TASTING WHAT YOU SEE: USING THE IMPLICIT RELATIONAL ASSESSMENT PROCEDURE TO MEASURE THE EFFECTS OF THE WORD REPETITION TECHNIQUE

The current study tested the effects of a cognitive defusion intervention on implicit attitudes toward milk and lemon as measured by the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP). One-hundred and eleven participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: control math, control defusion, half defusion, or full defusion. Participants filled out a series of self-report measures at the beginning of the study on psychological functioning, as well as attitudes toward milk and lemon. Participants then completed a task specific to their condition, with control math participants completing a simple math task while defusion conditions completed a defusion intervention – word repetition technique (WRT) – for certain words. The control defusion condition completed the WRT for the words “car” and “rabbit,” the half defusion condition completed the WRT for the word “milk,” and the full defusion condition completed the WRT for the words “milk” and “lemon.” After completing the condition specific tasks, all participants completed a milk/lemon IRAP that included the words “milk” and “lemon” and pictures of milk and lemon. All participants finished the study by completing a final set of self-report measures. Results of the study indicated that IRAP performance was not significantly different between conditions following various levels of a defusion intervention. However, results showed that the pattern of IRAP response latencies did significantly vary between conditions, but this effect was driven by a significant difference on a single response latency between two conditions suggesting this finding is an artifact. Thus, the current study cannot conclude that a defusion intervention can significantly affect implicit attitudes towards common objects, and any future research should consider applying a defusion intervention to clinically relevant stimuli to further assess for defusion effects in the IRAP

Using the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure as an analogue procedure for generating cognitive defusion

The current study tested the utility of the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) as an analogue cognitive defusion intervention to alter implicit attitudes toward Abraham Lincoln and Adolf Hitler. One-hundred and twelve participants were randomly assigned to either a control or defusion condition. Participants first completed a series of self-report measures assessing psychological functioning and distress, as well as attitudes toward Lincoln and Hitler. Control condition participants then completed three IRAPs measuring implicit attitudes toward Hitler and Lincoln (H/L IRAP). Defusion conditions participants completed a pre-intervention H/L IRAP, received a rationale for defusion before completing a defusion IRAP, and then completed a post-intervention H/L IRAP. All participants finished the study by completing a second set of self-report measures. Results of the study indicated that when taking into account participant knowledge of defusion there were significant differences in IRAP performance post-intervention between conditions, although there were no significant differences in performance pre- to post-intervention within the defusion condition. Additionally, there were no differences between conditions on self-report measures at either time point, suggesting the IRAP was sensitive to changes in participant attitudes that self-reports were unable to detect. Thus, the results of this study indicate that the IRAP is a viable analogue defusion intervention, and future research should look to expand the defusion effect produced by the IRAP

Enacted support misbehaves because of its personality: A replication.

People with high perceived support consistently have lower negative affect than people who doubt their networks supportiveness. Most theories hypothesize that perceived support is linked to low negative affect because people with high perceived support receive high levels of enacted support (e.g., advice or reassurance). Yet paradoxically, in many studies, the people who receive the most enacted support report the most negative affect (Lakey & Orehek, 2011). Moreover, enacted support and perceived support are typically not as highly correlated as social support theory suggests