Evaluation of behavioral measures of risk taking propensity with inner city adolescents.

The current study examined the utility of behavioral measures of risk-taking propensity in the assessment of self-reported real-world risk-taking behaviors using a sample of 51 high-school-aged inner-city adolescents. Results indicated that performance on one behavioral measure, the balloon analogue risk task, accounted for unique variance in self-reported delinquency/safety risk behaviors as well as substance use risk behaviors, above and beyond that provided with demographics and self-report measures of risk-related constructs (i.e.

Gender, alcohol consumption, and differing alcohol expectancy dimensions in college drinkers.

Examinations of gender differences in alcohol expectancies among college drinkers typically have used self-report measures to assess single expectancy dimensions and often have been confounded by drinking level. This study examined gender differences in alcohol expectancies using 2 assessment methods. College students (N = 88) completed self-report questionnaires, including expectancy likelihood and subjective evaluation endorsements of expectancies, and a computerized expectancy accessibility task.

Risk-taking propensity and risky sexual behavior of individuals in residential substance use treatment.

In the current study, a battery of self-report measures of impulsivity, self-esteem, and depressive symptoms, as well as a behavioral measure of risk-taking propensity, was administered to 76 residents of two inner-city substance use residential treatment programs to determine the unique relationship between risk-taking propensity and risky sexual behavior (RSB). Results indicated that impulsivity, self-esteem, and risk-taking propensity were independently related to RSB. In a subsequent regression analysis, risk-taking propensity evidenced incremental validity, suggesting a relationship between risk-taking propensity and RSB, above and beyond that provided with the other relevant variables.

Using the Rasch model to develop a revised Gambling Attitudes and Beliefs Scale (GABS) for use with male college student gamblers.

Research suggests that an overwhelming majority of college students gamble, with between 2-9% of U.S. students meeting DSM-IV criteria for pathological gambling.

Nonclinical panic attack history and smoking cessation: an initial examination.

The present study evaluated the association of nonclinical panic attacks among regular smokers with the duration of past quit attempts as well as the type and intensity of DSM-IV smoking withdrawal symptoms. As hypothesized, smokers with a history of panic attacks reported significantly shorter quit attempts compared to their nonpanic counterparts. Additionally, smokers with a history of panic relative to their nonpanic counterparts reported more intense affective reactions during their last quit attempt in regard to anxiety-related but not other types of smoking withdrawal symptomatology.

Using a Rasch model to examine the utility of the South Oaks Gambling Screen across clinical and community samples.

The South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS: [Am. J. Psychiatr.

Using item response theory in the development and validation of the College-Oriented Eating Disorders Screen.

The current study examined the psychometric characteristics of the College-Oriented Eating Disorders Screen (COEDS), a college-student-focused screening measure to assess and identify individuals at-risk for the development of eating disordered pathology. By screening a large pool of pilot questions and using methods based in item response theory (IRT), seven items were identified with well-targeted contents that discriminated well across the continuum of eating disorder severity. The resulting measure evidenced a unidimensional factor structure and correlated highly with the original COEDS, standard measures of eating disorders pathology, and a measure of associated symptomatology (e.

Examining the inventory of interpersonal problems as a tool for conducting analogue studies of mechanisms underlying Borderline Personality Disorder.

Despite recent advancements in the treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), little is known about the underlying mechanisms in the development and maintenance of the disorder. To examine these issues, it is first necessary to identify a brief screening measure that can be used to assess factors underlying BPD. Considering this need, the current investigation examined the utility of a BPD-related composite consisting of the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems-Interpersonal Sensitivity (IIP-IS) and Aggression (IIP-Ag) subscales of the IIP in a sample of college students ( [Formula: see text] ) and a sample of individuals seeking residential drug use treatment ( [Formula: see text] ).

Emotional responding to biological challenge as a function of panic disorder and smoking.

The present investigation evaluated anxious and fearful responding to bodily sensations as a function of panic disorder (PD) and smoking status. Participants completed a voluntary hyperventilation procedure that elicits panic-relevant bodily sensations. Psychophysiological data were collected throughout the study procedures.

Effects of motivational interviewing on smoking cessation in adolescents with psychiatric disorders.

Objective: To test the hypothesis that among adolescent smokers hospitalised for psychiatric and substance use disorders, motivational interviewing (MI) would lead to more and longer quit attempts, reduced smoking, and more abstinence from smoking over a 12 month follow up.

Design: Randomised control trial of MI versus brief advice (BA) for smoking cessation, with pre- and post-intervention assessment of self efficacy and intentions to change, and smoking outcome variables assessed at one, three, six, nine, and 12 month follow ups.

Setting: A private, university affiliated psychiatric hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, USA.

The effects of anxious responding on mental arithmetic and lexical decision task performance.

Anxiety-related responding and skill deficits historically are associated with performance-based problems such as mathematics anxiety, yet the relative contribution of these variables to substandard performance remains poorly understood. Utilizing a 7% carbon dioxide (CO2) gas to induce anxiety, the present study examined the impact of anxious responding on two performance tasks, mental arithmetic and lexical decision. Independent variables included math anxiety group, gender, and gas condition.

Using the Rasch model to evaluate the South Oaks Gambling Screen for use with nonpathological gamblers.

Despite its utility for the dichotomous differentiation of pathological and nonpathological gamblers, some have questioned the use of the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS) for discriminating individuals across the entire range of gambling problems. Using methods from item response theory, we derived a six-item version of the SOGS. This shortened version of the SOGS performed uniformly across a sample of pathological gamblers and a sample of students and resulted in five levels of discrimination and the following interpretation: a score of 1 reveals potential for problems; 2 reveals likely problem gambling; 3 or 4 items endorsed represent significant levels of problems noticeable by others; while 5 or 6 represents severe problems with significant financial involvement.

The use of daily diaries to assess the relations among mood state, overt behavior, and reward value of activities.

Recent data has sparked renewed interest in behavioral treatments for depression; however several fundamental questions remain regarding the mechanisms of such approaches. To this end, the current study directly tested the assumption that non-clinical mildly depressed individuals receive less response-contingent positive reinforcement than non-depressed individuals, indicated by less engagement in behaviors perceived as rewarding in terms of both immediate pleasure and potential for these behaviors to result in more distal rewards. The data presented support this assumption and provide support for the role of reinforcement-based strategies such as behavioral activation in the treatment of depression.

Contemporary behavioral activation treatments for depression: procedures, principles, and progress.

In the past decade, there has been renewed interest in the feasibility and efficacy of purely behavioral treatments for clinical depression. Emphasizing the functional aspects of depressive and nondepressive behavior, these treatments focus on the concept of behavioral activation, which guides implementation of procedures aimed at increasing patient activity and access to reinforcement. Although researchers have provided positive preliminary support for behavioral activation-based interventions, many fundamental issues concerning strategies, principles, and change processes involved in behavioral activation have yet to be addressed.

A brief behavioral activation treatment for depression. A randomized pilot trial within an inpatient psychiatric hospital.

The brief behavioral activation treatment for depression (BATD) is a relatively uncomplicated, time-efficient, and cost-effective method for treating depression. Because of these features, BATD may represent a practical intervention within managed care-driven, inpatient psychiatric hospitals. Based on basic behavioral theory and empirical evidence supporting activation strategies, we designed a treatment to increase systematically exposure to positive activities and thereby help to alleviate depressive affect.

Offset control during recurrent 20% carbon dioxide-enriched air induction: relation to individual difference variables.

Although control over aversive events maintains a central role in contemporary models of anxiety pathology, particularly panic disorder, there is little understanding about the emotional consequences of specific types of control processes. In the present study, offset control over 8 20% carbon dioxide-enriched air administrations was experimentally manipulated in a large nonclinical population (n = 96) varying in anxiety sensitivity (high or low) and gender. Dependent measures included self-reported anxiety, affective reports of valence, arousal, emotional control, and physiological indices of heart rate and skin conductance.

Evaluation of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) as a predictor of adolescent real-world risk-taking behaviours.

The Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) was administered to a sample of 26 high school-aged adolescents to test the utility of the BART as a behavioural measure of risk-taking propensity. Data indicate that riskyness on the BART was related to self-reported engagement in real-world risk-taking behaviours. These data replicate and uniquely extend past research to an adolescent sample, suggesting that the BART may be a useful addition to self-report batteries for the assessment of risk-taking behaviours in adolescents.

Towards a better understanding of gambling treatment failure: implications of translational research.

Despite a recent proliferation of gambling treatment protocols and studies examining the success of these protocols, there exists an absence of attention to mechanisms of change and the individual characteristics that predict treatment outcome. A better understanding of the characteristics that place particular individuals at-risk for treatment failure will be vital for developing new treatments as well as modifying existing treatments. Furthermore, the development of tools to identify those at risk for treatment failure, prior to treatment initiation, will allow for the tailoring of protocols to suit individual needs and vulnerabilities.

The Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) differentiates smokers and nonsmokers.

In trying to better understand why individuals begin and continue to smoke despite the obvious health consequences, researchers have become interested in identifying relevant personality variables, such as risk taking. In this study, the authors compared the ability of 2 behavioral measures of risk taking, the Bechara Gambling Task (BGT) and the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), to differentiate smokers and nonsmokers. Self-report measures of impulsivity and sensation seeking were taken for comparison with the 2 behavioral risk-taking tasks.

Evaluation of a behavioral measure of risk taking: the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART).

The present study (N = 86) sought to evaluate a laboratory-based behavioral measure of risk taking (the Balloon Analogue Risk Task; BART) and to test associations between this measure and self-report measures of risk-related constructs as well as self-reported real-world risk behaviors. The BART evidenced sound experimental properties, and riskiness on the BART was correlated with scores on measures of sensation seeking, impulsivity, and deficiencies in behavioral constraint. Also, riskiness on the BART was correlated with the self-reported occurrence of addictive, health, and safety risk behaviors, with the task accounting for variance in these behaviors beyond that accounted for by demographics and self-report measures of risk-related constructs.

Distress tolerance and duration of past smoking cessation attempts.

The present study tested the hypothesis that limited ability to tolerate physical and psychological distress is associated with early relapse from smoking cessation. Specifically, the authors exposed 16 current smokers who had failed to sustain any previous quit attempt for more than 24 hr (immediate relapsers) and 16 smokers with at least 1 sustained quit attempt of 3 months or longer (delayed relapsers) to psychological (mental arithmetic) and physical (carbon dioxide inhalation-breath holding) stressors. Relative to delayed relapsers, immediate relapsers were characterized by higher baseline levels of affective vulnerability, by greater levels of dysphoria and urge to smoke after 12 hr of nicotine deprivation, and by less task persistence on the stressors, suggesting that these may be risk factors for early lapse in the context of quitting smoking.

Anxiety sensitivity: relationship to negative affect smoking and smoking cessation in smokers with past major depressive disorder.

The present study evaluated whether anxiety sensitivity (AS) was related to negative reinforcement smoking motives and increased risk of relapse during the early stages of a quit attempt. Specifically, the role of AS was evaluated in 60 smokers with past major depressive disorder (MDD) during smoking cessation. Consistent with expectations, AS scores, as indexed by the 16-item Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI) [Behaviour Research and Therapy 24 (1986) 1], were positively correlated with smoking to reduce negative affect but were not significantly correlated with smoking for other reasons.

Assessing the perceived predictability of anxiety-related events: a report on the perceived predictability index.

Predictability, or lack thereof, is believed to play a critical role in the development and maintenance of anxiety, with unpredictability being associated with heightened levels of anxious and fearful responding. Despite the potential importance of predictability in theoretical accounts of emotional dysregulation, currently no standardized assessment instrument exists to assess predictability perceptions for anxiety-related events. The present series of four investigations report on an initial attempt to develop a self-report instrument (i.

A brief behavioral activation treatment for depression. Treatment manual.

The brief behavioral activation treatment for depression is a simple, cost-effective method for treating depression. Based on basic behavioral theory and recent evidence that the behavioral component may be the active mechanism of change in cognitive-behavioral treatments of clinical depression, the authors designed a treatment to systematically increase exposure to positive activities, and thereby improve affect and corresponding cognitions. This article describes the rationale for the treatment and provides the treatment in manual form to be utilized by patients in therapy.