London gets in on the ACT

Last November, over 250 people from 15 countries gathered at the Mermaid Conference Centre in London for the first UK ACT Conference. The Conference was jointly organised by the BABCP Acceptance & Commitment Therapy Special Interest Group (ACT SIG) and the UK & Ireland Chapter of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS). ACT SIG Committee member Miles Thompson, who attended the Conference, reports

Tough Choices: How Principals Sustain Response to Intervention Programs During Times of Budgetary Constraint

The purpose of this study was to examine how principals effectively manage to sustain RTI programs in environments of budgetary constraint. The researcher utilized a qualitative approach while exploring this issue. Twenty-five elementary school principals from southeast Georgia were invited to participate in individual 60 - 90 minute interviews. The first ten elementary school principals with at least one year of experience who responded to the invitations were selected to participate in the interviews. Transcriptions from the interviews were then analyzed to identify themes and categories to be discussed in the findings. All of the principals in this study indicated that their schools had experienced changes due to budgetary constraints placed on them by the recent recession. The participants reported that these affects were felt in a variety of areas such as school personnel, professional development, the ability to provide materials, and special programs. Although all of the principals in the study indicated that their RTI programs had been impacted by budgetary constraints, they all indicated that they were managing to sustain their RTI programs through a variety of different strategies. Strategies involving utilization of school personnel, providing professional development, securing materials needed for RTI, and use of creative scheduling were all used by the principals in this study to sustain their RTI programs

Enhancing cultural competence: Trans-Atlantic experiences of European and Canadian nursing students

This paper describes the enhancement of cultural competence through trans-Atlantic rural community experiences of European and Canadian nursing students using critical incident technique (CIT) as the students' reflective writing method. The data generated from 48 students' recordings about 134 critical incidents over a 2-year project were analysed by qualitative content analysis. Five main learning categories were identified as: cross-cultural ethical issues; cultural and social differences; health-care inequalities; population health concerns; and personal and professional awareness. Four emergent cultural perspectives for the health sector that became apparent from the reflections were: health promotion realm; sensitivity to social and cultural aspects of people's lives; channels between the health sector and society; cultural language and stories of local people. CIT was successfully used to foster European and Canadian undergraduate students' cultural reflections resulting in considerations and suggestions for future endeavours to enhance cultural competence in nursing education

Relationships of Body Image and Eating Attitudes with Sociodemographic, Psychologic and Nutritional Factors in University Students Attending First Classes

Senior Seminar students for their research project investigated, “Perceptions of college students on the effects of body image in today’s society.” In this study, student researchers focused on the way body image was exemplified amongst college students from five factors: 1) their mental development, 2) realistic fashion sense, 3) athletics, 4) nutrition, and 5) the physical wear and tear of its image. The study consisted of 100 individuals on the campus of The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff who had given time and knowledge to the situation. Through a series of analyses on the surveys administered as well as a graphing, student researchers were able to connect the survey with their general assumptions and theories on the perspectives of body image. While researching, key concepts were identified which provided a better clarification of perspectives on the body’s image. Students who experienced the judgment of their body’s image were prone to being affected in each of the five brackets mentioned above. The five areas focused on were important in understanding just how a person was affected, and the stages they endured as well. The researchers observed that the image society displays as the perfect body is viewed through different lenses around campuses today. This topic was not only important to research, but also a step forward in building stronger confidence amongst growing individuals in college today

Increasing global freedoms : the role of psychological flexibility

This thesis seeks to add to the psychological literature that may help reduce global poverty and human rights abuse around the world. More specifically, it investigates the potential role of psychological flexibility and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) in helping to increase “global freedoms”. It makes a unique contribution through the way it applies psychological flexibility and ACT to this novel area. Following two introductory chapters, the next five describe the design and preliminary evaluation of new self-report measures. Specifically these assess: i. helping behaviour, ii. thoughts and cognitions, iii. feelings and emotions, and iv. values – all related to global freedoms. A fifth scale measures psychological inflexibility in an everyday context. Preliminary psychometric development includes both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Following their development, the measures are used to answer five research questions. In general terms these explore the interrelationships between the measures; how they relate to helping behaviour and whether psychological flexibility plays a direct or indirect role in this. The research questions are answered using a cross-sectional dataset as well as a single session, lab based study which examines the potential of an ACT based intervention to increase helping behaviour. In summary, in both correlations and regressions, the thoughts and cognitions measure had a significant, negative correlation with helping behaviour, while the feelings and emotions, and values measure had significant, positive correlations with helping behaviour. Psychological flexibility did not show a significant, direct relationship with helping behaviour but, in mediation analyses, it was found to transmit its influence through thoughts and cognitions onto helping behaviour. In terms of the single session lab based study, neither ACT nor an education condition increased the level of donation to charity greater than a control. The general discussion focuses on the implications of these findings and the opportunities for future research

Critical community psychology: The perceptions of UK undergraduate psychology students

Psychology undergraduates represent the future workforce of the applied psychology professions. As such, this study explores UK psychology undergraduates’ views of critical community psychology and its relevance to applied psychology related to well-being and mental health as they understand it. In this mixed methods study, 239 participants rated 43 statements about critical community psychology. Participants also provided their qualitative views on: i. the statements, ii. on critical community psychology generally, and iii. on its relationship to well-being and mental health. Quantitatively, each of the four factors (i. Reflective practice, ii. Acknowledging and understanding, iii. Core socio-political ideas, and iv. Radical socio-political ideas), were significantly and positively related to each other. On average, all four factors were seen as relevant to the future of applied psychology related to well-being and mental health by participants. However, significant differences were found between the factors, some with medium and large effect sizes. Qualitatively, many provided a general positive endorsement of the relevance of critical community psychology and of broader systemic factors influencing applied work. Participants asked for more information on this area to be provided both within their degree and for the general public. Other comments suggested both: applied work should include both micro and macro elements, and that applied work should remain focused on the individual. Finally, a smaller number of comments suggested that the statements were not relevant to: i. individual mental health, ii. to psychology, and even iii. not relevant as ideas. The discussion brings together the quantitative and qualitative data relating it back to the literature. It highlights the wider challenges of bringing critical community psychology to bear on applied psychology work in the UK, beyond reflective practice.

Interpreting and inverting with less cursing: A guide to interpreting IRAP data

© 2015 Association for Contextual Behavioral Science. This Professional Interest Brief seeks to provide a clear guide to interpreting data generated by Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP). The interpretation of IRAP data is not immediately intuitive and yet has received little explicit attention in the published literature. As such, it is hoped that this guide will help clarify this matter, particularly for those new to using the IRAP or intending to use the measure in the future. In doing so, we hope to make the measure more accessible and facilitate continued use of the methodology and its contribution to the contemporary Relational Frame Theory (RFT) literature

Stashing behaviour in a Herring Gull

From the introduction: At around midday on 6th June 2019, in warm, bright conditions, we were watching a small Kittiwake colony on the west coast of Lundy, Devon. Our attention was drawn to an adult Herring Gull Larus argentatus on the rocks below with a live Common Guillemot Uria aalge chic

Orexin Receptor Multimerization versus Functional Interactions: Neuropharmacological Implications for Opioid and Cannabinoid Signalling and Pharmacogenetics

Peer reviewe