Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science最新文献

A pioneering experiment by Hayes et al. (1986a, b) demonstrated the influence of instructional control and rule-governed behaviour on sensitivity to alternating reinforcement schedules. Hassoulas et al. (2017) replicated the same experimental design in a sample of participants exhibiting obsessive-compulsive behavioural (OCB) traits, supporting the results reported by the original study but also providing further insights into the maintenance of rigid rule following in OCB. The current pilot study replicated the same experimental design and procedure once again, however in considering whether a brief mindfulness-based intervention would facilitate contact with schedule contingencies in a group of participants exhibiting OCB traits. A total of 78 participants were recruited, 38 of whom exhibited OCB traits as measured using the Maudsley Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory (MOCI). The results revealed a significant difference in sensitivity to changing schedules between the group of participants exhibiting OCB traits and those with few such traits (n = 40), dependent on the degree of instructional accuracy they were provided with. The findings of the current study provide insights into the proposed concomitant administration of mindfulness-based interventions, alongside traditional first-line therapeutic modalities currently administered in the management of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Objectives

The Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) stands out as a standard of mindfulness assessment in scientific literature, although scientific understanding of its properties is still in development. Among them, the FFMQ seems to present latent profiles with specific patterns in its facets. However, no study has explored the behavior of mindfulness profiles across mindfulness-based interventions. This study explores how Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) impacts mindfulness profiles.

Methods

An overall sample of 624 participants were measured pre and post-MBSR in mindfulness, decentering, self-compassion, psychopathological symptoms, well-being, and positive and negative emotional states.

Results

MBSR altered the structure of latent profiles, shifting from 3 profiles to 2 profiles: A High Mindfulness minority profile and a General Mindfulness majority profile. These profiles could be interpreted as a single dispositional mindfulness continuum. The Judgmentally Observing and Non-Judgmentally Aware profiles were more present in the High Mindfulness profile post-MBSR. All profiles tended to display increased decentering, self-compassion, well-being, and positive states, while decreased negative states and psychological symptoms. Thus, MBSR seemed to “arrange” latent profiles in a continuum of overall mindfulness.

Conclusions

MBSR seems to dissipate heterogeneities in the FFMQ, allocating its measurements to a more homogeneous continuum of mindfulness. Implications and recommendations for future studies are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to explore the development law of college students' psychological flexibility (PF), the influencing factors of demographic variables, and group heterogeneity through longitudinal tracking. This study collected the PF data of 1068 college students in three times and constructed the data model. Results show that the PF level of college students exhibited a significant upward trend across the three measurements, gender and left-behind experience had a remarkable impact on the slope factor. It means the PF of college students improves over time, gender and left-behind experience may affect the speed and amplitude of the improvement. The development trajectory of PF of college students showed obvious group heterogeneity and could be divided into the “high flexibility-low development group” (92%) and the “low flexibility-high development group” (8%). It means college students can be divided into two categories, which allows for the implementation of tailored psychological counseling and intervention methods. The practical significance of this study is that it has a certain grasp of the development track and law of college students' PF, which is helpful for mental health educators to teach students by their aptitude. According to the development characteristics of different types of college students' PF, different methods of psychological counseling and intervention are adopted to improve the effectiveness of mental health education.

Mindfulness skills training constitute a core element of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) that has been proposed as a key component to improve emotion dysregulation (ED) in borderline personality disorder (BPD). However, the relationship between the time spent practicing mindfulness skills at home and changes in ED is not well-understood. This study aimed to determine whether daily mindfulness practice meaningfully improves ED, and, if so, the minimum dose needed to do so. A total of 75 BPD outpatients participated in a 10-week DBT mindfulness skill training program. We systematically tracked the participants' mindfulness practice and their ED levels throughout the sessions. A total of 499 observations were recorded. We used multilevel modeling with a time-lagged approach to investigate the association between weekly practice and ED over time. Greater mindfulness practice predicted improvements in ED in the following week. A bidirectional relationship was also found; a higher level of ED impaired subsequent mindfulness practice. When accounting for the previous week's ED level, participants who practiced ≥3 days and >30 min per week experienced a statistically significant decrease in ED compared to those who did not engage in regular practice. These results highlight the key role of mindfulness practice as a behavioral component to improve emotion regulation in individuals with BPD. These findings suggest that therapists should inform patients about the minimum dose of mindfulness practice needed to improve emotion regulation in order to adjust expectations and improve treatment outcomes.

The current study tests the effects of a brief intervention program based on the contextual therapies (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Functional Analytic Psychotherapy) to enhance the well-being and interpersonal relationships in the workplace. This research represents a unified model (FACT) based on functional contextualism. As pilot study, we present the application with two workers with relational and emotional problems between them. We use a single-case design measuring pre, post and follow-up after six months. The assessment was made with various questionnaires and direct measurement of clinically relevant behaviors. The total intervention was carried out individually for a month and a half. The results revealed improvements in both employees about their personal and professional relationships, and also appearing generalisation with improvements in other areas (intimacy, personal relationships, family, friends). The study has implications by highlighting the importance of behavioral analysis or problems in work relationships, and by showing that the integration of contextual therapies can produce rapid results in non-clinical situations. Lastly, the in-depth insight into the change processes triggered by the interventions with FACT as a way to include this approach based on evidence philosophy applied in the workplace.

Rule-governed behavior (RGB) is important for accounting for complex human behavior, as well as informing clinical practice. In line with Relational Frame Theory, RGB is divided into functional classes including pliance, which is rule-following under the control of apparent arbitrary social consequences, and tracking, which is rule-following under the control of apparent natural non-arbitrary consequences. In theory, pliance should produce lower levels of contingency sensitivity compared to tracking, but how this effect relates to nonclinical populations is unclear. This study (n = 134) tested the relationship between contingency sensitivity in pliance and tracking through a Matching-to-Sample task, while incorporating a measure of depressive symptomatology to test if a distinction in insensitivity would be seen in nondepressed participants. Results indicated that pliance was associated with lower levels of contingency sensitivity relative to tracking overall, and that depressive symptomatology did not influence this. Results are discussed in relation to prior inconsistencies in the experimental literature on RGB, and potential methods for operationalizing pliance in experimental settings.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an evidence-based treatment for chronic pain, but accessibility remains a major challenge. Self-help interventions are promising as they offer a cost-effective solution and can be widely accessible, but no study has yet directly compared different formats of ACT self-help for chronic pain. Furthermore, most studies conducted so far have not compared to an active control condition. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of guided self-help interventions (internet-delivered, bibliotherapy) based on ACT in comparison to an education intervention among adults from the community living with chronic pain. Participants (N = 297) were randomly assigned to an internet-delivered ACT condition, an ACT-based bibliotherapy condition, or an active control condition receiving education on pain through online pamphlets. Participants completed questionnaires at baseline, after the 9-week intervention, and at 3- and 6-month follow-ups. The primary outcome was pain disability at post-intervention and secondary outcomes were depression, anxiety, and quality of life. Results of mixed linear models showed statistically significant main effects of time for pain disability (F = 15.15, p = 0.000), depression (F = 6.82, p = 0.000), anxiety (F = 4.88, p = 0.003) and quality of life (F = 6.85, p = 0.000) for all three interventions. Findings suggest all three self-help formats can lead to reductions in pain disability, depression, anxiety, and improvements in quality of life. These findings have important implications for accessibility of care. Limitations and future directions will be discussed.

The use of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) has expanded in the field of addictive disorders in recent years. This systematic review and meta-analysis examined the effectiveness of ACT compared to other active interventions in terms of treatment completion, addiction-related outcomes, and changes in psychological flexibility. Searches were conducted in PsycINFO, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. Four random-effects meta-analyses were conducted to assess the effectiveness of ACT in terms of completion rates and abstinence at the end of treatment (EOT), in the short term (≤6 months follow-up), and in the long term (>6-month follow-up). Participants’ sex and age, the number of ACT sessions, the characteristics of the experimental condition (i.e., ACT combined with pharmacological intervention or non-combined) and the comparison condition (i.e., ACT compared to cognitive-behavioral therapy [CBT] or non-CBT interventions), treatment modality (face-to-face or technology-based approaches), and the targeted addictive behavior were examined as moderators. A total of 28 studies were included in the systematic review and 22 in the meta-analysis. There were no differences in EOT completion rates (Log RR = 0.0038; 95% CI: −0.026, 0.034). ACT increased the odds of abstinence at EOT (Log RR = 0.264; 95% CI: 0.046, 0.482) and at short-term follow-up (Log RR = 0.295; 95% CI: 0.108, 0.483), but not in the long term (Log RR = 0.164; 95% CI: −0.101, 0.430). ACT demonstrated higher abstinence rates than CBT conditions at EOT (p = 0.002). A lower age increased abstinence rates in the short (p = 0.004) and long term (p < 0.001), whereas a greater number of ACT sessions increased long-term abstinence rates (p < 0.001). ACT is an effective approach for promoting short-term abstinence. In the long term, it is at least as effective as other empirically validated therapies, such as CBT. Further studies are needed to clarify the effects of increasing psychological flexibility on addictive behaviors.

Parental psychological inflexibility, particularly characterized by experiential avoidance, represents a significant risk factor for chronic stress and psychological distress. The Parental Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (PAAQ) is a context-specific instrument for the measurement of parental psychological inflexibility. This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the original composite version of the 19-item PAAQ across the three distinct Swedish samples; a community sample (n = 1018), a clinical sample of treatment-seeking parents of children with disabilities (n = 667), and a test-retest sample (n = 337). The Principal Axis Factoring of the PAAQ in the community sample yielded a 16-item, three-factor solution: 1) action-taking and flexibility in the parenting context, 2) experiential acceptance of internal experiences related to parenting, and 3) experiential acceptance of child's internal experiences. This factor model was supported by the confirmatory factor analysis in the test-retest sample. The associations observed with related constructs (r = between 0.49 and 0.61, p < 0.0001) indicated good discriminant validity. The Receiver Operator Characteristic analysis demonstrated that the PAAQ can effectively classify between the clinical and community sample, achieving 79% sensitivity and 68% specificity. The showed good test-retest reliability (r = 0.82). As anticipated, the parents in the clinical sample showed greater psychological inflexibility compared to parents in the community sample. To conclude, the 16-item Swedish version of the PAAQ demonstrates adequate to good psychometric qualities.