Date of Award

5-2015

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Behavioral Analysis

First Advisor

Joshua K. Pritchard

Second Advisor

David A. Wilder

Third Advisor

Michael E. Kelley

Fourth Advisor

Eraldo Ribeiro

Abstract

The Mixed-Trial Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (MT-IRAP) is a tool for measuring implicit behavior (i.e., biases or beliefs the individual is unaware of or intends to conceal from the public) among individuals. The MT-IRAP is a modified version of the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) and was designed to address limitations inherent to the IRAP’s design. The MT-IRAP was tested with adult participants across a series of five studies. Throughout each study, the MTIRAP assessed implicit behavior toward high-preferred foods, non-preferred foods, and arbitrary symbols. The experimenter administered the MT-IRAP before and after participant completion of a task designed to train relations between highpreferred foods or non-preferred foods and the arbitrary symbols. The utility of the MT-IRAP was supported, as MT-IRAP effects were consistently found for the groups of high-preferred and non-preferred foods during the pre-intervention administrations. Also, indications of food preference, as indicated by the MTIRAP, consistently matched the participants’ self-reported food preferences. Results suggested that relational training influenced MT-IRAP results for the arbitrary symbols with some participants, as pre- and post-intervention comparisons of MT-IRAP results for the symbols indicated response pattern shifts that aligned with the trained high preferred and non-preferred food with approximately half of the participants throughout the series of studies.

Comments

Copyright held by author.

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