IRAPing Our Way to Psychological Flexibility Chad E. Drake, Ph.D.

Psychological Flexibility From page 57 of “Understanding Behavior Disorders”: “…the ability to experience events fully, consciously, and without defense, and to persist in or change behavior in a given situation in the service of chosen values.”

Anxiety The presence of fear, worry, nervousness, etc. Clinical relevance Traditional focus = reduction ACT focus = acceptance

Six Core Processes of Psy Flex Acceptance Defusion Present moment awareness Self-as-context Values Committed action

Acceptance Synonyms: openness, willingness, curiosity, receptivity, etc. Antonyms: rejection, avoidance, control, etc.

Our Goals Use the IRAP to measure anxiety in a similar way as has been done with the IAT Use the IRAP to measure a willingness to have anxiety vs. a desire to control anxiety

Method Administer questionnaires – AAQ-2, STAI, DTS, DDS, SIAS, etc. Administer acceptance IRAP and anxiety IRAP – Exclude participants with median latency greater than 2 seconds on either block type

Anxiety IRAP Stimuli Categoriesmeother Targets calmanxious happynervous relaxedworry Relationssimilardifferent

Anxiety IRAP

Acceptance IRAP Stimuli Categories I am willing to have I do not want Targets happiness.anxiety. relaxation.fear. contentment.worry. Relationstruefalse

Acceptance IRAP

Other Results Still conducting analyses, but… No obvious correlations between IRAP and self-reports But still conducting analyses

More Specific Analyses We divided the sample into roughly equal thirds: high, medium, and low acceptance (AAQ-2 scores) Results: – No significant differences – Usually high and low acceptance looks similar on the IRAP, an effect seen in other IRAP studies – “other – anxious” trial type was marginally significant – positive D for low acceptance, negative D for high acceptance

Concluding Thoughts/Future Directions Many variables to consider – Stimulus selection – Scoring procedure Many potential avenues of exploration