Effect of Psychological Hardiness Training on Mental Health of Students

Mental health is one of the most important components of life (Richards, Campania, Muse-Burke, 2010), a situation which in turn is mainly determined by personality characteristics. Whenever the construct, mental health, is threatened, all facets of life, personal, family, social, will be disturbed. However, people are not the same in terms of their reaction to daily life problems and one of the effective variables in this regard is psychological hardiness.According to Kobasa (1979), hardiness, a personality style, is a set of believes about self and the world. It has three components, commitment, control and challenge. The first component, commitment, is defined as a tendency to being involved in daily life activities and an internal interest and curiosity around world including society, things as well as people. The second one, control, is defined as a tendency to believe and behave to effect on the events which occur around the person. The last one, challenge, is defined as a belief to change and avoid of stagnation which in turn can lead to personal growth or a threat to security. Maddi(2004) viewed hardiness as a construct with the three mentioned components or attitudes that together make people able to turn stressful situations from potential threats into opportunities. However, Bartone (2006) defines hardiness as something more global than mere attitudes. He conceives of hardiness as a broad personality style or generalized mode of functioning that includes cognitive, emotional, and behavioural qualities.