The malleability of stigmatizing attitudes: Combining imagined social contact with implicit attitude feedback

© 2016, Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Research is reported that examines whether imagined social contact combined with implicit attitude feedback may be an effective intervention for inducing changes in attitudes toward mental ill health. The Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) captured participants’ implicit attitudes toward individuals with a mental illness and provided a measure of attitude bias. Forty-eight participants (17 male, 95.8% White British) were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions: (1) Imagined social contact with implicit attitude feedback, (2) imagined social contact without feedback, (3) control with feedback, and (4) control without feedback. This resulted in a data set detailing 12,288 implicit responses, with each participant completing 256 IRAP trials. Participants then completed an attitude change assessment 24 hours later. Results revealed that imagined social contact was successful in changing implicit attitudes, with the addition of implicit attitude feedback further strengthening participants’ positive attitudes toward mental ill health. Explicit attitudes remained unaffected. These findings are the first to highlight the practical importance of combining imagined social contact with implicit attitude feedback to improve attitudes toward out-groups who are stigmatized

Psychological Flexibility, ACT, and Organizational Behavior

This paper offers organizational behavior management (OBM) a behavior analytically consistent way to expand its analysis of, and methods for changing, organizational behavior. It shows how Relational Frame Theory (RFT) suggests that common, problematic, psychological processes emerge from language itself, and they produce psychological inflexibility. Research suggests that an applied extension of RFT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, has led to new interventions that increase psychological flexibility and, thereby enhance, organizational behavior and health

A functional-cognitive framework for attitude research

In attitude research, behaviours are often used as proxies for attitudes and attitudinal processes. This practice is problematic because it conflates the behaviours that need to be explained (explanandum) with the mental constructs that are used to explain these behaviours (explanans). In the current chapter we propose a meta-theoretical framework that resolves this problem by distinguishing between two levels of analysis. According to the proposed framework, attitude research can be conceptualised as the scientific study of evaluation. Evaluation is defined not in terms of mental constructs but in terms of elements in the environment, more specifically, as the effect of stimuli on evaluative responses. From this perspective, attitude research provides answers to two questions: (1) Which elements in the environment moderate evaluation? (2) What mental processes and representations mediate evaluation? Research on the first question provides explanations of evaluative responses in terms of elements in the environment (functional level of analysis); research on the second question offers explanations of evaluation in terms of mental processes and representations (cognitive level of analysis). These two levels of analysis are mutually supportive, in that better explanations at one level lead to better explanations at the other level. However, their mutually supportive relation requires a clear distinction between the concepts of their explanans and explanandum, which are conflated if behaviours are treated as proxies for mental constructs. The value of this functional-cognitive framework is illustrated by applying it to four central questions of attitude research

The Study of Rule-Governed Behavior and Derived Stimulus Relations: Bridging the Gap

The concept of rule-governed behavior or instructional control has been widely recognized for many decades within the behavior-analytic literature. It has also been argued that the human capacity to formulate and follow increasingly complex rules may undermine sensitivity to direct contingencies of reinforcement, and that excessive reliance upon rules may be an important variable in human psychological suffering. Although the concept of rules would appear to have been relatively useful within behavior analysis, it seems wise from time to time to reflect upon the utility of even well-established concepts within a scientific discipline. Doing so may be particularly important if it begins to emerge that the existing concept does not readily orient researchers toward potentially important variables associated with that very concept. The primary purpose of this article is to engage in this reflection. In particular, we will focus on the link that has been made between rule-governed behavior and derived relational responding, and consider the extent to which it might be useful to supplement talk of rules or instructions with terms that refer to the dynamics of derived relational responding

Metric analysis of the information visibility and diffusion about the European Higher Education Area on Spanish university websites.

The purpose of the study proposed in this paper is to evaluate the Spanish public university websites dedicated to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). To do so, the quality of these resources has been analysed in the light of data provided by a series of indicators grouped in seven criteria, most of which were used to determine what information is made available and in what way. The criteria used in our analysis are: visibility, authority, updatedness, accesibility, correctness and completeness, quality assessment and navigability. All in all, the results allow us to carry out an overall diagnosis of the situation and also provide us with information about the situation at each university, thus revealing their main strengths, namely authority and navegability, and also their chief shortcomings: updatedness, accessibility and quality assessment. In this way it is possible to detect the best practices in each of the aspects evaluated so that they can serve as an example and guide for universities with greater deficiencies and thus help them to improve their EHEA websites

The oceanography and marine ecology of Ningaloo, a world heritage area

The Ningaloo coast of north-western Australia (eastern Indian Ocean) hosts one of the world’s longest and most extensive fringing coral reef systems, along with globally significant abundances of large marine fauna such as whale sharks. These characteristics – which have contributed to its inscription on the World Heritage list – exist because of the unique climatic, geomorphologic and oceanographic conditions. The region is hot and arid, so runoff of water from land is low, facilitating clear water that allows corals to grow close to the shore. The poleward-flowing Leeuwin Current is an important influence, bringing warm water and generally suppressing coastal upwelling. During the austral summer, strong southerly winds generate the equatorward-flowing Ningaloo Current on the inner shelf – this current facilitates sporadic upwelling events that enhance concentrations of nutrients, which in turn enhance pelagic primary productivity that supports the reef’s biota. The coast has experienced several marine heatwaves since 2011 that have caused mortality of corals and probably seagrass, albeit relatively less than elsewhere along the coast. Wind-generated surface waves break over the fringing reef crest, causing cooling currents that tend to dampen warming – although this mechanism seems not to have prevented some areas from experiencing damaging heat, and corals in places that do not receive the wave-generated currents have experienced substantial mortality. Herbivores, from fish to green turtles, are abundant, and in the lagoon, extensive stands of large brown algae provide an important habitat for newly recruited fish. There has been a decline in abundance of some fish. Predictions of future pressures include a weaker but more variable Leeuwin Current and increased human use. The ability of Ningaloo’s ecosystems to withstand growing pressures will depend partly on the rate and magnitude of global warming but also on actions that manage local pressures from increasing human use. These actions will rely on continued science to provide the evidence needed to identify the pressures, the changes they create and the ways that we can mitigate them

Assessment and treatment of distorted schemas in sexual offenders

The aim of this review is to examine the literature related to the assessment and treatment of sex offenders’ distorted schemas. Where appropriate, the review draws upon current insights from the field of social cognition to aid in the critical evaluation of the findings. First, the review considers the various different methodologies for assessing distorted schemas, discussing their strengths and limitations. Second, the review examines the work related to the treatment of sex offenders’ schemas. Suggestions for future research, and the implications for clinical practice, are highlighted in the article

Chapter 4 The Oceanography and Marine Ecology of Ningaloo, A World Heritage Area

The Ningaloo coast of north-western Australia (eastern Indian Ocean) hosts one of the world’s longest and most extensive fringing coral reef systems, along with globally-significant abundances of large marine fauna such as whale sharks. These characteristics — which have contributed to its inscription on the World Heritage list — exist because of the unique climatic, geomorphologic and oceanographic conditions. The region is hot and arid, so runoff of water from land is low, facilitating clear water that allows corals to grow close to the shore. The poleward-flowing Leeuwin Current is an important influence, bringing warm water and generally suppressing coastal upwelling. During the austral summer, strong southerly winds generate the equatorward-flowing Ningaloo Current on the inner shelf — this current facilitates sporadic upwelling events that enhance concentrations of nutrients, which in turn enhances pelagic primary productivity that supports the reef’s biota. The coast has experienced several marine heatwaves since 2011 that have caused mortality of corals, and probably seagrass, albeit relatively less than elsewhere along the coast. Wind-generated surface waves break over the fringing reef crest, causing cooling currents that tend to dampen warming — although this mechanism seems not to have prevented some areas from experiencing damaging heat, and corals in places that do not experience the wave-generated currents have experienced substantial mortality. Herbivores, from fish to green turtles, are abundant, and in the lagoon extensive stands of large brown algae provide an important habitat for newly-recruited fish. There has been a decline in abundance of some fish. Predictions of future pressures include a weaker but more variable Leeuwin Current, and increased human use. The ability of Ningaloo’s ecosystems to withstand growing pressures will depend partly on the rate and magnitude of global warming, but also on actions that manage local pressures from increasing human use. These actions will rely on continued science to provide the evidence needed to identify the pressures, the changes they create and the ways that we can mitigate them

Spin transport in germanium at room temperature

Spin-dependent transport is investigated in a Ni/Ge/AlGaAs junction with an electrodeposited Ni contact. Spin-polarized electrons are excited by optical spin orientation and are subsequently used to measure the spin dependent conductance at the Ni/Ge Schottky interface. We demonstrate electron spin transport and electrical extraction from the Ge layer at room temperature. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3505337