The Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Hostile Attribution Bias, Anger Rumination, and Anger Suppression in Women with Physical–Motor Disabilities

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on hostile attribution bias, anger rumination, and anger suppression in women with physical–motor disabilities. The research employed a quasi-experimental design with a pretest–posttest control group. The statistical population included women aged 20 to 30 years with physical–motor disabilities residing in Bushehr County. Using purposive sampling, 30 participants were selected and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups (15 participants in each group). The ACT intervention was administered to the experimental group over eight sessions, each lasting 90 minutes, while the control group received no intervention. The instruments used included the Hostile Attribution Bias Questionnaire (HDS; Arnot et al., 2003), the Anger Rumination Scale (ARS; Sukhodolsky et al., 2001), and the State–Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI-2; Spielberger, 1993). The Acceptance and Commitment Therapy protocol developed by Bond et al. (2011) was implemented in eight 90-minute weekly group sessions for the experimental group. Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA). The findings indicated that, after controlling for pretest effects, there was a statistically significant difference at the 0.05 level between the experimental and control groups in posttest scores of hostile attribution bias, anger rumination, and anger suppression. Therefore, the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy approach can be considered an effective intervention for women with physical–motor disabilities.