Resumo

MARTINEZ SERRANO, Patricia  e  SIERRA, Juan Carlos. Effects of self-help book reading on some psychological variables in a non-clinic sample. Univ. Psychol. [online]. 2005, vol.4, n.2, pp.197-204. ISSN 1657-9267.

Over the last decades there has been an important increase in the use of self-help literature. The present research evaluates the effect of self-help books on anxiety, fear of negative evaluation, dysfunctional attitudes and assertive behaviour. These variables were assessed in a 20 healthy volunteers before and after reading the self-help book (experimental group) and in a 20 healthy volunteers who did not read any self-help book (control group). While the experimental group improved their scores in anxiety, fear of negative evaluation, and dysfunctional attitudes, the control group did not show any statistically significant differences between pre- and post-scores, except in fear of negative evaluation. In general, the effect size (Cohen’s d) and the percentage of change was higher in the experimental group than in the control group. These results show the therapeutic benefits of this sort of literature in non-clinical population. Implications for the improvement of psychological variables are discussed.

Palavras-chave : Self-help Books; anxiety; fear of negative evaluation; non-clinical population; quasi-experiment.

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