Abstract:
Rebellious behaviour is the disposition of individuals to resist or revolt against established
authority. Extant literature show that students in Nigerian universities exhibit rebellious
behaviour. Previous studies had concentrated more on psychosocial and environmental
factors influencing rebellious behaviour than on interventions such as solution-focused and
dialectical behaviour. This study, therefore, was carried out to investigate the effects of
Solution-Focused Therapy (SFT) and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) in the reduction
of rebellious behaviour among undergraduates in the South-West, Nigeria. The moderating
effects of emotional intelligence and peer pressure were also examined.
The study was anchored to Bandura Social Learning Theory, while the pretest-posttest
control group quasi-experimental design with a 3x2x2 factorial matrix was adopted. The
multistage sampling procedure was used. Three states (Oyo, Lagos and Osun) were randomly
selected out of the six states in the South-West, Nigeria. The simple random sampling was
used to select three federal universities (Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, University of
Ibadan, Ibadan and University of Lagos, Lagos) in the selected states. The students were
screened with Rebellious Scale and those who fell within the range of 40 – 50 participated.
The instruments used were Rebellious Behaviour (α =0.88), Emotional Intelligence (α =0.73)
and Peer Pressure (α =0.81) scales. The participants in the schools were randomly assigned to
SFT (21), DBT (24) and control (28) groups. The treatment lasted nine weeks. Data were
analysed using Analysis of covariance and Bonferonni post-hoc test at 0.05 level of
significance.
There was a significant main effect of treatment on rebellious behaviour among
undergraduates (F (2, 69) = 359.32; partial η2= 0 .91). The participants in DBT displayed the
lowest rebellious behaviour (27.86), followed by those in SFT (31.15) and control (58.13)
groups. There was a significant main effect of treatment and emotional intelligence on
rebellious behaviour (F (1; 70)= 4.19; partial η2= 0.06). The participants with high emotional
intelligence in DBT had a lower mean score (33.66) than those with low emotional
intelligence (43.55) group. There was a significant main effect of treatment and peer pressure
on rebellious behaviour (F (1; 70) = 6.11; partial η2= 0.8). The participants with low peer
pressure displayed lower mean score (39.17) than those with high peer pressure (46.74)
group. There was a significant interaction effect of treatment and emotional intelligence on
rebellious behaviour among undergraduates (F (2; 66) =16.74; partial η2=0.34) in favour of
participants with high emotional intelligence in the SFT group. There was a significant
interaction effect of treatment and peer pressure on rebellious behaviour among
undergraduates (F (2; 66) = 9. 62; partial η2=0.23) in favour of the participants with low peer
pressure. There was no significant interaction effect of emotional intelligence and peer
pressure. The three-way interaction effect was not significant.
Dialectical behaviour, more than solution-focused, psychotherapy was effective in the
reduction of rebellious behaviour among undergraduates in the South-West, Nigeria with
emphasis on emotional intelligence and peer pressure. Counselling and Educational
Psychologists and other helping professionals should utilise these interventions to reduce
rebellious behaviour among undergraduates.
