Researchers have suggested that distrust in one's memory is both a cause and a consequence of repeated checking. We investigated whether reduced clarity and confidence occurs to an equal degree with repeated object use and repeated checking. In addition, whether decreased memory confidence persists after a delay in checking or use was examined. Participants (N = 113) either repeatedly checked or repeatedly used a virtual stove or a light bulb stimulus (the control stimulus). Significant declines in memory accuracy, confidence, vividness and detail were observed for the experimental compared to the control stimulus. No significant differences in these effects between the checking and exposure conditions were found. A significant increase in state anxiety across pre-, mid- and post-test was found for both conditions. These findings provide further support for the notion that repeated checking can be self-perpetuating due to its impact on memory processes. The findings also suggest that checking is not necessary for these effects to occur as repeated use without checking also results in significant declines in memory accuracy, confidence, vividness and detail. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.

The ACT (Acute Cognitive Therapy) Program was implemented as a patient follow-up initiative to respond to people presenting to emergency departments with suicidal behaviour or ideation, in a psychosocial crisis. Over 12 months 188 patients were referred to the program of which 160 attended at least one appointment and 109 completed the program. Pre- and postmeasures indicated that significant improvement occurred in those who completed the program, that improvements were maintained at 6 months and representation rates were reduced. Immediate short-term directed treatment appears beneficial in the short and medium term, and the rapidity and location of follow-up appears to promote compliance.

The development of an in-service teacher training package is described which has the aim of training primary and middle school teachers to use behavioural methods of classroom management. It is shown how the package evolved from the programme of experimental behavioural research carried out by the authors in schools over the last ten years. Emphasis is placed on the on-going evaluations of successive versions of the package. The package was continually revised until it could meet the criterion of bringing about measurable changes in observed teacher behaviour and in the behaviour of primary and middle school classes. Experimental findings supporting its effectiveness are presented and discussed.

Carers observed problem behaviours of two people with intellectual disability in natural settings. Data recorded on Antecedent-Behaviour-Consequence (A-B-C) charts were analysed quantitatively by calculating the relative likelihoods of each target behaviour occurring in different situations. Functional analyses were conducted, and individualised interventions were based on these. In one case, a client behaved differently in different situations. Interventions were introduced to teach the client to emit a different prosocial behaviour in each situation. The second client behaved similarly in two situations, suggesting that the behaviours were functionally equivalent for the client. The behaviours of both clients were interpreted as attention seeking behaviours as both antecedents and consequences involved the provision of attention by carers. However different interventions were used in the two cases, and were effective in reducing target behaviours both immediately and in follow-ups.

Work ability is a prospective predictor of sick leave, disability pension and unemployment, and has been defined as the balance between human resources and the demands of work, taking into consideration that illness is not equivalent to work disability. In the present study we set out to explore predictors of work ability in a sample of individuals with common mental disorders. In particular, we were interested in exploring metacognitive beliefs as a potential predictor of work ability, as Wells’ (2009) metacognitive model of psychological disorder suggests that metacognitions may be an underlying factor in psychological vulnerability generally, and they have been associated with work status in previous studies. One hundred and seventy-seven individuals participated in an online survey and completed a battery of self-report questionnaires. Several factors correlated with reduced work ability: physical disorders, emotional distress symptoms and metacognitive beliefs. We found that confidence in memory predicted work ability even when controlling for gender/age, number of physical disorders, and levels of anxiety and depression symptoms. This finding suggest that metacognitions of poor memory performance are associated with low work ability among those with common mental disorders, and implies that these should be targeted in treatment with a view to increasing work ability and thus potentially facilitate return to work.

This article reports four case studies illustrating the implementation of the Choose Health Program, a cognitive behavioural lifestyle intervention for overweight and obese adolescents. Participants were an overweight (12 years) and obese (15 years) female, and an overweight (14 years) and obese (12 years) male. The program was delivered by provisional psychologists with program specific training and supervision. All participants demonstrated improvements in body composition, and maintained or improved dietary quality and psychosocial wellbeing. The program had variable effects on physical activity and minimal effect on cardiovascular fitness for three of the four participants. While parents and adolescents required considerable assistance to develop and monitor long term program goals, these goals were a useful clinical tool to support the adolescent and parent to recognise the improvements they had made. Identification and monitoring of specific, measurable, and realistic behaviour change strategies was particularly important in assisting adolescents and their parents to translate session information into improved health behaviours. Results indicate that an adolescent overweight and obesity treatment program that promotes adolescent responsibility and autonomy, and emphasises the importance of parent support and family change is both effective and highly acceptable to both adolescents and parents.

Early childhood feeding problems can be challenging. Children who limit their food consumption may significantly impact multiple critical areas of development. Effective treatment should be accessed as early as possible but has been limited to a handful of US hospital programmes. Feeding problems affect both children with and without disability, and families may struggle with multiple children having feeding difficulties. We provided short-term (less than 2 weeks), in-home, intensive, behaviour-analytic feeding intervention to two children with typical development who were younger siblings of children already in the programme. We used a withdrawal/reversal design to assess the effects of nonremoval of the spoon, re-presentation, contingent and noncontingent access to tangibles, differential attention, and response cost. This multi-component intervention was effective in increasing the consumption of a wide variety of foods at regular texture and self-feeding for both participants. Variety was increased to over 60 foods from all food groups. Admission goals were met (100%). We trained caregivers to high procedural integrity and generalised the protocol. We provided actual plate picture examples of family meals consumed where the brothers and parents ate the same meal. Caregiver satisfaction and social acceptability were high. Gains were maintained at 3-year follow-up where parents reported problems were fully resolved.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in adverse psychological outcomes for many around the globe. Less is known however regarding dispositional traits that may protect against negative psychological outcomes. This study examined the prospective association between COVID-19 stressors and psychological symptoms, and whether self-compassion (referring to a dispositional tendency of relating to oneself kindly) would moderate this association. A convenience sample of 212 university students and working adults (60.4% female; Mage = 20.92 years) based in Singapore completed measures assessing COVID-19 stressors (perceived COVID-19 health risk, economic impact, and impact on daily life), psychological symptoms (depression, anxiety, and PTSD symptoms), and self-compassion 2 months apart. Results indicated that perceived COVID-19 health risk at baseline predicted anxiety symptoms 2 months later, above and beyond baseline anxiety symptoms. Self-compassion moderated the association between perceived COVID-19 health risk and depressive symptoms, and the relationship between perceived impact on daily life and anxiety symptoms. These findings highlight the importance of self-compassion in alleviating psychological symptoms in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Specific phobias are one of the most prevalent childhood anxiety disorders. Research suggests that phobias in children, such as animal or situational phobias, lead to significant impairments in peer relations, social and academic competence. Hence it is imperative to treat phobias within children and adolescents early to avoid more serious, engrained symptoms later in the lifespan. This review focuses on traditional exposure-based cognitive–behavioural therapies, and the more recent one-session exposure therapy for phobia treatment (Ost, 1987), a procedure that has only begun to be administered to children. Further, controlled trials evaluating the efficacy of 1-session exposure therapy with phobic children are urgently required. We also address challenges for researchers using psycho-education to control nonspecific treatment effects.

The assessment of sexual aggression presents many difficulties for clinicians. The tendency of offenders to minimise or deny their offending, and their frequent distrust of mental health professionals, require high levels of skill to circumvent. In addition, the multifactorial nature of rape means that assessment needs to cover a broad range of content areas and utilise a number of different methods. In this paper we suggest that a comprehensive assessment should inquire into the developmental history of rapists, social competency, attitudes and beliefs about women and sexual crimes, sexual knowledge, sexual preferences and disorders, empathy, offence variables, psychiatric history, and substance abuse. The clinical interview remains the primary method of information acquisition, and needs to be tailored to match the particular interpersonal style of rapists. The use of psychometric and physiological measures are also valuable sources of clinical data.

Information-processing speed and cue reactivity were evaluated in women with bulimia nervosa and controls in response to neutral, mood, and food cues in isolation, and mood and food cues in combination. Significant differences were consistently observed between women with bulimia nervosa and control women on information-processing speed for food/body-related words, but not for words unrelated to food/body concerns. As expected, women with bulimia nervosa demonstrated slower processing of information related to food/body concerns. In addition, the presentation of mood and food cues affected speed of information processing. Especially for women with bulimia nervosa, information processing was slowest when either mood or food cues were presented in isolation. Significant cue reactivity was also observed, again especially for women with bulimia nervosa. In conclusion, both transient and more enduring subject characteristics affected information-processing speed. Moreover, the way transient factors were presented significantly affected speed of information processing. This suggests a more complex relationship between cue presentation and information processing than was anticipated.

This paper presents a quantitative description of the activity of the Australian Behaviour Modification Association, as reflected in conference presentations from 1978 to 1987 and publications in Behaviour Change from its inception to 1988. The results reveal a number of pleasing and displeasing aspects of behavioural research and other activities over the past ten years. These findings are discussed with reference to the next decade, with specific suggestions for directions and priorities.

Controlled efficacy/effectiveness trials throughout the world have reached a high standard from a methodological stance, but what do we regard as the ideal or elegant intervention in clinical psychology? This article presents six key points as the gold standards of psychosocial interventions by which treatment efficacy/effectiveness research with children, adolescents and adults might be evaluated: (1) theoretical rationale and conceptualisation of clinical dysfunction, (2) clear problem identification and target client group, (3) program features such as realistic goal setting, flexibility, and time-limited interventions, (4) manual-based treatments, (5) research support including clinically significant outcomes, and (6) acceptability/social validation of clients and society. Finally, we discuss the usefulness of such a framework for mental health professionals and clinical researchers.

We evaluated the empirical validation model of target selection for two boys with interpersonal problems. Behaviours previously identified as distinguishing popular from rejected boys on a role-play measure of social behaviour were targeted for change in these boys who had histories of peer rejection. We trained three of these empirically-derived behaviours — appropriate body orientation, adequate speech intonation, and providing reasons for denying unreasonable requests — in a multiple-baseline-across-behaviours design. On a role-play measure of social behaviour, improvements in the targeted behaviours occurred upon, but not before, introduction of the intervention, confirming the controlling effects of the intervention. Behavioural improvements generalised to untrained role-play scenes and to a novel role-play partner, and were maintained for two of the three behaviours at 4- and 6-month follow-up assessments. The boys also showed improvements in parent-reported child behaviour from pre- to post-training. The study demonstrates use of an empirical approach to the selection of treatment targets for children.

Compared to the study of adult fears, childhood fears have not been extensively investigated in terms of their psychophysiological bases. However, limited findings suggest that children exhibit psychophysiological reactivity to fear-eliciting stimuli. Other data suggest that fear imagery produces psychophysiological arousal and that youngsters may be trained in fear imagery. Psychophysiological measures have also been used in the evaluation of desensitisation as seen in a limited number of case studies, single-subject experimental analyses and group outcome comparisons. In general, psychophysiological changes have been reported that are suggestive of reduced autonomic arousal. Methodological and theoretical issues are discussed including the selection of psychophysiological measures and the desynchrony between measures of fear.

Objectives: The present study investigated the exposure effect of plus-size models on body dissatisfaction and mood, and the nature of participants’ commenting behaviour towards images of plus-size models. Method: The study was comprised of 92 female university students who were exposed to Facebook photos of plus-size models. Participants were randomly allocated to having the exposed photo paired with positive, negative, or neutral comments, and participants were asked to leave an anonymous comment on each picture. Results: Results showed that participants had less body dissatisfaction and better mood after exposure to plus-size models regardless of the comment condition. Additionally, comment condition significantly influenced the type of comments participants contributed — in photos paired with negative comments, participants were significantly more likely to leave negative comments themselves, with 40% of participants leaving negative comments compared with 4% in the positive condition, and 12% in the neutral condition. Conclusion: This study provides evidence that the negative comments of plus-size models can encourage bystanders to contribute negative comments themselves; reinforcing the need to develop better protocols to oppose cyberbullying and encourage an online environment of positivity.

Effective mass-reach smoking-cessation interventions are required in order to accelerate the decline in the prevalence of smoking in Australia and other industrialised countries. Such large-scale interventions still rely, to a major extent, on theoretical principles derived from research with clinical or other opportunistic samples. Schachter (1982) argues that this type of research provides information which is unrepresentative of smokers in the general population. We compared a population-probability sample with a sample of smokers enrolling in a smoking-cessation program offered by a community health centre. The health centre sample was composed of predominantly female, older smokers who had higher smoking rates, had made more previous attempts to stop smoking, and tended to attribute their last relapse to irritability. We discuss some potential implications for research relevant to population-wide smoking control strategies.

This study investigated whether individual differences in obsessive-compulsive symptoms and in thought–action fusion are related to theory of mind abilities. One hundred and ninety-two adult participants completed self-reports of obsessive–compulsive symptoms (OCI-R), thought–action fusion (TAF), private self-consciousness (PSC) and self-reflectiveness (SR) as mentalising abilities, and anxiety and depression. A nonintrospective method examining participants' implicit structure of their lexicon for ‘knowing’ was used to assess theory of mind. Private self-conciousness and SR added to the prediction of OCD symptoms independently of TAF and depression but did not mediate the relationship between TAF and OCD symptoms. Participants high in thought–action fusion gave a greater emphasis to the certainty dimension of the mental lexicon and placed lesser importance on the source of information dimension than those low in TAF. Our results provide preliminary evidence of a relationship between theory of mind and thought–action fusion. People disposed to thought–action fusion are more likely to make a significance judgment about ‘knowing’ based on the degree of certainty than on reference to the source of knowledge. Identifying disruptions to theory of mind abilities in OCD provides links to solid theory and evidence about metacognitive development and may help integrate cognitive processing and cognitive appraisal models of OCD.

This study explored whether intolerance of uncertainty and/or meta-worry discriminate between non-clinical individuals and those diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD group). The participants were 107 GAD clients and 91 university students. The students were divided into two groups (high and low GAD symptom groups). A multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) adjusting for age indicated that intolerance of uncertainty distinguished between the low GAD symptom group and the high GAD symptom group, and between the low GAD symptom group and the GAD group. Meta-worry distinguished all three groups. A discriminant function including intolerance of uncertainty and meta-worry classified 94.4% of the GAD group and 97.9% of the low GAD symptom group. Only 6.8% of the high GAD symptom group was classified correctly, 77.3% of the high GAD symptom group was classified as GAD. Findings indicated that intolerance of uncertainty and meta-worry may assist with the diagnosis and treatment of GAD.