IRAP Attitudes and Alcohol

This research project aims to explore the relationship between the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) as a measure of implicit attitude to alcohol and a number of other variables comprising the Alcohol Attitudes Scale (AAS), the Frequency of participant Alcohol Use (FAU), the Quantity of participant Alcohol Use (QAU), the Temptation and Restraint Inventory (TRI), transgenerational problem alcohol use (Gen) and participant willingness to abstain from alcohol use (Abstain) over three research studies. In Study 1, the IRAP was used to determine a) if participant responding (n= 60) demonstrated a pro-alcohol bias, b) if participant responding demonstrated a pro-alcohol bias between participants when controlling for QAU, c) if Spearman’s Rho correlation tests showed a relationship between any of the variables used, d) if Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) tests show gender impacts self-reported alcohol use behaviour and e) if there is convergence or divergence between implicit attitudes to alcohol (IRAP) and explicit self-reported attitudes to alcohol (AAS) . A brief ACT-based intervention was delivered and participants (n=48) returned thirty days later for repeated measures testing in Study 2 using paired sample t-tests and repeated measures ANOVAs to determine f) if there was any variation in participant responding in measures that may be attributable to the intervention and g) if participants reported behaviour change they attributed to taking part in the research project. Study 3 (n=35) participants completed all measures as in Study 1 and Study 2, but with revised IRAP target images to ensure construct validity and experimental reliability. Overall the research highlights the complex relationship between Brief Implicit Relational Responding (BIRR) and Elaborate Extended Relational Responding (EERR) and the important role BIRRs play in alcohol use behaviour. Partial replication of research by Ostafin, Kassman, deJong, van Hemel-Ruiter (2014) demonstrates the advantage of the availability of IRAP trial type DIRAP data as well as overall DIRAP scores in results analysis