https://www.rappler.com/indonesia/berita/178927-dalam-7-bulan-333-remaja-sulsel-pernikahan-dini hurlock, e. b. (1994). psikologi perkembangan: suatu pendekatan sepanjang rentang kehidupan. erlangga ikhsan, a. s. r. (2004). agenda cinta remaja islam: menyelami dunia remaja, sensasi pacaran, masa puber dan gelora seksualitas. diva press. indriastuti. n. w. (2017). subjective well-being pada perempuan menikah dini dengan usia pernikahan long-term marriage: pendekatan kualitatif metode interpretative phenomenological analysis (ipa). proceeding book. universitas surabaya. http://repository.unj.ac.id/id/eprint/7906 jannah, f. (2011). pernikahan dini dalam pandangan masyarakat madura (studi fenomenologi di desa pandan kecamatan galis kabupaten pamekasan) [undergraduate thesis, uin maulana malik ibrahim malang]. http://etheses.uin-malang.ac.id/id/eprint/2535 juniman, p. t. (2017, 7 february). pbb soroti jumlah pernikahan anak di indonesia. cnn indonesia. https://www.cnnindonesia.com/gaya-hidup/20170207162847-277-191868/pbb-soroti-jumlahpernikahan-anak-di-indonesia http://www.tribunnews.com/regional/2017/07/15/pernikahan-dini-pasangan-berusia-14-tahun-hebohkan-warga-bulukumba http://www.tribunnews.com/regional/2017/07/15/pernikahan-dini-pasangan-berusia-14-tahun-hebohkan-warga-bulukumba http://doi.org/10.12928/jehcp.v8i1.12197 http://doi.org/10.30872/psikobornneo.v4i2.4011 https://www.rappler.com/indonesia/berita/178927-dalam-7-bulan-333-remaja-sulsel-pernikahan-dini http://repository.unj.ac.id/id/eprint/7906 http://etheses.uin-malang.ac.id/id/eprint/2535 https://www.cnnindonesia.com/gaya-hidup/20170207162847-277-191868/pbb-soroti-jumlah-pernikahan-anak-di-indonesia https://www.cnnindonesia.com/gaya-hidup/20170207162847-277-191868/pbb-soroti-jumlah-pernikahan-anak-di-indonesia 68 katalog badan pusat statistik. (2016). perkawinan usia anak di indonesia 2013 dan 2015. badan pusat statistik. kompas. (2017, april 22). lima daerah jadi percontohan, perkawinan usia anak rentan timbulkan masalah sosial dan kesehatan. kompas, p. 12. kompas. (2017, november 4). masa depan anak hancur, gerakan bersama stop perkawinan anak harus sampai daerah. kompas, p. 12. kumparan (2017, june 19). heboh dua siswa smp menikah di usia 15 tahun. https://kumparan.com/salmahmuslimah/heboh-dua-siswa-smp-menikah-di-usia-15-tahun liputan6. (2016, 12 june). heboh pernikahan pasangan bocah 13 tahun di sulawesi selatan. https://www.liputan6.com/citizen6/read/2529285/heboh-pernikahan-pasangan-bocah-13-tahun-disulawesi-selatan maemunah .(2008). hubungan antara faktor pendidikan remaja dan ekonomi keluarga dengan sikap remaja untuk memutuskan menikah di usia muda di desa prapag kidul-losari-brebes [undegraduate thesis, universitas muhammadiyah surakarta]. mahfudin, a. & wa’qiah, k. (2016). pernikahan dini dan pengaruhnya terhadap keluarga di kabupaten sumenep jawa timur. jurnal hukum keluarga islam, 1(1), 33–49. https://journal.unipdu.ac.id/index.php/jhki/article/view/608 miswiyawati & lestari, d. (2017). subjective well-being pada pasangan yang menikah muda [undergraduate thesis, universitas muhammadiyah surakarta]. mönks, f. j., knoers, a. m. p., & haditono, s. r. (2001). psikologi perkembangan: pengantar dalam berbagai bagiannya. gadjah mada university press mu’in, a. & hefni, m. (2016). tradisi ngabulâ di madura (sebuah upaya membentuk keluarga sakinah bagi pasangan muda). karsa: jurnal sosial dan budaya keislaman, 24(1), 109. http://doi.org/10.19105/karsa.v24i1.999 munawara, yasak, e. m., & dewi, s. i. (2015). budaya pernikahan dini terhadap kesetaraan gender masyarakat madura. jurnal ilmu sosial dan ilmu politik (jisip), 4(3), 426–431. https://doi.org/10.33366/jisip.v4i3.123 muti’ah, s. (2015). hubungan antara religiusitas dan penyesuaian perkawinan pada remaja putri yang menikah di usia dini [undergraduate thesis, universitas airlangga]. mutmainnah (2018). persepsi masyarakat tentang mitos sangkal perempuan penolak lamaran di desa penagan, sumenep, madura. jurnal pamator : jurnal ilmiah universitas trunojoyo madura, 11(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.21107/pamator.v11i1.4435 muzaffak. (2013). pengaruh tingkat pendidikan dan ekonomi terhadap pola keputusan orang tua untuk mengkawinkan anaknya di desa karang duwak kecamatan arosbaya kabupaten bangkalan. paradigma: jurnal online mahasiswa s1 sosiologi unesa, 1(1), 1–8. http://jurnalmahasiswa.unesa.ac.id/index.php/paradigma/article/view/1689 nuri, s. (2016). agresivitas remaja putri akibat tradisi tan mantanan di desa poteran kecamatan talango kabupaten sumenep [undergraduate thesis, universitas trunojoyo madura]. rachmad, t. h. (2017). kontestasi pernikahan dini dalam kajian budaya madura. in n. d. kurniawati, t. h. rachmad, & yuriadi (eds). fenomena pernikahan dini di madura (pp. 3–24). ae publishing. rahayu, w. y. & bawono, y. (2017). emotion focus coping pada perempuan madura yang menikah karena perjodohan. prosiding universitas trunojoyo madura. rahman, f., syahadatania, m., aprillisya, r., dan afika, h. d., (2015). kajian budaya remaja pelaku pernikahan dini di kota banjarbaru kalimantan selatan. media kesehatan masyarakat indonesia, 11(2), 108–117. https://doi.org/10.30597/mkmi.v11i2.540 riyono, b. (2018). pernikahan dini dalam perspektif psikologi. seminar nasional universitas indonesia rohmah, l. (2016). penyesuaian pasangan yang dijodohkan sejak dalam kandungan di desa poteran, talango, sumenep [undergraduate thesis, universitas trunojoyo madura]. https://kumparan.com/salmah-muslimah/heboh-dua-siswa-smp-menikah-di-usia-15-tahun https://kumparan.com/salmah-muslimah/heboh-dua-siswa-smp-menikah-di-usia-15-tahun https://www.liputan6.com/citizen6/read/2529285/heboh-pernikahan-pasangan-bocah-13-tahun-di-sulawesi-selatan https://www.liputan6.com/citizen6/read/2529285/heboh-pernikahan-pasangan-bocah-13-tahun-di-sulawesi-selatan https://journal.unipdu.ac.id/index.php/jhki/article/view/608 http://doi.org/10.19105/karsa.v24i1.999 https://doi.org/10.33366/jisip.v4i3.123 https://doi.org/10.21107/pamator.v11i1.4435 http://jurnalmahasiswa.unesa.ac.id/index.php/paradigma/article/view/1689 https://doi.org/10.30597/mkmi.v11i2.540 69 rubaidah (2016, februari 21). perkawinan usia dini di indonesia tertinggi ke dua di asean. berdikari online. https://www.berdikarionline.com/perkawinan-usia-dini-di-indonesia-tertinggi-kedua-di-asean/ sadik, s. (2014). memahami jati diri, budaya, dan kearifan lokal madura. balai bahasa jawa timur. http://repositori.kemdikbud.go.id/id/eprint/17113 sakdiyah, h., & ningsih, k. (2013). mencegah pernikahan dini untuk membentuk generasi berkualitas . masyarakat, kebudayaan dan politik, 26(1), 35–54. https://journal.unair.ac.id/download-fullpapersmkp9b9d8e2432full.pdf salmah, s. (2016). pernikahan dini ditinjau dari sudut pandang sosial dan pendidikan. al-hiwar : jurnal ilmu dan teknik dakwah, 4(7), 35–39. http://doi.org/10.18592/al-hiwar.v4i6.1215 santrock, j. w. (2007). perkembangan masa hidup. erlangga sulaiman. (2012). dominasi tradisi dalam perkawinan di bawah umur. jurnal analisa, 19(1), 15–26. https://media.neliti.com/media/publications/42045-id-domination-of-tradition-in-under-agemarriage.pdf sumbulah, u. & jannah, f. (2012). pernikahan dini dan implikasinya terhadap kehidupan keluarga pada masyarakat madura (perspektif hukum dan gender). egalita: jurnal kesetaraan dan keadilan gender, 7(1), 83–101. https://doi.org/10.18860/egalita.v0i0.2113 sunarti, e. (2018). pernikahan dini dan ketahanan keluarga. seminar nasional universitas indonesia. susilo, s. (2017). makna pernikahan dini bagi orang tua masyarakat pengemis di dusun pelangaran, brata tinggi, kecamatan tlanakan, kabupaten pamekasan, madura. prosiding. universitas negeri medan. http://semnastafis.unimed.ac.id/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/04.-singgih-susilo.pdf thahura, f. (2020). emotional maturity of early age marriage’s woman. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 1(1), 19–24. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i1.1720 trihendrawan, n. (2017). indonesia peringkat tujuh kasus perkawinan anak. sindonews.com. https://nasional.sindonews.com/berita/1254271/15/indonesia-peringkat-tujuh-kasus-perkawinan-anak triyanto, w. (2013). dampak pernikahan di bawah umur dalam perspektif hukum islam dan uu no 1 tahun 1974. lex privatum, 1(3), 71–80 https://ejournal.unsrat.ac.id/index.php/lexprivatum/article/view/3038 uyun, m. & hidayati, w. (2017). faktor-faktor pernikahan remaja muslim. psikis: jurnal psikologi islami, 3(2), 106–117. https://doi.org/10.19109/psikis.v3i4.1755 van der kooij, y. (2016). early marriage in west java: understanding girls’ agency in the context of ‘traditional’ and changing norms regarding gender and sexuality [master’s thesis, university of amsterdam]. yunitasari, e., pradanie, r., & susilawati, a. (2016). early marriage based on transcultural nursing theory in kara village sampang. jurnal ners, 11(2), 164–169. https://doi.org/10.20473/jn.v11i2.2573 zulkifli. (2001). psikologi perkembangan. pt remaja rosdakarya zumriyah, r. (2015). keharmonisan keluarga pada pasangan yang menikah dini (studi kasus pasangan menikah dini di desa larangan luar kecamatan larangan kabupaten pamekasan madura) [undergraduate thesis, universitas trunojoyo madura]. https://www.berdikarionline.com/perkawinan-usia-dini-di-indonesia-tertinggi-kedua-di-asean/ http://repositori.kemdikbud.go.id/id/eprint/17113 https://journal.unair.ac.id/download-fullpapers-mkp9b9d8e2432full.pdf https://journal.unair.ac.id/download-fullpapers-mkp9b9d8e2432full.pdf http://doi.org/10.18592/al-hiwar.v4i6.1215 https://media.neliti.com/media/publications/42045-id-domination-of-tradition-in-under-age-marriage.pdf https://media.neliti.com/media/publications/42045-id-domination-of-tradition-in-under-age-marriage.pdf https://doi.org/10.18860/egalita.v0i0.2113 http://semnastafis.unimed.ac.id/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/04.-singgih-susilo.pdf https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i1.1720 https://nasional.sindonews.com/berita/1254271/15/indonesia-peringkat-tujuh-kasus-perkawinan-anak https://ejournal.unsrat.ac.id/index.php/lexprivatum/article/view/3038 https://doi.org/10.19109/psikis.v3i4.1755 https://doi.org/10.20473/jn.v11i2.2573 issn ;2541450x (online) 34 vol. 2 no. 1 (june 2021), pp. 34-40 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v2i1.3079 predicting students’ aggressive behavior by coping mechanisms and interpersonal communication eva yulina1, asih menanti2, suryani hardjo3 1,3 department of psychology, universitas medan area, north sumatera, indonesia; 2 department of counseling, universitas negeri medan, north sumatera, indonesia;  corresponding author: eva yulina (email: eva.siregar87@gmail.com) abstract – this study aims to determine the relationship between coping mechanisms and interpersonal communication with aggressive behavior of students of the department of automotive at smk pab 12 saentis. this type of research is quantitative by involving 93 students as a sample taken with total sampling techniques with the first screening of aggressive behavior tendencies. this study used 3 (three) coping mechanism scales, interpersonal communication scales, and aggressive behavior scales to obtain data analyzed using multiple regression analysis. the results showed a negative relationship between coping mechanisms and interpersonal communication with students’ aggressive behavior simultaneously and partially. coping mechanisms and interpersonal communication can predict the emergence of aggressive behavior of students by 52.8%. article history: received: april 1, 2021 revised: may 5, 2021 accepted: june 29, 2021 published: june 30, 2021 keyword: adolescents; coping mechanism; interpersonal communication; student’s aggressive behavior, vocational student how to cite (apa 7th edition) yulina, e., menanti, a., & hardjo, s. (2021). predicting students’ aggressive behavior by coping mechanisms and interpersonal communication. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 2(1), 34–40. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v2i1.3079 this is an open-access article distributed under the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. this is enabled under the terms of attribution and noncommercial usage of the material ©2021 by eva yulina, asih menanti, & suryani hardjo. yulina, e., menanti, a., & hardjo, s. 35 adolescence is often said to be a period of storms and stress, i.e., a time of high emotional tension caused by physical and glandular changes (hurlock, 1991). this age of youth experiences instability over time because they are in a transition period, and they are trying to adopt new behaviors from previous phases of development. santrock (2007) describes the turmoil caused both by the social function of adolescents in preparing for maturity (seeking self-identity and establishing their position in society), by physical growth (the development of secondary sexual signs), the development of intelligence (sharp and critical reasoning), and emotional changes (more sensitive, quickly angry and aggressive). along with physical and psychic changes, adolescents begin to break away from parental bonds and then notice personality changes manifest in their way of life to fit in society (gunarsa, 2004). hurlock (1991) states that the social environment that gives rise to security and openness influences social relations. adolescence is synonymous with the social environment in which they interact, making them required to adjust effectively. when the activities are undertaken are inadequate to meet the demands of energy turmoil, they often overflow their excess energy negatively, one of which is aggressive behavior. aggressive behavior leads to the success of hurting or injuring living things that do not want to be treated as such (baron & byrne, 2005). macneil & stewart (2000) says that aggressive behavior is a behavior or an act intended to dominate or behave destructively, through verbal force or physical force, directed at the object of aggressive behavior. the object of aggressive behavior targets includes the physical environment, others, and yourself. aggressive behavior is an act that is done to hurt or injure a person, which is an outpouring of emotion in reaction to the failure of the individual displayed in the destruction of humans or objects with elements of intentionality expressed by words (verbal) and behavior (nonverbal). adolescents’ aggressive behavior relates to periods of adolescent development that often conflict in the search for self-identity (papalia, olds & feldman, 2009). khamsita’s research (2007) stated that the frustration factor is related to aggressive behavior, where the higher the frustration of adolescents, the higher the aggressive behavior. restu, yusri & ardi’s study (2013) also stated that aggressive behaviors by adolescents in school, namely physical and verbally aggressive behavior and aggressive behavior, are caused by frustration, power, temperature, and provocation. in the study respondents, adolescent aggressive behavior is to argue if you disagree, angry, threatening, damaging goods/objects, feel envious, suspicious, hit friends, taunt, hostility, and fight if they feel harassed. according to ajzen (2005), aggressive behavior arises beginning with the intention or desire to commit such aggressiveness, which if the intention is reinforced by factors that can trigger, then there will be aggressive behavior. conversely, if the intention is not supported, it will be less likely to the occurrence of such aggressive behavior. aggressiveness is a motive that is present in the life of everyone. the students encourage this behavior due to the low coping mechanisms in adolescents and poor interpersonal communication that makes students tend to engage in such aggressive behavior. coping is a mechanism to address the changes faced or the burdens received. keliat (1999) suggests coping mechanisms are how individuals solve problems, adjust to changes, and respond to threatening situations. the individual will become aggressive if the coping mechanism does introduction 36 predicting students’ aggressive behavior by coping mechanisms and interpersonal communication not function properly and will experience disruption in his social adjustments. as a result, the individual cannot control his behavior, resulting in aggressive behavior. therefore, this coping mechanism has an important role in the development of children. in addition, adolescence is when they begin to leave childhood dependent on parents by searching for self-identity to answer who they are and find their place in this world. in search of self-identity or identity, individuals will assess and mimic adult behavior while being aware of what adults expect. the first model that individuals imitate is from their own family, i.e., parents. family is the first environment that will determine the behavior of adolescents and schools where children spend much time in school. in addition to being at home in school, teenagers also interact a lot socially with friends and educators. coping mechanisms in solving problems differ from one to another, and some are adaptive and maladaptive. coping mechanisms in an adaptive way will suppress negative behavior, while negative maladaptive means will increase the risk of aggressive behavior. according to mundy (in guswani and kawuryan, 2011), the appearance of aggressive behavior can be caused by individuals dealing with unpleasant situations in their environment. rahayu (in guswani and kawuryan, 2011) said that several factors, verbal aggressiveness, influence individuals who engage in aggressive behavior. individuals whose interpersonal communication is poor can more easily appear aggressive behavior than those with good interpersonal communication. all the maladaptive coping mechanisms used will not solve the difficulties properly but rather add difficulties and conflicts, tensions, fears, and anxieties that can eventually lead to aggressive behavior (kartono, 2011). communication is an important skill in human life, both verbally and nonverbally. interpersonal communication is a process of exchanging meaning between people who communicate with each other. the purpose of this process is to refer to changes and actions that take place continuously. students in their socialization at school have conducted interpersonal communication with the social environment in the school. interpersonal communication occurs in students regardless of various influences, such as residence, family, school and peers, and activities they do in daily life. often students whose interpersonal communication is poor resulted in themselves being less able to control their aggressive behavior. the tendency of students to engage in aggressive behavior—when experiencing poor interpersonal communication and changes in coping mechanisms—was caused by the words of parents, teachers, and peers and situations in the school environment. however, it seems that not all students can express aggressive behavior. some of them do such aggressive behavior verbally (shouting) and nonverbal (hitting, throwing, fighting). several studies related to coping mechanisms, interpersonal communication, and aggressive behavior have been conducted several times. mulyadi & hidayat (2014) researched the relationship between individual coping mechanisms and interpersonal communication anxiety. later in another study, radhiah, nauli, & arneliwati (2011) showed a link between adolescents’ coping mechanisms and aggressive behavior. the higher the coping mechanism, the lower the aggression behavior. on the contrary, the lower the coping mechanism, the higher the aggression behavior. however, studies that use various coping mechanisms and interpersonal communication as predictors of aggressive behavior have never been conducted. thus, the yulina, e., menanti, a., & hardjo, s. 37 current research aims to identify coping mechanisms and interpersonal communication with aggressive behavior in students. this research was conducted with a quantitative approach with an associative design involving 93 students of the department of automotive smk swasta pab 12 saentis selected by using sample random side. the scale of the coping mechanism of students is based on the theory put forward by keliat (1991) with three dimensions: focusing on problems, focusing cognitively, focusing on emotions. the scale consists of 10 indicators with 19 favorable items and 19 unfavorable items. the scale of students’ interpersonal communication is based on the theory put forward by keliat (1991); there are five dimensions: openness, empathy, supportiveness, positiveness, equality, consisting of 20 favorable items and 20 unfavorable items. meanwhile, the aggressive behavior scale is based on the theory put forward by schneiders (2005), which are seven aspects: aggressive verbal behavior, physically aggressive behavior, aggressive instrumental behavior, direct aggressive behavior, indirect aggressive behavior, emotionally aggressive behavior, aggressive group behavior. the researchers compiled the scale of this aggressive behavior, consisting of 34 items divided into 17 favorable and 17 unfavorable items. the data analysis method used is multiple regression analysis that analyzes the relationship between two or more variables with the application-assisted statistical product and service solution (spss) for windows version 20. based on normality tests, the student’s aggressive behavior variables, coping mechanisms, and interpersonal communication support spread following the normal spread. as a criterion, if p > 0.050, then it is declared normal and vice versa when p < 0.050, the spread is declared abnormal. table 1 below is a summary of the results of the spread normality test calculation. table 1 normality test variable kolmogorov-smirnov p-value explanation aggresiveness 1,494 0,053 normal coping mechanism 2,013 0,071 normal interpersonal communication 1,747 0,123 normal the results of the linearity test showed that the variables of coping mechanisms and interpersonal communication had a linear relationship to the students’ aggressive behavior variables. as a criterion, if p < 0.05, then it is declared to have a linear degree of relationship. table 2 correlation test correlation f p-value explanation x1 – y 283,424 <0,001 linear x2 – y 68,306 <0,001 linear the results of the data analysis in this study showed that the coefficient (r2) of the relationship between coping mechanisms and interpersonal communication with students’ aggressive behavior was 0.472. this result suggests that coping mechanism variables can form students’ aggressive behavior variables, and interpersonal communication is 47.2%. in research method result 38 predicting students’ aggressive behavior by coping mechanisms and interpersonal communication comparison, 52.8% of other free variables correlate with students’ aggressive behavior but are not yet found in this study. table 3 correlation coefficient variabel f r r2 p-value x1 – y -0,547 0,299 < 0,001 x2 – y -0,281 0,079 0,007 x1 – x2 – y 40,265 -0,687 0,472 < 0,001 then based on the analysis conducted using product moment, rx1y correlation coefficient value of -0.547 and p < value of 0.05, there is a significant negative relationship between students’ coping mechanism and aggressive behavior. then obtained rx2y correlation coefficient value of -0.281 and p-value < 0.05; then, there is a significant negative relationship of interpersonal communication with students’ aggressive behavior. the results showed that the partial correlation value of coping mechanism (x1) with aggressive behavior (y) was -0.547, and the p < value of 0.05 meant there was a negative and significant relationship between coping mechanism and aggressive student behavior. the score indicates that the direction of the relationship of the two negative variables, meaning that the higher the coping mechanism score, the lower the student’s aggressive behavior, the lower the coping mechanism of a person’s student, the higher the student’s aggressive behavior, thus the hypothesis proposed in this study is accepted. a person with a high coping mechanism believes that they can do something to change the events around him, whereas a person with a common coping mechanism considers himself incapable of restraining his aggressive behavior and will explode towards the surroundings. in difficult situations, the common coping mechanism considers itself to be behaving aggressively and detrimental to others and succumbing to negative circumstances. in contrast, its high coping mechanism will try harder to overcome the challenges that exist to minimize the aggressive behavior caused. the results of this study are in line with research conducted by mulyadi & hidayat (2014). based on the results of the study (descriptive and inferential statistical tests) can be concluded that there is a relationship of individual coping mechanisms with interpersonal communication anxiety in nursing students at universitas wiraraja, most respondents have adaptive coping mechanisms, and most respondents experience interpersonal communication with the category of mild anxiety. similarly, in research conducted by radhiah, nauli, & arneliwati (2010), there is a negative relationship between maladaptive coping mechanisms and aggressive behavior, showing a relationship between coping mechanisms and aggressive behavior in adolescents. based on statistical tests obtained, there is a significant, meaningful relationship between adolescents’ coping mechanisms and aggressive behavior in smk negeri 2 pekanbaru. the results showed that the partial correlation value of interpersonal communication (x2) with aggressive behavior (y) of -0.281 with p < 0.05 means that there is a negative and significant correlation. the score indicates that the direction of the relationship of the two variables is negative, meaning that the higher the interpersonal communication, the lower the student’s aggressive behavior. on the contrary, the lower the interpersonal communication, the higher the discussion yulina, e., menanti, a., & hardjo, s. 39 aggressive behavior of students, thus the hypothesis proposed in this study is accepted. this is in line with minarni’s research (2017) that shows a strong and negative correlation between parental interpersonal communication and aggressive behavior of gang members in samarinda. the findings are also in accordance with sarwono’s opinion (in taganing & fortuna, 2008), which says that parenting patterns strongly influence aggressive behaviors by students. parents who demand their children to follow all their will frustrate the child so that when the child is outside the house will act aggressively. the results obtained from the study showed that coping mechanisms and interpersonal communication have a significant negative relationship with aggressive behavior in social in private vocational school pab 12 saentis. this is indicated by the coefficient value freg = 40.265 where p < 0.05. this indicates that coping mechanisms and interpersonal communication are significantly negatively related to students’ aggressive behavior; the higher the value of coping mechanisms and aggressive behavior, the lower the aggressive behavior. on the contrary, the lower the value of coping mechanisms and social support, the higher the aggressive behavior. in addition, there are also research results that have been conducted showing the value of the determinant coefficient of 0.472, which means that coping mechanism variables can form aggressive variables, and interpersonal communication is 47.2%. at the same time, 52.8% of behaviors were influenced by other factors not studied in this study. this is in line with the research that has been done by ajzen (2005), aggressive behavior arises beginning with the desire to do such aggressiveness that if the desire is reinforced by factors that can trigger, then there will be aggressive behavior. conversely, if the desire is not supportive, it will be less likely to occur such aggressive behavior. wahyuningsih (2016) shows a relationship between interpersonal communication variables and coping strategies with stress in psychology students preparing a thesis. in other words, interpersonal communication and coping strategies have a relationship with stress in students putting together a thesis. the magnitude of the influence of interpersonal communication and coping strategies with student stress in compiling the thesis appears to be at an effective contribution of 37.3%. this suggests that 62.7% of other factors affect student stress in putting together a thesis that was not revealed in the study. this study indicates that the mechanism of coping and interpersonal communication is significantly negatively related to aggressive behavior; the higher the value of coping mechanism and interpersonal communication, the lower the aggressive behavior of students. conversely, the lower the value of coping mechanisms and interpersonal communication support, the higher students’ aggressive behavior. for the next researcher who wants to research coping, interpersonal communication, and aggressive behavior, especially vocational school students, to pay more attention to the ability of researchers and not to force themselves if the researchers can not run their research in the future. use the latest reference sources and according to the conditions that occur in the field/research site. it is expected that in the future, researchers can further refine the results of the study by deepening the background of the problem, and the use of measuring instruments that correspond to the conditions in the field, then in the next study, can use more complex variables so that aggressive behavior can be understood comprehensively. conclusion 40 predicting students’ aggressive behavior by coping mechanisms and interpersonal communication ajzen, i. (2005). attitudes, personality, and behavior. open university press baron, r. a. & byrne, d. (2005). psikologi sosial. erlangga. gunarsa, s. d. (2004). psikologi praktis anak, remaja dan keluarga (7th ed). pt. gunung mulia guswani, a. m., & kawuryan, f. (2011). perilaku agresi pada mahasiswa ditinjau dari kematangan emosi. jurnal psikologi pitutur, 1(2), 86-92. hurlock, e. b. (1991). psikologi perkembangan: suatu pendekatan sepanjang rentang kehidupan. erlangga kartono, k. (2011). psikologi anak. mandar maju. keliat, b. a. (1999). penatalaksanaan stres. penerbit buku kedokteran: egc. khamsita, w. e. (2007). hubungan antara frustasi dengan perilaku agresif pada siswa (studi pada siswasiswa smk almunawwarah dumai riau). [undergraduate thesis, uin sultan syarif kasim riau] macneil, g. & steward, c. (2000). crisis intervention with school violence problems and volatile situations. in a. r. roberts (ed.), crisis intervention handbook: assessment, treatment, and research (2nd ed., pp. 229-248). oxford university press. minarmi, s. (2017). hubungan antara komunikasi interpersonal orang tua dengan perilaku agresif pada remaja anggota geng di samarinda. [undergraduate thesis, universitas mulawarman] mulyadi, e. & hidayat, s. (2014). hubungan mekanisme koping individu dengan kecemasan komunikasi interpersonal pada mahasiswa ners. jurnal kesehatan “wiraraja medika”, 4(2), 54-59. papalia, d. e., olds, s. w., & feldman, r. d. (2009). human development. perkembangan manusia. salemba humanika radhiah, m., nauli, f. a., & arneliwati, a. (2010). hubungan mekanisme koping dengan perilaku agresif remaja. [undergraduate thesis, universitas riau] restu, y., yusri, y., & ardi, z. (2013). studi tentang perilaku agresif siswa di sekolah. konselor, 2(1), 243-249. santrock, j. w. (2007). perkembangan anak (1st ed). erlangga. schneider, k. m. (2005). aggression and cardiovascular response in children. journal of pediatric psychology, 27(2), 565-573. taganing, n. m. & fortuna, f. (2008). hubungan pola asuh otoriter dengan perilaku agresif pada remaja. [undergraduate thesis, universitas gunadarma] wahyuningsih .s. (2016). hubungan komunikasi interpersonal dan strategi coping dengan stres pada mahasiswa. psikoborneo: jurnal ilmiah psikologi, 4(3). 376-382. references issn ;2541450x (online) 22 vol. 2 no. 1 (june 2021), pp. 22-23 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v2i1.3076 healthy lifestyle module for improving the quality of life of chronic kidney disease patients idar sri afriyanti zebua1, abdul munir2, irna minauli3 1,3 department of psychology, universitas medan area, north sumatera, indonesia; 2 department guidance and counseling, universitas negeri medan, north sumatera, indonesia;  corresponding author: idar sri afriyanti zebua (email: idar1975@gmail.com) abstract – changing lifestyle or habits means changing one’s perspective and changing their paradigm. the arrangement of good behavior through the provision of healthy lifestyle modules to patients undergoing hemodialysis therapy should be supported with high motivation. the study aims to find out the effect of providing healthy lifestyle modules and motivation to improve the quality of life of patients. this study is an experimental quasi-research with a 2x2 factorial design involving a sample of 30 chronic kidney disease patients undergoing hemodialysis therapy at rumah sakit khusus ginjal rasyida medan, north sumatra, indonesia. through the analysis of multiple linear regression analysis, the results showed a significant influence between the provision of healthy lifestyle modules on improving quality of life. other findings suggest differences in quality of life between patients with high motivation levels and low-motivated patients. this study proposes further studies to examine the effectiveness of modules and improve quality of life against different patient cultural backgrounds. article history: received: may 18, 2021 revised: may 30, 2021 accepted: june 29, 2021 published: june 30, 2021 keyword: chronic kidney disease; healthy lifestyle; hemodialysis; motivation; patient’s quality of life how to cite (apa 7th edition) zebua, i. s. a, munir, a., & minauli, i. (2021). healthy lifestyle module for improving the quality of life of chronic kidney disease patients. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 2(1), 22–33. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i1.3076 this is an open-access article distributed under the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. this is enabled under the terms of attribution and noncommercial usage of the material ©2021 by idar sri afriyanti zebua1, abdul munir, &irna minauli zebua, i. s. a, munir, a., & minauli, i. 23 lifestyle is one of the important internal factors that can affect health. lifestyle refers to how a person behaves in their life, including the choice of residence and the pattern of behavior of the individual himself, and sociocultural factors and individual characteristics strongly influence this condition. negative lifestyles such as smoking, alcohol consumption, inadequate activity, and rest will trigger the onset of various modern chronic diseases, and one of them is chronic kidney disease (ratnawati, 2014). many evidence suggests that changing an individual’s lifestyle towards a healthy lifestyle, both on a small scale and in society more broadly, can drastically reduce the incidence rate of modern chronic diseases and vice versa. changing one’s lifestyle or habits means having to change one’s perspective and change one’s paradigm. the worldwide incidence of kidney disease globally is more than 500 million people and who have to live a life dependent on hemodialysis is 1.5 million people. in the united states, the incidence and prevalence of kidney disease increased by 50% in 2014. data shows that 200,000 americans undergo hemodialysis due to chronic kidney disorders every year, meaning 1,140 in one million americans are dialysis patients (widyastuti, butar-butar, & bebasari, 2014). according to yayasan peduli ginjal, in 2014, there are currently 40,000 patients with chronic kidney disease in indonesia. of these, only about 3,000 patients can enjoy hemodialysis services, and the rest can only give up their lives due to various factors and, most importantly, economic factors. in undergoing hemodialysis therapy, the patient desires to improve his quality of life to take the patient’s self-motivation because motivation is the key to success in undergoing treatment. a common complication in hemodialysis patients is weight gain between two hemodialysis times (interdialysis weight gain or idwg) caused by the inability to function renal excretion. according to hwang, wang, & chien (2007), weight gain between two dialysis times is also influenced by several factors, namely: environment, nutrition, behavior, physiological and psychological. weight gain of zero milligrams is not possible. kimmel et al. (2000) explained that the ideal weight gain between two hemodialysis times is 1.5 kg. the addition of idwg values that are too high will be able to cause negative effects on the patient’s condition, including hypotension, muscle cramps, hypertension, shortness of breath, nausea, and vomiting, and others (brunner & suddarth, 2005). kalantar-zadeh & aronoff (2009) found that 86% of patients undergoing hemodialysis had an interdialytic weight of more than 1.5 kg. in addition, data obtained that patients who have an interdialytic weight between 1.5-2.0 kg have a potential 25% the increased risk of death, and patients who have an interdialytic weight of more than 4.0 kg potentially 28% increase to the risk of death. at the same time, patients who have an interdialytic weight below 1.5 kg have a potential 26%-33% reduced risk of death. the onset of negative effects of weight gain between dialysis times will affect the quality of life of chronic renal failure patients until the onset of death, as revealed by the researchers above. quality of life is often interpreted as a component of happiness and satisfaction in life. however, understanding the quality of life often means different in each person because it has introduction 24 healthy lifestyle module for improving the quality of life of chronic kidney disease patients many factors that affect finance, safety, or health. therefore, health-related quality of life term is used in health (fayers & machin, 2013). disease prevention activities, quality of life is used as an aspect to describe health conditions. quality of life is a level that describes the superiority of an individual that can be judged from their life. the individual’s quality of life can usually be assessed from physical, psychological, social, and environmental relationships (larasati, 2012). aspects of quality of life can be seen from the structure of the four domains of the world health organization quality of life questionnaire-short version (whoqol-bref, 1996), namely: (1) physical health, which is good condition, means free from pain in the whole body and other parts. these aspects include daily activities, dependence on restorative materials and medical aids, energy and fatigue, mobility, pain and discomfort, sleep and rest, and work capacity; (2) psychologically, it is related to the individual’s mental state. the psychological aspect is also related to the physical aspect, where the individual can perform an activity well when the individual is mentally healthy. these aspects include body image and appearance, negative feelings, positive feelings, self-esteem, individual confidence, thinking, learning, memory, and concentration; (3) a social relationship, i.e., a relationship between two or more individuals in which the individual’s behavior will influence, change or improve the behavior of another individual. these aspects include personal relationships, social support, and sexual activity; and (4) environment, which is the residence of individuals, including the circumstances, the availability of a place to live to do all life activities, facilities, and infrastructure that can support life. these aspects include financial resources, freedom of physical safety and security, health and social: accessibility and quality of the home environment, opportunities to acquire new information and skills, participation and opportunities for recreational activities, physical environment, and transportation. anees, hameed, mumtaz, ibrahim, & saeed khan (2011) revealed that the quality of life of 89 kidney disease patients undergoing hemodialysis is at a low level for the domain of physical health, the psychological domain, while for the domain of social and environmental relations is at a moderate level. the change in the quality of life and the improvement of idwg are inseparable from the lifestyle lived by hemodialysis patients themselves. low awareness in implementing a healthy lifestyle among patients undergoing hemodialysis therapy is also a trigger for the above factors. an increase in idwg exceeding the tolerance limit will impact various forms of complications and ultimately affect the quality of life of each patient undergoing dialysis therapy; medical officers and paramedics have anticipated this in the unit by educating in every shift of hemodialysis services. however, the reality is that the improvement in the patient’s quality of life has not met the real expectations. from the interviews we conducted on these patients, there was a low motivation and awareness to implement a healthy lifestyle in their lives, among others: uncontrolled eating habits, improper fluid restriction patterns, insufficient sleep and rest patterns, lack of physical activity, improper coping ability, family support, social and environmental relationships. studies focusing on the quality of life of chronic renal failure patients have been conducted several times. the study tried to review the picture of the quality of life (nurmanita, rosita, zebua, i. s. a, munir, a., & minauli, i. 25 nurjayanti, 2020; supriyadi, wagiyo, & widowati, 2011), level of knowledge (sari, 2018; aminah, 2012), and lifestyle history (prakosa, 2011, diyono & indriati, 2017). some of them try to see the effects of gender (ipo, aryani, & suri, 2016), partner support (zurmel, bayhakki, & utami, 2015), family support (maulida, fadilah, & yulianto, 2019) as well as self-efficacy (wakhid, linda wijayanti, & liyanovitasari, 2018) on the quality of life of patients. some of them also offer interventions such as kidney diet therapy (kurniawati & asikin, 2018), psychological intervention (widayati & lestari, 2015), as well as efficacy training from (sulistyaningsih, 2012). however, studies to improve healthy lifestyles in chronic renal failure patients by administering healthy lifestyle modules have never been conducted. in fact, through the provision of the module, a patient can train himself independently to improve his quality of life. this study aims to identify the effect of healthy lifestyle modules to improve patients’ quality of life with chronic renal failure. this study uses a quantitative approach with a quasi-experimental research type with a 2x2 factorial design. this design will be compared to the improved quality of life of the patients who undergo hemodialysis therapy to provide a healthy lifestyle module reviewed from the patient’s motivation. the patient’s motivation is distinguished by high motivation and low motivation. provision of healthy lifestyle module as a free variable, during high motivation and low motivation as moderator variable and improvement of patient quality of life as a bound variable. the research design can be seen in table 1 as follows: table 1 the 2x2 experimental factorial design motivation (m) experimental group (eg) control group (cg) high (m1) ql1.m1 ql2.m1 low (m2) ql1.m2 ql2.m2 description: the scheme of research design is as follows: the subjects in this study were 30 chronic renal failure patients who underwent hemodialysis therapy at rumah sakit khusus ginjal rasyida medan, north sumatra, indonesia selected through purposive sampling techniques with the following criteria: a. subject age 20 55 years. b. the subject has undergone hemodialysis therapy for more than one year. c. conscious and able to communicate well. d. able to read well e. willing to be the subject of research by filling out informed consent research method 26 healthy lifestyle module for improving the quality of life of chronic kidney disease patients the subjects of this study were divided into two groups, namely the treatment group or experimental group of 15 people and the control group of 15 people. the researchers conducted a pretest test on the subject with the help of the executive staff in the hemodialysis unit of rumah sakit khusus ginjal rasyida medan, north sumatera, indonesia which had previously been explained the procedure of implementation of the pretest. pretest data from each subject are recorded in the data table. this study was conducted following the schedule determined by sharing a motivational questionnaire as many as 15 statements that the study subjects must answer. the results of the motivation test are divided into two high and low categories when the score is 15-44 classified in the low category, and the score is 45-60 with the high category. after the group’s division was determined, all subjects of the experimental group were given the provision of healthy lifestyle modules to the research subjects of the experimental group with the evaluation of eight meetings. nevertheless, before the module is given, the researcher gives information about using the module, and the researcher emphasizes that the honesty of the subject in checklist each item in the module should be by the activities that the subject does in behaving a healthy lifestyle while at home. in addition, researchers also gave examples (role play) to the subject on using models or selecting each item that corresponds to what is done in a healthy lifestyle. after eight meetings after the subject underwent 4 dialysis cycles (1 month after the intervention), post-test data retrieval was conducted after eight meetings. all of that data is recorded in a pre-prepared data table. there are two instruments in this study: motivation test instruments totaling 15 points, and quality of life test instruments 26 question points. before the instrument is used to obtain data, a test is first conducted. this test is intended to look at the validity of the instrument and the reliability of the instrument. researchers conduct pre-research observations in advance to determine the environment and condition of the subject to be studied, including to know the number of subjects to be studied. researchers conducted motivational tests on all subjects that met the inclusion criteria in this study. after the test, the motivational results were obtained; researchers divided the subjects based on a predetermined range of motivation values (high and low). the researchers placed both high and low categories on both of each group in the experimental group and control group. in the experimental group (consisting of high and low motivation), researchers provided interventions in healthy lifestyle modules, while in the control group (consisting of high and low motivation) did not get interventions. then, the results are entered into the data table to analyze the data further and prepare the research report. researchers used a data collection tool that is a healthy lifestyle module, motivation, and quality of life test questionnaire (whoqol-breff). this whoqol-bref instrument has been developed collaboratively in various parts of the world. the instrument consists of 26 question items where two questions about the quality of life in general and 24 other questions cover four domains. the four domains are: a. physical health, in item number 3, 4, 10, 15, 16, 17 and 18 b. psychological in item number 5, 6, 7, 11, 19 and 26 c. social relations in item number 20, 21, and 22 d. environment in item number 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 23, 24 and 25. zebua, i. s. a, munir, a., & minauli, i. 27 this healthy lifestyle module instrument researchers designed themselves and modified researchers based on various sources (references) that researchers get. the scoring is 3 for good, 2 for medium, and 1 for bad, and a checklist (√) in the column. after the pretest data is obtained (the result of motivation and quality of life measurement), the next step is to determine the experimental and control groups. furthermore, providing interventions is in the form of giving healthy lifestyle modules to the experimental group. researchers conducted observations in both groups, and observations aimed to continuously monitor the subject’s condition in general both in terms of adequacy of the number and general condition of the subject. after eight meetings after the subject underwent 4 dialysis cycles (1 month after the intervention), post-test data retrieval was conducted after eight meetings. all of that data is recorded in a pre-prepared data table. the data obtained is analyzed using multiple linear regression analysis. data analysis is done by looking at the number of checklist marks (√) in each column. the number of checklists multiplied by the frequency in each column. the ratings are defined based on the gradation in which the value of score category multiplies the number of statement items in each section that is the determination of each category. the respondent consisted of 23 men (71.9%) and nine women (28.1%), and the majority was 50-55 years old as many as 17 people (53.1%) while the lowest respondent age category 2025 years as much as one person (3.1%). in full, the respondent’s age can be seen in table 2 below: table 1 characteristics of sample age f % 20-25 1 3,1 26-31 32-37 3 9,4 38-43 8 25 44-49 3 9,4 50-55 17 53,1 total 32 100 the healthy lifestyle module used in this study was designed in the form of a book. this research instrument contains several sections containing forms of healthy lifestyle arrangement. the instrument consists of (1) diet with a balanced menu; 2) drinking patterns; 3) regular and measurable exercise; 4) no smoking; 5) do not drink alcoholic beverages; 6) rest well; 7) get enough sleep; 8) stress control; 9) idwg; 10) quality of life; 11) social relations; 12) leisure time; and 13) final evaluation. levene’s test (homogeneity test) with f-test, meaning that if the variant is the same, then the t-test uses the equal output variances assumed, and if different variants use output, equal variances are not assumed. result 28 healthy lifestyle module for improving the quality of life of chronic kidney disease patients the study results consisted of descriptive statistics such as frequency, mean and standard deviations, assumptions test results, and hypotheses test results, which were then analyzed critically presented in a sequential or integrated manner. the explanation of the results section contains the results of data analysis. if the research is qualitative, the research findings can be conveyed in patterns, themes, tendencies, and motives that emerge from the data. the above output shows an interaction between healthy lifestyle modules and motivation where the value (f = 0.285; p < 0.05). this result is reinforced by the image below where it shows the existence of a pattern of line intersections. in the high-motivation group, the quality of life improved higher than in the low-motivation group. figure 1 improved quality of life-based on time and motivation level figure 2 comparison of results based on high and low motivation levels in the experimental group and control group on improving quality of life zebua, i. s. a, munir, a., & minauli, i. 29 figure 3 comparison of results based on the quality of life pretest in the experimental and control group figure 4 comparison of results based on post-test quality of life improvement in experiment group and control group the image above shows that the experimental group has improved a healthy lifestyle outside the hemodialysis schedule from pretest to post-test, while the control group has a healthy lifestyle beyond a more hemodialysis schedule than the experimental group. the high-motivation experimental group improved quality of life better than the low-motivation group. 30 healthy lifestyle module for improving the quality of life of chronic kidney disease patients figure 5 observation of healthy lifestyle module on improving quality of life figure 6 quality of life from the output obtained, the significance value (asym. sig 2-tailed) is < 0,001. testing criteria, h0 is accepted if the > 0.05, h0 is rejected if < 0.05 then the significance value of 0.000 is less than 0.05 h0 is rejected, so it is concluded because of the significance (0.000 < 0.05) then h0 is rejected, meaning there is a difference between before and after being given a healthy lifestyle module towards improving quality of life. the effect of the provision of healthy lifestyle modules on improving quality of life in chronic renal failure patients undergoing hemodialysis therapy is in line with research that has been conducted based on each domain of quality of life. rahman, rudiansyah, & triawanti (2013) stated that the quality of life of the respondent’s physical health domain is in the moderate category (47.8%) and low category (43.2%) while the good category is only (9.0%). changes in physical health result in the limited activity of each chronic renal failure patient. the feeling of helplessness causes this limitation. these changes are also closely related to pain and anxiety, dependence on medical care, energy and fatigue, mobility, sleep and rest, daily life activities, and work capacity. zurmeli, bayhakki, & utami (2015) stated that of the 54 respondents studied, 54% of them had poor quality of life, including physical health, physiological state, level of independence, social relations (social support), personal beliefs, and socioeconomic status. social relationships discussion zebua, i. s. a, munir, a., & minauli, i. 31 are reciprocal relationships between individuals, mutually influencing and based on awareness to help each other. every individual must have a social relationship because a person was created as a social being that will not be separated from social interaction or social contact with individuals or groups. healthy interpersonal relationships occur if the individuals involved feel close to each other while personal identity is retained. poor social relationships will have implications for lifestyle forms that will ultimately impact the quality of life. the proper intervention of the social domain is better, especially in irreversible disease conditions should get very serious attention, and if this is not handled appropriately and quickly, then the implications are more and more. this finding is in line with the research conducted by lestari & nurmala (2015) obtained that patients who have high motivation have a seven times chance to comply in undergoing hemodialysis compared to patients who have low motivation. maslakha &santy (2014) explained that of the 59 respondents studied, (50.8%) respondents in the category of non-compliance. compliance in question is the patient’s behavior in implementing the provisions made by health professionals in terms of treatment of hemodialysis therapy. comparing the research done with the results of this study, we can conclude that changes in lifestyle behavior can be controlled by forming a behavior arrangement and the provision of healthy lifestyle modules in this study. significantly the results of behavioral changes were seen in the post-test results performed after the intervention was administered. this study shows the interaction between healthy lifestyle modules and motivation in improving quality of life in chronic renal failure patients undergoing hemodialysis therapy in hemodialysis units. recommendations of further research are by looking at the role of family support to the effectiveness of modules, motivation, culture, and customs to improve patients’ quality of life. aminah, s. (2012). studi tingkat pengetahuan keluarga tentang perawatan lansia yang menderita gagal ginjal kronik di paviliun b2 rumkital dr. ramelan surabaya. [undergraduate thesis, universitas nahdhatul ulama surabaya] anees, m., hameed, f., mumtaz, a., ibrahim, m., & saeed khan, m. n. (2011). dialysis-related factors affecting quality of life in patients on hemodialysis. iranian journal of kidney diseases, 5(1), 9–14. brunner & suddarth. (2005). keperawatan medical bedah. ed. 8 vol. 2. egc. diyono, d., & indriati, r. (2017). analisis gaya hidup (lifestyle) sebagai faktor resiko penyakit gagal ginjal kronis. kosala: jurnal ilmu kesehatan, 5(2), 147-151. fayers, p. m., & machin, d. (2013). quality of life: the assessment, analysis and interpretation of patientreported outcomes. john wiley & sons. hwang, j. c., wang, c. t., & chien, c. c. (2007). effect of climatic temperature on fluid gain in hemodialysis patients with different degrees of overhydration. blood purification, 25(5-6), 473-479. conclusion references 32 healthy lifestyle module for improving the quality of life of chronic kidney disease patients ipo, a., aryani, t., & suri, m. (2018). hubungan jenis kelamin dan frekuensi hemodialisa dengan kualitas hidup pasien gagal ginjal kronik yang menjalani hemodialisa di rumah sakit umum daerah raden mattaher jambi. jurnal akademika baiturrahim jambi, 5(2), 46-55. kalantar-zadeh, k., & aronoff, g. r. (2009). hemoglobin variability in anemia of chronic kidney disease. journal of the american society of nephrology, 20(3), 479-487. kimmel, p. l., varela, m. p., peterson, r. a., weihs, k. l., simmens, s. j., alleyne, s., amarashinge, a., mishkin, g. j., cruz, i., & veis, j. h. (2000). interdialytic weight gain and survival in hemodialysis patients: effects of duration of esrd and diabetes mellitus. kidney international, 57(3), 1141-1151. kurniawati, a., & asikin, a. (2018). gambaran tingkat pengetahuan penyakit ginjal dan terapi diet ginjal dan kualitas hidup pasien hemodialisis di rumkital dr. ramelan surabaya. amerta nutrition, 2(2), 125-135. larasati, t. a. (2012). kualitas hidup pasien diabetes melitus tipe 2 di rs abdul moeloek propinsi lampung. juke unila, 2(1), 17-20. lestari, d. a. & nurmala, e. (2015). hubungan motivasi pasien dengan kepatuhan menjalani hemodialisa pada pasien gagal ginjal kronik di rumah sakit umum daerah kraton pekalongan. [undergraduate thesis, universitas muhammadiyah pekajangan pekalongan] maslakha, l. & santy, w. h. (2015) analisa pemahaman discharge planning dengan tingkat kepatuhan pasien gagal ginjal kronik (ggk) dalam menjalani terapi hemodialisis di rumah sakit islam jemursari surabaya. jurnal ilmiah kesehatan, 8(1), 49-57. maulida, a., fadilah, a., & yulianto, m. (2019, august 27). hubungan dukungan keluarga dengan kualitas hidup pasien hemodialisa di rsud dr. loekmono hadi kudus [conference session]. prosiding hefa (health events for all): pengembangan penelitian dan pengabdian masyarakat berbasis luaran kekayaan intelektual, kudus, central java, indonesia. https://prosiding.stikescendekiautamakudus.ac.id/index.php/pros/article/view/35 nurmanita, n., rosita, a., & nurjayanti, d. (2020). gambaran gaya hidup pasien gagal ginjal kronik di ruang hemodialisa rsud dr. harjono ponorogo. warta bhakti husada mulia: jurnal kesehatan, 7(1), 544-549. prakoso, f. a. (2011). kajian riwayat gaya hidup pasien gagal ginjal kronik di ruang hemodialisa rsud kanjuruhan kepanjen kabupaten malang. [undergraduate thesis, universitas muhammadiyah malang]. ratnawati, r. (2014). efektivitas dialiser proses ulang (dpu) pada penderita gagal ginjal kronik (hemodialisa). jurnal ilmiah widya, 1(1), 48-52. sari, t. n. i. (2018). hubungan tingkat pengetahuan dengan gaya hidup pasien penyakit ginjal kronik di ruang hemodialisa rsud dr. r. koesma tuban. [undergraduate thesis, poltekkes kemenkes surabaya). sulistyaningsih, d. r. (2021). efektivitas training efikasi diri pada pasien penyakit ginjal kronik dalam meningkatkan kepatuhan terhadap intake cairan. majalah ilmiah sultan agung, 50(128), 11-25. supriyadi, s., wagiyo, w. & widowati, s. r. (2011). tingkat kualitas hidup pasien gagal ginjal kronik terapi hemodialisis. kemas: jurnal kesehatan masyarakat, 6(2), 107-112. wakhid, a., wijayanti, e. l., & liyanovitasari, l. (2018). hubungan efikasi diri dengan kualitas hidup pasien gagal ginjal kronik yang menjalani hemodialisis. journal of holistic nursing science, 5(2), 56-63. zebua, i. s. a, munir, a., & minauli, i. 33 widayati, d., & lestari, n. (2017). peningkatan kualitas hidup pada penderita gagal ginjal kronik yang menjalani terapi hemodialisa melalui psychological intervention di unit hemodialisa rsud gambiran kediri. jurnal ilmu kesehatan, 3(2), 6-11. widyastuti, r., butar-butar, w. r., & bebasari, e. (2014). korelasi lama menjalani hemodialisis dengan indeks massa tubuh pasien gagal ginjal kronik di rsud arifin achmad provinsi riau pada bulan mei tahun 2014. jurnal online mahasiswa fakultas kedokteran, 1(2), 1-12. zurmeli, z., bayhakki, b., & utami, g. t. (2015). hubungan dukungan keluarga dengan kualitas hidup pasien gagal ginjal kronik yang menjalani terapi hemodialisis di rsud arifin achmad pekanbaru. jurnal online mahasiswa program studi ilmu keperawatan universitas riau, 2(1), 670-681. issn ;2541450x (online) 13 vol. 1 no. 1 (june 2020), pp. 13-18 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i1.1718 being a good employee: contribution of internal locus of control to work discipline emil salim1, nefi darmayanti2, mulia siregar3, astri delia razi4 1,3 department of psychology, universitas medan area, north sumatera, indonesia; 2 department of public health, universitas islam negeri sumatera utara, north sumatera, indonesia; 4 department of islamic guidance and counseling, institut agama islam negeri langsa, aceh, indonesia.  corresponding author: astri delia razi (email: deliarazi@gmail.com) abstract – discipline is a condition of employee self-control and orderly behavior that indicates the true level of teamwork within an organization. one important but often difficult aspect of internal employee relations is the application of disciplinary action. this study aims to look at the relationship between the locus of internal control and the discipline of work. the subjects in this study were personnel of the mobile brigadier unit in the north sumatra regional police with a total of 80 personnel. the data analysis method used in this study was pearson's correlation and obtained a very significant positive relationship between the locus of internal control and the work discipline, where r = 0.4714 and p < 0.01. this means that the higher the locus of internal control, the higher the work discipline. on the contrary the less locus of internal control, the lower the discipline of its work. the internal locus of control contributes to the work discipline of 0.510. this means 51% of internal locus control affects personnel work discipline. from this percentage, it can be stated that there is still 49% influence of other factors on the work discipline of mobile brigadier personnel, among them are leadership style factors, and work environment. article history: received: january 10, 2020 revised: february 5, 2020 accepted: march 8, 2020 published: june 18, 2020 keyword: internal locus of control; police personnel; the mobile brigadier; work discipline how to cite (apa 7th edition) salim, e., darmayanti, n., siregar, m., & razi, a. d. (2020). being a good employee: contribution of internal locus of control to work discipline. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 1(1), 13-18. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i1.1718 this is an open-access article distributed under the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. this is enabled under the terms of attribution and noncommercial usage of the material. ©2020 by emil salim, nefi darmayanti, mulia siregar & astri delia razi 14 being a good employee: contribution of internal locus of control to work discipline being a police officer needs to have a variety of requirements and criteria. according to tabah (1991), there are at least three good police criteria: having a consistent personality, not emotionally and adequately educated. if these three criteria are not met properly, then the police will easily get caught up in less sympathetic things. cases of violations either directly or indirectly committed by police personnel are unfortunate and ironic, considering that every police personnel in their attitudes, actions, and behaviors are based on the oath of police personnel accompanied by values called "tribrata" as a guideline of life and "catur prasetya" as a working guideline. on this basis, which is the guideline in his behavior, then every police personnel is required to present themselves as exemplary citizens, abstain from attitudes and despicable acts, and can protect, protect, and serve the community. various cases of violations and crimes involving a handful of police in general and mobile brigadier unit, in particular, are still occurring. to prevent and reduce the occurrence of violations and criminal acts committed by mobile brigadier unit personnel, section provost unit north sumatra police always provides an overview of personnel discipline evaluation at the beginning of each month. one example of data obtained from the provost section of the mobile brigadier unit of the north sumatra there were about 51 violations recorded in 2012. details of violations committed are disciplinary violations of 34 cases, violations of the code of conduct 13 cases, criminal violations 5 cases, and disrespectful dismissal of 12 personnel. from the data of violations obtained form of disciplinary violations that occur in the environment of the mobile brigadier unit of north sumatra police, among others, violates article 3 letter (g) which reads following the prevailing laws and regulations, both related to the duties of the ministry and in general, article 5 letter (a) which reads to do things that can degrade the honor and dignity of the state, government, or the state police of the republic of indonesia, article 6 letter (b) which reads leaving the territory without the permission of the leader, and article 6 letter (c) which reads avoid service responsibilities. the above articles are listed in government regulation of the republic of indonesia number 2 of 2002 concerning the discipline of police personnel. discipline is an attitude of one's obedience to the rules/regulations that apply in the organization, namely: incorporating oneself in the organization based on conversion, not the element of coercion (wursanto, 2003). siagian in hasibuan (2003) states that work discipline is a mental attitude that is reflected in the actions or behavior of a person, a community in the form of obedience to the rules, norms that apply in society. according to gie in hasibuan (2003) discipline is defined as an orderly situation in which people belonging to the organization are subject to the rules that have been determined by a group of people. discipline is the awareness and obedience of a person to the prevailing corporate/institutional regulations and social norms. indeed discipline is a very binding thing behavior, namely attachment to the rules that have been set. therefore regardless of the existing attachment causes the onset of deviant behavior such as ditching, rarely apples, insertion to criminal acts, abuse of authority, and violations. the occurrence of various violations of discipline ranging from mild to severe levels conducted by the police in carrying out their daily duties due to the influence factors. one such introduction salim, e., darmayanti, n., siregar, m., & razi, a. d. 15 factor is the indiscipline of a person at work. factors that allegedly influenced the disciplinary behavior of personnel of mobile brigadier unit of north sumatra police were personality factors. one aspect of personality discussed in this study is the locus of control. the hypothesis in this study is that there is a positive relationship between the locus of internal control and the work discipline of personnel of the mobile brigadier unit of north sumatra police. this research uses a quantitative approach. the variables used in this study were free variables: locus of internal control and bound: work disciplines. the population in this study is individuals who are personnel of the mobile brigadier unit of sumut police who are domiciled in ksatriaan mas kadiran with a total of 791 personnel. consisting of unit staff of 203 personnel, gegana detachment numbering 177, sub-detachment 1 detachment a totaling 152 personnel, sub-detachment 3 detachment c amounting to 130 personnel, and sub-detachment 4 detachment c amounted to 129 personnel. of the above population taken 20% of the population so the number of samples is 10% of 80 personnel. the sampling technique used in this study is purposive random sampling which is the total number of randomly selected samples to be studied. the method of data collection is done by disseminating a scale containing a list of questions that have been prepared and compiled in such a way that the research subjects can fill in easily. this study uses likert model scaling. this scaling is a model of scaling attitude statements that use response distribution as the basis for determining attitude values. the preparation of this scale is based on the specification table of research variables, namely variable x (internal locus of control) and variable y (work discipline). these variables are then described in several indicators, which are then made statement items for each indicator. the scale of the study itself is a modification of the likert scale with four answer options, namely "strongly agree", "agree", "disagree", and "strongly disagree". the scale methods used in this study are the locus scale of internal control and the scale of work discipline. the validity of the measuring instrument used in this study is the validity of the content which is validity that indicates the extent to which the item in the scale covers the entire contents to be revealed by the test. this means that the contents of the measuring instrument must contain relevant content and not go outside the limitations of the measuring instrument. statements on the scale of self-control and the locus scale of external control are tested for validity using pearson product moment analysis i.e. looking for a coefficient between each item with a total score (hadi, 2004). the reliability analysis of the two measuring instruments used is the analysis of hoyt variance (hadi, 2004). the data analysis technique used to test the hypothesis in this study was pearson's correlation with the spss (statistical package for social sciences) program for windows release 17. this technique is used because this study aims to look at the correlation between work discipline as the variable (x) and locus of internal control as the variable (y). it is known that locus variable data of internal control and work discipline follow the normal distribution, i.e. distributed following normal curve principles. the following table is the result research method result 16 being a good employee: contribution of internal locus of control to work discipline of the calculation of the spread normality test. normality test results showed that the distribution of work discipline data as a normal distributed bound variable indicated by kolmogorovsmirnov's coefficient of normality was 0.095 with p > 0.05. linearity test results are known that the internal locus of control variable with linearly correlated work discipline indicated by the linearity coefficient of f count of 48,049 > of f-table of 3.11 and can compare with p-value < 0.05 (0.00 < 0.05). there was a very significant positive relationship between the internal locus of control and the work discipline. where rxy = 0.714: p <0.001, meaning the higher the locus of internal control the higher the discipline of work. the determinant (r2) of the relationship between the free variable x and the y-bound variable is r2 = 0.510. this indicates that work discipline is influenced by the locus of internal control by 51%. based on the results of the analysis method of product-moment correlation analysis there was a positive correlation between the locus of internal control and the work discipline. this means that the hypotheses that have been submitted are accepted and prove the assumptions of theories that have been put forward before. the results of rxy correlation = 0.4714 and p = 0.000 ( p < 0.010) showed a significant positive relationship between the locus of internal control and work discipline. the existence of a significant correlation between the locus of internal control and the work discipline of mobile brigadier personnel shows that if the locus of internal control is high then the work discipline of mobile brigadier personnel, on the contrary, if the locus of internal control is low the work discipline of mobile brigadier personnel is also low. the relationship between the locus of internal control and the work discipline of mobile brigadier personnel can be explained from the following. the strong relationship between the locus of internal control and the work discipline of mobile brigadier personnel is due to the many matches between the characteristics of the personnel and the internal locus of control with the characteristics of the personnel who are disciplined in working. or in other words aspects of the work discipline of mobile brigadier personnel in this study such as accuracy in the use of work clothes and work time, obeying the regulations, and so on are met by the personnel who have an internal locus of control. as previously stated, the match includes people with an internal locus of control better able to control their time (douglass and douglass, 1980), more earnest in work and more task-oriented (spector, 1982), more able to adjust and show more positive response in the company (mitheel, 1985) and show better performance in complex work situations (spector, 1982). people with an internal locus of control will always work in their capacity even without the supervision of their superiors. whereas people with an external locus of control only work if needed, and it will work fine when the boss sees it. working hard is an important factor in the discipline of work because according to drever (1986) one of the important notions of discipline is one's efforts on one's initiative to achieve a certain goal. willingness to work hard in addition to the expectations or objectives of the person's locus of internal control is also the expectation of the agency towards its personnel. if a person's expectations are the same as the expectations of the company, then that person will willingly follow the rules set by the agency. this is by the opinion of pigors and myers (1961) which states that discipline is said to be good when employees are willing to cooperate harmoniously in the discussion salim, e., darmayanti, n., siregar, m., & razi, a. d. 17 achievement of the organization and this can work well with employee expectations with the organization. o'brien (1983) says that people who have an internal locus of control have better working behavior than people who have an external locus of control. personnel who has a high internal locus of control will have high working behavior as well. this affects the work discipline of the personnel, a mobile brigadier personnel who have good work behavior will show good work discipline as well. locus of control's contribution to work discipline was also examined before but in different studies, as well as research conducted by hasibuan and al musadieq (2017) which showed that internal locus of control has a relationship and influences the discipline of work with strengthening relationships. external locus of control has a relationship and influence on the discipline of work with a weakening relationship. job satisfaction has a relationship and the influence of moderation on the discipline of working relationships strengthens. and there is an influence between internal interaction locus of control and job satisfaction as a moderation variable on work discipline and have a strengthening relationship. there is an influence between external locus of control interaction and job satisfaction as a moderation variable to work discipline and have a strengthening relationship. in addition, this study not only looked at the locus of internal control but also looked at the locus of external control with the results compared to the direction. the results of the study variable influence internal locus of control (x1) has a direct or strengthening relationship to the discipline of work. otherwise, the external locus of control (x2) influences variables on the work discipline (y) but has a reverse relationship. hasibuan also looked at the influence of variable job satisfaction. while the research conducted only look at the internal locus of control with work discipline. in addition, related research was also conducted by parmin (2014). this study aims to determine the influence of work discipline, internal locus of control, and motivation on employee performance. the results of the hypothesis test with t-test showed that work discipline and motivation partially significantly influenced employee performance variables and internal locus of control partially had no significant effect on employee performance variables. while the f-test showed that the variables of work discipline, internal locus of control, and motivation simultaneously influenced the employee performance variables. the contribution of these three variables to employee performance was 59.1%, while 40.9% of contributions to employee performance were explained by other variables that were not studied. the research conducted by parmin looked at three variables, namely work discipline, locus of control, and motivation that influenced employee performance, while the study that the authors did look at the influence of locus of control on work discipline. the internal locus of control contributed to the discipline of work by 51%. from this percentage, it can be stated that there was still 49% influence of other factors on the work discipline of the mobile brigadier personnel, where these factors in this study were not seen, among which are leadership style factors, reward-punishment, and work environment. it is recommended to the researchers next to include other variables that affect the discipline of work, this is because based on research not only locus variables of internal control that affect the conclusion 18 being a good employee: contribution of internal locus of control to work discipline discipline of work but still many variables that affect, for example by including variables leadership style of superiors because a leader in his behavior and actions is always an example for his subordinates or the work environment. arikunto, s. (2010). prosedur penelitian suatu pendekatan praktik. rineka cipta baron, r. a. & byrne, d. (1981). social psychology: understanding human interaction. allyn & bacon. hadi, s. (2004). analisis regresi. andi offset. hasibuan, b. a. a. & al musadieq, m. (2017). pengaruh locus of control terhadap disiplin kerja dengan kepuasan kerja sebagai variabel moderasi (studi pada karyawan pt pumpindo ekamas pratama). jurnal administrasi bisnis 45(1), 37-46. retrieved from http://administrasibisnis.studentjournal.ub.ac.id/index.php/jab/article/view/1749/2128 hasibuan, m. s p. (2000). manajemen sumber daya manusia. bumi aksara mitchell, j. (1990). an introduction to the logic of psychological measurement. lawrence erlbaum association incorporation o'brien & marakas. (2013). management information system 6th ed. mcgraw-hill/irwin parmin (2014). pengaruh disiplin kerja, internal locus of control dan motivasi terhadap kinerja pegawai pada dinas pendapatan pengelolaan keuangan dan aset daerah kabupaten kebumen. fokus bisnis: media pengkajian manajemen dan akuntansi, 13(1), 106118. https://doi.org/10.32639/fokusbisnis.v13i1.192 pigors, p. & myers, c. a. (1961). personnel administration: a point of view and a method. mcgraw-hill. reiss, m. c. & mitra, k. (1998). the effects of individual difference factors on the acceptability of ethical and unethical workplace behaviors. journal of business ethics 17, 1581–1593 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1005742408725 tabah, a. (1991). menatap dengan mata hati polisi indonesia. gramedia pustaka utama. undang-undang nomor 2 tahun 2002 tentang kepolisian negara republk indonesia wursanto. (2003). dasar-dasar ilmu organisasi. andi references issn ;2541450x (online) 57 vol. 1 no. 2 (dec 2020), pp. 57-62 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i2.2879 empathy therapy to raise awareness of verbal bullying hazards 12 department of islamic guidance and counseling, institut agama islam negeri langsa, aceh, indonesia.  corresponding author: abstract – the low awareness of verbal bullying hazard is caused by a low of empathy in individuals. empathy therapy can be used to develop a sense of empathy, and it can raise awareness about verbal bullying hazard, thereby minimizing the tendency of verbal bullying. this study aims to see the effectiveness of empathy therapy for raised awareness of verbal bullying hazards. this research used a quantitative approach-quasi experimental (one group pretest-posttest design), with a purposive sampling technique, sample by six female participants between ages 17 and 19 in gampong paya bujok tunong. the instrument used in the research is the tendency scale of verbal bullying. the finding showed that there was a significant empathy therapy decreasing the tendency of verbal bullying. article history: received: august 30, 2020 revised: september 10, 2020 accepted: november 15, 2020 published: december 28, 2020 keyword: behavior; bullying; empathy awareness; therapyempathy ; verbal bullying how to cite (apa 7th edition) hesty, d. m. & surya, d. (2020). empathy therapy to raise awareness of verbal bullying hazards. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 1(2), 57-62. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i2.2879 this is an open-access article distributed under the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. this is enabled under the terms of attribution and noncommercial usage of the material. ©2020 by dini mai hesty & dedy surya. dedy surya (email: dedysurya@iainlangsa.ac.id) dini mai hesty1, dedy surya2 58 empathy therapy to raise awareness of verbal bullying hazard bullying is a negative behavior, deviant, and dangerous behavior, which includes physical and verbal acts performed repeatedly to corner, alienate, threaten, and even harm the victim. short-term bullying will lead to feelings of insecurity, lack of confidence, depression, or stress that can lead to suicide, while in the long run, it can lead to emotional and behavioral problems (kurnia, 2018). the highest incidence of bullying occurs in this type of verbal bullying; as revealed in gitry marela’s research, 49% of adolescents experience bullying, which is more commonly experienced as verbal bullying because it is called by an unwelcome name and often ridiculed by peers (marela, wahab, & marchira, 2017). olweus explains verbal bullying is aggressive behavior with negative actions that use words (verbal) such as threatening, insulting, mocking, and calling an actual name (olweus, 1993). verbal bullying is also known as aggressive verbal behavior. the research conducted by agung revealed that aggressive verbal behavior is a form of violence committed by someone by swearing, taunting, denouncing, or vilifying others by using words (prasetya, fauzi, & ramadhani, 2019). verbal bullying is more common because of the ejection of words such as giving a nickname or calling a peer with a call that is not often done in the school environment or the play environment. without them realizing it, sometimes the calls harm the victim. national centre against bullying (2019) also explains that forms of verbal bullying include name-calling, taunting, homophobic or racist remarks, insulting, intimidation, and verbal abuse. at an international teacher education conference, saripah (2010) explained that individual perpetrators of violence referring to bullying have low empathy abilities and high levels of aggressiveness. perpetrators are happy to see others struggling or suffering. on the other hand, they show no guilt when committing acts of bullying, either physical or verbal. ickes (1993) describes empathy as the ability to understand other people’s thoughts and feel how others feel. empathy is brought on from the moment the child is born, but there is no guarantee whether it can understand the feelings of others well developed. (borba, 2008). dwi, in her research, revealed that bullying perpetrators have low empathy. the lack of empathy makes it difficult to see from the viewpoint of others and unable to understand the situation of the victim (rachmah, 2016). the phenomenon of bullying also occurs in the sphere of adolescent association in gampong paya bujok tunong, a phenomenon that is considered typical in this association turns out to have a psychological effect for the direct impact. according to a teenager, he is often ridiculed by his friends because he wears glasses when he goes to school. this resulted in being unconfident, not infrequently, because the taunts he took off his glasses caused him to lower his spirit to go to school and decrease the concentration of learning of the teenager. this event does not escape the unconsciousness of the perpetrator about how the circumstances, feelings, and dangers of the word affect the victim. one of the factors is that he does not position himself “what if it happens to me” or the lack of empathy that exists in the perpetrator. in research conducted by adinar and miftahun, bullying tendencies can be minimized by providing therapy, which can be done, such as empathy therapy. empathy therapy is a term used introduction hesty, d. m. & surya, d. 59 by researchers to experiment to develop empathy in a person; fostering empathy in an individual can reduce or decrease the tendency of bullying (fatimatuzzahro & suseno, 2018) according to lika (2019), empathy therapy is a learning activity to foster the perpetrator’s caring attitude in understanding the victim’s feelings, thoughts, and points of view. this therapy emphasizes how an individual’s thinking process can suppress the behavior (lika, 2019). pecukonis (1990) explained that empathy therapy is an experiment to develop and analyze empathy responses consisting of affective and cognitive abilities of the subject. the experimental group after empathy therapy had to undergo significant level changes from the control group. researchers found a negative correlation between low empathy and bullying tendencies and empathy therapy to increase empathy based on previous research literature studies. however, in indonesia, research is still relatively rare about raising awareness about the dangers of verbal bullying tendencies in-depth; thus, researchers are interested in conducting research to find out if the use of empathy therapy is effective to raise awareness about the dangers of verbal abuse bullying. the study aims to investigate empathy therapy to raise awareness about the dangers of verbal bullying. this study uses a quantitative approach – quasi-experiment, the subject of the study is a resident in gampong paya bujok tunong, kota langsa. sample recall techniques using purposive sample techniques, the sample criteria in this study are: aged 17-19 years and female gender, often appear desire in the subject to hurt others through his words. the subject is willing to fill out a statement (informed-consent) as a form of willingness to follow a series of stages in the implementation of the study until found six individuals as samples. there are two variables used, namely the free variable (x) empathy therapy and the bound variable (y) verbal bullying. data collection techniques are done with one group pretest-postest design techniques, and this technique is considered more effective to see the significance of the average difference of pre-test and post-test after being given treatment, i.e., empathy therapy. therapy is done by providing auditory, visual, or kinesthetic stimulation (pecukonis, 1990) so that individuals can increase empathy; in the implementation, researchers divided it into three sessions. the first session of individuals are invited to discuss, the second session of individuals are directed to watch a movie about the dangers of verbal bullying, and the third session of individuals are invited to exchange roles as others (roleplaying) to be able to feel their feelings directly. the instrument in this study is a scale of verbal bullying tendencies that researchers compiled based on olweus’s theory of verbal bullying (1993), with the design of the likert scale using a favorable and unfavorable statement with alternative answers very appropriate, appropriate, neutral, inappropriate and wildly inappropriate. the higher the score, the higher the level of verbal bullying tendency of the individual, data processing on the research scale using the help of spss 22.0 application. the research scale consists of 21 statement items that have passed the validity test with a value above 0.514 and a cronbach’s alpha value reliability test of 0.973, so this scale is immense. (riduwan, 2010). the data analysis technique in this study was a prerequisite test using the shapiro wilk normality test because the number of samples < 50, as well as the hypothesis test used, was a research method 60 empathy therapy to raise awareness of verbal bullying hazard paired sample t-test, to see a significant difference between pre-test and post-test after the subject was given empathy therapy. the categorization of verbal bullying tendencies is determined based on the acquisition of the number of scores based on data processed with spss version 22.0. this classification is based on a predetermined formula (azwar, 2012), known minimum score (21), maximum score (105), range (84), mean/m (63), and standard deviation/sd (14). table 1. categorization of interval score norm score interval categorization x(min) < 63– 1.5(14) 21-42 very low 63–1.5(14)< 63–0.5(14) 42-56 low 63– 0.5(14) < 63 + 0,5(14) 56-70 average 63+0.5(14) < 63 +1,5(14) 70-84 high 63 +1.5(14) < x(max) 84-105 very high in table 2, you can see the pre-test score before empathy therapy and post-test score after empathy therapy; four people sampled decreased verbal bullying tendency in the low category. three sample people came from the moderate category and one person sampled from the high category, and two other sample people from the high category decreased to the very low category. table 1. descriptive statistics sample pre-test posttest m sd score category m sd score category 1 3.14 0.573 66 average 2.14 0.478 45 low 2 3.57 0.673 75 high 2.19 0.480 46 low 3 3.24 0.700 68 average 2.33 0.483 49 low 4 3.48 0.680 73 high 1.95 0.129 41 very low 5 3.29 0.717 69 average 2.24 0.095 47 low 6 3.38 0.498 71 high 2.00 0..73 40 very low furthermore, the prerequisite test in this study used the shapiro wilk p-value normality test. 0.05 using spss 22.0 application ((6) = 0.955 > p=0.05) known normally distributed data. hypothesis test in the study using paired sample t-test. tabel 3. paired sample t-test test m sd se pretest 70.33 3.327 1.358 posttest 45.17 2.858 1.167 based on table 3 shows that the mean value with six samples on the scale of verbal bullying tendency at the time of pre-test is 70.33 with a standard deviation of 3,327 and the standard error result hesty, d. m. & surya, d. 61 at 1,358, then at the time of post-test obtained mean worth 45.17 with a standard deviation of 2,858 and error standard 1,167. table 4. hypothesis test m t df p-value 25.167 11.871 5 <0,001 table 4 describes the difference between the mean pretest-posttest of 25,167 (17%), and the value t (5) = 11,871. the results of this experimental study prove the effectiveness of empathy therapy to raise awareness of the dangers of verbal bullying that researchers have done. empathy therapy can develop empathy to raise awareness about the dangers of verbal bullying. these findings are supported by inneke research (2018) that empathy therapy has the effect of lowering cyberbullying behavior. another study belonging to lika (2019) also showed that bullying tendencies decrease after being given treatment be a form of empathy therapy. age factors are also one reason responses are obtained in adolescent subjects faster. this aligns with borba’s theory (2008) that the more mature a person is, the cognitive and affective state also matures. this cognitive and affective maturity makes empathy develop well, as davis’s definition of empathy is how one can understand and feel the feelings of others. people who have empathy will be more sensitive and less likely to hurt others intentionally. the treatment given to stimulate cognitive as well as affective subjects in empathy therapy makes the subject quickly respond to any stimuli given so that it easily evokes the emotional side as if the subject is feeling the emotions of others, supported by izzah’s research (2019) empathy training reacts to the feelings of others with their emotional responses. in empathy therapy, the emotional response is visible when screening a film about bullying. when emotional responses arise here, empathy is developing, and it constantly makes individuals aware of the dangers of verbal bullying. in this study, researchers were limited to the development of empathy using empathy therapy. it is hoped that the researchers will further explore other variables that affect verbal bullying tendencies to expand the research sample and develop research using different data collection techniques. from the results outlined in this study, it is known that empathy therapy influences the decrease in verbal bullying tendencies by 17%. using the t-test is known t-count values more significant than the t-table value at 5% significance, so the proposed ha is acceptable. empathy therapy minimizes the level of verbal bullying tendencies. it was concluded that there were significant differences so that empathy therapy effectively lowered verbal bullying. discussion conclusion 62 empathy therapy to raise awareness of verbal bullying hazard azwar, s. (2012). penyusunan skala psikologi (2nd ed.). pustaka pelajar. borba, m. (2008). membangun kecerdasan moral: tujuh kebajikan utama untuk membentuk anak bermoral tinggi (raviyanto (ed.)). gramedia pustaka utama. davis, m. h. (1983). measuring individual differences in empathy: evidence for a multidimensional approach. journal of personality and social psychology, 44(1), 113–126. https://doi.org/00223514763 fatimatuzzahro, a., & suseno, m. n. (2018). efektivitas terapi empati untuk menurunkan perilaku bullying pada anak usia sekolah dasar. jurnal empati, 6(3), 362-378. https://ejournal3.undip.ac.id/index.php/empati/article/view/19767 ickes, w. (1993). empathic accuracy. journal of personality, 61(4), 587–610. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1993.tb00783.x izzah, l. & gusniarti, s. u. (2019). pelatihan empati untuk menurunkan perilaku bullying pada pelaku bullying di sekolah dasar. jurnal intervensi psikologi, 11(2), 79–90. https://doi.org/10.20885/intervensipsikologi.vol11.iss2.art2 kurnia, i. (2018). bullying. relasi inti media. kusheriyanti, i. (2018). pengaruh pelatihan empati terhadap perilaku cyberbullying pada remaja. universitas islam negeri sunan ampel. [undergraduate thesis – universitas islam negeri sunan ampel] lika, l. (2019). pelatihan empati sebagai upaya mengurangi perilaku perundungan pada siswa smp. persona: jurnal psikologi indonesia, 8(2), 308–324. https://doi.org/10.30996/persona.v8i2.2365 marela, g., wahab, a., & marchira, c. r. (2017). bullying verbal menyebabkan depresi remaja sma kota yogyakarta. berita kedokteran masyarakat, 33(1), 43. https://doi.org/10.22146/bkm.8183 national centre against bullying. (2019). types of bullying. https://www.ncab.org.au/bullyingadvice/bullying-for-parents/types-of-bullying/ olweus, d. (1993). bullying at school: what we know and what we can do. blackwell. pecukonis, e. v. (1990). a cognitive/affective empathy training program as a function of ego development in aggressive adolescent females. adolescence, 25(97), 59–76. prasetya, a., fauzi, t., & ramadhani, e. (2019). pengaruh lingkungan terhadap perilaku agresif verbal siswa dalam berkomunikasi. enlighten: jurnal bimbingan konseling islam, 2(2), 6873. https://doi.org/10.32505/enlighten.v2i2.1351 rachmah, d. n. (2016). empati pada pelaku bullying. jurnal ecopsy, 1(2). https://doi.org/10.20527/ecopsy.v1i2.487 riduwan, r. (2010). dasar-dasar statistika (prama dwija iswara (ed.)). alfabeta. saripah. (2010). model konseling kognitif perilaku untuk menanggulangi bullying siswa, (studi pengembangan model konseling pada siswa sekolah dasar di beberapa kabupaten dan kota di jawa barat tahun ajaran 2008/2009). proceedings of the 4th international conference on teacher education; join conference upi & upsi bandung, indonesia, 720–726. references issn ;2541450x (online) 30 vol. 1 no. 2 (dec 2020), pp. 30-37 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i2.2835 employee work stress based on gender differences during the covid19 pandemic syafrizaldi department of psychology, universitas medan area, north sumatera, indonesia.  corresponding author: syafrizaldi (email: syafrizaldi@staff.uma.ac.id) abstract – this study aims to see employee work stress reviewed from gender differences during the covid-19 pandemic. this research involved employees at pt. saka mitra sejati medan. the results showed that there was a difference in work stress between male and female employees. the statistical calculations of empirical mean scores showed that subjects of the male gender had a lower average empirical mean score of 29.67, while the average empirical mean value of female subjects was 30.47. thus, during the pandemic, female employees had higher levels of work stress compared to male employees. article history: received: august 5, 2020 revised: september 1, 2020 accepted: november 3, 2020 published: december 28, 2020 keyword: covid-19; employee; gender; work stress how to cite (apa 7th edition) syafrizaldi, s. (2020). employee work stress based on gender differences during the covid-19 pandemic. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 1(2), 30-37. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i2.2835 this is an open-access article distributed under the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. this is enabled under the terms of attribution and noncommercial usage of the material. ©2020 by syafrizaldi. syafrizaldi, s. 31 according to the data, the work stress of employees in indonesia was 73% (cfo innovation, 2016), a relatively high number in terms of psychological conditions that occur in indonesian society. work stress can arise in employees depending on how the employee responds. if the employee feels less able to carry out a task, it will cause work stress. the pressure gained from work will be answered differently by each individual. some employees will work better under pressure. but some employees feel pressure will make it difficult for them. if the work stress is high on the employee, then the company's performance and employees become not sound. in the current situation of the covid-19 pandemic, when people are not allowed to be in crowded places and always keep a distance from each other, it presents challenges for the company in handling its employees. this has an impact on the world of work in three main dimensions, namely the number of jobs, the quality of work (e.g. wages and access to social protection), and the effect on certain groups that are more vulnerable to labour market losses (international labor organization, 2020a). the covid-19 pandemic dealt a devastating blow and impacted all sectors of the world economy, particularly in indonesia. therefore, companies need to maintain mental health for employees. providing 24-hour service to customers will require employees to work more extra, especially for employees who work on night shifts, must be maintained to provide good service to employees. some employees have a considerable task for employees who work regular hours, making employees work longer in the office. the phenomenon that occurred during the covid-19 pandemic also has an impact on employees. lack of revenue, impacting the company's revenue. termination of contracts to employees is also carried out gradually. employees who continue to work get the same salary as before because of the cut in working days. it happens because, during this pandemic, almost all tourism sectors get the adverse impact of the covid-19 outbreak (international labor organization, 2020b). as a result of the lack of visitors, employees also do not get incentives or bonus money. during the covid-19 outbreak, all necessities are limited and have high prices and employees who are now more at home. plus, if employees have family members who do activities at home only, causing increased electricity bills reduced wages provide difficulties for employees. this phenomenon certainly impacted the individual's psychological condition, such as the appearance of work stress experienced by employees who work. the pressure of the work that arises would undoubtedly have a different effect when viewed from the gender differences between men and women. as revealed by the liputan6.com news page released that american psychological association research data says, nearly half of all women surveyed faced increased stress levels over the past five years. this is because women often complain about their economic condition and get greater physical and emotional impairments (rahayu, 2017. similarly, widiastara (2012) research conducted a significant difference in work stress between male and female nurses, where female nurses experience higher levels of stress than male nurses. the mean of work stress showed the difference in female nurses of 65.19 while the mean of work stress in male nurses was 57.03. introduction 32 employee work stress based on gender differences during the covid-19 pandemic gender refers to the psychological, cultural, and social differences associated with men and women, in contrast to sex, emphasizing the differentiation between men and women based on their biological nature (lindsey, 2011). gender is the psychological, social and cultural dimension of the existence of men and women, while gender roles are a set of expectations that determine how men and women should behave, think, and feel (santrock, 2007). hurlock (2013) calls gender roles an approved pattern of behavior accepted by social groups for both men and women. so it can be concluded that gender roles are a set of role behaviors that must be implemented by men and women that have been created and determined by society. with the difference in gender roles between men and women, it can be said that this raises the issue where men and women have different role demands due to the prevailing gender stereotypes. matlin (2004) explains that gender stereotypes referring to the thinking of social groups and is a broad category of beliefs about the characteristics or traits of men and women in which these two genders want to gain recognition and acknowledge differences between each other. masculine stereotypes in men are perceived as mighty, rigid, powerful, dominant, athletic, assertive, independent, have leadership abilities, complex, rational, confident, face risk, aggression. while the feminine stereotype is easy to give up, meek, patient, compassionate, sensitive, passive, relentless, chatty, full of warmth (handayani & novianto, (2004). masculine and feminine stereotypes reflect the way we perceive ourselves, regardless of a particular social situation, and being a part of us that leads to certain expectations, behaviors and attitudes (kazmierczak, 2010). in other words, masculine or feminine stereotypes in a person will have consequences on oneself. one will adhere to the values of masculine and feminine gender roles, thus causing gender role stress. mangkunegara (2005) stated that work stress is a feeling of stress or stress experienced by employees in the face of work. this work stress can cause unstable emotions, calm, loneliness, sleeplessness, excessive smoking, indigestion, anxiety, tension, nervousness, increased blood pressure and indigestion. suwardiana & wibawa (2014), in their research, define work stress as a condition of employees who experience pressure in work both from the task, leadership and work environment in which the employee works. while according to anoraga (2001), work stress is a form of one's response, both physical and mental, to a change in his environment that is felt to be disruptive and results in being threatened. furthermore, work stress responds from the outside environment that the individual considers excessive because it is beyond its capabilities (luthans, 2011., gibson et al., 2012., fahmi, 2013). according to velmapy and aravinthan (2013) that work stress are an emotional pattern of cognitive behavior and psychological reactions to adverse and harmful aspects of any work, work organization, and work environment. the response from alves (2005) stated that work stress could be interpreted as a physical and emotional response that occurs when the abilities and resources of employees cannot be overcome by the demands and needs of their work. according to vigoda (2002), work stress is defined as the presence of self-turmoil, whether it is physical or not, arising from the burden of work. according to robbins & judge (2008), stress is a dynamic condition in which an individual is confronted with an opportunity of constraint or demand associated with what he or she wants, syafrizaldi, s. 33 and the results are perceived as uncertain and essential. this will result in the emergence of different work stresses between male and female employees. research conducted by rahmawati (2009) on the difference in employee work stress levels at pt bank rakyat indonesia (persero) tbk bogor branch based on the characteristics of these employees was analyzed using independent sample t-test and anova test. employee work stress levels based on gender differences were scored in men at 2.43 and in women at 2.23. although slight differences still show the differences between genders. then, research conducted by simorangkir (2016) in this study, the percentage of stress in female students was slightly higher at 48.5% compared to male students by 34.1%. similarly, amsar (2018) research showed a difference in work stress between male and female employees. data showed that male employees' employment was 104.30 and female employee work stress was 110.14. thus female employee work stress was higher than male employee work stress. therefore, based on the above explanation, researchers want to research more about the differences in employee work stress in reviewing gender differences during the covid-19 pandemic in employees. the research method to be used is a quantitative approach, with a correlational approach. quantitative research is an approach to test an objective theory with the testing of relationships between variables. instruments can measure these variables so that data in the form of numbers can be analyzed using statistical procedures (creswell, 2014). correlational research aims to understand the relationship between variables (kaufman & kaufman, 2005). the population in this study was employees of pt. saka mitra sejati during the covid-19 pandemic as many as 78 people. then the sample and sampling techniques in this study is total sampling, i.e. the entire population is used as a research sample; because the population is less than 100 people, then the sample was 78 people. the method used in the study is scale, where the scale contains questions or written statements that can measure both personalities, psychological and affective aspects (manullang & pakpahan, 2014). the scale of work stress is based on the indicators of work stress put forward by robbins (2006), namely, the demands of tasks, demands of roles, interpersonal needs, organizational structure, and leadership. the work stress scale is prepared with a likert scale model consisting of statements in a favorable and unfavourable form, using modifications to alternative responses into four levels, namely, "strongly agree", "agree", "disagree", and "strongly disagree". the assessment given for favorable answers, i.e., "strongly agree" is 1, "agree" is 2, "disagree" is 3, and "strongly disagree" is 4. as for unfavourable items, the response is given the opposite value of the favourable item. to measure the validity of an instrument can be done with product moment correlation (manullang & pakpahan, 2014). while conducting reliability testing can be done using the formula cronbach alpha (arikunto, 2002). research method 34 employee work stress based on gender differences during the covid-19 pandemic based on the scale of work stress filled by the subject, hypothetical means and standard deviations are obtained as below: table 1 hypothetical statistical score variable minimum maximum mean standard deviation work stress 22.00 39.00 30.00 4.5812 the hypothetical mean of work stress variables is obtained from tabulating work stress score data consisting of 15 valid items. the lowest score of each item is 1, and the highest score is 4. based on the number of items for the scale, it can be known that the minimum total answer score is 22, and the maximum answer score is 39. the hypothetical mean of variable work stress is 30. and the hypothetical standard deviation is 4.58. researchers then use the summary of the data to categorize work stress on pt employees. saka mitra sejati medan in the levels to then be arranged based on the norms that have been determined. by paying attention to the hypothetical mean of 30 and the standard deviation of 4.58, the categorization for occupational stress variables in employees of pt saka mitra sejati medan with the number and percentage of subjects in it can be seen in the picture below figure 1 employee work stress levels during the covid-19 pandemic then the final results of this study objective can be answered through the score of statistical calculations conducted that show the difference in work stress experienced by male employees has a lower mean value (29.67). while the employees are female (30.47). this can be seen in table 2 as follows: table 2 empirical statistical score gender n minimum maximum mean standard deviation male 46 22.00 39.00 29.67 4.667 female 32 22.00 39.00 30.47 4.486 from the data of statistical calculations of empirical mean scores, it can be known that male subjects have a lower average empirical mean value of 29.67, while when compared to the high 22% average 58% low 20% result syafrizaldi, s. 35 average empirical mean value of female subjects is 30.47. thus, female employees have slightly higher levels of work stress than male employees. based on the hypothesis test results between men and women in employees during the covid-19 pandemic, pt saka mitra sejati medan employees found a difference in work stress between men and women with data that male employees are lower female employees. this can be seen from table 2 above that based on the results of statistical test calculations, and it can be known that male employees have a lower mean value (29.67) compared to the mean value of female employees (30.47). according to darmono in purwono (2006), both men and women can experience stress. it is thought that more women than men are experiencing stress. women who experience anxiety can appear as a side effect of their biological, psychological, and social circumstances and changes. the results showed that (1) the work stress of male and female employees was reviewed from the physiological aspect of being in the high and very high category, (2) the work stress of male and female employees was reviewed from the psychological aspect of being in the high and high categories, (3) the work stress of male and female employees was reviewed from the social aspect of being in the high and high categories, and (4) there was a significant difference between the work stress of male employees and female students. furthermore, anatan and ellitan (2009) stated that from a gender perspective, women are more prone to stress than men because they have a dual role, especially married ones. on the other hand, women are more likely to have sensitive feelings than men. then if we look at that, the study results that can be from this study shows a comparison of the difference in the average empirical mean that is not far ie work stress in employees who are male by 29.67 and work stress in employees who are male who are women 30.47. only a distance of 1.20 can be said that the difference is minimal. however, it can be said that the two still have differences in work stress experienced. alves, s. (2005). a study of occupational stress, scope of practice, and collaboration in nurse anesthetists practicing in anesthesia care team settings. aana journal, 73(6), 443. amsar, d. n. (2018) analisis perbandingan stres kerja karyawan berdasarkan jenis kelamin pada pt telekomunikasi indonesia tbk wilayah makassar. [undergraduate thesis, universitas islam negeri alauddin makassar]. retrieved from http://repositori.uinalauddin.ac.id/11996/1/analisis%20perbandingan%20stres%20kerja%2 0karyawan.pdf anoraga, p. (2001). psikologi kerja. rineka cipta. arikunto, s. (2002). prosedur penelitian: suatu pendekatan praktek. rineka cipta. cfo innovation. (2016). with integrated risk reporting in place china's insurance industry discussion conclusion references 36 employee work stress based on gender differences during the covid-19 pandemic continued strong growth. cfo innovation asian staff strategic intelligence for finance risk management. creswell, j. w. (2014). research design: qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approach 4 edition. sage. rahayu, e. m. (2017). pria dan wanita punya tingkatan dan gaya stress yang berbeda. retrieved form https://www.liputan6.com. fahmi, i. (2013). manajemen kinerja, teori dan aplikasinya. alfabeta. gibson, j. l. et al. (2012). organization: behavior, structure, processes. 14th edition. mcgraw-hill companies, inc. handayani & novianto, (2004). kuasa perempuan jawa. pt lkis pelangi aksara. hurlock, e. b. (2013). perkembangan anak. erlangga. international labor organization. (2020a). covid-19 and the world of work: impact and policy responses. march 18, 2020 international labor organization. (2020b). covid-19 and employment in the tourism sector: impact and response in asia and the pacific. april 24, 2020 kaufman, a. s., & kaufman, n. l. (2005). essentials of behavioral science series. john willey & sons. kazmierczak, m. (2010). the feminine and masculine gender role stress – conclusions from polish studies. polish psychological bulletin, 41(1), 20–30. https://doi.org/10.2478/s10059010-0003-5 anatan, l. & ellitan, l. (2009). manajemen sumber daya manusia dalam bisnis modern. bandung. lindsey, l. (2011). gender role: a sociological perspective. retrieved from http://www.pearsonhighered.com. luthans, f. (2011). organizational behavior: an evidence-based approach. mcgraw-hill. mangkunegara, a. a. a. p. (2005). manajemen sumber daya manusia perusahaan. pt remaja rosdakarya. manullang, m., & pakpahan, m. (2014). metodologi penelitian: proses penelitian praktis. citapustaka media. matlin, m. w. (2004). the psychology of women. thomson learning publishing. purwono, s. (2006). hubungan masa kerja dengan stres kerja pada pustakawan perpustakaan universitas gadjah mada yogyakarta. berkah ilmu perpustakaan dan informasi, 3(1), 44-58. putra, b. r. (2012). pengaruh job stressor terhadap turnover intention dengan kepuasan kerja sebagai variabel pemediasi. jurnal studi manajemen, 1 (2), 72-81. suwardiana, i. g. p. & wibawa, i. m. a. (2014). pengaruh stres kerja dan komitmen organisasi terhadap kepuasan kerja berdasarkan gender pada warong miyabi bali. e-jurnal manajemen universitas udayana, 23(6), 2745-2766. rahmawati, s. (2009). analisis stres kerja karyawan pada pt bank rakyat indonesia (persero) tbk cabang bogor. [undergraduate thesis, institut pertanian bogor]. robbins, s. p. (2006). perilaku organisasi. edisi kesepuluh. pt indeks kelompok gramedia. robbins, s. p. & judge, t. a. (2008). perilaku organisasi 12 ed. salemba empat. santrock. j. w. (2007). remaja. erlangga. https://doi.org/10.2478/s10059-010-0003-5 https://doi.org/10.2478/s10059-010-0003-5 syafrizaldi, s. 37 simorangkir, v. j. s. (2016) perbedaan tingkat stres pada mahasiswa preklinik di fakultas kedokteran uhkbpn medan [undergraduate thesis, universitas hkbn nommensen]. retrieved from repository.uhn.ac.id. widiastara, e. (2012), perbedaan stres kerja perawat ditinjau dari jenis kelamin. [undergraduate thesis, universitas muhammadiyah malang]. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research https://journal.iainlangsa.ac.id/index.php/inspira how to cite (apa 7th edition) mulyaningrum, a. & kusumaningrum, f. a. (2022). parental phubbing and smartphone addiction among adolescents. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 3(1), 23–30. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i1.4178 this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial 4.0 international (cc by-nc 4.0) copyright ©2022 by afrida mulyaningrum & fitri ayu kusumaningrum research article parental phubbing and smartphone addiction among adolescents https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i1.4178 afrida mulyaningrum, fitri ayu kusumaningrum department of psychology, universitas islam indonesia, special region of yogyakarta, indonesia corresponding author: fitri ayu kusumaningrum (email: fitriayukusumaningrum@uii.ac.id) abstract this study investigated the correlation between parental phubbing and smartphone addiction among adolescents. the number of participants in this study was 292 adolescents that, consist 76 boys and 216 girls who lived on java island with an age range of 12 to 21 years old. this study used the quantitative method with the likert scale. the measurement for the variables in this study used smartphone addiction scale short-version (sas-sv) by kwon et al. (2013) and parental phubbing by roberts and david (2016). the analysis result of this study showed a positive correlation between parental phubbing and smartphone addiction among adolescents, with the coefficient of correlation r=0,200 and p<0,001. this finding meant that a higher parental phubbing score would indicate a higher smartphone addiction score. based on the result, we can conclude that the hypothesis of this study is accepted. article history: received 06 june 2022 revised 10 june 2022 accepted 25 june 2022 keywords: adolescents; java island; parental phubbing; smartphone addiction introduction current technological advances are reflected in the number of smartphone user penetrations that continue to increase. statista (2019) states that the smartphone user penetration in the world in 2018 has reached 38%. the number of penetrations is expected to increase to 44.9% in 2020. stastista (2019) also mentioned that the penetration of indonesian smartphone users in 2019 is estimated to have reached 47.6% of the total indonesian population. that is an increase of 4.4% from 2017. on the other hand, survey data from the ministry of communication and informatics of the republic of indonesia or kementerian komunikasi dan informatika republik indonesia (2014) said that there are at least 30 million children and adolescents in indonesia who are internet users, of which 52% access using ordinary mobile phones and 21% use smartphones. because the number of users of this technology product is very high, it is not surprising that a new type of dependency disorder has been found outside of drugs and alcohol, namely smartphone addiction (kwon, kim, cho, & yang, 2013). kuss & lopez-fernandez (2016) explained that smartphone addiction is a maladaptive behavior toward smartphones characterized by the appearance of negative consequences. smartphone addiction has the same negative symptoms and effects as internet addiction (kwon, kim, cho, & yang, 2013). https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i1.4178 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7319-4075 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4636-3814 24 young, as quoted by kwon, kim, cho & yang (2013), argues that the symptoms or aspects of internet addiction are: a) disturbed daily life, namely disruption of daily activity due to excessive internet/ smartphone use, b) positive anticipation or change in psychic and emotional conditions after the use of internet/smartphone, c) withdrawal, which is the condition of individuals who feel very uncomfortable after being kept away from the internet/smartphone, d) excessive use or very prolonged use of the internet/smartphone in the absence of apparent interests, e) oriented to relationships in cyberspace, i.e., more concerned with social relations with others in cyberspace than with people around, and f) tolerance or increase in the time and frequency of internet/smartphone use over time. an overview of the high level of dependence of adolescents on smartphones in indonesia can also be seen from several research results. research by muflih, hamzah, & purniawan (2017) examined the level of smartphone dependence on 207 students (39.6% men and 60.4% women) at sma negeri 1 kalasan yogyakarta. the study’s results revealed that smartphones’ dependence rate reached 45.9%. another study by primadiana, nihayati, & wahyuni (2019) at sma x sidoarjo showed that 53.1% of 289 subjects (41.9% male and 58.1% female) students experienced moderate to high levels of smartphone addiction. the condition of smartphone addiction will undoubtedly have negative impacts on addicts, including teenagers. examples of physical health disorders include weight loss, dehydration, fatigue, and obesity (li, deng, ren, guo, & he, 2014). in addition, psychosocial and mental health problems that arise include a decrease in the level of subjective well-being (jin & spence, 2016), reduced problem-solving ability (ibili, 2017), depression, the onset of interpersonal problems in the family and social environment (griffiths, 2000), adolescent sexual delinquency (choi et al., 2017), and decreased academic achievement (yildiz durak, 2019). several internal and external factors influence the condition of dependence on smartphones. internal factors include self-control and low self-esteem (agusta, 2016), physical and psychological problems suffered (cha & seo, 2018), and gender (cha & seo, 2018; lee, seo, jeung, & kim, 2019). external factors include the family and parental environment (kwon et al., 2013), social-economic status (cha & seo, 2018), the type of smartphone and application used (shin, hong, & dey, 2012), the influence of the media in marketing smartphones (agusta, 2016), the life of adolescents at school (kwon, kim, cho, & yang, 2013), and the environmental conditions of friendship and family (yuwanto, 2010). the family, in this case, in particular, is that parents play a crucial role in the life of every period of human development. although adolescents in their developmental duties have the task of growing into more emotionally independent human beings (davis, 1985), this does not mean that the role of parents in their adolescent children is detached. since long ago, many studies have revealed the importance of active roles and parental involvement in the upbringing of teenage children. baumrind (alinaksi & sari, 2015) explained that adolescents with competent parents who play an active role in parenting patterns focus on better developmental tasks. smartphone addiction disorder in adolescents is also inseparable from the role of parents. several research results, such as those conducted by terras and ramsay (2016), explained that problematic smartphone use behavior in parents would be a role model for their children. wang et al. (2020) even explained that the behavior of ignoring children in parents when using smartphones could harm the child’s psyche. mcdaniel (2019) explains that adolescents generally feel negative emotions when their parents ignore them when using smartphones. these negative emotions are feelings of anger, wanting to spit out bad or grumbling words, feelings of loneliness, and sadness. 25 neglect behavior toward children due to using these phones is currently known as parental phone snubbing or abbreviated as parental phubbing. parental phubbing constructively has only one aspect: the togetherness of parents and children who are distracted due to parents’ use of mobile phones (liu et al., 2019; roberts & david, 2016). this kind of parental behavior has impacted their children’s cell phone use behavior. for example, xie et al. (2019) and liu et al. (2019) produced data that parental phubbing positively correlates with smartphone addiction in adolescents. mapping literature related to parental phubbing relevant to internet use in adolescents has been widely carried out outside indonesia, but no studies have been found in indonesia. niu et al. (2020) showed a direct relationship between parental phubbing and adolescent problematic cell phone use and the mediation effect of parent-child relationships moderated by self-control. the study of wang et al. (2022) proved that parental phubbing correlates to bullying behavior in cyberspace in adolescents. the study of geng et al. (2021) mentioned that parental phubbing in fathers and mothers in the early days predicted smartphone use in problematic adolescents. the study of zhang et al. (2021) proved that the relationship of parental phubbing with adolescent cell phone abuse is mediated by social anxiety and core self-evaluation. the study of xie et al. (2021) provides evidence that parental neglect affects adolescents’ internet game disorders through parental phubbing and depression. the study by shen, xi, & wu (2022) proved that parental phubbing and internet gaming disorder are mediated by maladaptive cognition and adolescent self-esteem. in the study by zhao et al. (2022), there is a role in the tendency for boredom to mediate in the parental relationship of phubbing has a positive effect on smartphone addiction. based on the literature review, researchers found that there is still no research on parental phubbing and smartphone addiction in indonesia. hence, researchers want to confirm the relationship between parental phubbing and smartphone addiction in indonesian adolescents, especially in java. method participants in this study were 292 adolescents aged 12 to 21 years who were domiciled in java. based on the sex of the subjects consisted of 76 adolescent boys and 216 adolescent girls with an age range of 12-21 years (mean=17.83, sd=2.14). the sampling method is convenience sampling, whereas nonrandom sampling, where members of the target population meet applicable criteria that match the participant criteria (etikan, musa, & alkassim, 2016). a scale to measure the level of smartphone addiction using the smartphone addiction scale shortversion (sas-sv) developed by kwon et al. (2013) is based on the theory of internet addiction (young, 1998). this scale consists of six aspects, namely trust, communication, and alienation. the number of items on this scale is ten items favorable. this scale comes with six alternative answers, namely sd (strongly disagree), d (disagree), rd (rather disagree), ra (rather agree), a (agree), and sa (strongly agree). the higher the total score obtained, the higher the respondent’s level of addiction to smartphones. cronbach alpha cronbach’s resulting smartphone addiction scale short-version (sassv) of α = 0.775. the parents phubbing scale is adapted from the partner phubbing scale developed by roberts & david (2016) based on bowlby’s attachment theory. on parental phubbing measurements, the word ‘my partner’ was changed to ‘my parents’. this scale consists of one aspect, togetherness, which is disrupted due to the use of mobile phones. the number of items on this scale is nine, with eight items favorable and one item unfavorable. the scale is equipped with five alternative answers, namely “never,” “rarely,” “sometimes,” “often,” and “always.” the higher the total score obtained, the 26 higher the level of phubbing behavior parents carry toward their children. parents phubbing scale produces an alpha cronbach of α = 0.777. data analysis was performed using the help of the statistical product and service solution (spss) program version 24.0 for windows. the assumption test is a normality test using kolmogorov-smirnov provided that the value of p>0.05 is said to be normally distributed data and applies the other way around. the next assumption test is a linearity test with the provision that the value of p<0.05 is said that the data is of a linear relationship and applies the other way around. the hypothesis test conducted in this study is a correlation test using pearson product-moment. result table 1. demographic data of research participants aspect n (%) sex male 76 (26.0%) female 216 (74.0%) age early adolescence (12-15 years old) 13 (4.5%) middle adolescence (15-18 years old) 130 (44.5%) late adolescence (18-21 years old) 149 (51.0%) region banten 11 (3.8%) special region of yogyakarta 37 (12.7%) special capital region of jakarta 15 (5.1%) west java 59 (20.2%) central java 150 (51.4%) east java 20 (6.8%) educational level junior high school 20 (6.8%) senior high school 127 (43.5%) university 136 (46.6%) other 9 (3.1%) parental income (idr) < 1,000,000 33 (11.3%) 1,000,000—2,500,000 71 (24.3%) 2,500,001—4,000,000 67 (22.9%) 4,000,001—5,500,000 49 (16.8%) >5,500,000 72 (24.7%) the results showed that adolescent smartphone addiction is generally at a medium level (40.1%) to high (33.9%). meanwhile, parental phubbing is low (36.0%) to medium (38.4%). table 2 shows smartphone addiction and parental phubbing data based on their categorizations. table 2. frequency data of smartphone addiction and parental phubbing level categorization variable smartphone addiction parental phubbing very low 8 (2.7%) 38 (13.0%) low 48 (16.4%) 105 (36.0%) medium 117 (40.1%) 112 (38.4%) high 99 (33.9%) 35 (12.0%) very high 20 (6.8%) 2 (0.7%) based on the results of the correlation test analysis that has been carried out shows that parental phubbing and smartphone addiction are significantly positively correlated with a value of r=0.200 and a value of p<0.001. these results show that the higher the parental phubbing score, the higher the level and score of smartphone addiction, and vice versa. furthermore, the value of the contribution of the effectiveness of parental phubbing to smartphone addiction is 4%. 27 several additional analytical tests to see each difference in smartphone addiction levels seen by different demographic groups. the data obtained are as follows: table 3. mean of smartphone addiction based on gender, parental income, age, and education aspect smartphone addiction explanation mean p-value sex 0.244 not significant male 36.61 female 37.75 age 0.641 not significant early adolescence (12-15 years old) 35.38 middle adolescence (15-18 years old) 37.53 late adolescence (18-21 years old) 37.52 educational level 0.433 not significant junior high school 37.30 senior high school 37.28 university 37.30 other 41.78 parental income (idr) 0.64 not significant < 1,000,000 36.88 1,000,000—2,500,000 38.23 2,500,001—4,000,000 36.87 4,000,001—5,500,000 37.29 >5,500,000 37.53 based on table 4, the level of smartphone addiction level showed no difference when reviewed based on gender, parental income, age, and education. discussion this study aims to determine whether there is a positive relationship between parental phubbing and smartphone addiction. based on data analysis in this study, it was revealed that there is a positive relationship between the two variables. the results of this study are the results of similar studies that have been carried out previously. a study by hong et al. (2019) explained that parental phubbing and smartphone addiction in adolescents directly or indirectly related positively. the respondents to the study were high school students, who differed in this study which focused on the characteristics of the adolescent life-span development. in addition, the results of research by hong et al. (2019) revealed that parental phubbing is not only directly related to problematic internet use in children but also indirectly related to problematic internet use through the mediation role of parent-child relationships and children’s self-esteem after gender and age are controlled. in this study, there was no difference in the gender and age levels at the level of smartphone addiction. the data in this study also revealed that the average score of smartphone addiction in adolescent girls tends to be higher than in adolescent boys. the results are similar to those of previous studies conducted by cha and seo (2018), which also showed that the average score of smartphone addiction in a group of adolescent girls was higher than in adolescent boys. walsh et al. (2011) explained that adolescent girls are more likely to involve smartphones in daily activities than men. based on the level of education and income of parents, this study showed that the group of adolescents who had the highest level of smartphone addiction were the group of adolescents with unknown education (average score of 41.78) and the group of adolescents with parental income of idr1,000,000 to idr2,500,000 (average score of 38.23). this study’s results do not follow previous reference research, which explained that the higher the level of education and economic status, the higher the level of smartphone use will be (cha & seo, 2018). this result may be due to an uneven 28 distribution of the number of samples. thus, the study’s results did not show more comprehensive data related to the level of smartphone addiction in these two categories. categorically, this study puts the level of smartphone addiction in the moderate category. this data shows the high number of adolescents who are estimated to have smartphone addiction disorders. these results show how many teenagers are currently thought to have experienced smartphone addiction disorders. this research is in line with several studies that have previously described the high rate of smartphone contamination among adolescents in indonesia. the results of research by muflih, hamzah, & purniawan (2017), for example, also showed a significant level of smartphone addiction in adolescents, reaching 45.9%. researchers also categorized parental phubbing variables into five groups, namely deficient (13%), low (36%), medium (38.4%), high (12%), and very high (0.7%). based on these data, it was found that subjects with parents behaved parentally high to very high at 12.7%. on the other hand, the effective contribution of parental phubbing as a factor of smartphone addiction is not significant enough. the practical contribution given is only 4% of it. the small number of influential contributions to this study reflects that parental phubbing has insignificant implications for adolescent smartphone addiction behavior. based on the data above, it is known that the parental phubbing factor in this study has quite a negligible effect on smartphone addiction behavior. the degree of relationship between the two variables is also known to be relatively low. these results allow that the parental phubbing variable in this study indirectly affected the high level of smartphone addiction in the subjects. this result is also in line with previous research studies. such as research conducted by liu et al. (2019) explains that parental phubbing is indirectly related to smartphone addiction in adolescent subjects. the low influence of parental phubbing on smartphone addiction in adolescents can be explained because it requires the role of the meditator variable. several studies related to the study of parental phubbing and problematic internet use in adolescents found that some mediators were needed (niu et al., 2020; gang et al., 2021; xie et al., 2021; shen, xi, & wu, 2022; zhao et al., 2022). some limitations in this study, such as research conducted online, made researchers less able to control the situation and conditions at the time of data collection. in addition, the frequency of the distribution of questionnaires is not the same geographically and age, making the distribution of data uneven. another limitation of this study is the absence of demographic aspect data that can describe whether the respondents lived together or were separated from their parents. another demographic aspect that was not disclosed was the time-intensity data and the frequency of mobile phone use per day. researchers also did not specifically separate the scores of phubbing behavior in father and mother figures. conclusion there is a positive relationship between parental phubbing and smartphone addiction in adolescents. the higher the intensity of parents doing parental phubbing, the higher the intensity of adolescents addicted to using smartphones. parents need to pay more attention to the quality of the child-parent relationship by reducing cellphone use so that children do not feel neglected. this case will impact teenagers who will use time on more productive things and only focus on excessive smartphone use to addiction. the recommendation in the subsequent study is to measure the moderator or mediator variables in the relationship between smartphone addiction and parental phubbing, and this is due to the low correlation rate between the two variables. 29 references agusta, d. (2016). faktor-faktor risiko kecanduan menggunakan smartphone pada siswa di smk negeri 1 kalasan yogyakarta [undergraduate thesis, universitas negeri yogyakarta]. https://eprints.uny.ac.id/31423/ alinaksi, a. n., & sari, e. p. (2015). dinamika kompetensi pengasuhan islami. psikologika: jurnal pemikiran dan penelitian psikologi, 20(2). https://doi.org/10.20885/psikologika.vol20.iss2.art8 cha, s.-s., & seo, b.-k. (2018). smartphone use and smartphone addiction in middle school students in korea: prevalence, social networking service, and game use. health psychology open, 5(1), 205510291875504. https://doi.org/10.1177/2055102918755046 davis, i. p. (1985). adolescents: theoretical and helping perspective. kluwer-nijhoff publishing. etikan, i., musa, s. a., & alkassim, r. s. (2016). comparison of convenience sampling and purposive sampling. american journal of theoretical and applied statistics, 5(1), 1-4. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajtas.20160501.11 geng, j., lei, l., ouyang, m., nie, j., & wang, p. (2021). the influence of perceived parental phubbing on adolescents’ problematic smartphone use: a two-wave multiple mediation model. addictive behaviors, 121, 106995. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2021.106995 griffiths, m. (2000). does internet and computer “addiction” exist? some case study evidence. cyberpsychology & behavior, 3(2), 211–218. https://doi.org/10.1089/109493100316067 hong, w., liu, r.-d., ding, y., oei, t. p., zhen, r., & jiang, s. (2019). parents’ phubbing and problematic mobile phone use: the roles of the parent-child relationship and children’s self-esteem. cyberpsychology, behavior, and social networking, 22(12), 779–786. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2019.0179 ibili, e. (2017). internet addiction levels and problem-solving skills in the teaching profession: an investigation. acta didactica napocensia, 10(4), 93–107. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1164982.pdf jin, h., & spence, e. h. (2016). internet addiction and well-being: daoist and stoic reflections. dao, 15(2), 209– 225. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11712-016-9488-8 kementerian komunikasi dan informatika republik indonesia. (2014). riset kominfo dan unicef mengenai perilaku anak dan remaja dalam menggunakan internet. kominfo ri official website. https://kominfo.go.id/index.php/content/detail/3834/siaran+pers+no.+17pihkominfo2014+tentang+riset+kominfo+dan+unicef+mengenai+perilaku+anak+dan+remaja+dal am+menggunakan+internet+/0/siaran_pers kuss, d. j., & lopez-fernandez, o. (2016). internet addiction and problematic internet use: a systematic review of clinical research. world journal of psychiatry, 6(1), 143. https://doi.org/10.5498/wjp.v6.i1.143 kwon, m., kim, d.-j., cho, h., & yang, s. (2013). the smartphone addiction scale: development and validation of a short version for adolescents. plos one, 8(12), e83558. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083558 kwon, m., lee, j.-y., won, w.-y., park, j.-w., min, j.-a., hahn, c., gu, x., choi, j.-h., & kim, d.-j. (2013). development and validation of a smartphone addiction scale (sas). plos one, 8(2), e56936. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0056936 lee, j. y., seo, y., jeung, w., & kim, j. (2019). how ambidextrous organizational culture affects job performance: a multilevel study of the mediating effect of psychological capital. journal of management & organization, 25(6), 860–875. https://doi.org/10.1017/jmo.2017.38 li, m., deng, y., ren, y., guo, s., & he, x. (2014). obesity status of middle school students in xiangtan and its relationship with internet addiction. obesity, 22(2), 482–487. https://doi.org/10.1002/oby.20595 liu, r.-d., wang, j., gu, d., ding, y., oei, t. p., hong, w., zhen, r., & li, y.-m. (2019). the effect of parental phubbing on teenager’s mobile phone dependency behaviors: the mediation role of subjective norm and dependency intention. psychology research and behavior management, 12, 1059–1069. https://doi.org/10.2147/prbm.s224133 mcdaniel, b. t. (2019). parent distraction with phones, reasons for use, and impacts on parenting and child outcomes: a review of the emerging research. human behavior and emerging technologies, 1(2), 72– 80. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.139 https://eprints.uny.ac.id/31423/ https://doi.org/10.20885/psikologika.vol20.iss2.art8 https://doi.org/10.1177/2055102918755046 https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajtas.20160501.11 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2021.106995 https://doi.org/10.1089/109493100316067 https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2019.0179 https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1164982.pdf https://doi.org/10.1007/s11712-016-9488-8 https://kominfo.go.id/index.php/content/detail/3834/siaran+pers+no.+17-pihkominfo2014+tentang+riset+kominfo+dan+unicef+mengenai+perilaku+anak+dan+remaja+dalam+menggunakan+internet+/0/siaran_pers https://kominfo.go.id/index.php/content/detail/3834/siaran+pers+no.+17-pihkominfo2014+tentang+riset+kominfo+dan+unicef+mengenai+perilaku+anak+dan+remaja+dalam+menggunakan+internet+/0/siaran_pers https://kominfo.go.id/index.php/content/detail/3834/siaran+pers+no.+17-pihkominfo2014+tentang+riset+kominfo+dan+unicef+mengenai+perilaku+anak+dan+remaja+dalam+menggunakan+internet+/0/siaran_pers https://doi.org/10.5498/wjp.v6.i1.143 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083558 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0056936 https://doi.org/10.1017/jmo.2017.38 https://doi.org/10.1002/oby.20595 https://doi.org/10.2147/prbm.s224133 https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.139 30 muflih, m., hamzah, h., & purniawan, w. a. (2017). penggunaan smartphone dan interaksi sosial pada remaja di sma negeri 1 kalasan sleman yogyakarta. idea nursing journal, 8(1), 12–18. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.52199/inj.v8i1.8698 niu, g., yao, l., wu, l., tian, y., xu, l., & sun, x. (2020). parental phubbing and adolescent problematic mobile phone use: the role of parent-child relationship and self-control. children and youth services review, 116, 105247. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105247 primadiana, d. b., nihayati, h. e., & wahyuni, e. d. (2019). hubungan smartphone addiction dengan kecemasan sosial pada remaja. psychiatry nursing journal (jurnal keperawatan jiwa), 1(1), 21–28. https://doi.org/10.20473/pnj.v1i1.14325 roberts, j. a., & david, m. e. (2016). my life has become a major distraction from my cell phone: partner phubbing and relationship satisfaction among romantic partners. computers in human behavior, 54, 134–141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.07.058 shen, x., xie, x., & wu, s. (2022). do adolescents addict to internet games after being phubbed by parents? the roles of maladaptive cognition and self-esteem. current psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144022-03255-z shin, c., hong, j.-h., & dey, a. k. (2012). understanding and prediction of mobile application usage for smartphones. proceedings of the 2012 acm conference on ubiquitous computing ubicomp ’12, 17319. https://doi.org/10.1145/2370216.2370243 stasista. (2019). global smartphone penetration rate as share of population from 2016 to 2020. statista. statista. (2019). smartphone user penetration in indonesia as share of mobile phone users from 2014 to 2019. statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/257046/smartphone-user-penetration-in-indonesia/ terras, m. m., & ramsay, j. (2016). family digital literacy practices and children’s mobile phone use. frontiers in psychology, 7, 1957. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01957 walsh, s. p., white, k. m., cox, s., & young, r. m. (2011). keeping in constant touch: the predictors of young australians’ mobile phone involvement. computers in human behavior, 27(1), 333–342. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2010.08.011 wang, x., gao, l., yang, j., zhao, f., & wang, p. (2020). parental phubbing and adolescents’ depressive symptoms: self-esteem and perceived social support as moderators. journal of youth and adolescence, 49(2), 427–437. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01185-x wang, x., wang, w., qiao, y., gao, l., yang, j., & wang, p. (2022). parental phubbing and adolescents’ cyberbullying perpetration: a moderated mediation model of moral disengagement and online disinhibition. journal of interpersonal violence, 37(7–8), np5344–np5366. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260520961877 xie, x., chen, w., zhu, x., & he, d. (2019). parents’ phubbing increases adolescents’ mobile phone addiction: roles of parent-child attachment, deviant peers, and gender. children and youth services review, 105, 104426. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.104426 xie, x., guo, q., & wang, p. (2021). childhood parental neglect and adolescent internet gaming disorder: from the perspective of a distal—proximal—process—outcome model. children and youth services review, 120, 105564. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105564 yildiz durak, h. (2019). investigation of nomophobia and smartphone addiction predictors among adolescents in turkey: demographic variables and academic performance. the social science journal, 56(4), 492– 517. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soscij.2018.09.003 young, k. s. (1998). internet addiction: the emergence of a new clinical disorder. cyberpsychology & behavior, 1(3), 237–244. https://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.1998.1.237 yuwanto, l. (2010). causes of mobile phone addiction. anima indonesian psychological journal, 25(3), 225–229. http://www.anima.ubaya.ac.id/class/openpdf.php?file=1372231989.pdf zhang, y., ding, q., & wang, z. (2021). why parental phubbing is at risk for adolescent mobile phone addiction: a serial mediating model. children and youth services review, 121, 105873. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105873 zhao, j., ye, b., luo, l., & yu, l. (2022). the effect of parent phubbing on chinese adolescents’ smartphone addiction during covid-19 pandemic: testing a moderated mediation model. psychology research and behavior management, 15, 569–579. https://doi.org/10.2147/prbm.s349105 https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.52199/inj.v8i1.8698 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105247 https://doi.org/10.20473/pnj.v1i1.14325 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.07.058 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03255-z https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03255-z https://doi.org/10.1145/2370216.2370243 https://www.statista.com/statistics/257046/smartphone-user-penetration-in-indonesia/ https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01957 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2010.08.011 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01185-x https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260520961877 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.104426 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105564 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soscij.2018.09.003 https://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.1998.1.237 http://www.anima.ubaya.ac.id/class/openpdf.php?file=1372231989.pdf https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105873 https://doi.org/10.2147/prbm.s349105 inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research https://journal.iainlangsa.ac.id/index.php/inspira how to cite (apa 7th edition) rasheed, a. (2022). hope, quality of life, and self-efficacy among mothers with special needs children. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 3(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i1.3850 this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial 4.0 international (cc by-nc 4.0) copyright ©2022 by ayesha rasheed research article hope, quality of life, and self-efficacy among mothers with special needs children https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i1.3850 ayesha rasheed department of applied psychology, lahore college for women university, lahore, pakistan corresponding author: ayesha rasheed (email: ayesha_lcwu@yahoo.com) abstract this research aims to find out the level of hope, self-efficacy, and quality of life of mothers with special needs children. there has been very little research on mothers’ health of special needs children and there was a significant gap that needed to be addressed. a correlational research design was used with purposive sampling of 30 mothers (n=30) from amin-maktab institute outreach program, lahore, pakistan, who were involved in this study. a series of questionnaires as the quality of life, hope scale, and self-efficacy scale was administered to mothers after taking consent. correlation and independent-sample t-tests were used to analyze data. results revealed that standards/physical health (domain 1) has a strong relationship with hope/pathways (domain 2) with a 0.56 level of significance. standards (domain 1) and pleasures/social (domain 3) have a strong relationship with 0.42 but there is a difference in the mean between mothers of boys and mothers of girls. the environment affects the physical, psychological, and social health of mothers with special needs children. while mothers with a higher level of hope have a higher quality of life and high self-efficacy leads to high physical health among mothers. research conclusion specifies that mothers of intellectually disabled boys have had a higher level of hope and pleasure (social relationship) than mothers of girls. article history: received 17 april 2022 revised 28 may 2022 accepted 01 june 2022 keywords: hope; pleasure; quality of life; self-efficacy; special needs children introduction intellectual disability can be defined as a cognitive reasoning level verified in certain kids. it is a children’s condition in which their intellectual functioning is obstructed in which they won’t be able to process and receive information from their surroundings. iq below 70 and insufficiencies in social, adaptability skills, mannerism, social dealings, and daily routine activities (eating, dressing, problemsolving, etc.) won’t be practiced by the individual. this kind of disability not only affects the individual but also affects their family members, caretakers, society, and the people who lived around them (shree & shukla, 2016). according to marquis and his colleagues (2020), parents of children with developmental disabilities experience mental sicknesses such as depression, frustration, and anxiety as compared to parents of children without ant mental disabilities (marquis et al, 2020). https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i1.3850 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2454-8794 2 mothers are significant facilitators in providing care and rehabilitation to their kids. their role at a different level of the rehabilitation process matters a lot and they are the most vulnerable person in the whole team. therefore, while rehab centers work on children; they should monitor the mother’s mental and physical health as well (lalehgani dezaki et al, 2018). mothers with intellectually disabled children often felt low self-efficacy, hope, and psychological health which can lead them to negative health issues (kubicek et al., 2013). there are family factors and risks that may affect the mental health of parents caring for children with intellectual disabilities. it is very important to acknowledge those risk factors to improve the well-being of caretakers (baker et al, 2021). the study was conducted at amin-maktab institute, lahore, under the authority of pakistan society for the welfare of mentally retarded children. it is a special education school for intellectually impaired children. it is a non-government organization which working on an outreach program that was started in 1988 with unicef cooperation. this program helps families of children with special needs (sr designwork, 2011). the present study aims to explore the level of quality of life, hope, and self-efficacy in mothers with special needs children. this study also measures the level of hopefulness in mothers with special needs daughters and mothers with special needs sons. the study tries to promote understanding of the psychological risks caused by hectic routines for mothers taking care of their kids with special needs. it also examines the quality of life in mothers with help of previous literature and statistical analyses. this research is significant in general and in asian culture. according to snyder et al, (1991), hope is the cognitive set that has two major components agency and pathways. the term agency defines direction toward goal achievements while pathways can be defined as plannings to achieve the targeted goals (snyder et al, 1991). similarly, hope is well-defined as the perceived competence to arise pathways to anticipated goals and stimulate oneself through agency intellectually using those pathways. hope theory is linked to concepts of cultured hopefulness, optimism, self-efficacy, and self-approval (snyder, 2002). quality of life has been distinguished as one of the main health apprehensions for parents succeeding in a lifetime compound practice such as upbringing a child with special needs (mungo et al, 2007). the term quality of life can be defined as the overall quality of life and general health among mothers with intellectually disabled children. it has four main components as physical health, psychological health, social relationships, and environmental health. the concept of quality of life has 4 domains as standards, hope, pleasures, and concerns. the concept of quality of life was developed by the world health organization (world health organization, 1996). according to smith and grzywacz, (2014) mothers with special needs, and children stated poor psychological health, depression, and more agitated while performing routine activities with their special child (smith & grzywacz, 2014). the physical and psychological health of mothers taking care of their intellectually disabled child has always been at risk. taking care of a special child is a risky task because they may face caregiving challenges such as greater time demands, care challenges, lower incomes, and employment limitations (brehaut et al, 2011). self-efficacy states, that it is supervision aids across challenging and rare situations (schwarzer, 1999). general self-efficacy (gse) is about personal proficiencies to cater the numerous challenging and distressing circumstances (bandura et al,1999). however, gse may explain in a broader sequence of human movements and handling effects, when the agenda is less defined (luszczynska et al, 2005). according to the explanation of the human investigational self-recognition scheme given by bandura, self-efficacy theories have a predominant impact on the people's adoptions, their purposes, the struggles they do to accomplish a specific task, how long they can continue a particular task whether 3 they know the result can be in form of failure, how much stress they practice. according to albert bandura (1977), self-efficacy is explained as a viewpoint that one can implement the behavior which is essential to attain a definite result. it has been demonstrated by the social cognitive theory that frequent failures reduce self-self-assurance, and self-efficacy, whereas achievement experiences increase self-confidence. boosted self-efficacy due to repetitive accomplishments, simplifies to new circumstances and concepts (bandura, 1977). according to a study, hope does not have any relationship with self-efficacy. it is all about social and demographic characteristics which matter in the hope and efficacy of mothers with special needs children. self-efficacy in mothers does not have any connection with hope and pleasure (kanwal & asad, 2018). similarly, a study indicated that mothers with a high level of hope are less anxious and as result, they do have high self-efficacy and self-esteem. fathers are always concerned about the future life of their intellectually disabled kids, specifically their social acceptance and adjustments in society. meanwhile, mothers are focused on the present physical and mental needs of a child with a disability. it has been found that the mother has severe vulnerability to get stressed, affected, and overburdened due to her responsibilities and the demanding nature of the special needs children. mothers of special needs children had to deal with so many issues such as house chores, financial issues, health issues, societal pressures, and sometimes spouse pressures (christodoulou et al, 2020). though mothers reported negative emotions and agitated moods while taking care of their children (downey, 2016). mothers taking care of their kids have been facing many caregiver barriers that may affect their social life, psychological and physical health, and their overall routine activities (damiani et al, 2004). this article hypotheses that there is a relationship between self-efficacy, hope, and quality of life of the mothers with special need boy and mothers with special needs girls and there are mean differences among the variables. method this was a quantitative correlational study in which a cross-sectional research design was used to conduct this study. a sample of 30 mothers of intellectually disabled children: girls and boys from the outreach program of amin maktab institute, lahore, was selected through the purposive sampling technique. sample of mothers with special needs children (n=30) belong to low socioeconomic status, ages range from 22 to 43. the adult hope scale developed by snyder and his colleagues (1991), contains 12 items and it determines the level of hope in participants (snyder et al, 1991). it contains 2 sub-scales as the agency (goal-directed energy) and pathways (planning’s to accomplish goals) with cronbach’s alpha value of .87. scale based on an 8-point likert-type scale ranging from “definitely false” to “definitely true”. adult hope scale based on synder’s theory of hope; is well-defined as apparent competence to grow pathways towards wanted objectives and encourage one-self through agency intellectual thought pattern to practice those pathways (snyder, 2002). the general self-efficacy scale is 10 item scale with cronbach’s alpha value between .76-.90 (schwarzer & jerusalem, 1995). it was a 4-point likert-type scale ranging from not-at-all true to exactly true. who-quality of life-brief scale; point likert-type scale used to assess the quality of life in mothers of special needs children. it was a 5-point likert-type scale, that contains 26 items in it with four major domains standards (physical health), hope (psychological health), pleasures (social relationships), and concerns (environment) (world health organization, 1997). correlation analysis and independent sample t-test analysis were used to evaluate the psychometric properties of the data while using the spss-22 version. 4 result table 1. demographics of participants (n=30) mothers with special needs children variables n (%) gender of children male 18 (60.0) female 12 (40.0) income 5.000 15.000 14 (46.7) 15.000 25.000 13 (43.3) 25.000 – 35.000 1 (3.3) > 35.000 2 (6.7) table 1 showed the frequency and percentage of participants. the table depicts the participant’s gender, monthly income, and gender of special needs children. the mean participant’s monthly income was 1.70 with sd = 0.837. table 2 showed a high-reliability coefficient demonstrating that data is appropriately reliable. table 2. reliability alpha co-efficient of the scales variables n α self-efficacy 10 0.872 hope 12 0.87 quality of life 26 0.76 to examine the hypothesis, this study uses the correlation analysis among the variables, the result showed that there is a strong relationship between scores of pathways and the agency of the intellectually disabled children’s mothers, as shown in table 3. table 3. correlation between hope, self-efficacy, quality of life, and their subscales 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 agency .79** 2.30 3.44 .34 .37* .31 pathway 2.90 .20 .29 .31 .26 self-efficacy total .68** .33 .24 .34 standards/physical .56** .42* .70** hope/psychological .35 .64** pleasures/social .52** concerns/environmental *p < 0.05, **p<0.01 pathways are specific directions to achieve our goals and individuals are responsible to create the right paths (snyder, 2000). agency can be described as enthusiasm to utilize those paths to reach successfully towards our destiny. table 4. independent sample t-test for hope sub-scales and pleasures (domain 3) between mothers of boys and mothers of girls mothers of boys mothers of girls df t m sd m sd p agency 813.1 5.6 18.6 3.96 28 2.9 .01 pathway 14.0 6.5 21.9 2.6 28 4.0 .001 pleasures 9.4 3.03 3.03 2.10 28 2.2 .04 5 table 4 showed that there were mean differences in the scores of hope sub-scales and pleasures (domain 3 of quality of life) between mothers of boys with special needs and mothers of girls with special needs. the results of the study consisted of descriptive statistics such as frequency, mean and standard deviations, assumptions test results, and hypotheses test results, which were then analyzed critically and presented in a sequential or integrated manner. the explanation of the results section contains the results of the data analysis. if the research is qualitative, the research findings can be conveyed in the form of patterns, themes, tendencies, and motives that emerge from the data. discussion it is usually claimed that mothers taking care of their special needs children often experience psychological and physical health issues (pearlin & skaff, 1995). a study claimed a relationship between psychological health problems and adult caregivers (bowlby, 1980). this study hypothesized that there was a significant relationship between quality of life, hope, and self-efficacy in mothers of children with special needs. results of correlation analysis revealed that mothers’ physical health (domain 1), physical health (domain 2), and social life (domain 3) were highly correlated with environmental health (domain 4), while they were dealing with their special needs children. results claimed that a high level of self-efficacy leads to high standards (physical health) among mothers of special needs children. according to a studying parent of kids with intellectual disability face challenges that can origin psychological disturbances and reduces mothers’ self-efficacy (rahayu & mangunsong, 2020). a study stated that familial and societal environments are considered to be very effective to maintain mother and kid's psychological and physical health (fernandes et al, 2015). this study found that agency and pathways had a positive relationship among caregiving mothers. a study defined that agency as a basic component of hope has a positive impact on the motivation of mothers with special needs children. hope has a direct linkage with a mother’s well-being agency is the element of hope which makes their (standards) physical health high, and makes them concerned and motivated (golan, 2017). results confirmed that mothers who were taking care of their intellectually disabled children had a high level of hope, self-efficacy, and quality of life. meanwhile, a study claimed that mothers’ scores high in the environmental health domain have had the highest score in the physical health domain (george et al, 2008). the second hypothesis was there will be significant mean differences in agency, pathways, and pleasures (social relationships) in mothers of children with disability. results indicated that the level of hope and pleasures (social relationship) was higher in mothers of boys with special needs than of mothers of girls. a study claimed that the gender of intellectually disabled children impacts upon anxiety level of the parents. to support this hypothesis previously a study was conducted to find out that parents taking care of disabled sons experienced higher social pressures compared to those bringing up daughters with special needs. however, boys with disability more often-ly experienced higher behavioral dysfunctioning and lower communication skills than girls; this is linked with high parental distress, cynicism, and lower quality of life (bujnowska et al, 2019). hence, the hypothesis approved through previous studies as stated in a study that an intellectually disabled son lowers the parental self-esteem than of intellectually disabled girl (pisula, 1998) conclusion this is a unique study to fill up the gap in the research area. the parents who bring up their children with intellectual disability have a different set of distress, financial and societal pressure, anxieties, 6 and future concerns; their issues and mental health needs to be reported and highlighted to guide and support them. the study aimed to highlight mothers’ physical, psychological, social, and environmental health conditions when they were dealing with their kids. mothers with disabled sons had more pressure than girls’ mothers, while had more hope to make them an active social participants. this is a very vast area to be emphasized in an under-developing country such as pakistan. compared to foreign countries disabled children and their parents do have high governmental, financial, and societal support, but in under-developed countries, it is very hard for parents to perform their duties on their resources. to get a better understanding, this article recommends taking a larger sample to conduct better research. references baker, k., devine, r. t., ng-cordell, e., raymond, f. l., imagine-id consortium, & hughes, c. (2021). childhood intellectual disability and parents' mental health: integrating social, psychological and genetic influences. the british journal of psychiatry: the journal of mental science, 218(6), 315–322. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.2020.38. bandura, a. (1977). self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. psychological review, 84(2), 191–215. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.84.2.191 bandura, a. (1997). self-efficacy: the exercise of control. w h freeman/times books/ henry holt & co. bowlby, j. (1980). attachment and loss. vol. 3: loss, sadness and depression. basic books. brehaut, j. c., garner, r. e., miller, a. r., lach, l. m., klassen, a. f., rosenbaum, p. l., & kohen, d. e. (2011). changes over time in the health of caregivers of children with health problems: growth-curve findings from a 10-year canadian population-based study. american journal of public health, 101(12), 2308– 2316. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2011.300298 bujnowska, a. m., rodríguez, c., garcía, t., areces, d., & marsh, n. v. (2019). parenting and future anxiety: the impact of having a child with developmental disabilities. international journal of environmental research and public health, 16(4), 668. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16040668 christodoulou, p., christopoulou, f., stergiou, a., & christopoulos, k. (2020). quality of life of parents of children with disabilities. european journal of education and pedagogy, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.24018/ejedu.2020.1.1.1 damiani, g., rosenbaum, p., swinton, m. and russell, d. (2004), frequency and determinants of formal respite service use among caregivers of children with cerebral palsy in ontario. child: care, health, and development, 30(1), 77-86. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2214.2004.00391.x downey, t. n. (2016). children with special needs and the effect on the family [master thesis, eastern illinois university]. https://thekeep.eiu.edu/theses/2518 everson, s. a., goldberg, d. e., kaplan, g. a., cohen, r. d., pukkala, e., tuomilehto, j., & salonen, j. t. (1996). hopelessness and risk of mortality and incidence of myocardial infarction and cancer. psychosomatic medicine, 58(2), 113–121. https://doi.org/10.1097/00006842-199603000-00003 fernandes, s. s., machado, m., & machado, f. (2015). parental acceptance, parental stress, and quality of life: a study with parents of adhd children. italian journal of special education for inclusion, 1 (3), 71-83. george, a., vickers, m. h., wilkes, l., & barton, b. (2008). working and caring for a child with chronic illness: challenges in maintaining employment. employee responsibilities and rights journal, 20, 165–176. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10672-008-9065-3 gray, d. (2006). coping over time: the parents of children with autism. journal of intellectual disability research, 50(12), 970-976. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2788.2006.00933.x kanwal, m., & asad, s. (2018). resilience, hope, and self-efficacy in mothers having children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. pakistan journal of professional psychologists, 9, 62-78. kubicek, l. f., riley, k., coleman, j., miller, g., & linder, t. (2013). assessing the emotional quality of parent– child relationships involving young children with special needs: applying the constructs of emotional availability and expressed emotion. infant mental health journal, 34(3), 242–256. https://doi.org/10.1002/imhj.21384 https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.2020.38 https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.84.2.191 https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2011.300298 https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16040668 https://doi.org/10.24018/ejedu.2020.1.1.1 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2214.2004.00391.x https://thekeep.eiu.edu/theses/2518 https://doi.org/10.1097/00006842-199603000-00003 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10672-008-9065-3 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2788.2006.00933.x https://doi.org/10.1002/imhj.21384 7 lalehgani dezaki, m., ghaedamini harouni, g., ahmadi, s., vameghi, m., sajjadi, h., & ghafari, m. (2018). healthrelated quality of life of mothers of children with intellectual disability. iranian rehabilitation journal, 16(4), 361-370. https://doi.org/10.32598/irj.16.4.361 luszczynska, a., gutiérrez-doña, b., & schwarzer, r. (2005). general self-efficacy in various domains of human functioning: evidence from five countries. international journal of psychology, 40(2), 80–89. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207590444000041 sr designwork. (2011). amin maktab – outreach programme campus lahore https://srdw.net/srdw/aminmaktab-outreach-programme-campus-lahore/ marquis, s. m., mcgrail, k., & hayes, m. (2020). mental health of parents of children with a developmental disability in british columbia, canada. journal of epidemiology and community health, 74(2), 173–178. https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2018-211698 mugno, d., ruta, l., d'arrigo, v. g., & mazzone, l. (2007). impairment of quality of life in parents of children and adolescents with pervasive developmental disorder. health and quality of life outcomes, 5, 22. https://doi.org/10.1186/1477-7525-5-22 pearlin, l. i., & skaff, m. m. (1995). stressors and adaptation in late life. in m. gatz (ed.), emerging issues in mental health and aging (pp. 97-123). american psychological association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10179-000 pisula, e. (1998). psychologiczne problemy rodzicăłw dzieci z zaburzeniami rozwoju [psychological problems of parents of children with developmental disorders]. wydawnictwa uniwersytetu warszawskiego. rahayu, w. f., & mangunsong, f. m. (2020). parenting self-efficacy mediates the effect of parental acceptance on the social-emotional abilities of children with special needs. life span and disability, 23(2), 211-238. schwarzer, r. (1999). general perceived self-efficacy in 14 cultures. http://userpage.fuberlin.de/~health/world14.htm schwarzer, r., & jerusalem, m. (1995). generalized self-efficacy scale. in j. weinman, s. wright, & m. johnston, measures in health psychology: a user’s portfolio. causal and control beliefs (pp. 35-37). nfer-nelson. shenaar‐golan, v. (2017). hope and subjective well‐being among parents of children with special needs. child & family social work, 22(1), 306-316. shree, a., & shukla, p. c. (2016). intellectual disability: definition, classification, causes and characteristics. learning community-an international journal of educational and social development, 7(1), 9-20. https://doi.org/10.5958/2231-458x.2016.00002.6 smith, a. m., & grzywacz, j. g. (2014). health and well-being in midlife parents of children with special health needs. families, systems, & health, 32(3), 303–312. https://doi.org/10.1037/fsh0000049 snyder, c. r. (2002). hope theory: rainbows in the mind. psychological inquiry, 13(4), 249–275. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327965pli1304_01 snyder, c. r., harris, c., anderson, j. r., holleran, s. a., irving, l. m., sigmon, s. t., yoshinobu, l., gibb, j., langelle, c., & harney, p. (1991). the will and the ways: development and validation of an individual-differences measure of hope. journal of personality and social psychology, 60(4), 570–585. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.60.4.570 world health organization. (1996). whoqol-bref: introduction, administration, scoring and generic version of the assessment: field trial version, december 1996 (no. whoqol-bref). world health organization. world health organization (1997). measuring quality of life: the world health organization quality of life instruments. http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/68 https://doi.org/10.32598/irj.16.4.361 https://doi.org/10.1080/00207590444000041 https://srdw.net/srdw/amin-maktab-outreach-programme-campus-lahore/ https://srdw.net/srdw/amin-maktab-outreach-programme-campus-lahore/ https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2018-211698 https://doi.org/10.1186/1477-7525-5-22 https://doi.org/10.1037/10179-000 http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~health/world14.htm http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~health/world14.htm https://doi.org/10.5958/2231-458x.2016.00002.6 https://doi.org/10.1037/fsh0000049 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327965pli1304_01 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.60.4.570 http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/68 inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research https://journal.iainlangsa.ac.id/index.php/inspira how to cite (apa 7th edition) sekar arumi, m. & faradilla, n. (2023). adolescent religiosity and pre-marital sexual behavior: the mediating role of pre-marital sexual attitude. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 4(1), 53–65. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.5877 this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial 4.0 international (cc by-nc 4.0) copyright ©2023 by mira sekar arumi & nova faradilla. research article adolescent religiosity and pre-marital sexual behavior: the mediating role of pre-marital sexual attitude https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.5877 mira sekar arumi1, nova faradilla2 1 department of psychology, universitas bhayangkara jakarta raya, the special capital region of jakarta, indonesia 2 department of psychology, universitas bhayangkara jakarta raya, the special capital region of jakarta, indonesia corresponding author: mira sekar arumi (email: mira.sekar@dsn.ubharajaya.ac.id) abstract pre-marital sex before marriage in adolescents is a severe problem associated with increased transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, having more than one partner, and early pregnancy. even though indonesia is considered a society with high religious values, free-sex behavior is considered increasingly concerning. this study investigates the relationship between religiosity and attitudes toward pre-marital sexual behavior with pre-marital sexual behavior in adolescents. respondents of this study were 200 adolescents aged 1019 years old, selected through a purposive sampling technique, with criteria: have religion, not married, and currently dating. data were analyzed using a linear regression method. the results showed that pre-marital sexual attitude fully mediates the effect between religiosity and pre-marital sexual behavior. the present study findings contribute to pre-marital sexual research by explaining that religiosity does not decrease pre-marital sexual behavior if the person is permissive or has a supportive attitude towards it. with this outcome, it is expected that the relevant parties will focus more on changing adolescents’ thoughts, attitudes, and perspectives regarding pre-marital sexual behavior and not only rely on religious teachings as the only framework for preventing pre-marital sexual behavior. article history: received 28 march 2023 revised 20 may 2023 accepted 28 june 2023 keywords: adolescence; premarital sexual attitude; premarital sexual behavior; religiosity introduction adolescents are known for their proclivity to take risks without considering the long-term consequences of their actions (hidayangsih et al., 2011). one of the things they want to try is premarital sex. pre-marital sexual behavior is defined as sexual behavior that occurs before or after marriage. teenagers in a love relationship are likelier to engage in pre-marital sexual behavior (aritonang, 2015). according to rahma’s (2018) research, 15% to 20% of indonesian teenagers had pre-marital sex, resulting in approximately 2.3 million abortions. this research is supported by demographic and health surveys data (2017), which found 1.7 million cases of unexpected pregnancy each year, including the birth of babies to teenage girls under 24. continuous sexual activity prior to marriage can increase the risk of teenage pregnancy and the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases. unplanned pregnancies in adolescent girls can result in https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.5877 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4668-858x https://orcid.org/0009-0005-7809-7572 55 abortions and teen marriages. both will impact the teenager’s future, the fetus he carries, and his family (penhollow et al., 2005). having pre-marital sexual relations is unquestionably against religious and social values and norms. no single religion permits this sexual behavior because religion becomes a frame of reference for behavior in an individual’s life. behavior must be consistent with the religious beliefs he or she adheres to. thus, one of the factors influencing pre-marital sexual behavior is religiosity, specifically adolescents’ knowledge and understanding of the concept of religiosity. religion provides a moral framework, allowing a person to compare his actions (desmita, 2006). according to previous research, the results of pre-marital sex experiences lead to guilt towards god and guilt for having denied god’s and parents’ trust (rakhmawati, 2021). meanwhile, rosidah (2012) discovered that a devoutly religious person would internalize positive religious values. so that if the values embedded in them are positive, they will be able to respect themselves and not act in ways that are harmful to themself as well as contrary to their ethical, moral, and religious values, such as pre-marital sexual behavior (andisti & ritandiyono, 2008). several studies discussing the relationship between religiosity and pre-marital sex behavior have been conducted several times but have not yielded consistent results. several studies have concluded that religiosity negatively correlates with pre-marital sexual behavior (chotimah et al., 2015; hasani & yusuf, 2020; mulyawati & sukmasari, 2018; rosalina & agustin, 2018), while other studies have provided results showing that there is no relationship between religiosity and pre-marital sexual behavior (firmiana et al., 2014; maria et al., 2021; suyuti et al., 2021). the inconsistency of research results regarding the relationship between religiosity and pre-marital sexual behavior raises suspicions that there are intervening variables that influence or mediate the relationship between the two variables. thornton and camburn’s research (1989) tried to link religious participation with adolescent sexual attitudes and behavior, proving that adolescents who participate actively in religious activities regularly and respect religious values have attitudes that are not permissive and inexperienced in sexual relations. sheeran et al. (1993) also examined the possibility of sexual attitudes as a mediating variable between religiosity and actual sexual behavior. they found that religiosity was unrelated to actual sexual behavior when measured with the sexual attitude variable. other research shows that religiosity is related to pre-marital sexual attitudes (gyimah et al., 2013; lefkowitz et al., 2004; mcmillen et al., 2011; pluhar et al., 1998) and pre-marital sexual attitudes with pre-marital sexual behavior (chen et al., 2016; earle & perricone, 1986; jose, 2013; wong, 2012). the results of these studies form the basis for the assumption in this study that pre-marital sexual attitude mediates the relationship between religiosity and pre-marital sexual behavior. the authors hypothesize that (h1) religiosity will harm pre-marital sexual behavior, (h2) religiosity will harm pre-marital sexual attitude, (h3) pre-marital sexual attitude will have a positive effect on pre-marital sexual behavior, and (h4) pre-marital sexual attitude mediates the effect of religiosity on pre-marital sexual behavior (see. figure 1). adolescents with high religiosity are thought to have a negative attitude toward pre-marital sex and are reluctant to have sexual intercourse before marriage. conversely, adolescents with low religiosity tend to be more permissive and have a positive attitude towards pre-marital sexual behavior, so they do not mind doing this behavior with their partners. thus, in addition to confirming the link between religiosity and pre-marital sexual behavior, this research is also expected to explain the phenomenon of pre-marital sexual behavior among adolescents in bekasi who are considered religious. 56 figure 1. research model method a quantitative correlational study with a cross-sectional research design was used to conduct this study. correlational research examines the relationship between two or more variables. religion (x) is the independent variable, pre-marital sexual behavior attitude (m) is the mediator variable, and pre-marital sexual behavior is the dependent variable (y). the sample in this study was 200 people living in the city of bekasi. purposive sampling was used, and the following conditions were met: (1) youth between the ages of 15 and 24; (2) have religion; (3) not married; and (4) dating. the religiosity scale, consisting of 24 items, was used as a data collection tool. based on the religiosity dimension proposed by glock and stark (ancok et al., 2000), it resulted in items such as “i do believe in god’s existence.” the attitude scale is based on attitude aspects by azwar (2013), which consists of 26 items, such as “in my opinion, masturbating has health benefits.” meanwhile, the premarital sexual behavior scale based on sarwono et al. (2018) consisted of 26 items, including “i frequently have sex with my lover.” based on the analysis using cronbach’s alpha, it is known that these three scales have met the internal consistency standards as described in table 1. table 1. reliability of the scale scale cronbach’s alpha n item result religiosity .914 24 reliable pre-marital sexual attitude .902 26 reliable pre-marital sexual behavior .899 26 reliable fundamental assumption analysis shows that the data in this study have a normal distribution and are linear. in addition to the normality and linearity tests, it is necessary to carry out multicollinearity and heteroscedasticity tests to meet the requirements of the classical assumptions of reference tests so that a regression model can produce the correct estimating parameter values. since all conditions are met, the path analysis model can be carried out further. result table 2 shows the participants’ demographic information, including gender and age. according to the results of the research subject categorization test (see tables 3), there were 166 participants (83%) with a high level of religiosity, 34 (17%) with a moderate level of religiosity, and 0 (0%) with low-level religiosity. the participants were also categorized by 104 (52%) with a high level of sexual behavior, 56 (28%) with a moderate level of sexual behavior, and 40 (20%) with a low level of sexual behavior. in terms of pre-marital sexual attitude, 104 participants (52%) had a highly favorable toward premarital sexual behavior. in contrast, 55 (27.5%) had a moderately favorable attitude toward premarital sexual behavior, and 41 (20,5%) had a low favorable toward pre-marital sexual behavior. 57 table 2. the demographic of participants (n=200) category n (%) gender male 102 female 98 religion islam 159 catholic 17 protestant 24 age (years old) 10 – 12 23 13 – 15 90 16 – 19 87 table 3. variable categorizations variable range frequency religiosity low < 44 0 (0%) moderate 44 76 34 (17%) high > 76 166 (83%) pre-marital attitude low < 43 41 (20,5%) moderate 43 69 55 (27,5%) high > 69 104 (52%) pre-marital behavior low < 43 40 (20%) moderate 43 69 56 (28%) high > 69 104 (52%) the correlation analysis in table 4. shows a significant correlation between every variable in this research. adolescents with a high level of religiosity tend to have less permissive pre-marital sexual attitudes (r = -.439, p < .05) and behavior (r = -.428, p < .05). moreover, a more positive attitude towards pre-marital sexual behavior tends to follow by higher pre-marital sexual behavior (r = .895, p < .05). table 4. means, standard deviations, and correlation among variables variable mean std. deviation 1 2 3 religiosity 83,54 8,451 1 pre-marital sexual attitude 64,70 18,015 -0,439** 1 pre-marital sexual behavior 66,08 21,758 -0,428** 0,895** 1 table 5. regression analysis result effect estimate se 95% ci p result ll ul religiosity pre-marital sexual attitude -.936 .136 -1.2048 -.668 <.001 significant pre-marital sexual attitude pre-marital sexual behavior 1.058 .042 .974 1.142 <.001 significant religiosity pre-marital sexual behavior (total) -1.103 .165 -1.429 -.777 <.01 significant religiosity pre-marital sexual behavior (direct) -.112 .091 -.291 .067 .217 not significant religiosity pre-marital sexual attitude premarital sexual behavior (indirect) -.385 -.485 -.284 significant (does not contain zero) discussion this study contributes to the existing literature not only by confirming that religiosity has a negative correlation with pre-marital sexual behavior but also by uncovering new mechanisms from religiosity to pre-marital sexual behavior through the mediation of pre-marital sexual attitude. religion 58 influences the development of sexual behavior. this research result is consistent with the prior study, which indicates that religiosity is one of the elements influencing sexual behavior formation. adolescents with low religiosity tend to have high confidence in their sexual behaviors. this statement is consistent with rosalina and handayani (2018) finding a tangible link between religion and sexual activity. their research also suggests that people who are inclined to a deep religiosity have less sexual desired. in contrast, if a person does not have high religiosity, his sexual conduct will be more intense. not only rosalina and handayani’s study but this study’s findings are also consistent with the study by mulyawati & sukmasari (2018), conducted on smk students in sukabumi, which discovered a substantial association between religion and pre-marital sexual activity. religion forms a set of morals and specific beliefs in oneself. someone who lives his religion well tends to behave according to the norm. someone with a high level of religiosity will always try to internalize religious teachings in everyday behavior. meanwhile, this study also proved that religiosity influences pre-marital sexual attitudes. within each faith, highly embedded members are more likely to follow official doctrines and use religion as a reference group (gyimah et al., 2013). cochran & beeghley (1991) have argued that religiosity is the mechanism through which members of religious groups operate as reference groups. for instance, members who attend religious service more often will be more likely to be exposed to doctrinal prohibitions and have certain shared norms and values with other devout members. presumably, such individuals may become more exposed to teachings on sexual immorality. through continuous reinforcement of religious teaching, such members form primary groups, which provide norms and role expectations for each other. it has become common knowledge that attitude has a strong relationship with behavior. this research proves this assumption, which shows that pre-marital sexual attitudes substantially affect pre-marital sexual behavior. this result is consistent with jose’s (2013) findings on filipino adolescents. these expected results show that although adolescents may hold different values concerning sexuality, their attitudes about sex are related to behavior. sexual experience increased with more positive attitudes toward sexuality (huerta-franco & malacara, 1999; werner-wilson, 1998). moreover, investigations into the effects of human sexuality generally support the assertion that sexual experience has a reciprocal relationship with sexual attitudes (tobin, 1993). more significant average positive affect was associated with oral sex, and permissive attitudes toward sex were associated with more positive affect concerning the experience of penetrative sex (dalton & galambos, 2009). lastly, this research shows that pre-marital sexual attitude fully mediates the relationship between religiosity and pre-marital sexual behavior. these findings provide some evidence that no matter how high the religiosity level adolescent have if they have a favorable attitude toward pre-marital sexual behavior, they most likely will no longer use their religious values as a basis for consideration and will engage in pre-marital sexual activity. the results strengthened with categorization data which show that most participants perceived themselves as a highly religious individual but also showed favorable attitudes towards pre-marital sex and also engaged in pre-marital behavior. therefore, we can assume that no matter how high adolescent religiosity is, they will engage in pre-marital behavior due to their favorable attitude towards it. these research results are consistent and strengthen previous studies by thornton and camburn (1989) and sheeran et al. (1993) proposing and proving that religiosity affects pre-marital sexual activity through their attitude. furthermore, sheeran et al. also argued that a religious upbringing might influence sexual behavior, but that may not happen if their reported attitudes toward sexuality are not aligned with the values transmitted by the religion. these findings show that while the level of sexual conduct in adolescents is commonly discussed from a religious 59 standpoint, it is proven that the attitude of adolescents toward pre-marital sexual behavior has a more significant influence on adolescents’ pre-marital sexual behavior. conclusion this research demonstrates a significant and negatively significant association between religiosity and sexual conduct in teenagers in bekasi, which implies that the greater the level of religiosity, the higher the pre-marital sexual attitude and behavior of adolescents, as well as the opposite. based on this study, the authors can demonstrate that the attitude variable towards pre-marital sexual behavior plays an essential role in the pre-marital sexual behavior of adolescents in bekasi. religiosity alone does not prevent adolescents from engaging in pre-marital sexual behavior. however, attitudes toward sexual behavior can determine whether or not the teenager will engage in pre-marital sex sexual behavior. as a practical recommendation, not only adolescence are encouraged to deepen their knowledge of religion in order to sort out which are positive and negative behaviors in association in the current era, but they also to be given information about the dangers and risks that may occur with pre-marital sex activity, such as unplanned pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections (stis), early parenthood, which then expected will alter their favorable attitude towards pre-marital sexual behavior. declaration acknowledgment the author would like to thank prof. dede rahmat hidayat, m.psi., ph.d., who has provided input in completing this journal article, and the research assistant who helped with technical matters. author contribution statement mira sekar arumi composed the research background, analysis data, and translation and contributed as the correspondent author. nova faradilla helped with the literature review and data collection. funding statement this research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or nonprofit sectors. data access statement the data described in this article can be accessed by contacting the first author. declaration of interest’s statement the authors declare no conflict of interest. additional information no additional information is available for this paper. 60 references ancok, d., suroso, f. n., & ardani, muh. s. (2000). psikologi islami: solusi islam atas problem-problem psikologi. pustaka pelajar. andisti, m. a., & ritandiyono, r. (2008). religiusitas dan perilaku seks bebas pada dewasa awal. jurnal ilmiah psikologi gunadarma, 1(2), 170–176. https://ejournal.gunadarma.ac.id/index.php/psiko/article/view/298 aritonang, t. r. (2015). hubungan pengetahuan dan sikap tentang kesehatan reproduksi dengan perilaku seks pranikah pada remaja usia (15-17 tahun) di smk yadika 13 tambun, bekasi. jurnal ilmiah widya, 3(2), 61–67. azwar, s. (2013). sikap manusia: teori dan pengukurannya. pustaka pelajar. badan kependudukan dan keluarga berencana nasional, badan pusat statistik, dan kementerian kesehatan. (2017). survei demografi dan kesehatan indonesia 2017 provinsi dki jakarta. http://www.dhsprogram.com. chen, a. c.-c., neilands, t. b., chan, s.-m., & lightfoot, m. (2016). contextual influence of taiwanese adolescents’ sexual attitudes and behavioral intent. nursing & health sciences, 18(3), 355–361. https://doi.org/10.1111/nhs.12278 chotimah, c., diii, p., poltekkes, k., & sukoharjo, b. m. (2015). hubungan religiusitas, konsep diri dan keintiman keluarga dengan perilaku seksual pranikah pada mahasiswa program studi diii kebidanan poltekkes bhakti mulia sukoharjo. indonesian journal on medical science, 2(1), 2355–1313. http://ejournal.poltekkesbhaktimulia.ac.id/index.php/ijms/article/view/17 j. k., cochran & l, beeghley. (1991). the influence of religion on attitudes toward nonmarital sexuality: a preliminary assessment of reference group theory. journal for the scientific study of religion, 30(1), 45. https://doi.org/10.2307/1387148 dalton, a. l., & galambos, n. l. (2008). affect and sexual behavior in the transition to university. archives of sexual behavior, 38(5), 675–687. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-008-9401-6 desmita. (2006). psikologi perkembangan. pt remaja rosdakarya. r, earle, j. & perricone, p. j. (1986). pre-marital sexuality: a ten‐year study of attitudes and behavior on a small university campus. journal of sex research, 22(3), 304–310. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224498609551310 firmiana, m. e., prasetya, m. r., & imawati, r. (2014). ketimpangan relijiusitas dengan perilaku: hubungan religiusitas dengan perilaku seksual pra nikah remaja sma/sederajat di jakarta selatan. jurnal al-azhar indonesia seri humaniora, 1(4), 239. https://doi.org/10.36722/sh.v1i4.80 gyimah, s. o., kodzi, i., emina, j., cofie, n., & ezeh, a. (2013). religion, religiosity and pre-marital sexual attitudes of young people in the informal settlements of nairobi, kenya. journal of biosocial science, 45(1), 13–29. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0021932012000168 hasani, r. f., & yusuf, e. a. (2020). the influence of religiosity on pre-marital sexual behavior of adolescents in tanjungbalai. international research journal of advanced engineering and science, 5(1), 52–53. hayes, a. f. (2017). introduction to mediation, moderation and conditional process analysis. guilford press. hidayangsih, p. s., tjandrarini, d. h., mubasyiroh, r., & pusat, s. (2011). faktor-faktor yang berhubungan dengan perilaku berisiko remaja di kota makassar tahun 2009. buletin penelitian kesehatan, 39(2), 88–98. franco, r huerta, & malacara, j. m. (1999). factors associated with the sexual experiences of underprivileged mexican adolescents. adolescence, 34(134), 389–401. jose, e. de. (2013). filipino adolescents’ sexual attitudes and behaviors: results from a university cohort. academic journal of interdisciplinary studies, 2(8), 717–727. https://doi.org/10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n8p719 lefkowitz, e. s., gillen, m. m., shearer, c. l., & boone, t. l. (2004). religiosity, sexual behaviors, and sexual attitudes during emerging adulthood. the journal of sex research, 41(2), 150–159. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224490409552223 https://ejournal.gunadarma.ac.id/index.php/psiko/article/view/298 http://www.dhsprogram.com/ https://doi.org/10.1111/nhs.12278 http://ejournal.poltekkesbhaktimulia.ac.id/index.php/ijms/article/view/17 https://doi.org/10.2307/1387148 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-008-9401-6 https://doi.org/10.1080/00224498609551310 https://doi.org/10.36722/sh.v1i4.80 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0021932012000168 https://doi.org/10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n8p719 https://doi.org/10.1080/00224490409552223 61 maria, s., wahani, p., martin, j., umboh, l., & tendean, l. (2021). faktor-faktor yang berhubungan dengan perilaku seks pranikah pada remaja. journal of public health and community medicine, 2(2), 21–30. https://doi.org/10.35801/ijphcm.v2i2.34686 marliana, r. (2018). hubungan antara pengetahuan seksualitas dengan perilaku seksual remaja di sma negeri 1 subang. jurnal bidan midwife journal, 4(1), 17–25. https://jurnal.ibijabar.or.id/hubungan-antarapengetahuan-seksualitas-dengan-perilaku-seksual-remaja-di-sma-negeri-1-subang/ mcmillen, e. k., helm, h. w., & mcbride, d. c. (2011). religious orientation and sexual attitudes and behaviors. journal of research on christian education, 20(2), 195– 206. https://doi.org/10.1080/10656219.2011.590755 mulyawati, w., & sukmasari, f. (2018). hubungan religiusitas dengan perilaku seks pra nikah pada remaja di smk pgri 1 kota sukabumi wilayah kerja puskesmas tipar kota sukabumi, 12(3), 79–86. https://www.jurnal.ummi.ac.id/index.php/ummi/article/view/345 penhollow, t., young, m., & denny, g. (2005). the impact of religiosity on the sexual behaviors of college students. american journal of health education, 36(2), 75–85. https://doi.org/10.1080/19325037.2005.10608163 pluhar, e., frongillo, e. a., stycos, j. m., & dempster-mcclain, d. (1998). understanding the relationship between religion and the sexual attitudes and behaviors of college students. journal of sex education and therapy, 23(4), 288–296. https://doi.org/10.1080/01614576.1998.11074264 rakhmawati, d. (2021). religiusitas sebagai faktor protektif perilaku seks pra nikah di kalangan mahasiswa. satya widya, 36(1), 56–63. https://doi.org/10.24246/j.sw.2020.v36.i1.p56-63 rosalina, a. f., & agustin, h. (2018). perilaku seksual remaja ditinjau dari religiusitas dan pola asuh permisif pada sma “x” rowosari kendal. prosiding seminar nasional psikologi unissula, 15–26. https://jurnal.unissula.ac.id/index.php/psnpu/article/view/3784%0a anis, r. (2012). religiusitas, harga diri dan perilaku seksual pranikah remaja. jurnal psikologi tabularasa, 7(2), 585–593. https://doi.org/10.26905/jpt.v7i2.197 sarwono, s. w., & meinarno, e. a. (2018). psikologi sosial (2nd ed.). universitas indonesia. https://lib.ui.ac.id/detail?id=20512055&lokasi=lokal sheeran, p., abrams, d., abraham, c., & spears, r. (1993). religiosity and adolescents’ pre-marital sexual attitudes and behaviour: an empirical study of conceptual issues. european journal of social psychology, 23(1), 39–52. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420230104 suyuti, s., nurgahayu, & sani, a. (2021). hubungan peran teman sebaya dan ketaatan beragama dengan perilaku seksual berisiko pada mahasiswa fkm umi sartika suyuti. jurnal penelitian kesehatan suara forikes, 12(1), 31–35. http://doi.org/10.33846/sf12108 thornton, a., & camburn, d. (1989). religious participation and adolescent sexual behavior and attitudes. journal of marriage and the family, 51(3), 641-653. https://doi.org/10.2307/352164 tobin, c. t. (1993). development of the sexual attitudes and experiences scale (saes). college student journal, 45(2), 352+. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/a259679619/aone?u=googlescholar&sid=bookmarkaone&xid=71a8f4fa werner-wilson, r. j. (1998). gender differences in adolescent sexual attitudes: the influence of individual and family factors. adolescence, 33(131), 519-31. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/a65352540/aone?u=googlescholar&sid=bookmarkaone&xid=aca279b2 wong, l. p. (2012). an exploration of knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of young multiethnic muslim-majority society in malaysia in relation to reproductive and pre-marital sexual practices. bmc public health, 12(1), 865. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-12-865 https://doi.org/10.35801/ijphcm.v2i2.34686 https://jurnal.ibijabar.or.id/hubungan-antara-pengetahuan-seksualitas-dengan-perilaku-seksual-remaja-di-sma-negeri-1-subang/ https://jurnal.ibijabar.or.id/hubungan-antara-pengetahuan-seksualitas-dengan-perilaku-seksual-remaja-di-sma-negeri-1-subang/ https://doi.org/10.1080/10656219.2011.590755 https://www.jurnal.ummi.ac.id/index.php/ummi/article/view/345 https://doi.org/10.1080/19325037.2005.10608163 https://doi.org/10.1080/01614576.1998.11074264 https://doi.org/10.24246/j.sw.2020.v36.i1.p56-63 https://jurnal.unissula.ac.id/index.php/psnpu/article/view/3784%0a https://doi.org/10.26905/jpt.v7i2.197 https://lib.ui.ac.id/detail?id=20512055&lokasi=lokal https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420230104 http://doi.org/10.33846/sf12108 https://doi.org/10.2307/352164 https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/a259679619/aone?u=googlescholar&sid=bookmark-aone&xid=71a8f4fa https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/a259679619/aone?u=googlescholar&sid=bookmark-aone&xid=71a8f4fa https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/a65352540/aone?u=googlescholar&sid=bookmark-aone&xid=aca279b2 https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/a65352540/aone?u=googlescholar&sid=bookmark-aone&xid=aca279b2 https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-12-865 inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research https://journal.iainlangsa.ac.id/index.php/inspira how to cite (apa 7th edition) susanti, m. & adiyanti, m. g. (2022). the construction of emotional competency test kits for preschoolers. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 3(2), 79–86. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i2.4975 this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial 4.0 international (cc by-nc 4.0) copyright ©2022 by meria susanti & maria goretti adiyanti research article the construction of emotional competency test kits for preschoolers https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i2.4975 meria susanti1, maria goretti adiyanti2 1 department of psychology, universitas andalas, west sumatera, indonesia 2 department of psychology, universitas gadjah mada, the special region of yogyakarta, indonesia corresponding author: meria susanti (email: meriasusanti@unand.ac.id) abstract emotional competence is one of the essential abilities to be possessed by children. children with good emotional competence will be able to understand their emotions toward themselves or others well. this competence will help children adjust to and interact well in their social environment. this study aims to develop an emotional competency test kit for preschoolers. the items on this test kit are based on the theory of emotional competence presented by denham. this test kit consists of eight-story scenarios that trigger the appearance of emotions in the child. the validity test on this test tool used expert judgment on 17 people consisting of early childhood care and education practitioners, child psychologists, parents, and master of professional psychology students in education, with the results of the analysis using aiken’s v. aiken’s v analysis results, obtained a validity coefficient of 0.71-0.95. meanwhile, the results of the analysis of the test kit trial of 96 subjects obtained a reliability coefficient of emotional competency test kits of 0.801. this study showed that this test kit has good validity and reliability and can be used to measure emotional competence in preschoolers. article history: received 29 october 2022 revised 07 december 2022 accepted 28 december 2022 keywords: aiken’s v; emotional competence; preschooler; test construction introduction childhood is one of the crucial periods of development. the child’s cognitive, physical, social, and emotional abilities develop rapidly at this age. one aspect that needs to be considered in the child’s development is emotional development. levine & munsch (2011) define emotions as physiological reactions, cognitive interpretations, communication, and behavior to situations. in line with this, santrock (2007) states that emotions are represented by behaviors that express comfort or discomfort with the state or interaction experienced by a person. in childhood, the emotional abilities of the child are often associated with the term "emotional competence." emotional competence is related to the child’s ability to recognize and understand emotions felt by themselves and others and to regulate them (denham in morris, 2010). this emotional competence is vital so the child can adapt well to his environment. denham et al. (2012) stated that emotional competence in children consists of two components: emotion knowledge and emotion regulation. emotional knowledge is a child’s ability to recognize https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i2.4975 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6559-3623 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1639-6276 80 emotional expression (denham, blair, demulder, levitas, sawyer, auerbach-major, queenan, 2003). in line with this, tsai (2008) defines emotional knowledge as the ability to identify and label one’s own emotions and the emotions of others, know the motivation of these feelings, and distinguish feelings from behaviors (tsai, 2008). meanwhile, emotion regulation is a person’s ability to regulate and express emotions (tsai, 2008). furthermore, denham et al. (2012) state that emotional regulation includes the ability to control and express or display emotions appropriately. the importance of emotional competence abilities, especially in early childhood, has been conveyed by many researchers (bailey, 2011; denham, basset, & zinsser, 2012; denham et al., 2002; izard et al., 2012). the results showed that children who understand the causes of emotions are more prevalent among their peers (denham, mckinley, couchoud, & holt, 1990; pons et al., 2002). this is because emotional knowledge allows children to react appropriately to others (denham et al., 2012). in line with this, saarni in tsai (2008) states that children who understand their feelings can better convey or express what they want and negotiate when there is a problem. in addition, denham (1998 in shields, 2010) states that children who are slow in mastering emotional competence are at risk of having problems, such as problematic behaviors or obstacles in social functioning. therefore, screening is needed to measure emotional competence in children so that it can be a reference for early childhood education practitioners in making programs related to improving children’s emotional competence. several studies on emotional competence measuring instruments do not focus on preschool-aged children (wang, young, wilhite, marczyk, 2011; ciarrochi & scott, 2006; fiorilli, albanese, gabola, pepe, 2016). this article aims to construct emotional competency test kits for children. the test kits created will be tested for the validity of the content and reliability to determine whether the test kits that have been designed can be used to measure the child’s emotional competence. the emotional competency test is hoped to be one of the initial screening tools for determining children’s emotional competence. from these results, it can be a consideration for early childhood education practitioners in making programs that suit the needs of children. method creating this test kit is done in stages. in the first stage, interviews and observations are done to get an idea of the events that will be used in scenarios that make preschoolers feel emotional. in the second stage, validity and reliability tests are done on the test kits that have already been made. the construction of emotional competency test tool item the emotional competency test kit is prepared based on the theory of emotional competence presented by denham et al. (2012). two components of emotional competence are measured: the ability to know and understand emotions (emotion knowledge) and the ability to regulate emotions (emotion regulation). the form of items in this test kit refers to the emotion recognition questionnaire (erq) (tsai, 2008) and the challenging situation task (denham et al., 1994). this emotional competency test tool has an introductory part, which is the recognition of emotions. emotion recognition is an initial screening to determine whether subjects can be given emotional competency test kits emotion recognition. the emotion recognition section is the initial screening section. this section ensures that children are familiar with four basic emotions: anger, sadness, fear, and happiness. children will be shown four pictures expressing emotions (happy, sad, angry, and afraid). children are asked to name the emotions evoked by each of these images. if the child can correctly mention the emotions in each picture, the new child will get a story scenario to measure emotional competence. 81 to determine the images of the four basic emotions, researchers created several images and tested them on preschool-age children. the child is then asked to name the emotions displayed by each image. the image of the emotion the child recognizes the most will be selected as the image used in this test tool. here are eight images showing the basic emotional expressions used for the initial screening: expression of fear expression of happiness expression of anger expression of sadness figure 1. basic emotional expressions emotional competency test tool. this emotional competency test tool is in the form of an illustrated story. the child will be read eight illustrated stories that trigger the emergence of certain emotions. the story contains events that trigger certain emotions that the characters feel, namely anger, fear, sadness, and happiness. two stories represent each emotion. children will be asked to answer questions about the content of the story, namely: a) what do the characters feel in the story, and what is the cause of these emotions? this item measures emotional knowledge, and b) what does the child do when they are in the situation of the character in the story? this item is to measure emotion regulation. the answers the child gives can provide information about the behavioral responses that the child may display in emotionally triggering conditions. to ensure that the child is not affected by the emotional expressions displayed by the characters, facial images of the characters in the story are not created. in addition, the story’s main characters are also distinguished as female and male subjects. this is done assuming that children will more easily relate the story’s content to themselves when the main character in the story is of the same gender as the subject. according to the assessment rubric, the answers given by the child will be given a score between 0.1 and 2. details of the blueprint for the test kit can be seen in table 1. table 1. story scenarios blueprint variable indicator item number emotion competency to know perceived emotions 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22 to know the causes of the appearance of emotions. 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23 to know the proper expression of emotions when experiencing certain emotions 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24 82 in making this story, researchers made observations in several kindergartens. in addition, researchers also conducted interviews with teachers and parents to find out events that usually trigger certain emotions in children that could be used as the basis for making stories. validity test the validity test of the emotional competency test tool uses the validity of the content by asking for input and assessment from the expert judgment of the story scenario that has been made. content validity is the conformity between the test item and the content that should be in the test (furr & bacharach, 2008). according to straub in azwar (2012), the decision on the relevance of an item to the purpose of measuring scale requires the agreement of several competent assessors' assessments (expert judgment). all appraisers must not fully agree upon the assessed item. if most appraisers agree that the item is relevant, then the item is declared as an item that supports the validity of the contents of the scale (azwar, 2012). the requested expert judgment consists of early childhood education practitioners, child psychologists, students of the psychology profession in the field of education, kindergarten teachers, and parents with preschool children. in this content validity test, 17 expert judgments were requested for assessment regarding this test tool. there are two types of assessments: quantitative assessment, which is related to the suitability of the item in terms of theory, and qualitative assessment, which is related to the story’s context. expert judgment assigns a score of 1 (strongly unrepresentative or highly irrelevant) to 5 (strongly representative or highly relevant) to the story scenario, images, and questions asked in each story scenario. aiken’s v formula is used to calculate the content-validity coefficient based on the expert assessment of n people on an item and the extent to which the item represents the measured counter (azwar, 2012). reliability test the reliability test was carried out by testing this test kit on 96 children aged 5-6 years in several kindergartens in yogyakarta. the results of the trial data were then processed with alpha cronbach analysis. figure 2. instrument construction process preliminary • interviews and observations to obtain events that trigger certain emotions in the child • story screenplay • the results of the story scenario are made into illustrated stories. validity test • conducting expert-judgment validity tests • the story was given to 17 experts (parents, kindergarten teachers, child psychologists, and students of the educational psychology profession) who were asked for research related to the story. • the input obtained from the expert-judgment results is used to improve the test kit. reliability test • improvement results based on expert-judgment results were tried out • measuring instruments tested on 96 children • trial data were analyzed using alpha-cronbach's statistical analysis. 83 result validity test this emotional competency test tool was given to 17 expert judgments. there are two types of assessments given by expert judgment, namely: quantitative assessment. after converting the emotional competency test kit into an illustrated story, the story is submitted to expert judgment to determine the test kit's suitability with the construct to be measured. the expert judges will grade the submissions on a scale of 1 to 5 (very irrelevant, not representative, very relevant, representative). the score results are processed using aiken’s v formula. table 2 shows that the result of the content validity score using aiken’s v formula is 0.71-0.96. qualitative assessment. expert opinions are solicited in qualitative assessments to provide feedback on item improvements. in general, there are two inputs, namely: a) the omission of expression in the character image so as not to affect the child in answering the emotions felt by the character in the story; b) the use of the word “emotion” is replaced by “feeling” or “being felt” by the character. reliability test a trial of an emotional competency test kit was given to 96 subjects. on the basis of these answers, a reliability test was carried out. as a result of these trials, a reliability coefficient of 0.822 was obtained table 2. content validity results using aiken’s v formula item number coefficient of validity scenario 1 0,81 1 0,89 2 0,84 3 0,89 scenario 2 0,88 4 0,89 5 0,85 6 0,88 scenario 3 0,81 7 0,85 8 0,85 9 0,88 scenario 4 0,84 10 0,89 11 0,87 12 0,91 scenario 5 0,96 13 0,91 14 0,87 15 0,93 scenario 6 0,82 16 0,88 17 0,87 18 0,91 scenario 7 0,71 19 0,85 20 0,81 21 0,82 scenario 8 0,94 22 0,96 23 0,87 24 0,91 84 discussion emotional competence is one of the essential abilities preschool-aged children possess to help them adjust to their social environment. many educational programs for early childhood target improving children’s emotional competence. this study aims to create a tool to measure children’s emotional competence. it is hoped that this test tool can be an initial screening tool for early childhood practitioners to help determine children’s emotional competence. the screening results can be considered when designing educational programs to improve children’s emotional competence. from the results of the validity test, it is known that this test tool has a content validity score range of 0.71-0.96. the aiken’s v table shows that with 17 people, the minimum score of aiken’s v is 0.71. therefore, it can be interpreted that the story scenario on this test kit has good content validity and can be used to measure the child’s emotional competence. in the next stage, trials of test kits are carried out on children. a reliability coefficient of 0.822 was obtained from the trial results. kerlinger & lee (2000) state that measuring instruments can already be said to be reliable if their reliability coefficient ranges from 0.5 to 0.6. in line with this, kaplan & saccuzzo (2009) stated that the coefficient range of 0.7–0.8 is considered good enough for most studies. based on this, this measuring instrument can be said to be a reliable tool for measuring preschoolers’ emotional competence. based on the content validity and reliability test results, emotional competency test kits are qualified to measure emotional competence in children: conclusion the content validity and reliability test results found that the emotional competency test tool has adequate validity and reliability. this shows that the emotional competence test tool is sufficient to measure emotional competence in children. however, the test process is still in the classical stage with limited subjects. subsequent research could conduct trials on a broader subject to improve the accuracy and standardization of measuring instruments. declaration acknowledgment the authors thank everyone who helped in data collection and technical matters. author contribution statement meria susanti led the overall research design, conducted discussion processing, and wrote results and discussion. maria goretti adiyanti provided in formulating the study’s objectives, research design, analysis process, and result interpretation. funding statement this research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. data access statement the data described in this article can be accessed by contacting the first author. declaration of interest’s statement the authors declare no conflict of interest. 85 additional information no additional information is available for this paper. references aiken, l. r. (1985). three coefficients for analyzing the reliability and validity of ratings. educational and psychological measurement, 45, 131-145. https://doi.org/10.1177/00131644854510 anastasi, a & urbina, s. (1997). psychological testing (7th ed.).prentice hall. azwar, s. (2012). penyusunan skala psikologi. pustaka pelajar. bailey, a. m. (2011). sociodramatic play, family socioeconomic risk, and emotional competence in urban, preschool children [unpublished doctoral dissertation]. seattle pacific university. bridges, l. j., denham, s. a., & ganiban, j. m. (2004). definitional issues in emotion regulation research. child development, 75(2), 340–345. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2004.00675.x ciarrochi, j., scott, g. (2006). the link between emotional competence and well-being: a longitudinal study. british journal of guidance & counselling, 34(2), 231-243. https://doi.org/10.1080/03069880600583287 denham, s. a. (1998). emotional development in toung children. the guilford press. denham, s. a., bassett, h. h., & zinsser, k. (2012). early childhood teachers as socializers of young children’s emotional competence. early childhood education journal, 40, 137-143. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-012-0504-2 denham, s. a., blair, k. a., demulder, e., levitas, k. s., auerbach-major, s., & queenan, p. (2003). preschool emotional competence: pathway to social competence? child development, 74, 238-256. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00533 fiorilli, c., albanese, o., gabola, p., pepe, a. (2016). teachers’ emotional competence and social support: assessing the mediating role of teacher burnout. scandinavian journal of educational research, 61(2), 127-138. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2015.1119722 furr, r. m., & bacharach, v. r., (2008). psychometrics: an introduction. sage publications, inc. hansen, c. c., & zambo, d. (2007). loving and learning with wimberly and david: fostering emotional develompent in early childhood education. early childhood education journal, 34(4), 273-278. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-006-0124-9 havighurst, s. s., wilson, k. r., harley, a. e., kehoe, c., efron, d., & prior, m. r. (2013). “turning into kids”: reducing young children’s behavior problems using an emotion coaching parenting program. child psychiatry human development, 44, 247-264. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-012-0322-1 heinze, l. k. (2013). effects of puppet teaching strategies through social emotional teaching pyramid in an integrated preschool classroom [unpublished doctoral dissertation]. southwest minnesota state university. helmsen, j., koglin, u., & petermann, f. (2012). emotion regulation and aggresive behavior in preschoolers: the mediating role of social information processing. child psychiatry human development, 43, 87-101. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-011-0252-3 kaplan, r. m., & saccuzzo, d. p. (2009). psychological testing: principles, applications, and issues. thomson wadsworth. levine, l.e & munsch, j. (2011). child development. sage publications, inc. morris, c. a. s. (2010). emotionally competence caregiving: relations among teacher-child interaction patterns, teachers’ beliefs about emotions, and children’s emotional competence [unpublished doctoral dissertation]. george mason university. onchwari, g., & keengwe, j. (2011). examining the relationship of children’s behavior to emotion regulation ability. early childhood education journal, 39, 279-284. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-011-0466-9 santrock, j. w. (2007). perkembangan anak. erlangga. https://doi.org/10.1177/00131644854510 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2004.00675.x https://doi.org/10.1080/03069880600583287 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-012-0504-2 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00533 https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2015.1119722 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-006-0124-9 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-012-0322-1 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-011-0252-3 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-011-0466-9 86 shields, a., dickstein, s., seifer, r., giusti, l., magee, k.d., spritz, b. (2001). emotional competence and early school adjustment: a study of preschoolers at risk. early education & development, 12(1), 73-96. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15566935eed1201-5 tsai, m. j. (2008). guiding taiwanese kindergartener’s emotional understanding and emotion regulation: the effects of children’s picture books [unpublished doctoral dissertation]. the pennsylvania state university wang, n., young, t., wilhite, s.c., marczyk, g. (2011). assessing student’s emotional competence in higher education: development and validation of the widener emotional learning scale. journal of psychoeducational assessment, 29(1), 47-62. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734282909359394 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15566935eed1201-5 issn ;2541450x (online) 5 vol. 2 no. 1 (june 2021), pp. 5-11 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v2i1.2946 self-acceptance as a predictor of self-esteem in victims of body shaming nur afni safarina1, maulayani2 1,2 department of psychology, universitas malikussaleh, aceh, indonesia  corresponding author: nur afni safarina (email: nurafni.safarina@unimal.ac.id) abstract – this study aimed to determine and analyze the influence of self-acceptance on self-esteem on the victim of body shaming in sman 1 lhokseumawe. the approach of this study was a quantitative correlational method. the samples of this study were 75 students of sman 1 lhokseumawe, and ever be the victim of body shaming. this study uses the purposive sampling technique. this study’s data collection methods were used two scales, namely scale of self-acceptance and selfesteem scale. then, the data were analyzed by using simple linear regression. the result of this study indicates a correlation between selfacceptance and self-esteem variables. the constant value shows that the coefficient is positive and has a positive or consistent correlation. there is an influence between self-acceptance of self-esteem by using formula t-table and t-count to test the hypothesis, and the result is the same. the initial hypothesis is acceptable. that is mean the hypothesis in this study can be accepted. article history: received: may 01, 2021 revised: june 01, 2021 accepted: june 26, 2021 published: june 30, 2021 keyword: body shaming; selfacceptance; self-esteem; high school students how to cite (apa 7th edition) safarina, n. a. & maulayani, m. (2021). self-acceptance as a predictor of self-esteem in victims of body shaming. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 2(1), 5–11. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v2i1.2946 this is an open-access article distributed under the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. this is enabled under the terms of attribution and noncommercial usage of the material ©2021 by nur afni safarina & maulayani. 6 self-acceptance as a predictor of self-esteem in victims of body shaming adolescence is a transition from childhood to adulthood, and it can be said that adolescence is a transitional period that bridges childhood to adulthood. according to papalia, diana, old, & feldman (2011), adolescence is a period of development from childhood to adulthood that begins at age ten and ends at the early 20 years. teenagers usually interact more with the surrounding environment, be it school or other social environments, than interacting with family members or parents. in adolescence, individuals will experience changes in extensive social interactions and increased social skills resulting from the interaction of broad peers (febriani, 2020). according to hurlock (2002) in hidayati (2016), adolescence is a period of storms and pressures that cause adolescents to experience an increasing emotional condition due to physical and psychic changes. in adolescence, there are many changes in a person, including changes in the physical and socio-emotional aspects. changes that occur in the physical aspect are usually a change in body shape, and in the socio-emotional aspects of adolescents tend to be more sensitive such as easy crying, anxiety, and even frustration (kusmiran, 2014). some physical changes in adolescence result in teenagers feeling less confident with their appearance (sakinah, 2018). physical changes experienced by teenagers also make teenagers often pay attention to themselves and make judgments about their physical appearance (solistiawati &novendawati, 2015). according to society today, the ideal body shape is used as a guide by teenagers to assess their body shape and the body shape of others around it (rusminingsih, suciana, &wahyuningsih, 2020). in adolescence, they tend to interact more with their peers. when teenagers have more interactions with peers, it presents new problems for adolescents. peers use physical appearance more often as a mockery of other individuals if the individual looks not up to the standard (widiasti, 2016). such behavior is called body shaming. body shaming is an action performed by a person by criticizing body shapes such as mocking or denouncing weight, skin color, body shape, and height (rahayu, 2019). according to wardhana, kiranantia, tantiani, &puspitasari (2019), body shamming is the behavior of criticizing commenting on the physical body itself or others negatively. body shaming is a despicable act in which the culprit insults or taunts others for physical deprivation. according to vargas (2015), the characteristics of body shamming behavior include criticizing the shape of his appearance and comparing it to others, criticizing the body shape of others around him, giving criticism without the knowledge of the person who is criticized with reproach on the body shape of the people around him. in adolescence, this is what happens a lot. whether it is obtained from peers or others, body shamming can happen in cyberspace through social media or in the real world. teenagers who are victims of body shamming tend not to accept their physical condition. victims of body shaming will undoubtedly decrease their attitude of self-acceptance towards themselves, where self-acceptance has a close relationship with one’s physical acceptance (ridha, 2012). according to chaplin (2012), self-acceptance is one’s self-satisfaction, understanding one’s qualities and talents, and recognizing one’s limitations. self-acceptance is shown by recognizing the advantages that he has and accepting the shortcomings that exist in him without blaming those around him. teenagers who can accept themselves will be positive about everything or problems in their lives (rinmalae, regaletha, benu, 2019). introduction safarina, n. a. & maulayani, m. 7 when a person has good self-acceptance, then he will also have good self-esteem. this is following what ryff stated that when a person accepts himself, he will have a positive attitude towards himself, acknowledge his weaknesses and strengths, and respect himself (wangge &hartini, 2013). self-esteem is an individual’s assessment of himself, whether it is positive or negative. according to oktaviani (2019), self-esteem is an individual evaluation of himself by recognizing or not the ability possessed and the appreciation and acceptance of others as a comparison between himself and others. the decline in self-esteem is often in adolescence, where the teenager feels he does not have an ideal body shape and does not have the advantages that can be used as capital in his association (syafrizaldi &pratiwi, 2020). many studies have suggested that decreased self-esteem frequently occurs in adolescence (wahyuni &aurellia, 2021). decreased self-esteem in adolescents can occur due to problems experienced and emotional management skills in adolescents who are not stable. one of the problems in adolescence and related to self-esteem is self-acceptance related to body shamming performed by peers and people in the surrounding environment. therefore, in this study, researchers will especially see how adolescent self-acceptance is the victim of body shaming at sma negeri 1 lhokseumawe. this research was conducted because in high school students in lhokseumawe, especially sma negeri 1 lhokseumawe often occur abuse, one form of bully performed is body shamming by physically insulting friends. the difference between this study and other studies is that this study also looked at the correlation between self-acceptance and self-esteem in victims of body shaming, where previously, many studies only looked at aspects of self-acceptance or self-esteem. therefore, the purpose of this study is to see how the influence of self-acceptance on the self-esteem of students at sma negeri 1 lhokseumawe who experience body shamming. this type of research is nonexperimental quantitative research with a correlational research design. the primary purpose of the research with correlational design is to describe the relationship between existing variables and determine the relationship between dependent and independent variables (heryana, 2020). the free variable in this study was self-acceptance, whereas the bound variable was self-esteem. this research was conducted at sma negeri 1 lhokseumawe, held for one month in november 2019. the population in this study was all students of sma negeri 1 lhokseumawe. the samples in this study numbered 75 students that were chosen by using purposive sampling techniques. the characteristics of the population taken are students who attended sma negeri 1 lhokseumawe and had been victims of body shaming. this study uses a data collection method in the form of a psychological scale: 1) the scale of self-acceptance used in this study compiled by tika pratiwi andani (2018). the scale of self-acceptance is based on aspects of self-acceptance expressed by powel, namely physical acceptance, intellectual acceptance, acceptance of selflimitations, acceptance of feelings or emotions and acceptance of personality, and 2) the selfesteem scale used in this study was compiled by tika pratiwi andani (2018) based on the scalemaking component of the rosenberg self esteem scale (1965) with two dimensions namely confidence and the ability to display yourself openly in front of others. research method 8 self-acceptance as a predictor of self-esteem in victims of body shaming normality test is a test to measure whether the population of data owned is a normal distribution to be used in parametric statistics (inferential statistics). data is declared normally distributed when it has a significance value more significant than 0,05 (priyatno, 2011). the normality test in this study was to use the kolmogorov smirnov test. table 1 one-sample kolmogorov-smirnov test variable p-value self-acceptance 0,035 self-esteem <0,001 based on the trials that have been conducted in the form of normal self-acceptance variables, while self-esteem variables are not normal. the linearity test aims to find out if two variables are significantly related or not. linearity test on spss is used test for linearity with significance level 0,05. two variables have a linear relationship when the significant value in linearity is minor than 0,05 (priyatno, 2011). the linearity test in this study aims to see if there is a variable relationship of self-acceptance with self-esteem in victims of body shaming. based on the test, an f value of 38,017 with p < 0.001 was produced. because the p-value < 0.05, the relationship between self-acceptance and self-esteem variables is linear or has a linear degree. so it can be concluded that there is a linear influence between self-acceptance and selfesteem in victims of body shamming students at sma negeri 1 lhokseumawe. based on a simple linear regression analysis used to determine the influence between dependent and independent variables, generate data in the form of the following table: table 2 simple linear regression test constant value coefficient of regression t-count t-table 5,631 0,228 5,487 2,041 based on the table, it can be known that the constant value of 5,631and the value of the variable regression coefficient of self-acceptance of 0.228, as well as the coefficient of positive value, which means that the higher the self-acceptance, the more self-esteem increases the student.&n; then, simple linear regression analysis also produced a t-count to test the hypothesis. based on the above output, it can be seen the calculated t value of 5,487 and the ttable value of this result of 2,041. this indicates that the calculated t value < t table (2,041 < 5,487). this shows that h0 was rejected, which means that there is an influence between selfesteem and self-esteem of sma negeri 1 lhokseumawe students who are victims of body shaming. then, hypothesis testing can also be done by looking at the value of significance. if the significance value > 0,05, then h0 is accepted. on the contrary, if the significance value < 0,05, then h0 is rejected. it can be seen that the significance value was 0.00 < 0,05. it means h0 was rejected, and this study proves that there is an influence between the two variables that are examined. result safarina, n. a. & maulayani, m. 9 the purpose of this study is to find out the influence of self-esteem on self-acceptance in victims of body shamming students at sma negeri 1 lhokseumawe. based on the research process that has been done, running smoothly, and by the plan that has been compiled. this study uses a quantitative method with a questionnaire to collect data that corresponds to each variable. then also this study, there is a hypothesis or temporary conjecture before the research was conducted, namely the influence between self-acceptance and self-esteem in students who are victims of body shaming. based on the results of several tests that have been done before, it can be seen that these variables of self-acceptance and price have a linear pattern of interrelationship, which means that these variables are interconnected and aligned, suitable for linking between one and another. this is because self-acceptance is a factor in the formation of one’s self-esteem. a simple linear regression test results in a positive value coefficient, which means that the higher the selfacceptance, the more self-esteem the student. based on the hypothesis testing mentioned earlier, and the results of the initial hypothesis are correct, there is an influence between self-acceptance and self-esteem in students victims of body shaming behavior. it also shows that by having good self-acceptance, one can appreciate him more, even though he is a victim of bad behavior, namely body shamming. body shamming behavior itself is considered a weapon that can interfere with the psychology of a person, especially teenagers who are in a time known as unstable. however, in this study, they proved that they have good self-esteem. self-esteem can increase with acceptance as one of the factors. self-acceptance is one of the determining factors of the formation of one’s self-esteem, especially in adolescents. adolescence is the time when a person tries to find his or her identity. when he can accept himself well, he is also able to appreciate himself well without having to be appreciated or loved by others first. in this study, it can be seen that students of sma negeri 1 lhokseumawe proved that self-acceptance affects one’s self-esteem. when he cannot accept himself well, it can also cause him to feel unwelcome, helpless, incapable of doing what he wants, unacceptable to a group, and other negative thoughts. when a person feels that way, then that is where his self-esteem begins to falter. this is based on not maximal selfacceptance. self-acceptance is a variable that influences self-esteem in this study. in line with maslow’s theory, he explained that in the hierarchy of human needs, self-esteem is the fourth need that must be achieved before reaching the highest stage, namely self-actualization. reaching the stage of self-esteem, man must meet the physiological needs, sense of security, and love, thus significantly affecting each individual’s self-acceptance of one’s self-esteem, even in the hierarchy of maslow’s needs, he revealed that before achieving self-actualization, man must be able to meet previous needs. in achieving the need for love, here is reliable self-acceptance. when a man can love himself, he will also be able to appreciate himself. another study that also examined adolescents experiencing body shaming is the research of herniyanti, malfasari, and hidayat (2019); the results of this study mentioned that shamming body behavior has a relationship with individual self-image. the more often a person becomes a victim of body shaming, the more negative his or her image. herniyati et al. research (2019) does not discuss the impact of body shamming on other aspects. so in this study, the author discussion 10 self-acceptance as a predictor of self-esteem in victims of body shaming added that self-acceptance also affects self-esteem and victims of body shaming itself. furthermore, research conducted by duarte (2017), body shamming behavior also affects the body’s cognitive function significantly and not only affects self-esteem and self-acceptance. based on the results obtained, it can be concluded that there is a correlation or relationship between the variable of self-acceptance and the variable of self-esteem. this can be shown from correlation values of 0.553 and 0.403 in spearman and kendall’s tau correlation tests, where this substantial value indicates a coefficient of positive value and has a positive or consistent correlation. the hypothesis mentioned earlier is under the study results; this is obtained from the hypothesis test on the correlation test by obtaining a significance value of <0.001, which means that the hypothesis is acceptable. then based on a simple linear analysis obtained the result that there is an influence between self-acceptance to self-esteem, also using the formula t table and t count to test the hypothesis and the result is the same, the initial hypothesis can be accepted because the t-table < t-count is 2,041 < 5,487. andani, t. p. (2018). hubungan penerimaan diri dan harga diri pada remaja dengan orang tua bercerai [undergraduate thesis, universitas muhammadiyah malang]. chaplin, j. p. (2012). kamus lengkap psikologi. rajagrafindo persada. duarte, c., & pinto-gouveia, j. (2017). the impact of early shame memories in binge eating disorder: the mediator effect of current body image shame and cognitive fusion. psychiatry research, 258, 511–517. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2017.08.086 heryana, a. 2020. bahan ajar mata kuliah: metodologi penelitian kuantitatif. prodi kesmas universitas esa unggul. hidayat, r., malfasari, e., & herniyanti, r. (2019). hubungan perlakuan body shaming dengan citra diri mahasiswa. jurnal keperawatan jiwa, 7(1), 79-86. hidayati, n. w. (2016). hubungan harga diri dan konformitas teman sebaya dengan kenakalan remaja. jurnal penelitian pendidikan indonesia, 1(2), 31-36. kusmiran, e. 2014. kesehatan reproduksi remaja dan wanita. salemba medika. oktaviani, m. a., 2019. hubungan penerimaan diri dan harga diri pada remaja pengguna sosial media instagram. psikoborneo. 7(4), 549-556. papalia, d. e., old, s. w., & feldman, r. d. (2011). human development (psikologi perkembangan). kencana. priyatno, d. (2011). buku saku spss. media kom. puspitasari, s. t., tantiani, f. f., & wardhana, l. w. (2019). upaya peningkatan baseline body acceptance melalui gerakan say no to body shaming di kalangan pelajar kota mojokerto. plakat (pelayanan kepada masyarakat), 1(2), 110-119. conclusion references safarina, n. a. & maulayani, m. 11 rahayu, e. p. (2019). dampak penerimaan pesan “body shamming” terhadap “self confidence” pada remaja perempuan di media sosial instagram. jurnal commercium, 2(1), 78-82. ridha, m. (2012). hubungan body image dengan penerimaan diri pada mahasiswa aceh di yogyakarta. jurnal empathy, 1(2), 1-5 rinmalae, m. p., regaletha, t. a., & benu, j. m. y. (2019). harga diri dan penerimaan diri remaja akhir di panti asuhan sonaf maneka kelurahan lasiana kota kupang. journal of health and behavioral science, 1(4), 199-206. rusminingsih, e., suciana, f., & wahyuningsih, n. (2020). hubungan body shaming dengan interaksi sosial pada remaja perempuan di smk muhammadiyah 2 klaten utara. motorik jurnal ilmu kesehatan, 15(2), 47-51. sakinah, s. (2018). “ini bukan lelucon”: body shaming, citra tubuh, dampak dan cara mengatasinya. emik, 1(1), 53-67. solistiawati, a., & sitasari, n. w. hubungan antara citra tubuh dengan harga diri remaja akhir putri (studi pada mahasiswi reguler universitas esa unggul). jurnal psikologi esa unggul, 13(01), 13-20. syafrizaldi, s., & pratiwi, s. (2020). hubungan antara lingkungan sosial dengan harga diri remaja panti asuhan al jam’iyatul washliyah binjai. journal of education, humaniora and social sciences (jehss), 3(1), 193-199. vargas, e. (2019, september 11). body-shaming: what is it & why do we do it? https://www.waldeneatingdisorders.com/blog/body-shaming-what-is-it-why-do-we-doit/ wahyuni, n. s., & auriella, a. (2021). hubungan body image dengan harga diri pada remaja putri penggemar kpop di komunitas army medan. journal of education, humaniora and social sciences (jehss), 3(3), 1365-1371. wangge, b. d. r., hartini, n. (2013). hubungan antara penerimaan diri dengan harga diri remaja pasca perceraian orang tua. jurnal psikologi kepribadian dan sosial, 2(1), 1-6. widiasti, n. l. r. (2016). profil citra tubuh (body image) pada remaja dan implikasinya bagi bimbingan dan konseling (studi deskriptif terhadap peserta didik kelas xi sma negeri 1 sukaresmi kabupaten cianjur tahun ajaran 2015-2016) [undergraduate thesis, universitas pendidikan indonesia]. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research https://journal.iainlangsa.ac.id/index.php/inspira how to cite (apa 7th edition) mariah, w., hardjo, s., & effendy, s. (2023). transformational leadership and work engagement in muslim workers: the moderating role of gender. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 4(1), 97–110. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.5760 this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial 4.0 international (cc by-nc 4.0) copyright ©2023 by wan mariah, suryani hardjo, & sjahril effendy. research article transformational leadership and work engagement in muslim workers: the moderating role of gender https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.5760 wan mariah1, suryani hardjo2, sjahril effendy3 1 department of psychology, universitas medan area, north sumatera, indonesia 2 department of psychology, universitas medan area, north sumatera, indonesia 3 department of management, universitas muhammadiyah sumatera utara, north sumatra, indonesia corresponding author: wan mariah (email: wanmariah1998@gmail.com) abstract this study examines the role of transformational leadership on employee work engagement, seen with gender as a moderator variable. this study engaged 190 muslim employees as a total sample and used quantitative methods with an explanatory approach with two adaptation scales, the transformational leadership scale by bas & avolio (1995) and the work engagement scale by schaufeli, bakker, and salanova (2006). the data analysis technique used structural equation modeling (sem). the results showed the role of transformational leadership in employee work engagement. however, there is no role of gender as a moderator in the influence of transformational leadership on work engagement. the findings of this study contribute to the literature on transformational leadership by explaining how leadership that motivates and inspires can help employees be more engaged in their work. article history: received 15 february 2023 revised 27 may 2023 accepted 29 june 2023 keywords: gender role; muslim employee; transformational leadership; work engagement introduction a company or organization must be able to develop its human resources so that it can produce a quality workforce. employees who work earnestly can improve the progress of the company. this work behavior is called work engagement. work engagement has become an important topic of conversation in recent years among companies (saks, 2006). a survey institute called gallup presents data showing that employees fall into the engaged category 13%, while employees in the not engaged category 76%, and 11% in the actively disengaged category (portalhr.com 2016). from the data, it is known that employees who are not engaged are higher than employees who are engaged, it can be concluded that most employees still lack the level of work engagement in the company. this work engagement issue has also begun to be noticed in indonesia, in addition to strong business growth, it turns out that the work engagement in indonesia is also very low. the results of the southeast asian nation survey in 2018 show that indonesia is at the bottom of the list, the results are only 8% of the total employees in indonesia who are engaged with their work. another study by towers watson in the global workforce study obtained almost the same results. two-thirds of indonesian employees are not highly engaged at work. in 2013, only 13 percent of employees in 142 countries felt engaged in their workplace. including in indonesia, it was recorded https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.5760 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1974-4192 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9416-8853 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7997-3291 98 that 15 percent of employees felt engaged in the company where the employee worked (siswono, 2016). in a company, every employee must be able to increase their work productivity so that the company's goals can be achieved properly. a well-functioning company is the output of healthy, committed and motivated human resources which can also be called "engaged employees" (shiddhanta & roy, 2010). companies must be able to develop their human resources so that they can produce a quality workforce. work engagement is a positivity, fulfillment of work from the center of the mind characterized by a strong outpouring of energy and mentality during work, enthusiasm in carrying out work and seriousness with full concentration on a job briefly explains the aspects of work engagement namely vigor, dedication, absorption. aspects of gender are also related to its role in work engagement. theoretical support for the relationship between gender diversity and engagement is based on the idea that men and women bring different perspectives, including diversity in creativity and innovation, have diverse market insights, and broader skills in problem-solving and decision-making (farrell & hersch, 2001; shrader et al., 1997; smith et al., 2006; watson et al., 1993). other research has found that gender-diverse teams have better work engagement than single-gender teams (orlitzky & benjamin, 2003). previous research on work engagement and gender was conducted by (paradise, 2008) where the results of his research were that gender differences were found to contribute to work engagement where men were more engaged with work because of their position as the main breadwinner in the family, while women were the opposite. in line with this research, (gardner & gabriel, 2004) also stated that gender differences affect the high and low levels of work engagement, where the level of work engagement of men is higher than women. regarding gender differences between men and women, it is also explained (robbins, 1996), among others, that several psychological studies conducted show that women are more willing to obey authority while men are more aggressive and more likely to have success. gender differences can also determine a person's level of engagement. there are conflicting views on work engagement as to who is more engaged with the company, between male and female employees. gallup research found that women tend to find more satisfaction in work and it is a natural result when women are more engaged than men (johnson & development, 2004). the same researchers found no significant difference in employees' work engagement levels when the study was conducted on employees in other countries. kapoor & anthony (2013 in garg, 2014) concluded their research that male employees have a high engagement at work compared to female employees. the results of sprang et al.'s research (2007) also state that female employees appear to burn out more often due to a lack of engagement compared to male employees. meanwhile, research (ariani, 2013) states that there is no difference between genders in employee engagement when working. starting from the literature study above, research on the role of transformational leadership on employee work engagement seen from gender as a moderator variable has never been studied. this study aims to see the role of transformational leadership on employee work engagement seen with gender as a moderator variable. method the quantitative method approach used in this research is an explanatory quantitative approach. the research object which is the independent variable in this study is work-engagement. while the dependent variable is transformational leadership and gender is a moderator variable. the research site was pt pos indonesia (persero) post office all branches in medan and deli serdang regency. the 99 sample size is determined by the structural equation model (sem) with confirmatory analysis factor (cfa) technique. the sample used in this study was total sampling which amounted to 190 muslims consisting of 120 male employees and 70 female employees. the confirmatory analysis factor (cfa) technique is carried out in 2 ways, namely (1) cfa test per variable, and (2) cfa test with a combined method, which combines exogenous variables with exogenous and endogenous variables with endogenous. to find out that the model created is fit or significant, cfa testing is carried out by consulting or comparing the gof coefficient results obtained from research with the standard gof cut-off value in table 1 table 1. cutt-off of standard goodness of fit goodness of fit index cut-off value χ2 chi-square (df=…, p = 0,05) < chi-square tabel sig. probability ≥ 0.05 df > 0 cmin/df ≤ 2.00 gfi ≥ 0.90 agfi ≥ 0.95 cfi ≥ 0.95 tli or nnfi ≥ 0.95 rmsea ≤ 0.08 the research steps, namely the method used first, are to describe the problems related to the characteristics of the transformational leadership variables and gender as a moderator variable with the dependent variable, namely work-engagement. second, looking for and determining how the relationship between one variable and another variable being studied. the data analysis technique in this study uses structural equation modeling (sem), which is a multivariate technique that combines aspects of factor analysis and multiple regression that allows researchers to simultaneously test a series of interrelated dependency relationships between measured latent variables and constructs and also between latent constructs (hair et al., 2010). in this study, a two-stage approach or measurement model analysis and structural equation model analysis were used. to simplify and ensure the accuracy of the calculation results, statistical software with analysis moment of structural (amos version 23.0) is used. result respondents in this study were employees of the medan and deli serdang post offices. the respondents were 190 employees. in the descriptive analysis section, the frequency distribution and percentage of the variables education, gender, marital status, employee status and length of service are presented in table 2. to test the unidimensionality of the variables or constructs under study, the confirmatory-factor analysis (cfa) technique is used. in the cfa technique, there are two approaches, namely: (1) cfa test per variable, and (2) cfa test with a combined method, which combines exogenous variables with exogenous and endogenous variables with endogenous. to determine whether the model created is fit or significant, cfa testing is carried out by consulting or comparing the gof coefficient results obtained from research with the standard gof cut-off value. transformational leadership constructs or variables are built based on previously synthesized theories. the theoretical synthesis is then developed into conceptual, operational definitions and research variable grids. from the results of the variable grid, a measurement model of the transformational leadership variable is then made as shown in figure 1. 100 table 2. demography of research participants characteristics n (%) gender male 39 (20.42%) female 152 (79.58%) age (year) < 20 1 (0.52%) 20-29 83 (0.4346%) 30-39 54 (28.27%) 40-49 26 (13.61%) ≥ 50 27 (14.14%) educational level 88 (46.07%) senior high diploma 18 (9.42%) undergraduate 83(43.46%) master 2 (1.05%) marriage status unmarried 67 (35.08%) married 122 (63.87%) widow 2 (1.05%) employment status permanent 107 (56.02%) outsourcing 84 (43.98%) year of employment < 1 10 (5.24%) 1-5 62 (32.46%) 6-10 38 (19.9%) > 10 81 (42.41%) figure 1. path diagram of transformational leadership based on the transformational leadership variable model diagram in figure 1, then running data with amos 23.0 is carried out, and needs to be tested to see the loading factor (lf) value of each indicator, and also the gof value with the goodness of fit test technique to determine whether it meets the significance requirements or not. the results of testing the loading factor (lf) and gof values of the transformational leadership variable model_1 diagram as in figure 2. 101 figure 2. path diagram of transformational leadership (iteration/stage_1) based on the analysis of transformational leadership variables at the first stage or iteration of figure 2, it is known that there are still loading factor values of indicators that are smaller than <0.5. the indicators include tl1 until tl12, presented in table 3. table 3. standardized regressions of transformational leadership estimate tl1 <--transformational_leadership .403 tl2 <--transformational_leadership .370 tl3 <--transformational_leadership .412 tl4 <--transformational_leadership .406 tl5 <--transformational_leadership .376 tl6 <--transformational_leadership .334 tl7 <--transformational_leadership .404 tl8 <--transformational_leadership .349 tl9 <--transformational_leadership .417 tl10 <--transformational_leadership .393 tl11 <--transformational_leadership .344 tl12 <--transformational_leadership .373 tl13 <--transformational_leadership .668 tl14 <--transformational_leadership .759 tl15 <--transformational_leadership .755 tl16 <--transformational_leadership .741 tl17 <--transformational_leadership .730 tl18 <--transformational_leadership .779 tl19 <--transformational_leadership .759 tl20 <--transformational_leadership .774 tl21 <--transformational_leadership .693 tl22 <--transformational_leadership .733 tl23 <--transformational_leadership .762 tl24 <--transformational_leadership .825 tl25 <--transformational_leadership .804 tl26 <--transformational_leadership .816 tl27 <--transformational_leadership .800 the next step is to discard (drop) indicators that have a loading factor value <0.5. so that in the next stage of analysis, the age variable specifically the tl1 to tl12 indicators is dropped and cannot be included or continued for the next stage of analysis. to get a fit or good model on the 102 transformational leadership variable in this study, the analysis was carried out through 10 stages or iterations. the 10th iteration model, which is the model that has been fit can be seen in figure 3. figure 3. path diagram of transformational leadership (model_10 fit) in figure 3, the transformational leadership variable is known that all indicators already have a loading factor value> 0.5. next is to do the gof test on the transformational leadership variable model_10 fit diagram. this is in accordance with the opinion of latan (2012: 49) who quotes the opinion of hair et.al. (2010) that the use of 4 5 goodness of fit criteria is considered sufficient to assess the feasibility of a model, provided that each criterion of goodness of fit, namely absolute fit indices, incremental fit indices and parsimony fit indices is represented. thus the resulting sem model can be used to analyze and test the hypotheses proposed in this study. work engagement constructs or variables are built based on the research theories described in the previous chapter. based on this theory, it is then developed into conceptual definitions, and operational definitions and variable grids are made. from the results of the variable lattice, a measurement model of the work engagement variable can then be made as shown in figure 4. in this study, to obtain a fit (significant) measurement model of work engagement variables, up to nine (9) iterations or stages of analysis were carried out. in this case, only the first stage measurement model analysis and the last stage measurement model analysis will be presented. furthermore, the work engagement variable model diagram above is analyzed with amos 23.0 and needs to be tested to see the loading factor (lf) value of each indicator, and also the gof value with the goodness of fit test technique to determine whether it meets the significance requirements or not. the results of testing the loading factor (lf) and gof values of the model_1 diagram of the work engagement variable are in figure 5. based on the analysis of work engagement variables at the first stage or iteration of figure 5 above, it is known that there is still a loading factor value <0.5 which is found in the we16 indicator (0.314), and we17 (0.239). 103 figure 4. path diagram of work engagement figure 5. path diagram of work engagement (iteration/stage_1) 104 table 4. standardized regressions of work engagement estimate we1 <--work_engagement .872 we2 <--work_engagement .876 we3 <--work_engagement .863 we4 <--work_engagement .893 we5 <--work_engagement .865 we6 <--work_engagement .858 we7 <--work_engagement .883 we8 <--work_engagement .859 we9 <--work_engagement .844 we10 <--work_engagement .842 we11 <--work_engagement .820 we12 <--work_engagement .794 we13 <--work_engagement .774 we14 <--work_engagement .578 we15 <--work_engagement .580 we16 <--work_engagement .314 we17 <--work_engagement .239 the next step is to discard (drop) indicators that have a loading factor value <0.5. so that at the next stage of analysis the age variable specifically the we16 and we17 indicators are dropped and cannot be included or continued for the next stage of analysis. to get a fit or good model on the work engagement variable in this study, the analysis was carried out through 9 stages or iterations. the 9th iteration model, which is the model that has been fit can be seen in figure 6. gambar 6. path diagram of work engagement (model_9 fit) in the figure, it can be seen that all indicators already have a loading factor value> 0.5. next is to do the gof test on the model_9 fit diagram of the work engagement variable. 105 based on the results of the variable lattice, a measurement model of the gender variable can then be made. gender in this study will be used as a moderator variable and because gender is only divided into two criteria, namely male and female, the gender variable is not carried out cfa analysis per variable but is directly combined when testing moderation analysis. to determine the complete structural equation model consisting of sub-structural and structural equations, the forming regression coefficients are obtained from the standardized regression weights (table 5), and the residual value (error of estimates) can be found from the squared multiple correlation (table 6). based on the standardized regression weights), and the residual value (error of estimates) squared multiple correlation can be made a research regression equation = work engagement = 0.494 * transformational leadership 0.035 * gender + e (r2 = 0.094). after the overall fit of the model and data is acceptable (fit), the next step is the evaluation or analysis of the measurement model. this evaluation is carried out on each measurement model or construct. according to igbaria et.al. in wijanto (2008), the factor loading standard ≥ 0.5 is very significant, while ghozali (2008: 135) states that significant factor loading and a standard loading factor ≥ 0.5 indicates a good level of convergent validity. based on the test results, the validity value in the study is valid. table 5. standardized regression weights estimate work_engagement <--transformasional_leadership .308 work_engagement <--gender -.047 work_engagement <--moderating_effect -.001 we1 <--work_engagement .874 we2 <--work_engagement .881 we3 <--work_engagement .878 we4 <--work_engagement .904 we5 <--work_engagement .875 we6 <--work_engagement .846 we7 <--work_engagement .876 we8 <--work_engagement .848 we9 <--work_engagement .818 we10 <--work_engagement .828 we11 <--work_engagement .803 we12 <--work_engagement .776 we13 <--work_engagement .767 we14 <--work_engagement .557 we15 <--work_engagement .560 tl13 <--transformasional_leadership .667 tl14 <--transformasional_leadership .774 tl15 <--transformasional_leadership .764 tl16 <--transformasional_leadership .733 tl17 <--transformasional_leadership .726 tl18 <--transformasional_leadership .784 tl19 <--transformasional_leadership .763 tl20 <--transformasional_leadership .780 tl21 <--transformasional_leadership .703 tl22 <--transformasional_leadership .736 tl23 <--transformasional_leadership .762 tl24 <--transformasional_leadership .846 g <--gender .995 tl27 <--transformasional_leadership .807 tl26 <--transformasional_leadership .819 tl25 <--transformasional_leadership .806 interaction <--moderating_effect .124 interaction <--e17 .992 106 measuring construct reliability in sem is used composite reliability measure and variance extracted measure (wijanto, 2008). the acceptable level of reliability is if the construct reliability value is ≥ 0.7 and the variance extract value is ≥ 0.5 (hair et al. in wijanto, 2008). the results of the data reliability calculation can be seen in table 7. table 6. squared multiple correlations estimate work_engagement .094 interaksi .015 table 7. construct reliability (cr) and variance extract (ve) variable λ ≥ 0,5 λ2 error cr ve result cr ≥ 0,7 ve ≥ 0,5 work engagement 12.091 9.910 5.090 0.966 0.661 reliable transformational leadership 11.470 8.801 6.199 0.955 0.587 reliable the results of the calculation of the construct reliability and variance extract above show that the construct reliability (cr) of all constructs and dimensions has met the recommended value (cr ≥ 0.7). the variance extract (ve) of most constructs and dimensions has also met the recommended value (ve ≥ 0.5). thus it can be concluded that all constructs and dimensions in model_fit have good reliability. statistical hypothesis testing is carried out on 8 hypotheses partially. hypothesis testing uses a critical ratio (c.r.) value of 1.96 with a significance level of 0.05 (5%). if the cr value ≥ 1.96, then h1 is accepted, and reject h0. hypothesis testing is also done by testing the significance probability (pvalue) if the result of p-value ≤ 0.05, then h1 is accepted, and reject h0. if the value has a *** sign, then the hypothesis is significant at the 0.01 (1%) level. the cr or t value to test the hypothesis partially can be seen in table 7. table 8. regression weights model fit path coefficients estimate s.e. c.r p work_engagement  transformational_leadership .494 .125 3.943 *** work_engagement  moderating_effect -.001 .001 -1.173 .241 diagrammatically, the results of hypothesis testing from table 8 regression weights model fit above can be seen in figure 7. figure 7. path diagram of research hypothesis 107 because the c.r or t value of 3.943 > 1.96 or the p value with the *** symbol (0.000 < 0.05), it can be concluded that there is a role of transformational leadership in employee work engagement. furthermore, because the c.r value or t count is -1.173 < 1.96 or the p value with the symbol 0.241 > 0.05), then h1 is accepted, and reject h0. thus it can be concluded that there is no role of gender as a moderator in the influence of transformational leadership on employee work engagement. based on the results of the research analysis, it is known that transformational leadership has a positive effect on work engagement seen from the residual value (error of estimates) of 0.494 or 4.94%, with a p-value <0.05 (***) and the value of c.r (t count) >1.96 (3.943). this means that transformational leadership has a positive and significant effect on work engagement in employees. it is also known that gender does not moderate the effect of transformational leadership on work engagement as seen from the residual value (error of estimates) -0.001 and insignificant, with a pvalue > 0.05 (0.241) and a c.r value <1.96 (-1.173). this means that gender cannot moderate and is not significant in the effect of transformational leadership on work engagement. with the conclusion that the moderator variables in this study can be moderated by other variables. discussion this study aims to see the role of transformational leadership on employee work engagement seen with gender as a moderator variable. the results showed that there is a role of transformational leadership in employee work engagement. the results of this study are in line with and support previous research conducted by hawkes, biggs, and hegerty (2017), the role of transformational leadership behavior can create higher work engagement. according to the results of the study, the importance of developing transformational leaders is one of the methods by which companies can gain a competitive advantage. the study still has limitations in terms of sample size, which is not too large considering that the sample does not have specifications in one position only. based on the results of previous research by wulandari and nurtjhajanti (2013), shows that transformational leadership style can also affect work engagement in indicating a conducive company environment. likewise, the results of research by astuti, mimba and ratnadi (2016) on the performance of the treasurer's expenditure leadership style are associated with work engagement. furthermore, company leaders apply the principles of transformational leadership to increase employee work engagement, besides that work engagement is used as a means of establishing good relationships and being directly involved with the company, increasing employee contribution and performance, and fostering employees' desire to continue to help other coworkers. previous research findings that state transformational leadership affects work engagement including (abas & basri, 2019; amor et al., 2020; ratnaningtyas et al., 2021). employees with high work engagement, when working within the company are able to improve work performance for the better because employees have dedication, optimism, and full concentration when doing their work tims et al., (2011). based on the results of this study, the possibility that gender cannot moderate the effect of transformational leadership on employee work engagement is because male and female employees have the same work engagement in carrying out their tasks. to improve the limitations of this study, in order to further explore matters related to work engagement with a variety of supporting variables that have not been analyzed in this study and replace the moderator variable with other variables, it is hoped that the resulting impact will be maximized. then, in order to be developed for more varied research subjects, it is recommended that in the further research process, hrd does not interfere and not only employees are used as research subjects. 108 conclusion this study shows that transformational leadership has a positive and significant effect on work engagement in employees, but gender does not moderate the effect of transformational leadership on work engagement in employees. based on this research, the author can show that when employees tend to be enthusiastic about work, obey the rules and carry out work procedures applied by the company, then employees will be bound to their work and company, employees also feel afraid of losing when they want to leave the company so they tend to stay in the company. on the other hand, employees will also feel a sense of responsibility, enthusiasm and high dedication to remaining in the company. in this case, it is also necessary to have good transformational leadership and clear goals so that employees will be tied to their jobs and feel obliged to stay tied to their jobs. as a practical recommendation, employees in the company are not only encouraged to employees tend to be enthusiastic about work, obey the rules and carry out work procedures applied by the company, but also given training or training by leaders regarding good work in the company and inspire and guide their employees optimistically with the provisions or regulations. declaration acknowledgment thanks to the reviewers and proofreaders, who have helped prepare the equipment settings, and thanks to the pt pos indonesia (persero) medan and deli serdang post offices for helping in carrying out the research. author contribution statement wan mariah contributed to conducting the research design, data collecting, distributing the scales, analyzing the research results and writing the manuscript. suryani hardjo served as a supervisor who assisted and approved the research design development, oversaw the data collection process, and reviewed the results and manuscript. sjahril effendy contributed as a supervisor who assisted in preparing the research design, controlled the data collection process, distributed the research scale, provided input related to the theoretical discussion, reviewed the results and wrote the manuscript funding statement this research received no specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-forprofit sectors. data access statement the data described in this article can be accessed by contacting the first author. declaration of interest’s statement the author declares no conflict of interest. additional information no additional information is available for this paper. 109 references ariani, d. w. (2013). the relationship between employee engagement, organizational citizenship behavior, and counterproductive work behavior. international journal of business administration, 4(2), 46. https://doi.org/10.5430/ijba.v4n2p46 azwar, s. (1997). metode penelitian. pustaka pelajar. badudu, j. s., & zain, s. m. (2001). kamus umum bahasa indonesia. pustaka sinar harapan. bakker, a. b., & sanz-vergel, a. i. (2013). weekly work engagement and flourishing: the role of hindrance and challenge job demands. journal of vocational behavior, 83(3), 397–409. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2013.06.008 burns, j. m. g. (1978b). leadership. open road media. chalofsky, n., & krishna, v. (2009). meaningfulness, commitment, and engagement: the intersection of a deeper level of intrinsic motivation. advances in developing human resources, 11(2), 189–203. https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422309333147 hair jr, j. f., hult, g. t. m., ringle, c., & sarstedt, m. (2016). a primer on partial least squares structural equation modeling (pls-sem). sage publications. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80519-7 hanafi, a., & zulkifli, z. (2018). pengaruh lingkungan kerja dan disiplin kerja serta motivasi kerja terhadap kinerja karyawan. jurnal dimensi, 7(2), 406–422. handini, r. e., haryoko, s. f., & yulianto, (2014). hubungan antara work-family conflict dan keterikatan kerja pada ibu bekerja. jurnal noetic psychology, 4(2), 169–180. haryono, s. (2017). metode sem untuk penelitian manajemen amos. jakarta luxima metro media hater, j. j., & bass, b. m. (1988). superiors' evaluations and subordinates' perceptions of transformational and transactional leadership. journal of applied psychology, 73(4), 695–702. https://doi.org/10.1037/00219010.73.4.695 hawkes, a. j., biggs., a., & hegerty, e. (2017). work engagement: investigating the role of transformational leadership, job resources, and recovery. the journal of psychology, 151(6), 509–531. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.2017.1372339 johnson, m. (2004). the new rules of engagement: life-work balance and employee commitment. the cromwell press. kahn, w. a. (1990). psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. academy of management journal, 33(4), 692–724. https://doi.org/10.2307/256287 keith, t. z. (2019). multiple regression and beyond: an introduction to multiple regression and structural equation modeling. routledge. latan, h. (2012). structural equation modeling: konsep dan aplikasi menggunakan program lisrel 8.80. alfabeta shiddhanta, a. & roy, d. (2010). employee engagement engaging the 21st century workforce. asian journal of management research, 170–189. smythe, john. (2007). the ceo (chief engagement officer): turning hierarchy upside down to drive perfomance. gower publishing company. sprang, g., clark, j. j., & whitt-woosley, a. (2007). compassion fatigue, compassion satisfaction, and burnout: factors impacting a professional’s quality of life. journal of loss and trauma, 12(3), 259–280. https://doi.org/10.1080/15325020701238093 sugiyono. (2012). metode penelitian kuantitatif, kualitatif dan r&d. alfabeta supriyanto, a. s. (2010). metodologi riset manajemen sumber daya manusia. uin-maliki press. taylor, n., conner, m., & lawton, r. (2012). the impact of theory on the effectiveness of worksite physical activity interventions: a meta-analysis and meta-regression. health psychology review, 6(1), 33–73. http://doi.org/10.1080/17437199.2010.533441 https://doi.org/10.5430/ijba.v4n2p46 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2013.06.008 https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422309333147 http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80519-7 https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.73.4.695 https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.73.4.695 https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.2017.1372339 https://doi.org/10.2307/256287 https://doi.org/10.1080/15325020701238093 http://doi.org/10.1080/17437199.2010.533441 110 tims, m., bakker, a. b., & xanthopoulou, d. (2011). do transformational leaders enhance their followers’ daily work engagement? the leadership quarterly, 22(1), 121–131. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2010.12.011 utomo, k. w. (2002). kepemimpinan dan pengaruhnya terhadap perilaku citizenship (ocb), kepuasan kerja, dan perilaku perusahaan (penelitian empiris pada kabupaten kebumen). jurnal riset ekonomi dan manajemen, 2(2), 34–52. wahyuddin, s. n. m. (2001). peran kepemimpinan transformational, kepemimpinan transaksional, komunikasi internal, dan pengembangan karir terhadap kepuasan kerja di pt. sumber bengawan plasindo karanganyar. jurnal university press. yusuf, a. m. (2016). metode penelitian kuantitatif, kualitatif & penelitian gabungan. prenada media. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2010.12.011 inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research https://journal.iainlangsa.ac.id/index.php/inspira how to cite (apa 7th edition) taslim, f. & lestari kadiyono, a. (2023). entrepreneurial orientation of muslim micro, small and medium enterprises (msmes) owners in west sumatra. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 4(1), 20-28. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.6069 this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial 4.0 international (cc by-nc 4.0) copyright ©2023 by fauziah taslim & annisa lestari kadiyono research article entrepreneurial orientation of muslim micro, small and medium enterprises (msmes) owners in west sumatra https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.6069 fauziah taslim1, annisa lestari kadiyono2 1 department of psychology, universitas negeri padang, west sumatra, indonesia 2 department of psychology, universitas padjadjaran, west java, indonesia corresponding author: fauziah taslim (email: fauziahtaslim@fpk.unp.ac.id) abstract this study aims to provide an overview of entrepreneurial orientation in muslim micro, small and medium enterprises (msmes) in west sumatera province, ranked in the top 10 in the number and growth of national micro, small, and medium enterprises. this research used a quantitative approach with random sampling (n = 671). participants of this study are muslim entrepreneurs from different backgrounds, such as genders, education, and residence. the individual entrepreneurial orientation (ieo) scale was used as the measurement instrument. the data analysis used is descriptive statistics and mean comparison. the study results found that most micro, small and medium enterprises in west sumatera opened businesses in the culinary field and had a very high entrepreneurial orientation. based on the average per dimension, all dimensions had high scores. the dimension of perseverance has the highest average score (8.52), while the lowest score is owned by the innovativeness dimension (7.98). based on the analysis of the variance test, significant differences in entrepreneurial orientation were found based on gender, age, city origin, and gross profit. article history: received 17 may 2023 revised 24 may 2023 accepted 22 june 2023 keywords: entrepreneurial orientation; micro, small and medium enterprises (msmes); muslim; west sumatra introduction micro, small and medium enterprises (msmes) or usaha mikro, kecil, dan menengah (umkm) played a crucial role in indonesia’s economic growth (hastuti et al., 2020). the number of msmes reaches 64 million or 99% of all business units in indonesia and absorbs 96.9% of the national workforce (limanseto, 2021). the contribution of msmes to gdp (gross domestic product) has exceeded 20% of the country’s total income. based on data from the ministry of cooperatives and small and medium enterprises, the number of msme owners has reached 64.2 million people (novitasari, 2022). msmes absorb capital up to 60.4% of the total circulating investment. thus, it can be concluded that msmes influence the country’s economic growth (alansori & listyaningsih, 2020). a survey conducted by the lipi economic research center regarding the effects of the covid-19 pandemic on msmes in indonesia found that 94.69% of businesses experienced a decline in profits during the pandemic. the factor is production costs that remain constant or increase while sales decline. raw materials, distribution, human resources and other costs also increased. other obstacles https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.6069 https://orcid.org/0009-0006-1778-0121 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6134-6847 21 are difficulty securing raw materials, obtaining capital investments, decreased purchasing power, and hampered distribution and production (limanseto, 2021). the problems faced by msmes certainly affect the country’s economy. many efforts have been made by the government and non-governmental organizations to deal with this problem, both in terms of financing and assistance (loan restructuring policies, capital investments, cost reduction subsidies), programs to stimulate msme growth and other policies that are expected to provide relief, protection, and empowerment for indonesian msmes (limanseto, 2021). in addition to the government and organizations’ efforts, msme owners must also try to maintain their businesses. several strategies have been proven to help msme owners survive when they get hit by the effects of the covid-19 pandemic. one effective way to minimize the adverse effects of the covid-19 pandemic on msmes is the use of technology. the covid-19 pandemic has changed consumer behavior. most transactions are carried out at home using digital technology. therefore, msme owners must innovate according to market needs (limanseto, 2021). to carry out innovation and adapt to the digital market, it takes courage to take action and make your own decisions because there are risks that must be taken when owners make a change or breakthrough. behavior to make decisions and courage to take risks are concrete manifestations of entrepreneurial orientation (eo) (lumpkin & dess, 2014). lumpkin and dess define eo as processes, practices, and decision-making that lead to new actions. eo contains 5 dimensions: autonomy, innovativeness, risk-taking, proactiveness, and competitive aggressiveness (rauch et al., 2009). due to the disruptive effect of covid-19 and the rise of the digital market, there is a need to reexamine entrepreneurial orientation in a new context (krishnan et al., 2022). according to other research, eo is one of the factors in achieving business success, meaning that this eo influences the success and sustainability of msmes, especially after the covid-19 pandemic (zighan et al., 2022). so far, researches about entrepreneurial orientation in west sumatra are still limited to a smaller scale. researchers limited their focus only to education (harfandi, 2014), products (yeni h y et al., 2014), and geographic regions (putri & hariance, 2017). therefore, we researched entrepreneurial orientation (eo) in msme owners in west sumatra to reexamine eo in a post covid-19 context and on a bigger scale to provide more comprehensive data. this study aims to describe the entrepreneurial orientation of muslim msme owners in west sumatera province. understanding eo at the individual level can also benefit entrepreneurs, business incubators and potential investors considering supporting business proposals (bolton & lane, 2012). method this study used a non-experimental quantitative approach to explore entrepreneurial orientation (eo) descriptions of msme owners in west sumatra. quantitative research uses data from numbers obtained through measurements to explain research results (stockemer, 2019). the technique used for sampling is simple random sampling. the criteria for participants are muslim sme entrepreneurs settled in west sumatra (n=671). according to indonesia law number 20 of 2008, smes are businesses with annual sales from idr 300.000.000 to idr 2.500.000.000. smes have three categories: 1) micro business or annual sales of less than idr 300,000,000; 2) small business or annual sales between idr 300,000,000–idr 2,500,000,000; and 3) medium business or annual sales of more than idr 2,500,000,000. west sumatera was chosen as the research location because, based on data, west sumatera province was ranked in the top ten in the number of msmes in 2022 (santika, 2022) and msme growth in 2021 (rizaty, 2022). muslim owners were chosen as subjects because, despite the majority status 22 in west sumatera, not many pieces of research explored their entrepreneurial orientation among them (az zahra & nurul husna, 2021). data was gathered using a questionnaire spread through the internet and offline visit. before filling out the questionnaire, participants were required to fill out a consent form. the instrument used in this research was the individual entrepreneurial orientation (ieo) scale by lumpkin & dess (lumpkin & dess, 2014), which consisted of 10 items which included the dimensions of risk-taking, innovativeness, proactiveness, passion, and perseverance. items were measured using a five-point likert scale (1 strongly disagree to 5 strongly agree). higher scores implied greater levels of entrepreneurial orientation. the measurement was administered in bahasa indonesia. google forms and spss were used to gather and analyze data. the measuring instrument has a reliability of 0.8. for data analysis, researchers used descriptive analysis and analysis of variance presented in the tables below. result this research managed to get 671 respondents spread throughout west sumatra. table 1 is the demographic data of the research respondents. table 1. respondents demographics category n (%) gender men 215 (28,9%) women 457 (61,5%) age (year) <20 10 (1,5%) 20-25 140 (20,8%) 25-35 170 (25,3%) 35-45 182 (27,1%) 45-60 148 (22,0%) >60 22 (3,3%) residence agam 5 (0,7%) bukittinggi 155 (20,8%) limapuluh kota 8 (1,1%) tanah datar 4 (0,5%) padang 315 (42,3%) padang pariaman 8 (1,1%) pariaman 10 (1,3%) pasaman barat 3 (0,4%) payakumbuh 28 (3,8%) pesisir selatan 2 (0,3%) sawahlunto 44 (5,9%) sijunjung 1 (0,1%) solok 87 (11,7%) education elementary school 19 (2,6%) middle school 59 (7,9%) high school 372 (50,1%) vocational diploma 43 (5,8%) undergraduate 169 (22,7%) master 6 (0,8%) phd 1 (0,1%) uneducated formally 3 (0,4%) business field trade, hotels and restaurants, provision of food and drink 621 (92,5%) wholesale and retail, auto & motorcycle repair 5 (7.5%) 23 business category culinary 467 (69.0%) fashion 67 (10.0%) accessories 30 (4.5%) batik 2 (.3%) custom tailor 4 (.7%) others 102 (15.3%) business age 0-6 month 20 (2,7%) 6-12 month 74 (%) 1-3 years 201 (27,1%) 3-5 years 165 (22,2%) 5-10 years 127 (17,1%) >10 years 85 (11,4%) yearly income micro 529 (71,2%) small 121 (16,3%) medium 22 (3,0%) employee(s) 1-4 596 (80,2%) 5-19 69 (9,3%) 20-100 6 (0,8%) >100 1 (0,1%) based on gender, it was found that most msme owners were women (61.5%). in the age category, the majority of msmes in west sumatra are in the range of 35-45 years old. based on the residence, most msme owners come from the provincial capital, padang (42.3%). in the education category, most msmes in west sumatra chose sma as their last education (50%). based on the business sector, msme owners prefer to do business in the trade, hotel & restaurant, food and drink provision sector. furthermore, the most popular business category is the culinary business (69%). for the length of business, most msmes have been in business for 1-3 years (27.1%). regarding income, most are still on a micro scale, with annual sales lower than idr 300,000,000 (71.2%). based on the number of employees, most msmes still have 1-4 employees (80%). based on descriptive statistics, an overview of entrepreneurial orientation for msme owners in west sumatera as a whole and based on each dimension can be seen in table 2. table 2. overview of entrepreneurial orientation in smes owners in west sumatera category n (%) very low 0 (0%) low 3 (0.4%) average 36 (5.4%) high 253 (37.6%) very high 380 (56.5%) the results of entrepreneurial orientation research on muslim smes owners in west sumatra show that 56.5% of sme owners had a very high level of entrepreneurial orientation (eo), and 37.6% had a high eo. there are no muslim msme owners who have very low eo, and only 0.4% have low eo. this finding shows that muslim msme owners in west sumatra have high eo in running their businesses, which means they can create processes, practice, and make decisions that lead to actions. based on the average per dimension, all dimensions have a high score. the dimension of perseverance has the highest average score (8.52), while the lowest score is owned by the innovativeness dimension (7.98). perseverance means persistence in entrepreneurship, then innovativeness means creativity in discovering new things (rauch et al., 2009). then the researchers also tested the mean difference, as seen in table 4. 24 table 3. entrepreneurial orientation score per dimensions dimensions mean (sd) risk taking 8.04 (1.55) innovativeness 7.98 (1.56) proactiveness 8.46 (1.17) passion 8.51 (1.30) perseverance 8.52 (1.16) table 4. mean comparison between demographics category p-value result category with the highest average category with the lowest average gender <.001 significant men (mean: 45) women (mean: 42.46) age .001 significant 20-25 (mean: 44.8 ) < 20 (mean: 40.5) residence .028 significant bukittinggi (mean: 45.37) padang (mean: 42.03 ) business field .233 not significant trade, hotels and restaurants, provision of food and drink (mean: 43.4) wholesale and retail, auto & motorcycle repair (mean: 41.32) business age .361 not significant 1-3 years (mean: 43.9) 10 years (mean:40.80 ) income <.001 significant middle (mean: 45.2) micro (mean: 42.8) business category .061 not significant culinary (mean: 44.5) accessories (mean: 43.1) employee(s) .150 not significant 20-100 employees (mean: 48.5) 1-4 employees (mean: 46.8) education .086 not significant undergraduate (mean: 45.6) master (mean: 40.16) the means different tests showed significant differences in entrepreneurship orientation scores between groups in gender, age, residence, and income (p-value = <.05). discussion the result showed that muslim msme owners in west sumatra have a high entrepreneurial orientation. this finding means they can independently lead a business and see them succeed, have a competitive spirit, have a tendency to be creative in the form of experimentation to introduce new products and services, have an opportunistic and visionary perspective to anticipate future demands, take bold action by exploring a risky business (rauch et al., 2009). a high entrepreneurial orientation has been associated with company performance, profitability, growth and product innovation (bolton & lane, 2012). this result contradicts the previous research that found indonesian samples tend to have a low entrepreneurial orientation (herlinawati et al., 2019). culture-specific factors might cause the difference. entrepreneurship is culturally engraved in west sumatra people. there is a proverb, “elok jadi kapalo samuik daripado ikua gajah”, which means it is better to be a small group leader than a member of a large organization. becoming an entrepreneur is one way to prove those principles (handaru et al., 2015). also, according to west sumatera’s culture, entrepreneurship was believed to be a concrete form of religious observance and belongingness to one’s culture (sutanto & nurrachman, 2018). respondents to this research were primarily women (61.5%). a shift in gender roles causes a large number of women in business. women earning a living are increasingly common, primarily through entrepreneurship. many successful businesses are controlled by women (boeri, 2018). many businesses in indonesia also provide broad access for women to show their achievements. in many big cities in indonesia, women’s participation in managing family businesses is also high, especially for women with higher education. the advantages of women in family business management are unique because women are patient, painstaking, tenacious and thrifty (nikou et al., 2019). based on a previous survey 2018, women manage 51% of msmes in indonesia.(setiawan et al., 2020). this study supported the results of the survey. 25 despite being the majority, women had lower entrepreneurial orientation scores. the previous research had similar results. men tend to have a higher tendency towards entrepreneurship, and men tend to become entrepreneurs. however, no differences were found in risk-taking and innovation (kumar et al., 2021). other studies have shown that men get higher averages in risk-taking, whereas scores for women respondents are higher for innovation scores (barba-sánchez et al., 2022). other research confirms that male respondents show higher levels of entrepreneurial desire, highlighting that men are more risk-oriented while women desire situations with known outcomes. then, women will show a more significant change in entrepreneurial orientation than men after receiving entrepreneurial training (mutlutürk, 2018; van ewijk & belghiti-mahut, 2019). most of this research respondents hailed from padang, the capital of west sumatra. this finding supports the previous research, which found that the highest number of msmes in west sumatra was in padang (ningsih & tasman, 2020). the environment is an essential factor that forms entrepreneurial intentions. cities that are administrative and economic centers tend to have more businesses due to ease of access to capital, raw materials, distribution, and the number of potential buyers (bilgiseven & kasimoǧlu, 2019). the city/district with the highest average entrepreneurship orientation score is held by the city of bukitinggi (43.64). research on linking entrepreneurship orientation with a place of residence is still rarely investigated. however, based on other studies, it was found that the businesses of rural entrepreneurs earn far more than rural workers but are still lower than entrepreneurs from urban areas (yu & artz, 2019). most muslim entrepreneurs in west sumatra are 35-45 years old, and the age group 20-25 has the highest average (44.88). the general assumption is that the older a person is, the lower the probability of doing business. however, recent research shows a lack of statistical evidence to support the hypothesis that age is inversely related to entrepreneurial tendencies (nguyen, 2018). in previous meta-analytical research linking age and entrepreneurship, it was found that age has a weak positive linear relationship with entrepreneurship as a whole, and further research should be carried out because entrepreneurship is complex (zhao et al., 2021). most msme owners are s1 graduates or bachelor. regarding the link between education and entrepreneurship, it was found that education can influence entrepreneurial intentions. the higher the education, the higher the interest in entrepreneurship (atiningsih & kristanto, 2020). entrepreneurial education and unique facilities such as classes, workshops, scholarships, grants, and work experience influence entrepreneurial orientation (debarliev et al., 2022; mutlutürk, 2018). in indonesia, some university has entrepreneurship program in the form of program mahasiswa wirausaha (pmw) or students entrepreneurship program, entrepreneurship class or workshop, and business incubator. the programs could be pivotal in developing entrepreneurial orientation in college students (endriani, 2020). in the income category, most of them were categorized in micro-entrepreneurship (71%). the medium category achieved the highest entrepreneur orientation score (2.5 m-50 m per year) with an average score of 46. no definite conclusions regarding the relationship between income and entrepreneur orientation have been found. older research assumes that entrepreneurial orientation is positively related to company profits. however, in the latest empirical findings, eo has no significant effect on profitability. nonetheless, it has been agreed that eo directly affects the company’s growth rate (genc et al., 2019). this study described entrepreneurial orientation in muslim mses owners in west sumatra. just like other research, this research has several limitations. first, the study limited itself to muslims in west 26 sumatra respondents. it could not be used as a base to generalize entrepreneurial orientation in indonesia. second, the questionnaire was self-administered. thus, subjective biases are probable. conclusion based on the analysis that has been carried out, it was found that muslim msme owners in west sumatera have a very high entrepreneurship orientation, which means they are innovative, passionate, proactive, able to take risks and persevere. the study also found a significant difference in entrepreneurial orientation based on gender, age category, residence, and income. the finding shows how strong the entrepreneurial orientation in west sumatra is. as a recommendation, doing similar research in different provinces is encouraged to obtain more complete data. declaration acknowledgment the authors would like to express their deepest gratitude to each researcher participating in this research. we also thank the muslim entrepreneurs in west sumatra who participated in this study. author contribution statement fauziah taslim composed the research background, discussion, and data gathering. anissa lestari kadiyono helped with the data analysis part and general support in every part of the research. funding statement this research received no specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-forprofit sectors. data access statement the data described in this article are not publicly available, so that the research results can be seen directly in the presented manuscript. declaration of interest’s statement the author declares no conflict of interest. additional information no additional information is available for this paper. references alansori. a. & listyaningsih, e. (2020). kontribusi umkm terhadap kesejahteraan masyarakat. penerbit andi. atiningsih suci, & kristanto rudi suryo. (2020). peran self-efficacy dalam memediasi pengaruh pengetahuan berwirausaha, tingkat pendidikan, lingkungan keluarga, dan pengalaman kerja terhadap minat berwirausaha. fokus ekonomi, 15(2), 385–404. http://doi.org/10.34152/fe.15.2.385-404 az zahra, a., & nurul husna, a. (2021). intensi berwirausaha pengusaha muslim: peran nilai-nilai keislaman dalam pendirian usaha. jurnal psikologi integratif, 9(2), 194–208. https://doi.org/10.14421/jpsi.v9i2.2202 barba-sánchez, v., mitre-aranda, m., & brío-gonzález, j. del. (2022). the entrepreneurial intention of university students: an environmental perspective. european research on management and business economics, 28(2). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iedeen.2021.100184 http://doi.org/10.34152/fe.15.2.385-404 https://doi.org/10.14421/jpsi.v9i2.2202 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iedeen.2021.100184 27 bilgiseven, e. b. & kasimoǧlu, m. (2019). analysis of factors leading to entrepreneurial intention. procedia computer science, 158, 885–890. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2019.09.127 boeri, n. (2018). challenging the gendered entrepreneurial subject: gender, development, and the informal economy in india. gender and society, 32(2), 157–179. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243217750119 bolton, d. l. & lane, m. d. (2012). individual entrepreneurial orientation: development of a measurement instrument. education and training, 54(2–3), 219–233. https://doi.org/10.1108/00400911211210314 debarliev, s., janeska-iliev, a., stripeikis, o., & zupan, b. (2022). what can education bring to entrepreneurship? formal versus non-formal education. journal of small business management, 60(1), 219–252. https://doi.org/10.1080/00472778.2019.1700691 endriani, a., & hasrul, h. (2020). evaluasi program mahasiswa wirausaha tahun 2018 di universitas negeri padang. journal of civic education, 3(1), 92–100. https://doi.org/10.24036/jce.v3i1.324 genc, e., dayan, m., & genc, o. f. (2019). the impact of sme internationalization on innovation: the mediating role of market and entrepreneurial orientation. industrial marketing management, 82, 253–264. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2019.01.008 handaru, a. w., pagita, m. p., & parimita, w. (2015). karakteristik entrepreneurship melalui multiple diskriminan analisis (studi pada etnis tionghoa, jawa dan minang di bekasi utara). jurnal riset manajemen sains indonesia, 6(1), 351-375. https://doi.org/10.21009/jrmsi.006.1.02 harfandi. (2014). menggali potensi jiwa kewirausahaan mahasiswa ptain di sumatera barat. jurnal al-adl, 7(2), 125–144. http://doi.org/10.31332/aladl.v7i2.224 hastuti, p., nurofik, a., purnomo, a., hasibuan, a., aribowo, h., ilmi faried, a., sudarso, a., kurniawan soetijono, i., hadi saputra, d., & simarmata janner. (2020). kewirausahaan dan umkm. yayasan kita menulis. herlinawati, e., suryana, s., ahman, e., & machmud, a. (2019). the effect of entrepreneurial orientation on smes business performance in indonesia. journal of entrepreneurship education, 22(5), 1–15. krishnan, c. s. n., ganesh, l. s., & rajendran, c. (2022). entrepreneurial interventions for crisis management: lessons from the covid-19 pandemic’s impact on entrepreneurial ventures. international journal of disaster risk reduction, 72, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2022.102830 kumar, s., paray, z. a., & dwivedi, a. k. (2021). student’s entrepreneurial orientation and intentions: a study across gender, academic background, and regions. higher education, skills and work-based learning, 11(1), 78–91. https://doi.org/10.1108/heswbl-01-2019-0009 limanseto, h. (2021). umkm menjadi pilar penting dalam perekonomian indonesia. kementerian koordinator bidang perekonomian republik indonesia. https://ekon.go.id/publikasi/detail/2969/umkm-menjadipilar-penting-dalam-perekonomian-indonesia lumpkin, g. t., & dess, g. g. (2014). entrepreneurial orientation. in c. l. cooper (ed.), wiley encyclopedia of management, (pp. 1–4). wiley. mutlutürk, m. , & m. s. (2018). analyzing factors affecting the individual entrepreneurial orientation of university students. journal of entrepreneurship education, 21(1), 1–16. nguyen, c. (2018). demographic factors, family background and prior self-employment on entrepreneurial intention vietnamese business students are different: why? journal of global entrepreneurship research, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40497-018-0097-3 nikou, s., brännback, m., carsrud, a. l., & brush, c. g. (2019). entrepreneurial intentions and gender: pathways to start-up. international journal of gender and entrepreneurship, 11(3), 348–372. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijge-04-2019-0088 ningsih, t. n., & tasman, a. (2020). pengaruh financial literacy dan financial inclusion terhadap kinerja umkm. jurnal kajian manajemen dan wirausaha, 2(4), 151. https://doi.org/10.24036/jkmw02100330 novitasari anindita trinura. (2022). kontribusi umkm terhadap pertumbuhan ekonomi era digitalisasi melalui peran pemerintah. journal of applied business and economics (jabe), 9(2), 184–204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2019.09.127 https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243217750119 https://doi.org/10.1108/00400911211210314 https://doi.org/10.1080/00472778.2019.1700691 https://doi.org/10.24036/jce.v3i1.324 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2019.01.008 https://doi.org/10.21009/jrmsi.006.1.02 http://doi.org/10.31332/aladl.v7i2.224 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2022.102830 https://doi.org/10.1108/heswbl-01-2019-0009 https://ekon.go.id/publikasi/detail/2969/umkm-menjadi-pilar-penting-dalam-perekonomian-indonesia https://ekon.go.id/publikasi/detail/2969/umkm-menjadi-pilar-penting-dalam-perekonomian-indonesia https://doi.org/10.1186/s40497-018-0097-3 https://doi.org/10.1108/ijge-04-2019-0088 https://doi.org/10.24036/jkmw02100330 28 putri, a., & hariance, r. (2017). pengaruh orientasi kewirausahaan terhadap kinerja produk pada the effect of entrepreneurship orientation on product performance of coffee agroindustry in bukittinggi. jurnal lahan suboptimal, 6(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.33230/jlso.6.1.2017.275 rauch, a., wiklund, j., lumpkin, g. t., & frese, m. (2009). entrepreneurial orientation and business performance: an assessment of past research and suggestions for the future. entrepreneurship: theory and practice, 33(3), 761–787. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6520.2009.00308.x rizaty, m. (2022). ini provinsi dengan pertumbuhan industri mikro-kecil tertinggi per kuartal iv 2021. katadata. https://databoks.katadata.co.id/datapublish/2022/06/21/ini-provinsi-dengan-pertumbuhan-industrimikro-kecil-tertinggi-per-kuartal-iv-2021 santika, e. f. (2022). jumlah umkm di indonesia sepanjang 2022. katadata. https://databoks.katadata.co.id/datapublish/2023/02/02/jumlah-umkm-di-indonesia-sepanjang-2022provinsi-mana-terbanyak setiawan, f. i., sienatra, k. b., & ary, w. w. (2020). pengaruh variabel –variabel gender-role orientation terhadap intensi berwirausaha. management sustainable development journal, 2(2), 27–39. https://doi.org/10.46229/msdj.v2i2.165 stockemer, d. (2019). quantitative methods for the social sciences a practical introduction with examples in spss and stata. springer nature. sutanto, o. & nurrachman, n. (2018). how javanese, minangnese, and chinese people interpret enterpreneurship: a social representation study. jurnal psikologi ulayat, 5(1), 86–108. https://doi.org/10.24854/jpu12018-75 van ewijk, a. r., & belghiti-mahut, s. (2019). context, gender and entrepreneurial intentions: how entrepreneurship education changes the equation. international journal of gender and entrepreneurship, 11(4), 75–98. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijge-05-2018-0054 yeni, h. y., luthan, e., hastini, l. s., & primasari, a. (2014). pemberdayaan industri kreatif sektor kerajinan di sumatera barat melalui entrepreneurial marketing: studi pada umkm bordir dan sulaman. jurnal aplikasi manajemen (jam), 12(3). https://jurnaljam.ub.ac.id/index.php/jam/article/view/690 yu, l., & artz, g. m. (2019). does rural entrepreneurship pay? small business economics, 53(3), 647–668. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-018-0073-x zhao, h., o’connor, g., wu, j., & lumpkin, g. t. (2021). age and entrepreneurial career success: a review and a meta-analysis. journal of business venturing, 36(1). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2020.106007 zighan, s., abualqumboz, m., dwaikat, n., & alkalha, z. (2022). the role of entrepreneurial orientation in developing smes resilience capabilities throughout covid-19. international journal of entrepreneurship and innovation, 23(4), 227–239. https://doi.org/10.1177/14657503211046849 https://doi.org/10.33230/jlso.6.1.2017.275 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6520.2009.00308.x https://databoks.katadata.co.id/datapublish/2022/06/21/ini-provinsi-dengan-pertumbuhan-industri-mikro-kecil-tertinggi-per-kuartal-iv-2021 https://databoks.katadata.co.id/datapublish/2022/06/21/ini-provinsi-dengan-pertumbuhan-industri-mikro-kecil-tertinggi-per-kuartal-iv-2021 https://databoks.katadata.co.id/datapublish/2023/02/02/jumlah-umkm-di-indonesia-sepanjang-2022-provinsi-mana-terbanyak https://databoks.katadata.co.id/datapublish/2023/02/02/jumlah-umkm-di-indonesia-sepanjang-2022-provinsi-mana-terbanyak https://doi.org/10.46229/msdj.v2i2.165 https://doi.org/10.24854/jpu12018-75 https://doi.org/10.1108/ijge-05-2018-0054 https://jurnaljam.ub.ac.id/index.php/jam/article/view/690 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-018-0073-x https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2020.106007 https://doi.org/10.1177/14657503211046849 inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research https://journal.iainlangsa.ac.id/index.php/inspira how to cite (apa 7th edition) naraha, h. c., prahara, s. a., & setyaningtyas, a. d. a. (2023). husband's social support and subjective well-being among javanese mothers of children with special needs. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 4(1), 11–19. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.5784 this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial 4.0 international (cc by-nc 4.0) copyright ©2023 by hesdo celvin naraha, sowanya ardi prahara & angelina dyah arum setyaningtyas research article husband's social support and subjective well-being among javanese mothers of children with special needs https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.5784 hesdo celvin naraha1, sowanya ardi prahara2, angelina dyah arum setyaningtyas3 1 department of psychology, universitas mercu buana yogyakarta, special region of yogyakarta, indonesia 2 department of psychology, universitas mercu buana yogyakarta, special region of yogyakarta, indonesia 3 department of psychology, universitas mercu buana yogyakarta, special region of yogyakarta, indonesia corresponding author: hesdo celvin naraha (email: 18081885@student.mercubuana-yogya.ac.id) abstract a husband’s social support is one of the factors shaping subjective wellbeing in mothers who have children with special needs. it is undoubtedly influenced by the cultural values that form the basis of relationships in families of javanese ethnicity. therefore, this study looks at the relationship between the husband’s social support and subjective well-being in mothers with children with special needs with a javanese ethnic background. the sampling technique used was probability sampling with 36 participants of mothers of javanese ethnicity who had children with special needs in the age range of 1-18 years—data collection using the mother’s subjective well-being scale and the husband’s social support scale. the data analysis technique used is pearson product-moment correlation. the data analysis shows no relationship between subjective well-being and husband’s social support in mothers of javanese ethnicity who have children with special needs. the results of this study imply that subjective well-being in mothers with javanese ethnicity is not related to external factors. article history: received 21 february 2023 revised 09 may 2023 accepted 08 june 2023 keywords: children with special needs; husband’s social support; javanese ethnicity; subjective well-being introduction childcare is every parent’s social responsibility and obligation (inawati, 2014). as one of the social identities inherent in parents, ethnicity influences perspectives and cultural values explicitly characterized in the dynamics of parenting in the family. parents of javanese ethnicity have parenting patterns based on the values and cultural systems adopted. as stated by uyun (2002), families of javanese ethnicity have different parenting styles and perspectives because mothers tend to get greater propriety in caring for children than fathers. it is undoubtedly in line with the values in javanese culture that specifically place mothers as caregivers of children in the family (putri & lestari, 2015; uyun, 2002). the role of mothers in javanese families is in the domestic sphere. this role is known as kanca wingking, which means friends behind. in another sense, it can be interpreted that the role of mothers is related to masak (cooking), macak (dressing up), and manak (birthing) (hermawati, 2007; putri & lestari, 2015; uyun, 2002). a number of studies on families of javanese ethnicity have consistently found that the task of childcare is still focused on the mother’s responsibility (budiati, 2010; nisa et al., 2022; putri & lestari, 2015; uyun, 2002). https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.5784 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3694-2708 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0507-7571 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3219-3826 12 the role of childcare, which mothers dominantly carry out, is considered normal in javanese culture because being a mother and carrying out the role of childcare is the ideal characteristic of a woman from the perspective of javanese culture (budiati, 2010). in carrying out their responsibilities, mothers bring warmth to the family as a form of affection and act as caregivers in caring for their children (nisa et al., 2022). the many roles that are carried out certainly affect the mother’s psychological condition, especially in mothers with children with special needs, of course, experiencing different life dynamics in carrying out and interpreting their roles. research by değirmenci (2019) found that mothers who have children with special needs generally experience anxiety disorders and depression. these conditions impact the loss of connection between mothers and their social community. in addition, shenaar-golan (2015) summarizes several previous studies and then explains that mothers face problems with children with special needs. the difficulty of caring for children with special needs causes conflict between parents in the family and socially the child’s companion. in this case, the mother becomes difficult to socialize with, and financially it becomes more challenging to deal with (shenaar-golan, 2015). mothers as caregivers and companions of children with special needs are also affected by the double burden they have to perform simultaneously, as found in research by putri & rahmawati (2021) that explains the psychological conditions of mothers with double burden, including learning companions of children. it is explained that this condition manifests in the tendency to abuse children both physically and verbally, and then mothers also experience a range of negative emotions such as worry, anxiety, fear, frustration and pessimism. these various conditions indicate that mothers of children with special needs are a group vulnerable to psychological disorders (rasheed, 2022). thus, it provides a clear overview of the psychological condition of mothers who are generally unhappy or unwell. the mothers’ discomfort in caring for children with special needs is described in andayani et al. (2021), which state that mothers who have children with special needs tend to experience negative emotions such as feeling disappointed, anxious, sad and angry. in addition, mothers also expressed feelings of dissatisfaction with health and perceptions of success. these conditions emerge as a form of low subjective well-being in mothers. according to diener et al. (2018), subjective well-being or globally referred to as subjective wellbeing (swb), is a personal understanding of the quality of life that can be achieved by feeling satisfied with life as a whole and experiencing pleasant or positive emotional states more often. diener (2009) states that three components make up subjective well-being: happiness, the feeling of satisfaction with the life lived and the high intensity of experiencing positive emotions rather than negative ones. the existence of subjective well-being in mothers with children with special needs will certainly have a positive effect on the better psychological condition of the mother. as described above, it can be argued that subjective well-being must be owned by mothers who accompany children with special needs. this view is conveyed by andayani et al. (2021) that mothers who have children with special needs will feel better if they have ideal subjective well-being in themselves. it is further explained that this state is characterized by life satisfaction, often happiness, and rarely experiencing negative emotions. another finding by negeri (2014) reported that up to 55.9% of mothers who have children with special needs feel satisfied with their current life, which is achieved by the existence of good subjective well-being conditions in mothers. in addition, wijayanti (2015) reported that mothers’ positive subjective well-being impacts the excellent acceptance of children with special needs. therefore, the above findings clearly show that mothers with special needs need to have good subjective well-being in themselves (andayani et al., 2021; negeri, 2014; wijayanti, 2015). in order to form positive subjective well-being in mothers as companions of children with special needs, it is necessary to pay 13 attention to a number of factors that promote subjective well-being. according to dewi & nasywa (2019), subjective well-being generally consists of two, namely internal factors such as personality, spirituality, forgiveness, gratitude, and self-esteem, while the external factor is social support. the relationship between parents or couples who have children with special needs certainly has a significant impact on their personal lives. one form of relationship between husbands and wives is receiving social support from mothers that can come from husbands. as described by previous research, a good husband’s social support is a manifestation of a quality home life and marriage (dawenan & shanti, 2021). the high level of the husband’s social support also affects the equality of roles between husband and wife so that the two of them together take the initiative and try to help each other, especially in solving family problems (martinea & sunarti, 2020). a number of descriptions above indicate that the high acceptance of the husband’s social support for mothers positively impacts the mother’s well-being. in line with this, martinea & sunarti (2020) explained that the husband’s social support to the mother is a tangible manifestation of love or affection expressed in everyday life. the more intense the mother receives the husband’s social support, certainly increases the experience of life satisfaction and positive emotions of the mother. however, sarason et al. in nurhayati dawenan & shanti (2021) explain that social support is also influenced by gender roles, including the husband’s social support for mothers who have children with special needs. therefore, a family’s cultural context and values need to be considered. as explained by uyun (2002), ethnic families, in particular, have unique patterns of interaction and relationships between husbands and wives. the unique relationship between husband and wife in javanese families is still limited to explanations derived from general values and philosophy of life. meanwhile, the reality of change and time development has affected the perspective and gender roles in javanese culture (hermawati, 2007). therefore, it is essential to explain the relationship between the husband’s social support to mothers concerning the basic dimensions that make up the existence of the husband’s social support, which refers to the understanding of people from javanese ethnicity. from the above explanations, it can be seen that husband’s social support is one of the essential factors that promote the formation of the mother’s subjective well-being. referring to kuncoro et al. (2016), a husband’s social support is the mother’s or wife’s view towards her husband about the existence of a husband who can support and help solve problems. the husband’s social support dimensions are based on javanese cultural values, namely giving advice, providing assistance, and expressing support through encouragement, consolation and understanding feelings. in this article, we aim to examine the relationship between husbands’ social support and subjective well-being among mothers who accompany their children with special needs for distance learning during the covid-19 pandemic. method this study is an inferential quantitative study involving 36 mothers as research subjects. this study’s subject criteria are mothers with children with special needs aged 1-18 years and of javanese ethnicity. the sampling technique used in this study is probability sampling using a simple random sampling technique. data collection was conducted online using google forms by distributing the scale through social media such as whatsapp, facebook, and instagram directly to groups of parents who have children with special needs, are community members, and are parents of special school students. the instrument used to measure subjective well-being is the mother’s subjective well-being (mswb) scale, which was compiled by nabilla (2020). this scale consists of 15 items, with the index of 14 the items differential between .564 and .781, and the alpha cronbach value of the mswb is .937. meanwhile, the husband support scale (hss) was used to measure the husband’s social support, which was compiled by kuncoro et al. (2016). this scale consists of 21 items, with the item differentiation index moving between .428—.564 and the reliability value of hss of 0.733. data were analyzed using karl pearson’s product-moment correlation technique for hypothesis testing. in contrast, additional analysis was conducted using the one-way anova test to conduct a different test based on demographic factors such as employment status, mother’s education level, and child’s gender. result the descriptive analysis of the research data shows maternal employment status, maternal education level, maternal residence, and number of children with special needs by gender, age, and type of education. information on demographic data is presented in table 1. table 1. the demographic of participants (n=36) category n (%) mother’s employment status employed 16 (55.6%) unemployed 20 (44.4%) mother’s educational level senior high 14 (38.9%) undergraduate 19 (52.8%) master 3 (8.3%) mother’s domicile special region of yogyakarta 19 (52.8%) central java 6 (16.7%) the special capital region of jakarta 3 (8.3%) east java 1 (2.8%) north sumatera 1 (2.8%) unidentified 6 (16.7%) child’s gender male 18 (50.0%) female 18 (50.0%) child’s age 5 years 1 (2.8%) 6 years 2 (5.6%) 7 years 2 (5.6%) 8 years 3 (8.3%) 9 years 5 (13.9%) 10 years 4 (11.1%) 11 years 2 (5.6%) 12 years 3 (8.3%) 13 years 4 (11.1%) 14 years 3 (8.3%) 15 years 4 (11.1%) 16 years 1 (2.8%) 17 years 1 (2.8%) 18 years 1 (2.8%) type of child’s education unit special school 27 (75.0%) regular school 9 (25.0%) husband’s social support mother’s subjective well-being figure 1 hypothesis model 15 the research data were processed through a series of analyses to get an overview of the subject’s condition. the assumption test was carried out as a prerequisite for conducting hypothesis testing, namely the normality and data linearity tests. the results of the data normality test by the shapirowilk test obtained data on the husband’s social support (p = .158), and the mother’s subjective wellbeing (p = .281) showed that the data were normally distributed. furthermore, the obtained linearity test (f = 1.301; p = .281) showed that the data had a non-linear relationship. furthermore, hypothesis testing was carried out using karl pearson’s product-moment correlation analysis technique to test the relationship between the husband’s social support and the mother’s subjective well-being obtained (r = .148; p = .390), indicating that there is no relationship between husband’s social support and mother’s subjective well-being. the analysis results obtained the coefficient of determination (r2 = .022), which means that the husband’s social support contributes effectiveness of (2.2%) to subjective well-being in mothers with children with special needs from javanese ethnicity. meanwhile, (97.8%) of mothers’ subjective well-being is influenced by other factors not examined in this study, such as resilience, gratitude, adaptability, and coping strategies. the results of hypothesis testing using correlation tests can be seen in table 2. table 2. mean, standard deviation and correlation between variables variable mean sd correlation 1 2 mother’s subjective well-being 15.6 2.406 husband’s social support 69.47 18.537 .390* n = 36; *p < .05 hypothesis testing was conducted using karl pearson’s product-moment correlation analysis technique. the correlation test results between the husband’s social support and subjective wellbeing obtained a value of r = .148 (p = .390), meaning there is no positive and significant relationship between the husband’s social support and the mother’s subjective well-being. these results indicate that the social support of their husbands does not always determine the high subjective well-being of mothers who have children with special needs. the analysis results showed a coefficient of determination r2 = .022, which means that the social support of the husband contributes 2.2% to the effectiveness of the subjective well-being of mothers with children with special needs. therefore, 97.8% of mothers’ subjective well-being is influenced by other factors not examined in this study, such as resilience, gratitude, adaptability, and coping strategies. in an additional analysis, one-way anova was used to examine the subjective well-being of mothers with children with special needs about demographic factors such as employment status, mother’s education level, and child’s gender. the results of the difference test are shown in table 3. table 2. mother's subjective well-being level based on demographic factors category n mean sd f p mother’s employment status .272 .606* employed 16 15.38 2.419 unemployed 20 15.80 2.441 mother’s educational level senior high 14 14.93 2.235 .944 .399* undergraduate 19 16.00 2.646 master 3 16.33 .557 child’s gender male 18 16.28 2.024 2.916 .097 female 18 14.94 2.623 n = 36; *p < .05 16 discussion this study aims to analyze the relationship between the husband’s social support and subjective well-being among mothers of javanese ethnicity with special needs children. the findings of this study are consistent with the views of diener et al. (2018) that subjective well-being is an evaluation of all life experiences that comes from the individual’s own reflection. this means that the subjective wellbeing of mothers who have children with special needs is not always influenced by external factors, such as the husband’s social support, because subjective well-being can be experienced through the mother’s internal meaning and perspective. nevertheless, the results of this study contradict some previous studies. in a study, indraswari (2019) conducted on families of javanese ethnicity, it was explained that the husband’s social support is one factor that shapes good marital quality. it was explained that marital quality also influenced the level of subjective well-being of husbands and wives in the family, with a percentage of (6.2%). in line with previous opinions, the results of a qualitative study by balkis & masykur (2016) show that subjects who are mothers have good subjective well-being due to the social support of their husbands. the presence of social support from the husband impacts the subjects’ low experience of negative emotions such as hopelessness, sadness, and disappointment. the above two research findings both show a positive relationship between the husband’s social support and the subjective well-being of mothers (balkis & masykur, 2016; indraswari, 2019). in contrast to the previous studies, the results of this study showed no significant relationship between husbands’ social support and subjective well-being in mothers. regarding the characteristics of the subjects, mothers with children with special needs from javanese ethnic families, it is explained that the mother’s social identity as a javanese woman and the cultural values she holds contribute to the state of subjective well-being of the mother (diener, 2009). in support of the above statement, according to akhtar (2018), the understanding of subjective well-being is commonly known as happiness. however, to understand it more, the subjective well-being of javanese people must be viewed from a cultural perspective. therefore, the difference between western and javanese cultural perspectives is one of the factors in interpreting the subjective well-being of individuals, including mothers who have children with special needs and are of javanese ethnicity (akhtar, 2018). in support of these findings, mujamiasih et al. (2013) explained that a number of factors influence subjective well-being in javanese people, such as the principle of life intended, feelings of security and comfort, and knowledge and life experiences. the intended life principle, by mujamiasih et al. (2013) is consistent with the concept of javanese subjective well-being described by akhtar (2018) that a person is considered to be prosperous if he or she is able to accept sad and happy situations in his or her life, this acceptance is also consistent with a sense of stoicism, which is one of the javanese life principles, including mothers who have children with special needs from javanese ethnicity. research by nirmala (2013) reports that the well-being of mothers who have children with special needs can be achieved with the perception of good meaningfulness in life. it is explained that mothers with good meaningfulness in life can develop a more positive attitude towards life, thus encouraging mothers to live their daily lives with a sense of responsibility. the subjective well-being of mothers of javanese ethnicity who have children with special needs is indeed inseparable from the mother’s view of her identity as a javanese woman. nirmala (2013) explained that the meaning of their lives strongly influences mothers who experience well-being or happiness. the intended meaning is, of course, also related to the role of the mother. a study by uyun (2002) reported a shared role between mother and father in javanese family life. it is explained that the mother’s role is related to domestic matters, such as taking care of children and helping her husband. in line with the above view, putri & lestari (2015) added that the mother’s 17 role also includes taking care of and educating children, so it can be said that mothers, in particular, play an important and central role in javanese families. nevertheless, the many roles mothers play may also affect their subjective well-being, especially during the covid-19 pandemic. the results of the study, andayani et al. (2021) report that the condition of mothers who have children with special needs in a pandemic is actually at a good stage because mothers consciously recognize that they are satisfied with the life they are living. the life satisfaction experienced by mothers is a form of good subjective well-being because mothers can interpret the various conditions they face positively (andayani et al., 2021). the various descriptions above show that the mother’s identity as a javanese woman strongly influences her views on caring for and accompanying children undergoing distance learning during the covid-19 pandemic. this is reinforced by the view of musman (2021), who states that javanese women must basically have a soft heart, stable emotions, calm feelings, and polite behavior. through these principles, musman (2021) explains that there are a number of positive attitudes lived by a javanese woman, including willingness or “rila”, which means awareness to accept various conditions fully and honestly. in addition, javanese women also have an attitude of “narima” or acceptance, which means acceptance with gratitude for whatever happens and honestly being able to take responsibility for it. this attitude is certainly based on javanese cultural values that encourage mothers to develop a positive attitude so that internally mothers with children with special needs can develop better subjective well-being. therefore, mothers’ subjective well-being does not always depend on external factors outside of themselves. conclusion based on the analysis results described above, it can be concluded that there is no relationship between the husband’s social support and subjective well-being among mothers of children with special needs who are of javanese ethnicity. this result shows that mothers’ subjective well-being is not always influenced by external factors such as the husband’s social support. there is little contribution to the mother's subjective well-being from the husband's social support. meanwhile, mothers’ subjective well-being can be influenced by other factors not examined in this study, such as resilience, gratitude, adaptability and coping strategies. the author’s suggestion for future researchers is to explore the state of subjective well-being of mothers, especially mothers of javanese ethnicity, which can be viewed from an indigenous psychology perspective. in addition, the conditions after the covid-19 pandemic certainly affect the psychological dynamics of mothers. thus, it can be an input for future research. in the meantime, practical advice is given to mothers who become caregivers of children to improve and maintain stability within themselves so that they have better subjective well-being. declaration acknowledgment the authors would like to express their deepest gratitude to each research team member who contributed and actively participated in this research. we also thank the parents of children with down syndrome who are members of the potads community, the helen keller indonesia slb in yogyakarta, and the parents who volunteered to participate in this study. author contribution statement hesdo celvin naraha contributed to conducting the research design, creating google forms for data collection, distributing the scales, analyzing the research results and writing the manuscript. sowanya ardi prahara served as a supervisor who assisted and approved the research design development, 18 oversaw the data collection process, and reviewed the results and manuscript. angelina dyah arum setyaningtyas contributed as a supervisor who assisted in preparing the research design, controlled the data collection process, distributed the research scale, provided input related to the theoretical discussion, reviewed the results and wrote the manuscript. funding statement this research received no specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-forprofit sectors. data access statement the data described in this article are not publicly available, so the results of the research can be seen directly in the manuscript presented. declaration of interest’s statement the author declares no conflict of interest. additional information this research was conducted during the covid-19 pandemic. references akhtar, h. (2018). perspektif kultural untuk pengembangan pengukuran kebahagiaan orang jawa. buletin psikologi, 26(1), 54–63. https://doi.org/10.22146/buletinpsikologi.30895 andayani, s. a., pudjibudojo, j. k., & tjahjono, e. (2021). subjective well being ibu yang mempunyai anak dengan adhd pada saat pandemi covid-19. jurnal psikologi talenta, 7(1), 44–51. https://doi.org/10.26858/talenta.v7i1.23826 balkis, a. s., & masykur, a. m. (2016). memahami subjective well-being guru honorer sekolah dasar negeri (sebuah studi kualitatif fenomenologis). jurnal empati, 5(2), 223–228. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.14710/empati.2016.15047 budiati, a. c. (2010). aktualisasi diri perempuan dalam sistem budaya jawa (persepsi perempuan terhadap nilainilai budaya jawa dalam mengaktualisasikan diri). jurnal pamator : jurnal ilmiah universitas trunojoyo madura, 3(1), 51–59. https://doi.org/10.21107/pamator.v3i1.2401 değirmenci, g. y. (2019). “summer doesn’t come with a single rose’’ : a qualitative research of turkish mothers’ social support systems who have a child with asd. toplum ve sosyal hizmet, 30(2), 519–537. https://doi.org/10.33417/tsh.572216 dewi, l., & nasywa, n. (2019). faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi subjective well-being. jurnal psikologi terapan dan pendidikan, 1(1), 54. https://doi.org/10.26555/jptp.v1i1.15129 diener, e., lucas, r. e., & oishi, s. (2018). advances and open questions in the science of subjective well-being. collabra: psychology, 4(1), 1–49. https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.115 diener. e. (2009). subjective well-being. in e. diener (ed.), the science of well-being (pp. 11–58). springer netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2350-6 hermawati, t. (2007). budaya jawa dan kesetaraan gender. jurnal komunikasi massa, 1(1), 18–24. https://digilib.uns.ac.id/dokumen/download/10734/mjqxndm=/budaya-jawa-dan-kesetaraan-genderabstrak.pdf inawati, a. (2014). peran perempuan dalam mempertahankan kebudayaan jawa dan kearifan lokal. musawa : jurnal studi gender dan islam, 13(2), 195–206. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.14421/musawa.2014.132.195-206 https://doi.org/10.22146/buletinpsikologi.30895 https://doi.org/10.26858/talenta.v7i1.23826 https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.14710/empati.2016.15047 https://doi.org/10.21107/pamator.v3i1.2401 https://doi.org/10.33417/tsh.572216 https://doi.org/10.26555/jptp.v1i1.15129 https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.115 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2350-6 https://digilib.uns.ac.id/dokumen/download/10734/mjqxndm=/budaya-jawa-dan-kesetaraan-gender-abstrak.pdf https://digilib.uns.ac.id/dokumen/download/10734/mjqxndm=/budaya-jawa-dan-kesetaraan-gender-abstrak.pdf https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.14421/musawa.2014.132.195-206 19 indraswari, d. p. (2019). subjective well-being ditinjau dari kualitas perkawinan pada pasangan suami istri di daerah istimewa yogyakarta. jurnal mahasiswa psikologi, 1(1), 159–167. https://journal.student.uny.ac.id/index.php/psikologi/article/view/16266 kuncoro, m. w., soeharto, t. n. e. d., & prahara, s. a. (2016). konstruksi instrumen pengukuran dukungan suami dan konflik pekerjaan-keluarga pada ibu yang bekerja: berbasis pendekatan indigenous. prosiding seminas nasional psikologi indigenous indonesia 2016, 287–300. http://digilib.mercubuana.ac.id/manager/t!@file_artikel_abstrak/isi_artikel_300081787184.pdf martinea, s., & sunarti, e. (2020). the influence of husband-wife interaction and parent-child interaction on family subjective well-being in kb and non-kb villages. journal of family sciences, 4(2), 91–104. https://doi.org/10.29244/jfs.4.2.91-104 mujamiasih, m., prihastuty, r., & hariyadi, s. (2013). subjective well-being (swb): studi indigenous karyawan bersuku jawa. journal of social and industrial psychology, 2(2), 36–42. https://doi.org/10.15294/sip.v2i2.2592 musman, a. (2021). nrimo ing pandum (cara berbahagia ala orang jawa). pustaka jawi. nabilla, r. s. a. (2020). hubungan antara gratitude dengan subjective well-being pada ibu yang mendampingi anak sekolah dari rumah selama masa pandemi covid-19. [undergraduate thesis, universitas mercu buana yogyakarta. http://eprints.mercubuana-yogya.ac.id/id/eprint/9468/ negeri, c. b. (2014). subjective well being pada ibu yang memiliki anak tuna rungu. calyptra: jurnal ilmiah mahasiswa universitas surabaya, 2(2), 1–16. https://journal.ubaya.ac.id/index.php/jimus/article/view/760 nirmala, a. p. (2013). tingkat kebermaknaan hidup dan optimisme pada ibu yang mempunyai anak berkebutuhan khusus. developmental and clinical psychology, 2(2), 6–12. https://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/dcp/article/view/2570 nisa, h., puspitarini, l. m., & zahrohti, m. l. (2022). perbedaan peran ibu dan ayah dalam pengasuhan anak pada keluarga jawa. jurnal multidisiplin west science, 1(02), 244–255. https://wnj.westsciencepress.com/index.php/jmws/article/view/68 nurhayati dawenan, f., & shanti, p. (2022). the correlation between husbands’ social support and anxiety in mothers who have experienced mom-shaming in malang city. kne social sciences, 7(1), 109–124. https://doi.org/10.18502/kss.v7i1.10205 putri, d. p. k. & lestari, s. (2015). pembagian peran dalam rumah tangga pada pasangan suami istri jawa. jurnal penelitian humaniora, 16(1), 72–85. https://doi.org/10.23917/humaniora.v16i1.1523 putri, y. a., & rahmawati, intan. (2021). mengungkap beban ganda pada ibu di masa pandemi covid-19. prosiding konferensi nasional universitas nahdlatul ulama indonesia 2021, 101–116. http://journal.unusia.ac.id/index.php/conferenceunusia/article/view/195 rasheed, a. (2022). hope, quality of life, and self-efficacy among mothers with special needs children. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 3(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i1.3850 shenaar-golan, v. (2015). hope and subjective well-being among parents of children with special needs. child & family social work, 22(1), 306–316. https://doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12241 uyun, q. (2002). peran gender dalam budaya jawa. psikologika: jurnal pemikiran dan penelitian psikologi, 7(13), 32–42. https://doi.org/10.20885/psikologika.vol7.iss13.art3 wijayanti, d. (2015). subjective well-being dan penerimaan diri ibu yang memiliki anak down syndrome. psikoborneo : jurnal ilmiah psikologi, 3(2), 224–238. https://doi.org/10.30872/psikoborneo.v3i2.3774 https://journal.student.uny.ac.id/index.php/psikologi/article/view/16266 http://digilib.mercubuana.ac.id/manager/t!@file_artikel_abstrak/isi_artikel_300081787184.pdf https://doi.org/10.29244/jfs.4.2.91-104 https://doi.org/10.15294/sip.v2i2.2592 http://eprints.mercubuana-yogya.ac.id/id/eprint/9468/ https://journal.ubaya.ac.id/index.php/jimus/article/view/760 https://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/dcp/article/view/2570 https://wnj.westscience-press.com/index.php/jmws/article/view/68 https://wnj.westscience-press.com/index.php/jmws/article/view/68 https://doi.org/10.18502/kss.v7i1.10205 https://doi.org/10.23917/humaniora.v16i1.1523 http://journal.unusia.ac.id/index.php/conferenceunusia/article/view/195 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i1.3850 https://doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12241 https://doi.org/10.20885/psikologika.vol7.iss13.art3 https://doi.org/10.30872/psikoborneo.v3i2.3774 issn ;2541450x (online) 41 vol. 2 no. 2 (dec 2021), pp. 41-49 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v2i2.3133 coping strategy of a single mother in overcoming child inferiority attitude novita sari1, zulkarnain2, marimbun1 1 department of islamic guidance and counseling, institut agama islam negeri langsa, aceh, indonesia; 2 department of islamic communication and broadcasting, institut agama islam negeri langsa, aceh, indonesia  corresponding author: marimbun (email: marimbun.kauman@gmail.com) abstract – inferiority can arise for children who do not get the father’s role, especially when comparing themselves to their friend who still has a father. this study aims to find out the inferiority attitude displayed by children who have a single mother and know the coping strategies of single-parent mothers overcoming the child’s inferiority attitude. the study subjects were three singleparent mothers in gampong birem puntong kota langsa whose children had inferiority and families with purposive sampling techniques. the research method used is qualitative with a descriptive approach—data collection techniques through observation and interviews. the data analysis was done by data reduction, data presentation, and verification or inference of data. the results showed that the inferiority displayed by children who have a single mother arises due to losing a father figure. single mother coping strategies overcome the child’s inferiority by making a plan that is arranged according to the needs of the child, then carrying it out in accordance with the right time, overcoming obstacles when carrying it out, and having the last step in the form of follow-up to evaluate and supervise every development experienced by the child. article history: received: july 27, 2021 revised: september 29, 2021 accepted: november 02, 2021 published: december 31, 2021 keyword: coping strategy; inferiority; single mother; single parent how to cite (apa 7th edition) sari, n., zulkarnain, & marimbun. (2021). coping strategy of a single mother in overcoming child inferiority attitude. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 2(2), 41-49. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v2i2. 3133 this is an open-access article distributed under the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. this is enabled under the terms of attribution and noncommercial usage of the material. ©2021 by sari, n., zulkarnain, & marimbun. 42 coping strategy of a single mother in overcoming child inferiority attitude the family becomes a fundamental primary group in a society formed from the father, mother, and child relationship. family bonding begins with marriage which is an absolute requirement to form a family (ahmadi, 2007; andayani, 2016; kamalin, 2020). the purpose of marriage is to obtain a valid offspring recognized by the community by forming an ideal household known in the term of sakinah, mawaddah wa rahmah family (akhzani, 2020; ministry of religious affairs, 2009; gustiawati & lestari, 2018; matul hikmah, 2020). a whole family has complete members such as a father, mother, and children. conversely, the absence of the role of one parent due to death or divorce exerts a different influence on the development of the child (ahmadi, 2007; hasibuan, 2016; septianita et al., 2019). the phenomenon in the field is that many mothers educate their children alone, either because of divorce or death. mothers take care of their children without a husband figure, often called single mothers (damayanti & dewi, 2017; novitasari, 2020). children who do not get attention from their fathers harm the development of children. one of the effects is inferiority (andriana, 2020). humans begin to live in small, weak, inferiority (munawaroh & christiana, 2021; silvyana, 2018). inferiority includes feelings of worthlessness due to the psychological inability to feel deprived and comparing themselves to children who have a complete family (muttaqien, 2013; yulilla, 2017). while the characteristics of people who feel inferiority can be seen from their behavior. the behavior of inferiority among others (1) always alone and withdraw from the association. people who do not have meaningful abilities do not want to get along and withdraw from the association. (2) always hesitate in acting. people who feel they do not have a meaningful ability will always hesitate in acting. such a feeling would be self-defeating. (3) do not want to compete positively, such as clever competition, fabricating, and bicycle racing (agustiani, 2019). a person’s weakness will result in feeling inferior. feeling excessive inferiority can affect mental health. conversely, a person’s ability to overcome feelings of inferiority will make the soul healthy and strive towards perfection and happiness (alwisol, 2009). based on the facts in the field, single mothers in gampong birem puntong related to a series of particular problems in raising their children. single mothers are concerned, especially about family costs, so they have to work alone while providing education and raising their children. while the child of a single mother is often moody when they see their friends have a whole family that she considers luckier so that the child likes to stay at home. in addition, the child feels inferior when the friends tell him about family intact. of course, this condition presents a problem of single mothers overcoming the inferiority of their children. a single parent is not an option, but the status is forced to be carried because of divorce or the husband’s death. therefore, it takes tremendous energy to carry out the task of bearing the burden of education and the needs of children. they must be physically strong because they must make a living for their children (linuwih, 2020). some of the results of previous research related to the struggle of life as a single parent that single parents must open a business (work), educate and raise children (layliyah, 2013). the results of julia et al. (2019), the application of parenting in the context of emotional maturity of single mothers leads to permissive parenting. a busy single mother in carrying out two roles so that the time to accompany and pay attention to children’s activities is not maximal. at the same time, some single parents apply democratic parenting, such as being open, caring, prioritizing introduction sari, n., zulkarnain, & marimbun. 43 compassion and responsibility. isma’s research (2016) explained that single parents must perform a dual role. act as a father as well as a mother. giving a dual role is not an easy thing primarily related to education. the condition’s demands will be a burden that can cause stress, and if left, it will affect mental health (fitria et al., 2021). therefore. there needs to be a coping strategy that single parents must do in caring for their children. some of the results of previous research related to coping strategies include coping strategies conducted by ahsyari (2014), that single parents do problem-focused coping such as reducing the intensity of work, positive activities, and hard work. while emotional-focused coping, single parents are looking for various kinds of busyness, expanding association, closing themselves about divorce, being patient, sincere, taking wisdom every problem, and getting closer to god. furthermore, nabit et al. (2019) found that the coping strategy used is emotionalfocused coping and problem-focused coping. this study explores coping strategies carried out by single mothers to overcome the inferiority attitude that arises in children. this study uses qualitative with a descriptive approach (arikunto, 2014). participants in the study were three single mothers and their children aged 9-12 years. to add information, researchers also engaged other family members. this research was conducted in gampong birem puntong, kota langsa aceh, indonesia. data is collected through an in-depth interview process as well as participatory observations. then, the data obtained is analyzed continuously until it gets patterns that form conclusions (sugiyono, 2017). data analysis adopts techniques proposed by miles and huberman through data reduction, data presentation, verification, or data inference. inferiority is an attitude of feeling when feeling imperfect, incomplete, and having flaws. the nature of inferiority leads to the problem of low self-concept, as happens to children who lose a father figure either because they die or the father has divorced the mother. based on the interviews with three families of single mothers obtained an explanation about the inferiority displayed by children who have single mothers in gampong birem puntong kota langsa. one of the families who became informants was siti (pseudonym), a single mother due to divorce from her husband. siti works as a domestic assistant in one of the housing estates around birem puntong. from the results of the interview with siti, researchers get information about the inferiority displayed by her son, as follows: “since separating or divorcing my husband, my son’s attitude changed, he was more silent and liked to be in the house alone, although the association with friends was fine, he preferred not to leave the house. similarly, iyus (pseudonym), a single mother (her husband died), worked as a small trader in the market. the inferiority attitude displayed by the son based on the results of the interview is as follows: “he prefers to stay at home rather than play with peers who are in the neighborhood around the house, thus causing the association with friends less good.” furthermore, suti (pseudonym), a single mother who works as a trader in hutan kota langsa. previously suti only worked as a housewife, but since her husband died, she took the initiative to trade/sell food around the protected forest park. based on the results of the interview regarding the inferiority research method result 44 coping strategy of a single mother in overcoming child inferiority attitude displayed by her son, he gave the following statement: “if there are friends to enter the race, both at school and at home, then he will reject it. despite never playing with friends, my son’s attitude towards his friends is fine.” from the interview results that researchers get from the three mothers above, it can be concluded that the inferiority displayed by children is caused by the loss of an important figure in life, namely a father who has been beside him. the study results did not see the difference in the inferiority attitude of children who lost a father due to divorce and the father’s loss caused by death. children who do not get the role of father can result in inferiority towards the child. since the loss of the father’s role can change the attitude of these children, children prefer to be alone at home rather than playing with their peers around the home environment. children who do not get the role of father can give birth to an attitude of inferiority. however, not all children who do not get the role of father will experience this lousy attitude— however, the inferior attitude experienced by children who become informants of researchers. one of the informants interviewed was sandi (pseudonym), of class vi student, following the caption: “when my father died, i was hospitalized because i was too sad. after the incident, i withdrew from the association with friends and preferred to be alone at home. the same thing was felt by darul (pseudonym), a class vi student. darul’s description of the low self-esteem that appears can be explained below: “i like to be alone and prefer to follow my mother to sell than play with friends since you have died” inferior attitude is born from feeling less than others, especially when comparing myself to friends who still have fathers. based on the results of interviews with children who experience inferiority due to the absence of a father. since being left by the father, the children’s attitude changed. the child prefers to spend time at home rather than play with friends. the inferior attitude experienced by children in gampong birem puntong kota langsa needs to be overcome so that the inferior attitude does not continue until adulthood, hindering social relations in society. therefore. there needs to be a coping strategy that the mother must do. as a single parent, her mother must have a dual role for her family. the dual role includes meeting children’s psychological needs, such as providing a sense of security, affection, and attention. in addition, single parents must meet children’s physical needs, including food needs, education, health, and other needs. this means that single mothers must be able to divide their time between homework and work outside the home so that children can feel the affection of their parents and fulfill them. likewise, with the life of single mothers in gampong birem puntong kota langsa where single mothers have to work to meet their living needs such as being domestic assistants (maids), traders in the market, and traders/selling in tourist attractions, so that the form of attention and affection is reduced. in order for the mother to carry out her duties as a single parent, as a single mother, she needs to make an action or effort to face the problems she faces. the effort in question is commonly called coping. single mothers carried out the coping strategy in gampong birem puntong kota langsa by making several plans prepared based on their initiative. the child also knows that the planning that has been made by the mother, following the results of interviews with three families of single mothers, obtained explanations or information about the coping strategy of single mothers overcoming the inferiority of children in gampong birem puntong kota langsa. sari, n., zulkarnain, & marimbun. 45 first, the researcher got information from siti about the coping strategies she did in overcoming the son’s inferiority was as follows: “the planning i made there are many such as providing support, direction, attention, supervising the learning and most importantly is to bring the child closer to the uncle so that the figure of a father who has been irreplaceable by the presence of an uncle. the implementation stage is done gradually in accordance with the needs of the child. nevertheless, not everything can be done simultaneously and smoothly. there must be obstacles that inhibit, while the perceived obstacle is time because my busy work must hinder my planning time. therefore, to overcome these obstacles, if the time off has arrived, then i invite children to go on vacation/sightseeing to tourist attractions.” second, the researchers got information from iyus about the coping strategies she did in overcoming the child’s inferiority attitude is as follows: “my planning in overcoming inferiority is to provide motivation, support, positive outlook, build confidence, tell children to play outside the home and provide things that make him happy. for the implementation stage, i do it gradually and prioritize planning in accordance with the condition of the child. however, in every plan that has been made, the problem of time is the current obstacle. thus, to carry out the planning must have free time such as going to tourist attractions while buying things that my child likes.” third, the researcher got information from suti about the coping strategies she did in overcoming the son’s inferiority was as follows: “for the planning i made was to provide support, compassion, advice, motivation and encourage to be able to play outside with friends. while in its implementation is still constrained by time, but to outsmart it in every good time, then i will carry out the plan and prioritize what is needed by my son.” the results of the interview that researchers get from the three mothers, it can be concluded that the coping strategy of single mothers problem-focused coping in overcoming the inferiority of children is to do the planning, carry out planning, overcome the obstacles that are time such as by taking a vacation or finding the best time to carry out the planning. meanwhile, after the planning and implementation stage is carried out, the children can feel the results, such as one of the children named rani (pseudonym), said: “i know the mother is making plans to change my attitude. i often give them advice and motivation that you give me, so now i am more eager to learn seriously in order to make my mother happy in the future.” from the interview results that the researchers above, it can be concluded that planning and stages of exemplary implementation will produce the best, likewise with the mother’s coping strategy in overcoming the inferiority of her child. after making a plan and carrying it out, the results can change the child’s attitude. inferiority that a person has because of feeling lack of others. inferior attitude is very closely related to the minder. inferiority is the opposite of superiority, which is permanently attached to a person in every phase of life. inferiority is caused by being too dominant in self-deficiency so that it seeps into character. this can happen to children who lose a father figure either due to death or divorce from their mother. inferiority not only occurs in adulthood but can occur in childhood (booree, 1962/2010). as for the following characteristics of low self-behavior (prayoga, 2013): a) always aloof and withdraw from the association; b) always hesitate in acting; c) do not want to compete positively. discussion 46 coping strategy of a single mother in overcoming child inferiority attitude inferiority arises because it feels less valuable when comparing themselves with friends who still have fathers. inferiority arises due to the psychological inability to give judgment to the lessthan-perfect self. feeling inferior can occur in a person in this phase of life. therefore, inferiority is not a sign of abnormality (yusuf, 2004). a person with advantages certainly has shortcomings, and shortcomings also have advantages (marimbun, 2019). inferiority occurs when a person is more likely to see the flaws. therefore, one must be able to see its shortcomings and advantages objectively (putri, 2018). single parents have a dual role in fulfilling their family life, such as meeting the psychological needs of children and meeting physical needs (anggraheni, 2016). single mothers cannot afford to divide their time between homework and work outside the home. problems will occur when single mothers cannot divide their time between homework and work outside the home. when a single parent feels depressed about the problem of life, the burden of life will be heavier, impacting reduced affection for children. therefore, single mothers need to make various efforts in dealing with various problems in their lives called coping (prasetyawati, 2018). almost everyone has problems just having different levels. there are demands to solve problems in stressful situations. ways to overcome pressing demands are called coping. coping is seen as a balancing factor in maintaining self-adjustment during stressful situations (diah, 2010). one form of a coping strategy used is problem-focused coping (fatimah, 2018). problemfocused coping strategies are actions directed toward problem-solving. a person will tend to use this behavior if they assess the problems they faces can still be controlled. problem-centered coping behavior tends to be done if a person feels constructive can be done to the situation or believes that the resources at their disposal can change it (hardiyanti &permana, 2019; maryam, 2017). problem-focused coping is used to reduce stressors by learning new ways or skills. a person will tend to use this strategy if they believe they can change situations that bring stress. adults use this method more often (lestari, 2013; smet, 1957/1994; sujadi & wahab, 2017). coping with stress directed at problems that bring stress (problem-focused coping) aims to reduce the demands that bring stress or enlarge resources to deal with it. the method used is a direct action method. problem-focused coping, which consists of 3 types, namely: a) confrontation; the individual clings to stance and defends what they want, changes the situation aggressively and dares to take risks; b) seek social support; individuals trying to get help from others; c) plan for problem-solving; individuals think about, create and devise problem-solving plans to be solved (smet, 1957/1994). mothers, such as 1) have also done the three types of problem-focused coping above) have confidence that the coping strategy provided will work; 2) have other assistance, such as asking for support from an uncle to become the father figure of the child left by father; and 3) have planning, implementation, and follow-up to coping strategies. this study concluded related to the coping strategy of single mothers in overcoming the inferiority of children that the inferiority displayed by single mothers in gampong birem puntong kota langsa arises due to the impact of losing the father figure that is always there and protects it. the absence of a father figure in the child’s life eventually results in the child’s attitude turning into inferior (inferior) towards the friends and only choosing to spend time in the house. conclusion sari, n., zulkarnain, & marimbun. 47 single problem-focused coping strategies overcome the inferiority of children in gampong birem puntong kota langsa in the form of making plannings arranged according to the needs of the child, then carrying it out in accordance with the right time, overcoming obstacles when carrying it out, and having the last step in the form of follow-up to evaluate and supervise every development experienced by the child. agustiani, m. (2019). penerapan teknik cognitive restructuring untuk mengatasi low self-esteem remaja (studi di kelurahan kamanisan kecamatan curug kota serang provinsi banten) [undergraduate thesis, uin sultan maulana hasanuddin banten]. http://repository.uinbanten.ac.id/4128/ ahmadi, a. (2007). psikologi sosial. rineka cipta. ahsyari, e. r. n. (2014). kelelahan emosional dan strategi coping pada wanita single parent (studi kasus single parent di kabupaten paser). psikoborneo: jurnal ilmiah psikologi, 2(3), 170176. http://e-journals.unmul.ac.id/index.php/psikoneo/article/view/3659 akhzani, m. (2020). upaya membentuk keluarga sakinah pada pernikahan dini di desa karanggede kecamatan arjosari kabupaten pacitan [undergraduate thesis, iain ponorogo]. http://etheses.iainponorogo.ac.id/12391/ alwisol. (2009). psikologi kepribadian. umm press. andayani, s. (2016). kekerasan seksual terhadap istri dalam perspektif hifdz al-nasl (keturunan) [undergraduate thesis. universitas islam negeri alauddin makassar]. http://repositori.uinalauddin.ac.id/838/ andriana, r. (2020). penerimaan diri remaja yang memiliki ayah dan ibu tiri di kelurahan sawah lebar kota bengkulu. [undergraduate thesis, iain bengkulu]. anggraheni, d. a. (2016, february 19-20). fenomena perceraian: makna kebahagiaan dalam sudut pandang single mother. [paper presentation], 122–127. seminar asean 2nd psychology & humanity, malang, indonesia. arikunto, s. (2014). prosedur penelitian: suatu pendekatan praktik,. rineka cipta. booree, g. (2010). personality theory: melacak kepribadian anda bersama psikolog dunia, (inyiak ridwan muzir, trans.) prismasophie. (original work published 1952) damayanti, d., & dewi, r. (2017). stigma pada perempuan single parent dengan hiv positif (studi kualitatif). jurnal kesehatan metro sai wawai, 10(2), 55–66. 10.26630/jkm.v10i2.1727 departemen agama ri. (2009). al-qur’an dan terjemahnya. tiga serangkai. diah, m. f. (2010). perbedaan problem focused coping dalam menghadapi masalah pada pria dan wanita yang menjalani pacaran jarak jauh di masa dewasa awal. [undergraduate thesis, univeristas sanata dharma yogyakarta]. fatimah, m. (2018). strategi coping dan distorsi kognitif pada ibu tunggal di yogyakarta. insight: jurnal ilmiah psikologi, 20(1), 29–41. https://doi.org/10.26486/psikologi.v20i1.631 fitria, c. i., yusmami, & marimbun. (2021). manajemen stres istri yang melangsungkan references 48 coping strategy of a single mother in overcoming child inferiority attitude pernikahan dini. jambura guidance and counseling journal, 2(1), 36–43. https://doi.org/10.37411/jgcj.v2i1.637 gustiawati, s., & lestari, n. (2018). aktualisasi konsep kafa’ah dalam membangun keharmonisan rumah tangga. mizan: journal of islamic law, 4(1), 33–86. https://doi.org/10.32507/mizan.v4i1.174 hardiyanti, r., & permana, i. (2019). strategi coping terhadap stress kerja pada perawat di rumah sakit: literatur review. jurnal keperawatan muhammadiyah, 4(2).\, 73-81. http://journal.umsurabaya.ac.id/index.php/jkm/article/view/2599 hasibuan, m. r. (2016). pengaruh konflik keluarga terhadap akhlak remaja di desa mompang kecamatan barumun kabupaten padanglawas [undergraduate thesis, iain padangsidimpuan]. http://etd.iain-padangsidimpuan.ac.id/2460/ isma, n. (2016). peranan orang tua tunggal (single parent) dalam pendidikan moral anak (studi kasus delapan orang ayah di desa songing kecamatan sinjai selatan kabupaten sinjai). jurnal sosialisasi: jurnal hasil pemikiran, penelitian dan pengembangan keilmuan sosiologi pendidikan, 3(1), 1-5. https://doi.org/10.26858/sosialisasi.v3i1.2345 julia, h., jarnawi, & indra, s. (2019). pola pengasuhan pada konteks kematangan emosional ibu single parent. indonesian journal of counseling and development, 1(1), 31–49. https://doi.org/10.32939/ijcd.v1i1.370 kamalin, m. (2020). konstruksi keluarga ideal sebagai fondasi kehidupan bernegara menurut taqiyuddin al-nabhani [doctoral dissertation, universitas islam negeri sultan syarif kasim riau]. http://repository.uin-suska.ac.id/27971/ layliyah, z. (2013). perjuangan hidup single parent. the sociology of islam, 3(1). http://jurnalfisip.uinsby.ac.id/index.php/jsi/article/view/39 lestari, d. w. (2013). penerimaan diri dan strategi coping pada remaja korban perceraian orang tua. psikoborneo: jurnal ilmiah psikologi, 1(4), 196-203. http://ejournals.unmul.ac.id/index.php/psikoneo/article/view/3515 linuwih, t. s. (2020). perilaku keagamaan bagi anak single parent: studi kasus di griya kebraon surabaya [undergraduate thesis, uin sunan ampel surabaya]. http://digilib.uinsby.ac.id/44398/ marimbun, m. (2019). minat membaca dan implementasinya dalam bimbingan dan konseling. enlighten: jurnal bimbingan konseling islam, 2(2), 74–84. https://doi.org/10.32505/enlighten.v2i2.1361 maryam, s. (2017). strategi coping: teori dan sumberdayanya. jurnal konseling andi matappa, 1(2), 101-107. http://dx.doi.org/10.31100/jurkam.v1i2.12 matul hikmah, y. (2020). peran tokoh agama dalam meningkatkan nilai nilai hukum keluarga islam untuk mencegah kdrt bagi pasangan suami isteri di desa lubuk harjo kecamatan bayung lencir [undergraduate thesis, uin raden fatah palembang]. http://repository.radenfatah.ac.id/7996/ munawaroh, a., & christiana, e. (2021). inferiority remaja pelaku bullying di sekolah menengah pertama. jurnal bk unesa, 12(2), 134–143. https://jurnalmahasiswa.unesa.ac.id/index.php/jurnal-bk-unesa/article/view/36484 sari, n., zulkarnain, & marimbun. 49 muttaqien, m. i. (2013). self disclosure pada remaja difabel [undergraduate thesis, universitas muhammadiyah surakarta]. http://eprints.ums.ac.id/25378/ nabit, y. p., keraf, m. k. . a., & anakaka, d. l. (2019). strategi coping stres pada ibu single parent pasca ditinggal suami merantau. journal of health and behavioral science, 1(4), 241-261. https://doi.org/10.35508/jhbs.v1i4.2108 novitasari, d. a. (2020). pola asuh single parent dalam mendidik, mendisiplinkan dan melindungi anak [undergraduate thesis, universitas airlangga]. http://repository.unair.ac.id/98516/ prasetyawati, i. (2018). strategi coping pada ibu single parent. [undergraduate thesis, universitas muhammadiyah surakarta]. prayoga, s. a. (2013). pola pengasuhan anak pada keluarga orangtua tunggal (studi pada 4 orangtua tunggal di bandar lampung). [undergraduate thesis, universitas lampung]. putri, k. d. (2018). hubungan antara inferiority feelings dengan agresivitas pada remaja. [undergraduate thesis, uin sunan ampel surabaya]. septianita, g., abdurrahmansyah, & fauzi, m. (2019). peran pendidikan in-formal dalam mendidik anak pada keluarga broken home di kelurahan bukit lama kota palembang. jurnal pai raden fatah, 1(1), 47–61. https://doi.org/10.19109/pairf.v1i1.3009 silvyana, f. (2018). striving for superiority pada remaja penyandang disabilitas fisik. [undergraduate thesis, uin sunan ampel surabaya]. smet, b. (1994). psikologi kesehatan, (anshori, trans) grasindo. (original work published 1957) sugiyono. (2017). metode penelitian kuantitatif, kualitatif dan r&d. alfabeta. sujadi, e., & wahab, m. (2017). strategi coping korban bullying. tarbawi: jurnal ilmu pendidikan, 13(2), 21–32. http://ejournal.iainkerinci.ac.id/index.php/tarbawi/article/view/190 yulilla, d. (2017). prinsip individual adler pada atlet tuna daksa di kota tenggarong kabupaten kutai kartanegara. jurnal psikoborneo, 5(4), 590–597. http://ejournals.unmul.ac.id/index.php/psikoneo/article/view/4479 yusuf, s. (2004). mental hygiene. pustaka bani quraisy. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research https://journal.iainlangsa.ac.id/index.php/inspira how to cite (apa 7th edition) javed bhatti, r. & fahd, s. (2022). the relationship between schemas and quality of life of hiv patients: role of social connectedness as a mediator. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 3(2), 63–70. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i2.4984 this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial 4.0 international (cc by-nc 4.0) copyright ©2022 by rabiah javed bhatti & samar fahd research article the relationship between schemas and quality of life of hiv patients: role of social connectedness as a mediator https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i2.4984 rabiah javed bhatti1, samar fahd2 1 department of applied psychology, the islamia university of bahawalpur, bahawalpur, pakistan 2 department of applied psychology, the islamia university of bahawalpur, bahawalpur, pakistan corresponding author: rabiah javed bhatti (email: rabianokia6.1@gmail.com) abstract as the aids epidemic has unfolded, it has caused adverse psychosocial and economic consequences, disrupting the personal and familial lives of the infected individuals and society in general. the present study attempted to study the relationship between schemas and the quality of life among hiv individuals. the study also incorporated the role of social connectedness as a mediator. for data collection, hiv patients (n = 30) were taken using convenient sampling from the specialized hiv clinic in rahimyar khan, pakistan. the information was gathered using the urdu versions of the following standardized instruments: the schema mode inventory, the whoqol-hiv bref, and the social connectedness scale-revised. the results showed a strong relationship between individuals’ schemas and their quality of life. maladaptive schemas negatively predict the quality of life, while social connectedness positively predicts the quality of life, and maladaptive schemas negatively predict social connectedness. the mediation analysis established that social connectedness fully mediates the relationship between self-esteem and social anxiety. the study also provided an understanding of the positive role of social connectedness as a mediator in enhancing the quality of life of hiv patients. article history: received 31 october 2022 revised 09 december 2022 accepted 27 december 2022 keywords: hiv-aids; quality of life; schema; social connectedness introduction the aids scourge has severe mental and financial consequences, leading to a transformation in family structure and, as a result, disrupting the nuclear and extended family’s capacity to respond to the needs of hiv-affected members (ankrah, 1993). in addition, integrated interventions for hivinfected people can help them to seek and access health care services, reduce risky sexual behaviors and the risk of transmission, and improve psychological health. in exploring the underlying processes, bhatta, liabsuetrakul, & mcneil (2017) suggest a need for several systematic assessments and metaevaluations primarily based on interventions targeted at restoring social interaction, communication skills, and health quality in people with hiv. for people living with hiv, enhancing the emotional bonds of curing, strengthening a healthy life, and increasing life expectancy are very important. it is highly dependent on timely diagnosis, treatment, and adherence. studies confirm that medication adherence is always less than required in https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i2.4984 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8890-4175 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9460-3811 64 chronic patients (rehman et al., 2019). according to young’s theory (1995), maladaptive schemas should be highly steady and stable beliefs that explain poor treatment responses to clinical problems. a correlational study conducted in tehran with hiv/aids patients suggests that “practical interventions to reduce maladaptive responses may result in healthier outcomes, quality of life, and self-care behaviors” (seyedalinaghi et al., 2020). according to bhatta, liabsuetrakul, & mcneil (2017), “interventions with a revised section of standard health-related facilities can be a positive resource in enhancing the quality of life of individuals infected with this chronic disease. behavioral or social intervention practices are based on various ideas that change a person’s psychological and social characteristics. behavioral or social intervention program endows hiv clients to share experiences between groups that will help lessen their loneliness, negative emotions and stress”. the conception of quality of life states that a person’s perception of his or her position in life is according to the culture and values of the life in which they live and concerning their goals, expectations, standards, and concerns (who, 1995). a standard of living reflects a person’s physical, mental, emotional, and social functioning in life. quality of life can be enhanced through a variety of management approaches, including independent, social, psychological, structural, and environmental rehabilitation. environmental, organizational, social, and human factors may impede treatment compliance and influence the overall health conditions of people living with hiv. the world health organization (1997) defines social health structures as “the conditions in which people are born, raised, lived, worked, and their age” and “the underlying causes of these conditions” (marmot & bell, 2012). these conditions act as natural environments in which individual behaviors meet in accordance with environmental and biological descriptions that affect health (green & hiatt, 2009). following a proper treatment plan for better hiv management is strongly linked with medical, psychological, behavioral, interpersonal, and intrapersonal dynamics. studies (carrico et al., 2007; davis et al., 2016, as cited in taylor, 2018) have shown that during treatment, clients who do not follow the rules have more mental health problems, less social support, destructive ways to deal with stress, and use drugs and alcohol too much. a study by lobbestael et al. (2010) recognized that schemas reflect an individual’s internal representation. they develop at a very young age, are shaped by selective straining processes of external experiences, and proceed to develop and advance throughout life (as cited in riaz et al., 2013). perocelli et al. (2001), as cited by riaz et al. (2013), say that schema methods are activated when specific plans or reactions to deal with them turn into effective emotions that significantly affect human performance. according to taylor (2018), “chronic illness is not easy to deal with, particularly for people with hiv infectivity.” a study by (bader et al., 2006) observed the relationship between compliance, management, psychological factors, quality of life, and physical symptoms from the standpoint of people living with hiv and found that adherence strategies should be targeted in empowerment, good community support, and resilience. dimatteo (2004), in his study, examined that “better treatment outcomes are considerably high among patients belonging to interconnected families as compared to the disconnected or conflicted families” (as cited in taylor, 2018). numerous hiv-positive individuals have experienced more excellent social isolation and deprivation, which may increase the probability that the infection will advance (bower et al., 1998). basavaraj, navya, and rashmi (2010) reviewed the evidence that hiv disease has a crucial effect on the proportions of life quality, as well as physical and psychological wellness, social support, and life 65 functioning. acquiring support both from well-being care experts and reference groups results in improved health outcomes (moskowitz et al., 2009; reilly & woo, 2004; as cited in brannon, feist, & updegraff, 2013). in social cognition research, numerous methods have been employed to evaluate schemas; selfreport is the most feasible way to assess these. beck and freeman (1990) have also suggested that schemas need to be assessed uniquely for each person, whereas young (1990) has proposed a categorization system of 15 general schemas that are supposed to be the cause of mental health problems and can be evaluated nomothetically. these early maladaptive schemas (ems) are designed to assess questions addressing facets of intimate relationships. in light of the literature cited above, the following conceptual model of the present research proposes to study the relationship between schemas and the quality of life of hiv patients. besides, the study also suggests that social connectedness will have a potential mediating effect on the relationship. figure 1. conceptual model method the present work study was planned to determine the relationship between schemas and the quality of life among hiv individuals. a regression-based mediation research design was employed to collect data from these patients. the study’s first aim was to determine the relationship between schemas and the quality of life among hiv individuals; the second objective was to determine the role of social connectedness as a mediator between schemas and quality of life among hiv individuals. in order to determine the relationship between schemas and the quality of life among hiv individuals and analyze the role of social connectedness as a mediator between schemas and quality of life, information was purposively gathered from these patients at the specified hiv special clinic, sheikh zyed hospital, rahimyar khan city. the researcher gathered the data from these patients using a convenient sampling technique from the specified hiv special clinic, sheikh zyed hospital, rahimyar khan city. a total of 30 hiv patients identified through diagnostic tests and medical records participated in the study. these individuals lie between either stage 1 or stage 2 of their disease, with no other terminal or chronic illness. the responses were collected from males (20; 66.6%), females (6; 20%), and transgenders (4; 13.3%). these standardized instruments were used to test the relationships among the study variables: the schema mode inventory (smi, short edition) by young et al. (2007) comprises one hundred and twenty-four statements arranged on a six-factor likert scale. the scale provides a range of response options (1-6), from never or rarely to always. it is each subscale comprises ten statements. the minimum score range is ten, and the maximum is sixty. the schema mode inventory (smi) (urdu version; riaz et al., 2013) was employed to identify the schema modes of the target population. the 66 scale has satisfactory internal consistency and discriminatory values for all the scales (lobbestael et al., 2010). each schema has a distinctive rating scale. scores endorsed in each schema are measured by calculating the number of items within each schema (pozza, albert, and dèttore, 2020). high scores indicate the significant presence of maladaptive schemas. the whoqol-hiv bref (who, 2021) comprises thirty-one questions. the scale incorporates two standard items and twenty-nine explicit items that illustrate six domains of quality of life. a five-factor likert scale has been employed to establish scores, providing 1–5 response options. in the present study, urdu translation (ahmed et al. 2020) was used to assess the health-associated quality of life for hiv/aids-infected individuals. the revised version of the social connectedness scale (scs-r) developed by lee & robbins (1995) was used to assess a patient’s level of social bonding. it is a reporting method developed to assess the degree to which an individual feels attached to others in his or her social environment. in the present study, social connectedness was measured by the urdu translation of the scs-r version (fatima, 2014). the scale encompasses eight statements. the likertfactor-6 scale has a response range of 1-6 (from strongly disagree to strongly agree). reverse scoring was done with items comprising negative statements. a high rating implies a good level of social connections. the reliability coefficient of scs-r, as determined by lee, draper, and lee (2001), is 0.94. fatima (2014) reported a figure of 0.89 that shows good reliability in the urdu translation of the scale. the responses were analyzed using spss-26. result the study’s main objective was to investigate the relationship between schemas and the quality of life among hiv individuals and analyze the role of social connectedness as a mediator between schemas and quality of life. the current sample was subjected to a descriptive analysis of demographic variables. besides, hierarchical regression analysis was run to test mediation analysis in the study. table 1. demographics of participants (n = 30) hiv patients gender n (%) male female transgender 20 (66.6) 6 (20.0) 4 (13.3) table 1 shows the frequency and percentage of respondents. the table showed the participant’s gender; there were 20 male respondents, 6 female respondents, and 4 transgender respondents. table 2. predictors of quality of life (n = 30) predictor variable b seb β r2 sch sc -2.12 3.01 0.20 0.25 -0.51*** 0.57*** 0.38*** 0.62*** sch = schema; sc= social connectedness; ***p < 0.001 in table 2, simple linear regression advocates that maladaptive schemas negatively predict the quality of life (β = -0.51, t = -10.47, p < 0.001) and explains 38% variance in quality of life (r2 = 0.38, f(1, 29) = 109.58, p < 0.001), while social connectedness positively predicts quality of life (β = 0.57, t = 27.49, p < 0.001) and explained 62% of the variance in it (r2 = 0.62, f(1, 29) = 755.86, p < 0.001). table 3. schemas as a predictor of social connectedness (n = 30) predictor variable b seb β r2 sch -3.01 0.25 -0.51*** 0.38*** sch = schema; ***p < 0.001 67 table 3 indicates that maladaptive schemas negatively predict social connectedness (β = -0.51, t = 11.89, p < 0.001) and explains 38% variance in social connectedness (r2 = 0.38, f(1, 29) = 141.4, p < 0.001). table 4. hierarchical regression for social connectedness, mediating the relationship between schemas and quality of life among hiv individuals (n = 30) predictor β ∆r2 step i schemas step ii schemas social connectedness total -0.51*** -0.08 0.62*** 0.38*** 0.45*** 0.57*** ***p<0.001 table 4 demonstrates the mediating effect of social connectedness between the relationship between schemas and quality of life. for any mediation analysis, three conditions must be satisfied. the first circumstance is that schemas show significant negative prediction of quality of life (β = -0.51, t = -10.47, p < 0.001), f(1, 29) = 109.59, p < 0.001) with 38% variance in quality of life (r2 = 0.38). the second condition is tested in which social connectedness is significantly predicting quality of life in a positive direction (β = -0.57, t = -27.49, p < 0.001), f(1, 29) = 755.86, p < 0.001). this model explains 57% of the variance in quality of life (r2 = 0.57). the last condition is the prediction of social connectedness by schemas which has been found as negatively significant (β = -0.51, t = 11.89, p < 0.001), f(1, 29) = 144.10, p < 0.001) with 38% variance in quality of life (r2 = 0.38). the concluding sign of mediation is apparent as schemas that are a significant predictor of quality of life (β = -0.51, t =-10.47, p < 0.001) became a non-significant predictor of quality of life (β = -0.08, t = -1.51, p > 0.05) when social connectedness got into the model. hence, results signifies that social connectedness (β = -0.69, t = -21.84, p < 0.001) fully mediates the relationship among selfesteem and social anxiety at (∆r2 = 0 .45, f(1, 29) = 476.78, p < 0.001). this meditational model is further resolved based on sobel’s test (1986) for determining the significance of mediation which proved to be significant with a 49.1% variance in quality of life described by schemas attributable to the mediational effect of social connectedness. the hypothesis is supported that social connectedness mediates the relationship between self-esteem and anxiety and indirectly predicts social anxiety (sobel’s z = 10.901, p < 0.001). discussion the primary purpose of the research was to study the relationship between schemas and the quality of life among hiv individuals and analyze the role of social connectedness as a mediator between schemas and quality of life. the research was conducted at the hiv special clinic in rahimyar khan city. the motivation behind this research is that hiv individuals are extraordinarily stigmatized and vulnerable. this study’s results revealed a mediating effect of social connectedness between schemas and quality of life. the research results confirm prior studies (lee, dean, & jung, 2008; ashida & heaney, 2008) that social connectedness plays a significant role in the relationship between an individual’s schemas and quality of life. social disconnectedness creates social isolation; individuals experience discomfort in social situations and always bear in mind the apprehension of being judged and evaluated. such negative cognitions do not let them move forward, resulting in dysfunctional behavior. research has suggested that companionable people have more social relationships, including family support, positive schemas, and good quality of life. 68 conclusion the current research aims to study the correlation between schemas and quality of life and the mediating effect of social connectedness. the results revealed a significant negative correlation between schemas and quality of life, and social connectedness is a mediator between schemas and quality of life. there is a limitation to this study. the study was a regression-based mediation design. thus, a causal connection among the study variables cannot be assumed. therefore, future research should use an experimental design to study causal relationships between these variables with a larger sample size. the present study has several implications for research and practice. the current research sheds light on the role of social connectedness in the relationship between self-esteem and social anxiety. these findings can help hiv counselors and psychologists dealing with hiv patients. they can develop different intervention programs or strategies by guiding people to improve their schemas and social connections and enabling them to ultimately cope better with their illness and enhance their quality of life. declaration acknowledgment the authors thank everyone who helped in data collection and technical matters. author contribution statement rabiah javed bhatti led the overall research design, conducted discussion processing, and wrote results and discussion. samar fahd provided in formulating the study’s objectives, research design, analysis process, and result interpretation. funding statement this research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. data access statement the data described in this article can be accessed by contacting the first author. declaration of interest’s statement the author declares no conflict of interest. additional information this study is a part of the ph.d. dissertation of the first author. references ahmed, a., saqlain, m., akhtar, n., hashmi, f. k., blebil, a., dujaili, j., umair, m. m., & bukhsh, a. (2020). psychometric assessment of translated urdu version of whoqol-hiv bref among patients living with hiv. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-34790/v1 ankrah e. m. (1993). the impact of hiv/aids on the family and other significant relationships: the african clan revisited. aids care, 5(1), 5–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540129308258580 https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-34790/v1 https://doi.org/10.1080/09540129308258580 69 ashida, s., & heaney, c. a. (2008). differential associations of social support and social connectedness with structural features of social networks and the health status of older adults. journal of aging and health, 20(7), 872–893. https://doi.org/10.1177/0898264308324626 bader, a., kremer, h., erlich-trungenberger, i., rojas, r., lohmann, m., deobald, o., lochmann, r., altmeyer, p., & brockmeyer, n. (2006). an adherence typology: coping, quality of life, and physical symptoms of people living with hiv/aids and their adherence to antiretroviral treatment. medical science monitor: international medical journal of experimental and clinical research, 12(12), 493-500. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17136004/ basavaraj, k. h., navya, m. a., & rashmi, r. (2010). quality of life in hiv/aids. indian journal of sexually transmitted diseases and aids, 31(2), 75–80. https://doi.org/10.4103/0253-7184.74971 bhatta, d. n., liabsuetrakul, t., & mcneil, e. b. (2017). social and behavioral interventions for improving quality of life of hiv infected people receiving antiretroviral therapy: a systematic review and meta-analysis. health and quality of life outcomes, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12955-017-0662-4 bower, j. e., kemeny, m. e., taylor, s. e., & fahey, j. l. (1998). cognitive processing, discovery of meaning, cd4 decline, and aids-related mortality among bereaved hiv-seropositive men. journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 66(6), 979–986. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-006x.66.6.979 brannon, l., feist, j., & updegraff, j. a. (2013). health psychology: an introduction to behavior and health (8th ed.). cengage learning. fatima, m. (2014). social connectedness in relationship with volunteerism among adults [unpublished master’s thesis]. university of sargodha. green, l. w, & hiatt, r. a. (2009). behavioural determinants of health and disease. in r. detels, r. beaglehole, m. a. lansang, & m. gulliford (eds.) oxford textbook of public health (5th ed, pp. 120–136). oxford university press. https://doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199218707.003.0007 lee, r. m., & robbins, s. b. (1995). measuring belongingness: the social connectedness and the social assurance scales. journal of counseling psychology, 42(2), 232–241. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.42.2.232 lee, r. m., dean, b. l., & jung, k.-r. (2008). social connectedness, extraversion, and subjective well-being: testing a mediation model. personality and individual differences, 45(5), 414–419. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2008.05.017 lee, r. m., draper, m., & lee, s. (2001). social connectedness, dysfunctional interpersonal behaviors, and psychological distress: testing a mediator model. journal of counseling psychology, 48(3), 310–318. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.48.3.310 lobbestael, j., van vreeswijk, m., spinhoven, p., schouten, e., & arntz, a. (2010). reliability and validity of the short schema mode inventory (smi). behavioural and cognitive psychotherapy, 38(4), 437–458. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1352465810000226 marmot, m., & bell, r. (2012). fair society, healthy lives. public health, 126 suppl 1, s4–s10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2012.05.014 pozza, a., albert, u., & dèttore, d. (2020). early maladaptive schemas as common and specific predictors of skin picking subtypes. bmc psychology, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-020-0392-y riaz, m. n., khalily, t., & kalsoom, u.-e. (2013). translation, adaptation, and cross language validation of short schema mode inventory (smi). pakistan journal of psychological research, 28(1), 51–64. seyedalinaghi, s., mohssenipour, m., aghaei, e., zarani, f., fathabadi, j., & mona mohammadifirouzeh. (2020). the relationships between early maladaptive schemas, quality of life and self-care behaviors in a sample of persons living with hiv: the potential mediating role of cognitive emotion regulation strategies. the open aids journal, 14(1), 100–107. https://doi.org/10.2174/1874613602014010100 sobel, m. e. (1982). asymptotic confidence intervals for indirect effects in structural equation models. sociological methodology, 13, 290–312. https://doi.org/10.2307/270723 taylor, s. e. (2018). health psychology (10th ed.). mcgraw-hill education. world health organization (1997). measuring quality of life. https://www.who.int/tools/whoqol https://doi.org/10.1177/0898264308324626 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17136004/ https://doi.org/10.4103/0253-7184.74971 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12955-017-0662-4 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006x.66.6.979 https://doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199218707.003.0007 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.42.2.232 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2008.05.017 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.48.3.310 https://doi.org/10.1017/s1352465810000226 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2012.05.014 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-020-0392-y https://doi.org/10.2174/1874613602014010100 https://doi.org/10.2307/270723 https://www.who.int/tools/whoqol 70 world health organization. (2021). whoqol-bref: introduction, administration, scoring and generic version of the assessment: field trial version, december 1996 (no. whoqol-bref). world health organization. https://doi.org/whoqol-bref young, j. e. (1990). cognitive therapy for personality disorders: a schema-focused approach. professional resource exchange, inc. young, j. e., arntz, a., atkinson, t., lobbestael, j., weishaar, m. e., van vreeswijk, m. f., & klokman, j. (2007). the schema mode inventory (smi). schema therapy institute. https://doi.org/whoqol-bref inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research https://journal.iainlangsa.ac.id/index.php/inspira how to cite (apa 7th edition) mawarpury, m., setya ningsih, d., & rezeki, s. (2023). the role of gratitude on stress and psychological wellbeing among parents of children with cancer in aceh. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 4(1), 77–84. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.5376 this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial 4.0 international (cc by-nc 4.0) copyright ©2023 by marty mawarpury, diana setya ningsih, & sri rezeki. research article the role of gratitude on stress and psychological wellbeing among parents of children with cancer in aceh https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.5376 marty mawarpury1, diana setya ningsih2, sri rezeki3 1 department of psychology, universitas syiah kuala, aceh, indonesia 2 department of dentistry, universitas syiah kuala, aceh, indonesia 3 department of dentistry, universitas syiah kuala, aceh, indonesia corresponding author: marty mawarpury (email: marty@usk.ac.id) abstract cancer is a disease with a high incidence that pediatric patients need parents during treatment. the situation became a source of stress for parents. one way to deal with stress is to be grateful that the psychological wellbeing of the caregivers who accompany children with cancer is maintained. this study aims to determine the relationship between stress and psychological wellbeing with the moderation of gratitude in the parents of children with cancer in aceh. this study used a quantitative approach, involving 14 participants at the shelter for children with cancer undergoing treatment in banda aceh aged 20–40 years. participants were selected using the non-probability sampling method and the incidental sampling technique. individual stress levels were measured using the perceived stress scale, wellbeing using the warwick-edinburgh mental wellbeing scale, and gratitude using the indonesian grateful scale. the data were analyzed using the rank spearman nonparametric test, showing no relationship between stress and psychological wellbeing, but there is a relationship between stress and gratitude and gratitude with psychological wellbeing. this result shows partially that gratitude has a relationship with stress and psychological wellbeing. it means that with gratitude, stress can be controlled and impacts the psychological wellbeing of parents accompanying children with cancer. article history: received 29 december 2022 revised 17 january 2023 accepted 29 june 2023 keywords: cancer survivors; caregivers; children; psychological well-being; stress introduction chronic disease, such as cancer, is a disease that all groups of ages, different economies, and different cultures can suffer. cancer is a disease that causes the most deaths in the world. this disease affected around 300,000 children aged 0–19 years in the period 2001–2010 worldwide (steliarovafoucher, 2017). who data says 8.2 million people die each year. in indonesia, the cancer that attacks children every year has increased. in 2017, there were 4100 cases of cancer among children in indonesia. currently, the problem of cancer in children in indonesia is quite extensive. the prevalence of cancer in children aged 0–14 years in indonesia has reached 16,291 cases. the logical epidemic survey recorded that 131 out of every 100,000 children are in danger of losing their lives due to cancer. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.5376 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0361-8933 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7311-9470 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0109-0701 78 the types of cancer most commonly suffered by indonesian children are leukemia and retinoblastoma (riset kesehatan dasar [riskesdas], 2013). chronic disease can reduce, even to the point of eliminating, the function of body organs, such as the brain, which experiences decreased cognitive processes, stiff limbs, or impaired function of vital organs. chronic illness usually lasts for a long time and requires lifelong treatment. studies in epidemiology show that one in 10 children under 15 years of age has a chronic disease, while other studies have stated that one in three children under 18 has a chronic disease (harrington et al., 2006; costello et al., 2006; gallasi et al., 2006). children who suffer from cancer may experience physical disabilities, mental disorders, and impaired social functioning as a result of the cancer’s malignancy and the side effects of treatment. the treatment process has several impacts on their physical, emotional, and social development (lambrini, christos, alexandros, & aikaterini, 2015). in indonesia, the prevalence of cancer is rather high in infants (0.3‰), increases at age ≥15 years, and the highest at age ≥75 years (5‰). according to national health research (riskesdas, 2013; 2018), there was an increase from 1.4‰ population in 2013 to 1.79‰ population in 2018. these results also show the prevalence of cancer in aceh is slightly higher than the national (2013–2018) evaluation. the 2018 riskesdas results also show that the average cancer patient has undergone treatment with surgery (61.8%), radiation (17.3%), chemotherapy (24.9%), and others (24.1%). this treatment often faces problems because it has to be done at a type a hospital, which already has equipment for radiation, chemotherapy, and comprehensive surgery. in aceh, this hospital is only found in the provincial capital, namely zainal abidin general hospital (rsuza) banda aceh. based on an initial survey, substantial obstacles felt were the absence of a place to stay during treatment, limitations in living costs, and transportation for patients and their families. the cost of treatment is not too much of a burden because the government has born it through indonesian health insurance. the treatment was also carried out on a prolonged basis, so the patient had to return from his hometown to rsuza. following up on this condition, c-four aceh tried to facilitate by providing temporary housing, food, assistance, transportation costs from their hometowns, and shuttle vehicles from shelters to rsuza. c-four aceh is a children’s cancer care community founded to help families outside banda aceh who bring their children with cancer to undergo hospital treatment. this research is important considering that the main source of success in treatment comes from the medical side and the existing positive resources. in this case, parents are the main factor in the success of children undergoing treatment and post-therapy. counseling or psychological reinforcement for children is also very important during the treatment period and helps the healing process, but different things are seen in children with cancer, where the mood is unstable, quieter, more withdrawn, and there are anxious facial expressions. this is in accordance with reports by ruland (2009) and mavrides (2014), which stated that children tend to show more complex symptoms than adults, including psychological symptoms. psychological conditions also have an impact on families, such as feelings of depression, especially in advanced cancer cases (rosenberg, 2013); therefore, in order to get adequate treatment, the bonding between patients and families must continue to run harmoniously and synergistically. the mother’s role is also the most dominant compared to the father’s to help and strengthen their children (rosenberg et al., 2013; hasoda, 2014; burns et al., 2018). the appearance of a disease in family members can cause many changes in the family structure. cancer experienced by children has impacts on families, especially parents of children (lähteenmäki, sjöblom, korhonen, & salmi, 2004; wong & chan, 2006; awasthi & kuhu, 2017; leseure & chongkham-ang, 2015). the cancer diagnosis, apart from affecting the patient, also affects the closest 79 people and relatives, especially when necessary treatment is needed for the patient. grunfeld et al. (2004), in their research on family caregiver burden with breast cancer, stated that caregivers experienced depression as much as 30% and anxiety as 35%. feeling overwhelmed is a major predictor of feelings of anxiety and depression. another study regarding coping strategies in family caregivers of kidney failure patients found that family caregivers experienced various internal and external demands that caused stress (agustina & dewi, 2013). several studies have shown that stress symptoms that often occur in older people with cancer include anxiety, difficulty concentrating, feelings of guilt, pessimism, sadness, post-traumatic disorders, and sleep disorders. some stressors occur for parents or caregivers of children with cancer, including costs, expenses, work, time spent on treatment, and energy spent caring for a child with cancer. one of the problems that can arise in children with cancer is telling the child about the diagnosis, therapy, and prognosis of cancer. in general, parents are the main source of helpers in the care process, apart from health professionals. recent studies showed that the psychological aspects of parents who have children with chronic illnesses are emotional, social, parenting impact, stress, depression, quality of life, fatigue, and mood. based on the description above, this study proposes the hypothesis that there is a relationship between stress and wellbeing through moderation of gratitude in parents of children with cancer in aceh. method the variables in this study are stress, psychological wellbeing, and gratitude as a moderating variable. cohen et al. (1983) explained that stress levels can be seen from individual perceptions of stress (perceived stress). the concept of mental wellbeing was developed by tennant et al. (2007) as a concept of positive mental health and a complex construct, which refers to the concept of ryan and deci in 2001. listiyandini et al. (2015) describe gratitude as gratitude, pleasure, and individual respect for something obtained from god, humans, other creatures, and the universe throughout his life and encourage him to do things as he gets them. the study design was a cross-sectional study conducted in banda aceh. the study population consisted of parents of children and adolescents with cancer undergoing treatment in banda aceh. participants were selected using the non-probability sampling method and the incidental sampling technique. parents who met the following criteria were eligible to participate in the study: a) parents with a child diagnosed with any type of cancer and attending for his or her treatment either in a pediatric oncology ward or attending follow-up pediatric oncology in a hospital in banda aceh; b) parents should be able to speak, understand, read, and write in bahasa; and c) stay in a home shelter along with treatment in banda aceh. parents were excluded if they were parents of a dying child or had a life expectancy of only a few weeks. the research subjects consisted of 14 caregivers of children and adolescents in a shelter house for children with cancer who were attending treatment in banda aceh. parents were informed about the study and invited to participate during their stay at the halfway house for chemotherapy. parents signed consent as a form of participatory consent. for data collection, participants answered the indonesian version of the three questionnaires, demographic and characteristics checklist questionnaires. stress levels were measured using the perceived stress scale (pss) developed by cohen et al. (1983), which was adapted by manita et al. (2019) with strong reliability (α = .804). wellbeing was measured using the warwick-edinburgh mental wellbeing scale (wemwbs) developed by tennant et al. (2007), with strong reliability (α =.874), and gratitude was measured using the indonesian grateful scale developed by listiyandini et al. (2015), 80 with strong reliability (α = .904. following are the item samples from each questionnaire used in the perceived stress scale (“in the past month, how often have you felt that you were out of control of the important things in your life?”, “in the last month, how often did you feel that things were going your way?” and “in the past month, how often have you found yourself unable to cope with all the things that needed to be done?”); and the warwick-edinburgh mental wellbeing scale (“i have a lot of energy,” “i handle problems well,” and “i can decide for myself about many things.”) and grateful scale (“i feel loved by the people around me,” “i think that the difficulties in life will bring me down,” and “when i look at the faces of family members, i realize how precious it is to have them”). the research uses moderated regression analysis to determine whether a relationship between stress and wellbeing is moderated by gratitude. previously, researchers also conducted assumption tests consisting of normality, linearity, homoscedasticity, and multicollinearity tests. result table 1. the demographic of participants (n=14) category n (%) parents’ age (year) 30-39 6 (42.9%) 40-49 7 (50.0%) 60-69 1 (7.1%) gender of parents male 6 (42.9%) female 8 (57.1%) parents’ occupation housewife 8 (57.1%) farmer 5 (35.7%) entrepreneur 1 (7.1%) children’s age (year) <5 5 (35.7%) 6-10 3 (21.5%) 11-15 5 (35.7%) 16-20 1 (7.1%) gender of children male 4 (28.6%) female 10 (71.4%) children’s disease history heart 1 (7.1%) lymphoma 2 (14.3%) retina blastoma 1 (7.1%) nose tumors 1 (7.1%) leukemia 4 (28.6%) aplastic anemia 1 (7.1%) blood vessel tumors 1 (7.1%) kidney tumors 2 (14.3%) leaking kidney 1 (7.1%) the assumption test carried out includes the normality, linearity, homoscedasticity, and multicollinearity tests using the spss program. the results of the assumption test show that the data are not normally distributed and that there is no linear relationship between the variables of stress, wellbeing, and gratitude. the results of the homoscedasticity test showed that the scattered points did not experience heteroscedasticity, and the multicollinearity test showed no correlation between the independent variables. based on the assumption test that was not met, the data were analyzed using the rank spearman nonparametric test. the result showed that there is no relationship between stress and psychological wellbeing (r= .021, p < .05), but there is a correlation between stress and gratitude (r = .306, p > .05) and gratitude 81 with psychological wellbeing (r = .511; p > .05). this result shows partially that gratitude has a relationship with stress and psychological wellbeing. discussion children with chronic diseases such as cancer face different challenges daily than healthy children. in addition to physical growth problems that are not the same as those of other children their age, these children also experience slowed mental development. deal with illness, not only children experience psychological problems; parents often feel alone in struggling to deal with persistent and various stresses. this study’s results indicate no relationship between stress and psychological wellbeing, but there is a relationship between gratitude and stress, gratitude and psychological-wellbeing. this means that gratitude plays a role in stress management, which brings a sense of psychological wellbeing. the results of this study are supported by previous research by nezlek et al. (2018), who found that wellbeing is related to daily stress, which affects psychological wellbeing, and vice versa. ryff (in ulfa, 2018) also states that many things can affect a person’s psychological wellbeing, one of which is distress or the type of stress that affects a person negatively. this study explains that gratitude can be a buffer from the effects of stress. this study quite differs from research conducted by zarbova and karabeliova (2018), who found a negative relationship between stress and wellbeing. furthermore, wijaya’s research (2017) also found a negative and significant role for subjective wellbeing in stress. this difference in results is thought to be caused by different contexts and sources of stress in the situation of parents with children with cancer. the duration of the child’s illness can build resilience in parents, so stress management is better than stressful situations with a short duration. there are at least four situations in which stressors can be varied over time: at the time of diagnosis, during the transition to disease progression, matters relating to the child’s health care needs, and when the child has a recurrence of the disease and requires hospitalization. the stress will increase and affect the psychological wellbeing of parents during the child’s treatment process. this study found that gratitude contributes to the stress and psychological health of parents who accompany children with cancer. various things can be a source of stress or a cause of stress for each individual. the sources of stress are numerous and very individual. things that can cause stress also depend on the individual’s perception of something experienced (segal, smith, segel, & robinson, 2019). most individuals experience stress at some point in their lives; some experience it more often than others, and some have difficulty dealing with its effects (loseby, 2019). several studies have examined gratitude’s impact on psychological health. individuals who have gratitude can indicate the extent to which they feel happy in terms of how grateful they are for their lives (watskin et al., 2003). besides, peterson & seligman (2004) also stated that gratitude is an expression of gratitude from an individual who gets a good response from other people’s gifts, whether they are real or peaceful for the individual. likewise, emmons & tsang (2002) argue that grateful individuals show positive attitudes and are more generous, empathetic towards others, and willing to help others. being grateful makes individuals more prosperous, optimistic, and satisfied (froh, 2010). conclusion the results of this study indicate that gratitude has contributed partially to stress and psychological wellbeing in parents of children with cancer. stress levels may not be directly related to psychological 82 wellbeing, but gratitude can contribute to lower stress and psychological wellbeing increases. this research adds to the empirical references regarding positive psychology studies in clinical settings and can be studied further with similar settings and a larger or wider number of participants. declaration acknowledgment thank you to the c-four (children cancer care community aceh) shelter, which has become a partner in community service by the faculty of dentistry and the psychology study program, faculty of medicine, universitas syiah kuala. author contribution statement marty mawarpury contributed to conceptualization, instrument validation, data curation, review, analysis, writing and preparation for the publication. diana setya ningsih contributed to the conceptualization, design of methodology, conducting and investigation process, validation, review, and supervision. sri rezeki contributed to conceptualization, conducting an investigation, analysis, and writing. funding statement this research was funded by the direktorat riset dan pengabdian masyarakat deputi bidang penguatan riset dan pengembangan kementerian riset dan teknologi/badan riset dan inovasi nasional in accordance with the funding agreement for implementation of the community service program number: 090/sp2h/ppm/dprm/2020 march 16, 2020. data access statement the data described in this article can be accessed by contacting the authors. declaration of interest’s statement the author declares no conflict of interest. additional information no additional information is available for this paper. references agustina, k., & dewi, t. k. (2013). strategi coping pada family caregiver pasien gagal ginjal kronis yang menjalani hemodialisa. jurnal psikologi klinis dan kesehatan, 2(3), 7–16. aisyah, a., & chisol, r. (2018). rasa syukur kaitannya dengan kesejahteraan psikologis pada guru honorer sekolah dasar. proyeksi: jurnal psikologi, 13(2), 109–109. https://doi.org/10.30659/jp.13.2.109–122 american psychological association. (2012). stress by generations. https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2012/generation.pdf baum, a. (1990). stress, intrusive imagery, and chronic distress. health psychology, 9(6), 653–675. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2286178 blonna, r. (2012). coping with stress in a changing world. mcgraw-hill higher education. brey, p. (2012). wellbeing in philosophy, psychology, and economics. the good life in a technological age, 15– 34. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203124581 https://doi.org/10.30659/jp.13.2.109-122 https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2012/generation.pdf http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2286178 https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203124581 83 burns, w., péloquin, k., rondeau, é., drouin, s., bertout, l., lacoste-julien, a., ... & sultan, s. (2018). cancerrelated effects on relationships, long-term psychological status and relationship satisfaction in couples whose child was treated for leukemia: a petale study. plos one, 13(9), e0203435. cahya, k. d. (2018, july 9). secara global, tingkat stres orang indonesia disebut paling rendah. kompas. https://lifestyle.kompas.com/read/2018/07/09/193000820/secara-global-tingkat-stres-orangindonesia-disebut-paling-rendah?page=all clemente, m., hezomi, h., allahverdipour, h., jafarabadi, ma, & safaian, a. (2016). stress and psychological wellbeing: an explanatory study of the iranian female adolescents. journal of child and adolescent behavior, 4(01), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.4172/2375-4494.1000282 cohen, s., & janicki-deverts, d. (2012). who’s stressed? distributions of psychological analysis in the united states in probability samples from 1983, 2006, and 2009. journal of applied social psychology, 42(6), 1320–1334. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2012.00900.x cohen, s., kamarck, t., & mermelstein, r. (1983). a global measure of perceived stress. journal of health and social behavior, 24(4), 385. https://doi.org/10.2307/2136404 costello ej., foley dl., angold a. (2006) ten year research update review: the epidemiology of child and adolescent psychiatric disorders. journal of the american academy of child and adolescent psychiatry, 45(1), 8–25. emmons, ra, & tsang, j.-a. (2002). the grateful disposition: a conceptual and empirical topography. journal of personality and social psychology, 82(1), 112–127. fink, g. (2016). stress neuroendocrinology: highlights and controversies. in g. fink. stress: neuroendocrinology and neurobiology: handbook of stress (vol 2) (pp.3–15). fink, g. (2017). stress: concepts, definition and history. reference module in neuroscience and biobehavioral psychology. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-809324-5.02208-2 froh, j. j., emmons, r. a., card, n. a., bono, g., & wilson, j. a. (2011). gratitude and the reduced costs of materialism in adolescents. journal of happiness studies, 12, 289–302. galassi, c., de sario, m., biggeri, a., bisanti, l., chellini, e., ciccone, g., petronio, m. g., piffer, s., sestini, p., rusconi, f., viegi, g., & forastiere, f. (2006). changes in prevalence of asthma and allergies among children and adolescents in italy: 1994-2002. pediatrics, 117(1), 34–42. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2004-2709 grunfeld, e., coyle, d., whelan, t., clinch, j., reyno, l., earle, c. c., willan, a., viola, r., coristine, m., janz, t., & glossop, r. (2004). family caregiver burden: results of a longitudinal study of breast cancer patients and their principal caregivers. cmaj : canadian medical association journal = journal de l'association medicale canadienne, 170(12), 1795–1801. https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.1031205 harbaugh, c. n. & vasey, m. w. (2014). when do people benefit from gratitude practice? journal of positive psychology, 9 (6), 535–546. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/17439760.2014.927905 hary, z. a. p. (2017). hubungan antara kelekatan terhadap ibu dengan tingkat stres pada mahasiswa perantau [undergraduate thesis, universitas sanata dharma]. https://repository.usd.ac.id/8873/ haryanto, h. c., & kertamuda, f. e. (2016). syukur sebagai sebuah pemaknaan. insight: jurnal ilmiah psikologi, 18(2), 109. https://doi.org/10.26486/psikologi.v18i2.395 hosoda, t. (2014) the impact of childhood cancer on family functioning: a review. graduate student journal of psychology. 15, 18–30. karyono, k., dewi, k. s., & ta, l. (2009). penanganan stres dan kesejahteraan psikologis pasien kanker payudara yang menjalani radioterapi di rsud dr. moewardi surakarta. media medika indonesiana, 43(2), 102-105. killen, a., & macaskill, a. (2015). using a gratitude intervention to enhance wellbeing in older adults. journal of happiness studies, 16(4), 947–964. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10 902-014-9542-3 krejtz, i., nezlek, j. b., michnicka, a., & holas, p. (2016). counting one’s blessings can reduce the impact of daily stress. journal of happiness studies, 25–39. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-014-9578-4 https://lifestyle.kompas.com/read/2018/07/09/193000820/secara-global-tingkat-stres-orang-indonesia-disebut-paling-rendah?page=all https://lifestyle.kompas.com/read/2018/07/09/193000820/secara-global-tingkat-stres-orang-indonesia-disebut-paling-rendah?page=all https://doi.org/10.4172/2375-4494.1000282 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2012.00900.x https://doi.org/10.2307/2136404 https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-809324-5.02208-2 https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2004-2709 https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.1031205 https://doi.org/1%200.1080/17439760.2014.927905 https://repository.usd.ac.id/8873/ https://doi.org/10.26486/psikologi.v18i2.395 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10%20902-014-9542-3 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-014-9578-4 84 kupriyanov, r., & zhdanov, r. (2014). the eustress concept: problems and outlooks. world journal of medical sciences, 11(2), 179–185. https://doi.org/10.5829/idosi.wjms.2014.11.2.8433 lai, s. t., & o’carroll, r. e. (2017). ‘the three good things'-the effects of gratitude practice on wellbeing: a randomized controlled trial. health psychology, 26(1), 10–18. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313 845439 laporan nasional riset kesehatan dasar 2013. kementrian kesehatan republik indonesia. https://labdata.litbang.kemkes.go.id/menu-download/menu-download-laporan laporan nasional riset kesehatan dasar 2018. kementerian kesehatan republik indonesia. http://repository.bkpk.kemkes.go.id/3514/1/laporan%20riskesdas%202018%20nasional.pdf lazarus, r. s. & folkman, s. (1984). stress, appraisal, and coping. springer publishing company. lin, c. c. & yeh, y. c. (2014). how gratitude influences wellbeing: a structural equation modeling approach. social indicators research, 11 (1), 205–217. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-013-0424-6 listiyandini, r. a., nathania, a., syahniar, d., sonia, l., & nadya, r. (2015). measuring gratitude: the preliminary development of the indonesian gratitude scale. jurnal psikologi ulayat, 2(2), 473–496. https://doi.org/10.24854/jpu39 mavrides, n. & pao, m. (2014). updates in paediatric psycho-oncology. international review of psychiatry, 26(1), 63–73. mcmahon, a. t., williams, p., & tapsell, l. (2010). reviewing the meanings of wellness and well-being and their implications for food choice. perspectives in public health, 130(6), 282–286. https://doi.org/10.1177/1757913910384046 nezlek, j. b., krejtz, i., rusanowska, m., & holas, p. (2018). within-person relationships among daily gratitude, wellbeing, stress, and positive experiences. journal of happiness studies, 20(3), 883–898. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-018-9979-x o ‘leary, k., & dockray, s. (2015). the effects of two novel gratitude and mindfulness interventions on wellbeing. the journal of alternative and complementary medicine, 21(4), 243–245. https://doi.org/10.1089/acm .2014.0119 putz, r., o’hara, k., taggart, f., & stewart-brown, s. (2012). using wemwbs to measure the impact of your work on mental wellbeing: a practice-based user guide. http://www.corc.uk.net/media/1244/wemwbs_practitioneruserguide.pdf rosenberg, a. r., dussel, v., kang, t., geyer, j. r., gerhardt, c. a., feudtner, c., & wolfe, j. (2013). psychological distress in parents of children with advanced cancer. jama pediatrics, 167(6), 537–543. ruland, c. m., hamilton, g. a., & schjødt-osmo, b. (2009). the complexity of symptoms and problems experienced in children with cancer: a review of the literature. journal of pain and symptom management, 37(3), 403–418. ryan, r. m., & deci, e. l. (2001). on happiness and human potentials: a review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing. annual review of psychology, 52(1), 141–166. ryff, c. d., & keyes, c. l. m. (1995). the structure of psychological wellbeing revisited. journal of personality and social psychology, 69(4), 719. shah, n. s., harrington, t., huber, m., wellnitz, c., fridrych, s., laserson, k., gonzalez, i. m., & ijaz, k. (2006). increased reported cases of tuberculosis among children younger than 5 years of age, maricopa county, arizona, 2002-2003. the pediatric infectious disease journal, 25(2), 151–155. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.inf.0000189987.94158.83 steliarova-foucher, e., colombet, m., ries, l. a. g., moreno, f., dolya, a., bray, f., hesseling, p., shin, h. y., stiller, c. a., & iicc-3 contributors (2017). international incidence of childhood cancer, 2001-10: a populationbased registry study. the lancet. oncology, 18(6), 719–731. https://doi.org/10.1016/s14702045(17)30186-9 https://doi.org/10.5829/idosi.wjms.2014.11.2.8433 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313%20845439 https://labdata.litbang.kemkes.go.id/menu-download/menu-download-laporan http://repository.bkpk.kemkes.go.id/3514/1/laporan%20riskesdas%202018%20nasional.pdf https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-013-0424-6 https://doi.org/10.24854/jpu39 https://doi.org/10.1177/1757913910384046 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-018-9979-x https://doi.org/10.1089/acm%20.2014.0119 https://doi.org/10.1089/acm%20.2014.0119 http://www.corc.uk.net/media/1244/wemwbs_practitioneruserguide.pdf https://doi.org/10.1097/01.inf.0000189987.94158.83 https://doi.org/10.1016/s1470-2045(17)30186-9 https://doi.org/10.1016/s1470-2045(17)30186-9 issn ;2541450x (online) 71 vol. 2 no. 2 (dec 2021), pp. 71-80 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v2i2.3439 coping stress toward post-death of a couple: a qualitative study in single mothers sairah department of psychology, universitas medan area, north sumatera, indonesia  corresponding author: sairah (email: sairahmpsi@gmail.com) abstract – the study aimed to figure out the picture of a couple’s postdeath stress and coping strategies used by working single mothers. the research approach uses qualitative descriptive with case study design. characteristics of single mother participants, working and having children. data were obtained through interviews of participants concerned accompanied by significant other interviews. the data analysis used in this study is a thematic data analysis technique. the results showed the symptoms of stress experienced by participants in increased blood pressure, frequent delays in work, irritability, dietary changes, and experiencing sleep disorders. each participant’s stress was the shrinkage of economic, social, and psychological resources. participants’ stress coping strategies include; planful problem solving, confrontative, seeking social support, distance, escape/avoidance, positive reappraisal, selfcontrol, and accepting responsibility. article history: received: november 7, 2021 revised: november 29, 2021 accepted: december 28, 2021 published: december 29, 2021 keyword: coping strategy; coping stress; post-death stress; psychological symptoms; working single mothers how to cite (apa 7th edition) sairah (2021). coping stress toward post-death of a couple: a qualitative study in single mothers. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 2(2), 71–80. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v2i2.3439 this is an open-access article distributed under the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. this is enabled under the terms of attribution and noncommercial usage of the material ©2021 by sairah 72 coping stress toward post-death of a couple: a qualitative study in single mothers various problems and disasters that are not predictable to come in the family can cause divisions. the most common separations in the household are death and divorce. death in a family is an event that can interfere with emotional life, change the individual’s relationship with his social environment, and cause problems in life after the abandonment of the couple (belsky, 2013). glazer et al. (2010) argue that death impacts changing parenting patterns and relationships between couples who are still living with others (pitasari & cahyono, 2014). a person who is in a state of losing a partner is usually called a single parent. according to qaimi (2012), a woman as a single parent is when a woman will occupy two positions at once, namely as a mother, a natural position, and a father. he will have two forms of attitude: a woman and mother must be gentle with their children, and a father who is manly and in charge of controlling rules and rules and acts as an enforcer of justice in domestic life. according to hurlock (2011), single parents are widowed or widowed, either father or mother, assume responsibility for caring for children after the death of their spouse, divorce, or the birth of an out-of-wedlock child (sola & nurdin, 2015). the only parent here who is more often encountered is a mother without a husband and has dependents on many children. families with mothers as single parents are often caused by the death of husbands, divorcees, unmarried mothers, and teenagers who became pregnant out of wedlock (aprilia, 2013). for a mother, losing her husband is a tough challenge. this loss can have various effects, whether it is physical or psychological, for a mother. a single parent tends to be busy with office work, taking care of children, and lacking time off until eating is not regular, which often happens to single parents whose husband died (negeri, 2013). after a spouse’s death, the mother experiences a shrinking of essential resources in performing parenting functions, namely loss of psychological and economic support from the husband, changes in status, role, and identity crisis, and emotional disorders, loneliness, feeling helpless, hopeless, and loss of confidence (budiana &amalia, 2015). the stressful behavior that single mothers bring up is crying, depression, and inferiority with status (andriani & naufaliasari, 2013). single mother stress is the pressure experienced due to the stress source in the family that has died one of the partners. stress is caused by a discrepancy between the desired situation and the individual’s biological, psychological or social system (sarafino, 2015). changes in individuals due to stress can be grouped into three general categories: physical symptoms, psychological symptoms, and behavioral symptoms (robbins & judge, 2015). the initial effect of stress is usually physical symptoms. stress can cause changes in metabolism, increase heart rate, raise blood pressure, cause headaches, and trigger heart attacks. psychological symptoms of stress can lead to dissatisfaction with work, tension, anxiety, irritability, saturation, and an attitude that likes to delay work. subsequent symptoms caused by behavioral stress include changes in productivity, healthiness, employee turnover, eating habits, smoking patterns, alcohol consumption, fast talk, restlessness, and sleep disorders (robbins & judge, 2015). potential sources of stress are conflict, life changes, and daily arguments. the study focused on indicators of life changes using the theory of the source of stress put forward by atkinson (2011) in looking at what factors can cause stress in single mothers after her husband dies. this response can be either a positive or negative response. nevertheless, it tends to be a more dominant negative introduction sairah 73 response in its application. responses to stress (sarafino, 2012) include; anxiety, anger, aggression; apathy and depression; cognitive impairment. if the individual can survive the bad situation so that he prefers to overcome or minimize the problem, then the individual is trying to do a self-defense mechanism, or it can also be called a coping strategy (papalia et al., 2013). coping is how a person manages the perceived difference between the demands and the resources they value in a stressful situation (pitasari & cahyono, 2014). coping is essential to correcting or mastering a problem and helping a person change his or her perception of nonconformity, tolerance or acceptance of threats or harmful things, or escape or avoid a situation (lazarus &folkman, in sarafino 2012). several previous studies found that single mothers as the subject of the study who experienced stress were single mothers who were working (kusumastuti, 2014; pitasari & cahyono, 2014; asilah & hastuti, 2014; nisa & lestari, 2016). coping is how individuals manage the demands of a person-environment relationship that is judged as stress and the emotions they produce. coping is an attempt to change thoughts or actions to manage internal and external demands that are considered heavy and exceed the resources of the individual. according to robbins & judge (2015), coping is a process in which individuals manage the distance between the demands (be it the demands derived from the individual or the demands that come from the environment) and the resources they use to deal with stressful situations. according to robbins & judge (2015), coping has two main functions: problem-focused coping and emotional-focused coping. problem-focused coping is an approach that aims to lower the demands of stressful situations or expend resources to deal with them. problem-focused approaches are used when they believe that their resources or demands are in a situation that may change (robbins & judge, 2012). emotional-focused coping aims to control emotional responses in situations that cause stress. an emotionally-focused approach is used when they believe they can do small things to change stress (robbins & judge, 2015). robbins & judge (2015) describes several coping strategies in problem-focused coping and emotionalfocused coping, including planful problem solving (problem-focused), confrontative (problemfocused), seeking social support (problem/emotion-focused), distance (emotion-focused), escape/avoidance (emotion-focused), positive reappraisal (emotion-focused), self-control (emotion-focused), and acceptance responsibility (emotion-focused). based on the above exposure, this article aims to determine the post-death stress and coping strategies working single mothers use. this research uses a qualitative approach with intrinsic case study types. a qualitative approach is a research method using research procedures that produce descriptive data in written or oral words from sources encountered and observed background thoroughly (moleong, 2017). the reason for using a qualitative approach is because it is based on the focus of research to get relevant results (poerwandari, 2017), which is to know how to describe stress and coping strategies used by single mothers after the death of their husbands and responsible for caring for their children. the type of research used in this research is an intrinsic case study approach because it aims to learn about unique phenomena focused on the research. the data excavation research method 74 coping stress toward post-death of a couple: a qualitative study in single mothers techniques used in this study are filling questionnaire sheets and interviews conducted on subjects and significant others. the study participants were obtained through informants who knew about the participants’ circumstances as single mothers. characteristics of participants in the study include: women whose husbands have died and have not remarried; have a biological child (one or more) from her husband, bearing the burden of the life and education of her child who is in school or college; and have a personal business or a permanent or temporary job that becomes the primary source of income. table 1 participant profile aspect participant 1 participant 2 participant 3 age 33 years 35 years 28 years religion islam islam islam occupation lecturer teacher employee education level master degree undergraduate degree undergraduate degree age when the husband died 28 years 30 years 26 years impact stress & weak financial weak financial stress and stress stigma this study used thematic analysis techniques. thematic analysis encodes qualitative information through an explicit code in a list of themes, a complex model containing themes, indicators, and qualifications connected in causality; or something between the two (boyatzis, 2010). the thematic analysis serves to find patterns of various information that has been collected (poerwandari, 2017). the approach used in this study is theory-driven. the study produced data on post-death stress images of couples and various coping strategies working single mothers use. in general, this study found differences in the picture of stress and coping strategies in the three participants. the stress images shown by the three participants in the study included stress symptoms, sources of stress, and responses to stress. symptoms of stress to find out the symptoms of stress experienced by each participant after the death of their husband, researchers used a questionnaire adapted from a diagram of stress symptoms from robbins and judge (2015). indicator participant 1 participant 2 participant 3 physical symptoms high blood pressure high blood pressure psychological symptoms procrastination procrastination procrastination, irritability behavioral symptoms dietary changes; sleep disturbances dietary changes; sleep disturbances dietary changes; sleep disturbances these results show that the three participants have similar psychological symptoms, often delaying work. the first participant showed the slightest symptoms of stress, while the third participant showed the slightest symptoms of stress. result sairah 75 sources of stress the source of stress, in general, can be divided into three parts: conflict, life changes, and daily arguments (atkinson, 2011). based on these three indicators, researchers focused on the changing part of life because the focus of this study is the strategy of coping with post-death stress of a couple, then life changes are the most related indicators. the life change referred to in the study was widowhood, having previously had a partner and then separated due to death. the impact of a couple’s death can be a source of stress experienced by the three participants, namely on economic, social, and psychological factors. after a partner’s death, the mother experiences a shrinking of essential resources in performing parenting functions, namely loss of psychological and economic support from the partner, changes in status, role, and identity crisis, and emotional disorders, loneliness, feeling helpless, hopeless, and loss of confidence. in order to meet the needs of her life and her children in the early days after the death of her husband, participant 1 did not feel severe financial pressure because he had enough income and got insurance for his son’s school. while participant 2 must work side and be a teacher selling food. after the husband’s death, participant 3 had to work as a factory employee to meet the needs of his family, where previously his daily activities were only as a housewife. in terms of social, participants 1 and 2 did not feel depressed in the association of social environment and family after their husband’s death. while participant 3 felt social pressure after the couple’s death in the form of bullying from her husband’s family on her and her two children. participant 1 stated that she only felt stress after her husband’s death related to changes in her life. while in participant 2, she claimed to anxiety about changes in her life and the fulfillment of her children’s needs. participant 3 stated that the psychological pressure she experienced was anxiety about changes in her life, meeting the family’s financial needs, and bullying from the husband’s family. response to stress from the statements of the three participants, it is known that each participant has a diverse response to the stress they face. according to sarafino (2012), the individual’s response to the stress he faced included; anxiety, anger, aggression, apathy, depression, cognitive impairment. anxiety felt by participant 1 after the death of her husband in the form of difficulty adjusting to life changes. in participant 2, the anxiety experienced after her husband’s death in the form of financial difficulties and life changes. at the same time, the anxiety response experienced by participant 3 in the form of difficulties in financial matters to meet the needs of life and the cost of education of their two children. she also has anxiety about the stigma of being a widow in the community. then for the anger and aggression response of participants 1 and 2, she never showed an angry or aggressive response either in the form of physical or verbal after the death of her husband. he prefers to pray and surrender to god than vent his anger to others or objects around him. while the response of anger and aggression of participants 3 after the death of their husband is in the form of behavior or anger for no apparent reason when experiencing stress. furthermore, on apathy and depression indicators, it was known that the three participants claimed never to show a withdrawal response from their social environment when experiencing post-death stress. 76 coping stress toward post-death of a couple: a qualitative study in single mothers while on the cognitive impairment indicator, participant 1 often found it difficult to concentrate while working after the death of her husband. in participant 2, it is known that his concentration is also often distracted, but it is not a stress response due to the death of his husband but only saturation in his daily work. while participant 3 felt his focus was often distracted when reminded of his son’s school fees, but it did not affect his performance. stress coping in this study, the three participants applied every kind of coping strategy put forward by robbins & judge (2015) to cope with the stress they faced after the death of their husbands. according to robbins & judge (2015), coping has two main functions: problem-focused coping and emotional-focused coping. various coping strategies that focus on solving problems include; planful problem solving, confrontative, and seeking social support for an instrumental reason. in comparison, coping strategies that focus on controlling emotional responses include; distance, escape/avoidance; positive reappraisal; self-control; acceptance of responsibility; and seeking social support for an emotional reason. participant 1 did not seem to do much problem-focused coping strategy, namely just by deciding to work (planful problem solving), consult with the family (seeking social support for an instrumental reason), face and still live (confrontative), and make decisions in his life by consulting with family (planful problem solving). the rest, participant 1, focused more on the emotional approach in dealing with stress after the death of her husband. participant 1 also often sought social support from parents and siblings to gain sympathy and calm feelings (seeking social support for an emotional reason). in the coping distance strategy, participant 1 tended to behave as if they were not facing sadness and saw the good side of the disaster. participant 1 also implemented a coping escape /avoidance strategy in fantasizing about how the situation should happen and making comfortable with traveling and vacationing with the children. the positive reappraisal coping strategy applied by participant 1 in the form of confidence that he will be fine and with the misfortune he experienced will make him closer to god and more substantial in facing life. the application of self-control coping strategies in participant 1 is in the form of living life by simply flowing, following studies to keep themselves from being affected by other harmful things, and consulting those closest to them about decision making and problem-solving. participant 1 also implemented coping acceptance responsibility strategies to accept one’s condition, realize that he had shortcomings as a parent, and take action to change the situation. in participant 2, the coping strategy planful problem solving applied in the form of understanding the existing circumstances and trying to stay in the condition, planning and implementing it, trying to change things for the better, and finding a way out by finding a side job. furthermore, the confrontative coping strategy applied by participant 2 in the form of still facing and living a life that continues to run. coping seeking for social support strategies that are more focused on participants 2 is the instrumental reason for finding information on others, especially families, about the situation at hand and asking for advice in the future. as for the emotional reason, the application is in the form of telling his feelings to his family and closest relatives and receiving sympathy and understanding from them. sairah 77 the form of implementing the coping distance strategy of participant 2 is trying to accept reality, see the good side of the disaster that occurred, and try to accept destiny. then, the coping escape/avoidance strategy is to hope the situation will change for the better and try to make comfortable by often gathering with family. participant 2 also implemented a positive reappraisal coping strategy in the form of confidence that he would be fine. self-control coping strategies implemented by participants 2, among others; try to keep feelings of sadness, prevent others from knowing how sad life’s misfortunes are, pour out sadness by praying to god, and keep feelings from being affected by other things that can add stress. then, coping acceptance responsibility strategies are applied in accepting one’s circumstances and accepting the responsibility to change lives for the better for their children. in participant 3, the coping strategy planful problem solving applied in the form of understanding the conditions that have occurred and trying hard to stay afloat, making plans and implementing them, and trying to change things for the better. furthermore, the confrontative form that participant 3 does is to continue to live and face the existing life. coping seeking for a more focused social support strategy on participant 3 is an emotional reason, which is in the form of telling the feelings he experienced to his family and friends. for the instrumental reason, participant 3 looked for information on others about the situation, told the problem, and asked experienced people for advice, especially to find a job. the coping distance strategy applied by participant 3 is to try to accept the current condition, see the good side of the disaster that occurred, and try to accept destiny. the coping escape/avoidance strategy applied by participant 3 is hoping that the condition will change for the better and trying to make herself comfortable by traveling with her child and gathering with her friends. participant 3 also applied a positive reappraisal coping strategy in confidence that he would be fine and made the disaster experienced as a form of getting closer to god. the application of self-control in 3 participants, among others; prevented others from knowing how sad the misfortune is, keeping feelings from being affected by other things that can add to the stress. then, the coping acceptance responsibility strategy was applied by participants 3 to accept their condition and accept conditions that make them responsible for changing conditions better for the sake of their children. the single mother stress understood in this study is the stress that arises after a single mother experiences the death of her husband. the study focused on showing a picture of the stress that arises post-death of a working single-mother couple. this study found that single mothers experienced psychological and behavioral stress symptoms, but participant 1 did not experience physical symptoms. this condition proves that stress symptoms do not always cause physical symptoms in individuals. stress due to death has a wide variety of impacts on single mothers. single mothers feel the impact of death in the form of identity changes, namely widowhood. responses to couples’ post-death stress that appear in single mothers are anxiety, anger, aggression, and decreased cognitive function, but do not elicit responses in the form of helplessness and depression. this finding does not fit with the theory put forward by sarafino (2012), where individuals will give rise to psychological reactions in the form of withdrawing and discussion 78 coping stress toward post-death of a couple: a qualitative study in single mothers feeling helpless in the face of uncontrolled events. this study also found differences in emotional perception of death stressors between single mothers. participants 2 and 3 had emotional perceptions that tended to be hostile towards the death of a partner and considered the stressor to be an unfortunate event. while participant 1 had a positive emotional perception of the death of a partner and only considered minor stressors so that they could quickly rise from adversity. the findings are related to resilience, namely the ability of humans to face, overcome, and be substantial for difficulties experienced (wiwin hendriani, 2018). this is by the results of aprilia research (2013), where if resilience in a person is increased, it will be able to overcome any problem, increase self-potential, be optimistic, appear courage and emotional maturity. this study also found the complexity of post-death stressors of single mother couples. single mothers are not just focused on accidents. bullying from the husband’s family is related to inheritance, and the stress of the child’s living needs is a form of double stress for single mothers. this leads to rising blood pressure, difficulty concentrating, and anger for no reason. single mothers who have complex stressors and live them negatively report worse experiences and tend to rely on emotional coping. while single mothers who have a minor stressor and live it positively, consider the death of a partner as a destiny from god tend to do coping that focuses on the life ahead. every single mother in the study did all kinds of coping put forward by robbins & judge (2015) to cope with her husband’s post-death stress. robbins & judge (2015) describe three coping strategies in problem-focused coping: planful problem solving, confrontative, and seeking social support for an instrumental reason. the problem that single mothers experience is mental stress due to the death of her husband. this is in line with robbins & judge (2015), who states that a condition that suppresses physical and psychological due to demands in the self and environment can cause stress and stimulate the individual to react. in addition, it is known that each single mother participant sought advice from others. it is understandable that the environment in which the individual is, particularly the immediate environment such as the family, is very decisive in providing support to deal with the pressures experienced by the individual (bhatia, 2016). in addition to problem-focused coping, single mothers in the study also applied the emotional-focused coping approach described by robbins & judge (2015) in six coping strategies: distance, escape/avoidance, positive reappraisal, self-control, accept responsibility, and seeking social support for an emotional reason. the study results found that initially, single mothers could not accept that the death of the husband experienced by her was a destiny. this is related to the background of single mother participants who experienced entire dependence with a partner. the data obtained through interviews shows that differences in coping strategies stand out from each single mother participant. participants 2 and 3 tended to be more dominant in focusing on emotional-focused coping. this is because this coping strategy is more emotionoriented, an attempt to relieve or manage emotional stress when individuals interact with the environment (bakhtiar & asriani, 2015). while in participant 1 tended to do coping that focused on problem-focused coping. based on the study results, there are three dimensions of post-death stress images of couples working single mothers: stress symptoms, sources of stress, and the stress response. conclusion sairah 79 from different images of stress, to overcome post-death stress, the three participants implemented every coping strategy, namely planful problem solving, confrontative, seeking social support, distance, escape/avoidance, positive reappraisal, self-control, and accepting responsibility. the results showed that all three participants tried every coping strategy available and maintained the coping that made them most comfortable. participant 1 tended to seek social support in the form of information or advice and sympathy from the family environment and get closer to god. then, participant 2 prioritized good self-control for his stress coping strategy. while participant 3 tended to focus on accepting responsibility as a solid mental foundation in dealing with everyday problems. aprilia, w. (2013). resiliensi dan dukungan sosial pada orang tua tunggal (studi kasus pada ibu tunggal di samarinda). psikoborneo: jurnal ilmiah psikologi, 1(3), 268-279. http://doi.org/10.30872/psikoborneo.v1i3.3326 atkinson, r. (2011). pengantar psikologi. erlangga. bakhtiar, m. i., & asriani. (2015). efektivitas strategi problem focused coping dan emotion focused coping dalam meningkatkan pengelolaan stress siswa di sma negeri 1 barru. guidena: jurnal ilmu pendidikan, psikologi, bimbingan dan konseling, 5(2), 69-82. http://doi.org/10.24127/gdn.v5i2.320 belsky, j. (2013). the adult experience. west publishing company. bhatia, y., & srilatha, s. (2016). impact of family support on job involvement in women professionals in india. journal of business management & social sciences research, 5, 147-154. budiana & amalia. (2015). the single moms. lentera hati boyatzis, r. e. (2010). transforming qualitative information: thematic analysis and code development. sage publication. sola, s. f. & nurdin. (2015). strategi pemenuhan kebutuhan hidup single parent. equilibrium: jurnal pendidikan, 3(1), 38-46. https://doi.org/10.26618/equilibrium.v3i1.511 moleong, l. (2017). metode penelitian kualitatif. remaja rosdakarya. andriani, f. & naufaliasari, a. (2013). resiliensi pada wanita dewasa awal pasca kematian pasangan. jurnal psikologi industri dan organisasi, 3(2), 264-269. negeri, b. c. (2013). subjective well being pada ibu yang memiliki anak tuna rungu. calyptra: jurnal ilmiah mahasiswa universitas surabaya, 2(2), 2-16. papalia, d. e., olds, s. w. & feldman, r. d. (2013). human development (psikologi perkembangan) (10th ed.). salemba humanika. pitasari, a. t. & cahyono, r. (2014). coping pada ibu yang berperan sebagai orang tua tunggal pasca kematian suami. jurnal psikologi pendidikan dan perkembangan, 3(1), 37-41. poerwandari, e. k. (2017). pendekatan kualitatif untuk penelitian perilaku manusia. lpsp3 fakultas psikologi universitas indonesia. qaimi, a. (2012). single parent: peran ganda ibu dalam mendidik anak. penerbit cahaya. robbins, s., & coulter, m. (2010). manajemen (10th ed.). pt indeks. robbins, s., & judge, t. a. (2015). perilaku organisasi (12th ed.). salemba empat. references 80 coping stress toward post-death of a couple: a qualitative study in single mothers sarafino, e. (2012). health psychology. john willey & sons. inc. sugiyono (2012). metode penelitian kuantitatif, kualitatif, dan r&d. alfabeta hendriani. w. (2018). resiliensi psikologis: sebuah pengantar. kencana. issn ;2541450x (online) 49 vol. 1 no. 2 (dec 2020), pp. 49-56 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i2.2877 who is more anxious in learning a foreign language: males or females? defira afrianti1, mauloeddin afna2 12 department of english education, institut agama islam negeri langsa, aceh, indonesia.  corresponding author: defira afrianti (email: defira.afrianti@gmail.com) abstract – this study aims to investigate english speaking anxiety experienced by students on gender difference. this quantitative study applied a comparative design with 122 english students (male: 20,5%) as a research sample using the proportionate stratified random sampling technique. the data were collected by foreign language classroom anxiety scale by horwitz that consist of 33 statements. by independent sample t-test, the result showed that the anxiety means a score of male students was 89,60, and the female was 93,24, with a p-value of 0,203. it indicated that the anxiety experienced by males and females was not significantly different. article history: received: august 25, 2020 revised: september 8, 2020 accepted: november 10, 2020 published: december 28, 2020 keyword: foreign language anxiety; genderbased anxiety; situation-specific anxiety; state anxiety; trait anxiety how to cite (apa 7th edition) afrianti, d. & afna, m. (2020). who is more anxious in learning a foreign language, males or females? inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 1(2), 49-56. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v1i2.2877 this is an open-access article distributed under the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. this is enabled under the terms of attribution and noncommercial usage of the material. ©2020 by defira afrianti & mauloeddin afna. 50 who is more anxious in learning a foreign language: males or females? teaching english at school is not something new because it has been learned at the beginner level until the advanced level. although english has been studied from the basic level, most indonesian students still have a low capability in english. the report of ef proficiency index for school (2016), indonesian position in 32 from 72 countries in the world. the fact above can further improve english capability, especially for students in university who want to be a good teacher in the future. at the university level, primary english students learn more specifically about english. they know from the theory until teaching practice. in the class, they learn various ideas that are delivered in a written or oral text. the mastery of views should be equal to exercise. it is prepared for students to get supplies to practice using language in teaching. every student receives many occasions to explore their speaking. it is expected that they become teachers who can train and transfer english skills to students in various levels of education. the primary goal of all english language teaching should be to give learners the ability to use english effectively and accurately in communication. however, not all language learners can speak fluently and accurately after many years of studying english because they lack the necessary knowledge. speaking activity can be interpreted as speaking activities to convey a message, idea, or opinion to an interlocutor; speaking activity is speaking in english. the main goals of speaking are to communicate. they are the sending and receiving of messages between one or more people. in speaking, it needs to be accurate in vocabulary use and pronunciation through controlled and guided activities and to be fluent, considered to keep going when speaking spontaneously. by showing the power of speaking english makes the teacher or other people give feedback on it. speaking is not only about related physical and skill but also determined by psychological factors, like self-confidence. rakhmat (2005) states that if someone feels inferior, they will tend to communicate their ideas to the people and be afraid to express in front of many people because fear of others will blame them. someone likely to be less confident wherever possible to avoid the situation of communication. speaking in a new language is not easy for a student who does not have high self-confidence. speaking performance needs high confidence. in addition, low confidence is a factor of speaking anxiety. in this case, most english students are not confident in verbal communication. when they have to talk in front of the class, they will become anxious. they feel afraid of being abused when making mistakes. they are shy to try to speak english because of their pronunciation. the students who cannot show their ability to speak english will get worried in the class, which becomes a big problem. when the learners have high anxiety, worry, or fear in a foreign language class, they become difficult to acquire. the unsuccessful students in speaking can be due to psychological aspect. speaking anxiety is a fear of expressing oneself verbally, which physiological signs can recognize. clement and tupin claim that in gaibani, the students tried to avoid speaking in public because of embarrassment, shaky voices, rapid heartbeat, discomfort, inferiority complex, and low selfrespect (gaibani & elmenfi, 2014). the anxiety in speaking english implies the students not getting maximal performance in speaking subjects. stress experienced by a person when speaking in a foreign language was widespread in terms of foreign language anxiety. introduction afrianti, d. & afna, m. 51 some expert-defined anxiety: in horwitz et al. view in cabansag (2013), there are three components of language anxiety: communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation. anxiety is a universal human emotion. according to suleimenova (2013), anxiety, distress, or uneasiness of the mind is caused by fear of danger or misfortune. general anxiety is the excessive and exaggerated worry about everyday things. maclntyre & gardner, as cited by khan & zafar (2010) in the literature on the role of anxiety in second language learning, three general approaches have been identified: trait, state, and situation-specific perspectives. trait anxiety refers to the stable predisposition to become anxious in a cross-section of situations. state anxiety is the transient, moment-to-moment experience of anxiety as an emotional reaction to the current situation. situation-specific anxiety can be the probability of becoming anxious in a particular type of situation, such as during tests (“test anxiety”), when solving mathematics problems (“math anxiety”), or when speaking a second language (“language anxiety”). in terms of definition, several researchers have offered definitions of foreign language anxiety. in tran (2012), clement cited foreign language anxiety as a complex construct that deals with learners’ psychology regarding their feelings, self-esteem, and self-confidence. many factors affect language learning, such as language learning environment, gender, personality, and affective factors. many studies have been conducted about gender factors in foreign language learning (şimşek, 2015). in a simple definition, gender is the essential identity of a human being. in a typical case, it is divided into two kinds, and they are male and female. most of them are afraid of making mistakes, lack motivation, and lack communication with lecturers, making them nervous about speaking english. in most cases, students feel more comfortable speaking in their mother tongue since it is the language they have learned naturally. a study about foreign language anxiety has been conducting by researchers. surya, menanti, & siregar (2018) discussed foreign language anxiety and its correlation to self-efficacy and the lecturer’s assertive behavior. a few more research carried out a positive correlation between anxiety and gender. d’souza, sae-lee, & chanak (2016) supported it, who assumed that gender could also impact learning a foreign language. in other research, hsu’s (2012) research for the gender difference in public speaking anxiety around 60% (21.74% male, 39.13% female) of the interviewed participants mentioned that they experienced anxiety before the speech. in addition, around 30% (8.70% male, 21.74% female) of the interviewed participants mentioned that they experienced anxiety during the speech. at the same time, only 10% (8.7% female) participants mentioned that they experienced anxiety both before and during their speech. further analysis has shown that female students are more prone to being grade-conscious and afraid of feeling inadequate in front of their classmates than male students. the akdeniz language studies conference’s results of the third research question revealed a significant difference between genders in terms of speaking anxiety level. female students demonstrated a moderate level of anxiety, whereas male students experienced speaking anxiety at a low level. this finding supports the study conducted by öztürk & gürbüz (2013), who investigated the relationship between foreign language speaking anxiety and proficiency level and found that female students experienced a higher level of speaking anxiety than male students. the other result from armstrong & khawaja’s (2002) research was a significant difference between the males’ and females’ self-reported anxiety symptoms, the extent and severity of these anxiety symptoms for the male group (m = 9.16) and female group (m = 13.75). 52 who is more anxious in learning a foreign language: males or females? based on the resulting interview from the respondence, shows one source of speaking anxiety is gender. there are some reasons why gender becomes one source of speaking anxiety. female and male students have different reasons why gender becomes a source of speaking anxiety. female and male have different speaking topics; female students have different topics in speaking with the opposite sex. in addition, female students think that their english is terrible, and the opposite sex will think that female students are incompetent. male students also have different reasons why they feel anxious to speak english to the opposite sex. they think that female students are more preserved than male students. however, the male student assumes that a different topic is also a factor of speaking anxiety (antoro, wisasongko & khazanah, 2015). in indonesia, english is used as a foreign language. the use of english as a foreign language tends to cause more anxiety than as a second language. this article was to investigate english speaking anxiety experienced by english department students on the gender difference in the context of indonesia. this research was conducted using a quantitative approach and comparative research to know the comparative of english-speaking anxiety based on gender differences. in this study, the researcher took 122 of the fourth and sixth semester students of the department of english education, institut agama islam negeri langsa as a sample by proportionate stratified random sampling (25 male students and 97 female students). collecting data in this study is taken by using a questionnaire. the research instruments were distributed to the respondent. this method was used because the observed variables are psychological inside of the respondent. to measure the level of foreign language anxiety that interrupts students, the researcher using the foreign language classroom anxiety scale (flcas) developed by horwitz, horwitz & cope (1986). this scale consist of 33 statements consists of three aspects: communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation. to ease the respondents’ answering, the researcher translated into participants’ mother tongue and adapted it to suit different needs. the research instruments were distributed to students as respondents to know students’ anxiety. they will respond about their experience in oral performance by self-assessment. kind of instrument this study is an inventory with the likert scale. likert developed the principle of measuring attitudes by asking people to respond to a series of statements about a topic regarding the extent to which they agree with them and exploit them into the cognitive and affective components of attitudes. these ordinal scales measure levels of agreement/disagreement. it is most commonly seen as a 5‐point scale ranging from “strongly agree, agree, neither, disagree and strongly disagree” each level on the scale is assigned a numeric value, usually starting at one and increased by one for each level. this research was using a 4-point scale, and this is done to get accurate answers and to eliminate the uncertainty. data analysis is the process integrated into a research procedure. data analysis was done to prove or find answers to the formulation, and researcher’s hypothesis about the variables studied. the researchers’ analysis will be read or interpreted by the researchers and then based on empirical reality. this research used inferential statistics with parametric to conclude and based on analysis of the sample data, and the result can be applied to the population. after research method afrianti, d. & afna, m. 53 analysis of classical assumptions fulfilled, the next step is testing the hypothesis with compare mean and using an independent sample t-test with the program of software ibm® spss® statistics version 23.0 for windows. this test was used to determine the difference in mean scores between the two groups of samples. to describe the result of the research to provide an overview of the research subject, the researcher set the criterion of categorization of the foreign language anxiety scale. the research subject was categorization by using the principle of the standard curve that was decided into five categories: very low, low, medium, high, and very high. table 1. hypothetic score and empiric score of research variable hypothetical score empirical score min max mean sd min max mean sd fla 33 132 82,5 16,5 56 129 92,49 12,715 the data presented in table 4.3 show that the mean hypothetic in the variable of anxiety is 82,5 and score mean of empiric as much as 92,49. then, the comparison showed that the mean empiric is higher than the mean hypothetic (92,49 > 82,5). it is shown that anxiety in english speaking on the research subject high. furthermore, the use of categorization subject of research as presented in table 4.2, from the measurement variable of anxiety, decides the category shallow, low, medium, high, and very high. before testing the hypothesis, some requirements must be filled to make sure data used to be analyzed, which is the assumption in statistics parametric. therefore, it must do some tests to conclude that taken not deviate from the truth. testing is carried out normality test and the homogeneity test. normality test is used in this research is in procedure kolmogorov smirnov test. if sig > α (0,05), then the data in a normal distribution. on the contrary, if sig < α, the data is not normal. the statistic of kolmogorov smirnov was 0,062 and sig. 0,200 (sig > 0,05). thus, it can be concluded that anxiety is a normal distribution. the homogeneity test was used spss with levene statistic, the levene test used to test the similarity of the variance of some of the population. if the value of levene statistic > 0,05, it means that a variety of data is homogenous. the real significance is 0,520, and it is showing that sig > 0,05, thus the data is homogeneous. based on the descriptive study had done, the resulting anxiety from 25 male students in very high category of anxiety as much as two students, high category ten students, low category three students and medium category ten students. percentage of the data can see from the diagram below: result 54 who is more anxious in learning a foreign language: males or females? figure 1. anxiety level of male students the resulting anxiety from 97 female students was in the very high category as much as 14 students, high category 46 students, medium category 27 students, low category nine students, and very low one student. percentage of the data present by diagram bellow : figure 2. anxiety level of female students from the explanation above, the anxiety experienced by female students is more varied compared with male students. it was evident from the result of analysis data score of range male students < score of range female students: 43< 64 and score of deviation standard of male students < deviation standard of female students: 11,321 < 13,00. an independent sample t-test does it with the program of software ibm® spss® statistics version 23.0 for windows. the independent sample t-test was used to compare the mean of team groups to determine whether there is a significant difference between the mean score of male and female students. the result of the independent samples test present in table 4.6 below: table 2. independent sampe t-test variable f sig t df sig mean difference standard of error fla 0,417 0,520 -1,279 120 0,203 -3,637 2,845 based on the result, the calculations are presented in the table above. a score of f obtained a value of 0,417 with sig = 0,520. to testing the meaning f score, it has to stand on the score of the t-test. if score sigf > 0,05, it must stand on the equal variance assumed table. while, if 8% 40% 40% 12% very high high medium low very low 14,40% 47,40% 27,80% 9,30% 1,00% very high high medium low very low afrianti, d. & afna, m. 55 sig < 0,05, it stands on a table of equal variances not assumed. from the table above total significance of f test (0,520) > 0,05. thus, in this research score of the t-test stand on the table of equal variances assumed. on these table was getting t score = -1,279 with sig = 0,203, if sig > 0,05 h0 rejected. the result above was getting t=1,279 with sig (0,203). this research significance of t-test 0,203 > 0,05 shows that there was no difference in speaking english anxiety based on gender. anxiety is one of the psychological factors that are very important in learning a language. krashen (1982) mentions at least 3 points that affect a person’s success in learning a language: motivation, confidence, and anxiety. the psychological aspect that hinders learning the language is referred to by the term affective filter. it was referred to the tendency of a person who has an attitude not optimal in learning the language, and it caused the person is not maximal in learning a language. in contrast, if she/he has an attitude that is conducive to learning the language will have an impact on optimal results in learning a language. this looks at someone who studied the language stressfully; all comprehension and preparations be troubled. littlewood asserts that a foreign language classroom can create inhibitions and anxiety easily (tuan & mai, 2015) gender differences were often debating related to the experience of learning foreign language anxiety. behnke’s research was discovered that female speakers reported higher anxiety patterns. fariadian stated that male respondents demonstrated higher levels of language anxiety than female students (fariadian, azizifar, & gowhary (2014).). in contrast, alsowat (2016) found that gender did not significantly impact foreign language anxiety in the current study. many factors of anxiety cause it and these factor of male and female has a different portion. while tòth was concluding some factors contribute to anxiety, such as 1) the nature of foreign language communication, 2) personality and character, 3) being foreign language major, 4) classroom situation, teachers, and peers, 5) target language competence, 6) instructional practice, and 7) lack of authentic communication. personality factor is one of the internal factors which significantly influence speaking anxiety by everyone. this research showed the anxiety in using english as a foreign language experienced the students tended to be in high level. however, there is no significant difference between a male and female student in feeling anxiety when contacting english as a foreign language. these findings should be investigated further by considering other related factors, such as culture and personality. alsowat, h. h. (2016). foreign language anxiety in higher education: a practical framework for reducing fla. european scientific journal, 12 (7), 193-215. antoro, i. w., wisasongko, khazanah, d. (2015). speaking anxiety: factors contributing to the anxiety in speaking class of the first year students of the english department faculty of letters, jember university. [undergraduate thesis, universitas jember] discussion conclusion references 56 who is more anxious in learning a foreign language: males or females? armstrong, k. a. & khawaja, n. g. (2002). gender differences in anxiety: an investigation of the symptoms, cognitions, and sensitivity towards anxiety in a nonclinical population. behavioural and cognitive psychotherapy, 30, 227-231. cabansag, j. n. (2013). english language anxiety and reading comprehension performance of college students in a state university. researchers world: journal of arts, science & commerce, 4(4), 20-39. d’souza, j. b., sae-lee, p., & chanak, a. (2016). the influence of culture, gender and academic achievement on foreign language anxiety. australian journal of sustainable business and society, 2(1), 20-31. fariadian, e., azizifar, a. & gowhary, h. (2014). gender contribution in anxiety in speaking efl among iranian learners. international research journal of applied and basic sciences, 8(11), 2095-2099. gaibani, a. & elmenfi, f. (2014). the role of gender in influencing public speaking anxiety. british journal of english linguistics, 2(3),7-13. horwitz, e. k., horwitz, m. b., & cope, j. (1986). foreign language classroom anxiety. the modern language journal, 70(2), 125-132. hsu, t. (2012). a study on the efl students’ speech related anxiety in taiwan. international journal of research studies in language learning, 1(2), 3-18. khan, z. a., & zafar, s. (2010). the effects of anxiety on cognitive processing in english language learning. english language teaching, 3(2), 199-209. krashen, s. (1982). principles and practice in second language acquisition. pergamon press inc. öztürk, g., & gürbüz, n. (2013). the impact of gender on foreign language speaking anxiety and motivation. procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 70, 654-665. rakhmat, j. (2005) psikologi komunikasi. pt remaja rosdakarya. suleimenova, z. (2013). speaking anxiety in a foreign language classroom in kazakhstan. procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 93, 1860-1868. surya, d., menanti, a., & siregar, n. s. s. (2018). the relationship between self-efficacy and lecturer’s assertive behavior with foreign language anxiety. enlighten: jurnal bimbingan konseling islam, 1(2), 150-164. the world’s largest ranking of english skills (edition 6), http://www.ef.co.id/epi/2016 tran, t. t. t. (2012). a review of horwitz, horwitz and cope’s theory of foreign language anxiety and the challenges to the theory. english language teaching, 5(1), 69-75. tuan, n. h. & mai, t. n. (2015). factors affecting students’ speaking performance at le thanh hien high school. asian journal of educational research, 3(2), 2311-6080. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research https://journal.iainlangsa.ac.id/index.php/inspira how to cite (apa 7th edition) restika, r. & hurriyati, d. (2023). exercise motivation and body image in middle-aged women. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 4(1), 70–76. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.5515 this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial 4.0 international (cc by-nc 4.0) copyright ©2023 by restika & dwi hurriyati. research article exercise motivation and body image in middle-aged women https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.5515 restika1, dwi hurriyati2 1 department of psychology, universitas bina darma palembang, south sumatra, indonesia 2 department of psychology, universitas bina darma palembang, south sumatra, indonesia corresponding author: restika (email: tika98resti@gmail.com) abstract middle-aged women do various ways to get an ideal body posture, one of which is by exercising. this study aims to determine the relationship between motivation to exercise and body image of middle-aged women. this research is correlative quantitative research. middle-aged women at mahkota gym prabumulih, totaling 105 people, participated in this study. the sampling technique used in this study was purposive sampling with 3 characteristics: middle-aged women aged 35-50 years, weighing more than 50 kgs, and regularly attending gymnastics classes at least once a week. the collection technique used body image scales and exercise motivation. this study uses a simple linear regression test analysis technique. based on the results of data analysis, there is an influence of exercise motivation on body image. the contribution value of exercise motivation with body image is 21.5%. there is still a 78.5% influence from other factors related to body image that is not involved in this study, so it can be concluded that there is a very significant influence between exercise motivation on body image in middle-aged women at mahkota gym prabumulih. article history: received 12 january 2023 revised 01 february 2023 accepted 29 june 2023 keywords: body image; exercise motivation; middle adulthood; middle-aged women introduction women are creatures who love beauty, and many things women do to look beautiful (girindra, 2014). maintaining beauty for women is essential. even in middle age, women still want to look beautiful and attractive, especially in the eyes of their partners (putri, 2020). this is not wrong, but some women sometimes forget about other things and prioritize physical beauty. most women may also forget a little about the simple truth that aging is not something terrible. this natural process will happen to every human on earth (rimbawan, 2019). as stated by naomi wolf (2018) that every woman, both young and old, is very afraid of aging. thin and fat women must fight to get the ideal body weight. this applies to all women in the world (meidita, 2013). the picture of ideal body posture is the dream of everyone, both women and men, young and old. a muscular, full or slender body shape is the primary goal of someone doing sports training (maulida, 2020). in order to get an ideal body posture and attractive appearance, various efforts are made, one of which is to do adequate and supportive sports training such as fitness centers (hannifuni’am, 2018; maulida, 2020; newman, 2018; ryan & deci, 2017). https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.5515 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6736-674x https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7526-1211 71 aging is not just about age. instead, it can be linked to fitness and how the body works and reacts. based on the herbalife nutrition asia pacific healthy aging survey in 2020, respondents in indonesia understand the importance of healthy aging. the results showed that 8 out of 10 consumers (82%) had taken preventive measures to help them age healthily. as many as 73% have improved their nutritional intake, 63% said they have done more exercise, and 50% also said they have done activities that stimulate mental health. meanwhile, 46% take supplements that promote health and 42% have also done more regular health checks (putri, 2020). old age is characterized by signs of physical aging such as wrinkled skin, mass media factors such as exposure to magazines and social media, and standard factors adopted by society, for example, in an area that considers white skin and a slender body to look more attractive, and also social comparison factors such as seeing the advantages of others (agustin et al., 2019). as many people realize they want to improve their physical fitness, fitness centers have become one of the most visited locations, especially by women. in order to get the ideal body shape, not a few women are willing to spend money to exercise regularly at the fitness center. this phenomenon also occurs in the fitness center crown gym prabumulih. many married and middle-aged women do sports activities to maintain ideal body weight as the aging period comes. in addition, exercise is also a form of self-love to improve household harmony. middle adulthood is a period that begins when a person enters the age of 35-45 years to 60-65 years. according to a life span expert, brim (2019) stated that middle adulthood is a period full of changes and conflicts (hannifuni’am, 2018) (newman, 2018). middle adulthood is mentioned as a unique period because of the loss and gain of balance. losses and gains are balanced in both biological and sociocultural aspects, such as education, career, and relationships. smolak et al. (2019) said that this could be a factor in the emergence of fear of changes that occur due to the aging process or fear of aging (cash & smolak, 2019) (putri, 2010) (setiawati, 2020). based on the results of interviews with middle-aged female members at mahkota gym prabumulih, it can be seen that the behavior of middle-aged adult women, such as female members routinely attend gymnastics classes 2-3 times a week to evaluate their appearance, take gymnastics classes to achieve the ideal body shape they want, are happy when they see their body in the mirror, regularly weigh themselves, feel that having a slender body looks more attractive than being fat. this is supported based on the opinion of cash and smolak (2019) that there are five characteristics of body image, namely (1) evaluation of appearance, (2) appearance orientation, (3) satisfaction with body parts, (4) anxiety about being fat, (5) perception of body size. according to bakhshi (sari & abrori, 2019), body image in the ideal body concept is strongly influenced by social, economic, motivational and cultural factors adopted by society. thompson et al. (piran, 2019) say someone who wants a positive body image will be motivated to do sports activities. so that the more someone succeeds in achieving a positive body image, the more motivated he is to do sports activities. exercise motivation is a person’s motive to participate in sports, and gifts put individuals in a situation of possibility or impossibility to have pleasure in specific exercises or sports (newman, 2018). according to molanorouzi (2018), sports motivation is the overall driving force (motives) within the individual that gives rise to sports activities, ensures the continuity of training and provides direction to training activities to achieve the desired goals. based on the results of interviews with several subjects, they said she did sports not only because of her beauty, but he was earnest about joining the gymnastics class provided in order to get a fit body 72 too. she chose to do sports at the fitness center to share with friends who had the goal of losing weight too. this is supported based on ryan’s opinion (arnain, 2019) of four characteristics of exercise motivation: interest, caring about appearance, maintaining fitness, and having challenges. based on the researcher’s initial questionnaire on 16 july 2022 through the distribution of hard copies that researchers distributed to 100 middle-aged female gym members at the prabumulih gym crown, 97% of respondents participated in zumba gymnastics because it was fun, 80% of respondents did sports because they cared about appearance, 90% of respondents did sports not for beauty reasons alone, but also for reasons of maintaining body fitness, 69% of respondents exercised because they had a target to lose weight and had a bb number that had to be achieved, and 71% of respondents exercised because they wanted to add friends and could share about health and beauty together. 90% of respondents exercise 2-3 times a week to get an ideal body, 79% take gymnastics classes to achieve ideal weight goals, 39% of respondents are happy when they see their body in the mirror, 78% of respondents routinely weigh themselves once a week or once a month, 83% of respondents feel that having a slender body looks more attractive than having a fat body. research conducted by arnain (2019) shows a correlation between exercise motivation variables and body image variables. however, research on exercise psychology is still limited, especially in middle-aged women, so research is needed to prove the relationship between exercise motivation and body image in adult women in other populations. therefore, this study aims to explain theoretically and empirically the relationship between exercise motivation and body image in middleaged women at mahkota gym prabumulih. moreover, based on the above explanation, this study hypothesizes that there is a positive relationship between exercise motivation and body image in middle-aged women at mahkota gym prabumulih. method this study uses a quantitative approach, the independent variable is exercise motivation, and the dependent variable is body image. the researcher created the body image scale based on aspects of body image according to thomson (sari & abrori, 2020), namely: perception of body parts as a whole, aspects of comparison with others, and aspects of reaction to others. meanwhile, the researcher compiled the exercise motivation scale based on aspects of exercise motivation by ryan & deci (2017): fun, appearance, social interaction, fitness, and challenge. the population in this study were 150 middle-aged women at mahkota gym prabumulih. the research sample was determined again using the isaac micheal table formula with an error rate of 5% (sugiyono, 2018). based on the micheal isacc table with an error rate of 5%, a sample of 105 middleaged female members was obtained. the sampling technique used in this study was purposive sampling. according to sugiyono (2018), purposive sampling is a sampling technique based on specific considerations, so it is also called consideration sampling because it has specific characteristics. the sample characteristics in this study are 1) members who join for at least 3 months at the prabumulih gym crown, 2) middle-aged adult women aged 35-50 years with body weight over 50kg, and 4) routinely attending gymnastics classes at least once a week. the data collection method uses a likert scale as a body image scale totaling 49 items and exercises motivation totaling 45 items. this scale contains two forms of statements some statements are supportive (favorable), and statements that do not supportive (unfavorable) (sugiyono, 2018). the score given consists of number 4 for the answer strongly agree (sa), number 3 for the answer agree (a), number 2 for the answer disagree (d), and number 1 for the answer strongly disagree (sd). meanwhile, for statements that do not support (unfavorable), the score given consists of number 1 73 for the answer strongly agree (sa), number 2 for the answer agree (a), number 3 for the answer disagree (d), and number 4 for the answer strongly disagree (sd). the data analysis technique uses the spps version 20.0 program. data analysis was carried out in two stages, namely 1) conducting assumption or prerequisite tests which include normality test and linearity test, and 2) conducting hypothesis testing using simple linear regression test. result based on table 1, it can be seen that there are 57 participants with an age range of 40-45 years, 35 participants with an age range of 46-50 years, and 13 participants with an age range of 51-55 years. table 1. partisipants’ age (n=105) age (year) n (%) 40-45 57 (54.29%) 46-50 35 (33.33%) 51-55 13 (12.38%) based on table 2, it can be seen that of the 105 subjects who have body image in middle-aged women at mahkota gym prabumulih who are used as research subjects, and there are 57 subjects (54.28%) have a positive body image and 48 subjects or (45.72%) subjects who have a negative body image. thus, it can be concluded that the average subject with a body image in middle-aged woman at mahkota gym prabumulih has a positive body image. furthermore, of the 105 subjects used as research subjects, 59 subjects (56.19%) had positive exercise motivation, and 46 subjects (43.81%) had negative exercise motivation. thus, it can be concluded that, on average, middle-aged women at mahkota gym prabumulih have high exercise motivation. table 2. categorization of the research sample variable score category n (%) body image x ≥ 157.79 positive 57 (54.28%) x ≤ 157.79 negative 48 (45.72%) exercise motivation x ≥ 161,45 high 59 (56.19%) x ≤ 161,45 low 46 (43.81%) the normality test results using kolmogorovsmirnov for each variable show that the data for the two variables used in this study are typically distributed. the body image variable is normally distributed (k-s = 1.148, p = .143) and motivation variables (k-s = 1.207, p = .108). the linearity test on the variable indicates that the correlation between the variables of body image and exercise motivation is linear (f = 1.542, p < .001). hypothesis testing in table 3 obtained the results of the amount of effective contribution given by the variable motivation to exercise with body image is significantly correlated (r = .321, p < .001). there is still a 78.5% influence from other factors related to body image but not examined by researchers, including social, economic, and cultural factors adopted by the community that are not used in this study. table 3. hypothesis test result variable mean sd r r2 p result body image (y) 157.79 24.877 .321 .215 < .001 significant exercise motivation (x) 161.45 12.367 74 discussion based on the results of statistical calculations that have been carried out to prove a significant relationship between exercise motivation and body image in middle adult women. the analysis was carried out using a simple regression test, which showed acceptance of the proposed hypothesis. this relationship is supported by arnain (2019), who states that high motivation and an indication of body image. this agrees with thompson et al. (tylka & piran, 2019), saying that someone who wants a positive body image will be motivated to do sports activities. so that the more someone succeeds in achieving a positive body image, the more motivated he is to do sports activities. the results of this study also state that other factors are related to body image besides exercise motivation. these results confirm the research proposed by bakhshi (in sari & abrori, 2020) that social, economic, and cultural factors adopted by society can affect body image. in this study, middle-aged women at the crown gym in prabumulih mostly feel that they have a whole body posture, some view their body image negatively, but some also view their body image positively, which affects their view of their self-identity. as stated by honigman and castle (in melliana, 2006), body image is a person’s mental image of the shape and size of his body, how a person perceives and gives an assessment of what he thinks and feels about the size and shape of his body, and on how others think about him. what she thinks and feels does not necessarily represent the actual situation but rather the result of subjective selfassessment. conclusion the research results on body image variables that are thought to have a relationship with exercise motivation show significant results. both variables, the exercise motivation variable, contributes to the body image variable. based on the results of the above research, it is clear that exercise motivation contributes significantly to body image. in addition, so far, the problem of body image has not received serious attention from middle-aged women, so in overcoming these problems, efforts and efforts are needed from middle-aged women, in order to improve their positive body image by doing sports activities, creating motivation in doing sports in middle-aged women, with high motivation to exercise it is expected that positive body image will increase. for this reason, there need to be efforts that must be made by middle-aged women, including; (a) increasing awareness of the importance of exercise in order to achieve a positive body image, (b) a positive body image is closely related to physical activities /suitable exercise activities. declaration acknowledgment the author would like to thank all those who have helped in data collection and technical matters, especially the manager of mahkota gym prabumulih, who has given permission and assisted researchers in conducting this research. author contribution statement restika conducted the survey, distributed the scales, and analyzed the data. dwi hurriyati monitored the process of conducting the research, writing the discussion and research conclusions. 75 funding statement this research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or nonprofit sectors. data access statement the data described in this article can be accessed by contacting the author. declaration of interest’s statement the authors declare no conflict of interest. additional information no additional information is available for this paper. references adawiyah, setiawati, n. (2020). hubungan antara perbandingan sosial dan citra tubuh pada mahasiswa pengguna media sosial instagram [undergraduate thesis, universitas islam negeri maulana malik ibrahim]. http://etheses.uin-malang.ac.id/19038/ agustin, d., rusdiyanto, r. m., & priyono, a. (2019). studi terhadap motivasi berprestasi tim bola voli putri kota cirebon pada porda tahun 2018. journal respecs, 1(2), 60. https://www.jurnal.unma.ac.id/index.php/jr/article/view/1471 arnain, a. (2019). hubungan motivasi olahraga dengan citra tubuh. psikoborneo: jurnal ilmiah psikologi, 7(3) http://dx.doi.org/10.30872/psikoborneo.v7i3.4811 azwar, s. (2004). penyusunan skala psikologi. pustaka pelajar. azwar, s. (2012). reliabilitas dan validitas (4th ed). pustaka pelajar. brunton, r. j., & scott, g. (2015). do we fear ageing? a multidimensional approach to ageing anxiety. educational gerontology, 41(11), 786–799. https://doi.org/10.1080/03601277.2015.1050870 calasanti, t. m. (1996). gender and life satisfaction in retirement: an assessment of the male model. the journals of gerontology series b: psychological sciences and social sciences, 51(1), s18–s29. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/51b.1.s18 cash, t. f., & smolak, l. (2019). body image: a handbook of science, practice, and prevention. guilford press. damayanti, a. e. (2016). hubungan citra tubuh, aktivitas fisik, dan pengetahuan gizi seimbang dengan status gizi remaja putri [doctoral dissertation, universitas airlangga]. destriyana (2014, november 28). ciri wanita modern, menolak jadi tua? merdeka.com. https://www.merdeka.com/gaya/ciri-wanita-modern-menolak-jadi-tua.html fernandes, a. a. r. (2018). metodologi penelitian kuantitatif perspektif sistem: mengungkap novelty dan memenuhi validitas penelitian. universitas brawijaya press. fernando, m. l. (2019). gambaran citra tubuh pada wanita dewasa awal yang mengalami obesitas. jurnal ilmiah psikologi terapan, 7(1), 101–118. https://doi.org/10.22219/jipt.v7i1.6369 girindra, dkk (2014) citra tubuh dan kepercayaan diri mahasiswa pengguna kosmetik wardah. jurnal psikologi, 11(2), 143–152. http://doi.org/10.35760/psi.2018.v11i2.2259 hannifuni’am, f. f. (2018). konsep positive parenting menurut muhammad fauzil adhim dan implikasinya terhadap pendidikan anak. tarbiyat al-aulad: jurnal pendidikan islam anak usia dini, 1(2), 37–58. https://riset-iaid.net/index.php/ta/article/view/104 http://etheses.uin-malang.ac.id/19038/ https://www.jurnal.unma.ac.id/index.php/jr/article/view/1471 http://dx.doi.org/10.30872/psikoborneo.v7i3.4811 https://doi.org/10.1080/03601277.2015.1050870 https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/51b.1.s18 https://www.merdeka.com/gaya/ciri-wanita-modern-menolak-jadi-tua.html https://doi.org/10.22219/jipt.v7i1.6369 http://doi.org/10.35760/psi.2018.v11i2.2259 https://riset-iaid.net/index.php/ta/article/view/104 76 intantiyana, m., widajanti, l., & rahfiludin, m. z. (2018). hubungan citra tubuh, aktivitas fisik dan pengetahuan gizi seimbang dengan kejadian obesitas pada remaja putri gizi lebih di sma negeri 9 kota semarang. jurnal kesehatan masyarakat, 6(5), 404–412. https://doi.org/10.14710/jkm.v6i5.22064 laraswaty, f. a. (2016). citra tubuh wanita dewasa madya yang bekerja dan tidak bekerja [doctoral dissertation, university of muhammadiyah malang]. malighetti, c., sciara, s., chirico, a., & riva, g. (2020). emotional expression of #body on instagram. social media + society, 6(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120924771 maulida, f. (2020). hubungan antara body image dengan kepercayaan diri pada mahasiswa [undergraduate thesis, universitas islam indonesia]. https://dspace.uii.ac.id/handle/123456789/23507 meidita, a (2013) dampak negatif industri hallyu ke indonesia. e-journal ilmu hubungan internasional, 1, 980– 984. https://ejournal.hi.fisip-unmul.ac.id/site/?p=950 melliana, a. (2021). menjelajah tubuh: perempuan dan mitos kecantikan. lkis mylsidayu, a. (2022). psikologi olahraga. bumi aksara. newman, e. l. (2018). female body image in contemporary art: dieting, eating disorders, self-harm, and fatness. routledge. piran, n. (2019). handbook of positive body image and embodiment: constructs, protective factors, and interventions. oxford university press. putri, a. s. (2020, november 27). tips mengatasi rasa takut datangnya penuaan. fimela. https://www.fimela.com/lifestyle/read/4418260/tips-mengatasi-rasa-takut-datangnya-penuaan putri, d. r. (2010). hubungan antara body image dan kohesivitas kelompok teman sebaya dengan penyesuaian sosial pada siswa kelas viii program akselerasi di smp negeri 2 surakarta [undergraduate thesis, universitas negeri surakarta]. https://digilib.uns.ac.id/dokumen/detail/19241/hubungan-antara-bodyimage-dan-kohesivitas-kelompok-teman-sebaya-dengan-penyesuaian-sosial-pada-siswa-kelas-viiiprogram-akselerasi-di-smp-negeri-2-surakarta ridha, m. (2012). hubungan antara body image dengan penerimaan diri pada mahasiswa aceh di yogyakarta. empathy: jurnal fakultas psikologi, 1(1), 111–121. robertson, m., duffy, f., newman, e., bravo, c. p., ates, h. h., & sharpe, h. (2021). exploring changes in body image, eating and exercise during the covid-19 lockdown: a uk survey. appetite, 159, 105062. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2020.105062 ryan, r. m., & deci, e. l. (2017). self-determination theory: basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. the guilford press. https://doi.org/10.1521/978.14625/28806 sari, u. s. c., & abrori, m. k. (2019). body image. pt. sahabat alter indonesia. sugiyono. (2018). metode penelitian kuantitatif, kualitatif dan r&d. alfabeta sunartio, l., sukamto, m. e., & dianovianina, k. (2012). social comparison dan body dissatisfaction pada wanita dewasa awal. humanitas: indonesian psychological journal, 9(2), 157–168. http://doi.org/10.26555/humanitas.v9i2.342 tylka, t., & piran, n. (2019). handbook of positive body image and embodiment: from the present to the future. in tracy l. tylka (ed.). handbook of positive body image and embodiment: constructs, protective factors, and interventions (pp. 423–426). oxford university press. https://doi.org/10.1093/medpsych/9780190841874.003.0039 wati, d. k., & sumarmi, s. (2017). citra tubuh pada remaja perempuan gemuk dan tidak gemuk: studi cross sectional. amerta nutrition, 1(4), 398–405. https://doi.org/10.20473/amnt.v1i4.2017.398-405 wolf, n. (2018). the beauty myth. harpercollins publisher inc. https://doi.org/10.14710/jkm.v6i5.22064 https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120924771 https://dspace.uii.ac.id/handle/123456789/23507 https://ejournal.hi.fisip-unmul.ac.id/site/?p=950 https://www.fimela.com/lifestyle/read/4418260/tips-mengatasi-rasa-takut-datangnya-penuaan https://digilib.uns.ac.id/dokumen/detail/19241/hubungan-antara-body-image-dan-kohesivitas-kelompok-teman-sebaya-dengan-penyesuaian-sosial-pada-siswa-kelas-viii-program-akselerasi-di-smp-negeri-2-surakarta https://digilib.uns.ac.id/dokumen/detail/19241/hubungan-antara-body-image-dan-kohesivitas-kelompok-teman-sebaya-dengan-penyesuaian-sosial-pada-siswa-kelas-viii-program-akselerasi-di-smp-negeri-2-surakarta https://digilib.uns.ac.id/dokumen/detail/19241/hubungan-antara-body-image-dan-kohesivitas-kelompok-teman-sebaya-dengan-penyesuaian-sosial-pada-siswa-kelas-viii-program-akselerasi-di-smp-negeri-2-surakarta https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2020.105062 http://doi.org/10.26555/humanitas.v9i2.342 https://doi.org/10.1093/med-psych/9780190841874.003.0039 https://doi.org/10.1093/med-psych/9780190841874.003.0039 https://doi.org/10.20473/amnt.v1i4.2017.398-405 inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research https://journal.iainlangsa.ac.id/index.php/inspira how to cite (apa 7th edition) hamdouna, o. s. & al massri. m. r. (2022). the mental health of university students to attitudes toward covid-19 vaccination. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 3(1), 8–16. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i1.4176 this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial 4.0 international (cc by-nc 4.0) copyright ©2022 by osama s. hamdouna & mohammed r. al massri research article the mental health of university students to attitudes toward covid-19 vaccination https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i1.4176 osama s. hamdouna, mohammed r. al massri department psychology, al-azhar university, gaza, palestine corresponding author: osama s. hamdouna (email: o.hamdouna@gmail.com) abstract the current study aimed to identify the relationship between mental health and the attitudes toward receiving the covid-19 vaccine. it also aimed to determine the levels of mental health and attitudes towards receiving the covid-19 vaccine among students of the faculty of education at al-azhar university, gaza, palestine. to achieve the study’s objectives, the researchers used the descriptive approach, and the study sample consisted of 200 students from the faculty of education, al-azhar university, gaza, palestine. the study used the mental health scale, which consists of three dimensions (psychological stress, depression, and anxiety) and attitudes toward receiving the covid-19 vaccine scale; it consists of three dimensions (cognitive, behavioral, and emotional), and the researchers prepared such scales. through spss, the results showed a positive relationship between mental health and attitudes towards receiving the covid-19 vaccine among students of the faculty of education at al-azhar university, and the level of mental health at the total degree was medium. the story of trends towards receiving the covid-19 vaccine, on the entire degree, was medium. according to the research outcomes, the researchers recommend providing the students with psychological intervention such as counseling and guidance to decrease negative psychological symptoms and upgrade their positive attitude toward the covid-19 vaccine. article history: received 05 june 2022 revised 19 june 2022 accepted 23 june 2022 keywords: attitude; covid-19; mental health; university student; vaccine introduction covid-19 is a disease of the human respiratory system caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (sars-cov-2), which transmits from person to person via respiratory droplet (ghosh, 2020). the symptoms include fever, cough, and fatigue, mild to severe respiratory illness appearing after an incubation period of approximately 5.2 days. covid-19 originated in wuhan city, hubei province of china, with 41 cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology.3 until february 2020, china was the only country affected by covid-19, but from the beginning of march, it started to spread rapidly to south korea. in the second week of march, cases quickly increased in italy, spain, and other european countries, and in the third week of march, issues were seen in the united states and other https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i1.4176 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5976-5073 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7888-987x 9 countries in the americas. world health organization declared covid-19 a pandemic on 11 march 2020. globally, the reported cases of covid-19 between 31 december 2019 and 20 march 2020 were 2,42,488, including 9,885 deaths (wang et al., 2020). in late january 2021, there were more than 90 million cases of covid-19 and more than 2 million deaths from infection. many countries are accelerating vaccine research and the development of vaccination programs against covid-19. as of early 2022, there are more than 170 vaccines in the preclinical stage and more than 60 vaccines in clinical development (world health organization, 2022) vaccines are effective interventions that can reduce the high burden of diseases globally. however, public vaccine hesitancy is a pressing problem for public health authorities. with the availability of covid-19 vaccines, little information is available on the public acceptability and attitudes towards the covid-19 vaccines (el-elimat et al., 2021). despite the progress of vaccine research very quickly, the general acceptance of vaccination and negativity represent significant challenges for societies and countries due to the rapid spread of the disease and the inability to bear the tiring measures taken from the closure of educational institutions, including universities (lin et al., 2020). despite the importance of covid-19 vaccination and the success of its application worldwide, hesitancy to take the vaccine is shared among various populations and across cultures and education levels. indeed, the who declared vaccine hesitancy as one of the top ten threats to global health in 2019 (sallam et al., 2021). according to the strategic advisory group of experts on immunization, vaccine hesitancy is “a delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccination despite the availability of vaccination services (de figueiredo et al., 2020). present-day endorsement of vaccine hesitancy is a known phenomenon, with roots accompanying vaccination since its scientific inception. the phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy has resulted in the revival of some infectious diseases that could have been eradicated through mass vaccination, such as measles, poliomyelitis, and pertussis (zaidi et al., 2021). the factors influencing covid-19 vaccine acceptance and the intention to vaccinate are individuals’ perceptions of the benefits and efficacy of the vaccine and their psychological state (szilagyi et al., 2021). one study suggested that vaccine hesitancy among university students is associated with psychological factors and that an intervention targeting these factors may increase vaccination rates (dratva et al., 2021). moreover, although understanding the willingness to be vaccinated may assist in disseminating vaccination programs, the intention to be vaccinated may change over time. for example, research investigating the desire to follow up with the covid-19 vaccination showed that 74.1% of the participants were willing to receive a vaccine in april 2020. in contrast, only 56.2% were willing to do so in december 2020 (seven months later). although the reasons for this phenomenon are unclear, it is possible because they had been exposed to various speculations and media reports amid rapid changes in the infectious situation (barello et al., 2020). willingness to accept a vaccine against covid-19 is a critical issue in determining the success of a vaccination program (lin et al., 2020). as it is essential to examine the public acceptance of vaccines, previous studies have examined the acceptance rate of the 2009 h1n1 influenza vaccine. for example, during the 2009 a/h1n1 pandemic, the vaccine acceptance rates ranged from 50% to 64% among adults in the usa (gidengil et al.,2012). in china, over 60% of study respondents had intended to receive a vaccination. recent studies examining the acceptance rate of covid-19 vaccines found rates ranging from 23% to 91% among american medical students, adults, and chinese adults. other associated factors of vaccine acceptability are also essential to implementing a vaccination strategy (reiter et al., 2020; bai et al., 2021). 10 it is estimated that approximately 70% of the population must acquire immunity via natural infection or vaccination to achieve adequate herd immunity to the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (covid-19) (randolph & barreiro, 2020). in addition, to developing a safe and effective vaccine, vaccination hesitancy is a crucial public health concern, which can be influenced by the individual, group, and contextual factors (dong, du, & gardner, 2020). anti-vaccination sentiment represents a significant hurdle to overcome toward achieving the threshold for herd immunity, with as few as 50% of americans committed to getting a covid-19 vaccine before its availability. recent surveys conducted in november and december 2020 found that a quarter of individuals in the us and canada were hesitant to get a covid-19 vaccine (gerretsen et al., 2021). the governments and public health authorities worldwide have been tasked with ensuring adequate vaccine acceptance and thus vaccination coverage to ensure herd immunity is achieved. even though vaccination is one of the most effective measures to prevent covid-19, the vaccination acceptance rate varies across countries and populations. as trustworthy healthcare providers, nursing students’ attitudes, knowledge, and willingness to receive the covid-19 vaccine may significantly affect the population’s present and future vaccine acceptance rates; however, studies related to the vaccine acceptance rates among university students are limited. the topic of trends is one of the essential topics in psychology because trends are determinants directed by knowing the nature of an individual’s tendency towards a particular issue or situation, which enables us to predict the direction of his behavior if he is exposed to a stimulus. the action is available before him, and his behavior will be lively and active to achieve this topic. however, if he has negative trends, his activity will be characterized by lethargy and hesitation to complete this topic (belkacem & nabil, 2017). the theoretical approaches that explain trends agree that the psychological trend is based on three components that interact with each other to give the general framework of the trend, which are: the cognitive component, which is the individual’s beliefs, thoughts, and perceptions about the subject of the trend and the moving part, and it refers to the individual’s feelings and emotions towards the subject of the trend and the behavioral component and refers to the individual’s readiness to do by specific actions and responses that are consistent with his tendencies (al-mafraji, 2021). in one of the previous studies, among 23,143 students who completed the survey, 22,660 participants were included in the final analysis with an effective rate of 97.9% after excluding invalid questionnaires. 60.6% of participants would be willing to receive the covid-19 vaccine, 33.4% were hesitant to vaccination, and 6.0% were resistant to vaccination. social media platforms and government agencies were the primary sources of immunization information. worrying about vaccine efficacy and adverse effects were the top two common reasons for vaccine hesitancy and resistance. multiple multinomial logistic regression analyses identified that participants concerned about the damaging effects of vaccination were more likely to be vaccine hesitancy and resistant (zhu et al., 2022). tsutsumi et al. (2022) conducted another study about the willingness to receive the covid-19 vaccination. japanese university students’ psychological state may be one solution to end the covid19 pandemic. one’s psychological state may be strongly related to one’s vaccination willingness. this study investigated the relationship between the psychological state of japanese university students and their desire to be vaccinated. an online self-report questionnaire on covid-19 vaccines (vaccination status, perceived efficacy, and safety) and psychological state (anxiety and depressive mood) obtained 560 valid responses. the unvaccinated group reported significantly lower perceived vaccine effectiveness and importance than the vaccinated group. however, the two groups had no differences in anxiety and depressive mood symptoms. analysis performed multivariate logistic 11 regression on the unvaccinated participants to identify the factors associated with their unwillingness to be vaccinated; there was a significant association between anxiety and reluctance to receive the vaccine (p < 0.05). however, there was no significant association between depressive mood and unwillingness to receive the vaccine. the results suggest that timely psychological support for japanese university students experiencing high anxiety levels is vital in accelerating vaccination programs. another study indicated that the increased prevalence of covid -19 hurts the mental health of individuals, as the level of psychological problems was raised. the results also found differences in most psychological problems symptoms due to demographic variables (arnout et al., 2020). the study results emphasized the importance of preventing and treating psychological problems and symptoms caused by the deadly covid-19. these findings stressed the role of counseling and therapy via the internet and cross-cultural counseling and treatment. moreover, the fourth study examined the attitudes of chinese college students toward covid-19 vaccines and their associated factors (bai et al., 2021). a cross-sectional study was conducted on college students nationwide from 27 december 2020 to 18 january 2021. attitudes toward covid-19 vaccines and acceptance of future vaccination programs were assessed. two thousand eight hundred eighty-one college students participated in this survey; 76.3% were willing to accept a covid-19 vaccine in the future. finally, jiang et al. (2021) study investigated nursing students’ knowledge, attitudes, and willingness to receive the covid-19 vaccine and the influencing factors. an adopted convenience sampling method was to select two medical universities in china. the data from 1488 valid questionnaires explained that the vaccination status of family members significantly influenced the mood. gender, grade, and academic background became the main factors influencing knowledge. furthermore, the participants were respective to the vaccination by attitude (70.07%), knowledge (80.70%), and vaccination willingness (84.38%). factors significantly influenced aspects of willingness, gender, educational background, visits to high-risk areas, family members’ vaccination status, and the side effects experienced after receiving other vaccines. mental health is an essential element in the lives of individuals, especially university students, where achieving a good level of mental health helps face life’s difficulties. the spread of the covid19 in palestine caused a crisis that affected the category of university students. due to the excellent mixing inside the university campus, they became more vulnerable to mental health problems due to the covid-19 space. a recent study among university students in china showed that 24.9% of the students suffered from anxiety due to the covid-19 outbreak. a study conducted in greece also indicated high degrees of anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts among greek students (huang et al., 2020). also, attitudes towards receiving vaccines, which means the perceived safety and efficacy of vaccines, were associated with the acceptance of vaccines in university students with symptoms of anxiety and depression, so it is considered an emergency psychological intervention necessary if a new wave of which there is much fear becomes a reality. given the importance of identifying the level of mental health and students’ attitudes toward receiving the vaccine, mental health specialists and researchers must conduct studies on mental health in the spread of the covid-19 among university students and their attitudes toward receiving the vaccine. therefore, the study’s main aim is to examine the relationship between mental health and the attitudes toward receiving the covid-19 vaccine among the faculty of education at al-azhar university, gaza, palestine, besides identifying the levels of mental health and attitudes towards receiving covid-19 vaccine. 12 method a systematic random sample was selected from the students of the faculty of education, al-azhar university, gaza, palestine, for the year 2022 to represent the study population. the study sample consisted of 250 male and female students from the faculty of education, al-azhar university, gaza, palestine, for 2022. table 1. demographics of participants (n=250) vaccinated students variables n (%) gender male 118 (47.2) female 135 (52.8) academic level semester 2 139 (55.6) semester 4 111 (44.4) the researchers used two tools to collect data about the mental health of university students and their attitudes towards receiving the vaccine. the tools were designed after reviewing the educational literature and previous studies related to the problem of the study and surveying the opinion of a sample of specialized professors through personal interviews of an informal nature. the researcher used the mental health scale, which consists of 22 items distributed on three dimensions: psychological stress, depression, and anxiety. the scale of attitude towards receiving the vaccine, which consists of 18 items, distributed on three dimensions (cognitive, behavioral, emotional), and the scale is graded according to a scale likert quintuple (strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree) the following weights were given 5 to 1 so that the scores of the study sample ranged between (22-110) for the mental health scale. furthermore, it ranges from 18 to 90 for the attitude scale. the study has adopted five levels of mental health scale according to the following equation: the upper range minus the lower range divided by five (0.80), and therefore the relative weight 84 to 100 is enormous, from 68 to 84 is significant, and from 52 to 67 medium, from 36 to 52 a few, and less than 36 very few. whereas for the attitude scale, table. 2 illustrates the scores and the interpretation. the validity of mental health scale (r=0.901, p-value<0.01) and attitude scale (r=0.845, p-value<0.01) is acceptable. table 2. instrument score and the interpretation of attitude scale dimension likert scale total items lowest score highest score neuter (60%) positive negative cognitive 5 6 6 30 18 <18 >18 behavioral 5 6 6 30 18 <18 >18 emotional 5 6 6 30 18 <18 >18 total 5 18 18 90 54 <54 >54 result to identify the level of mental health, the researchers used the averages, standard deviations, and relative weight for each of the dimensions of the scale and the total scores; table 3 illustrates this: table 3. descriptive statistics of the mental health scale dimension mean sd weight (%) t p-value rank psychological stress 23.940 5.325 68.40 8.730 0.000 1 depression 21.932 6.264 62.66 2.353 0.019 2 anxiety 23.720 7.548 59.30 -0.587 0.558 3 total 69.592 16.453 63.27 3.452 0.001 it is clear from table 3 that psychological stress ranked first with relative weight (68.40%) and came to a great degree, followed by depression, which got the second place with relative importance 13 (62.66%). it went to a medium degree, followed by anxiety, earned third place with relative weight (59.60%), and reached a medium degree. the total mental health degree got relative importance (63.27%) and came at a medium degree. this result indicates the mental health status among the palestinian students. the researchers think such a score should be lower than the results as the scale used measures the negative aspect of mental health. this score could result from the stressful environment in which the students live, as the palestinian community is full of political and socioeconomic stressors, besides the stress that the pandemic of covid 19 has created. to identify the level of attitudes toward receiving the covid-19 vaccine, the researchers used the averages, standard deviations, and relative weight for each of the dimensions of the scale; table 4 illustrates this: table 4. descriptive statistics of attitude scale dimension mean sd weight (%) t p-value rank cognitive 19.728 4.574 65.76 5.973 0.000 2 behavioral 18.676 4.870 62.25 2.195 0.029 3 emotional 21.280 4.956 70.93 10.464 0.000 1 total 59.684 12.238 66.32 7.344 0.000 it is clear from table 10 that the emotional trend got the first rank with relative weight (70.93%). it came to a large degree, followed by the cognitive trend, it got the second place with relative importance (65.76%), and it came to a medium degree, followed by the behavioral trend, it got the third place with relative weight (62.25%), and it came to a medium degree. the total degree of the trend towards receiving the vaccine, she obtained relative importance (66.32%) and reached a medium degree. the results, according to the attitudes scale key, indicate that the students’ attitudes towards receiving the vaccine are positive, and this indicates the students’ awareness of the dangers of the covid-19 and not receiving the vaccine, and the positive attitudes towards receiving the vaccine work to reduce stress and anxiety, especially considering the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic in the palestinian community. the researchers used the pearson correlation coefficient to examine the relationship between mental health and attitudes toward receiving the covid-19 vaccine among students in the faculty of education at al-azhar university, gaza, palestine, in table 5 as follows: table 5. the correlation coefficient between mental health and the tendency to receive the meeting among students of al-azhar university, gaza, palestine dimension cognitive behavioral emotional total score psychological stress 0.153 0.269 0.266 0.272 depression 0.241 0.257 0.256 0.296 anxiety 0.294 0.419 0.366 0.425 total 0.276 0.377 0.351 0.396 it is clear from the previous table that there is a positive relationship between mental health and the attitudes toward receiving the covid-19 vaccine among the students of the faculty of education students at al-azhar university, gaza, palestine. this case means that the students have more positive attitudes toward receiving the vaccine whenever their psychological stress, depression, and anxiety increase. discussion the researchers think the mental health score should be lower than the results as the scale used measures the negative aspect of mental health. the researchers believe that this score results from the stressful environment in which the students live, as the palestinian community is full of political and socio-economic stressors; this is beside the stress that the pandemic of covid 19 has created. the results are also consistent with the findings of a study by lee et al. (2007) that the outbreak of sars 14 increased the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (hunt et al., 2021). findings found during the unprecedented events of the covid-19 pandemic, students in higher education settings face tremendous biopsychosocial stress. students had very high levels of psychological distress relative to their male and female peers during the pandemic and may need additional support and expanded access to treatment. there was a significant association between anxiety and unwillingness to receive the vaccine (p<0.05). however, there was no significant association between depressive mood and unwillingness to receive the vaccine. the results suggest that timely psychological support for japanese university students experiencing high anxiety levels is essential in accelerating vaccination programs (tsutsumi et al., 2022). according to the attitudes scale key, the results indicate that the students’ attitudes towards receiving the vaccine are positive. this condition shows the students’ awareness of the dangers of the covid-19 and the dangers of not receiving the vaccine. this result, to some extent, matches the findings of (jiang et al., 2021), which revealed that the score rates of the attitude, knowledge, and vaccination willingness dimensions were 70.07%, 80.70%, and 84.38%, respectively. the vaccination status of family members significantly influenced the attitude. the positive attitudes toward receiving the vaccine reduce stress and anxiety, especially considering the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic in the palestinian community. the result also revealed a statistically positive correlation between mental health and an attitude toward receiving the vaccine; this means that whenever the psychological stress, depression, and anxiety have increased, this led to more positive attitudes toward receiving the vaccine among the students and several theoretical psychological assumptions support this result. conclusion as the research outcomes revealed, the students have a positive attitude toward receiving the vaccine and moderate psychological stress, depression, and anxiety. moreover, there is a statistically significant correlation between the level of mental health and the attitude toward having the vaccine; this means that whenever the psychological stress, depression, and anxiety have increased, this leads to more positive attitudes toward receiving the vaccine among the students. despite the positive attitude toward having the vaccine, the students have a reasonable level of negative psychological symptoms; accordingly, the researchers recommend psychological intervention for students, such as counseling and guidance, to decrease such negative symptoms knowing that such services are still unavailable at the university community. references al-mafraji, m. (2021). the trend towards extremism and its relationship to some academic variables among university students. education magazine, 3(192), 292–338. arnout, b. a., al-dabbagh, z. s., al-eid, n. a., al eid, m. a., al-musaibeh, s. s., al-miqtiq, m. n., alamri, a. s., & al-zeyad, g. m (2020). the effects of corona virus (covid-19) outbreak on the individuals’ mental health and on the decision makers: a comparative epidemiological study. international journal of medical research & health sciences, 9(3), 26–47. bai, w., cai, h., liu, s., liu, h., qi, h., chen, x., liu, r., cheung, t., su, z., ng, c. h., & xiang, y. t. (2021). attitudes toward covid-19 vaccines in chinese college students. international journal of biological sciences, 17(6), 1469–1475. https://doi.org/10.7150/ijbs.58835 barello, s., nania, t., dellafiore, f., graffigna, g., & caruso, r. (2020). ‘vaccine hesitancy’ among university students in italy during the covid-19 pandemic. european journal of epidemiology, 35(8), 781–783. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-020-00670-z belkacem, d. & nabil, n. (2017). self-esteem and its relationship to leadership behavior among middle school students. professional magazine, djelfa university, algeria, 1(14), 257–270. https://doi.org/10.7150/ijbs.58835 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-020-00670-z 15 de figueiredo, a., simas, c., karafillakis, e., paterson, p., & larson, h. j. (2020). mapping global trends in vaccine confidence and investigating barriers to vaccine uptake: a large-scale retrospective temporal modelling study. the lancet, 396(10255), 898–908. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(20)31558-0 dong, e., du, h., & gardner, l. (2020). an interactive web-based dashboard to track covid-19 in real time. the lancet infectious diseases, 20(5), 533–534. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1473-3099(20)30120-1 dratva, j., wagner, a., zysset, a., & volken, t. (2021). to vaccinate or not to vaccinate—this is the question among swiss university students. international journal of environmental research and public health, 18(17). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18179210 el-elimat, t., abualsamen, m. m., almomani, b. a., al-sawalha, n. a., & alali, f. q. (2021). acceptance and attitudes toward covid-19 vaccines: a cross-sectional study from jordan. plos one, 16(4). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250555 gerretsen, p., kim, j., caravaggio, f., quilty, l., sanches, m., wells, s., brown, e. e., agic, b., pollock, b. g., & graff-guerrero, a. (2021). individual determinants of covid-19 vaccine hesitancy. plos one, 16(11). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258462 ghosh, a. (2020). covid-19 pandemic and an early career mental health researcher from a low and middle income country: is there any light at the end of the tunnel? asia-pacific psychiatry, 12(4). https://doi.org/10.1111/appy.12424 gidengil, c. a., parker, a. m., & zikmund-fisher, b. j. (2012). trends in risk perceptions and vaccination intentions: a longitudinal study of the first year of the h1n1. american journal of public health, 102(4), 672-679. http://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2011.300407 huang, l., lei, w., xu, f., liu, h., & yu, l. (2020). emotional responses and coping strategies in nurses and nursing students during covid-19 outbreak: a comparative study. plos one, 15(8 august). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237303 hunt, c., gibson, g. c., van der horst, a., cleveland, k. a., wawrosch, c., granot, m., kuhn, t., woolverton, c. j., & hughes, j. w. (2021). gender diverse college students exhibit higher psychological distress than male and female peers during the novel coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic. psychology of sexual orientation and gender diversity, 8(2), 238-244. https://doi.org/10.1037/sgd0000461 jiang, n., wei, b., lin, h., wang, y., chai, s., & liu, w. (2021). nursing students’ attitudes, knowledge and willingness of to receive the coronavirus disease vaccine: a cross-sectional study. nurse education in practice, 55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2021.103148 lee, a. m., wong, j. g., mcalonan, g. m., cheung, v., cheung, c., sham, p. c., chu, c. m., wong, p. c., tsang, k. w., & chua, s. e. (2007). stress and psychological distress among sars survivors 1 year after the outbreak. canadian journal of psychiatry. revue canadienne de psychiatrie, 52(4), 233–240. https://doi.org/10.1177/070674370705200405 lin, y., hu, z., zhao, q., alias, h., danaee, m., & wong, l. p. (2020). understanding covid-19 vaccine demand and hesitancy: a nationwide online survey in china. plos neglected tropical diseases, 14(12): e0008961. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0008961 randolph, h. e., & barreiro, l. b. (2020). herd immunity: understanding covid-19. immunity, 52(5), 737-741. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2020.04.012 reiter, p. l., pennell, m. l., & katz, m. l. (2020). acceptability of a covid-19 vaccine among adults in the united states: how many people would get vaccinated? vaccine, 38(42), 6500–6507. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2020.08.043 sallam, m., dababseh, d., eid, h., al-mahzoum, k., al-haidar, a., taim, d., yaseen, a., ababneh, n. a., bakri, f. g., & mahafzah, a. (2021). high rates of covid-19 vaccine hesitancy and its association with conspiracy beliefs: a study in jordan and kuwait among other arab countries. vaccines, 9(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines9010042 szilagyi, p. g., thomas, k., shah, m. d., vizueta, n., cui, y., vangala, s., & kapteyn, a. (2021). national trends in the us public’s likelihood of getting a covid-19 vaccine—1 april to 8 december, 2020. jama, 325(4), 396–398. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.26419 tsutsumi, s., maeda, n., tashiro, t., arima, s., mizuta, r., fukui, k., naito, k., komiya, m., & urabe, y. (2022). willingness to receive the covid-19 vaccination and the psychological state of japanese university students: a cross-sectional study. international journal of environmental research and public health, 19(3). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031654 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(20)31558-0 https://doi.org/10.1016/s1473-3099(20)30120-1 https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18179210 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250555 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258462 https://doi.org/10.1111/appy.12424 http://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2011.300407 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237303 https://doi.org/10.1037/sgd0000461 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2021.103148 https://doi.org/10.1177/070674370705200405 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0008961 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2020.04.012 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2020.08.043 https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines9010042 https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.26419 https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031654 16 wang, c., pan, r., wan, x., tan, y., xu, l., ho, c. s., & ho, r. c. (2020). immediate psychological responses and associated factors during the initial stage of the 2019 coronavirus disease (covid-19) epidemic among the general population in china. international journal of environmental research and public health, 17(5), 1-25. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17051729 world health organization. (2022). covid-19 vaccine tracker and landscape. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines zaidi, a., elmasaad, a., alobaidli, h., sayed, r., al-ali, d., al-kuwari, d., al-kubaisi, s., mekki, y., emara, m. m., & daher-nashif, s. (2021). attitudes and intentions toward covid-19 vaccination among health professions students and faculty in qatar. vaccines, 9(11). https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines9111275 zhu, x. m., yan, w., sun, j., liu, l., zhao, y. m., zheng, y. b., que, j. y., sun, s. w., gong, y. m., zeng, n., yuan, k., shi, l., sun, y. k., guo, s. h., lu, y., ran, m. s., wong, s. y. s., shi, j., jiang, z. d., … lu, l. (2022). patterns and influencing factors of covid-19 vaccination willingness among college students in china. vaccine, 40(22), 3046–3054. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.04.013 https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17051729 https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines9111275 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.04.013 inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research https://journal.iainlangsa.ac.id/index.php/inspira how to cite (apa 7th edition) alfaruqy, m. z. & indrawati, e. s. (2023). the dynamics of marital relationship after infidelity: phenomenological descriptive analysis on muslim spouses. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 4(1), 41–53. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.6080 this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial 4.0 international (cc by-nc 4.0) copyright ©2023 by muhammad zulfa alfaruqy & endang sri indrawati. research article the dynamics of marital relationship after infidelity: phenomenological descriptive analysis on muslim spouses https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.6080 muhammad zulfa alfaruqy1, endang sri indrawati2 1 department of psychology, universitas diponegoro, central java, indonesia 2 department of psychology, universitas diponegoro, central java, indonesia corresponding author: muhammad zulfa alfaruqy (email: zulfaalfaruqy@lecturer.undip.ac.id) abstract an unstable marital relationship, including an islamic spouse, opens up opportunities for extramarital affairs. this study aimed to understand the dynamics of the relationship between a muslim husband and wife who face a wife’s infidelity. this research uses qualitative methods with a phenomenological approach. the subject criterion is a muslim wife who has had an affair and is still married. three subjects were selected through a purposive sampling technique. data collection using a semistructured interview. the results show that the background of the wife’s infidelity is multi-factor. marital relations reflect the interdependence of husband and wife. this relationship becomes more dynamic and complex because of the presence of a third person. during an affair, the relationship is under an actor’s control. the relationship transforms into a controlling partner after the affair. wives initiate nonmutual relations manifested in permissive behavior towards husbands as an effort to atone for guilt and maintain a marriage. the research has theoretical implications for religion and supports the effect of social norms in reading the interdependence of marital relations between islamic husband and wife. article history: received 19 may 2023 revised 22 may 2023 accepted 28 june 2023 keywords: infidelity; interdependence; marital relationship; muslim spouse introduction interdependence is a relationship between two related people. interdependence in married couples is aimed at forming exclusive romantic commitments (yulianto & faturochman, 2018) and intimacy to perfect religion in marriage (alfaruqy, 2019). marriage is a formal and spiritual bond between a man and a woman as husband and wife, which aims to form a happy and eternal family or household based on the belief in one almighty god (law no. 1 of 1974), allah subhanahu wa ta’ala. marriage is a sacred event for indonesian people (sari & alfaruqy, 2019). marriage and family have a special meaning because they are a source of happiness for someone (afiatin, 2018). according to olson et al. (2019), a family is a collection of two or more people mutually committed to sharing intimacy, resources, and responsibilities. the family meets the requirements to be called a group because it has structure, goals, and perceptions of unity and develops interdependence (forsyth, 2019). however, there are times when the interdependence of husband and wife is unstable and opens the door for the birth of an extramarital affair with a third person. this phenomenon https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.6080 https://orcid.org/0009-0009-8741-0072 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0507-7571 42 encourages the birth of research that focuses on the experience of interdependence between islamic spouses facing this infidelity storm. studies of interdependence have helped many scientists in various discussions, ranging from cooperation and conflict, trust and mistrust, communication, and love, to emotions (lange & rusbult, 2012; anatassia, 2017; butera & buchs, 2019). the subject matter is varied, including husband and wife. lange and rusbult (2012) explain four main assumptions to understand interdependence, namely 1) there is a structure or situation, 2) there is a transformation, as a person’s consideration in acting and behaving towards current and future partners, 3) there is an interaction between partners who are involved in the situation, and 4) there is an adaptation which is the result of repeated interactions. interdependence was introduced by thibaut and kelly in 1959 (anatassia, 2017). interdependence theory has influenced the world of research for more than five decades. interdependence refers to the condition of interdependence between a person and another person. lange and rusbult (2012) formulate interdependence (i) as a function of the psychological dynamics of a person (a) and another person (b), or vice versa, in a particular situation (s). this formulation can be written in the formula i = f(a, b, s). the interdependence of husbands (a) and wives (b) also involves affective, cognitive, and motivational processes in various situations. interdependence is not static but dynamic (lange & rusbult, 2012). this condition could threaten the marriage if a third person takes advantage of the momentum to ensnare one of the parties – both husband and wife – in extramarital affairs (olson et al., 2019). infidelity is a social problem that has occurred from time to time in various parts of the world, with a tendency for the number to continue to rise (apostolou, 2019). blow and hartnett (2005), who reviewed research on infidelity from 1980 to 2005, found that positive attitudes toward infidelity were associated with infidelity; attitudes toward infidelity differ between countries and between cultures; there are three types of infidelity namely emotional, sexual, and a combination of the two; men are more likely to be involved in extramarital affairs; and men tend to see infidelity as a sexual activity rather than emotional, while women are the opposite. previous studies have revealed that there are various causes of infidelity, ranging from a person’s lack of emotional stability (irawan & suprapti, 2018), prolonged conflict due to failure in adjustment between partners (muhajarah, 2017), dissatisfaction with partners (scheeren et al., 2018), sexual dissatisfaction (mtenga et al., 2018), the prospects offered by cheating partners (buss, 2016), as well as social learning from previous generations (weiser & weigel, 2017). from a male perspective, cheating is an activity that provides sexual benefits to other women, while from a woman’s perspective, cheating provides opportunities for long-term relationships, which indirectly means stopping the tendency of a male perspective (buss et al., 2017). cheating creates jealousy for legitimate partners (redlick, 2016), namely a sense of alertness to the dangers posed by third parties who offer sexual and romantic interest in their partners (buss et al., 2017), both directly and through social media (dunn & billett, 2018; dunn & ward, 2020). cheating requires allocating time and money resources and considerable risks that sometimes end in divorce (apostolou et al., 2019). infidelity is the most difficult moral problem to accept worldwide, followed by gambling, homosexuality, abortion, premarital sex, alcohol, and divorce (pew research center, in olson et al., 2019). if the world community that does not accept infidelity is 78%, then the indonesian people are even more prominent, namely as much as 94%. in indonesia, the dominance of previous research 43 uncovers infidelity from the perspective of the wife as the victim, where the husband is the perpetrator (irawan & suprapti, 2018; muhajarah, 2017; rahayu, 2019; sari & koentjoro, 2019). this research offers a new alternative study, namely the psychological dynamics of an affair involving the wife as the perpetrator of the affair. psychological dynamics is the power within the individual manifested in thoughts, feelings, and behavior (walgito, 2010). differences in personality and environmental norms and aspirations influence individual psychological dynamics (schultz & schultz, 2017). research on psychological dynamics is essential to understand the phenomenon as a whole. psychological dynamics in this study refer to individual psychological conditions manifested in thoughts, feelings, and behavior regarding the spouse relationship during and after the affair occurs. based on the description of the background of the problem above, it is known that infidelity is a behavior that has a high risk in the islamic spouse relationship. the mainstream of previous research has highlighted the phenomenon of infidelity, which places the husband as the perpetrator of the affair. this research’s novelty is to define the wife as the perpetrator and the husband as the victim of an affair. while it is a taboo phenomenon, its existence cannot be denied in society. this research aims to understand the dynamics of interdependence between islamic spouses who face their wife’s infidelity. the research will explore the background of a wife’s affair, the dynamics of spouse (husband-wife) interdependence, why a wife stops having an affair, and interdependence recovery. this research contributes to psychology, especially family psychology and islamic psychology, to understand the dynamics of interdependence injury and recovery in islamic spouse relations. method the research was designed using qualitative methods. creswell and poth (2018) explain that the qualitative method is a method that aims to explore and understand the meaning of social problems based on the views of several individuals. qualitative research requires substantial and systematic efforts that require researchers to ask questions, collect data, analyze data inductively, and interpret meaning. qualitative research requires researchers to be sensitive and empathetic and not ignore the values inherent in individuals. the approach used by researchers is phenomenological. the phenomenological approach is an appropriate research strategy for understanding phenomena and their unique context based on experience to the level of belief. specifically, the researcher uses phenomenological descriptive analysis to determine the general theme and the essence of meaning (eidos) (kahija, 2017). the subjects were selected by purposive sampling. the inclusion criteria of the subjects were a muslim wife who had had an affair and still had a marriage bond. we make an open announcement to everyone who meets the criteria and is willing to be a research subject in semarang. it is the number suggested in phenomenological research (kahija, 2017). this number allows researchers to conduct in-depth analysis (smith, 2009). the three subjects had the initials tu (subject 1), wd (subject 2), and bd (subject 3). all subjects were given informed consent before participating in the study. the following is the subject data in the study: table 1. personal information of research subjects characteristics tu wd bd pronouncing subject 1 or s1 subject 2 or s2 subject 3 or s3 age 37 years 30 years 39 years length of marriage 17 years 7 years 14 years number of children 3 0 2 domicile semarang semarang semarang religion islam islam islam 44 data collection was carried out by interview. the interview is a method of collecting data through conversation with a specific purpose, which is carried out by two parties, namely the interviewer who asks questions and the interviewee who gives answers to questions. we conducted open semistructured interviews, as suggested by creswell and poth (2018). in the phenomenological research developed by creswell and poth (2018), the main question is “can you tell how the phenomenon is?” while other questions are supporters of the main question. with this basis, we compiled an interview guide with four questions, and they are: can you tell us what the background of the affair is? how are the dynamics of spouse interdependence when an affair occurs? what made you stop having an affair? and what about the dynamics of interdependence recovery? data analysis was carried out according to creswell and poth (2018). qualitative research data analysis is an attempt to interpret data through a continuous process that requires researchers to reflect on data, provide analytical questions, and take brief notes throughout the study. this analytical procedure was chosen based on conformity with phenomenological research. the data analysis steps in this study refer to creswell and poth (2018), namely processing and preparing data, reading all data, analyzing in more detail by coding data, categorizing and describing, creating narratives, interpreting data, and presenting data (see figure 1). figure 1. data analysis flow result the background of an affair we explore the background of an affair by asking three questions, what is the background of the affair? in this study, tu referred to subject 1 (s1), wd referred to subject (s2), and bd referred to subject 3 (s3). the findings show that cheating on a wife is motivated by multiple factors (see figure 2). the first is the husband’s deficiency condition (driving factor). wives who are interested in having an affair tend to see deficiency conditions in their husbands, for example, economic instability (husband s1), little time together (husband s2), and lack of romantic behavior (husband s3). the husband’s deficiency condition is a driving factor for infidelity. 45 “i want to have a husband like other people who work. he had worked several times but never lasted the rest of the time; he was just unemployed. the children were embarrassed when asked what their father’s job was.” (s1) “my husband also works sometimes night and day like that. he often does not have time for me because of his job.” (s2) “my husband is less romantic and a bit boring.” (s3) second, joint activities with other men (attractive factor). the wife’s activities outside the home are fertile ground for growing the seeds of infidelity. for example, work activities (s1), graduate studies (s2), and building new houses (s3). the pull factor in the form of togetherness is used by a third person to approach a woman who incidentally is already married. it is usually started by opening up about life’s problems to achieve psychological closeness so that sympathy and a sense of comfort will grow. “i am a professional. i have an assistant who is ten years younger. he makes me comfortable, in terms of fulfilling my communication needs. so unknowingly fall into the affair.” (s1) “i am a career woman, then continuing to study at postgraduate. well, i met him, who turned out to be my husband’s boss. he approached me, seduced. finally, we are in a relationship. i got a lot of money from him.” (s2) “the story is about building a house. i am looking for a contractor to build a house. it turned out that i met him, and then we often met to build the house. yes, during the process of building the house, old love blossomed again.” (s3) third, the wife’s personality (determining factor). the husband’s deficiency and being together with other people will lead to infidelity if there is a determining factor named the wife’s personality. a wife who is interested in having an affair has a personality that is easily influenced by others. the wife believes in the promises given by the third person, starting from the substitution of husband deficiency to the hope of getting married in the future. this hope hinders the wife’s rational mind from seeing the tricks and the opposing side in the third person. if this condition has occurred, that is a sign that heart cheating has blossomed. after heart cheating, at certain moments, it will develop into physical cheating, such as sexual relations like husband and wife. “i need a good chat friend who makes me comfortable. it is a bit of pride to have a working partner.” (s1) “after i got married, two weeks i had an affair. traveling, everything is paid for by him, no excuse to refuse.” (s2) “i cannot resist being seduced by his advances. he is my ex-fiancé. while having an affair with him, yes, as usual, we do sex activities, we often go to hotels.” (s3) figure 2. background of the affair 46 islamic spouse interdependence during an affair figure 3. spouse interdependence during an affair how are the dynamics of islamic spouse interdependence when an affair occurs? research finds there are two stages. in the first stage, researchers found a decrease in spouse interdependence. this is marked by changes in the wife’s emotions and behavior, which often shows angry expressions, is rarely at home for various reasons, and is lazy to have sex with her husband. on the other hand, the wife’s interdependence with a third person has increased from emotional to sexual. in front of her husband, the wife has an alibi by saying that relations with third persons are limited to cooperative relations, namely in professional work between lawyers and assistants (s1), lectures in postgraduate study programs (s2), and construction of new houses (s3). “we just like supervisors and assistants. my husband knows. i explained to my husband like that” (s1) “i also have various reasons, go to college, do fitness, that is just to meet him” (s2) “i always have to lie to my husband, make excuses for being unable to return (go home). right now, i am building a house in another city. i like to ask permission from my husband to say goodbye, not to go home because i go there, and every time i go there, i meet my ex.” (s3) in the second stage, the affair is already leading to romantic love. this condition is a dilemma for wives, especially for bachelor and doctoral students who have been married for more than ten years and are blessed with children. the situation is slightly different for s2, who does not have a baby yet. s2 strongly wants to have a long-term affair by seizing a third person from his legal wife. “until the end, i felt i was too dangerous, too far, because he seemed to really want to have me to be his wife. in fact, i was not intended to be with him. i just wanted it to be a distraction.” (s3) “incidentally, he is indeed more capable than my husband. i feel like i want to be his second wife, or just take it away from his legal wife.” (s2) in the condition of the wife in a dilemma, the husbands read the signs of decreasing interdependence in the first stage (see figure 3). husbands also make confirmation efforts by observing changes in the wife’s emotions and behavior. the result is suspicion of all possibilities that could threaten the integrity of the spouse relationship. the husband is active in investigations, either secretly following his wife or openly hounding his wife with questions to dismantle the wife’s alibi and third-person cooperation. in s2, the husband even managed to uncover the affair at a hotel while the wife and third person were out on a date. 47 “my husband has been suspicious for a long time. i often do not come home.” (s1) “my lover wrote letters to my husband. from there, he understood and interrogated me.” (s3) “two weeks later, we found out to if i had an affair at the hotel, you know.” (s2) figure 4. affair uncovered what makes wives stop having affairs? the revelation of a wife’s infidelity has strained the relationship between husband and wife (see figure 4). husbands filled with anger due to a breach of trust carry out verbal and non-verbal aggressive behaviour. verbal aggressive behavior included continuing to accuse the wife (s1, s2, s3), as well as death threats (s1, s2) and threats to make the wife a commercial sex worker (s2). the disclosure of the affair, followed by the husband’s aggressive behavior made the wife feel so wrong that she apologized to her husband. the wife also surrenders and allows her husband to repay her with similar behavior, namely, having an affair with another woman. “my husband is looking for me and wants to kill me if i stay with my affair” (s1) “my husband was angry, i was dropped off on the street, and he wanted me to become a prostitute. my husband also almost killed me, so i am afraid to repeat this action” (s2) “it is okay if he reciprocates with another woman, as long as it stays intact” (s3) at the same time, the wife also experiences a change in perception where a third person is not as good as one might think, including only eyeing the money (s1), taking advantage of innocence without any responsibility (s2), and taking revenge on the husband who stole her in the past (s2). s3). the discovery of an affair by a husband caused a severe shock to the spouse relationship, the nuclear family, and the extended family. in this study, husbands find it difficult to accept wife’s infidelity. “i paid more for my assistant at that time. he married another woman.” (s1) “i feel used. he does not love me sincerely. i just want the sensation of sexual activity. he is not as gentle as i imagined.” (s2) “and she even sent letters to husbands. i found letters explaining that i went to this hotel, went to that hotel, how many days, and on what date, that is all complete. he did like that. i am getting scared. he wants revenge, right? my husband stole me when i was engaged to him.” (s3) restoration of spousal interdependence how are the dynamics of interdependence relations recovery? relationship restoration is initiated by the wife (see figure 5). guilt drives the wife to apologize repeatedly since the affair was discovered. 48 in addition, the wife shows a succumbing attitude to her husband in many ways. the wife’s recovery efforts to bind a husband’s forgiveness in a complicated affair are strenuous. “my husband is a loyal person, even though i betrayed him. he is willing to accept me as long as i will not repeat what i have done to my husband” (s1) “i keep apologizing. and i try to survive with my husband to this day. i do not want to repeat that sin because i am afraid of the risk that my husband is very temperamental and sometimes gets angry” (s2) “my husband has also forgiven me, but yes, i still feel pressure to this day because my husband likes to ask questions” (s3) what about husbands who are victims of infidelity, like in this case? the husband is willing to maintain the marriage because he considers changes in his wife, namely focusing on household chores, reducing activities outside the home, and paying attention to social norms. besides, the muslim wife participants repented to allah subhanahu wa ta’ala for their actions while praying their husbands would open the door for forgiveness. even so, husbands must be vigilantly accompanied by increased control over their wives’ activities. it is a promotive interaction. wives want to maintain their relationship with their husbands even at all costs. this study found that the wife was willing to reciprocate with a husband with similar behavior, having an affair with another woman. until this research was conducted, at least the three wives and their husbands had decided to resume their marriage. the meaning (eidos): wives interpret infidelity as interdependence with the opposite sex, violating religious and social norms and risks damaging the marriage. wives are willing to make amends for this violating behavior with various efforts to maintain the relationship. figure 5. improvement of interdependence relations discussion research has found that cheating on a muslim wife is motivated by multiple factors. first, the driving factor of the husband is a deficiency condition. research conducted by mtenga et al. (2018) also found that infidelity in women is based on financial problems and a lack of support from husbands. a husband’s deficiency condition can reduce the value as apostolou and panayiotou’s (2019) findings show that cheating is driven by a partner’s value which decreases or at least remains constant in terms of health and work. on the other hand, the self-esteem of the cheater has increased. even though the husband’s deficiency condition reduces the wife’s interdependence, adaptation mechanisms make a marriage last (alfaruqy & indrawati, 2021). second, the pull factor from a third person (attractive factor). someone’s activities outside the home are fertile ground for growing the seeds of infidelity in research. in line with the principle of proximity, where proximity creates interpersonal interest (branscombe & baron, 2017). third, the 49 internal determinants of the wife’s individual. push factors (the husband’s deficiency) and pull factors (togetherness) will only give rise to infidelity if there are determining factors in the form of the wife’s personality and decision-making. a wife who is interested in having an affair has a personality that is easily influenced by others. this description of the wife’s personality contrasts with the findings of emmers-sommer et al. (2010), which show that people who choose to be faithful to the temptation of infidelity, among others, have personal characters that are moral, honest, and clear-headed. in addition, the person values commitment and adheres to social norms. research categorizes infidelity into two stages. in the first stage, researchers found a decrease in spouse interdependence. the wife’s interdependence with a third person has increased from emotional to sexual. the findings of previous studies consistently state that infidelity in women is dominated by emotional infidelity (blow & hartnett, 2005; buss, 2017; dunn & biller, 2018; scheeren et al., 2018). referring to subotnik and harris’s (2009) categorization of the depth of infidelity, the wives’ infidelities in this first stage have gone beyond serial affairs and stepped on to flings affairs. flings affair is a type of affair that lasts between one and three months due to circumstances that allow a meeting with a third person. the peculiarity of this affair is emotional and sexual pleasure. an affair between a wife and a third person illustrates the dynamics of joint control, where the wife and third person have control over each other, and no one is more dependent on one other. meanwhile, the wife towards her husband describes the dynamics of actor control, in which the wife unilaterally reduces interdependence with her husband. the affair led to a romantic love affair in the second stage. at this stage, high emotional involvement and thoughts unite in life (subotnik & harris, 2005). this condition is a dilemma for the wife whether to continue the long-term affair. a person who has entered into a long-term affair will find it difficult to escape because of the strong interdependence built by his mistress. research conducted by sari and koentjoro (2019) found that a mistress maintains interdependence with men who are already married by involving psychological aspects, emotional ties, and sexuality. the main intrinsic factor that attaches mistresses to men who cheat is the need to belong. the extrinsic factors include physical (manly), psychological (charisma, affection), position, and wealth. this complexity perpetuates the interdependence of the affair. the discovery of an affair by a husband caused a serious shock to the marital relationship, the nuclear family, and the extended family. this is in line with the findings of (pour, 2019), which show that infidelity affects children and the extended family. in this study, husbands find it difficult to accept wife’s infidelity. in line with buss et al. (2017) that men hate promiscuity and their wife’s infidelity more than any behavior. husbands more hate a wife’s disloyalty in sexual terms than a wife’s infidelity in terms of emotional closeness (dunn & billett, 2018). the wife initiates relationship restoration. the recovery efforts made by the wife are not easy to bind a husband’s forgiveness in an affair that is difficult. this is in line with the comparative research of khairani and sari (2019), which found that husbands who are victims of infidelity are less forgiving than wives who are victims. in the case of the wife, who is the victim of infidelity, the wife is willing to defend the marriage because she thinks about the children (rahayu, 2019). what about husbands who are victims of infidelity, like in this case? the husband is willing to maintain the marriage because he considers changes in his wife, namely increasing worship, focusing on domestic work, and reducing activities outside the home. the muslim wife repented to allah subhanahu wa ta’ala for their actions while praying their husbands would open the door for forgiveness. even so, husbands still need to be vigilantly accompanied by increased control over their wives’ activities. from the perspective of interdependence theory (lange & rusbult, 2012), the dynamics of husband and wife after an affair describes the dynamics of actor control, which 50 the wife initiates as an effort to maintain the relationship. the husband is placed as the dominant party who exercises control in the relationship. brown (in olson et al., 2019) identifies six stages of infidelity. first, the stage where there is a bad climate in the relationship, such as hurt feelings, dissatisfaction, and unresolved differences of opinion. second, the stage where the aggrieved party commits betrayal while the other party ignores it. third, the stage where the affair is revealed where all parties do not expect it, and it takes much time to understand why this happened in the marriage. fourth is the crisis stage in marriage. fifth is when all parties decide to continue and rebuild their marriage. sixth is the stage of forgiveness. until this research was conducted, at least the three wives and their husbands had reached the fifth stage. the research found that the wife interprets infidelity as interdependence with the opposite sex, violating religious and social norms and damaging the marriage. the wife is willing to make amends for this violating behavior with various efforts to maintain the relationship. counseling can be done to parse this problem. according to rogers, counseling experts and psychotherapists have at least three characteristics (counselors): congruence, unconditional positive regard, and empathy. the role of the counselor is as an advisor who provides direction with the knowledge they have (informative and educational). through family counseling, it is expected to be able to assist couples through the family system so that they can make resolutions to problems and change patterns of relationships to become healthier based on a willingness to help from all family members based on willingness and love for family (alfaruqy & indrawati, 2022). counseling based on islamic law can be an alternative to build awareness that marriage is a worship to allah subhanahu wa ta’ala (god almighty). finally, this research encourages spouses to be faithful in their spouse relationships. loyal people have satisfaction in relationships, do not want to hurt their partner, or personal character, adhere to marital commitments, think about the family’s future, and understand social sanctions (emmerssommer et al., 2010). the loyal person rationally considers the potential harm from the extramarital activity and the benefits of his current legal relationship (apostolou, 2019). the potential losses in question are related to the problems obtained, social stigma, partner reactions, embarrassment, opportunities for reciprocity from partners, and termination of relations in the form of divorce. the benefits are related to satisfaction in relationships. conclusion the muslim wife’s infidelity has a multi-factor background, originating from the husband, the third person, and the wife herself. marital relations reflect the interdependence of muslim husband and wife. this relationship becomes dynamic and complex because of the presence of a third person. the relationship is in the form of actor control during an affair. a wife who has an affair unilaterally reduces her dependence on her husband and increases her dependence on her cheating partner. the relationship transforms into a controlling partner after the affair. the wife feels guilty for betraying her husband. nonmutual relations that are manifested in permissive behavior towards husbands are also initiated by wives as an effort to atone for guilt and maintain a marriage. for the meaning (eidos), the wife interprets infidelity as interdependence with the opposite sex, violating religious and social norms and damaging the marriage. the wife is willing to make amends for this violating behavior with various efforts to maintain the relationship. this research has implications for the urgency of minimizing the factors that can increase the risks of infidelity in islamic spouses (married couples). their married life needs to be based on religious rules and social norms. this research has a limitation. this research only looks at one side, a wife’s perspective as the actor. for further research, we recommend involving husbands as informants for 51 cross-checking data or explicitly studying the psychological dynamics of husbands as the victims of infidelity. for society, especially islamic spouses, we suggest actively avoiding unique relationships with other people outside the boundaries of islam and social norms. as a preventive effort, the premarital counseling program from the office of religious affairs can enhance some knowledge about patterns of healthy marital relationships also the potential and risks of adultery. as a curative effort, marriage counselors can promote the restoration of interdependent relationships and forgiveness. declaration acknowledgment the researcher thanks the research subjects who are willing to share their experiences openly and the inspira journal reviewers. author contribution statement muhammad zulfa alfaruqy led the research, including writing the introduction, methods, results, analysis, and conclusions. endang sri indrawati assisted in interviewing research subjects. funding statement this research was funded by the faculty of psychology, universitas diponegoro, with sk dekan number 1240/un7.5.11.2/pp/2020. data access statement this research data can be asked through the first author. declaration of interest’s statement the author declares no conflict of interest. additional information no additional information is available for this paper. references afiatin, t. (2018). psikologi perkawinan dan keluarga. kanisius. alfaruqy, m. z. (2019). bismillah, saya menikah: studi kasus pembentukan keluarga ada pasangan mahasiswa. al-qolb, 10(2), 103-112. https://doi.org/10.15548/alqalb.v10i2.954 alfaruqy, m. z. & indrawati, e. s. (2021). keputusan mengakhiri relasi suami-istri: sebuah studi fenomenologis. psychopolytan: jurnal psikologi, 5(1), 8–19. https://doi.org/10.36341/psi.v5i1.1847 alfaruqy, m. z. & indrawati, e. s. (2022). kata maaf, apakah berarti damai? relasi pasangan suami-istri di pusaran kekerasan dalam rumah tangga. insight: jurnal pemikiran dan penelitian psikologi, 18(1), 16 – 30. https://doi.org/10.32528/ins.v18i1.3485 anatassia, d.f. (2017). teori interdependensi. in a. pitaloka (ed.), teori psikologi sosial kontemporer (pp. 137157). rajagrafindo. apostolou, m. (2019). why greek-cypriots cheat? the evolutionary origins of the big-five of infidelity. evolutionary behavioral sciences, 13(1), 71–83. https://doi.org/10.1037/ebs0000140 https://doi.org/10.15548/alqalb.v10i2.954 https://doi.org/10.36341/psi.v5i1.1847 https://doi.org/10.32528/ins.v18i1.3485 https://doi.org/10.1037/ebs0000140 52 apostolou, m. & panayiotou, r. (2019). the reasons that prevent people from cheating on their partners: an evolutionary account of the propensity not to cheat. personality and individual differences, 146, 34–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.03.041 apostolou, m., constantinou, c., & anagnostopoulos, s. (2019). reasons that could lead people to divorce in an evolutionary perspective: evidence from cyprus. journal of divorce and remarriage, 60(1), 27–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1469333 blow, a. j. & hartnett, k. (2005). infidelity in committed relationships ii: a substantive review. journal of marital and family therapy, 31(2), 217–233. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-0606.2005.tb01556.x buss, d. m. (2016). the evolution of desire: strategies of human mating (4th ed.). basic books. buss, d. m., goetz, c., duntley, j. d., asao, k., & conroy-beam, d. (2017). the mate switching hypothesis. personality and individual differences, 104, 143–149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.07.022 butera, f. & buchs, c. (2019). social interdependence and the promotion of cooperative learning. in k. sassenberg & m. l. w. vliek (eds.), social psychology in action: evidence-based interventions from theory to practice (pp. 111–127). springer. creswell, j. w. & poth, c. n. (2018). qualitative inquiry & research design: choosing among five approaches. sage publication. dunn, m. j., & billett, g. (2018). jealousy levels in response to infidelity revealing facebook messages depend on sex, type of message and message composer: support for the evolutionary psychological perspective. evolutionary psychological science, 4(1), 17–23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-017-0110-z dunn, m. j. & ward, k. (2020). infidelity-revealing snapchat messages arouse different levels of jealousy depending on sex, type of message and identity of the opposite sex rival. evolutionary psychological science, 6, 38–46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-019-00210-3 emmers-sommer, t. m., warber, k., & halford, j. (2010). reasons for (non)engagement in infidelity. marriage & family review, 46(6-7), 420–444. https://doi.org/10.1080/01494929.2010.528707 forsyth, d. r. (2019). group dynamics (7th ed.). cengage. irawan, m. n. s. & suprapti, v. (2018). hubungan antara kematangan emosi dan intensi berselingkuh pada individu dewasa awal yang sudah menikah. jurnal psikologi pendidikan dan perkembangan, 7, 8 – 17. http://repository.unair.ac.id/id/eprint/78184 kahija, y. f. l. (2017). penelitian fenomenologis: jalan memahami pengalaman hidup. kanisius. khairani, m. & sari, d. p. (2019). pemaafan pada individu yang mengalami perselingkuhan dalam pernikahan. annafs: jurnal fakultas psikologi, 13(1), 35-43. lange, p. a. m. v. & rusbult, c. (2012). interdependency theory. dalam p. a. m. v. lange, a. w. kruglanski, & e. t. higgins (eds.), handbook of theories of social psychology (vol. 2), (pp. 418-438). sage publication. muhajarah, k. (2016). perselingkuhan suami terhadap istri dan upaya penanganannya. sawwa: jurnal studi gender, 12(1), 23-40. https://doi.org/10.21580/sa.v12i1.1466 mtenga, s. m., pfeiffer, c., tanner, m., geubbels, e. & merten, s. (2018). linking gender, extramarital affairs, and hiv: a mixed methods study on contextual determinants of extramarital affairs in rural tanzania. aids research therapy, 15(12), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12981-018-0199-6 olson, d. h., defrain, j., & skogrand, l. (2019). marriages and families: intimacy, diversity, and strengths. mcgraw hill. pour, m. t., ismail, a., jaafar, w. m. w., & yusop, y. m. (2019). infidelity in marital relationship. psychology & psychological research international journal, 4(2), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.23880/pprij-16000200 presiden republik indonesia. (1974). undang-undang nomor 1 tahun 1974 tentang perkawinan. sekretaris negara republik indonesia. rahayu, n. d. (2019). memaafkan dan komitmen pernikahan pada istri setelah diselingkuhi oleh suami. psikoborneo, 7(1), 180-193. http://doi.org/10.30872/psikoborneo.v7i1.4706 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.03.041 https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1469333 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-0606.2005.tb01556.x https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.07.022 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-017-0110-z https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-019-00210-3 https://doi.org/10.1080/01494929.2010.528707 http://repository.unair.ac.id/id/eprint/78184 https://doi.org/10.21580/sa.v12i1.1466 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12981-018-0199-6 https://doi.org/10.23880/pprij-16000200 http://doi.org/10.30872/psikoborneo.v7i1.4706 53 redlick, m. (2016). the green-eyed monster: mate value, relational uncertainty, and jealousy in romantic relationships. personal relationships, 23(3), 505–516. https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12140 sari, d. k. & koentjoro. (2019). interdependensi wanita simpanan dan pasangannya. jurnal spirits, 9(2), 5-34. https://doi.org/10.30738/spirits.v9i2.6315 sari, i. a. & m. z. alfaruqy (2021). ikatan relasi suami-istri: dinamika keputusan menikah saat pandemi covid19. psikostudia: jurnal psikologi, 10(3), 226-236. https://search.crossref.org/?q=psikostudia scheeren, p. (2018). marital infidelity: the experience of men and women. trends in psychology, 26(1), 355– 356. https://doi.org/10.9788/tp2018.1-14pt schultz, d. p. & schultz, s.e. (2017). theories of personality (11th ed.). cengage learning. smith, j. a., flowers, p., & larkin, m. (2009). interpretative phenomenological analysis. sage. subotnik, r. & harris, g.g. (2005). surviving infidelity: making decisions recovering from the pain. adams media corporation. walgito, b. (2010). pengantar psikologi umum. penerbit andi. weiser, d. a. & weigel, d.j. (2017). exploring intergenerational patterns of infidelity. personal relationships, 24(4), 933-952. https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12222 yulianto, j. e. & faturochman. (2018). interdependensi pada relasi perkawinan. in faturochman & nurjaman (eds.), psikologi relasi sosial (pp. 120-137). pustaka pelajar. https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12140 https://doi.org/10.30738/spirits.v9i2.6315 https://search.crossref.org/?q=psikostudia https://doi.org/10.9788/tp2018.1-14pt https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12222 issn ;2541450x (online) 94 vol. 2 no. 2 (dec 2021), pp. 94-104 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v2i2.3566 the effect of bonyan-method experiential marathon structured groups (bemsg) on ego functions arash nejatian1, maryam khaksar2, alireza zahiroddin3, leila azimi3 1 department of psychology, paymeh noor university, tehran, iran; 2 department of psychology, allameh tabataba’i university, tehran, iran; 3 behavioral sciences research center, shahid beheshti university of medical sciences, tehran, iran  corresponding author: leila azimi (email: liliazimy@gmail.com) abstract – the present research has studied bonyan-method experiential marathon structured groups’ efficacy on the nonclinical populations’ ego functions. this study was a quasi-experimental trial with a control group. the trial group participated in the marathon group on three consecutive days (36 hours) and weekly sessions for three weeks. then the ego function evaluation questionnaire was simultaneously given to both groups. all ego functions in the trial group showed significant growth compared to the control group. among these, the most remarkable statistical effect size was related to “adaptive regression in service of the ego” and “stimulus barrier.” the relationship between improving ego functions and mental health can be anticipated, and steps can be taken to promote the community’s mental health by using these groups. article history: received: december 15, 2021 revised: december 23, 2021 accepted: december 29, 2021 published: december 30, 2021 keyword: ego function; experiential group; large experiential group; marathon structured groups how to cite (apa 7th edition) nejatian, a., khaksar, m., zahiroddin, a. & azimi, l (2021). the effect of bonyan-method experiential marathon structured groups (bemsg) on ego functions. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 2(2), 94–104. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v2i2.3566 this is an open-access article distributed under the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. this is enabled under the terms of attribution and noncommercial usage of the material ©2021 by arash nejatian, maryam khaksar, alireza zahiroddin & leila azimi arash nejatian, maryam khaksar, alireza zahiroddin & leila azimi 95 ego functions are personality variables that can moderate stressful life events on pathological manifestations by organizing and coordinating external and internal stimuli (basu, basu, & bhattacharyya, 2004; mcwilliams, 2004). bellak et al. (1988) have defined the structure of the ego according to its adaptive functions and describe these as mental processes that regulate adaptation to the environment and individual’s mental states. providing a clinically reliable diagnostic tool based on psychodynamic models, bellak et al. introduced a comprehensive list of ego functions representing 12 various ego functions in a clinical interview. johnny, stock, and burton converted this assessment interview format into a self-report questionnaire (juni, stack, & burton, 2000). these 12 functions are: 1) reality testing; 2) judgment; 3) the sense of the reality of the world and the self; 4) regulation and control of drives, effects, and impulses; 5) object relations; 6) thought processes; 7) adaptive regression in the service of the ego (arise); 8) defensive functioning; 9) stimulus barrier; 10) autonomous functions; 11) mastercompetence; 12) synthetic-integrative function. extensive research has been done to explain the relationship between the level of ego function and mental health. davis et al. (1983) showed that low levels of ego function are associated with decreased self-esteem. genden’s study also showed that people with lower levels of ego function scored higher on the millon clinical multiaxial inventory for personality disorder and had more immature defence styles (genden, 1995). also, blanck & blanck (1994) found that people with higher levels of ego function were more resilient in various challenges. in his study, spielberger (1972) also found that higher levels of ego function make people less prone to anxiety. the ego functions are responsible for protecting the individual against anxiety and external stressors, while on the other hand, they are responsible for regulating emotions and managing internal mental experiences (hagger, wood, stiff, & chatzisarant, 2010). the degree of empowerment of these functions predicts, directly and significantly, the ability to regulate emotion (badanfiroz, rahimian boogar, najee, & shaikhe, 2017). studies have also shown that high levels of ego function positively correlate with social adjustment (ziadni, jasinski, vief, & lumle, 2017). high levels of ego functions help people gain peace with others and themselves and successfully carry out their social roles in different cultural contexts (besharat, ramesh, & moghimi, 2018). numerous studies confirm the marathon groups’ effectiveness on individual growth, such as sensitivity-training groups, human relations training groups, and large-group awareness training (lgat). these have improved ego function, improving individuals’ mental health (fisher, silver, chinsky, goff, & klar, 2012). marathon groups refer to a long, continuous, and intensive process of group confrontation, which occurs in 18, 24, 36, and 72 hours sessions, depending on the group’s goals. the venue usually is a quiet environment away from the disturbance of others and with minimal environmental stimuli. marathon groups are designed and organized in very different ways. these groups’ common feature is the intense confrontation with others, focusing on the hereand-now. the participants’ momentary experience matters, whether based on a narrative experience from the past or created in the same group (weigel, 2002). marathon groups are divided into two types: unstructured and structured. unstructured groups are conducting the confrontation between individuals without a pre-determined plan and introduction 96 the effect of bonyan-method experiential marathon structured groups (bemsg) on ego functions are entirely based on the experiences that occurred in the group. while in structured marathon groups, activities and processes are pre-determined for each day, and each part of the program and individuals build their own experiences and those of the group within the framework of this structure (weigel, 2002; bach, 1966; pothier, 1970; gottschalk, pattison, & schafer, 1971). dinges & weigel (1971), in their study on marathon group, review the works of mintz (1971), bach (1967), demos (1970), rachman (1969-1970), rogers (1967, 1967), yalom (1970), and other famous group treatment organizers. they have stated that marathon groups are among the most direct, efficient, and economical ways to prevent mental health damage, such as fragmentation and meaninglessness. bonyan-method experiential marathon structured groups (bemsg) were founded in 1989 by fereshteh mirhashemi in the united states. it aims to transform & grow the nonclinical population’s personal and professional life (nejatian, khaksar, & azimi, 2021). bemsg groups are planned in intensive programs on the last three days of the week, which align with the common trend of marathon groups (schaefer and galinsky, 1989). bemsg programs’ sessions start with a brief on the method’s basic principles, followed by the individual and group structured experiential process and games coupled with sequential feedback. this process will develop a dynamic space for participants’ respective personal experiences to become aware of their own and others’ cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and habitual patterns known as a comfort zone. a breakthrough experience will occur by acknowledging this awareness, and they discover their values. also, existential and acquired values and skills will be discovered, the space of possibilities will be opened, and the relationship with oneself, others, and the world will be established (langar, 2014, ghorbani, 1397, & sanaei-zakir, 1395; nejatian, khaksar, & azimi, 2021). bemsg is formed based on the bonyan theory of being. genealogically this theory is the family of existential psychology theories. this theory focuses on “to be with what it is.” this explanation of existence is based on the be-do-have triangle and an open view of existence based on wholeness, integrity, and intentionality. the method, born of this theory, by choosing to be present here-and-now and being an observer on “how to be with what it is,” while acceptance, responsibility, and commitment lead to the “effective & productive state of being” (nejatian, khaksar, & azimi, 2021). although bemsg has a history of more than 30 years, no studies have been conducted on the effect of participating in these groups on individuals’ mental health and psychological performance. given the background on the effectiveness of participating in marathon groups on participants’ psychological components, this article contains research results to answer whether bemsg groups are influential based on ego functions the number of participants was 118, where 68 were in the experimental group, and 50 were in the control group. all applicants were screened through interviews to meet the nonclinical population’s criteria, and consents were signed. standards that applied for all participants include 1) age over 20; 2) minimum bachelor’s degree; 3) employment; and 4) commitment to program rules. the experimental group was evaluated after the end of the bemsg program. the control research method arash nejatian, maryam khaksar, alireza zahiroddin & leila azimi 97 group was also assessed simultaneously as the experimental group without participating in the program. the study used the ego function self-reporting questionnaire, designed in 1973 by leopold bellak et al. (1988) and adapted from the original bellak handbook by juni et al. (2000). the questionnaire has twelve subscales for ego functions, examining each of the twelve ego functions with ten questions. the answer options for each question are never (0), sometimes (1), most of the time (2), and always (3). internal consistency and reliability of these scales for clinical and nonclinical populations have been investigated and confirmed in various studies (juni & straehle, 2002). in 2019, a study was conducted in turkey to assess the ego performance evaluation questionnaire (efa) with 426 participants. the study’s statistical findings show that the questionnaire has good validity and reliability for turkish society (durmaz & barlas, 2019). the present study used cronbach’s alpha test to determine the questionnaire’s internal consistency. for this purpose, the questionnaire information was collected from 30 people with the same characteristics as the experimental and control groups. cronbach’s calculated alpha of this group was 0.893, which indicates the questionnaire’s optimal consistency for measuring the target population’s dependent variable. in this study, sampling was performed as available samples. the design was a quasiexperimental nonequivalent control group post-test-only method. in this design, the dependent variable is measured after the intervention and compared to two unequal groups with similar characteristics without random distribution (bhattacherjee, 2019; gravetter, 2009; ferry, 2018). all participants in this study initially filled up a widespread demographic form in-person, including demographic characteristics, educational and professional status, marital status, goals of participation, history of physical and mental health problems, and possibly traumatic childhood experiences. the questioner also covered participants’ reactive factors, intensity, and how they respond to these factors. participants acknowledged and signed the rules and regulations for participation in the program. eventually, all participants were interviewed for nonclinical screening. sixty-eight (68) participants were selected for the experimental group, and the remaining fifty (50) were chosen as the control group. the bemsg was held on the last three days of the week (three 12-hour days, for 36 hours), followed by three weekly follow-up sessions to monitor and follow up the participants’ experiences. the duration of the bemsg was entirely in line with the standards of the marathon groups. the meetings were held in official and nonclinical settings. participants follow the program’s ground rules, including attending the entire program; no use of drugs, stimulants, and alcohol for three days and no smoking at the program’s time and place. they were committed to the confidentiality of the participants’ experiences and sharing. the program stopped for an hour and a half each day for two breaks and lunchtime, but participants did not leave the space. upon completing the program, the three weekly follow-up sessions started, and on the third session, the ego-performance self-report evaluation questionnaire was given to the experimental and control groups. the two-group design with post-test and the control group is a simpler version of the pretest-post-test design in which pre-test measurements are omitted (gravetter, 2009). shapiro-wilk test (p-value <0.05) was used to evaluate the normal distribution of variables (bhattacherjee, 2019). in cases where the hypothesis of normality was not established for either of the two groups, nonparametric tests such as the u mann-whitney test were used. pearson correlation 98 the effect of bonyan-method experiential marathon structured groups (bemsg) on ego functions statistics (r) for nonparametric and cohen-d for parametric tests were used for measuring the effect size (mayers, 2019). the average age in the experimental group was 36.3 years. the youngest and oldest participants in this group were 23 and 61 years old, respectively. the standard deviation was calculated at 8.38. the control group’s mean, minimum, and maximum age and standard deviation were 35.2, 20, 53, and 7.97, respectively. the “age” data was distributed nonparametrically in both groups, where the mann-whitney test showed that the two groups had no significant difference in terms of the age of participants. 70% of the sample size was women in both experimental and control groups, and 30% were men (table 1). table 1 number of participants in each group group f % control 50 42.4 experimental 68 57.6 shapiro-wilk test was used to evaluate the normality of research variables data distribution. in all the cases, distribution was nonparametric, except for “adaptive regression in the service of the ego” and “stimulus barrier,” which showed the normal distribution. the independent ttest for these two variables and, in other cases, the mann-whitney was used (table 2). table 2 shapiro-wilk test output of research variables ego functions group shapiro-wilk statistic df p-value object relations control 0.869 68 <0.001 experimental 0.876 50 <0.001 reality testing control 0.787 68 <0.001 experimental 0.898 50 <0.001 judgment control 0.956 68 0.017 experimental 0.969 50 0.202 the sense of the reality of the world control 0.923 68 <0.001 experimental 0.920 50 0.002 regulation and control of drives, effects and impulses control 0.957 68 0.019 experimental 0.963 50 0.124 thought processes control 0.934 68 0.001 experimental 0.947 50 0.026 adaptive regression in the service of the ego (arise) control 0.975 68 0.189 experimental 0.972 50 0.283 defensive functioning control 0.935 68 0.001 experimental 0.976 50 0.410 stimulus barrier control 0.974 68 0.159 experimental 0.976 50 0.396 autonomous functioning control 0.922 68 <0.001 experimental 0.956 50 0.058 synthetic-integrative function control 0.946 68 0.005 experimental 0.970 50 0.240 master-competence control 0.929 68 0.001 experimental 0.963 50 0.123 a summary of the test results is given in table 3. all ego function factors showed significant growth in the experimental group compared to the control group. result arash nejatian, maryam khaksar, alireza zahiroddin & leila azimi 99 for all 12 ego functions indicators, there is a significant difference between the control and experimental groups (at the level of 95%). in all cases, the mean scores of the trial group were higher than the control group. however, the effect size of the bemsg on the participants’ ego functions was different. the most significant effect size is related to “adaptive regression in the service of the ego (arise)”-creativity (d> 0.4) and “stimulus barrier (sb)” (d> 0.4). this high effect size shows that the mean scores of arise and sb in more than 80% of the control group’s participants were lower than the mean scores in the trial group. in other words, participation in the bemsg has significantly increased the amount of these factors in more than 80% of participants (mcleod, 2019). this percentage for the ego function with an average effect size is between 69% and 79%, including object relations, reality testing, judgment, regulation and control of drives, effects and impulses, defensive functioning, autonomous function, and mastercompetence. in the low effect size ego functions, which included the sense of the world’s reality and the self and synthetic-integrative function, changes were observed 58% to 69% of participants. table 3 summary of the statistics test result shows that all ego function factors had significantly more growth in the experimental group than in the control group. ego function mean test p-value effect size control experimental object relations 9.11 10.32 u mann–whitney <0.001 r=0.4 reality testing 10.85 11.85 u mann–whitney <0.001 r=0.4 judgment 9.10 10.31 u mann–whitney 0.001 r=0.4 the sense of the reality of the world and the self 11.04 11.57 u mann–whitney 0.046 r=0.2 regulation and control of drives, effects, and impulses 8.97 9.99 u mann–whitney 0.001 r=0.3 thought processes 8.33 9.96 u mann–whitney 0.001 r=0.4 adaptive regression in the service of the ego (arise); 6.85 7.79 independent t-test 0.022 d=0.5 defensive functioning 9.00 10.38 u mann–whitney <0.001 r=0.4 stimulus barrier 8.18 9.71 independent t-test <0.001 d=0.9 autonomous functions 8.20 9.74 u mann–whitney 0.001 r=0.4 synthetic-integrative function 8.75 9.56 u mann–whitney 0.039 r=0.2 master-competence 8.88 10.10 u mann–whitney 0.006 r=0.3 according to the obtained results, it can be stated that participating in the bemsg had a significant positive effect on all ego performance indicators, which was in line with the existing background in this field. for example, in a 1980 study by hartke, ego growth was shown following participation in marathon courses (hartke, 1980, quoted in fisher, 2012). although all twelve ego function scores in the trial group were significantly higher than the control group, the effect size was not the same among ego function indices. among these, the most remarkable effect size was related to “adaptive regression in the service of the ego” and “stimulus barrier.” meanwhile, “sense of reality and sense of self” shows the most negligible effect size. “adaptive regression in the service of the ego” is the capacity to let go, suspend controls, and enjoy ideas and imaginations in a state of regression to the early stages of development that thus enhances imagination, play, humor, initiative, and creativity (bellak & goldsmith, 1984). discussion 100 the effect of bonyan-method experiential marathon structured groups (bemsg) on ego functions sometimes it is necessary to perform concerning the early stages of development to protect the mind from painful emotions. when this happens, one adapts to serve the ego (goldstein, 1995). people need to allow themselves to regress with personality traits such as creative imagination and playfulness to cope with a problematic situation (costa, 2020). this regression is considered adaptive if it enables the person to carry out their task. sleeping is adaptive if snoozing gives someone the energy they need to complete the project. if a person sleeps all day to avoid work, it is inconsistent with adaptive regression (czaja, 2011). therefore, such adaptive regression in the service of the ego (arise) must be distinguished from the ego’s adaptive defensive behaviors. adaptive regressions in the ego’s benefit include activities and actions that help people relieve the stresses of life and prepare for continued good performance (sichel, 2020). the participants in bemsg will gain a better ability to accept and welcome the situation by strengthening this ego function-adaptive regression in the service of the ego. on the other hand, the “stimulus barrier,” as a complex ego function, shows the individuals’ sensitivity or threshold to external and internal stimuli. this ego function enables the individual to adjust internal and external stimulation to maintain optimal alignment, acceptance, and adaptation. according to the results of this study, it can be said that joining bemsg resulted in participants’ higher ability to regulate their emotions. the bemsg facilitates experiences such as the “here-and-now” and the individuals’ detachment from their thoughts, feelings, and physical senses. the increase of indicators such as stimulus barrier, autonomous function, regulation and control of drivers, emotions, and impulses in participants can be related to these concepts. krug believes that this type of presence and being in the moment helps people integrate with everyday conflicts and increase their capacity for acceptance and flexibility (krug, 2009). against “adaptive regression in the service of the ego” (creativity) and the “stimulus barrier” that accounted for the most considerable effect in this study; the “sense of the reality of the world and the self” and the “synthetic-integrative function,” although both had significant changes, had the slightest effect size. the “sense of the reality of the world and the self” is the ability to feel oneself as part of the world, with a real identity and boundaries (bellak & goldsmith, 1984). although, as previously explained, this ego function score was significantly higher in the trial group than in the control group, this change was observed in a limited number of participants (58%-69%). similar results also have been reported and mentioned in other studies with group programs. in a case study, solomon (1988) attributed this to an individual’s inability to communicate in a friendly manner with other participants. it seems that participating in bemsg increases the psychological capacity and flexibility of the ego of the participants by simultaneously enhancing the “adaptive regression in the service of the ego (creativity)” and the “stimulus barrier.” “psychological capacity” is an accessible psychological resource that contributes to the functioning of intra-psychological and interpersonal adjustment. tugada & frederickson (2004) described ego resilience as “the ability to retreat from negative emotional experiences and adapt and resilient to changes in stressful experiences”. in explaining this, one must pay attention to the empirical nature of the bemsg, where participants experience their feeling and thoughts and communicate them with others authentically during practical and experimental programs. this method focuses on gaining arash nejatian, maryam khaksar, alireza zahiroddin & leila azimi 101 awareness based on the practical experience of “being with what it is” concerning oneself and others (craig, 1986). how people participate in bemsg reflects their encounter style in real life. according to bugental, focusing on the interpersonal relationship in group meetings helps people to become aware of their state of being with what it is. facing individuals with their structures informs them of their defences’ consequences and stimulates their mutual will to overcome these defences (bugental & bracke, 1992; schneider, 2016). in rollo may’s words, intentionality, this revival is an important orientation that differs from rational or behavioral change. its driving force stems from a sense of purity and includes a new path to being and choosing (may, 1994). bemsg approach makes people aware of the consequences of resistance and their defences and discovers their values. bradford (2007) believes that such awareness and discovery led to improved ego functions, marked by a significant change in this index in the present study results. as in the present study, we only examined the relationship and effectiveness of participation in the bemsg on ego functions. at last, we suggest that the mechanism of the effect of the bemsg on various ego functions be investigated as qualitative research. bonyan-method experiential marathon groups, by creating the opportunity to be aware of “how to be with what is”, enable people to encounter their dynamic inner psychological patterns such as ego functions. the ego functions are responsible for regulating emotions and managing internal mental experiences. high levels of ego functions help people gain peace with others and themselves and successfully carry out their social roles in different cultural contexts. improving this program’s psychological functions can effectively prevent fragmentation and meaninglessness and provide a good prognosis for promoting individual and social mental health. special thanks to from fereshteh mirhashemi, who openly encouraged us to carry out this project. we are also thankful to farshid moradian for clarifying our theoretical views on the theory, method, and foundation groups’ status and coordinates. our gratitude goes toward bonyan volunteer players who helped us through the various stages of this research. we also would like to appreciate carol newsom for english editing this article. the ethics committee in biomedical research of the research and technology department of shahid beheshti university of medical sciences revised this study and approved the ethics code (ir.sbmu.retech.rec.1399.552). bach, g. (1966). the marathon group: intensive practice of intimate interaction. psychological reports, 18(3), 995-1002. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1966.18.3.995 badanfiroz, a., rahimian boogar, i., najee, a., & shaikhe, m. (2017). cognitive emotion regulation in students: the predictive role of ego strength and personality organization. conclusion acknowledgment references 102 the effect of bonyan-method experiential marathon structured groups (bemsg) on ego functions qom university of medical sciences journal, 11(8), 37-45. http://journal.muq.ac.ir/article-1979-en.html basu, j., basu, s., & bhattacharyya, s. (2004). ego functions in relation to stressful life events and indices of psychopathology in paranoid schizophrenia. psychological reports, 95(3_suppl), 1248-1252. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.95.3f.1248-1252 basu, s., basu, j., & bhattacharyya, s. (1999). ego functions and their relationships to psychopathologies. indian journal of clinical psychology, 26, 82-87. bellak, l. (1988). ego function assessment (efa): a manual. larchmont. bellak, l., & goldsmith, l. (1984). the broad scope of ego functions assessment. john wiley & sons. besharat, m., ramesh, s., & moghimi, e. (2018). spiritual health mediates the relationship between ego-strength and adjustment to heart disease. health psychology open, 5(1), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1177/2055102918782176 bhattacherjee, a. (2019). social science research: principles, methods, and practices. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/oa_textbooks/3/ blanck, g., & blanck, r. (1994). ego psychology: theory and practice. columbia university press. bradford, g. (2007). the play of unconditioned presence in existential-integrative psychotherapy. journal of transpersonal psychology, 39, 23-47. bugental, j., & bracke, p. (1992). the future of existential-humanistic psychotherapy. psychotherapy, 29, 28-33. clair, m., & wigren, j. (2000). (2000). object relations and self-psychology: an introduction. wadsworth. costa, r. (2020). regression (defense mechanism). in v. zeigler-hill, & t. shackelford (eds.), encyclopedia of personality and individual differences. springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_1422 craig, p. (1986). sanctuary and presence: an existential view of the therapist’s contribution. the humanistic psychologists, 4(1), 22-28. czaja, m. (2011). the integration of ego psychological and cognitive behavioral interventions for first episode psychosis: strengthening the self and treating the symptoms. [masters thesis, smith college]. https://scholarworks.smith.edu/theses/1061 davis, s., bremer, s., & anderson, b. (1983). the interrelationships of ego strength, self-esteem, death anxiety, and gender in undergraduate college students. the journal of general psychology, 108(1), 55-59. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221309.1983.9711478 dinges, n., & weigel, r. (1971). the marathon group: a review of practice and research. comparative group studies, 2(4), 339-458. https://doi.org/10.1177/104649647100200401 durmaz, y., & barlas, g. (2019). study of validity, reliability in accordance with turkey conditions in ego functions assessment scale. perspectives in psychiatric care. 55. https://doi.org/10.1111/ppc.12357 ferry, b. (2018). the sage encyclopedia of educational research, measurement and evaluation. sage. arash nejatian, maryam khaksar, alireza zahiroddin & leila azimi 103 fisher, j., silver, r., chinsky, j., goff, b., & klar, y. (2012). evaluating a large group awareness training: a longitudinal study of psychosocial effects. springer science & business media. freud, a. (2018). the ego and the mechanisms of defense. routledge. genden, s. (1995). maturity and personality: a study of the relationship between developmental maturity, ego defenses, and personality disorders [doctoral dissertation, wayne state university]. goldstein, e. (1995). ego psychology and social work practice (2nd ed.). the free press. gottschalk, l., pattison, e., & schafer, d. (1971). training groups, encounter groups, sensitivity groups and group psychotherapy. california medicine, 115(2), 87. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18730582/ gravetter, f. (2009). research methods for the behavioral sciences, 3rd ed. sage publications, inc. hagger, m., wood, c., stiff, c., & chatzisarant, n. (2010). ego depletion and the strength model of self-control: a meta-analysis. psychological bulletin, 136(4), 495. http://doi.org/10.1037/a0019486 juni, s., & stack, j. (2005). ego function as a correlate of addiction. american journal on addictions, 14, 83-93. https://doi.org/10.1080/10550490590899880 juni, s., & straehle, m. (2002). ego function assessment of nonclinical individuals. psychological reports, 91(2), 679-686. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.2002.91.2.679 juni, s., stack, j., & burton, j. (2000). ego function assessment of substance abusers: standardization and reliability. psychological reports, 87(3_suppl), 1185-1195. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.2000.87.3f.1185 kernberg, o. (1972). early ego integration and object relations. nyasa, 193(1), 233-247. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1972.tb27840.x krug, o. (2009). james bugental and irvin yalom: two masters of existential therapy cultivate presence in the therapeutic encounter. journal of humanistic psychology, 49(3), 329-354. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167809334001 may, r. (1994). existence. jason aronson. mayers, a. (2019). introduction to statistics and spss in psychology. harlow, united kingdom: pearson education limited. mcleod, s. a. (2019). simply psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/effect-size.html mcwilliams, n. (2004). psychoanalytic psychotherapy: a practitioner’s guide. guilford press. mirhashemi, f. (in press). bonyan: theory and method. nejatian, a., khaksar, m., & azimi, l. (2021). the effect of bonyan-method experiential marathon structured groups (bemsg) on the elements of the five-factor model of personality. international journal of psychological studies, 13(3), 56-63. https://doi.org/10.5539/ijps.v13n3p56 104 the effect of bonyan-method experiential marathon structured groups (bemsg) on ego functions pothier, p. (1970). marathon encounter groups: rationale, techniques, and crucial issues. perspectives in psychiatric care, 8(4), 153-159. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.17446163.1970.tb01318.x schneider, k. (2016). existential-integrative therapy: foundational implications for integrative practice. journal of psychotherapy integration, 26(1), 49. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039632 sichel, m. (2020). healthy regression.http://www.psybersquare.com/anxiety/panic_healthy_ regress.html solomon, a. (1988). psychotherapy of a casualty from a mass therapy encounter group: a case study. cultic studies journal, 5(2), 211-227. spielberger, c. d. (1972). conceptual and methodological issues in anxiety research. in c. d. spielberger (ed.), anxiety: current trends in theory and research (vol. 2, pp. 481493). academic press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-657402-9.50013-2. summers, f. (1994). object relations theories and psychopathology: a comprehensive text. analytic press, inc. tugade, m., & fredrickson, b. (2004). resilient individuals use positive emotions to bounce back from negative emotional experiences. journal of personality and social psychology, 86(2), 320– 333. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.86.2.320. weigel, r. (2002). the marathon encounter group--vision and reality: exhuming the body for a last look. consulting psychology journal: practice and research, 54(3), 186–198. https://doi.org/10.1037/1061-4087.54.3.186 ziadni, m. s., jasinski, m. j. vief, g. l. & lumley, m. a. (2017). alexithymia, defenses, and ego strength: cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships with psychological wellbeing and depression. journal of happiness studies, 18(6), 1799-1813. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-016-9800-7 inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research https://journal.iainlangsa.ac.id/index.php/inspira how to cite (apa 7th edition) khatijatusshalihah, k., riamanda, i., aprilia, e. d. & nisa, h. (2022). career decision self-efficacy of indonesian students. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 3(1), 17–22. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i1.4131 this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial 4.0 international (cc by-nc 4.0) copyright ©2022 by khatijatusshalihah, irin riamanda, eka dian aprilia, & haiyun nisa research article career decision self-efficacy of indonesian students https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i1.4131 khatijatusshalihah, irin riamanda, eka dian aprilia, haiyun nisa department of psychology, universitas syiah kuala, aceh, indonesia corresponding author: khatijatusshalihah (email: khatijatusshalihah@unsyiah.ac.id) abstract early adulthood is one of the crucial moments of an individual’s life since it marks a person’s thinking seriously regarding the future, especially in careers. an individual will firstly make a series of career decisions before choosing a career. self-efficacy is the best predictor of students’ academic and social integration. this study used a quantitative method with a descriptive analysis approach to describe and identify the status of career decision-making self-efficacy students in preparing for career decisions. participants of the current study were 196 students from different backgrounds such as genders, choice of majors, domiciles, and types of accommodation. participants were selected using a simple random sampling technique. the instrument used is career decision self efficacy. the findings revealed that 70.9 % of the students are in a high level of career decision self efficacy (m= 98.9), and there were no differences in career decision self efficacy among students reviewed based on genders, and choice of majors, domiciles, and types of accommodations. article history: received 26 may 2022 revised 17 june 2022 accepted 24 june 2022 keywords: career decision selfefficacy; career planning; cdse; indonesian students introduction late adolescence or early adulthood is one of the crucial moments of an individual’s life. it is when a person starts thinking seriously regarding their futures, especially their careers. erikson in santrock (2011) suggest that at this stage, adolescents begin to search for their identity by exploring different fields and roles since this is a transition period between childhood and early adulthood, in which adolescents are liberated to develop various identities. as stated by cote in santrock (2011), a career is part of the self-identity that individuals want to take. teenagers explore career options more specifically (patton & mcmahon, 2021). however, before pursuing a chosen career field, an individual will make a series of career decisions. according to career development theory by super (osipow, 1983), there are five stages of career development tasks that begin with crystallization (14 – 18 years) when individuals formulate ideas about appropriate work for themselves. the next stage is called specifications (18-21 years), when individuals are required to focus on one career direction and take the necessary steps to implement the decision that has been taken. the third stage is stabilization (2535 years); an individual is expected to stay at work and use the talents to demonstrate the suitability of previous career decisions; the next stage is consolidation (35-40 years), when individuals will strengthen their beliefs toward the current career as a right decision. the last stage (55 years and https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i1.4131 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6803-0845 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5833-1441 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6611-6909 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2289-1556 18 over) is a readiness to face retirement. based on these stages, the initial decision-making process related to a career begins to be experienced from adolescence since, at this stage, individuals have to focus on making direction regarding their careers. since the high school era, adolescents have been faced with choices of specialization and are required to decide on their career choices after graduation, either continuing their education at the university level or going straight to work (jessyca, tommy, suyasa, 2021). in both cases, they will undoubtedly have to go through the whole process of career decisions. as known, before individuals make career decisions, they will undergo a process of seeking information through various activities that support their choices. this process is called career decision-making. career decision-making is a determination process that begins with the selection of alternatives through comparing and evaluating available alternatives in which students develop an understanding of critical thinking processes that are suitable for application in career decision-making skills (patton & mcmahon, 2001). accordingly, good career planning is needed to help individuals map out the desired career path suitable to their interests (humaira & kumala, 2021). without good planning, it can result in a loss of income due to the gap between skills and the work undertaken. in the long term, difficulty in career planning can cause difficulties for an individual in getting a job, resulting in increasing unemployment (yunitri & jatmika, 2015). according to bandura (1986), to perform successfully given tasks or behaviors, an individual must have a certain degree of belief and confidence named self-efficacy expectations. this expectation is believed to be the primary mediator of behavior changes. in addition, hacket and betz (1981) developed the career decision-making theory by using the self-efficacy theory as the basis since it is argued as one of the significant factors in choosing careers. a recent study mentions that the higher the confidence level of the final year’s students, the lower their tendency to experience career indecision (dharma & akmal, 2019). peterson (in chaney, beltz, and multon, 2007) found that career decision self-efficacy (cdse) relates to the academic hardiness versus dropping out in unprepared university students. individuals unable to decide on a career indicate low cdse levels and generally face many difficulties in decision-making (yowell, mcconell, & schedin, 2014). therefore, this variable also serves as the best predictor of academic and social integration of college students. the original scale of cdse was retracted from bandura’s hypothesis on understanding and career uncertainty by taylor and betz (1983). initially, the career choice self-efficacy scale (cdses) was called the scale, which was intended to measure individuals’ trust to fulfill their duties in their professional work. since the length of the original scale, betz, klein, and taylor (1996) developed a shorter version of the cdses by eliminating 5 of the ten items from each of the five subscales (a) accurate selfappraisal, (b) gathering occupational information, (c) goal selection, (d) making plans for the future, and (e) problem-solving. the career decision self-efficacy scale–short form (cdses-sf) contains 25 items with the same five subscales (gaudron, 2011). based on the explanation above, this study explored the status of career decision self-efficacy in indonesian students. the result is expected to be the basis for providing frameworks to overcome career planning-related problems for indonesian students. method this study used a quantitative method with a descriptive analysis approach that aims to describe and identify the initial conditions (preliminary research) to reveal the status of career decision-making self-efficacy of indonesian students in preparing for their careers. participants were 196 high school and university students in indonesia. highschoolers were 45 (23%), 80 psychology students (40.8%), 19 13 economics students (6.6%), 7 natural science students (3,6%), 4 agriculture students (2%), 11 medical students (5.6%), 4 political science students (2%), 6 engineering students (3.1%), 10 teacher training students (5.1%), 2 law students (1%), and 14 undisclosed students (7.1%) and 176 juniors (27%). thirty-four (17.3%) were male, and 162 (82.7%) were female. their age ranged from 15 to 20 years (m 18.09, sd 13.37). forty resided on java island (20.4%), and 156 lived outside java (79.6%). the accommodation they lived in was parent’s houses 179 (91.3 %), rented rooms (7.1%), and three shared houses with spouses (1.5%). research participation was voluntary. according to cdses (taylor & betz, 1983), the scale assesses individuals’ belief that they can complete tasks necessary for making career decisions. the cdses-sf contains 25 items measuring five career choice competencies of crites’ (1961, 1978) model of career maturity: (a) accurate selfappraisal, (b) gathering occupational information, (c) goal selection, (d) making plans, and (e) problemsolving. respondents rate their confidence on a 5-point likert-type scale from 1 (no confidence at all) to 5 (complete confidence). this scale gives a possible range for each subscale of 5–25 and the full scale of 25–125, with higher scores indicating greater levels of career decision self-efficacy. the scale was administered in indonesian. the data was collected through google form and tabulated and analyzed with crosstab analysis. spss version 20.0 for windows was operated to simplify all the statistical calculation processes within this research. result descriptive analysis was carried out to describe hypothetical data (statistical data that might occur) and empirical data (statistical data in the field) from the career decision self-efficacy variable. the description of the research data can be seen in table 1: table 1. descriptive statistic of career decision self-efficacy variable hypothetical data empirical data xmax xmin mean sd xmax xmin mean sd career decision selfefficacy 125 25 75 16.66 125 58 98.9 12.89 the division of categorization of subjects is ordinal level categorization. this categorization aims to place individuals into groups whose positions are tiered according to a continuum based on the measured attributes (azwar, 2013). furthermore, azwar (2013) also states that the number of category levels is usually no more than five levels and no less than three; in addition, subjects grouped in two levels are less efficient and will face a relatively large risk of error for scores located at around the group mean. therefore, the researcher decided to make three limitations from the description of the research data consisting of three categories: low, medium, and high. the formula for determining the level categorization (ordinal) is based on the categorization formula azwar (2013) and can be seen in the following table 2: table 2. career decision self-efficacy norm categorization ordinal categorization category x < (μ 1,0 σ) x < (75– 1,0 (16,66) x < 58 low (μ 1,0 σ) ≤ x < (μ + 1,0 σ) (75 – 1,0 (16,66)) ≤ x < (75 + 1,0 (16,66)) 58 ≤ x < 92 medium x ≥ (μ + 1,0 σ) x ≥ (75 + 1,0 (16,66)) x ≥ 92 high 20 based on the categorization formula above, the low, medium, and high score limit starts from 25– 57, 58–91, and 92–125, respectively. in addition, the categorization norm on the scale can be seen in the following table 3: table 3. descriptive statistic of ordinal categorization ordinal categorization formula categorization n (%) x < 58 low 0 (0%) 58 ≤ x < 92 medium 57 (29,1%) x ≥ 92 high 139 (70,9%) total 196 (100%) in this study, descriptive analysis was also used to see the distribution and amount of demographic data and the level of career decision self-efficacy in the entire research sample. the crosstab test was conducted to investigate the details of demographic data such as gender, major, domicile, and accommodation as prescribed below: table 4. crosstab analysis of cdse and demographic data variable cdse categorization total medium high age mean sd 17,89 ± 1,73 18,17 ± 1,19 18,09 ± 13,37 gender male 8 (4,1%) 26 (13,3%) 34 (17,3%) female 49 (25%) 113 (57,7%) 162 (82,7%) majors high school/vocational school 15 (7,7%) 30 (15,3%) 45 (23%) psychology 25 (12,8%) 55 (28,1%) 80 (40,8%) economics 4 (2%) 9 (4,6%) 13 (6,6%) natural science 1 (0,5%) 6 (3,1%) 7 (3,6%) agriculture 0 (0%) 4 (2%) 4 (2%) health and medicine 1 (0,5%) 10 (5,1%) 11 (5,6%) political science 1 (0,5%) 3 (1,5%) 4 (2%) engineering 2 (1%) 4 (2%) 6 (3,1%) teacher training 4 (2%) 6 (3,1%) 10 (5,1%) law 1 (0,5%) 1 (0,5%) 2 (1%) undisclosed majors 3 (1,5%) 11 (5,6%) 14 (7,1%) domiciles java island 13 (6,6%) 27 (13,8%) 40 (20,4%) non-java island 44 (22,4%) 112 (57,1%) 156 (79,6%) types of accommodation parent’s houses 52 (26,5%) 127 (64,8%) 179 (91,3%) rented rooms 3 (1,5%) 11 (5,6%) 14 (7,1%) a shared house with spouses 2 (1%) 1 (0,5%) 3 (1,5%) discussion this study’s findings show that most participants are in the high category of cdse. high self-efficacy in career decisions enhances computerized direct career programs (fukuyama, probert, neimeyer, nevill, & metzler, 1988). other studies also prove that the higher the level of students’ cdse, the more it will affect their career concept and career exploration that they will carry out (gushue, scanlan, pantzer, & clarke, 2006). more specifically, individuals with high cdse levels increase the likelihood of dealing with it rather than avoiding it since they have the confidence and abilities to perform the required tasks in career decision-making (taylor & betz, 1983). meanwhile, individuals who scored low on cdse levels encourage themselves to avoid behavior or tasks appropriate to achieve their goals (bandura, 1977). for instance, they tend to change their career goals when challenged (burns, jasinki, dunn, & fletcher, 2013). 21 one of the efforts to improve cdse is by conducting a career planning program. career planning training provides an understanding that builds students’ awareness of their potential and limitations and offers various alternative career opportunities and skills in determining career choices (damayanti & widyowati, 2016). therefore, it is suggested that students participate in such training programs to have an adequate level of cdse to make career choices more confidently. in addition, no difference was found in career decision self-efficacy in gender, as the analysis results obtained a p-value of 0.433 (p> 0.05), which indicates no significant difference. there was no difference in the career decision self-efficacy in differences of major chosen, as the analysis results obtained a p-value of 0.786 (p> 0.05). there was also no difference in the career decision self-efficacy in domiciles, as the analysis results obtained a p-value of 0.594 (p> 0.05), meaning no significant difference between the java and non-java students. likewise, there was no difference in career decision self-efficacy in types of accommodations, as the analysis results obtained a p-value of 0.342 (p> 0.05), meaning no significant difference between the three groups. these findings indicate different findings from previous studies that show differences in self-efficacy between male and female students, in which male students have higher self-efficacy than female students (löve et al., 2011; firdaus & arjanggi, 2020). difficulty and doubt in making career decisions indicate low self-efficacy, whereas self-efficacy has been proven to influence career maturity. based on the study by fadhila, abdul, and bustamam (2017) on self-efficacy and maturity, self-efficacy is believed to contribute to the career talent of high school students. the study result also placed most high school students in the medium category of cdse, which is in line with this study. conclusion this study concludes that there were no differences in the career decision-making self-efficacy of students based on genders, majors, domiciles, and types of accommodation. most of the students have a high level of career decision self-efficacy. based on the findings of this study, it encourages future researchers to pay attention to other variables related to the career decision difficulty, for instance, parental support, seeking help behavior, and socioeconomic status of parents, as well as developing programs to support career planning for students. references azwar, s. (2013). metode penelitian. pustaka pelajar. bandura, a. (1997). social learning theory. prentice-hall, inc. betz, n. e., klein, k. l., & taylor, k. m. (1996). evaluation of a short form of the career decision-making selfefficacy scale. journal of career assessment, 4(1), 47–57. https://doi.org/10.1177/106907279600400103 chaney, d., hammond, m., betz, n., & multon, k. (2007). the reliability and factor structure of the career decision self-efficacy scale-sf with african americans. journal of career assessment, 15(2), 194–205. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072706298020 damayanti, d., & widyowati, a. (2018). peningkatan career decision making self efficacy (cdmse) melalui pelatihan perencanaan karir pada siswa smk. humanitas, 15(1), 35–45. https://doi.org/10.26555/humanitas.v15i1.7409 dharma, g., & akmal, s. (2019). career decision making self-efficacy dan career indecision pada mahasiswa tingkat akhir. seurune jurnal psikologi unsyiah, 2(2), 1-19. https://doi.org/10.24815/s-jpu.v2i2.14203 firdaus, w., & arjanggi, a. (2020). self-efficacy and career decision making difficulties in senior high school students. indigenous: jurnal ilmiah psikologi, 5(2). 141–150. https://doi.org/10.23917/indigenous.v5i2.8941 https://doi.org/10.1177/106907279600400103 https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072706298020 https://doi.org/10.26555/humanitas.v15i1.7409 https://doi.org/10.24815/s-jpu.v2i2.14203 https://doi.org/10.23917/indigenous.v5i2.8941 22 fukuyama, m. a., probert, b. s., neimeyer, g. j., nevill, d. d., & metzler, a. e. (1988). effects of discover on career self-efficacy and decision-making of undergraduates. the career development quarterly, 37(1), 56–62. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-0045.1988.tb00801.x gaudron, j. (2011). a psychometric evaluation of the career decision self-efficacy scale–short form among french university students. journal of career assessment, 19(4), 420-430. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072711409713 gushue, g, v., scanlan, k. r. l., pantzer, k. m., & clarke, c. p. (2006). the relationship of career decision-making self-efficacy, vocational identity, and career exploration behavior in african american high school students. journal of career development, 33(1), 19–28. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894845305283004 hackett, g., & betz, n. e. (1981). a self-efficacy approach to the career development of women. journal of vocational behavior, 18(3), 326–339. https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-8791(81)90019-1 humaira, p., & kumala, i. (2021). otoritas pengasuhan dan efikasi keputusan karier pada remaja di aceh. seurune: jurnal psikologi unsyiah, 4(1), 75–100. https://doi.org/10.24815/s-jpu.v4i1.19721 jessyca, j., & y. s. suyasa, p. (2021). uji validitas isi tarumanagara career decision self-efficacy scale. jurnal muara ilmu sosial, humaniora, dan seni, 5(1), 189–198. https://doi.org/10.24912/jmishumsen.v5i1.9987.2021 löve, j., moore, c. d., & hensing, g. (2011). validation of the swedish translation of the general self-efficacy scale. quality of life research, 21(7), 1249–1253. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-011-0030-5 metheny, j., & mcwhirter, e. (2013). contributions of social status and family support to college students’ career decision self-efficacy and outcome expectations. journal of career assessment, 21(3), 378–394. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072712475164 osipow, s. (1983). theories of career development. prentice-hall. patton, w., & mcmahon, m. (2001). career development programs: preparation for lifelong career decision making. acer press. patton, w., mcmahon, m. (2021). career development and systems theory: connecting theory and practice (4th ed.). brill. santrock, j. w. (2011). perkembangan anak (7th ed.) (sarah genis b, trans.). erlangga. taylor, k. m., & betz, n. e. (1983). applications of self-efficacy theory to the understanding and treatment of career indecision. journal of vocational behavior, 22(1), 63–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/00018791(83)90006-4 yunitri, k., & jatmika, d. (2016). tipe kepribadian ocean dengan career decision self-efficacy pada mahasiswa tingkat akhir di jakarta. jurnal ilmiah psikologi terapan, 3(2), 401–415. https://doi.org/10.22219/jipt.v3i2.3540 https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-0045.1988.tb00801.x https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072711409713 https://doi.org/10.1177/0894845305283004 https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-8791(81)90019-1 https://doi.org/10.24815/s-jpu.v4i1.19721 https://doi.org/10.24912/jmishumsen.v5i1.9987.2021 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-011-0030-5 https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072712475164 https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-8791(83)90006-4 https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-8791(83)90006-4 https://doi.org/10.22219/jipt.v3i2.3540 inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research https://journal.iainlangsa.ac.id/index.php/inspira how to cite (apa 7th edition) ontok-balah, k. (2022). case management and psychosocial care services for child and adolescent survivors of rape and sexual abuse. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 3(2), 51–62. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i2.4187 this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial 4.0 international (cc by-nc 4.0) copyright ©2022 by khadiguia ontok-balah research article case management and psychosocial care services for child and adolescent survivors of rape and sexual abuse https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i2.4187 khadiguia ontok-balah department of psychology, college of arts and social sciences, university of southern mindanao, cotabato, philippines corresponding author: khadiguia ontok-balah (email: kobalah@usm.edu.ph) abstract a child's right to life is violated by sexual abuse, which also represents an abuse of power. the case management and psychological care services provided to the child and adolescent survivors of rape and sexual abuse were evaluated in this study. three (3) registered social workers and five (5) residents from the home for women and children (hwc) in amas, kidapawan city, philippines, took part in the study. before the incidents, the residents were all high school students aged 14 to 19 years old. based on the findings, the caseworkers were unable to provide adequate psychological support, and the staff and the caseworkers were also unable to adequately explain to the residents that they could always return for additional help. the clients were uncomfortable telling their stories, felt blamed by the staff and caregivers for the abuse, were bored in the center, and missed their families, and many were still unsatisfied with the care services offered by the hwc because the perpetrator had not been jailed yet, thus, their home is not yet safe for them. the head of the hwc recommends that the client's integration plan be developed, preferably with a six-month aftercare program or monitoring. also, there must be suitable strategies to avoid and respond to sexual violence. clients should receive more outstanding psychosocial care, and employees and caseworkers should receive other pieces of training, seminars, and workshops to improve the services provided in the hwc. article history: received 19 june 2022 revised 01 november 2022 accepted 05 december 2022 keywords: case management services; psychosocial care; sexual abuse; survivors of rape introduction sexual abuse is an abuse of power over a child and a violation of a child’s rights to life and normal development through healthy and trusting relationships. child sexual abuse is defined by the world health organization (who) as the involvement of a child in sexual activity that he or she does not fully comprehend, is unable to give informed consent to, or for which the child is not developmentally prepared and cannot give consent, or that violates the laws or social taboos of society. this activity between a child and an adult or another child who, by age or development, is in a relationship of responsibility, trust, or power, that activity being intended to gratify or satisfy the person's needs, is evidence of child sexual abuse (who, 1999). https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i2.4187 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9120-3764 52 the "prevalence of child sexual abuse in community and student samples: a meta-analysis," a 2009 metastudy from the university of barcelona published in clinical psychology review, evaluated 65 research publications from 22 countries to obtain an overall international figure" for child abuse revealed that, prior to the age of 18, a reported 7.9% of men and 19.7% of women in the world suffered sexual abuse. male rates were 7.%, and female rates were 25.3% in the united states. africa had the highest prevalence of child sexual abuse (34.%), while europe had the lowest prevalence rate (9.2%). the prevalence rates in america and asia ranged from 10.1% to 23.9%. men (60.9%) and women (60.9%) have the most excellent prevalence rates in south africa (43.7%). jordan has the second-highest prevalence rate (27%) among men, followed by tanzania (25%). male prevalence rates range from 10% to 20% in israel (15.7%), spain (13.4%), australia (13%), and costa rica (12.8%), while the rest nations all have rates below 10%. abused children are more likely to abuse others as adults, resulting in violence being passed down from generation to generation. breaking the cycle of violence, and hence creating beneficial multigenerational effects, is therefore crucial. seven nations reported prevalence rates of over 20% among women: australia (37.8%), costa rica (32.2%), tanzania (31.0%), israel (30.7%), sweden (28.1%), the united states (25.3%), and switzerland (25.3%) (pereda, guilera, forns, & gómez-benito, 2009). rape and sexual assault have long-term negative consequences, including social and economic expenses, as well as physical and mental health consequences, such as hurting people's ability to work and engage in family and community life (brown, khasteganan, brown, hegarty, carter, tarzia, feder, & o'doherty, 2019). furthermore, research has indicated that women who have experienced sexual abuse have trouble trusting others, have low self-esteem, have sexual problems, and have more excellent rates of substance usage (lowder & oliphant, 2012). despite the event's age, sexual abuse has been proven to have long-term, irreversible, emotional and physical impacts on women, especially young girls. sexual assault survivors frequently internalize their symptoms, which can contribute to depression. case management and psychosocial care are procedures for planning, obtaining, and monitoring services from various social agencies and employees on behalf of a client, as well as providing intervention to mitigate the negative consequences of sexual abuse. typically, one agency has the primary responsibility for the client and assigns a case manager to organize services, advocate for the client, and, in some cases, control resources and purchase services on the client's behalf (national association of social workers, 2013). a sexually abused child's long-term health is usually determined by support in addressing the issue and giving psychosocial care to the family or community, as well as protection from additional harm (lawler & talbot, 2012). the children in the philippines are protected by the laws of being sexually abused as clearly stipulated, "all children in the philippines and filipino children elsewhere are protected from all forms of violence, abuse, exploitation, and discrimination," according to executive order no. 53, strengthening the committee for the special protection of children, amended for executive order no. 275 s.1995. however, serious sexual abuses still occur, and the perpetrators remain permitted of such illegal acts. furthermore and in order to further enforce the protection of children and adolescents, in 2002, the provincial government of cotabato constructed the crisis intervention center (cic), now the home for women and children (hwc), located in amas, kidapawan city was based on republic act 8505, or the rape victims assistance and protection act of 1998. when it first opened, it had five residents and was run by the provincial social welfare and development office (pswdo). it has been assisting mistreated children for almost a decade. the organization provides children's protection, psychiatric counseling, legal support, and educational services. 53 in cognizance hereto, this study was a formative evaluation of the services provided by the hwc in cotabato province. this assessment was used to establish how hwc programs and services were implemented for the clients/residents. case management and psychosocial care services were evaluated based on how caseworkers implemented them and how satisfied the clients/ residents were with them. the findings shall help improve the hwc's services for satisfaction and recovery. method the study utilized the descriptive research design to gather data on the case management services and psychosocial care services implemented to the residents of the hwc in amas, kidapawan city, philippines, in february 2016. hwc, formerly called crisis intervention center (cic), is a facility where a comprehensive network of services and support activities are available to victims of rape and other forms of sexual abuse, their family, and the community in general, including programs for sexual assault awareness and prevention. the study respondents included the casework supervisor, the head of the hwc (assessed by the two registered social workers), and the five (5 ) residents/ clients in the center who were all girls and between the ages of 14 to 19 years old. there were more than 10 residents during the conduct of the study, but the residents who were currently available for data gathering at the shelter were five (5) residents a letter requesting permission to conduct the study was submitted to the provincial social welfare development office in amas, kidapawan city, philippines. after the approval, the head of the hwc arranged an appointment for data collection and interviews with the clients. the instruments in this study were all adopted from the caring for child survivors of sexual abuse by international rescue committee (irc, 2012) resources. the ccs guidelines on global research and evidenced-based field practice bring a much-needed fresh, practical approach to helping the child and adolescent survivors and their families recover and heal from the frequently devastating impacts of sexual abuse. the guidelines are rooted in best practices and global standards (irc, 2012). the instrument was adapted from the checklist developed by the international rescue committee (2012) in the caring for child survivors of sexual abuse guidelines. the reason for adopting this guideline in this paper was developed to respond to the gap in guidance for health and psychosocial staff providing care and treatment to child and adolescent survivors of sexual abuse in a humanitarian setting. the casework supervisor of the center completed the first instrument on the self-rating checklist on the caring for child survivors minimum standards for case management, which consisted of six (6) statements regarding the minimum standards for case management service providers was used to evaluate the minimum standards for case management services. the passing score must be six (6) points to meet the minimum standards for case management. the second checklist, which the head of the hwc also completed, was the supervision tool case management checklist to review the caseworkers’ practices on an individual case by asking the caseworker if she or he completed the task listed for each step of case management. this checklist provides an opportunity to evaluate the caseworker’s direct practice and to receive supervision from his or her case manager/supervisor. it composes of six (6) components, namely: (a) create a climate of trust, support, and care, (b) introduction/ engagement and intake and assessment steps, (c) case action planning and implementing the action plan steps, (d) case follow up, (e) case closure, and (f) overall case management provided. it is answerable by yes or no, and there is a space for the statement which is not applicable (n/a). there was also a space where the supervisor wrote her comments about the case worker. the third instrument was the client’s questionnaire feedback form 54 to evaluate the service the center offered to the children/ adolescents and families affected by violence and assess their satisfaction with their services. the child or adolescent/ client feedback form was one method for the hwc to receive feedback from the children/ adolescents and the families they served. the responses would help the hwc improve its services and better meet the needs of its clients. this is in no way to evaluate individual staff members and was used as a tool to evaluate the practices of the staff/ caseworkers. it was completed through an interview with the child/ adolescent survivors and his/her caregivers if appropriate. the clients were informed that no questions about their case would be asked during the interview, and it was to get information on the services they received and that all responses would be kept confidential. if the child or adolescent/ caregiver can read and write and would like to complete the form on her/his own, this is also acceptable. the child essentially would still be informed that whatever she writes on the form will be treated with the utmost confidentiality. the data was analyzed using the “yes-no" dichotomous response presentation. result this chapter presents the results of the evaluation of the case management and psychosocial care services implemented by the hwc. this chapter first discusses two areas regarding case management services on the minimum standards set by international rescue committee (2012) and the case management services implemented by the case workers in the hwc. lastly, it also discusses the evaluation of the psychosocial care services offered by the social workers to the residents/ clients in the hwc. evaluation criteria used based on the minimum standards for case management services in home for women and children this evaluation focuses on the case management services offered in the hwc, and this study was interested in confirming how these services were parallel to the international standards for caring for child survivors (ccs). data in table 1 shows the evaluation pertained to the minimum standards for case management services for child survivors divided into two sections: (a) mandatory requirements and (b) optional category. the passing score for the mandatory requirements is six (6) points. table 1. evaluation criteria used based on the minimum standards for case management services in home for women and children amas, kidapawan city, february 2016. mandatory requirements response case management staff are trained in caring for child survivors (ccs) and are present in service provider agencies (this means staff delivering services have been trained and pass the core knowledge/ skills/ attitudes competency) yes a supervision system exists for case workers providing care to child survivors. yes safe, locked filing spaces to keep child records confidential exist. yes referral system for children is documented for meetings with children and caregivers. yes a private counseling room is available for meetings with children and caregivers. yes informed consent and confidentiality forms and procedures are adapted for child survivors. yes optional category case management forms are adapted and used for child survivors yes child-friendly materials (toys, art materials, dolls) are available in counseling rooms for case management staff to use with child survivors yes sexual abuse educational materials are adapted and available for child survivors yes child supplies (clothes, etc.) are available at the case management service location yes defined psychosocial interventions offered as part of case management yes mandatory requirements. there were six (6) required requirements for case management minimal standards. first, the head of hwc confirmed that case management employees and caseworkers had been educated to care for child survivors. this also signifies that the hwc followed the department of social welfare and development's guidelines for cases of violence against women 55 and children (vawc). the outcome indicates that the amas hwc in kidapawan city follows the minimum standards of practice in case management services. optional category. on the other hand, the optional category of minimal criteria for case management services contains five (5) standard statements. first, the hwc director agreed that case management forms are used at the center. as previously stated, intake assessments are completed for each case in accordance with dswd (2008) guidelines, demonstrating the justification for contracting aid or referring to alternative agencies. individual intake sheets are prepared entirely and correctly, including demographics, abuse history, impacts of abuse, victims' behavior and physical condition, needs and concerns, actions taken/referrals and first plans of the victim-survivors. the findings suggested that the casework supervisor generally believed that the hwc conformed to the minimum standards set by the irc. evaluation of case management services implemented by the case workers. table 2 includes findings on the case management services and the study's initial goal. the caseworkers of the registered social workers (rsw) in the hwc used a supervision tool for caring for child survivor case management checklist to collect data based on how the two (2) registered social workers as caseworkers executed case management services. the head who supervises the hwc completed the checklist. this checklist evaluation allowed the caseworker to assess his or her direct practice while also receiving supervision from his or her case management/supervisor. the discussion is subdivided into six sections, namely: (1) promotion of climate of trust, support, and care; (2) conduct of introduction/ engagement and intake assessment steps; (3) case action planning and implementation of the action plan steps; (4) conduct of case follow-up; (5) case closure; and (6) overall case management provided. the head of hwc completed the case management checklist as implemented by the registered social workers (rsw). the result revealed that the checklist's six (6) subsections were adequately implemented by the caseworkers or the registered social workers except for the rsw 1, who could not implement additional psychosocial support in the home for women and children (if appropriate). further, the caseworkers could not explain to the child and caregiver that they could always come back for further services. aside from the quantitative response, the case supervisor wrote in the form that “the reintegration plan must be formulated prior to the integration of the client, preferably six months after the care program, and there must also be a conducted monitoring.” evaluation of psychosocial care services to the child and adolescent survivors tables 3 and 4 findings on the satisfaction survey of the clients in hwc reflect that there should be some improvements in the communication between the staff and the caseworkers of the clients. the researcher intended to conduct a total count of the clients at the hwc, but due to the complicated, traumatic, and highly sensitive situations of the other clients, the provincial social 56 table 2. case management services implemented by the case workers introduction/ engagement and intake assessment steps rsw 1 rsw 2 explain to the child in simple, clear terms about case management services and confidentiality. yes yes obtained informed consent and informed assent from the child and/or caregiver appropriately. yes yes conduct a safe and supportive interview (following the best practices for communication/ interviewing). yes yes collect only the incident details relevant to helping the child and his/her family. yes yes assess the child’s safety, health, psychosocial, and legal/ justice needs appropriately yes yes complete the correct forms and documents. yes yes case action planning and implementation of the action plan steps rsw 1 rsw 2 develop treatment goals and an action plan based on the assessment of needs. yes yes involve the child’s views and opinions in decision-making according to best practices. yes yes involve the caregiver in the child’s care and treatment action plan. yes yes ensure the child’s best interests (e.g., making sure any actions taken will safeguard physical and emotional safety) when planning action steps. yes yes explain options for service providers to help meet the child’s needs yes yes ask the child and caregiver how much information they would like to have shared during the referral process and how. yes yes obtain information consent/ assessment for referrals. yes yes coordinate the child’s needs through safe and appropriate referrals (e.g., accompany the child) yes yes implement mandatory reporting procedures (if applicable). yes yes implement additional psychosocial support your agency offers (if appropriate). no yes consult with supervisor on urgent safety concerns raised. yes yes make a follow-up plan/ appointment. yes yes complete the correct forms and documentation. yes yes case follow-up rsw 1 rsw 2 meet with the child at the requested time and location for a follow-up appointment. yes yes review initial case goals and action plan to assess the status of the child’s needs being met. yes yes re-assess the child’s needs (focus on safety) during the follow-up to see if new issues or needs arise. yes yes develop a revised action plan to meet the new needs the child has. yes yes obtain informed consent for additional service providers brought into the child’s care and treatment. yes yes make another follow-up appointment with the child and/or caregiver. yes yes case closure rsw 1 rsw 2 assess, with the child/ caregiver, if all needs have been met and no further case management is needed yes yes review the safety plan in place yes yes explain to the child and caregiver that they can always come back for further services [supervisor’s comment: the reintegration plan must be formulated prior to the integration of the client. six months aftercare program (monitoring)]. no no complete the appropriate case documentation yes yes overall case management provided rsw 1 rsw 2 follow the guiding principles in caring for child survivors yes yes complete case management steps and procedures according to appropriate guidelines yes yes receive advice and supervision from her case management supervisor well yes yes the welfare and development office (pswdo) director and the head of hwc decided to allow only five (5) or more than 30% of the clients from 10 residents. the clients were sent to the provincial social welfare and development office's counseling room for interviews on their experiences with the hwc's programs and services. clients rated the psychosocial services offered by the hwc using the client feedback questionnaire during the interview. the questionnaire was written in basic english that the clients could comprehend, and it was translated into the filipino language to elicit more reliable and truthful responses. in order to keep their identity, all of the clients' names chosen as research respondents were kept highly confidential. 57 table 3. evaluating psychosocial care services for child-survivors in home for women and children (quantitative responses). clients’ entry to the home for women and children client 1 client 2 client 3 client 4 client 5 how did you find out about hwc services? head of the hwc rsw (msw do makilala) head of the hwc rsw (mswdolibungan) head of the hwc did you ever try to visit the counseling center and find there was no caseworkers present? no no no no no assistance given by home for women and children to the clients client 1 client 2 client 3 client 4 client 5 what kind of assistance were you expecting from the hwc? a. counseling yes yes yes yes yes b. psychosocial supports yes yes yes yes yes c. proper case management yes yes yes yes yes d. assistance (going to health or safety or legal or other service provided) yes yes yes yes yes e. resettlement and shelter yes yes yes yes yes were your expectations met? yes yes yes yes yes staff and caseworkers are respectful and provide comfort to their clients client 1 client 2 client 3 client 4 client 5 were you treated respectfully by the staff and caseworkers? yes yes yes yes yes did the staff and caseworkers make you comfortable sharing your experiences and asking for help? yes yes yes yes no staff and caseworkers’ way of communication with the clients client 1 client 2 client 3 client 4 client 5 did the staff and caseworkers communicate with you in a way you understood? yes yes yes yes yes did you feel like the staff and caseworkers blamed you in any way for what happened? no yes no no no referral and decision-making: client 1 client 2 client 3 client 4 client 5 did you feel pressured by any of the staff and caseworkers to make a decision or do something you did not wish to do? no no no no no did the staff and caseworkers refer you to any other services? yes yes yes yes yes did the staff and caseworkers follow up and do what was agreed? yes yes yes yes yes clients’ over-all satisfaction: client 1 client 2 client 3 client 4 client 5 do you feel like the crisis intervention center helped you with your problems? yes yes yes yes yes do you feel like the crisis intervention center helped you address problems in your family related to the abuse? yes yes yes yes yes did you generally feel better after meeting with the home for women and children? yes no yes no yes table 4. evaluation of psychosocial care services for child-survivors in home for women and children (qualitative responses). feedback and other concerns of the clients client 1 “wala na kay tanan nakong kailangan, ara na.” (there is none because they provided everything i needed.) client 2 “none, because everything is provided.” client 3 “wala na…” (there’s none). client 4 “sana maka-aral na ako sa susunod na year para maka-trabaho na ako.” (i wish i can go back to school next year and be able to find a job after.) client 5 “ang gusto kong gawin ay makatulong sa mga nangangailangan at gusto ko pang i-improve ang trabaho para sa kabataan.” (i want to help others who need help and improve programs for youth.) 58 the evaluation (refer to tables 3a and 3b) focused on the issues and concerns relating to the client’s entry to the home for women and children, assistance given by the center, caseworkers' respect and comfort to the clients, communication to clients, referral and decision-making, clients’ over-all satisfaction, and feedback and other concerns of the clients. entry to the home for women and children. the respondents were aware of the hwc’s services as a result of recommendations from the local mswd office's social workers, and three (3) were referred directly to the head of the hwc. when they visited the counseling center, the respondents also felt that caseworkers were there. as a result, the staff and caseworkers are serious about their obligations and responsibilities in caring for child survivors, client comments and other problems. assistance given by the home for women and children to the clients. all respondents stated they received counseling/psychosocial support, effective case management, help (such as referrals to health, safety, legal, or other service providers), material assistance, resettlement, and shelter. in addition, 100% of the respondents said their expectations had been met. staff and caseworkers are respectful and provide comfort to their clients. the responders all felt that the personnel and caseworkers at the center treated them with respect. this feeling means that the staff and caseworkers aid the clients' recovery with the center's positive and courteous attitudes. however, almost all respondents agreed that the center's employees and caseworkers helped them feel at ease while sharing their stories and seeking assistance. client 5, however, was exceedingly hesitant to speak up. this condition could be due to her feeling humiliated to reveal her abuse story. she barely concealed her shyness during the interview by pressing herself into her seat. however, no further questions were asked because they would receive accusations of abuse. staff and caseworkers’ way of communication with the clients. the clients said hwc's staff and caseworkers communicated with them clearly and understandably. this condition ensures no communication barriers between employees and caseworkers, allowing for open discussion of abuse situations. furthermore, nearly all of the respondents stated that the employees and caseworkers were not to blame for what had happened to them. however, client 2, who felt blamed for the abuse that happened to her, stated, “kasi siguro, mahilig akong mag-apply ng make-up tapos sabi ng isang staff na kaya daw nangyari yun sa akin kasi sa pagiging maarte ko”. (maybe because i like applying make-up and one of the staff blamed me that maybe it happened to me because i was too beauty conscious.) (client 2) this finding contradicts the findings in table 2, in the promotion of a climate of trust, support, and care, that “caseworker’s communication with the child uses simple, clear, and non-blaming language.” referral and decision-making. the clients believed that the hwc employees and caseworkers did not pressure them. all respondents thought hwc personnel and caseworkers referred them to additional services they needed and said that they had received all the information required to assist them. all respondents thought hwc personnel and caseworkers followed up and followed through on their promises. clients’ overall satisfaction. hwc was thought to have benefited all of the responders with their issues. hwc, according to all of the respondents, assisted them in dealing with their family problems related to the abuse. three (3) of the respondents said that meeting with hwc made them feel better in general. however, two (2) of the respondents felt that they did not feel better because, 59 “… kasi nafe-feel ko na masyadong tahimik dito at nami-miss ko na ang family ko.” (i felt that the place is too quiet and boring and i already start missing my family.) (client 2) “… hindi, kasi hindi pa po nahuli ang aking step farther”. (… no, because my step father was not yet arrested.) (client 4) feedback and other concerns of the clients. two (2) of the respondents believed that there was nothing they could suggest or give feedback about because everything that they needed was all given: “wala na kay tanan nakong kailangan, ara na.” (there is none because they provided everything i needed.) (client 5) “none, because everything is provided.” (client 2) “wala na…” (there’s none). (client 1) the other two (2) of the respondents commented that, “sana maka-aral na ako sa susunod na year para maka-trabaho na ako.” (i wish i can go back to school next year and be able to find a job after.) (client 4) “ang gusto kong gawin ay makatulong sa mga nangangailangan at gusto ko pang i-improve ang trabaho para sa kabataan.” (i want to help others who need help and improve programs for youth.) (client 3) the findings generally revealed that one (1), i.e., client 5, did not feel comfortable sharing their experience and asking for help. client 2 believed that the staff and caseworkers blamed her in any way for what happened. moreover, clients 2 and 4 expressed contradicting responses when they were asked, in general, about their feelings after meeting with the hwc, but the remark of client 2 stimulated alarm when she gave her overall feedback and concern that there was nothing more that she needed, but she confessed that she still did not feel better because her stepfather, who was her perpetrator, was not yet arrested. in other words, the inconsistencies in the remarks of the clients/ residents posed problems that need to be addressed when care is needed. this condition means that when the child or adolescent is reintegrated into her family following care from the hwc, the home environment safety must be taken into account discussion the result for the first objective (see table 1) of this current study on the evaluation that the hwc revealed that it could conform to the minimum standards set by the irc. the findings in the study are inconsistent with the philippine government's directive establishing a protocol for case management of child victims of abuse, neglect, and exploitation through the committee for the special protection of children (cspc), as mandated by executive order 53 on 11 august 2011. this protocol is a series of guidelines for ensuring the rights of children who have been abused, neglected, or exploited. from the time a child abuse case is reported or referred until it is closed, the procedure underlines the roles and obligations of government agencies and their partners, ensuring that child victims are treated in a child-sensitive and appropriate manner. moreover, based on the findings of jones, atoro, & walsh, cross, & shadoin (2010), child/ adolescent survivors are referred to in an environment that is as unintimidating and appealing to children as possible (child-friendly). furthermore, additional findings revealed in the second objective that although child/ adolescent survivors of sexual abuse received psychosocial support, caseworkers were unable to offer additional 60 psychosocial support, and staff members/ caregivers were unable to let the clients/ residents know that they could always turn to them for assistance (see table 2). pieces of literature support the study findings that the children/adolescents should receive psychosocial support (including efforts to absolve any feelings of guilt or blame) also resources for the caregiver that will ensure supporting the child emotionally (campbell, greeson, & fehler-cabral, 2013; denis, seyller, & chariot, 2016; du mont, macdonald, kosa, & smith, 2016). the findings for the third objective of the study (see table 3a and 3b) revealed that a client did not feel comfortable sharing their experience and asking for assistance. there was also 1 client who believed that the staff and caseworkers blamed her abusively for what happened to her. moreover, two (2) expressed contradicting responses when they were asked, in general, about their feelings after meeting with the hwc. however, one client's response raised the question when she gave her overall feedback and concern that there was nothing more that she needed because everything was already given, but she gave a somewhat contradicting view about her first remark that she did not feel comfortable at the hwc. in other words, the inconsistencies in the clients'/ residents’ remarks somehow posed strong evidence of possible underlying issues regarding the care given to them. contrary to this study's findings, according to campbell et al., 2013; collings, 2011; du mont et al., 2016; jones et al. (2010), child/adolescent survivors should receive a non-judgmental response that communicates that the survivor is believed. furthermore, other studies found that children/ adolescent survivors should receive a response that prioritizes the child or adolescent’s safety and needs and ensures that no further harm occurs (collings, 2011; palusci, cox, shatz, & schultze, 2006). nonetheless, according to the irc (2012), care centers should offer specialized skills in child-centered communication to effectively care for clients. their work, whether as health or psychosocial workers, requires them to exchange information with clients efficiently and effectively. conclusion hwc met the minimum standards (for mandatory requirements or the optional category) for case management services to their clients who experienced sexual abuse. although psychosocial support is provided to child survivors, caseworkers cannot provide additional psychosocial support; the staff and caseworkers could not explain to the child and caregiver that they can always turn to them for help. some clients felt uncomfortable sharing their experiences, blamed the staff for the abuse, were bored and missed their family, and were still unsatisfied because their stepfather had not yet been arrested, according to the evaluation of the psychosocial care services provided by the staff and caseworkers. another client expressed her desire to return to continue her schooling to be able to find a good job. that means the child and adolescent survivors' care must also focus on home environment safety when she is reintegrated into her family after the care of the hwc. based on the study's findings, it is recommended that the basic standards in the provision of case management services in the hwc should be maintained. additionally, based on the case supervisor's comments, a reintegration plan must be formulated for the client. preferably six months after the care program or monitoring must also be conducted, ensuring the safety of the home environment away from the perpetrators and possible venues that invite abuses in all forms, especially sexual abuse; and there must be appropriate ways of preventing and responding to sexual violence involving critical stakeholders in the community. 61 declaration acknowledgment the author thanks research assistants who help in data collection and technical matters. author contribution statement khadiguia ontok-balah composed the research. funding statement this research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. data access statement the data described in this article can be accessed by contacting the author. declaration of interest’s statement the author declares no conflict of interest. additional information no additional information is available for this paper. references brown, s. j., khasteganan, n., brown, k., hegarty, k., carter, g. j., tarzia, l., feder, g., & o’doherty, l. (2019). psychosocial interventions for survivors of rape and sexual assault experienced during adulthood. cochrane database of systematic reviews. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.cd013456 campbell, r., greeson, m. r. & fehler-cabral, g. (2013). with care and compassion: adolescent sexual assault victims’ experiences in sexual assault nurse examiner programs. journal of forensic nursing, 9(2), 6875. https://doi.org/10.1097/jfn.0b013e31828badfa collings, s. j. (2011). professional services for child rape survivors: a child-centered perspective on helpful and harmful experiences. journal of child and adolescent mental health, 23(1), 5-15. https://doi.org/10.2989/17280583.2011.594244 department of social welfare and development (2008). administrative order number 5 series of 2008. omnibus guidelines on the management of dswd-operated crisis intervention units. denis, c., seyller, m. & chariot, p. (2016). expectations and perceptions of care among victims of sexual assault who first seek care from emergency, primary care and gynaecological doctors. emergency medicine journal, 33(2), 134-138. https://doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2015-204655 du mont, j., macdonald, s., kosa, d. & smith, t. (2016). nonoffending guardian assessment of hospital-based sexual abuse/assault services for children. journal of forensic nursing, 12(1), 3538. https://doi.org/10.1097/jfn.0000000000000101 the president of the philippines. (2011). executive order no. 53: strengthening the committee for the special protection of children, amending for this purpose executive order no. 275 (s. 1995). the president of the philippines. (1995). executive order no. 275, s. 1995: creating a committee for the special protection of children from all forms of neglect, abuse, cruelty, exploitation, discrimination and other conditions prejudicial to their development international rescue committee (2012). caring for child survivors of sexual abuse: guidelines for health and psychosocial service providers in humanitarian settings. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.cd013456 https://doi.org/10.1097/jfn.0b013e31828badfa https://doi.org/10.1097/jfn.0b013e31828badfa https://doi.org/10.2989/17280583.2011.594244 https://doi.org/10.2989/17280583.2011.594244 https://doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2015-204655 https://doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2015-204655 https://doi.org/10.1097/jfn.0000000000000101 https://doi.org/10.1097/jfn.0000000000000101 62 https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/document/caring-child-survivors-sexual-abuse-guidelineshealth-and-psychosocial-service-providers/ jones, l. m., atoro, k. e., walsh, w. a., cross, t. p., shadoin, a. l. & magnuson, s. (2010). nonoffending caregiver and youth experiences with child sexual abuse investigations. journal of interpersonal violence, 25(2), 291-314. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260509334394 lowder, j. l. & oliphant, s. (2012). gynecologic conditions and body image: a lifetime perspective. encyclopedia of body image and human appearance, 468-474. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-384925-0.00074-2. the alliance for child protection in humanitarian action (2019). minimum standards for child protection in humanitarian action. https://alliancecpha.org/sites/default/files/technical/attachments/cpms_2019_final_en.pdf national association of social workers (2013). social work case management. https://www.socialworkers.org/linkclick.aspx?fileticket=acrzqmefhlo%3d&portalid pereda, n., guilera, g., forns, m. & gómez-benito, j. (2009) the prevalence of child sexual abuse in community and student samples: a meta-analysis. clinical psychology review, 29(4), 328-338. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2009.02.007 rosenthal, s., feiring, c. & taska, l. (2003). emotional support and adjustment over a year’s time following sexual abuse discovery. child abuse and neglect, 27(6), 641-661. https://doi.org/10.1016/s01452134(03)00104-2 runyon, m. k., spandorfer, e. d. & schroeder, c. m. (2014). cognitions and distress in caregivers after their child’s sexual abuse disclosure. journal of child sexual abuse, 23(2), 14615. https://doi.org/10.1080/10538712.2014.869291 sowmya, b. t. s., seshadri, s. p., srinath, s., girimaji, s. & sagar, j. v. (2016). clinical characteristics of children presenting with history of sexual abuse to a tertiary care centre in india. asian journal of psychiatry, 19, 44-49, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajp.2015.12.007 wangamati, c. k., thorsen, v. c., gele, a. a., & sundby, j. (2016). postrape care services to minors in kenya: are the services healing or hurting survivors? international journal womens health, 8, 249-259. https://doi.org/10.2147/ijwh.s108316 world health organization (1999). report of the consultation on child abuse prevention, 29-31 march 1999, who, geneva. https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/65900 https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/document/caring-child-survivors-sexual-abuse-guidelines-health-and-psychosocial-service-providers/ https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/document/caring-child-survivors-sexual-abuse-guidelines-health-and-psychosocial-service-providers/ https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260509334394 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260509334394 https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-384925-0.00074-2. https://alliancecpha.org/sites/default/files/technical/attachments/cpms_2019_final_en.pdf https://www.socialworkers.org/linkclick.aspx?fileticket=acrzqmefhlo%3d&portalid https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2009.02.007 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2009.02.007 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0145-2134(03)00104-2 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0145-2134(03)00104-2 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0145-2134(03)00104-2 https://doi.org/10.1080/10538712.2014.869291 https://doi.org/10.1080/10538712.2014.869291 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajp.2015.12.007 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajp.2015.12.007 https://doi.org/10.2147/ijwh.s108316 https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/65900 inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research https://journal.iainlangsa.ac.id/index.php/inspira how to cite (apa 7th edition) ‘alwan, f. f., azizah, t., & rimuna, r. f. (2022). children’s positive feelings at school during post-pandemic covid-19: an exploratory research with photo elicitation interview. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 3(2), 71–78. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i2.4991 this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial 4.0 international (cc by-nc 4.0) copyright ©2022 by faiz fatihul ‘alwan, tuti azizah & ridha fauzia rimuna research article children’s positive feelings at school during post-pandemic covid-19: an exploratory research with photo elicitation interview https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i2.4991 faiz fatihul ‘alwan1, tuti azizah2, ridha fauzia rimuna3 1 department of educational psychology, universitas pendidikan indonesia, west java, indonesia 2 department of educational psychology, universitas pendidikan indonesia, west java, indonesia 3 department of educational psychology, universitas pendidikan indonesia, west java, indonesia corresponding author: faiz fatihul ‘alwan (email: faizfatihulalwan@gmail.com) abstract two years since the beginning of the pandemic, and now it is starting to subside, the face-to-face learning system has been applied as usual. changes in the learning system, from online to face-to-face learning, change the atmosphere and conditions of the learning environment. then, the conditions affected students’ experiences and feelings during the learning process. this study uses a qualitative approach with photoelicitation interviews (pei) to explore the positive feelings of four elementary school students in bandung. pei explores the experiences of children who struggle to describe their situation explicitly. the interactive data analysis found that there was a change in the positive feelings experienced by students in the hybrid learning and back-toschool phases. interaction with peers and the learning process with teachers are the two dominant things that trigger children’s positive feelings about learning in the post-covid era. article history: received 31 october 2022 revised 21 december 2022 accepted 27 december 2022 keywords: elementary school students; photo elicitation interview; positive feeling; post-pandemic covid-19 introduction the covid-19 pandemic has lasted for about two years and has significantly impacted the education process. unicef (2021) explains that during the covid-19 pandemic in indonesia, prolonged school closures, social isolation from peers, and pressure to study at home with limited guidance significantly impact children’s mental and emotional well-being, especially adolescents. this condition is essential in evaluating the various possibilities in children’s behavior in the post-pandemic period, like today. meanwhile, face-to-face learning in indonesia has begun to be carried out in stages since the beginning of 2022. it has been carried out in full through regular face-to-face learning. changes in post-pandemic social conditions indeed challenge the educational process. the research results on elementary school-aged children in china revealed that after schools reopen, there are emotional and behavioral difficulties and significantly less prosocial behavior (wang et al., 2021). some reasons for this are changes in children’s habits in learning, playing, and interacting with their peers. research by kourti et al. (2021) reported that children’s outdoor play behavior was reduced https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i2.4991 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3949-8630 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4890-6819 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3027-9968 72 during the pandemic; on the other hand, there was an increase in indoor playtime and video game screen time. furthermore, according to the developmental theory stated by santrock (2011), elementary school students become tired more quickly when they have to sit for a long time than if they are allowed to run, jump, and cycle, where these physical activities can refine their cognitive skills. in addition, stimulating activities that help them self-regulate, such as physical exercise and outdoor activities, can reduce anxiety and increase self-esteem and cognitive performance (beute & de kort, 2014). if it is associated with social psychology theory, according to john dewey, our behavior not only arises based on past experiences but also continuously changes or is changed by the environment, including other people. the various alternatives that develop from the two approaches then give rise to multiple perspectives in social psychology—a set of basic assumptions about essential things that can be considered as something that can be used to understand social behavior. there are four perspectives, namely: behavioral (behavioral perspectives), cognitive (cognitive perspectives), structural (structural perspectives), and interactionist (interactionist perspectives). in this regard, children’s behavior in the new normal era after the covid-19 pandemic has an impact on significant environmental changes, especially the school environment when face-to-face learning returns. elementary school children in indonesia experience emotional and behavioral difficulties when returning to school. however, in indonesia, little related research has been carried out, especially in the context of the behavior of elementary school children related to the learning process after the covid-19 pandemic. previous research on the education process in indonesia has reported that students’ behavior at the high school level after online learning is that they often come late to school but are willing to take part in learning well and are even enthusiastic about learning (putri & febriani, 2022). the learning behavior shown by these high school students shows positive behavior even though there are usually negative behaviors, such as being late as an adaptation in the post-pandemic period. meanwhile, students’ feelings are one of the determining factors in schooling because they are closely related to the teaching and learning processes (schutz & lanehart, 2002). in this regard, research involving children as participants has several obstacles. referring to clark (1999), children have limitations in understanding explicit questions. therefore, the data collection process using traditional interviews will have difficulty exploring what children think. for this reason, research involving children needs more effective interview methods, such as photo-elicitation interviews. photo elicitation is an interview technique involving photos related to the experiences or perspectives of research participants. with photo-elicitation interviews, research involving children as research participants will be able to generate more comprehensive data (collier, 1987). unfortunately, very few studies use photo-elicitation interviews, especially in research on children during the postpandemic covid-19 period. therefore, this study aims to explore students’ positive feelings about the direct learning process after the covid-19 pandemic through photo-elicitation interviews. this research is fundamental because it can provide a primary picture for educators and institutions regarding the condition of children in the aftermath of the covid-19 pandemic and map out things that need to be done to improve the quality of education according to children’s development. method this exploratory research uses a qualitative approach with photo-elicitation interviews. the qualitative approach in this study was chosen to explore and construct new knowledge in depth. in this regard, data was collected using a photo-elicitation interview technique followed by probing 73 questions. the photos used are documentation from the online learning period for hybrid learning taken by school teachers and photos of the face-to-face learning process taken naturally and deliberately by researchers at school. the use of photo-elicitation interviews in this exploratory study was intended to explore the memories and experiences of elementary school students more profoundly. children have limitations in understanding detailed questions (clark, 1999; walker & clark, 1999), and traditional interviews will be challenging to explore the child’s thinking. therefore, using related pictures shown during the interview can be a means for students to access memory to get references or pictures of their experiences so that comprehensive data is obtained (collier, 1987). photo elicitation interviewing, or pei uses photos in a series of qualitative data collection interviews (clark-ibáñez, 2004). the use of photographs in qualitative research has been discussed ethically and methodologically and refers to the success of a study’s so-called “break the frame” method (epstein et al., 2006). photos can be used as icebreakers or lighters in deepening interviews, even more creatively with show-and-tell “games” (tammivaara & enright, 1986). in this exploratory research, the researcher presented eight photos of students’ learning processes, from online learning to hybrid learning, and took pictures of face-to-face learning arranged based on timelines. photos 1-2 are online learning activities during the pandemic, photos 3-4 are limited and hybrid student learning activities (only half the class is studying in class), photos 5-6 are face-to-face learning activities for students during the post-pandemic covid-19, and photos 7–8 are play activities and outdoor activities that students participated in during the post-pandemic covid-19. the preparation of this timeline is intended to recall research participants’ memories regarding the processes they have passed through over the past 2 years and provide an opportunity for them to explore their current experiences and feelings during face-to-face learning. the researcher presented the photos individually to each participant and asked them to describe what they saw to express their experiences and feelings. for the selection of participants, this exploratory study used purposive sampling involving four elementary school students in bandung. respondents were chosen using the criteria of male and female students in grade 3 of elementary school. grade 3 elementary school students in that particular academic year were chosen because they were starting face-to-face learning. furthermore, in the age range of 8–9 years, children are more frequently with their friends, and their social life is wider, affecting their emotional development and behavior. additionally, this study uses interactive data analysis (auerbach & silverstein, 2003), where the data obtained will be read and interpreted repeatedly through the processes of “raw text,” “relevant text,” “repeating text,” “repeating ideas,” “themes,” and “research concerns” to process existing research data until it is ready to be presented. result during the post-covid-19 pandemic, children go through a hybrid learning phase before undergoing face-to-face learning. therefore, this discussion will discuss the experiences and dynamics of children’s positive feelings based on the post-pandemic covid-19 timeline. children’s positive feelings during hybrid learning hybrid learning is not intended to provide a stimulus for student learning change. in surat keputusan bersama of the four ministers concerning guidelines for the implementation of learning in the 2020/2021 academic year and the 2020/2021 academic year during the coronavirus disease 74 2019 (covid-19) pandemic (keputusan bersama menteri pendidikan dan kebudayaan…, 2020), hybrid learning is expected to run effectively using three models: face-to-face learning, online-based learning, and also computer-based learning (sumardiana et al., 2022). however, on the other hand, hybrid learning has also become a simulation period for children to undergo face-to-face learning. children get the opportunity to adapt from online learning to face-to-face learning. this study then found a diversity of children’s adaptation responses closely related to the learning process and social interaction when undergoing hybrid learning. one of them was ehsan, who expressed joy during hybrid learning because she could meet her friends back at school. “if the (hybrid-face-to-face) session is fun because you can meet friends, you can get acquainted (because we just met).” (interview with pei, ehsan, 27 september 2022) ehsan mentioned the experience of meeting friends who have never met before as what makes hybrid learning fun. this refers to social interactions that children can explore during face-to-face hybrid learning sessions. elementary school children develop a great deal of socio-emotional self (dewi et al., 2020). elementary school-age children tend to like things that involve physical activity (santrock, 2011), so the change from online learning to hybrid learning has become an adequate means for children. although on the other hand, there are also children who feel that the limitations of hybrid learning are still uncomfortable. like nazih, who stated that hybrid learning with face-toface sessions was fun, students still made nazih less happy. “not happy, not happy. only a few students are present in class. it is fun (meeting friends) but more fun online. it is not crowded if there are few students (during face-to-face sessions, hybrid). it is better at home (online), not many friends but studying for a while.” (interview with pei, nazih, 27 september 2022) from nazih’s statement, it is known that although social interaction has restored students’ positive feelings when studying, the intensity of these feelings is subjective and cannot be the same for every child. in nazih, he felt that too few friends attended the face-to-face hybrid learning session and were still too quiet, so his preference pointed to online learning, which has shorter study times. this shows that children tend to play, interact, and do physical activities that are more dominant (paquette, 2004; santrock, 2011), and this is closely related to children’s positive feelings. thus, online learning is still a preference for some children who want freedom. although it is not more fun than meeting peers in the space dimension, shorter online learning gives positive feelings to some other children in the time dimension. children’s positive feelings during face-to-face learning after going through hybrid learning, the government appealed to every school with a confident readiness to carry out face-to-face learning through the circular letter of the minister of education, culture, research, and technology number 7 of 2022 (surat edaran mendikbudristek no 7 tahun 2022 tentang diskresi panduan pembelajaran tatap muka, 2022). elementary school-age children said they were happy with face-to-face learning, as expressed by nazih, ehsan, icha, and febli: “pleased (face-to-face learning) because of many friends.” (interview with pei, nazih, 27 september 2022) “i am happy (with face-to-face learning). later, when i take a break, i can play. i can ask questions (talk) together, so it feels good to play with friends.” 75 (interview with pei, ehsan, 27 september 2022) “i am glad i am not online anymore. i can meet the teacher.” (interview with pei, icha, 27 september 2022) “pretty happy (face-to-face learning).” (interview with pei, febli, 27 september 2022) from nazih, ehsan, icha, and febli’s statements, this study found that children’s positive feelings were motivated by social interaction with peers during face-to-face learning. in addition, social interaction during face-to-face learning has stimulated children’s psychosocial and physical development (suyadi, 2022). it is not surprising that ehsan stated that face-to-face learning is far more enjoyable than even hybrid learning. “(rather than hybrid learning). i prefer this (ptm) because everything is included, so that i can do that during the session. i know the half of it, so if everyone can get to know everyone.” (interview with pei, ehsan, 27 september 2022) this again refers to the positive feeling children experience during face-to-face learning. although indeed, it is not only social interaction that underlies these positive feelings but also the learning process itself. “happy (sports at school). sometimes we can play ball,” (interview with pei, nazih, 27 september 2022) “so there is much knowledge i can convey to mom when i learn this. can mommy’s heart be happy later” (interview with pei, ehsan, 27 september 2022) nazih and ehsan’s statement above shows that children’s positive feelings when learning face-toface in the post-pandemic covid-19 period are also related to the learning process. after the pandemic lasted so long, children did not have the opportunity to learn outside the classroom (kourti et al., 2021). this study found that learning activities in the classroom make it easier for students to understand lessons, and activities outside the classroom, such as sports that involve much physical movement, are a factor in students’ positive feelings. however, this study also found that, besides children’s positive feelings, there were incidents experienced by some children that made them demotivated. “i do not like (face-to-face learning). in a row, i have cried because i was pushed. all girls are pushed by boys when we play ‘resep-resep jurang.’ i am frustrated. i am also sad after that i am lazy to study.” (interview with pei, icha, 27 september 2022) “so, if someone is playing, i do not like it because i cannot concentrate; for example, i am still studying, and there are questions that are difficult for me to answer when i am finished, the boys scribble, so i have to delete them again, write them down again.” (interview with pei, febli, 27 september 2022) 76 although it gives the impression that it is a commonplace among elementary school children, this, on the other hand, shows that not all children quickly adapt, even with positive feelings. children who are used to online learning will feel they are missing some of the things they usually get while studying at home. quiet and intimate learning environments are challenging for children to forget when they are exposed to online learning. positive feelings arise in children when interacting with peers, and the learning process that involves much physical activity will be able to stimulate children. according to santrock (2011), elementary school children get tired of sitting for long periods. elementary school children will be happier if they are allowed to run, jump, and cycle. discussion this study found that direct learning with teachers and friends at school elicited positive feelings in students. children subjectively express happy feelings that align with their peers’ learning experiences and social interactions. learning experiences different from the pandemic situation make students experience the pleasure of learning associated with social interaction. the pandemic situation of limited interaction between students is now gone and has inspired students to explore themselves and their environment. however, because each child has different preferences, children’s intensity and positive feelings cannot be generalized, especially during the transition period from online to face-to-face learning using hybrid learning. the following is a chart of the tendency of children’s positive feelings in the post-covid-19 pandemic: figure 1. children’s positive feelings figure 1 shows how the change from online learning to hybrid learning has a nurturing effect on the learning process and social interaction with positive feelings. during face-to-face learning, children feel good about themselves because of how well they adjust to the learning process and interact with others. conclusion entering hybrid and face-to-face learning, the elementary school students in this study experienced positive feelings at school. a learning experience that differs from the pandemic, constructing joyful learning experiences associated with social interactions. students feel happy because they can finally enjoy the classroom atmosphere, consult directly with the teacher, and work with peers. in addition, students also feel happy because they can intersperse study time by playing and joking with their 77 peers. explicitly, students experience a developmental process of joyful learning after the pandemic has passed. the contribution of current study results toward education, especially for teachers and other educational practices, regarding joyful learning includes an emphasis on academic aspects and the atmosphere of learning and social interaction. declaration acknowledgment the authors thank all parties involved in writing this article, especially sdn sukawarna bandung, for allowing us to conduct research with students at sdn sukawarna. author contribution statement faiz fatihul ‘alwan led the overall research design, conducted discussion processing, and wrote results and discussion. tuti azizah provided theoretical input, constructed and wrote background, and conducted discussion processing. ridha fauzia rimuna designed interview instruments, conducted surveys and interviews, and designed results frameworks. funding statement this research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. data access statement the data described in this article are openly available at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hjpfe_lyzntcpeuyqlojgtt2cgtethqc?usp=sharing. declaration of interest’s statement the author declares no conflict of interest. additional information no additional information is available for this paper. references auerbach, c. f., & silverstein, l. b. (2003). qualitative data: an introduction to coding and analysis. new york university press. beute, f., & de kort, y. a. w. (2014). natural resistance: exposure to nature and self-regulation, mood, and physiology after ego-depletion. journal of environmental psychology, 40, 167–178. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2014.06.004 clark-ibáñez, m. (2004). framing the social world with photo-elicitation interviews. american behavioral scientist, 47(12), 1507–1527. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764204266236 clark, c. d. (1999). the autodriven interview: a photographic viewfinder into children’s experience. visual sociology, 14(1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/14725869908583801 collier, j. (1987). visual anthropology’s contribution to the field of anthropology. visual anthropology, 1(1), 37– 46. https://doi.org/10.1080/08949468.1987.9966459 dewi, m. p., s, n., & irdamurni, i. (2020). perkembangan bahasa, emosi, dan sosial anak usia sekolah dasar. jurnal ilmiah pendidikan dasar, 7(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.30659/pendas.7.1.1-11 https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hjpfe_lyzntcpeuyqlojgtt2cgtethqc?usp=sharing https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2014.06.004 https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764204266236 https://doi.org/10.1080/14725869908583801 https://doi.org/10.1080/08949468.1987.9966459 https://doi.org/10.30659/pendas.7.1.1-11 78 epstein, i., stevens, b., mckeever, p., & baruchel, s. (2006). photo elicitation interview (pei): using photos to elicit children’s perspectives. international journal of qualitative methods, 5(3), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690600500301 keputusan bersama menteri pendidikan dan kebudayaan, menteri agama, menteri kesehatan, dan menteri dalam negeri republik indonesia nomor 03/kb/2020, nomor 612 tahun 2020, nomor hk.01.08/menkes/502/2020, nomor 119/4536/sj tentang perubahan atas keputusan bersama menteri pendidikan dan kebudayaan, menteri agama, menteri kesehatan, dan menteri dalam negeri nomor 01/kb/2020, nomor 516 tahun 2020, nomor hk.03.01/menkes/363/2020, nomor 440-882 tahun 2020 tentang panduan penyelenggaraan pembelajaran pada tahun ajaran 2020/2021 dan tahun akademik 2020/2021 di masa pandemi coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) (2020). https://www.kemdikbud.go.id/main/files/download/5baf1873d5766d3 kourti, a., stavridou, a., panagouli, e., psaltopoulou, t., tsolia, m., sergentanis, t. n., & tsitsika, a. (2021). play behaviors in children during the covid-19 pandemic: a review of the literature. children, 8(8), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.3390/children8080706 surat edaran menteri pendidikan, kebudayaan, riset, dan teknologi nomor 7 tahun 2022 tentang diskresi pelaksanaan keputusan bersama 4 (empat) menteri tentang panduan penyelenggaraan pembelajaran di masa pandemi coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) (2022). https://lldikti8.ristekdikti.go.id/wpcontent/uploads/2022/08/se-mendikbudristek-no-7-tahun-2022-ttg-diskresi-panduan-ptm.pdf paquette, d. (2004). theorizing the father-child relationship: mechanisms and developmental outcomes. human development, 47(4), 193–219. https://doi.org/10.1159/000078723 putri, f. y., & febriani, e. a. (2022). perilaku belajar peserta didik pasca pembelajaran daring di sman 4 pariaman. jurnal sikola: jurnal kajian pendidikan dan pembelajaran, 4(1), 55–67. https://doi.org/10.24036/sikola.v4i1.199 santrock, j. w. (2011). life-span development (13th ed.). mcgraw hill. schutz, p. a., & lanehart, s. l. (2002). introduction: emotions in education. emotions in education, 2(37), 67–68. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410608628-1 sumardiana, b., fergina, s., nurmala, s., nanda, t. s., & oktaviani, n. n. (2022). penerapan hybrid learning system di era pandemi covid-19 sebagai upaya untuk mewujudkan hak belajar anak berdasarkan undang-undang sisdiknas di desa padasugih brebes. jurnal pengabdian hukum indonesia (indonesian journal of legal community engagement) jphi, 5(1), 10–22. https://doi.org/10.15294/jphi.v5i1.49910 suyadi, s. (2022). dampak pembelajaran daring pada perkembangan psikososial anak saat pandemi covid-19. jurnal obsesi : jurnal pendidikan anak usia dini, 6(4), 3078–3090. https://doi.org/10.31004/obsesi.v6i4.2349 tammivaara, j., & enright, d. s. (1986). on eliciting information: dialogues with child informants. anthropology & education quarterly, 17(4), 218–238. https://doi.org/10.1525/aeq.1986.17.4.04x0616r unicef. (2021, august 20). menuju respons dan pemulihan covid-19 yang berfokus pada anak. https://www.unicef.org/indonesia/id/laporan/menuju-respons-dan-pemulihan-covid-19-yangberfokus-pada-anak walker, r., & clark, j. j. (1999). heading off boundary problems: clinical supervision as risk management. psychiatric services, 50(11), 1435–1439. https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.50.11.1435 wang, j., wang, y., lin, h., chen, x., wang, h., liang, h., guo, x., & fu, c. (2021). mental health problems among school-aged children after school reopening: a cross-sectional study during the covid-19 postpandemic in east china. frontiers in psychology, 12(november), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.773134 https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690600500301 https://www.kemdikbud.go.id/main/files/download/5baf1873d5766d3 https://doi.org/10.3390/children8080706 https://lldikti8.ristekdikti.go.id/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/se-mendikbudristek-no-7-tahun-2022-ttg-diskresi-panduan-ptm.pdf https://lldikti8.ristekdikti.go.id/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/se-mendikbudristek-no-7-tahun-2022-ttg-diskresi-panduan-ptm.pdf https://doi.org/10.1159/000078723 https://doi.org/10.24036/sikola.v4i1.199 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410608628-1 https://doi.org/10.15294/jphi.v5i1.49910 https://doi.org/10.31004/obsesi.v6i4.2349 https://doi.org/10.1525/aeq.1986.17.4.04x0616r https://www.unicef.org/indonesia/id/laporan/menuju-respons-dan-pemulihan-covid-19-yang-berfokus-pada-anak https://www.unicef.org/indonesia/id/laporan/menuju-respons-dan-pemulihan-covid-19-yang-berfokus-pada-anak https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.50.11.1435 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.773134 issn ;2541450x (online) 12 vol. 2 no. 1 (june 2021), pp. 12-21 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v2i1.2934 understanding hifdh and its effect on short-term memory recall performance: an experimental study on high school students in saudi arabia rabah khan1, mariam adawiah dzulkifli2 1,2 department of psychology, international islamic university malaysia, kuala lumpur, malaysia  corresponding author: mariam adawiah dzulkifli (email: m.adawiah@iium.edu.my) abstract – past literature suggests memorizing the quran enhances one’s learning and overall memory performance. this study investigates the effect of hifdh on high school students’ short-term memory recall performance in saudi arabia. the research specifically aims to explore whether the ability to memorize quran will affect the short-term memory of the individuals. one hundred high school students residing in saudi arabia, aged between 13-20 years, were divided into two groups of 50 students each. the first group consisted of huffadh students with 28 males and 21 females, while the non-huffadh group had 13 males and 36 females. all were given a word list recall task consisting of both english and arabic word lists. they were asked to immediately recall words to the best they can at the end of every list. the analysis shows that the memory performance differed between the two groups. this finding suggests that hifdh has a significant effect on individuals’ short-term memory performance. article history: received: april 15, 2021 revised: may 24, 2021 accepted: june 29, 2021 published: june 30, 2021 keyword: free word recall; hifdh; memorization of quran; short-term memory recall performance how to cite (apa 7th edition) khan, r. & dzulkifli, m. a. (2021). understanding hifdh and its effect on short-term memory recall performance: an experimental study on high school students in saudi arabia. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 2(1), 12-21. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v2i1.2934 this is an open-access article distributed under the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. this is enabled under the terms of attribution and noncommercial usage of the material. ©2021 by rabah khan & mariam adawiah dzulkifli. khan, r. & dzulkifli, m. a. 13 the most complex structure discovered by man in the universe is found within himself; the brain. every thought, feeling, emotion, action, and even experience first originate from the brain. 86 billion neurons are found within the brain that form millions of neural connections, all of which are used to carry out sensory, motor, and cognitive skills (brainfacts.org, 2020). more and more of these connections are formed as we learn new information, form new memories, and gain new experiences (cherry, 2020). one of the core cognitive processes carried out by the brain is memory. the study of human memory is among the major topics of interest extensively studied in cognitive psychology, a sub-discipline of psychology focusing on the scientific study of the mind. memory is understood as the faculty of the brain responsible for encoding, storing, and retrieving information and past experiences (rodriguez, 2020). the brain has an incredible tendency to increase its cognitive abilities, including strengthening memory. much like building muscular strength, the cognitive skills in the brain can be enhanced by engaging in intellectually challenging mental exercises. according to smith, segal, and robinson (2020), the best brainboosting exercises include those unfamiliar yet challenging that require mental effort, demanding full attention, and allowing one to build on their skills as they move a level further while maintaining their interest and keeping them engaged. one such activity that boosts brain health is memorization which mainly enhances memory-related brain functions. there has been a rapid decline in the practice of memorization in schools in the past 50 years, giving preference to teaching “higher-cognitive skills” like critical thinking and problemsolving (garlock, 2020). however, memorization has shown proven benefits, including strengthening the ability of learning and remembering new information, improving neurological flexibility of the brain, enhancing creativity and the ability to stay focused for longer durations, delaying cognitive decline in the elderly, and improving the performance of working memory (garlock, 2020; dajani, 2018). it is said that an average human being can only memorize up to seven items from a list of 20 (dajani, 2018). however, memorization of the quran has revealed extraordinary abilities of the brain. it is suggested that the quran enhances memory-related brain functions and mental well-being. every day, thousands of muslims worldwide, including children as young as seven, are committing up to 2 pages of the quran in memory (dajani, 2018). quranic memorization is believed to enhance iq levels and strengthen brain health (dajani, 2018). memorization of the quran has also been linked to better mental health than those who have not memorized the quran (lakzaei et al., 2019). ghiasi and keramat (2018) concluded that only listening to the recitation of the quran significantly reduced anxiety among individuals. hojjati et al. (2014) investigated the effect of listening to the quran on their participants by giving them memory tasks and found significant differences in the quran group performance than that of the control group. this suggests that the quran significantly improves performances on memory-based tasks. however, does memorization of the quran have any effect specifically on the short-term memory of the huffadh? huffadh (sing. hafidh) is an arabic terminology derived from the root words ha-fa-dha, which literally means “to protect/ safeguard.” it is generally used to refer to muslims who devote most of their time memorizing the quran to ‘safeguard’ it in their memories by paying close attention introduction 14 understanding hifdh and its effect on short-term memory recall performance: an experimental study on high school students in saudi arabia to the words and their correct pronunciations. the quran is divided into 30 parts, or ajzaa’ (sing. juzz’). hifdh is the strenuous activity of memorizing the quran from cover to cover, including all 30 ajzaa’ of the quran. more research is needed to investigate whether memorization of the quran directly influences an individual’s short-term memory. therefore, this research aims to investigate the effect of hifdh, especially on one’s short-term memory recall performance. the act of memorizing the quran is like ‘mental gymnastics’ that nurtures brain health. it trains the brain to retain large chunks of information, builds its capacity to remain focused on monotonous tasks for more extended periods and expands the capacity of the brain to learn new information. it is believed that memorization of the quran sharpens the brain with the skills necessary for learning and memory-based tasks. this was investigated by nawaz and jahangir (2015), who concluded that hifdh influences the academic achievement of the huffadh positively. the effect of hifdh was also proven among stroke patients with aphasia who showed a considerable improvement in language communication after memorizing the quran (ma’ruf, hartanto, suminah & sulaeman, 2019). memorizing the quran has also been linked to improving cognitive intelligence among children (slamet, 2019). a study was conducted to measure the effect of the quran on short-term memory (stm), but this focused on participants listening to the recitation of the quran and found significant improvement in their stm performance (putra et al., 2018). past literature shows a link between improvement in cognitive processes and memorization of the quran. however, to date, no research has been conducted on high school students in saudi arabia on the effect of hifdh on memory. there is also a lack of empirical data on the memorizing the qur’an effectiveness, specifically on the short-term memory of the individuals. thus, this study focuses on measuring whether memorizing the quran has any effect on the short-term memory performance of high school students in saudi arabia. previous research has focused mainly on the effect of hifdh on mental well-being or specific cognitive processes like communication skills, cognitive intelligence, and academic performance (lakzaei et al., 2019; ma’ruf et al., 2019; al hafiz et al., 2016). the research which measured short-term memory involved listening to the recitation of the quran alone (ahmad & ahmed, 2017). this study is theoretically significant because it bridges the gap in the existing knowledge on the effect of hifdh on an individual’s short-term memory. additionally, this research will also provide a considerable contribution to the field of islamic cognitive psychology by investigating the effectiveness of hifdh on an individual’s memory performance. the results from this study are of practical significance because they can give insight into what can be adopted by teachers in the education sector to enhance pupil’s learning and memory task performances. additionally, the hifdh method adopted by the hifdh teachers in saudi arabia can be re-visited and re-designed, weighing the effectiveness it has on influencing one’s shortterm memory. therefore, this research aims to investigate the effect of hifdh on short-term memory recall performance. it is hypothesized that there will be a statistically significant difference between the short-term memory performance among high school students who are huffadh than those who are not. khan, r. & dzulkifli, m. a. 15 the purpose of this study is to explore a cause-and-effect relationship between two variables of interest. the research design adopted is an independent group experimental design. the independent variable is hifdh, while the dependent variable is the short-term memory recall. hifdh is conceptualized as the act of paying attention to encode the qur’anic text, storing it by maintaining the encoded information, and then retrieving it from memory (nawaz & jahangir, 2015). it is operationalized by dividing participants into two groups: the group who memorized the quran (huffadh) and those who did not (non-huffadh). short-term memory recall is identified as the dependent variable in this study. it is conceptualized as the temporary recall of information being processed at any time (the human memory, 2019). this is operationalized based on the total number of words accurately recalled from each series of slides that displayed the english and arabic words, respectively. one hundred participants who were students of year 8 to year 12 were recruited using convenience sampling. forty-one males and 59 females aged between 13 to 20 years (mean= 16 years) participated in the experiment. 75% of the participants were residents of jeddah, while the other 25% belonged from cities including riyadh, dammam, makkah, and khobar. the participants were divided into two groups of 50 students each; the first group (28 males and 21 females) consisted of students who memorized the quran (huffadh), while the other group (13 males and 36 females) consisted of students who did not memorize the quran (non-huffadh). both groups of students belonged from a similar socioeconomic background because all participants studied in schools with the same tuition fee range. all participants were well-versed in the english language and understood essential arabic words. for verification purposes, the group of students who memorized the quran must show their shahadah (certificate of hifdh completion awarded to the huffadh in saudi arabia after their final assessment) to prove they have completed hifdh. 1. due to pandemic covid-19, an online experiment has been conducted. all experimental materials were distributed via google forms and included the following: informed consent: this form introduced the potential participants to the critical elements of the research study, clarifying what is expected of the participants during the task performance 2. demographics information: this section included questions on the participant’s gender, age, whether they have memorized the quran, their year of study, and their contact number. 3. word list for recall: two lists of 15 english and arabic words in each were selected from high-frequency words used in everyday vocabulary so that the participants can read and understand the words off the screen. each word list consisted of 15 words to suit the capacity of the short-term memory. thus, being able to recall all words would be a rare circumstance. selecting difficult words with ambiguous meanings was avoided in order to reduce the possibility of word knowledge bias. the arabic letter words are included to have a fair comparison and eliminate differences in language familiarity. the word list was adapted from past literature, mainly from khosravizadeh & gerami’s (2011) study, which studied word list recall among younger and older adults. research method 16 understanding hifdh and its effect on short-term memory recall performance: an experimental study on high school students in saudi arabia the students studying the same school board in the same school were approached, and a link to the google form was shared. this form included the informed consent and demographic information. the students who signed up were randomly selected; 50 of those who memorized the quran and 50 did not memorize the quran and were divided into two groups, in their respective huffadh and non-huffadh. each participant was connected personally via whatsapp. a day and time were allotted to each participant. then, the online video call sessions were held individually with every participant. all sessions were recorded for reference purposes for later use. the participants were first briefed about the research objective, the word-recall experiment, and what they were expected to do in the task. thereafter, the screen was shared, and a series of slides were displayed as a slideshow. the participants were requested to strictly observe the experiment’s rules, including that the participants must have their video switched on throughout the experiment. they must ensure that there will be no distractions or disturbances for the next 10 minutes, they must not mute their microphones at any point during the experiment, the camera must be positioned at an angle where the researcher can have a full view of their hands to ensure complete honesty. before the commencement of the experiment, a trial word list consisting of 5 english words was prepared for the participants to practice the task. the word lists were prepared as a slideshow, with one word on each slide and a pause of 3 seconds on each word. participants carefully paid attention to the words displaying on the screen. the last slide was a blank slide to mark the end of the word list. soon after the blank slide, without any delay, a one-minute timer was set to begin immediately, and the participants were asked to recall words from the slides. this “immediate recall” after the slideshow eliminated the possibility of interference of any active mental processes like a rehearsal to retain the words in memory. once the trial was over, the first-word list consisting of 15 english words began as a slideshow, following the same pattern as the trial-word list. once this was completed, the second list of 15 english words was displayed, followed by the two arabic-word lists with 15 words each, also following the same pattern. after completing the task, subjects were thanked for their participation, and the session was concluded. once the session was over, by referring to the recorded session, the words were recalled by the participant for each word-list that was recorded in excel. in the current study, the huffadh group consisted of 28 males and 22 females, where 84% of students had memorized all 30 ajzaa’ of the quran. only eight students memorized less than 30 ajzaa’. in the non-huffadh group, there were 37 females and 13 males. the data from the experiment was recorded on an excel workbook. the percentage of the total number of words recalled was calculated. data from excel was then imported into ibm spss (statistical package for the social sciences) for analysis. if the alpha value obtained is 𝛼 <= 0.05, then the p-value was considered significant. measures of central tendency were computed to summarize the total score variable from the two groups. measures of dispersion were computed to understand the variability of scores for the total percentage of word recall variable. the following table shows the results of the analysis: result khan, r. & dzulkifli, m. a. 17 table 1 descriptive statistics for huffadh and non-huffadh group number of participants mean sd huffadh 50 65.67 8.49 non-huffadh 50 50.27 14.7 these results show that the mean value for the total correct recall is greater among the group of huffadh than that of the non-huffadh. therefore, the students who had not memorized quran averaged fewer recalls of the words than those who memorized the quran. however, the significant standard deviation in the latter group shows that the values varied greatly. to run the independent samples t-test, it is necessary to test the data for the assumption of normality; to confirm whether the data recorded is normally distributed within each of the two populations. the analysis shows that the overall word recall scores for the two groups were normally distributed, with skewness of 0.48 (se= 0.34) and kurtosis of -0.44 (se= 0.66) for nonhuffadh group 1 and skewness of 0.53 (se= 0.34) and kurtosis of 0.62 (se= 0.66) for huffadh group. according to corder and foreman (2014), the z-score values for skewness and kurtosis must fall within the range of ± 1.96 to pass the normality assumption for 𝛼 = 0.05. thus, the zscore values for both groups fall within the desired range. the analysis using the independent samples t-test is conducted to determine whether this difference between the mean percentage of correctly recalled words by each group of participants is significant. the level of 𝛼 was considered 0.05 in this study. a p-value of less than 0.05 indicated that the difference is significant enough to conclude that the short-term memory performance of the two groups of participants was different. the analysis indicated that scores were significantly higher for huffadh (m = 65,7, sd = 8,49) than for non-huffadh (m = 50,3, sd = 14,7), t (79) = 6,42, p < 0,001, d = 1,28 (see table 2). the effect size for this analysis (d = 1,28) was found to exceed cohen’s (1988) convention for a large effect (d = 0,80) (see table 3). these results indicate that students who had memorized the quran recalled a significantly higher number of words than the students who did not memorize the quran table 2 inferential statistics: independent samples t-test f p-value t df mean different se 14,98 <0,01 -6.428 78.5 -15.4% 2.40% table 3 independent samples effect size using cohen’s d standardizer point estimate 11.9792% -1.286 this study aimed to investigate whether the ability to memorize the quran (hifdh) affects the short-term memory performance of high school students in saudi arabia. this was determined by analyzing the number of correctly recalled words from word recall lists by participants who were huffadh and those who were not. the analysis shows that the short-term memory recall performance of the huffadh was significantly better than the performance of the non-huffadh. the findings from the current study are consistent with slamet’s (2019) findings, who conducted a discussion 18 understanding hifdh and its effect on short-term memory recall performance: an experimental study on high school students in saudi arabia study on kindergarten students to investigate whether hifdh influenced the cognitive performance of the individuals. a pre and post-test measuring their cognitive performance was conducted before and after the children memorized portions from the quran. the results obtained indicated a 15.63% increase in the mean test scores after the students memorized the quran. thus, the quran memorization influenced the students’ cognitive intelligence (slamet, 2019). in the study by slamet (2019), however, it must be noted that an increase in the test scores was found only after having memorized eight verses from the quran, whereas the current study focused on huffadh, who had memorized more than half of the quran. moreover, in a study conducted by nawaz and jahangir (2015), where students’ academic achievement was compared before and after doing hifdh, it was found that academic achievement significantly improved after students memorized the entire quran. the findings from the current study can be taken to support further the benefits of memorizing the quran. practicing hifdh involves several cognitive and memory-enhancing techniques. a hafidh is memorizing the quran words and the sequential order of the verses, chapters and remembering the placement of the words on the pages (saleem, 2015). most of the memorizers of the quran, especially the non-arabic speakers, heavily rely upon repetition and rehearsal for hifdh (saleem, 2015; dzulkifli et al., 2016). this practice of regular rehearsing may have led to an improved short-term memory performance among the huffadh. this is also supported by past studies that repeated rehearsing increases memory performances, including increasing the duration of short-term memory and the consolidation of long-term memory (parle, singh, and vasudevan, 2006; loom et al., 2008; cherry, 2020; nader et al. as cited in saleem, 2015). however, this is not the only memory-enhancing practice involved in hifdh. saleem (2015) mentions the mental exercises involved in the quran memorization by conceptualizing. a hafidh attempts to remember a text from the quran by holding onto several ‘tentacles’ using semantics, focusing on the meaning of episodic memory, remembering location, time, and people they learn with, short-term memory, engaging in repetitive rehearsal, sensory memory, paying attention to auditory and visuals, and using associative memory that includes images and mnemonics. this extensive practice of the huffadh involved in memorizing the quran can explain the improved short-term memory recall performance observed in this study. moreover, just as information cannot be processed to the short-term memory until it passes through the sensory memory, similarly, it cannot be retained in long-term memory until it passes through the short-term memory (mcgill, n.d.). since huffadh retains the quran from cover to cover in their long-term memory, it is inevitably required for them to rigorously exercise their short-term memory to allow for the information to enter their long-term memory. thus, explaining the difference between the short-term memory performances between the huffadh and the non-huffadh. saleem (2015) highlighted an interesting point in his study on hifdh and memory reveals that huffadh can also recall the position of a word in the exact chapter and page it is located in from the quran. this extraordinary ability to remember chapters in a sequence and locate words from the quran from its exact position is not attributed by the huffadh to their efforts alone. they possess a spiritual belief that this ability to complete hifdh is a ‘gift from god’ and ‘god opens their chests’ to facilitate memorization for them, and that this cannot be achieved except by ‘help from god’. allah says in the quran, “and we have certainly made the qur’an easy for khan, r. & dzulkifli, m. a. 19 remembrance, so is there any who will remember?” [54:17]. this is from the core beliefs of a muslim that quran is the word of the almighty, and its miraculous nature is evident in the fact that this is the only book on earth memorized cover to cover by muslims of all agesregardless of their races and linguistic backgrounds. it is memorized by native arabic speakers, non-arabic speakers, by the seeing, and even by the blind (saleem, 2015). this study was the first of its kind to be conducted on high school students in saudi arabia. the investigation looked into studying the effects of hifdh on memory. thus, each participant experimented individually, eliminating several moderating variables that otherwise would have influenced the scores recorded. however, there were several limitations to this study. primarily, due to the covid-19 pandemic, the experiments were conducted online. consequently, it was unattainable to guarantee uniform conditions for all participants during the experiment. schools and religious institutes were all closed due to the pandemic, consequently narrowing down the reach of potential participants for the study. therefore, convenience sampling was employed to recruit participants who may have produced fewer representative results. because the reach for potential participants was very limited, the criteria were revised to include students who memorized even 15 ajzaa’ from the quran to participate in this study. additionally, only one recall task measured the participants’ short-term memory performance, which may not have produced highly accurate results. using an independent-group design for the experiment to compare short-term memory performances may not have necessarily eliminated the differences in scores resulting from individual differences. considering the limitations of this study, future researchers may conduct experiments inperson to minimize moderating variables. moreover, this study only consisted of students residing in saudi arabia with an unequal number of males and females in each group, limiting the results’ generalizability. future studies may focus on populations from diverse backgrounds reducing gender differences. additionally, including more than one task measuring short-term memory performance may give more representative short-term memory performance scores. to minimize individual differences and increase validity, the design of the experiment may be revised to adopt a longitudinal study and a within-subject design to record stm performance scores before and after completing hifdh. in summary, this research aimed to investigate the influence of memorization of the quran on short-term memory recall of individuals through a word-recall task performance. the results indicated that those who memorized the quran scored significantly higher in the word-recall task than those who did not memorize the quran. this suggests a significant difference in the short-term memory recall performance of the huffadh when compared with the non-huffadh. it was concluded that hifdh has a significant and positive influence on the short-term memory performance of individuals. the study provides a significant insight into the long-term influence of hifdh on the memory performance of high school students. the results indicate that the memorization techniques adopted by huffadh teachers in saudi arabia are efficient and effective in enhancing the short-term memory of the huffadh. muslim communities should encourage memorizing the quran from a young age to strengthen memory and enhance cognitive-based skills among young adults. conclusion 20 understanding hifdh and its effect on short-term memory recall performance: an experimental study on high school students in saudi arabia ahmed, a. & ahmad, n. (2017). comparative analysis of rote learning on high and low achievers in graduate and undergraduate programs. journal of education and educational development, 4(1), 111-129. https://doi.org/10.22555/joeed.v4i1.982 al hafiz, m. m., yusof, m. f., ghazali, m. a., & sawari, s. s. m. (2016). descriptive qualitative teaching method of memorization in the institution of tahfiz al-quran wal qiraat pulai condong and the students’ level of academic excellence. mediterranean journal of social sciences, 7(1), 79. http://www.richtmann.org/journal/index.php/mjss/article/view/8721 brainfacts.org. (2020). your complex brain. https://www.brainfacts.org/core-concepts/yourcomplexbrain#:~:text=the%20brain%20is%20the%20body's,of%20which%20are%20in%20use. &text=humans%20have%20a%20complex%20nervous,enormous%20social%20and%20 economic%20impact cherry, k. (2020, may 11). how consolidation turns short-term memories into long-term ones. very well mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-memory-consolidation-2795355 cherry, k. (2020, may 15). what is memory? very well mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-memory-2795006 cherry, k. (2020, may 15). short-term memory duration and capacity. very well mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-short-term-memory2795348#:~:text=you%20can%20increase%20the%20duration,also%20highly%20susce ptible%20to%20interference corder, g. w., & foreman, d. i. (2014). non-parametric statisticsa step-by-step approach (second ed.). john wiley & sons. dajani, h. (2018, august 4). mastering the mind: the phenomena of quran memorization. the national news. https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/education/mastering-the-mind-thephenomena-of-quran-memorisation-1.759989 dzulkifli, m. a., abdul rahman, a. b., badi, j. a., & solihu, a. h. (2016). routes to remembering: lessons from al huffaz. mediterranean journal of social sciences, 7(3), 121-128. https://doi.org/10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n3s1p121 garlock, d., v. (2020, january 21). garlock: the benefits of memorization. auburnpub. https://auburnpub.com/lifestyles/garlock-the-benefits-ofmemorization/article_a212e6a4-24fe-5e8e-a8f8-cf345904b233.html ghiasi, a., & keramat, a. (2018). the effect of listening to holy quran recitation on anxiety: a systematic review. iranian journal of nursing and midwifery research, 23(6), 411-420. https://doi.org/10.4103/ijnmr.ijnmr_173_17 hojjati, a., rahimi, a., farehani, m. d., gharamaleki, n. s., & alien, b. (2014). effectiveness of quran tune on memory in children. procedia social and behavioral sciences, 114, 283-286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.12.699 khosravizadeh, p., & gerami, s. (2011). word list recall in younger and older adults. brain broad research in artificial intelligence and neuroscience, 2(1), 5-10. https://www.edusoft.ro/brain/index.php/brain/article/view/140 lakzaei, j., sanagoo, a., kavosi, a., jouybari, l., kavosi, a., haghdost, z., & nasiri, h. (2019). a comparison of quran-memorizers and non-memorizers’ mental health in gorgan. journal references khan, r. & dzulkifli, m. a. 21 of research on religion and health, 4(5), 57-66. https://journals.sbmu.ac.ir/enjrrh/article/view/23876 loomes, c., rasmussen, c., pei, j., manji, s., & andrew, g. (2008). the effect of rehearsal training on working memory span of children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. research in developmental disabilities, 29(2), 113-124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2007.01.001 ma’ruf, i. j., hartanto, o., & suminah, s. (2019). memorizing al quran improves quality of life stroke patients with motoric aphasia disorders. iop conference series: earth and environmental science, 292. https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/292/1/012030 mcgill. (n.d.). memory and learning. the brain. https://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/d/d_07/d_07_p/d_07_p_tra/d_07_p_tra.html#:~:text =short%2dterm%20memory%20has%20a,retention%2c%20long%2dterm%20memory nawaz, n., & jahangir, s. f. (2015). effect of memorizing quran by heart (hifz) on later academic achievement. journal of islamic studies and culture, 3(1), 58-64. https://doi.org/10.15640/jisc.v3n1a8 parle, m., singh, n., & vasudevan, m. (2006). regular rehearsal helps in consolidation of longterm memory. journal of sports science & medicine, 5(1), 80-88. porter, j. (2014). an investigation in the use of memorizing as a learning method when teaching measurement in a technology education classroom. [master’s thesis, utah state university]. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1418&context=gradreports putra, p. s., gumilar, r., kusuma, s. r., purnomo, h., & basumerda, c. (2018). the effect of quran’s murottal’s audio on short term memory. matec web of conferences, 154(1). https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201815401060 rodriguez, e. (2020, november). memory. britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/memory-psychology saleem, a. (2015). does memorization without comprehension result in language learning? [doctoral dissertation, cardiff university]. https://orca.cf.ac.uk/75307/1/a.%20saleem%20phd%20thesis.pdf slamet, s. (2019). the effect of memorizing quran on the children’s cognitive intelligence. humanities and social sciences reviews, 7(3). 571-575. https://doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2019.7384 571 smith, m., segal, j., & robinson, l. (2019, june). how to improve your memory. helpguide. https://www.helpguide.org/articles/healthy-living/how-to-improve-yourmemory.htm#:~:text=the%20brain’s%20incredible%20ability%20to,tips%20can%20sho w%20you%20how. saquib, n., saquib, j., alhadlag, a., albakour, m. a., aljumah, b., sughayyir, m., alhomidan, z., alminderej, o., aljaser, m., al-dhlawiy, a. m., & al-mazrou, a. (2017). health benefits of quran memorization for older men. sage open medicine, 5. https://doi.org/10.1177/2050312117740990 the human memory. (2020, november 25). short term (working) memory. https://humanmemory.net/short-term-working-memory/ the human memory. (2020, november 25). the study of human memory. https://humanmemory.net/the-study-of-human-memory/ inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research https://journal.iainlangsa.ac.id/index.php/inspira how to cite (apa 7th edition) rasheed, a. (2023). thematic analysis: physical, psychological, and social pressures on taxi drivers of lahore. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 4(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.4307 this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial 4.0 international (cc by-nc 4.0) copyright ©2023 by ayesha rasheed research article thematic analysis: physical, psychological, and social pressures on taxi drivers of lahore https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.4307 ayesha rasheed applied psychology department, lahore college for women university, punjab, pakistan corresponding author: ayesha rasheed (email: ayesha_lcwu@yahoo.com) abstract the taxi industry plays a significant role in urban transportation systems on commercial and flexible terms. this study aimed to investigate drivers’ overall pressures and constraints, such as; physical, psychological, and social pressures. the goal of this study was to provide practical recommendations for the betterment of this industry, such as approved authentic work timings, workload reduction, a maximum of 8 hours of driving, and fixed stops to detect, distinguish, and treat physical and mental health related to the job specification, training, and development courses to cope with mental, physical, and occupational stress to promote positive changes. the study consisted of eight male taxi drivers recruited using a purposive sampling technique. a qualitative research design was used. a series of questions was administered to taxi drivers after obtaining consent from the participants. thematic analysis was used to analyze the data after collection. this article provides an inclusive evaluation of work conditions and factors that impact the overall well-being of taxi drivers. the result indicates that social pressures, physical health, psychological health, financial pressures, and unhealthy work conditions impact the overall well-being of the taxi drivers. article history: received 19 june 2022 revised 17 january 2023 accepted 21 february 2023 keywords: unhealthy work conditions; law and legislation; physical health; psychological health; social pressures introduction workplace hazards have been a significant cause of concern in the taxi industry, and management has been actively involved in reducing the hazards taxi drivers face. however, there appears to be insufficient emphasis on drivers’ physical health and emotional well-being. injuries and disabilities caused by road traffic accidents are universal issues, with the predictable quantity of sufferers having persisted constantly over the past few years. unfortunately, it continuously increases, with approximately 1.2 million people dying yearly worldwide (world health organization, 2015). the taxi industry is essential to the urban transportation system, both financially and in terms of flexibility. it attracts a large number of people and is convenient for public transportation. the taxi business is systematized all over the world. operational conditions, behaviors, well-being, and acquaintance with road misfortunes have been exciting topics for investigators, containing behavior sciences, psychology, and finances (poo, ledesma, & lopez, 2018). however, taxi service complaints are increasing daily because of behavioral issues by taxi drivers and administrations. taxi https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.4307 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2454-8794 2 transportation companies and drivers face more challenges than opportunities (jayaraj, hasan, & ahmad, 2019). customer-oriented service work is an essential part of the economy, and the culture of customer sovereignty, where the customer is king, is becoming increasingly prevalent. the results regarding dignity, emotional labour, and customer abuse in the workplace were discussed. taxi drivers work long hours for low wages and report hypertension, weight gain, and musculoskeletal pain associated with the sedentary nature of their job, stressful working conditions, and poor dietary habits. they also experience a high work-related fatality rate (wang & linda, 2013). a study found a relationship between work-related factors, stress, and traffic fines. aggression during a drive intermediates the relationship between stress risk tendency and traffic sanctions. traffic penalties and fines increased because of drivers’ different personality traits and tolerance levels. when anger emerges, it leads to road misbehavior and can cause harmful incidents (montoro, useche, alonso, & cendales, 2018). the need for taxi transportation is increasing day by day in big cities like lahore because of the increase in population. there are so many riding services in the big cities that some people prefer to travel in taxis operated by transportation companies compared to the online riding transportation system. a study concludes that these online companies sometimes mislead users through vague pricing, safety, and security issues (silver & fischer-baum, 2015). this study uses a biopsychosocial model to define taxi drivers’ physical, mental, and societal health. the biopsychosocial method was established by george engel and john romano. whereas biomedical medicine models emphasize pathophysiology and biological methods for treating disease, the biopsychosocial approach highlights the status of considerate human health and disease in their maximum frameworks. the biopsychosocial tactic methodically studies biological, psychological, and social features and their multifaceted connections in understanding well-being, disease, and health maintenance (frankel et al., 2003). according to thomas (1997), engel was famous for his psychoanalytic guidance, significantly impacting consultation-liaison psychiatry. his biopsychosocial model became a guiding principle and belief for psychiatric and medical settings. he connected the subject’s life story to present psychological and health issues (engel, 1997). later, this model was used by many physicians to identify patients’ health-relevant issues (engel, 1980). humanistic potentials are highly appreciated in the context of the biopsychosocial model. it includes specialized techniques for assorted biological, mental, and social wonders linked to human well-being (cohen & clark, 2010). this study focuses on the functionalism theory of sociology to depict social values and their social impacts on taxi drivers. theoretically, “functionalism” emphasizes society through social constructs like organizations, specific pyramids, customs, and values. this theory refers to the activity that interferes with and endorses maintaining a helpful system. in the 20th century, this theory was related to many reputable authors such as émile durkheim, talcott parsons, herbert spencer, and robert merton, who founded american social theory in the 1950s and 1960s. according to this theory, society is a complex system wherein all elements and parts work together to endorse commonality, harmony, and constancy. it looks at society’s structure as a whole (diago, 2019). social anxieties and pressures are the reason for a traffic rule violation, and psychological characteristics in taxi drivers, including attitude, norms, emotions, aggression, self-orientedness, agitation, restlessness, and selfishness, have a destructive impact on their overall performances and safety measures (aghabayk, mashhadizade, & moridpour, 2020). a daily emotional routine plays a vital role in someone’s professional life. a longitudinal study conducted in malaysia confirmed that a 3 person’s emotional needs were related to acute and severe anxiety and fatigue, whereas acute fatigue causes had an impact on safety motivation. at the same time, acute emotional needs and fatigue are significantly related to traffic accidents (husain, mohamad, & idris, 2019). after completing their piece training, licensed taxi drivers found grey matter in their hippocampus that would help them learn and remember the place map where they got to work. meanwhile, it was linked with artificial intelligence, which helped them learn about environments and places. (griesbauer, manley, wiener, & spiers, 2022). additionally, many factors affect taxi drivers’ performance and interest because of their job specifications. according to research, a large number of taxi drivers were obese and self-reported hypertension, high levels of cholesterol, piles, palpitations, and diabetes. fatigue and fewer hours of sleep harm their lives, precisely when they are busy working for more than 8 hours and traveling too long without completing their bodily needs (lim & chia, 2015). all over the world, taxi drivers face many physical and psychological problems that are interlinked with each other. lower back pain is a widespread occupational problem among taxi and truck drivers because of their long routines of driving without any breaks (wang et al., 2017). driving is critical, and employees must sit in a specific posture for hours while staring straight at the road for a safer drive. in this case, they do experience neck and back pain. studies found a strong relationship between head position and acute neck pain among drivers; these pains can cause severe accidents if not considered and well treated (friska & ichsan, 2018). musculoskeletal disorders (msd) are associated with driving jobs in which the driver must be constant in one position, causing severe knee pain, backbone pain, and collar pain. refining automobile assembly, lessening vibration, and teaching drivers about accurate approaches to managing obesity inhibition may reduce musculoskeletal syndromes among taxi drivers (aminian, jamshidi, mehrdad sadeghniiat-haghighi, & sekhavati, 2016). according to a study, drivers are at higher risk of cardiovascular disease because of work stress, less physical activity, an unhygienic diet, and poor health care analysis (gany et al., 2013). this research project integrates the various factors that may influence the safety behavior, physical health, and emotional well-being of taxi drivers into a model that shows hazards, aversion to risktaking, aggression, and drivers’ perceptions of management’s commitment to health and safety as directly influencing the physical symptoms, emotional well-being, and unsafe behavior of taxi drivers. the present study is a qualitative one that aims to investigate physical health and psychological issues related to the taxi drivers of lahore. the main objective of this study was to find societal, psychological, physical, and environmental factors that affect the overall well-being of drivers. secondly, there is a lack of policymaking in the taxi industry, specifically in pakistan. it is urgently necessary to take some practical steps to enhance this industry at the governmental level. it is essential to educate drivers and society, as well as to respect and value every profession. this study highlights the issues relevant to taxi drivers, specifically in pakistan’s social and psychological context. this research is valid for global and asian cultures. understanding the work hazards faced by taxi and truck drivers is necessary. stress, pressure, financial issues, societal pressures, and acute health issues need to be addressed, and this study fills the gaps in the literature review according to asian cultural values. 4 method the current study has a qualitative research design, and thematic analysis was used for data analysis. the sample was collected from eight (n = 8 male) taxi drivers in lahore, and a purposive sampling technique was used for data collection. male taxi drivers with at least one year of job experience participated in the study. data were collected from eight taxi drivers aged 25–45 working in a local taxi service in lahore, pakistan, through a purposive sampling technique. interviews were conducted via phone calls and face-to-face interaction after appointments were made with their consent. at the same time, calls were recorded with their permission according to the ethical code of conduct. interviews with all participants were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. the in-depth interview started with, “are you satisfied with your job?” do you know about laws and legislation for labor rights in pakistan related to taxi drivers? is there a need to refresh or reorganize government regulations? do you think the nature of your job affects your physical and psychological health? has any job-relevant excellent or bad incident been affecting your life? have you dealt with work pressure and ambiguity? “if you have, how do you approach the job's difficulties and burdens?” the focus of the researcher was on sensible probes to evaluate the individuality of contestants. the interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed through thematic analysis to discover the main and vibrant themes. result thematic analysis was used to examine the data from semi-structured interviews with eight taxi drivers. the results are as follows: social pressure: disrespectful behavior of society, customers and management taxi drivers faced disrespectful behavior from society, customers, and the company’s administration as well. according to a participant, our kids and spouse felt ashamed to tell others that our father is a taxi driver, which dishearted them and kept their morale down. they do not have security or cooperation from their company. it is stated by a participant: “no, in the past, people did respect the taxi drivers. but now no one respects us. our society degrades us and feels ashamed to keep contact with us. they want to maintain distance from us. unhealthy work conditions physical healthy financial conditions law and legislation social pressures psychological health 5 people normally respect the drivers with whom they have spent a lot of time. but normally, people do not respect drivers. the owner, who gives us jobs at their home, ordered us to polish their shoes and to go grocery shopping. in other words, they used them as servants, not as drivers.” (interview to p4) there are so many stories told by drivers when they ask for help from their workplace. management refused to help and ordered them to solve their issues by themselves. if a driver got injured or was snubbed by the customer, nobody would help them. in this case, it is highly necessary to give them proper training. these kinds of circumstances make taxi drivers rude and unhelpful. thus, this is the cycle that has always been harmful to drivers, passengers, and society. “there should be a policy for our survival because if someone cheats us, hurts us, or we are victimized by accidents, no one would believe us. people are used to blaming us.”“there should be a policy for our survival because if someone cheats us, hurts us, or we are victimized by accidents, no one would believe us. people are used to blaming us.” (interview to p1) taxi drivers work on the roads, where they must maintain their moods and aggressiveness. they used to deal with different individuals with different mindsets. as stated by them: “i do call the call center for help, but they said you have to solve your problems by yourself.” (interview to p2) “there should be laws and legislation that would be active while someone insulted or harassed the driver.” (interview to p7) “i personally faced many bad events. some people are difficult to handle, but it’s the nature of our job to control the customer with respect.” (interview to p4) “a person hired my taxi. when i asked him to pay the bill, he was forcing me to reduce the bill. i told him i couldn’t do that because it had all been recorded on the car meter, and he shouted and used abusive language. these are the hurdles and bad experiences related to the driving job.” (interview to p8) psychological and emotional pressures due to society and family psychological issues faced by drivers are very serious by nature, such as anxiety, irritation, agitated moods, and low morale. the main reason for these disturbances is noise pollution, where people use loud horns on the road while driving, and abusive behavior by the public. in short, they are a straightforward target for everyone. it is human psychology to expect respect, honor, and politeness from others. a person who is working 12 hours a day on very low wages with no societal, familial, or organizational acceptance may obviously suffer from mental dispositions. according to a participant. “there are great chances of the driver being indulged in frustration, depression, irritation, backache, and diabetes as well. our work conditions, people's behavior, and abusive language make us irritated and disappointed. in fact, it is very difficult to control our aggression when a customer does not pay us a complete fare or behaves authoritatively.” 6 (interview to p6) “it was excruciating for me when i came to know that my children and wife are ashamed because of my profession, even though i am earning halal for them. from that day on, i felt guilty and lost my confidence and self-image.” (interview to p8) unhealthy job conditions lead to bad physical health the job conditions of taxi drivers are very difficult and harmful for them. it is their job requirement to sit for long duty hours in extreme weather. in these environmental and social conditions, it has been very difficult for drivers to work hard without any appraisal. “yes, because of our profession, we do have problems like a painful back, vertebrae that have been disturbed, obesity because of a lack of exercise, digestive issues, and diabetes. there are lots of psychological disturbances that may affect our physical health as well.” (interview to p2) taxi drivers do have back and collar pains due to looking straight at the road; secondly, they do not have any health insurance to take care of their health. the most common diseases in drivers are piles, hemorrhoids, high blood pressure, obesity, and backache; and these are all diseases associated with long duty hours. it is the worst reality of this industry that they do not care of their employees, by not paying even a single penny for the betterment and training of the drivers. if someone resists their rights, they will prefer to terminate them. “but normally drivers do face the problems of high blood pressure, obesity, piles, backaches, and knee aches.” (interview to p4) duty hours and work conditions are very tight to deal with because a person must work more than 10 hours a day while getting 15,000 rupees per month. if someone got injured, disabled, or needed their help in any context, they terminated the employee or refused to take any helpful steps ahead of them. lack of awareness about law and legislation by the taxi-drivers there are laws and regulations for every industry in pakistan, but the taxi industry is not working practically. it is recommended worldwide to drive only for 8 hours and take a rest between working hours to maintain efficacy, efficiency, and safety. there are labor laws in the industry, but they do not act accordingly. taxi drivers in pakistan are not allowed to know about their rights and governmental protections. if someone is motivated to act against the company that hired them, they have been disappointed because of the expensive judiciary. a participant stated that: “in pakistan, we do not have job security or insurance. we do have medical facilities, but only on paper. if someone asks for their rights according to the agreement, the owner takes serious action against them. so, we do not consider laws and regulations that are not applicable.” (interview to p2) 7 according to another participant: “i don’t think that there is any law in our society that would secure us.” our salary is 15,000 rupees, and our working hours are more than 14 hours. the company doesn’t consider us humans. the government should take some actions for our betterment.” (interview to p4) every human needs money to buy things for their survival. taxi drivers do jobs with long hours, bad working environments, low wages, no insurance, and bonuses. these are the conditions that motivate them to go for illegal or unapproved ways to collect money for their families. some claimed to get fuel discounts but did not inform the company. these are the cycles in which a factor impacts a second factor. so, this issue should be discussed seriously. “yes, i guess there are laws in pakistan, but not practically. lawyers worked with high fees that were not affordable. we have salaries of 15,000, and we cannot afford their charges. in pakistan, it’s very hard to listen to the voice of the poor people.” (interview to p8) discussion the results showed that taxi drivers are unsatisfied, insecure with their job, feel helpless, and hopeless with fewer wages, no bonus, long duty hours, no incentive or appraisal, and authoritative management. there was a relationship between the physical work environment and general health, and there was a direction in organizational involvement and both general health and safety behavior. researchers found that aggression and risk-taking intentions were two specific individual factors influential in predicting the accident involvement of taxi drivers (chung, park, & sohn, 2021). there are laws and legislation from the government of pakistan for the private taxi association. drivers do not have sufficient knowledge about their rights, and if someone has the information, they do not have a sufficient amount or approach to get justice from the courts. they are financially weak and despair because of their job hurdles and difficulties. low job control and high psychological job demands have been found to predict mental health complaints such as depression and fatigue. the study found that control protects workers from the unhealthy effects of high psychological job demands. job control affords workers greater discretion in when and how to deal with the demands of the job. more specifically, a worker who has too much work to do will handle the stress better if the job has some flexibility in terms of its allocation of time and energy to tasks. taxi drivers face many health-related issues because they have to sit in the same seat for so long. physiological issues like piles, high blood pressure, backaches, knee aches, obesity, and diabetes are very common in taxi drivers because of their profession. fatigue is a particular problem for professional drivers, especially truck drivers. about 20% of all crashes and fatalities and 10% of all injuries involving a long-haul truck occur between midnight and 6 a.m., the peak period for driver fatigue (blower et al., 1998). there are many bad experiences of taxi drivers related to customer dealing that may create psychological issues among taxi drivers like traumatic stress, anxiety, and irritated moods. it is all about the behavior of the customer that may impact the driver’s behavior, such as not being willing to pay the full amount of wage to the driver, bossy behavior, abusive language, physical harm, harassment, and shouts, as well. 8 conclusion there are many factors responsible for affecting the employee’s performance, specifically in the taxi (driver) industry. according to the above findings, an employee can perform well in a friendly and secure atmosphere. in unhealthy work environments, taxi drivers won’t be able to perform efficiently. similarly, long duty hours with low wages and without health insurance lower the self-esteem and confidence of the drivers. meanwhile, extreme unhealthy work conditions worsen the employees' (drivers') physical health, mental health, and overall well-being. the purpose of these suggestions is to improve the work and health conditions of the taxi drivers, lower the number of fatalities due to road accidents, and save the property of civilians.there should be refresher courses to enhance their skills and knowledge about the latest vehicles and training. they must be trained to face any accidental situation with the help of coping strategies. they must be trained enough about their eatables, disadvantages of taking alcohol, naswar, cigarettes, etc. to get good health while doing their job. they must be aware of their rights, dos, and don’ts. to increase the awareness of the public and drivers, it is necessary to increase the respect and value of any profession. taxi drivers should be trained to deal smartly in difficult circumstances. the taxi industry should provide their drivers with medical and accidental insurance. they should refresh and reconstruct policies to enhance their enthusiasm and increase their performance. the government should check on the taxi industry to see whether it is doing business according to government rules and policies. additionally, there should be fixed duty hours, breaks, and intervals between duty hours to maintain the well-being of the employees. there should be strict rules on vehicle maintenance, and hygiene should be checked on a daily basis to avoid accidents and diseases. transportation companies should schedule drivers’ anxiety, stress, and aggression levels timely to maintain their mental and physical health. they should be fully equipped with the psychological guidance of a professional psychologist to conduct relaxation techniques, attention span, concentration skills, and stress coping strategies. training regarding stress-control strategies to avoid any bad incidents.. declaration acknowledgment i am thankful to the taxi drivers who participated in this research and gave me appointments to take their valuable interviews. secondly, i am very thankful to my husband, qadeer ahmed, for making it possible and for always being by my side to support and motivate me.. author contribution statement all work was done by the corresponding author. funding statement this research did not receive any specific grants from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or non-profit sectors. data access statement the research data associated with this paper is easily available on demand by the researcher in transcription form.. 9 declaration of interest’s statement the author declares no conflict of interest. additional information no additional information is available for this paper. references aghabayk k, mashhadizade l, moridpour s. (2020). need safer taxi drivers? use psychological characteristics to find or train! sustainability, 12(10), 4206. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12104206 aminian, o., jamshidi, z., seifmanesh, s., mehrdad, r., sadeghniiat-haghighi, k. & sekhavati. e. (2019). musculoskeletal disorders among truck and taxi drivers: a retrospective study. international journal of medical research & health sciences, 309–315. https://www.ijmrhs.com/abstract/musculoskeletaldisorders-among-truck-and-taxi-drivers-a-retrospective-study-6676.html chung, e. k., park, s. y., & sohn, y. w. (2021). effects of occupational drivers’ traffic accident history on risk perception, work attitudes, and unstable driving. transportation research record, 2675(10), 734–744. https://doi.org/10.1177/03611981211012695 cohen, j., & clark, s. b. (2010). john romano and george engel: their lives and work. university of rochester press. engel g. l. (1997). from biomedical to biopsychosocial. being scientific in the human domain. psychosomatics, 38(6), 521–528. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0033-3182(97)71396-3 engel g. l. (1980). the clinical application of the biopsychosocial model. the american journal of psychiatry, 137(5), 535–544. https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.137.5.535 frankel, r. m., quill, t. e., & mcdaniel, s. h. (eds.). (2003). the biopsychosocial approach: past, present, and future. university rochester press. firestone, r. t., & gander, p. h. (2010). exploring knowledge and attitudes of taxi drivers with regard to obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome. the new zealand medical journal, 123(1321), 24–33. gany, f. m., gill, p. p., ahmed, a., acharya, s., & leng, j. (2013). “every disease…man can get can start in this cab”: focus groups to identify south asian taxi drivers' knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about cardiovascular disease and its risks. journal of immigrant and minority health, 15(5), 986–992. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-012-9682-7 gómez-diago, g. (2020). funcionalist theory. in debra l. merskin (ed.), the sage international encyclopedia of mass media and society. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483375519 griesbauer, e. m., manley, e., wiener, j. m., & spiers, h. j. (2022). london taxi drivers: a review of neurocognitive studies and an exploration of how they build their cognitive map of london. hippocampus, 32(1), 3–20. https://doi.org/10.1002/hipo.23395 hanzlíková, i. (2013). professional drivers: the sources of occupational stress. https://silo.tips/download/professional-drivers-the-sources-of-occupational-stress husain, n. a., mohamad, j., & idris, m. a. (2019). daily emotional demands on traffic crashes among taxi drivers: fatigue and safety motivation as mediators. iatss research, 43(4), 268–276. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iatssr.2019.03.001 jayaraj, m. d. & hasan, z. r. a. & ahmad, n. m. (2019). grabcar: opportunities and challenges for taxi operators. universiti malaysia terengganu journal of undergraduate research, 1. 46-55. https://doi.org/10.46754/umtjur.v1i3.78 lim, s. m., & chia, s. e. (2015). the prevalence of fatigue and associated health and safety risk factors among taxi drivers in singapore. singapore medical journal, 56(2), 92–97. https://doi.org/10.11622/smedj.2014169 https://doi.org/10.3390/su12104206 https://www.ijmrhs.com/abstract/musculoskeletal-disorders-among-truck-and-taxi-drivers-a-retrospective-study-6676.html https://www.ijmrhs.com/abstract/musculoskeletal-disorders-among-truck-and-taxi-drivers-a-retrospective-study-6676.html https://doi.org/10.1177/03611981211012695 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0033-3182(97)71396-3 https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.137.5.535 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-012-9682-7 https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483375519 https://doi.org/10.1002/hipo.23395 https://silo.tips/download/professional-drivers-the-sources-of-occupational-stress https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iatssr.2019.03.001 https://doi.org/10.46754/umtjur.v1i3.78 https://doi.org/10.11622/smedj.2014169 10 montoro, l., useche, s., alonso, f., & cendales, b. (2018). work environment, stress, and driving anger: a structural equation model for predicting traffic sanctions of public transport drivers. international journal of environmental research and public health, 15(3), 497. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15030497 poó, f. m., ledesma, r. d., & lópez, s. s. (2017). the taxi industry: working conditions and health of drivers, a literature review. transport reviews, 38(3), 394–411. https://doi.org/10.1080/01441647.2017.1370035 raggatt, p. t. f. (1991). work stress among long-distance coach drivers: a survey and correlational study. journal of organizational behavior, 12(7), 565–579. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030120702 rasheed, a. (2022). the role of professional quality of life in physical and psychological health of textile employees. jurnal psikologi integratif, 10(2), 152. https://doi.org/10.14421/jpsi.v10i2.2447 silver, n. & fischer-baum, r. (2015, august 28). public transit should be uber’s new best friend. fivethirtyeight. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/public-transit-should-be-ubers-new-best-friend/ wang, m., yu, j., liu, n., liu, z., wei, x., yan, f., & yu, s. (2017). low back pain among taxi drivers: a crosssectional study. occupational medicine (oxford, england), 67(4), 290–295. https://doi.org/10.1093/occmed/kqx041 wang, p. c., & delp, l. (2014). health status, job stress and work-related injury among los angeles taxi drivers. work (reading, mass.), 49(4), 705–712. https://doi.org/10.3233/wor-131696 world health organization. (2015). global status report on road safety 2015. world health organization. https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/189242 https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15030497 https://doi.org/10.1080/01441647.2017.1370035 https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030120702 https://doi.org/10.14421/jpsi.v10i2.2447 https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/public-transit-should-be-ubers-new-best-friend/ https://doi.org/10.1093/occmed/kqx041 https://doi.org/10.3233/wor-131696 https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/189242 issn ;2541450x (online) 81 vol. 2 no. 2 (dec 2021), pp. 81-93 https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v2i2.3430 actuality and happiness of the soul: an islamic epistemological perspective nani widiawati department islamic communication and broadcasting, institut agama islam cipasung, west java, indonesia  corresponding author: nani widiawati (email: widiawatinani96@gmail.com) abstract – securing the focus of the study on psychological facts carried out by psychology to pass the scientific test still leaves a problem of definition. such an identity crisis will be reconciled by using an islamic epistemological perspective that incorporates conceptualmetaphysical studies as part of the scientific tradition by applying it to the analysis of the actualization of the function of the human soul. this paper aims to analyze the actualization of the potential of the human soul, the actuality or potentiality of human soul health, and the relevance of soul health to the happiness of the human soul. the theme of this paper uses qualitative research, literature study design, theoretical hermeneutic methods, content analysis techniques, and the author as a research instrument. it is known that the perfect actualization of the rational soul is the soul’s arrival at divine truth in theory and practice. the actualization of soul function in a person shows the level of his/her soul health. a happy soul is found in this healthy soul, namely a soul that has been freed from material tendencies and spiritual diseases. it also leads actions to the noble character and has longing and submission to god. these theoretical findings can be used to develop empiricalexperimental research in psychology. article history: received: november 2, 2021 revised: december 23, 2021 accepted: december 29, 2021 published: december 29, 2021 keyword: actuality; happiness; islamic epistemology; potentiality; soul how to cite (apa 7th edition) widiawati, n. (2021). actuality and happiness of the soul: an islamic epistemological perspective. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 2(2), 81–93. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v2i2.3430 this is an open-access article distributed under the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. this is enabled under the terms of attribution and noncommercial usage of the material ©2021 by nani widiawati 82 actuality and happiness of the soul: an islamic epistemological perspective happiness is the goal of all humans (presentation & janello, 2021). everything that humans do always leads to efforts to achieve happiness. the concept of happiness has been constructed by psychologists with their scientific approach, philosophers with their rationalconceptual approach, and metaphysicists with their spiritual approach. the epistemology of positivism is separated from the rational-conceptual and spiritual discussion because it is outside the discussion of the scientific area recognized by the philosophical system. however, this is not the case with islamic epistemology. rational and spiritual objects have an ontological status that can be accounted for so that a study of them produces the science of the soul itself, the science of the soul. psychology as the science of the soul, not about mental facts, was born from the branch of metaphysics. while psychology, which deals with mental facts, was born from a branch of science (baumeister et al., 2007; dominski et al., 2018; lundh, 2018; molenaar, 2004; oaksford & chater, 2020; pérez-álvarez, 2018; zilio, 2016). the description of psychological categorization in metaphysical and scientific studies spontaneously shows the fundamental difference between the epistemology of positivism and the epistemology of islam. in the islamic epistemological system, the area of scientific study is not limited to the empirical area but all areas recognized by islam, including the metaphysical area. with the variations in the study area, metaphysics is accommodated into knowledge that is categorized as science (widiawati, 2021a, 2021b). in the epistemological system of positivism which emphasizes empirical criteria in the area of study, purely conceptual-metaphysical are marginalized. to fulfill its epistemic foundation, psychology must be supported by a philosophical foundation that includes three things, namely empirical, positive, and falsifiable (al yusainy, 2015). with these criteria, psychology as the science of soul processes or the soul itself becomes a reasonably serious conversation (hastjarjo, 2015). this paper focuses on psychology as part of the branch of metaphysics from the perspective of islamic epistemology. with this area and perspective, the happiness in question comes from the soul itself, not facts about the soul’s happiness or happiness as a positive emotion subjectively determined by each person (abde & salih, 2015), but an objectively constructed theory of happiness. in addition, the meaning of the soul is dominated by discussions of the rational soul as a specific human soul. this paper begins with the assumption that mental happiness reflects a healthy soul, and a healthy soul is marked by the actualization of the function of the soul itself. thus, this study aims to analyze the actualization of the potential of the human soul, the actuality or potentiality of human soul health, and the relevance of soul health to human soul happiness. the discussion concerning the theme of the human soul actuality in the context of health and happiness for the human soul does not seem to have been comprehensively studied by other researchers. several studies discuss mental health from a theological perspective (abde & salih, 2015; ariadi, 2019; fitrianah, 2018; samain & budihardjo, 2020) and in other studies associated with islamic counseling (aristiana et al., 2017; najamuddin, 2018), islamic therapy (nurhayati, 2016), worship (lubis et al., 2019), or islamic education (mulyani, 2020). theological perspective is also used to discuss the concept of happiness and compare it with greek philosophy (hamim, 2016; shaeful rs, 2011) or islamic philosophy (azmi & zulkifli, 2018). some studies use a philosophical perspective to reveal the thoughts of scientists introduction nani widiawati 83 (arrasyid, 2020; damanik, 2020; fuadi, 2018; rahmadon, 2020) and muslim philosophers (arif, 2019; fauzi, 2019) about happiness or comparisons of thoughts between scientists (ayob, 2020). however, exploring the concept of soul happiness based on the actuality of human psychological functions and discussed in the perspective of islamic epistemology seems to have not been carried out by other researchers. on that basis, research on the actuality of the soul function in soul happiness becomes important to fill research in this field. in addition, related to polemics about psychology as a science that examines the facts of the soul or the soul itself can be brought together by presenting the format of psychology in the realm of metaphysics as expressed in this paper the theme of the actuality of the soul function and the happiness of the human soul is discussed through qualitative research with a literature study design. this research can be identified as philosophical research that uses a theoretical hermeneutic method to discover substantive theory in its field. the data in this study refers to written data sources related to the research topic. in this case, data regarding the soul’s actuality is focused on the thoughts of alghazali, al-farabi, and ibn sina. al-ghazali’s thoughts on this matter are contained in the book al-munqidh min al-dhalal, the primary data, while ibn sina and al-farabi are taken from the translation of muhammad uthman najati’s writing entitled al-dirasat al-nafsaniyah ‘inda al‘ulama al-muslimin, which is secondary data. data were collected through content analysis techniques. the researcher is positioned as a research tool or human instrument in this study. as a tool, the researcher plays a role in preparing research designs, adapting designs to the substantive character of research data, identifying credible data sources, and developing data collection techniques. by positioning herself as an instrument, the author can explore various data found by setting the focus of the research, determining the research design, selecting representative and credible data, assessing the quality of the data, being the perpetrator of data collection, and interpreting the data. kaplick & skinner (2017) mention psychology in islam as an interdisciplinary study that explores human nature based on islamic sources which aim to bring humans to their best state, physically, spiritually, cognitively, and emotionally. in islamic epistemology, these traits refer to the potential of the human soul. this soul potential is the motor that drives the human body as a tool for the soul. if the function of the soul can be perfectly actualized on the device, then the soul is in a healthy condition. furthermore, the healthy condition of the soul engenders happiness for the human soul. actualization of the potential of the human soul humans have three soul potentials: the plant, the animal, and the rational soul. through the potential of the soul that they have, humans are at the highest hierarchy in the structure of living things because they have the potential of souls from creatures in the hierarchy below them, namely animals and plants. humans have the potential to actualize all the potentials of research method result 84 actuality and happiness of the soul: an islamic epistemological perspective all living things. the plant soul has a function in terms of giving birth (al-quwwah al-muwallidah), growing (al-quwwah al-murabbiyah atau al-quwwah al-munammiyah), and the potential on absorbing food (al-quwwah al-ghadziyah) (najati, 2002). the generative potential carries out a generative function: the power that takes from a potentially similar part. the growth power works in terms of the maintenance or growth of the body by carrying out the function of growth or body parts for its perfection and development, namely increasing the whole body, which is transformed by food. through the power of nutrition, then like plants, the power of human nutrition has a function in converting food into body shape. understanding (al-idrak) is the process of accepting the subject who understands (almudrik) the description of the object to be reached (al-mudrak). if the image is taken, the potential for understanding will bind knowledge so that it manifests in memory even though the object image has disappeared from the senses (najati, 2002). the potential for understanding is divided into two potentials: the potential for understanding externally (alquwwah al mudrikah min al-kharij) and internally or internal senses. the former involves understanding external objects through the five external senses such as hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling, and touching. the former has something to do with the collective senses (al-hiss almusytarak), conception (al-quwwah al-mushawwitah), fantasy (al-quwwah al-mutakhayyilah), estimation (waham), and memory or memorization (al-dzakirah or al-hafizhah) (najati, 2002). external sensory potentials carry out the functions of sensory perception. through sensing, there is a process of receiving sensory power to sensory images, and through perception, there is a process of receiving perceptual images. practically, some senses function as tools of life, which are used to maintain their survival, and some of the other senses are perfect for their being (najati, 2002). the potential of the internal senses performs functions according to the capacity of each tool. the collective senses are the center for gathering all the sensory images from the five external senses. in the collective senses, the essential characteristics of all sensory stimuli are collected to be distinguished from one another. conceptual potential serves as a place to store images that persist even though the sensory stimulus has been lost. the fantasy potential is to recall, collect, separate sensory images, or arrange them into new forms. potential fantasy can imagine something that has passed or is expected to happen. this potential plays a role in the process of remembering and thinking. potential estimation understands the non-sensory partial meanings that exist in external sensory objects so that an object’s positive or negative meaning can be known. memory or memorization, the last internal sense potential, is for keeping nonsensory meanings in the sensory stimulus captured by the estimation potential. the second potential possessed by the animal soul is the driving potential (al-quwwah almuharrikah). this potential encourages common movements to accomplish the work the animal desires. the realization of action is driven by the movement of the potential of desire. the potential for desire itself is divided into the potential for lust and the potential for emotion. the potential for lust is the potential that pushes you towards something that is considered necessary, enjoyable, and valuable, while the potential of emotion encourages you to stay away from something that is considered dangerous or damaging. nani widiawati 85 the third human soul is the rational soul. this rational soul is a uniquely human soul. this soul is for rationalizing rational things, distinguishing between beautiful and bad things, and producing science and technology. this rational soul is classified into practical and theoretical intellects. theoretical intellect is also known as scientific intellect. this intellect plays a role in perceiving universal portraits free from matter. this intellect has been created for humans to achieve happiness. the analogy of the rational soul with theoretical intellect is the analogy of a mirror with the image reflected from it. with such an analogy, rational things in divine emanation will be clearly illustrated through theoretical intellect as an image reflected from a mirror. al-farabi divides rational intellect into three levels, namely material intellect (hayulani), actual or habitual intellect (al-‘aql al-munfa’il), and acquired intellect (al-‘aql al-mustafad). ibn sina added talent/possession intellect (al-‘aql bi al-malakah) to the second hierarchy after material reason so that it becomes four levels. potential intellect is the absolute readiness of humans to grasp rational things before they are actual, as the readiness of a child learns how to write. as a potential, the potential of this soul is still a possibility or potential to reason because this intellect does not yet contain rational objects. habitual intellect can perceive the basic principles of thinking without going through a laborious reasoning process. the actual intellect can think about rational objects. this intellect can be examined at any time due to the intellect that thinks without effort. the human intellect has reached perfection at this stage because it already contains rational objects. when all the objects of intellect are achieved, or most of them are active ma’qul, the actual mind shifts to the highest level of intellect, namely acquired intellect. acquired intellect is free from matter, and its existence is close to the active intellect. as the intellect with the highest hierarchy, the acquired intellect is the part of the soul that is not damaged even if the body is destroyed (najati, 2002). practical intellect, which is the second potential of rational intellect, functions to conclude the tasks of humanity, morality, and professionalism. with this function, practical intellect serves as a controller for action so that the actualization of theoretical knowledge constructed by the theoretical intellect can be adequately realized. (gutas, 2012; najati, 2002). human soul health: actuality or potentiality the actualization of the potential of the human soul depends on the dominance of each soul. a person’s character depends on the dominance of the three potential souls possessed by humans. a person’s life can reflect on the characters of plants more dominantly than those of animals or humans. people can reflect more on animal characters than on plant or human characters. however, the perfection of a person’s soul as a human only occurs when reflecting on human character. with this character, a person will always try to serve his or her rational soul, and through this trait, it is known that his or her rational soul is no longer potential but actual. because the rational soul is a unique human soul, a study of the health and happiness of the human soul will focus on the study of the rational soul. potential is the ability to act (bagus, 1996). as the ability, potential does not refer to a particular actual being. when it exists in its potential, the human soul does not realize any existence. potential becomes actual when it exists. in the perspective of al-ghazali (1996), the tools of knowledge in humans are actualized in stages: the senses, the intellect, then the heart. when only the senses are actualized, the rational area and the metaphysical area become a dark 86 actuality and happiness of the soul: an islamic epistemological perspective area. the rational area for the sensory soul is closed because the potential of the intellect is not yet actual. the closed domain of reason is a matter of potentiality. in principle, every substance always actualizes its unique potential. the intellectual potential is the actuality of thinking work. in terms of potential, the soul has the possibility to reflect on its function. however, as is a necessity for a potential, its actuality at one time is not specific. even though the potential of acquired intellect is characterized by its ability to mediate with tenth intellect, its actualization cannot be ascertained. likewise with the actual character. theoretically, the habitual intellect is already capable of thinking about rational concepts, but as it is the basis of the inevitability of its potential being, its actualization can be positive and even negative. potential being is distinguished from actual being because its being cannot be ascertained. potential has no actuality principle. at its earliest stage, the theoretical rationale soul of man, namely potential reason, is full potential. it does not yet contain rational concepts, so the thinking ability of the soul is not yet actual. when this soul can think about simple rational principles, its habitual intellect is actual. the habitual intellect moves from habitual potentiality to habitual actuality. this mind already contains simple rational concepts to think about simple rational principles as well. in this way, if one is put in a position to think about complex rational concepts, their habitual reason cannot reach them. this is not a question of being intelligent or unintelligent but is necessary for the question of actuality or potentiality. the actuality of the function of the soul, if it follows the active and passive categorization (bagus, 1996), is active. the function of the soul is not in the realm of pure possibility, which agents only fully actualize outside of itself. with its active nature, the intellect has an innate ability or tendency to become or run something specific according to its reality (bagus, 1996). on this basis, the human intellect has the potential to think because thinking is a potential that is only possessed by intellect, not by other soul potentials. for some reason, it can happen not to think, but only because of the potential to think; it is called reason. however, before actualizing, the function of reason is full potential. the actualization of potential being into actual requires a cause, which in aristotle’s thought refers to four causes: material cause, efficient cause, formal cause, and final cause. the ultimate cause of all that exists is god. however, god is not the direct cause. in the series of emanations, the actualization of the human intellect occurs after the thought process in the tenth intellect. as a consequence of his thinking about god, the intellect identified as the angel gabriel then actualizes the human intellect’s function. thus, the tenth intellect becomes the actual agent that acts as an adequate cause in actualizing the potential of human intellect. the actualization of the function of the human soul shows the level of soul health in question. the embodiment of this function can be seen from the reflection of the soul’s actions both in mental situations, words, attitudes, or actions that appear on the tools of the soul, namely the limbs. theoretically, evidence for the health of intellect can be proven from its ability to construct theoretical knowledge whose truth can be justified both formally and materially. formally the truth must be explained methodologically, and materially must be able to touch the essence of truth. knowledge constructed by intellect must be actual knowledge. because the ultimate truth belongs only to god, the truth that is reached by theoretical intellect should be part of divine knowledge. this ultimate truth is obtained from the mediation of the nani widiawati 87 human mind with the tenth intellect, which overflows with divine knowledge. on the other hand, if the achievement of the intellect is not in line with its optimal actualization, that is, it reaches divine knowledge, then the soul health will be disturbed. practically, the form of soul health is when it plays its function as a controlling power for a person in living his or her life. a controlled life by maintaining consistency with the achievement of theoretical knowledge reflects the health of his practical intellect. practical intellect plays a role in guiding behavior in harmony with divine values. quoting avicenna’s opinion (nasution, 2002), practical intellect functions to control the human body, so the passions contained in the body do not prevent the theoretical mind from bringing humans to a high level to achieve perfection. in this way, rational soul health is shown by the actual function of the soul in constructing true knowledge and aligning its life according to that proper knowledge. in other words, human soul health requires two things, namely, thinking right and acting right. in some humans, their rational soul is not yet actual. their theoretical rational soul has health problems, so they cannot think properly. their lives are far from the truth because they do not have true knowledge. at the same time, others are able to think right but are not able to live on the path of truth. the inability of the soul, in this case, is related to the actuality or potentiality of the soul. a soul that cannot actualize its function indicates a soul whose health is being disturbed. the rational things in divine emanation are not clearly illustrated in his theoretical intellect. the reflection of the image of god’s light is damaged, so the intellect is bounced on the furthest circuit of the emanation system. health soul and the happiness of human daradjat (1969) defines mental health as the realization of genuine harmony between mental functions and the creation of adjustment between the individual and himself or herself and his or her environment based on faith and piety. mental health is an individual’s ability to manage mental functions and create adjustments with oneself, others, and the surrounding environment dynamically based on the qur’an and sunnah as a guide to life towards happiness in the world and the hereafter (ariadi, 2019). in islam, soul health is related to the concept of happiness. happiness is marked by the actualization of a person’s soul function, which is externally reflected in his or her attitude and behavior. reflection of a healthy soul is shown by a person’s ability to make himself or herself and others happy. this evidence makes psychology define attitudes and behavior as its area of study; even if defined lexically, psychology is defined as the science of the soul. every soul has its own needs. when its needs are met, the soul finds its happiness. the need of the rational soul is its inclination towards knowledge. the rational soul always longs for truth and is always called to find it. the rational soul loves science. the actualization of the rational soul is stratified according to the rational readiness of each level. the perfection of the theoretical intellect is when it reaches the top of the hierarchy; that is, the acquired intellect is actual. to reach this stage, humans must live a life of asceticism to master all forms independent of matter. this effort will give birth to readiness in the soul to accept pure forms or acquired intellect bestowed by active intellect (dahlan, 2003). at this stage, the intellect has freed itself from all material ideas. moreover, the soul’s happiness is obtained when the soul has detached itself from all material things. 88 actuality and happiness of the soul: an islamic epistemological perspective however, the pinnacle of theoretical intellect still requires the control of the practical intellect. this is because the plant and animal souls can prevent the rational soul from reaching perfection. that is why the practical intellect struggles to control the potential of the souls of plants and animals, so the rational soul is perfectly actualized (dahlan, 2003). the perfect actualization of the rational soul is when its theoretical achievements are manifested in attitudes and behavior. the perfection of the actualization of the intellect is a reflection of happiness for the soul. when the perfection of the actualization of the intellect is reached by trying to free oneself from the dependence of the soul on the material world by practicing asceticism, it appears that happiness is realized in noble character. if it is understood with reverse logic, happiness can be achieved by doing various good deeds. it seems that the rationalization of the practice of asceticism institutionalized in the concept of maqamat in the sufi tradition is still understood in reverse, that morality is closely related to happiness. to achieve happiness, one must reflect on the noble character in his or her life. people who have good morals are people who are healthy in spirit so they can achieve various spiritual happiness. people whose souls are sick will be far from happiness. this can be analogous to a person whose senses are impaired due to a physical illness, such as influenza. food that should taste good becomes bitter or tasteless, likewise with someone whose soul is sick. diseases that hit the soul are diseases that can prevent a person from doing good. that is why his or her soul suffers. among the mental illnesses is the disease of lust, jealousy, pride, and others. these diseases can prevent a person from feeling spiritual happiness. thus, happiness is identical to the realization of good deeds. for the soul, bad behavior is suffering. this suffering can be detected when someone does evil deeds. corruptors do mark up financial data secretly so that people do not know. that means corruptors know that corrupt acts are evil deeds. corruptors get wealth as a result of their corruption. however, what will happen if they are asked whether they are happy with the evil deeds? if it is known that the corruptors hide the results of their corruption as a reflection of feelings of insecurity or always feel worried if their actions are revealed, then it is inevitable that evil deeds cannot produce happiness. feelings of fear, anxiety, worry, and so on are evidence that a person will not feel happiness by doing bad deeds because his or her conscience knows the bad things he or she does. the suffering is related to the interference of other potential souls, namely the plant and the animal soul. desires, emotions, senses, fantasies, and so on can distort the reflection of knowledge into the theoretical intellect. when the other elements of the soul are preoccupied with other material things, therein lies the soul’s suffering because the things it needs are not fulfilled. if it is free from the domination of other souls, the rational soul will see the highest realm of imaginal (al-malakut al-a’la) and achieve perfect happiness. (najati, 2002). the concept of soul health is closely related to the concept of mental health or mental hygiene. the word mental, which comes from the latin word mens or mentis (burhanuddin, 1999), has the same meaning as “psyche,” which means psychic, soul, or psyche. among the understandings put forward by daradjat (1969) regarding mental or mental health is the discussion nani widiawati 89 avoidance of a person from the symptoms of mental disorders (neuroses) and symptoms of mental illness (psychoses). another definition is the realization of true harmony between the functions of the soul and having the ability to deal with common problems and feel optimistic about one’s own happiness and abilities. from an islamic perspective, the soul health concept is defined as an individual’s ability to manage the realization of harmony between soul functions and the creation of adjustments with oneself, others, and the surrounding environment dynamically, based on the qur’an and sunnah as a guide to life towards happiness in the world and the hereafter. (ariadi, 2019). as part of a philosophical system that was born from the womb of islam, islamic epistemology makes islam with its primary source, namely the qur’an and sunnah, as an umbrella in thinking. thus, epistemological reflection on soul health and happiness comes from islamic teachings. on the other hand, psychology has had its generic meaning of soul health. thus, the epistemological perspective on the actualization of the soul in the context of its health and happiness is shaded by islamic teachings on the one hand and borrows psychological terminology as a measuring tool to analyze the problem. judging from its hierarchy that transcends the potential of the plant soul and animal soul, the function that the rational soul actualizes shows that the true happiness for humans lies in spiritual happiness, not material or sensual happiness. the happiness of the rational soul is of a higher quality than the happiness of the animal soul or the plant soul. the animal and pant souls are related to physical objects. the happiness that arises from these two souls is temporal. happiness that is essential for human beings is related to rational objects. intellect is a spiritual entity, so its proximity to material things will further reduce the quality of happiness for the human soul. as a spiritual entity, the intellect must be free from its connection with material reality. the independence of the intellect from material objects is a virtue for the intellect and is related to the perfection of the spirit. therefore, the purpose of the journey of intellect is disinterest and detachment from the material world, so it will further perfect the soul by reflecting actions that are in harmony with rational goodness. such a soul exists so closely with divinity that it can attain eternal happiness (natsir, 2014). the issue of soul happiness is related to soul health, while soul health itself is synonymous with purity. purity in the soul means that the soul has arrived at the closest circle in the series of emanations, so it is close to the first one, the source of true happiness. to achieve the soul’s happiness, humans must be pure to penetrate the veils of the unseen. a pure soul can transcend sensory reality into the realm of actual testimony and eternal beauty (madkour, 1993). happiness is what is the goal for the soul. quoting al-farabi’s opinion (madkour, 1993), the soul’s happiness occurs when the human soul becomes perfect in a form whose existence no longer requires material things. happiness for the soul is its inclination to the highest realms, not the other way around. in the highest realms, the human soul finds immortality without mortality, majesty without humiliation, pleasure without suffering, and security without fear (arif, 2019). the happiness born of material objects is sensual happiness. a more appropriate technical term to describe sensory happiness is pleasure, namely happiness that is temporal and only has a horizontal dimension (hamim khairul, 2016). happiness as such is not a need for a rational soul but a need for an animal and plant soul. if one’s is preoccupied with the fulfillment of physical happiness, his or her rational power is not actualized because the animal soul or plant 90 actuality and happiness of the soul: an islamic epistemological perspective soul dominates him or her. in this way, their life is controlled by the dominance of the two souls so that the behavior is similar to plant or animal. like plants, their life orientation is only to fulfill their basic needs, such as meeting their food needs to continue life or have a family. like animals, his or her life has mobility, but his or her orientation is again only to meet material needs. without a rational soul, these two potentials can corrupt a person, and their actions can be worse than animals (al-a’raf: 179) because it is not based on knowledge, so life is far from the truth. the rational soul is a soul inclined to knowledge, truth, and god. this soul has a longing and submission to god. it is in harmony with its nature as a servant of god and reflects its servitude into noble character. reflection of noble character is evidence for the happiness of the rational soul. a philosophical discussion about the actuality and happiness of the human soul shows a theoretical relevance between the actualization of the function of the human soul and its happiness. however, as with philosophical discussions in general, the constructed theory only comes to a grand theory that is still abstract. epistemologically, this is good news for the discipline of islamic psychology in directing the development of its theoretical constructs. the theoretical paradigm found in this research can only be connected to the empirical world. in this world, humans actualize the function of their rational soul when experts contextualize this grand theory in the field by giving birth to middle-range theory, so this grand theory becomes a systematic effort to be used as a research paradigm for empirical studies in psychology. for this effort, further research that initiates the birth of middle-range theory is open to further researchers. the actualization of the rational soul marks human perfection as a uniquely human soul. the actuality of the rational soul is when theoretically, someone arrives at the nature of truth and practically reflects it in his or her actions. the perfect actualization of the rational soul in a person is shown in the ability to think and act rightly. the actuality of the function of the soul in humans is not the same. some souls are still trapped in potentiality. the actualization of the function of the human soul shows the level of mental health in question. the closer the rational soul to divine knowledge and action, the healthier it is. on the other hand, the farther the rational soul is from divine knowledge and action, and the more disturbed its soul health will be. human mental health requires two things: a person can think right and act right. a healthy soul is linear with a happy soul. as a spiritual entity, the soul’s happiness is marked by releasing other souls with material tendencies. in order to give up material qualities, the soul must be free from spiritual ailments by purifying the soul and adorning it with noble character. chastity is the goal for a happy soul. abde, a. n. y., & salih, k. (2015). the literature of happiness “with reference of the philosophy of happiness in islam.” journal of islamic studies and culture, 3(2). https://doi.org/10.15640/jisc.v3n2a18 conclusion references nani widiawati 91 al-ghazali. (1996). al-munqidh min al-dhalal. darul-fikr. al yusainy, c. (2015). quo vadis psikologi sebagai sebuah kajian ilmiah? buletin psikologi, 23(1), 51. https://doi.org/10.22146/bpsi.10577 ariadi, p. (2019). kesehatan mental dalam perspektif islam. syifa’ medika: jurnal kedokteran dan kesehatan, 3(2), 118. https://doi.org/10.32502/sm.v3i2.1433 arif, m. (2019). pendidikan kejiwaan dan kesehatan mental (perspektif fakhruddin ar-razi). farabi, 16(2), 161–180. https://doi.org/10.30603/jf.v16i2.1081 aristiana, n. f., bukhori, b., & hasanah, h. (2017). pelayanan bimbingan dan konseling islam (studi kasus pelayanan klinik vct rumah sakit islam sultan agung semarang dalam meningkatkan kesehatan mental pasien hiv/aids). jurnal ilmu dakwah, 35(2). https://doi.org/10.21580/jid.v35i2.1609 arrasyid, a. (2020). konsep kebahagiaan dalam tasawuf modern hamka. refleksi: jurnal filsafat dan pemikiran islam, 19(2). https://doi.org/10.14421/ref.2019.1902-05 ayob, m. a. s. (2020). perspektif hamka dan aristotle mengenai kebahagiaan. jurnal hadhari 12, 12(june). azmi, m. n., & zulkifli, m. (2018). manusia, akal dan kebahagiaan (studi analisis komparatif antara al-qur’an dengan filsafat islam). al qalam: jurnal ilmiah keagamaan dan kemasyarakatan, 12(2), 127. https://doi.org/10.35931/aq.v0i0.75 bagus, l. (1996). kamus filsafat (1st ed.). gramedia. baumeister, r. f., vohs, k. d., & funder, d. c. (2007). psychology as the science of selfreports and finger movements: whatever happened to actual behavior? perspectives on psychological science, 2(4), 396–403. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6916.2007.00051.x burhanuddin, y. (1999). kesehatan mental. cv pustaka setia. dahlan, a. a. (2003). pemikiran falsafi dalam islam. djambatan. damanik, n. (2020). konstruksi kebahagiaan dalam tasawuf modern hamka. uin sumatera utara. daradjat, z. (1969). kesehatan mental. gunung agung. dominski, f. h., vilarino, g. t., coimbra, d. r., silva, r. b., casagrande, p. de o., & andrade, a. (2018). analysis of scientific production related to sports psychology in sports science journals of portuguese language. journal of physical education (maringa), 29(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.4025/jphyseduc.v29i1.2930 fauzi, m. (2019). filsafat kebahagiaan menurut al-ghazali. fitrianah, r. d. (2018). keseimbangan emosi dan kesehatan mental manusia dalam perspektif psikologi agama. jurnal ilmiah syi’ar, 18(1), 91. https://doi.org/10.29300/syr.v18i1.1285 fuadi, f. (2018). refleksi pemikiran hamka tentang metode mendapatkan kebahagiaan. substantia: jurnal ilmu-ilmu ushuluddin, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.22373/substantia.v20i1.3403 gutas, d. (2012). avicenna: the metaphysics of the rational soul. muslim world, 102(3–4). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-1913.2012.01413.x 92 actuality and happiness of the soul: an islamic epistemological perspective hamim, k. (2016). kebahagiaan dalam perspektif al-quran dan filsafat. tasamuh, 13(2), 127– 150. hastjarjo, t. d. (2015). mengintegrasikan psikologi: peluang atau mimpi? buletin psikologi, 16(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.22146/bpsi.7492 kaplick, p. m., & skinner, r. (2017). the evolving islam and psychology movement. european psychologist, 22(3), 198–204. https://doi.org/10.1027/1016-9040/a000297 lubis, l. t., sati, l., adhinda, n. n., yulianirta, h., & hidayat, b. (2019). peningkatan kesehatan mental anak dan remaja melalui ibadah keislaman. jurnal agama dan ilmu pengetahuan, 16(2). lundh, l. g. (2018). psychological science within a three-dimensional ontology. integrative psychological and behavioral science, 52(1), 52–66. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-017-94128 madkour, i. (1993). filsafat islam metode dan penerapannya. grafindo persada. molenaar, p. c. m. (2004). a manifesto on psychology as idiographic science: bringing the person back into scientific psychology, this time forever. measurement: interdisciplinary research & perspective, 2(4), 201–218. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15366359mea0204_1 mulyani, s. (2020). urgensi kesehatan mental dalam pendidikan islam. qalam: jurnal pendidikan islam jurusan tarbiyah stai sufyan tsauri majenang, 01 no.02. najamuddin, n. (2018). kesabaran dan kesehatan mental dalam bimbingan konseling islam. tasamuh: jurnal studi islam, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.47945/tasamuh.v10i1.72 najati, m. u. (2002). jiwa dalam pandangan para filosof muslim (i). pustaka hidayah. nasution, h. (2002). filsafat islam. gaya media pratama. natsir, m. (2014). komparasi pemikiran ibnu sina dan suhrawardi: telaah terhadap teori emanasi dan teori jiwa. wahana akademika: jurnal studi islam dan sosial, 1, 181–206. nurhayati. (2016). kesehatan dan perobatan dalam tradisi islam. ahkam, 16(2), 223-228. oaksford, m., & chater, n. (2020). new paradigms in the psychology of reasoning. annual review of psychology, 71, 305–330. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010419-051132 pérez-álvarez, m. (2018). psychology as a science of subject and comportment, beyond the mind and behavior. integrative psychological and behavioral science, 52(1), 25–51. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-017-9408-4 presentation, v., & janello, m. (2021). the happiness principle : why we need a personal philosophy of happiness. 1–20. rahmadon, r. (2020). kebahagiaan dalam pandangan thomas aquinas dan hamka. ushuluna: jurnal ilmu ushuluddin, 1(2). https://doi.org/10.15408/ushuluna.v1i2.15159 samain, & budihardjo. (2020). konsep kesehatan mental dalam al-qur’an dan implikasinya terhadap adversity quotient perspektif tafsir al-misbah. jurnal pendidikan agama islam, 1(2), 18–29. https://jurnal.iain-bone.ac.id/index.php/attadib/article/view/961 shaeful rs, a. (2011). rahasia kebahagiaan. jaqfi: jurnal aqidah dan filsafat islam, 3, 97–105. widiawati, n. (2021a). filsafat islam (1st ed.). pustaka ellios. nani widiawati 93 widiawati, n. (2021b). pluralisme metodologi diskursus sains filsafat dan tasawuf (m. miswari (ed.); 2nd ed.). edu publisher. zilio, d. (2016). on the autonomy of psychology from neuroscience: a case study of skinner’s radical behaviorism and behavior analysis. review of general psychology, 20(2), 155–170. https://doi.org/10.1037/gpr0000067 inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research https://journal.iainlangsa.ac.id/index.php/inspira how to cite (apa 7th edition) harahap, d. p. (2023). cognitive behavioral therapy and traditional cooperative games in improving social skills: a single-subject experimental study. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 4(1), 29–40. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.5434 this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial 4.0 international (cc by-nc 4.0) copyright ©2023 by dinda permatasari harahap. research article cognitive behavioral therapy and traditional cooperative games in improving social skills: a single-subject experimental study https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.5434 dinda permatasari harahap department of psychology, universitas medan area, north sumatera, indonesia corresponding author: dinda permatasari harahap (email: dinda@staff.uma.ac.id) abstract this study aimed to ascertain how cognitive behavior therapy and traditional games in children could improve their social skills. this research was a single-subject experimental study. the participant was a 6-year-old kindergarten student going by the alias “kila”. the data was collected using interview and observation methods. the cbt techniques are puppets, storytelling, visualization, and imagery techniques. traditional games are used after the cbt sections. these games involved peer groups to increase the social skills of the participants. the traditional games used are the ones that indonesian people used to do, such as “cublak-cublak suweng,” “clogs,” “cardboard bridge,” “jump rope,” and “word game.”. data were collected through observation and interviews with participants, family members, teachers, and colleagues. information about the participant can also be obtained using psychological tools such as intellectual and socialization. data is analyzed based on the characteristics of previous and subsequent social capacity changes. the result showed that the cbt technique for children could change the participant’s negative automatic thoughts about her friends. those traditional games could also improve kila’s social skills, especially in her interpersonal behavior, such as making friends, communicating, giving feedback to her peers, and being involved in some interactions and communications. cbt techniques and traditional games have an impact on increasing the social abilities of participants. this can be seen from the improvement in participants’ social skills, such as interpersonal behavior, selfbehavior, academic behavior, peer acceptance, and communication skills. article history: received 17 january 2023 revised 15 february 2023 accepted 28 june 2023 keywords: cognitive behavioral therapy; cooperative game; singlesubject experimental research; social skills; traditional games introduction early childhood is “a golden period” of child development, often called “the golden age”. hurlock (2017) stated that there are at least six developmental tasks in early childhood, but the most difficult for children is learning to relate emotionally to parents, siblings, and others. social skills are essential for children to learn in early childhood (preschool). developing these skills at an early age will make it https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v4i1.5434 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5103-277x 30 easier for children to fulfil subsequent developmental tasks to develop normally and healthily. social skills need to be mastered by children because they will equip them to enter a more comprehensive social life both in the home environment and especially in the school environment, which they will soon enter. mappiare (in kibtiyah, 2003) defines social skills as an individual’s ability to socially interact with people in their environment in order to meet their needs to be accepted by peers, both of the same sex or the opposite sex so that they gain a sense of need and a sense of worth. these skills must begin to be developed since childhood by allowing children to play or joke with peers or assigning tasks based on child development. social skills can bring children to be more courageous in expressing themselves, expressing any feelings or problems they face, and at the same time finding adaptive solutions so that they do not seek escape from other things that can actually harm themselves and others. kila is a 6-year-old girl who is attending kindergarten. kila has brown skin, good hearing, and eyesight. kila is the youngest child of two siblings. she has an older sister who is attending elementary school. kila has been in kindergarten for a year. when the researcher visited her in class, kila looked different from her friend. when her friend played in class and interacted with each other, kila sat and observed her friends. kila did not communicate or interact with her friends. during the learning process, kila just sat and listened to what the teacher said. kila seems to be daydreaming and rarely responds in class. when the teacher asked her the question, she answered it slowly. when her friends communicated and interacted with each other during the learning process, she was silent and focused on her work. she avoids using things together with her friends. when her work was finished in class, kila still had time to play freely in the class area. some of her friends, who have also finished, began choosing toy blocks, cooking toys, and playing in groups. on the other hand, kila just looked and watched what her friends did. one of her friends bothered her by scribbling a pin on her back. she only gave an annoying expression and did not express her anger or feeling through verbal language. it caused her friend to keep disturbing her. during outdoor activities, kila did not play together with her friends. even though she was in a playground, she was only interested in her friends who were playing. she followed where the teacher went. when invited to play with friends, she refused and followed wherever the teacher or security went. during a psychological test, she wanted to answer the question, and she could tell pictures when asked. she only answered things asked. according to her teacher, kila had difficulty establishing communication and interaction with her friends in class. at the same time, kila has attended school for a year. kila still did not want to play and interact. even so, kila keeps finishing her task in class. her mother told her to only play with the teacher. this condition made it difficult for kila to interact with her peers in class. at her home, kila played with her sister. kila’s sister was also quiet and shy, so compared to her older sister, kila looked more active in talking and interacting. in contrast to school, kila was more talkative at home. she played with puppets and storybooks in her home. her parent felt that kila is indeed difficult to socialize with other people, but they tend to let this happen without making any effort. it caused kila not to have the motivation to make friends and socialize at school. her mother said it does not matter if kila does not want to communicate. this made kila difficult to adjust herself in school, and the effect is that she had difficulty establishing social relations with others. the role of parents is significant in children’s early growth and development. as john locke states about tabula rasa, the epistemological study that a human is born with no built-in mental content and that human knowledge comes from experiences and perceptions. generally, exponents of the tabula rasa study favor the “nurture” side of nature regarding aspects of one’s personality, social, 31 emotional behavior, and intelligence. one of the ways to stimulate children is through experiences. parents can stimulate children with new experiences, including providing social development. the researcher often had a counseling section with parents in my work with participants. i provided alternative problem-solving using learning theory, behavior modification, and cognitive and social learning theory. before using traditional games for intervention, the researcher also found that negative automatic thoughts on the participant can influence her thoughts and feelings. cognitive therapy focuses on changing negative thoughts or beliefs (beck, 2005; martin & pear, 2003; antony & swinson, 2000). the cognitive therapy i used to solve the participant’s problem was cognitive behavior therapy (cbt) for children. beck (2005) stated that cbt focuses on thoughts and core beliefs that cause emotional distress. it can be replaced with positive thoughts. in addition, cbt also aims to facilitate individuals in creating positive emotional situations so that they can implement specific strategies such as cognitive restructuring, organizing activity schedules, and other strategies (mcginss, 2000). in this case, the researcher found that the participant had negative thoughts about her friend. kila felt that her friends were not kind. they did not like her and did not ask her to play games together. that is why she was not interested in joining them. the researcher started to dispute her thought about friends. the researcher used a drawing book and asked her to draw a school situation. kila drew a class building, and there was only one person inside. according to kila, the person is herself, and no other people exist. her friends and teacher were playing at the playground. the researcher asked about what her friends felt when playing at the playground. kila said she was happy when playing together and wanted to join them. the researcher started to dispute her negative thought about her friends. the researcher told her about her friend’s kindness, such as sharing food, helping her to use a pencil, borrowing her crayon, and asking her to swim. the researcher used storytelling, playing puppets, and exciting activities to make kila think more positively. another kind of intervention used in this case was cooperative games. a previous study has found that traditional games can improve children’s social skills. the intervention provided is supported by the research of shinta et al. (2019), which also showed that traditional games can be used as a medium for building children’s character or social skills, such as (1) cooperation, (2) responsibility, (3) hard work, and (4) caring. research conducted by irmansyah et al. (2020) showed that traditional games could improve the social skills of school-age children. tasnim et al. (2022) discovered that traditional mallogo games could improve social skills in children aged 5 to 6. according to lestari and prima (2017), traditional games can improve children’s social and emotional development. traditional games can be piloted in other areas of skill development in early childhood education. in addition, irmansyah et al. (2020) used the game “gobak sodor” in their research and found that it can help children develop social skills such as personal bonding, teamwork, communication, and peer mentoring. the type of traditional game used in this intervention differs from previous research. traditional games used include indonesian classics such as “cublak-cublak suweng,” “clogs,” “cardboard bridge,” “jump rope,” and “word game.”. method the method used in this research was the single-subject experimental study. this approach was used to carefully observe and investigate an event, process, and individual activity (creswell, 2014) and things of interest to the researcher (gall et al., 2003). the participant was a 6-year-old kindergarten student. data were collected through observation and interviews with participants, family members, teachers, and colleagues. information about the participant can also be obtained using psychological tools such as intellectual and socialization. data is analyzed based on the 32 characteristics of previous and subsequent social capacity changes. the method used can be seen in table 1. table 1. assessment method assessment aspect method subject location biography interview parents home cognitive skill interview teacher school intelligence psychological test: cpm participant school emotion expression of emotion observation participant school & home participant motivation interview participant school social social interaction observation participant school & home social maturity psychological test: vsms participant school parenting style interview parent home participant perception interview participant school intelligence is the ability to accept information from the environment. the test used in this case is coloured progressive matrices (cpm). this test consists of 36 questions grouped into three series, a, ab, and b. this test can be used for children aged 5-11 years. based on the result of the intelligence test conducted on kila, it could be seen that kila has an intelligence level in the grade ii percentile 95, which is categorized as above average (cpm scale). this indicated that kila could perform cognitive tasks equivalent to her age. the vineland social maturity (vsms) measures the differential social capacities of an individual. this test estimates social age (s.a.) and social quotient (s.q.) and shows a high correlation with intelligence. this test is designed to measure social maturation in eight social areas: self help general (shg), self help eating (she), self help dressing (shd), self direction (s.d.), occupation (occ), communication (com), locomotion (lom), and socialization (soc). this scale consists of 89 test items grouped into year levels. vsms can be used for the age group of 0-15 years. table 2. the result of the vsms test aspects finding in kila self-help general kila could take care of herself when going to eat but still assisted in toilet training. self-help eating kila has been able to distinguish food, chew, spoon food, and take a drink but has not been able to use a knife to cut something. self-help dressing kila could take off socks, jackets, and clothes, but kila still needed help fitting and polishing the clothes. locomotion kila could move her position and walk downstairs, but kila has never played outside the house with peers or neighbors. occupation kila was able to write, pick up familiar objects and play. communication kila could make sounds, imitate voices, and follow instructions but does not read based on her initiative. self-direct kila has not been able to direct herself personally, such as being able to use the money well. socialization kila could interact with family but could not establish interactions with friends around the house and school. based on the vsms test conducted on kila, the result showed that kila has a social maturity below her chronological age. the social maturity of kila is equivalent to the age of 5 years, while the chronological age of kila when testing is 6 years and 4 months. this indicated that her social maturity is above her chronological age. the aspects of social maturity can be seen in table 2. it can be seen that kila was already independent in terms of bathing, eating, dressing, and sleeping without assistance. kila has also been able to communicate, direct herself, and move positions from one place to another. kila still has trouble interacting with peers both at home and school. 33 result the problem with kila was establishing social interaction with peers at school. kila just approached the teacher and security. she did not join the other children. this also happened in class. she just sat and listened to the teacher without communicating with her friends. when taking a break, kila did not play with her friends. kila was only staying in class or following the teacher or security at the playground. in contrast, education in kindergarten is directed at developing children’s potential through the stages of growth and development through play activities while learning. in this case, kila has a problem with her social relationship with her peers. one of the changes experienced by children in their developmental phase is social development. the increasingly complex interactions of children mark this development, so it requires them to make adaptations continuously. children from 2 to 6 years old learn to make social relationships and associate with people outside the home environment, especially with peers (hurlock, 2017). according to hurlock (2017), this includes (1) showing concern and care for others; (2) knowing the difference between right and wrong; (3) being able to act according to social norms; and (4) learning from and socializing with a peer. each child is expected to be able to get along with others and adjust to their new environment based on their social development. in this case, social skills in children are fundamental to development. individual skills in starting or maintaining a positive relationship in social interaction are called “social skills.” in this case, the social skill development of kila is still hampered. based on their family background, kila has working parents. her parents are busy, so they are rarely at home. kila was taken care of with assistance. she rarely establishes intense communication with her parents. children’s social skills are influenced by their socialization process with parents, starting at an early age. parents play a role in teaching children social skills and forming relationships with the environment, especially with peers (hetherington et al., 2005). in this case, parents paid less attention to kila’s social development at school. not only at school but also at home, kila did not have peers. she only played at home with her sister’s assistance. her sister has the same problem as her. however, compared to her sister, kila is more likely to dominate when they play together. kila is more talkative than her sister. her parents, who are working parents, did not have time to pay attention and provide opportunities for kila to interact with her peers. kila is also reminded to play only with teachers at school. this causes kila to interact with other people rarely. according to hurlock (2017), several factors influence the social development of children. one of the factors is the family factor. the family is the first social group in the child’s environment. social interaction in a family is based on the sympathy humans develop when they first learn to pay attention to others, work together, and help others. the experience of social interaction in the family also determines the behavior of other people in social life outside the family. another factor influencing her social life is her early social experiences, which determine her personality. when she entered the school for the first time, kila looked different from her other friends. she did not respond to the teacher, did not involve herself in communication, and then took a break. she did not join in and make friends. in this case, the role of the teacher is crucial in her social development. the teacher did not try to involve kila in talking and playing in class. the dynamics of the case can be seen in figure 1. 34 figure 1 the dynamic case based on the assessment’s result, it can be concluded that kila still lacks social skills. according to elksnin & elksnin (2011), the characteristic of social skills are: table 3. the characteristics of social skills characteristics finding in kila interpersonal behavior kila was not able to make friends. self behavior kila was not able to understand people’s feelings. academic behavior kila was able to do her assignment well. peer acceptance kila was passive and did not participate in group activities or share and give information. communication skill kila was never an active listener and did not give her peers and teacher feedback. developing a formulation involves eliciting and identifying relevant information, which is then arranged according to some theoretical or explanatory model to understand the origins, development, and or maintenance of the presenting problem (tarrier & calam, 2002). the formulations that can be structured in this case are mini formulations highlighting the relationship between two elements in the cbt cycle. these are particularly useful during the early stages of therapy. kila’s intervention method is cognitive behavior therapy, which involves her in traditional cooperative games with her peers. the parents and teacher are also given a counseling section. the intervention methods used a cognitive behavioral approach. this method is based on “think good feel good” by stallard (2016). this approach is proven effective for solving children’s problems such as school refusal (king et al., 1998), anxiety (silverman, 1999), phobia (silverman, 1999), and other behavioral problems at school (stallard, 2016). the method used is through play. the counseling intervention method used with clients uses a cognitive-behavioral approach. this method is based on stallard’s think good, feel good guidebook (2016). the steps taken in the cbt process, according to stallard (2016), are as follows: 1) find out the participants’ negative thoughts; 2) explain a specific situation; 3) ask questions about “what other people might think or feel” using images as media; 4) oppose the participants’ negative thoughts with what people might think and feel and do with the media of images; 5) use dolls as a symbol or self-representation of the client; 6) ask about new internal factors family factors school environmental factors • withdrawal • passive • introvert • did not motivate a child to socialize at home and school • there is no rule at home • there is no effort to make child more active when playing low social skills • being passive at the group • not respond to other • there is no initiative • just silent at class 35 thoughts and feelings that are felt when in the same situation. therapists can dispute the negative thoughts of children through drawing, playing with toys, and storytelling. in this case, a therapist used a drawing book, puppets, and storytelling to dispute kila’s negative thoughts about her friend and school. according to salmon & bryan (2002), preschoolers will represent themselves in puppets as their symbols. figure 2 the formulations of problem function according to parten (in papalia, 2008), cooperative games are games in which a group organizes to achieve specific goals, such as making something, playing a formal game, or dramatizing a situation, with one child controlling the group members and directing activity. each child takes on a different role and complements the others. cooperative games help improve positive social interaction (sapon, 1968). this game includes (a) children playing with other peers; (b) sharing their toys and turning away from using toys; (c) helping other people; and (d) talking about friend strengths rather than friend weaknesses. according to nugraha and yeni (2004), cooperative games involve a group of children, with each child assigned a specific role. in this case, the intervention used the cooperative games module created by maresha (2011). it was easy to ask kila to join the games. kila trusted me and started to be active at games. another advantage for me was that the intervention was done at school. the school provided many tools i could use, such as boxes, bakiaks, string, and other tools. then, i could invite kila’s friends to join the games. it would help her adjust to the situation, especially after some interactions and communications with friends. the intervention can be seen in table 4. kila seems to be active at the moment. she was not cheated and could direct herself well. kila began to communicate and interact with peers, took turns for the game, and asked her friends to play the game. after playing, kila started to make a friend at the playground. where in the school playground what i think other children don’t like me the are not kind for me how i feel unhappy, sad what i do stand on my own don’t talk anyone don’t join game 36 table 4. cooperative games intervention process day name of games rules and techniques 1 cublak-cublak suweng children played this game in a group. children sang the song “cublak-cublak suweng” while they were rolling the stone above their hands. one child’s role was guessing the stone when the song ended. in this game, kila could involve and make a group with other children. the therapist supports kila in taking the role, and kila can be active in this game. she smiled and laughed during the game section. 2 clogs children were asked to pair up with each other. kila was paired with a friend whose initials were k. kila patiently waited for her turn. while playing, kila fell in the middle of the game. however, she got back up and continued the game. kila won the game and felt so happy. 3 cardboard bridge kila and her friends were asked to gather to play cooperative games, namely “cardboard bridge”. the researcher divided the six people into two groups and gave boxes to each group. the researcher then explained the rules. when the game was performed, kila could follow the rules well. she won at the first chance. kila was able to do based on the instructions. she could merge into the group and felt enjoy the game. 4 jump rope this game was played using string. kila and two of her friends were playing the game together. kila took turns playing this game. 5 word game the researcher said the sentences to one child, and the child would forward the sentences to other friends. kila could communicate and interact with other friends. the result of the intervention can be seen based on observation by the researcher during school. it can be seen in table 5. table 5. the result of observation after intervention moments kila’s behavior in a line kila took a line at the second order. kila took the initiative and began talking to her friend in front of her. they laughed one each other. take a break one of kila’s friends was sick, and kila visited her friend in the room. kila took the initiative to ask her friend and entertained her friend. kila shared her food with a friend in class. in the morning kila told the researcher about her friend. she started to communicate and talk to her friend. at class kila shared her pencil with a friend. kila took a turn using a computer and talked to her friend about the picture. in the playground kila used the games together with her peers. the change can be seen based on the following criteria of social skills stated by elksnin & elksnin (2011): table 6. the participant’s improvement in social skills characteristic before intervention after intervention interpersonal behavior kila was not able to make friends. kila made friends, took the initiative to talk with friends, and asked friends to sit together. self behavior kila was not able to understand people’s feeling kila visited her friend and entertained her friend. peer acceptance kila was passive and did not participate in group activities or share and give information. kila asked her friends to play together and use the computer together. communication skill kila was never an active listener and did not give her peers and teacher feedback. started to communicate with friends, listened actively, and gave feedback at the end of the intervention section, it can be seen that kila has changed to be a more active child. kila starts to make friends, has some interactions and communications at school, is involved in the games, and starts to take care of her friends. 37 the result of the intervention also can be seen based on cbt mini formulations in figure 3. figure 3. the changing formulations of problem function discussion the researcher found that the participant had a negative thoughts about her friends. the participant thought her friend was not kind, so she did not want to make friends. the participant was also advised by her parent to make friends with the teacher. it made the participant obey her mother. in addition, teachers at school also did not care and were less sensitive to her condition. the teacher did not encourage her to participate in play or class discussions. these factors cause the participant to have difficulties establishing interactions with others, indicating that the participant had fewer social skills. there has been considerable debate about the age at which children can participate in cbt. this argument focuses on the issue of whether young children have the cognitive platform necessary to engage in cbt or whether cbt has not been sufficiently adapted for them to access. in this case, the need to adapt cbt by using more nonverbal techniques. games provide a familiar medium for children. puppets provide a safe and engaging way of communicating with young children. they can be used for assessment and engage the child in role plays in which they can practice using more valuable coping skills. storytelling is another familiar way of communicating with children. there is significant variation in the specific treatment components, sequencing, and cognitive emphasis of intervention that fall under the general label of cbt. social learning theory become one of the subjects studied in human relationships and interactions with the environment. ulya (2012) suggests that the teacher still dominates the learning process in social learning and becomes the center. social learning helps children acquire knowledge, skills, care, express opinions, and act responsibly (gudzinskiene et al., 2017; sholikah et al.,2019). social skills are essential in children’s education (kuss et al.,2022; navarro-paton et al.,2022). social skills are a set of behaviors acquired through observation, modeling, practice, and feedback to learn and contain verbal and nonverbal behaviors (fathi et al., 2014). the result of this study showed that the participant’s social skills improved. one way to stimulate social skills in preschoolers is through traditional games. perdani (2014) proposed that the traditional game is played simultaneously or in groups, which is the power of the traditional game that prioritizes where in the school playground what i think friends are kind to me playing game with friends can make me happy how i feel happy what i do join with friends 38 social interaction in children. through play, children can learn several things, one of which is the social aspect children can develop. through traditional games, children can study, work together, and have characteristics of persistence, honesty, and sportsmanship (andriani, 2012). this study implied that cbt techniques and traditional games increase participants’ social abilities. this can be seen from the improvement in participants’ social skills, such as interpersonal behavior, self-behavior, academic behavior, peer acceptance, and communication skills. those traditional games could also improve kila’s social skills, especially in her interpersonal behavior, such as making friends, communicating, giving feedback to her peers, and being involved in some interactions and communications. this study has limitations, including the research design using a single experimental subject so that the results can not be generalized. in addition, the support of people around participants, such as peers, parents, and teachers, is a determining factor for the success of this research. the subject’s age is still in the early childhood category, so researchers must make great efforts when using cbt techniques because participants are in the pre-operational cognitive development stage. according to piaget (2010), at this stage, children are not yet able to use logic, change, or different ideas and thoughts, so children tend to use symbolic games to represent events. this is a challenge for other researchers when they want to use cbt techniques to intervene in children. conclusion based on the result, the study could be concluded that the participant’s social skills increased after the cognitive behavioural therapy (cbt) session and joined the traditional games session. there is an enhancement in the development of social skills that can be seen from the criteria of social skills stated by elksnin & elksnin (2011). participant possesses all of the characteristics of social skills, including; 1) interpersonal behavior, the participant was able to make friends, took the initiative to talk with friends, and asked friends to sit together; 2) in self-behavior, a participant visited her friend and entertained her friend; 3) in peer acceptance, a participant asked her friends to play together and use the computer together; and 4) in communication skill, a participant began to communicate with friends, listened, and asked friends to sit together. suggestions that can be given to future researchers are to use techniques other than cbt and traditional games to improve early childhood social skills. other techniques that can be used are role-playing, involving children in outbound activities, and project methods. this is because using cbt techniques is quite challenging in early childhood because the child’s cognitive development stage is still pre-operational. therefore other researchers can involve children in other motor and social activities. declaration acknowledgment the author thanked the participant, especially kila’s family and teacher, who supported this intervention. author contribution statement dinda permatasari harahap led the overall research design, conducted discussion processing, and wrote results and discussion. 39 funding statement this research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. data access statement the data described in this article can be accessed by contacting the first author. declaration of interest’s statement the author declares no conflict of interest. additional information no additional information is available for this paper. references andriani, t. (2012). permainan tradisional dalam membentuk karakter anak usia dini. jurnal sosial budaya, 9(1), 121–136. http://doi.org/10.24014/sb.v9i1.376 antony, m. m. & swinson. r. p. (2012). phobic disorder and panic in adults: a guide to assessment and treatment. american psychological association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10348-000 beck, j. s. (2005). cognitive therapy for challenging problems: what to do when the basics don’t work. guilford press. creswell, j. w. (2014). educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (4th ed.). pearson education, inc. elksnin, n & elksnin, l. k. m. (2011). adolescent with disabilities: the need for occupational social skills training. a special education journal, 9(1-2), 91-105. https://doi.org/10.1080/09362835.2001.9666993 fathi, s., fakoury, h., & bashiri guivi, h. (2014). review of theory of mind and social skills of educable mentallyretarded boys. iranian sociological review, 4(3), 35-40. gall, m. d., gall, j. p., & borg, w. r. (2003). educational research: an introduction (7th ed.). pearson education, inc. gudžinskienė, v., burvytė, s., & barkauskaitė, m. (2017). experiences of children day care centre specialists developing children’s social skills. pedagogika, 128(4), 128–146. https://doi.org/10.15823/p.2017.59 hurlock, e. b. (2017). psikologi perkembangan: suatu pendekatan sepanjang rentang kehidupan. erlangga. irmansyah, j., lumintuarso, r., sugiyanto, f. x., & sukoco, p. (2020). children’s social skills through traditional sport games in primary school. cakrawala pendidikan, 39(1), 39-50. https://doi.org/10.21831/cp.v39i1.28210 kibtiyah, m. (2003). efektivitas permainan kooperatif dalam meningkatkan keterampilan sosial anak taman kanak-kanak. [master thesis, universitas gadjah mada]. http://etd.repository.ugm.ac.id/penelitian/detail/22986 king, n. j., tonge, b. j., heyne, d., pritchard, m., rollings, s., young, d., myerson, n., & ollendick, t. h. (1998). cognitive-behavioral treatment of school-refusing children: a controlled evaluation. journal of the american academy of child and adolescent psychiatry, 37(4), 395–403. c10.1097/00004583-19980400000017 kuss, d. j., kristensen, a. m., williams, a. j., & lopez-fernandez, o. (2022). to be or not to be a female gamer: a qualitative exploration of female gamer identity. international journal of environmental research and public health, 19(3), 1169. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031169 http://doi.org/10.24014/sb.v9i1.376 https://doi.org/10.1037/10348-000 https://doi.org/10.1080/09362835.2001.9666993 https://doi.org/10.15823/p.2017.59 https://doi.org/10.21831/cp.v39i1.28210 http://etd.repository.ugm.ac.id/penelitian/detail/22986 https://doi.org/10.1097/00004583-199804000-00017 https://doi.org/10.1097/00004583-199804000-00017 https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031169 40 lestari, p. i. & prima, e. (2017). the implementation of traditional games to improve the social emotional early childhood. journal of educational science and technology, 3(3), 178–184. https://doi.org/10.26858/est.v3i3.4212 maresha, o. d. (2012). keefektifan permainan kooperatif dalam meningkatkan keterampilan sosial anak prasekolah di tk kemala bhayangkari 81 magelang. [undergraduate thesis, universitas negeri semarang]. http://lib.unnes.ac.id/7990/1/10154.pdf martin, g., & pear, j. (2003). behavior modification: what is and how to do it (7th ed). pearson. mcginn, l.k. (200). cognitive behavioral therapy of depression: theory, treatment, and empirical status. american journal of psychotherapy, 54(2), 254-260. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.psychotherapy.2000.54.2.257 navarro-patón, r., mecías-calvo, m., eirín-nemiña, r., & arufe-giráldez, v. (2022). disruptive behaviors in physical education: a matched study of social skills and sport practice in a region of spain. international journal of environmental research and public health, 19(3), 1166. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031166 nugraha, a. & rachmawati, y. (2004). metode pengembangan sosial emosional. pusat penerbitan universitas terbuka. papalia, d.e., old, s.w., feldman, & r.d. (2008). human development. prenada media group. parke, r. &, gauvin, m. (2005). child psychology: a contemporary viewpoint (7th ed.). mcgraw-hill education. perdani, p. (2014). peningkatan keterampilan sosial anak melalui permainan tradisional. jurnal pendidikan anak usia dini, 8(1), 129-136. salmon, k. & bryant, ra. (2002). posttraumatic stress disorder in children: the influence of developmental factors. clinical psychology, rev, 22(2), 163-88. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0272-7358(01)00086-1 sapon-shevin, m. (2004). teaching cooperative learning: the challenge for teacher education. state university of new york press. shinta, d.k.,syamsi, i., & haryanto. (2019). traditional games a media for character education inclusion elementary school. proceedings of the international conference on special and inclusive education (icsie 2018). https://doi.org/10.2991/icsie-18.2019.77 sholikah, m., yufiarti, & yetti, e. (2019). early childhood literacy skills: the effect of socioeconomic status, home literacy environment, and social skills. international journal of innovative technology and exploring engineering, 9(1), 3769–3775. https://doi.org/10.35940/ijitee.a4807.119119 silverman, w.k.(199). treating anxiety disorder in children with group cognitive behavioural therapy: a randomized clinical trial. journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 67(6), 995-1003. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-006x.67.6.995 stallard, p. (2016). think good feel good. using cbt with children and young people. john wiley & sons. sundel, m., sundel, s. (2005). behavior change in the human services: behavioral and cognitive principles and application (5th ed.). sage publications, inc. tarrier, n., & calam, r. (2002). new development in cognitive behavioral case formulation. epidemiological, systemic and social context: an integrative approach. behavioral and cognitive psychotherapy, 30, 311328. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1352465802003065 tasnim, a., damayanti, e., & afiif, a. (2022). development of social skills with traditional games: an experimentation with the game mallogo. jurnal ilmiah tumbuh kembang anak usia dini, 7(1), 23-32 ulya, h., masrukan, & kartono. (2012). keefektifan penerapan model pembelajaran kooperatif tipe probing prompting dengan penilaian produk. unnes journal of mathematic education, 1(1), 26-31. https://doi.org/10.15294/ujme.v1i1.257 https://doi.org/10.26858/est.v3i3.4212 http://lib.unnes.ac.id/7990/1/10154.pdf https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.psychotherapy.2000.54.2.257 https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031166 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0272-7358(01)00086-1 https://doi.org/10.2991/icsie-18.2019.77 https://doi.org/10.35940/ijitee.a4807.119119 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006x.67.6.995 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1352465802003065 https://doi.org/10.15294/ujme.v1i1.257 inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research https://journal.iainlangsa.ac.id/index.php/inspira how to cite (apa 7th edition) wiroko, e. p., & sugiharti, d. (2022). gratitude and work engagement: the mediating role of employee resilience. inspira: indonesian journal of psychological research, 3(2), 38–50. https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i2.4848 this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial 4.0 international (cc by-nc 4.0) copyright ©2022 by endro puspo wiroko & dwi sugiharti research article gratitude and work engagement: the mediating role of employee resilience https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i2.4848 endro puspo wiroko1, dwi sugiharti2 1 department of psychology, universitas pancasila, the special capital region of jakarta, indonesia 2 college of business, law, & governance, james cook university, queensland, australia corresponding author: endro puspo wiroko (email: endro.puspowiroko@univpancasila.ac.id) abstract this study explores the relationship between perceived gratitude and work engagement in indonesia and examines whether employee resilience mediates the relationship between perceived gratitude and work engagement. this study utilizes an online self-administered questionnaire that includes established measures associated with perceived gratitude, employee resilience, and work engagement – in addition to various demographic questions. the study sample consists of 205 respondents working as merchandisers in fast moving consumer goods (fmcg) field under outsourcing companies. this study applies a mediation model in hayes process to examine the data. the findings suggest that perceived gratitude is positively related to employee resilience, while employee resilience is positively associated with work engagement. in addition, employee resilience mediates the relationship between perceived gratitude and work engagement. based on the findings, outsourcing companies are encouraged to deliver workplace-perceived gratitude training to make their employees psychologically resilient, leading to more engagement at work. the present study’s findings contribute to the literature on work engagement by explaining how perceived gratitude as a bottom-up strategy can help employees be more engaged in their work. article history: received 07 october 2022 revised 30 november 2022 accepted 05 december 2022 keywords: employee resilience; hayes process; perceived gratitude; positive organizational psychology; work engagement introduction work engagement has become an important topic of interest for academics and practitioners (h. chen et al., 2020; van mol et al., 2018; zheng et al., 2020). work engagement is an excellent antecedent of favorable organizational success (bakker & albrecht, 2018); for example, employee productivity (bakker et al., 2012), company’s bottom line (xanthopoulou et al., 2009), workgroup effort (rahmadani et al., 2020), intention to quit (lee et al., 2019) and sense of satisfaction at work (orgambídez-ramos & de almeida, 2017). it is imperative for organizations to make sure that their employees are fully engaged since the human resources feature is pivotal to organizations’ productivity (lu et al., 2014). during the covid-19 pandemic, work engagement has become an important issue due to its impact on productivity (ojo et al., 2021). the covid-19 pandemic has impacted all economic sectors https://doi.org/10.32505/inspira.v3i2.4848 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9686-4177 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9731-3032 39 in all countries, including indonesia. moreover, one of the business sectors significantly affected by the pandemic is fast-moving consumer goods (fmcg). the pandemic hit this industry because it relies on physical stores, and the trading process can be done offline only (asmara, 2021). by the time this research was ongoing, the government had made restrictions to prevent the virus from spreading further, allowing only 50% of customers to visit the stores with shorter operational hours (asmara, 2021). such restrictions have made fmcg face structural changes such as stay-at-home consumption, health and well-being, and sustainability, making the industrial performance of the fmcg sector paint unfavorable results. as frontier manages the layout of products to attract customers, merchandisers contribute to the sales team’s performance. merchandisers work by connecting customers with featured products (arviana, 2021). many merchandisers work under third-party contracts or are usually known as outsourcing employees. the covid situation has impacted the work engagement level of these workers. due to the pandemic, downsizing has been done in many companies, and employees with the lowest employment status are prone to dismissal. therefore, an effort to foster work engagement among merchandisers in fmcg companies is vital to be investigated further. organizations can support their employees’ work engagement using top-down and bottom-up approaches (bakker, 2017). the first means involve transformational leadership interventions and strategic human resources practices. the second means taken into account include individual efforts, for instance, crafting the job, self-help, using a strong personal point, and deploying ego capacities. organizations are able to determine which strategy is excellent for supporting both environmental and personal resources. this research uses gratitude as the bottom-up approach to predict work engagement. previously, gratitude is used in the context of sports (gabana et al., 2022) and depressive symptoms in adolescence (scott et al., 2021). and many other life settings. today, gratitude is essential in supporting workplace productivity (nourpanah, 2021) since it is considered one of the positive psychology variables at work (mills et al., 2013). furthermore, gratitude impacts work engagement (k. kim et al., 2020). gratitude is considered one of the positive virtues at work (iavicoli et al., 2018). employees who show gratitude are most likely to have a positive religious identity, which will positively impact their well-being at work (donaldson et al., 2019; héliot et al., 2019). although it is clear that workplace gratitude has a positive correlation with work engagement, this study argues that there is a mediating mechanism between gratitude and work engagement. employee resilience is the mediating variable between gratitude and work engagement. resilience is getting more attention due to its application in the workplace (delgado et al., 2021; samo et al., 2021; talavera-velasco et al., 2021). many studies explain the association between gratitude and resilience. first, gratitude appears to be a significant predictor of resilience among undergraduate students (gupta & kumar, 2015). second, gratitude intervention has improved resilience among adolescents (lijo & annalakshmi, 2017). third, gratitude impacts psychological counselors’ resilience (arnout & almoied, 2021). fourth, gratitude interventions are also essential to enhance resilience among adolescents with divorced parents (shabrina et al., 2020). finally, gratitude impacts psychological resilience in adolescents (du et al., 2021; kong et al., 2021) and military veterans (mcguire et al., 2021). employees who show gratitude enable themselves to work effectively in social environments (bono & sender, 2018). by showing gratitude, they will be more resilient in achieving important work goals. cultivating grateful behavior may help to build resilience in facing challenges (jans-beken et al., 2020). 40 employees will endure more when meeting obstacles at work, so resilience becomes an imperative variable regarding mental health at work. moreover, many other studies also explain the association between resilience and work engagement. for example, resilience is found to have a direct effect on working engagement in various occupations (kašpárková et al., 2018), hemodialysis nurses (cao & chen, 2021a, 2021b), nurses (clark et al., 2021), academic and university staffs (okun & arun, 2020), village doctors (zhang et al., 2021), and employees in portugal (cantante-rodrigues et al., 2021). being resilient can stimulate one’s engagement at work (ojo et al., 2021), so resilience is vital in supporting work engagement, especially during tough times. based on previous findings, this research aims to investigate the mediating effect of resilience in the gratitude-work engagement relationship. finally, the authors stated the research problem: can employee resilience mediate between gratitude and work engagement? work engagement is generally defined as a positive work-related state of mind characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption (demerouti et al., 2001). vigour is when an employee shows vital energy and psychological durability at work. dedication is noticed by an employee when he or she feels that the job is inspiring and significant. lastly, absorption is defined as delivering complete immersion and a profound connection with the job. therefore, engaged employees deliver optimum energy and intense focus and are happily occupied finishing their tasks (hakanen et al., 2018). the concept of work engagement was first introduced by kahn (1990) as the “harnessing of organizational members’ selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances.” it stated that employees possess different roles in organizations and work on their roles by using different degrees of themselves, cognitively, physically, and emotionally (kahn, 1990). for example, a personally engaged employee can be seen as someone who shows physical involvement, cognitive awareness, and an empathetic connection with co-workers. previous research has indicated that work engagement has a positive association with physical/mental health (schleupner & kühnel, 2021), work performance (w. kim et al., 2013; suzuki et al., 2015), well-being (garg & singh, 2020; rusu & colomeischi, 2020), while it has negative association with burnout and turnover (ivanovic et al., 2020; santhanam & srinivas, 2020). in general, gratitude is appreciating valuable and meaningful things in one’s life. it is one of the positive psychology concepts that employees can apply in the workplace (beck, 2016; cortini et al., 2019). this concept is relevant to employee well-being and functioning as it has increased life satisfaction (kong et al., 2015; yildirim & alanazi, 2018) and individual self-esteem (l. h. chen & wu, 2014; lin, 2015). as people spend most of their time in the workplace, gratitude has become essential to be more engaged with the workload (emmons & mccullough, 2003). previous studies have highlighted the relationships between gratitude with the increased motivation and behavior (grant & gino, 2010; mccullough et al., 2001), increased well-being through fulfilling psychological needs (froh et al., 2008; killen & macaskill, 2015), increased productivity in the working place (patil et al., 2018; stegen & wankier, 2018), and increased helping behavior (sawyer et al., 2021). resilience is evidently beneficial for employees to adapt to unpredictable and exigent working circumstances where work roles are mentally arduous (marques-qui