Derived Relational Responding and Body Image Disturbance Shelley Greene Emmie Hebert Emily K. Sandoz, Ph.D. Louisiana Contextual Science Research Group Louisiana Board of Regents Research Competitiveness Subprogram LEQSF(2011-14)-RD-A-29

From a very young age, we begin to learn things about our bodies. We learn that our bodies are a vehicle for the things we want to do. And sometimes along the way, we learn to interact with our bodies in ways that interfere with our lives.

My body allowed me to do the thing I loved. When I was 12, having a growth spurt. The first time I realized that my body could be the enemy.

Body image is an individual’s experience of his or her own body Body image is an individual’s experience of his or her own body. This includes the thoughts, feelings and perceptions about one’s body. For some this experience is like anything else in the world, with little impact on their behavior, but for others, this experience can be particularly difficult, sometimes even painful, and sometimes body image disturbance can develop Body image disturbance

Traditional behavioral research showed that rats can quickly learn that a red light can signal shock. It’s not the red light that’s aversive, but the red light is related to a worse aversive…the shock. So when that red light is present, the rat becomes solely focused on getting away from it. They aren’t noticing other things because the fear of that shock is what’s the most salient. Something similar happens with humans and their appearance. How many of you have put on a pair of pants, shirt, etc. and it doesn’t fit right. You aren’t noticing hair, eyes, etc. Because what’s most salient is how your clothes are fitting. But it’s funny, no one ever shocked us when our clothes fit too tight, so why is this experience so aversive if we weren’t directly trained? Relational Frame Theory looks at verbal learning processes to explain this.

-RFT is a behavior analytic approach to human language and cognition. -Relational Frame Theory names three properties as distinctive of verbal behaviors: mutual entailment, combinatorial entailment and transformation of function. -From an RFT perspective, relational framing is considered a core process in human language and cognition. -RFT believes that body image is not only learned through direct conditioning processes (shame associated with physical development or praise for maintaining appearance more than for other behaviors, but also through verbal conditioning processes.

A B Mutual entailment

Lindsay Shelley Real like example of mutual entailment Here’s me, and I’m a dancer, and therefore the dancer is me. Not all relations are equivalence relations. There’s greater than/less than, opposite of, etc. Washington, DC is colder than Louisiana and Louisiana is warmer than DC. Lindsay

A B B C Combinatorial entailment Same size A C

Real life example of combinatorial entailment

N D Transformation of function

The goal of this study was to demonstrate the relevance of verbal learning processes to body image disturbance.

Body Image Avoidance Questionnaire Participants were recruited from a pool of university undergraduates that volunteered for participation in psychology research in return for course credit. Number of participants was low Participants filled out a packet of questionnaires and then completed a computer matching task. Measures we used: BIAQ, BIQLI, MBSRQ-AS, BICSI, BI-AAQ Body Image Avoidance Questionnaire Body Image Quality of Life Inventory Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire Body Image Coping Strategies Inventory Body Image Acceptance and Action Questionnaire

Next they engaged in a computer task that modeled relational responding to body-related stimuli. Participants morphed an image to represent their body image Used a computer program known as the body image assessment scale to alter these images. Then they matched different body images with nonsense syllables (arbitrary stimuli) Went through training, Then was tested on mutual and combinatorial entailment, and if they don’t pass with 85% accuracy, they were recycled back through training Nonsense syllables Matching to sample

Combinatorial Entailment Combinatorial Entailment 82% Mutual Entailment 1st time Combinatorial Entailment 1st time 53% Mutual Entailment 1st or 2nd time 82% First thing we were interested in is whether or not folks would readily learn to relate body image stimuli with arbitrary stimuli - most participants derived the relations quickly and accurately some participants had significant trouble deriving relations Combinatorial Entailment 1st or 2nd time 76%

Body Image Avoidance Preoccupied With Weight Appearance Fixing 2. Who had trouble with Mutual Entailment? ran a series of Logistic regressions to predict failing mutual entailment  Folks who were high on Body Image Avoidance (via BIAQ), who were more preoccupied with weight (via MBSRQ OWPREOC), saw themselves as higher in weight (via MBSRQ-AS WTCLASS), reported more appearance fixing (via BISCI), and were less flexible (via BIAAQ) people who were more rigid tended to have more trouble with mutual entailment Body Image Flexibility

Appearance Fixing Body Image Avoidance Who had trouble with Combinatorial Entailment? ran a series of Logistic regressions to predict failing combinatorial entailment  No significant predictors (more Appearance Fixing and Body image avoidance close, but low n) Read technical guide

3. Lots of variability in performance -  Ranged from 5-20 trials. The more trials they had, the harder time they were having blocks completed (bargraph from count blocks tab)

Average % correct Once again, the lower their scores, the more difficulty they were experiencing with the task. But what predicted that variability?

Combinatorial Entailment Overall Average % Higher More Appearance Oriented Mutual Entailment Average % Higher BIQLI, Less Avoidance, More PRA, More Body Image Flexibility 4. Looked at self-report data in relation to performance Overall, Average % correct higher if more Appearance Oriented Mutual entailment: Average % higher if higher on BIQLI , less avoidance, more positive rational acceptance, more body image flexibility Combinatorial entailment: Average % higher if lower on Appearance fixing Combinatorial Entailment Average % Higher Low Appearance Fixing

But it's not just about getting more correct, it's about fluency or flexibly relating events. 5. Calculated the number correct per minute for all trial types as a measure of fluency.  Looked at relationships between fluency in different kinds of trials.   Overall, fluency on on thin trials was correlated with fluency on self trials.  (This was true for both mutual entailment and combinatorial entailment) the more fluent they were for self, the more fluent they were for thin good and fast at self trials, they were also good and fast on thin trials

Worse Appearance Evaluation Worse Body Image Satisfaction Less Avoidance 7. Ran correlational analyses to look at predictors of fluency in different trial types for mutual entailment: **fluency on self trials predicted by worse appearance evaluation, worse body image satisfaction, which seems really bizarre to us people did better on self trials if they are less satisfied fluency on larger trials was predicted by less avoidance (BISCI)** no self report measures predicted fluency on the thin trials

More Appearance Fixing Higher Self-classified Weight Less Body Image Flexibility More Avoidance for combinatorial entailment fluency on self trials predicted by more appearance fixing and less body image flexibility doing stuff to protect my body image fluency on thinner trials predicted by higher self-classified weight and more avoidance predicted by how overweight they said they were and how much more they engaged in avoidance no fat

?????? Arrows with question marks. Low fluency on large trials

A lot of data here, we don't know what any of this means. We know that people have a harder time doing combinatorial with self relevant stimuli. The people that were the most satisfied and more flexible were the ones that had the most trouble with it. Not sure what to make of that.

Problems with study: Low number of participants No measure of transformation of function Images were distorted in BIAS Self report measures focused on body image but it may have been useful to measure self stuff, or how people relate to their self broadly since they had trouble with the self trials We have thoughts about why people struggled with the self trials. People tend to think of themselves in hierarchical relations, rather than equivalence relations. Humor me for a second, how do you think of yourself? Are you a mother? A teacher? An uncle? Those are all hierarchical relations.

People tend to think of hierarchical relations versus equivalence relations.

- Get a bigger n-larger sample size -Examine transformation of function -If someone works to avoid a certain image or looking a certain way, then theoretically people would work to avoid MIP or BEX -Includes other self relevant measures (self as context stuff) -Adding values into this study. (look at how people avoid when there are values stimuli present)

Shelley Greene shelleygreene2@gmail.com emilysandoz@louisiana.edu