A Behavior Analytic Approach to the Role of Self in Behavior Problems

Résumé du livre

The current study examined stimulus equivalence class formation given self-referential and evaluative stimuli. Participants (n = 79) completed measures of distress, self-esteem, and socially desirable responding as well as three experimental conditions (one arbitrary, two loaded). Experimental conditions trained participants in a series of related conditional discriminations using a matching-to-sample format and then tested for the expected derived relations. The Arbitrary Condition was presented first and did not contain self-referential or evaluative stimuli. The loaded conditions were randomly presented and resulted in derived relations between self-referential stimuli and either: (1) positive evaluation words (Me-Good Condition) or (2) negative evaluation words (Me-Bad Condition). For the first analysis, only participants that demonstrated proficiency on the experimental task were included (80% accuracy in the Arbitrary Condition; N = 42). Results replicated Merwin and Wilson (2005). Negative-self/Low Esteem participants performed significantly poorer in the Me-Good Condition than the Positive-self/High Esteem participants. For the second analysis, participants demonstrating a wide range of proficiency on the experimental task were included and a series of mixed factorials and post-hoc analyses were computed. Overall, results indicated: (1) Moderate Esteem participants demonstrated the most accurate performance in all conditions, (2) need for social approval predicted poor performance in the Me-Bad Condition, and (3) High and Low Esteem participants with the most extreme response patterns demonstrated poorer performance in the loaded condition that included relations inconsistent with their reported verbal construction of self.