University of Twente Student Theses
First indications of the effectiveness of an IAT in modifying attentional bias regarding tiredness or vitality
Klaus, O. (2016) First indications of the effectiveness of an IAT in modifying attentional bias regarding tiredness or vitality.
|
PDF
2MB |
| Abstract: | Aims: The aim of this study was to assess word associations with tiredness and vitality in healthy individuals. The most elected word associations were further used as items for a modified IAT (ABM-IAT), which aimed to modify an attentional bias regarding tiredness respectively vitality implicitly. This was intended to influence healthy individuals implicitly in becoming implicitly and explicitly more tired respectively vital. Method: The word association task was an online survey. 46 participants were asked to name word associations for tiredness and vitality. The ABM-IAT was a self-concept IAT which was intended to modify attentional bias regarding tiredness and vitality. 63 participants were alternately assigned two conditions: In the vitality condition 100% of the trials were congruent (vitality +I), and none were incongruent (vitality+ others). In the tiredness condition 100% of trials were incongruent (tiredness + I), and none were congruent (tiredness + others). Further, it was tested if the initial state of tiredness respectively vitality moderated the effect of the ABM-IAT. Results: 72 different word associations for tiredness and 77 word associations for vitality were found. Further, after the ABM-IAT the participants were significantly more tired – implicit and explicit. Thus an ABM-IAT is effective in influencing healthy individuals in becoming more tired. However, this effect was not significant for vitality. Moreover, baseline tiredness respectively vitality did not moderate the effect of the ABM-IAT. Conclusions: A comparison of the elected word associations of healthy individuals with exiting measures for tiredness and vitality for “unhealthy” individuals revealed that the word associations were at a large extent identical. Moreover, an ABM-IAT strengthened tiredness in healthy individuals. However, the effect of the ABM-IAT was clearly smaller on vitality. But, taken into account that the participation needed effort and concentration, the ABM-IAT prevented the participants from becoming tired due to participation. Thus, there were first indications for the effectiveness of an ABM-IAT in influencing implicit and explicit tiredness and vitality. Further, the identical word association of healthy and “unhealthy” individuals might be an indication that an ABM-IAT with the found word associations regarding tiredness and vitality might also modify an attentional bias regarding tiredness and vitality in “unhealthy” individuals. After more research, this could be a possibility to carry out training with ABM-IAT and possibly reduce suffering because of a high level of tiredness in healthy and “unhealthy” individuals. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Subject: | 77 psychology |
| Programme: | Psychology MSc (66604) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/71296 |
| Export this item as: | BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager |
Show download statistics for this publication
Show download statistics for this publicationRepository Staff Only: item control page