This study highlights the effectiveness of symbolic modeling (SM) in improving subjective happiness and optimism among a sample of Syrian female refugees studying at a government primary school in Jordan. This research included thirty Syrian female refugees enrolled in the eighth grade at a public primary school in Jordan. They were randomly assigned to two equal groups: the experimental group (which received SM) and the control group (which did not receive any treatment). All participants receiving SM met for seven treatment sessions. The sessions lasted eighty minutes and occurred twice a week for four weeks. A scale for measuring subjective happiness and another for measuring optimism were used to achieve the study’s objectives. The data was analyzed using Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA). Results showed that the pretest scores were similar between groups, indicating that any differences observed in the post-test scores can be attributed to the intervention rather than pre-existing differences. There were significant differences between the two groups in the mean scores on both scales at the post-test, where considerable improvement (F(1,28) = 175.088, p 0.001, η2 = 0.862) in happiness score was noted for the SM group (13.87 ± 1.77) compared to the control group (6.60 ± 1.18). Further, the optimism score for the SM group (20.93 ± 1.28) was significantly higher (F(1,28) = 342.868, p 0.001, η2 = 0.925) than the control group (12.60 ± 1.18) in the post-test. These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of SM as a low-cost, practical intervention for improving psychological well-being in refugee students, suggesting its potential as a tool for enhancing emotional resilience in vulnerable populations.
Ababneh et al. (Fri,) studied this question.