Priming Thoughts of Failing versus Succeeding and Performance on the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) as a Measure of Self-Forgiveness Diana

Priming Thoughts of Failing versus Succeeding and Performance on the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) as

a Measure of Self-Forgiveness

Diana Bast

Supervisor: Prof. Barnes-Holmes

Objective

• To verify if priming participants to contact their personal assessments of failures or successes would influence

the IRAP performances in some way

Bast, D., Barnes-Holmes, D. (in press). Priming Thoughts of Failing versus Succeeding and Performance on the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) as a Measure of Self-Forgiveness. The Psychological Record.

Method

Participants

• 38 students positive priming group (PPG)• 43 students negative priming group (NPG)

Instruments• Implicit relational assessment procedure (IRAP) • Scale derived from the IRAP• Self-Compassion Scale (SCS)• Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale, (DASS)


Self-Forgiveness IRAP

• Two different IRAPs one targeting feelings and another targeting outcomes related to the ‘minor’ failures and successes of participants.

• The Feelings IRAP juxtaposed positive and negative feelings regarding failures and successes, while the Outcomes IRAP juxtaposed positive and negative outcomes from failures and successes


When I fail When I succeed

I feel bad I feel Good

I feel Guilty I feel Strong

I feel Stupid I feel Energetic

I feel Useless I feel Positive

I feel Frustrated I feel Calm

I feel Angry I feel Peaceful

Labels

Targets

IRAP FEELINGS


Failing Succeeding

Wastes my time Saves me time

Undermines my motivation Keeps me motivated

Has negative consequences Has positive consequences

Makes me look bad Makes me look good

Makes me less productive Makes more productive

Makes me look stupid Makes me look intelligent

Labels

Targets

IRAP OUTCOMES


IRAP Feelings

When I fail

I feel guilty

True False

When I succeed

I feel good

True False

When I fail

I feel good

True False

When I succeed

I feel guilty

True False

Practice block: 80% and 2000 msTest block: 75% and 2000 ms

Neg Bias Pos bias

Neg BiasPos bias

Neg BiasPos bias

Pos biasNeg Bias


Outcomes IRAP

Failing

Wastes my time

True False

Succeeding

Saves me time

True False

Failing

Saves me time

True False

Succeeding

Wastes my time

True False

Pos biasNeg Bias

Neg BiasPos bias

Pos bias

Pos bias

Neg Bias

Neg Bias

Practice block: 80% and 2000 msTest block: 75% and 2000 ms


dbholmes

Results

• The priming condition affect Outcomes-IRAP but not performance on the Feelings-IRAP

• The fact that the priming variable impacted on one IRAP but not the other indicates that the effects were specific to the targeted domain (i.e., outcomes versus feelings), rather than constituting a general influence on self-forgiveness IRAP performances per se.

Negative Priming Group

• Perhaps asking participants to think about previous failures may have evoked events from the past where failure did not lead to positive outcomes (e.g., failing to get a particular job led to getting another better job in the future)

• The large positive bias observed for the Success-Positive trial-type perhaps success is valued more highly in the context of having recently thought about failure.

Explicit measures

• Results that were relatively consistent across the two priming conditions non-significant difference across the two priming conditions, with exception of the Fail-Negative scale for the Outcomes measure.

• Exposure to positive relative to negative priming led participants to rate failing more negatively and rate succeeding less positively

• Having recently thought about previous successes in one’s life, failure may be perceived to be more negative, but successes less positive due to a contrast effect

• Similarly, thinking about failures may cause one to

respond to failure less negatively and success more positively due to the contrast effect

Self-Compassion Scale

Average overall self-compassion scores 3.0 on the 1-5 scale

• PP group, M = 3.39, SD = .87; • NBT group, M = 2.80, SD = .79.

An independent t-test indicated that the difference

between the two priming conditions was significant, t =

3.08, p = .002 suggesting that positive relative to

negative priming increased levels of self-compassion.

DASS

The mean overall score for the DASS between the two groups was similar,

• PPG: 28.497 (SD = 25.58) • NPG: 24.84 (SD = 20.473)

An independent t-test indicated no significant difference between the two priming conditions

Analogous of the IRAP and IRAP

• Lack of correlations among the analogous of the IRAPs and the IRAPs

• The IRAPs were tapping into responses towards succeeding and failing that are not captured readily with explicit self-report measures of the responses targeted by the IRAPs

The Feelings-IRAP and SCS

Group Trial-type Subscale r p

PPG Fail-Positive Feelings IRAP

Self-Compassion Average

-.316 .053

Of the 8 correlations

Lower level of self-compassion predicted a bias towards confirming that failing produces positive feelings (but only after completing a positive priming exercise).

After having been encouraged to feel positive towards the self

Avoidance of negative feelings ?

The Feelings-IRAP and DASS

Group Trial-type Subscale r p

PP Failure-Negative Feelings

Anxiety .31 <.06

“ Stress .4 <.01

DASS overall .32 .04

Of the 16 correlations for the NPG none of the correlations were significant (rs < .26, ps > .9).

The priming variable thus appeared to impact upon the relationship between the Feelings IRAP and the explicit measure of psychopathology.

Of 16 correlations for PPG (4 trial-types with 4 DASS scores)

• When participants with higher levels of stress, anxiety and overall psychopathology had just been asked to think about previous successes in their lives they appeared less willing to confirm that failing leads to negative feelings

• Experiential Avoidance?

Outcomes-IRAP and explicit measures

• The 4 D-IRAP scores were entered into a correlation matrix with the total and subscale scores of the three explicit measures (the SCS, DASS and the Explicit Outcomes-Scale)

• None of the 48 correlations across the explicit measures proved to be significant

Conclusion

• The IRAPs designed to target self-forgiveness may predict self-reported levels of psychopathology

• The fact that the current research yielded correlations with established psychometric instruments, for self-compassion and psychopathology, does indicate that the IRAPs may be capturing potentially important response biases.

• The correlations obtained in the current research only emerged for a specific priming condition and with the Feelings-IRAP

Thank you

Contact:

Diana Bast: [email protected]

Documents

Priming Thoughts of Failing versus Succeeding and Performance on the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) as a Measure of Self-Forgiveness Diana