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

We described the development of a taxonomy of Persian personality-descriptive terms in two studies. In Study 1, judges scanned Persian dictionaries and several Persian novels for person-descriptive terms. The resulting set of person-descriptive terms was classified into different categories of description, including the category of dispositional trait-descriptive adjectives. Of the 544 most familiar traits, 126 traits were selected to collect self-ratings. In Study 2, self-ratings were provided by 2400 students. Ratings were factor analysed (Principal Components Analysis) followed by Varimax rotation. Factor structures with two to six factors were discussed. The two-factor structure and the three-factor structure confirm the Big Two and the Big Three, respectively. Of the structures with five and six factors, the five-factor structure appears to be the more appropriate choice, with the factors labelled Morality, Positive versus Negative Emotionality, Achievement, Thoughtfulness and Affection. Gender differences were measured on both the five-factor structure and the six-factor structure. The discussion section emphasised both cross-cultural commonalities and cultural deviations in reference to the Big Five.

It was concluded that the relationship between conscientiousness and mental health/mental illness is more a non-linear relationship than a linear one.

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Background: Patients' perceptions of illness can influence their compliance with medical recommendations and, consequently, their perceived quality of life. Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate illness perception in patients diagnosed with coronary heart disease (CHD). Methods: This cross-sectional correlational study was conducted on 300 individuals with CHD, who were selected from the specialized heart clinics affiliated with Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences in 2018 using the convenient method. The researcher used the brief illness perception questionnaire (B-IPQ), the coping schemas inventory (CSI), and a 3-item questionnaire (designed by the researcher) to collect data. The Data were analyzed by the Structural Equation Modeling Modeling (path analysis) in LISREL based on the Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) at P < 0.01 and P < 0.05. Results: A total of 60% of the individuals aged between 30 to 65, including 60.3% male and 39.7% female. Based on the research model, paths of coping strategies directly affected the perceived quality of life. Illness cognition directly impacts coping strategies and indirectly affects the perceived quality of life through the mediating role of managing strategies. Based on the evaluation of SRMI, perceived quality of life can be predictive through coping strategies and illness cognition. Conclusions: Based on the results, patients should be informed about their illness’s cognitive components and adaptive coping strategies, including situational coping strategies, coping by social support, acceptance, and active emotional expression coping to improve their quality of life.