A RELATIONAL FRAME THEORY CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Behavior and Social Issues, 17, 39-64 (2008). © Jonathan H. Weinstein, Kelly G. Wilson, Chad E.
Drake, & Karen Kate Kellum. Readers of this article may copy it without the copyright owner’s
permission, if the author and publisher are acknowledged in the copy and the copy is used for
educational, not-for-profit purposes.
A RELATIONAL FRAME THEORY CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIAL
CATEGORIZATION
Jonathan H. Weinstein1
Kelly G. Wilson
Chad E. Drake
Karen Kate Kellum
The University of Mississippi
ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study was to investigate the transformation of stimulus
functions from socially relevant to arbitrary stimuli as a model of social stigmatization and
categorization. Specifically, participants were trained to respond to arbitrary stimuli as if they
were obese or thin stimuli via a matching-to-sample preparation. The impact of this relational
conditioning was tested using the Implicit Association Test. The results showed that when
participants met the fluency-based training criterion, the bias functions of obese/thin stimuli
successfully transformed formally similar variants of the arbitrary stimuli. These results suggest it
is possible to affect a transformation of bias functions to wholly arbitrary stimuli using a very brief
conditioning history. A clearer conceptualization of the development of stigmatizing categories,
particularly as it applies to obesity, might yield important insights into the social contexts that
cultivate and maintain stigmatizing attitudes.
KEYWORDS: relational frame theory, social categorization, obesity, Implicit Association Test,
fluency
Research in the field of bias has been a major focus of social psychologists for some
80 years (Fiske, 2004). In light of recent international events, such as the escalation of
violence in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Palestinian-Israeli crisis, and genocide in Darfur, as
well as domestic incidents such as the allegations levied against white athletes from the
Duke Lacrosse team for the sexual assault of an African American woman, it comes as
little surprise that interest in the phenomenon of prejudice continues to grow. Even prior
to the attacks of September 11, 2001, about a third of the talks at social psychology’s
national and international conferences addressed bias and intergroup relations (Suls,
2001).
What follows is a presentation of a theoretical view that many social psychologists
have utilized in their effort to understand the phenomenon of social categorization. This
view will be contrasted with a behavior analytic account. As questions raised in this
analysis suggested the need for an empirical investigation, social bias against obese
1
Address editorial correspondence to: Kelly G. Wilson, Department of Psychology/Peabody
Building, University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677.
39WEINSTEIN, WILSON, DRAKE & KELLUM
persons was selected as the means to address the broader phenomenon of social
categorization.
Bias Against Obese Persons
Bias against obese persons occurs across the life span and in diverse settings from
education to employment (Puhl & Brownell, 2001). Ninety-six percent of overweight
adolescent girls report negative experiences through every grade of school (Neumark-
Sztainer, Story, & Faibisch, 1998). Ninety-one percent of clinically overweight children
report feeling ashamed of being fat, 90% believe that teasing and humiliation from peers
would stop if they lost weight, and 69% believe that they would have more friends if they
lost weight (Irving, 2000; Pierce & Wardle, 1997). In occupational settings, the stigma of
obesity appears to be correlated with a significant wage penalty. Data taken from the
National Longitudinal Survey Youth Cohort revealed that obese women earn 12% less
than non-obese women (Register & Williams, 1990). Another longitudinal study
following young adults over 8 years found that overweight women earn over $6,000 less
than non-obese women (Pagan & Davila, 1997).
Anti-obese bias even affects the behavior of families. In a study of undergraduate
students, normal weight students received more family support for college than
overweight students, who depended more on financial aid and jobs to pay for their
education (Crandall, 1991). Differences in family support remained even when
controlling for student and parental education, income, ethnicity, and family size.
To understand the persistence of anti-obese discrimination a review of efforts to
understand the general phenomenon of social categorization would seem helpful.
Recently, technological advances in research methods have given rise to the Implicit
Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998), a measure that has
contributed widely to the exploration of social categorization. This test involves a
computer task that measures response latency while associating two target concepts with
an attribute. The two concepts appear in a two choice task (e.g., flower vs. insect names),
and the attribute in a second task (e.g., pleasant vs. unpleasant words). When instructions
oblige highly associated categories to share a response key, performance is faster than
when less closely associated categories share a key.
Prior to the development of the IAT, attitudes were traditionally measured using
self-report questionnaires with well-normed psychometric properties. However,
researchers have identified a number of areas where the results of self-report instruments
are not consistent with the results of the IAT. Discrepancies between these two methods
have been identified in studies of attitudes toward gender (Greenwald & Farnham, 2000),
race (Banaji, Greenwald, & Rosier, 1997; Greenwald et al., 1998), ethnicity (Greenwald
et al., 1998) and age (Mellott & Greenwald, 2000). However, agreement between IAT-
measured and self-report-measured attitudes has been observed in studies of attitudes
toward political candidates and consumer products (Maison, Greenwald, & Bruin, 2001;
Nosek, Banaji, & Greenwald, 2002).
40RELATIONAL FRAME THEORY CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION
In studies of obesity, behavioral measures have tended to be more sensitive
indicators than self-report (i.e., paper and pencil) measures. Bessenoff and Sherman
(2000) used a lexical decision task to demonstrate that behavioral anti-obese evaluations
predicted how far participants chose to sit from an overweight woman, whereas self-
reported measures did not. Behavioral measures have also shown the capacity to
discriminate preferences among obese and non-obese children. In a study using the
Extrinsic Affective Simon Task (a modified version of the IAT; De Houwer, 2003),
children and adolescents with obesity indicated a more pronounced positive attitude
toward food than a non-obese sample. This finding was not reflected in the self-report
measures given to both groups (Craeynest, et al., 2005). Other studies comparing
behavioral and self-report measures are less emphatic. Teachman and colleagues (2003)
examined responding on an IAT task with obese-thin, good-bad and lazy-motivated
stimuli. When results were compared against a self-report measure, (the Fat Phobia Scale;
Robinson, Bacon, & O’Reilly, 1993), the good-bad IAT was not significantly related to
the self-report measure; however, the lazy-motivated IAT showed a positive correlation
with the self-report measure.
The Social Knowledge Structure
Greenwald and colleagues (2002) have proposed a theory to account for these and
other IAT findings. Specifically, they have hypothesized the existence of a Social
Knowledge Structure (SKS) based on principles stemming from earlier theories of
cognitive consistency such as congruity theory (Osgood & Tannenbaum, 1955), cognitive
dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957), and balance theory (Heider, 1958). The SKS model
borrows three principles from each of these theories to constrain relationships among
concepts and objects. Greenwald applies congruity theory to predict that two unrelated
concepts sharing a higher number of first-order links than expected by chance to a third
concept will develop a stronger relationship. In cognitive dissonance theory, Greenwald
finds support for predicting how concepts with fewer than average first order links than
expected by chance will develop a weaker relationship and even become opposed to one
another. Lastly, Greenwald appeals to Heider’s balance theory to account for how
repeated pressure on opposing concepts could force two bipolar-opposed nodes into a
relation that accommodates these bipolar-opposed nodes via the development of stereo-
subtypes. In Figure 1, a hypothetical social knowledge structure (SKS) is represented.
This structure includes associations that correspond to social psychological constructs of
self-concept, self-esteem, and attitude. Nodes (ovals) represent concepts and links (lines)
represent associations. The self-concept includes links of the “ME” node to concepts that
include roles (Graduate Student) and trait attributes (intelligent, fat, lonely); self-esteem
is the collection of associations—either direct or mediated through components of the
self-concept—of the ME node to valence (+ + + or - - -). In Figure 1, both “fat” and
“lonely” nodes share first order links with both the “Me” node. As such, Greenwald’s
SKS model predicts the formation of a second order link connecting the “fat” and
“lonely” nodes.
41WEINSTEIN, WILSON, DRAKE & KELLUM
Figure 1. Social Knowledge Structure.
Additionally, the SKS model attempts to predict the structure and strength of
relationships among stimuli. One potential weakness of the SKS model is that it does not
provide a precise account for how events enter the “network.” For this reason, it may
prove fruitful to consider an alternative theory of cognition to determine with greater
specificity the process by which stimulus relations develop.
Relational Frame Theory
Relational Frame Theory (RFT; Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, & Roche, 2001) is a
behavior analytic account of the learning processes thought to distinguish human
language and cognition. RFT describes a learning process applicable to a variety of
complex human behaviors, including social categorization and stigma. According to
RFT, verbally competent humans are able to relate events, cognitive and otherwise,
without the sort of direct conditioning history that would be necessary for non-human
species (Hayes, 1989). “Relating” means to respond to one event in terms of another. In
addition to responding to formal stimulus properties, humans can also respond
relationally to stimuli. For example, imagine gazing at the photograph of a loved one.
The formal properties of the photograph may include the color and texture of this
particular piece of paper, but the relational properties may include talking to the picture
or caressing it. These responses reflect a functional relationship to the stimulus functions
of the picture but bare no formal relationship with the paper itself. Furthermore, the
stimulus functions are not accountable via a direct learning experience, as may have
occurred if the photograph was viewed during that walk on the beach with the loved one.
42RELATIONAL FRAME THEORY CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION
Relational responding involves three properties: mutual entailment, combinatorial
entailment, and the transformation of stimulus functions (Hayes et al., 2001). Mutual
entailment describes a functional and bi-directional relationship between two events. If a
human subject is reinforced for making response A to event B, humans can derive that B
is related back to A in a complementary manner. An example of mutual entailment may
involve conditioning a person to select the nonsense syllable “Terch” from an array of
other nonsense syllables in the presence of the nonsense syllable “Brieg.” Subsequently,
the person may select “Brieg” in the presence of “Terch” even though this behavior was
never reinforced directly.
As neither “Brieg” nor “Terch” convey very many psychological functions in our
language community, the presence of a functional relationship would be unlikely to
develop despite their history of mutual entailment. A better illustration of a functional
relationship is apparent in the everyday example of coins. If one attends only to the
formal properties of a nickel in relation to a dime one would notice that the nickel is
larger. Functionally, however, a dime is worth twice as much as a nickel. There are no
formal properties inherent to the dime itself that would indicate this relationship. Thus, a
relational response of this kind is not dependent on the formal characteristics of the
stimulus so long as value (i.e., how much you can purchase) is the controlling context.
Among the differing features that separates a nickel from a dime is that a nickel’s sides
are smooth whereas a dime has ridges. Again, these formal properties are arbitrary in the
sense that they have no functional relationship when the context is value. However,
suppose one is handed a quarter for the first time having a history of differential
reinforcement where dimes are worth more than nickels. If one were only to attend only
to the size of the coin, given one’s history one might derive that quarters are worth less
than nickels since quarters are even larger than nickels, which in turn are larger than
dimes. On the other hand, since a quarter also has ridges on its sides one might derive
that it is worth more than a nickel because a dime also has ridges on its side. Thus the
formal properties of coins alone have less influence on responding without their
correlated functional properties.
Combinatorial entailment describes the functional relationships among a group of
three or more stimuli. If A is related to B, and A is also related to C, humans can derive
that B is related to C and C is related to B in some fashion. For example, if a person
learns to select “Vomit” in the presence of “Brieg” in addition to selecting “Terch” in the
presence of “Brieg,” the person may subsequently select “Vomit” in the presence of
“Terch” and vice-versa. Again, this behavior occurs in the absence of any direct
conditioning.
The transformation of stimulus functions refers to an exchange of functional
properties among related events. Reading the word “Vomit” may arouse reactions that
have little to do with the printed word itself, such as feelings of disgust and revulsion.
Subsequent to the training described above, if those reactions occur when reading the
word “Terch,” it would exemplify an equivalence-based transformation of stimulus
function. In other words, “Terch” is functionally equivalent to “Vomit.”
43WEINSTEIN, WILSON, DRAKE & KELLUM
Equivalence is not the only functional relationship possible through the
transformation of stimulus functions. Humans learn to relate events in a variety of ways.
For example, when people count nickels, dimes, and quarters, they are exhibiting a
repertoire for hierarchical relationships that are functional in the context of value.
Relations such as similar/different, before/after, part/whole, better/worse, cause/effect,
and self/other have been demonstrated in a variety of experimental preparations (see
Hayes et al., 2001, for a review). Thus, the RFT view of cognition may provide a greater
degree of specificity between events than the SKS model and other association theories.
Transfer or Transformation of Psychological Function
The phenomenon referred to as the transfer of stimulus functions has also been
referred to as the transformation of stimulus functions (Dougher, Perkins, Greenway,
Koons, & Chiasson, 2002). Studies examining this phenomenon involve methods where
some number of equivalence classes is established using matching-to-sample or other
training procedures. Then one or some subset of members of one of the classes are
selected and given some new behavioral function. Following this training history, the
remaining members of all of the classes are tested to see if they also have acquired the
new behavioral function. If the other members of the class from which the subset was
selected acquire the new function but the members of the other class do not, the novel
functions are said to have transferred within the equivalence class (Dougher, et al., 2002).
This phenomenon has been robustly demonstrated in studies of respondent elicitation
(Dougher, Auguston, Markham, Greenway, & Wulfert, 1994) as well as operant
paradigms containing stimuli bearing functions for gender (e.g., Kohlenberg, Hayes, &
Hayes, 1991; Moxon, Keenan, & Hine, 1993), anxiety (Leslie, Tierney, Robinson,
Keenan, Watt, & Barnes, 1993) and terrorism (e.g., Dixon, Dymond, Rehfeldt, Roche, &
Zlomke, 2003; Watt, Keenan, Barnes, & Cairns, 1991).
Additionally there have been a number of studies that have demonstrated derived
relational responding among novel stimuli across various functional and topographical
dimensions of behavior (see Fields & Reeve, 2001; O’Hora, Roche, Barnes-Holmes, &
Smeets, 2002; Rehfeldt, 2003; Rehfeldt & Hayes, 2000). These studies suggest that
relational responding is a form of generalized operant behavior (Hayes & Barnes, 1997),
and provides a basis for examining how the transfer of psychological functions might
have relevance in the study of social categorization. However, there is still some
disagreement about terminology. Sidman (1992, 1994) has argued that the term “transfer
of function” implies an unnecessary hypothetical process that can be accounted more
parsimoniously in mathematical set theory terms. Hayes and colleagues (2001) share
these same concerns about positing an account for behavior occurring at some other time
inside a setting that defies direct observation. Additionally, they object to the term
“transfer” because it fails to adequately describe the changes in functions that accrue in
stimulus relations other than equivalence. For example, Dymond and Barnes (1995)
showed that training relations of “sameness,” “less than,” and “more than” among a set of
stimuli influenced the functions of stimuli subsequently added to the class in
44RELATIONAL FRAME THEORY CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION
nonequivalent ways. Hayes and colleagues (2001) suggest that describing this influence
as a “transfer” of functions seems imprecise, since stimuli participating in a
nonequivalent relation with each other subsequently will not share equivalent stimulus
functions. For this reason, the term transformation is offered as a preferable alternative to
transfer, since it allows for a broader description of the phenomenon. However, for the
current work either term is applicable since only equivalence relations were trained.
Thus, “transfer” and “transformation” are used interchangeably throughout the
description of this study.
Transformation of Psychological Function and Application to Prejudice
Prejudice, in particular, is a demonstration of how human beings can become
entangled in evaluative categories that may or may not be valid (Hayes, Niccolls,
Masuda, & Rye, 2002). According to Hayes and colleagues (2001), “Prejudice involves a
derived transformation of the functions of individuals based on direct or verbal contact
with the functions of a few members of conceptualized groups (p. 202).” For example, if
one’s family was threatened with ethnic cleansing by Hebrew speaking soldiers, then the
aversive functions of those soldiers may be transformed in respect to other Hebrew
speakers, such as Jewish Americans. Further, those same functions may also transfer to
related symbols of Judaism such as the Star of David, without any direct conditioning
history. The transformation of psychological functions describes how stigmatizing
functions acquired indirectly through relational conditioning processes maintain
prejudicial behavior. Consider another example: Imagine a very obese man in a seated
position wearing almost no clothing. Rolls of fat are apparent everywhere.
Is this a pleasant image? What adjectives come to mind?
Ok, but what if it is the Buddha?
Unlike other accounts, RFT also offers a principled account for how the functions of
one class of stimuli come to be transferred to other stimuli (Hayes et al., 2001). A study
examining the transfer of socially and culturally important stimulus functions to neutral
stimuli that examines the emergent socially relevant stimuli in terms of the IAT could
provide linkage between two experimental domains. Such a linkage between social
psychology literature and recent behavioral theories of cognition could offer a
developmental account of the phenomena and allow an empirical and theoretical
investigation of SKS phenomena from an RFT perspective. The purpose of this study was
to investigate the transfer of stigma functions from socially relevant to arbitrary stimuli as
a model of stigmatization and social categorization.
METHOD
Participants
Fifty undergraduate students with an age range between 18-29 years were recruited
for this study in return for extra credit in a psychology course. Thirteen of the 50
45WEINSTEIN, WILSON, DRAKE & KELLUM
participants identified themselves as African American, 1 as Hispanic, and 36 as
European American. Thirty-five participants were female.
Stimulus Selection
Prior to the current study, an independent sample of fifty participants was provided
with an array of positive, negative, obese and thin (i.e., normal body weight) words.
These participants rated the stimuli along three dimensions: (a) strength of emotional
reaction, (b) understanding, and (c) familiarity on a scale from 1 to 5. Words and phrases
that were high in each dimension were used (see Appendix A for a table of mean ratings
and standard deviations). The purpose of these ratings was to ensure that participants
would understand and respond to the stimuli in a way consistent with their commonly
understood meaning.
A series of paired t-tests were conducted to determine if stimulus ratings for the
stimuli included in the experimental task differed across three dimensions for positive
versus negative words and obese versus thin words. The dimensions assessed were
familiarity, understanding, and strength of emotional reaction. No significant differences
were found between positive and negative words on the three dimensions, suggesting that
the stimuli received about the same ratings for all of the dimensions assessed. There were
no significant differences found between obese and thin words on ratings of familiarity
and understanding. However, participants reported a stronger emotional reaction to the
obese stimulus class than to the normal thin stimulus class, t (15) = 3.42, p < .01, when
rating this dimension. Differences in the strength of emotional reactions between obese
and thin stimuli were expected based on previous studies of obesity bias (e.g., Teachman
et al., 2003).
Apparatus and Setting
Participants performed the experiment in a small room (6 x 10) on computers
running Microsoft Windows 2000. Participants were run in groups varying from two to
five students per session.
Self-report Measures
Glenn Measure of Attitudes Toward Obese People. The Glenn Measure of Attitudes
Toward Obese People scale consists of 44-items selected from previously published
scales designed to indicate attitudes toward obese people (Glenn & Chow, 2002).
Reliability analysis yielded a Cronbach coefficient alpha of .92, while a factor analysis of
individual items revealed a total of four factors. This measure was selected because its
items directly assess positive/negative attitudes towards obese people in general. This
measure also solicits information sufficient to compute participant Body-Mass Indices.
Body-Esteem Scale for Adolescents and Adults. The Body-Esteem Scale for
Adolescents and Adults assesses participants' attitudes and feelings about their bodies and
appearance (Mendelson, Mendelson & White, 2001). The 23-item Scale taps three
46RELATIONAL FRAME THEORY CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION
aspects of body esteem in adolescents and adults: (a) general feelings about appearance,
(b) weight satisfaction, and (c) attributions of positive evaluations about one's body and
appearance to others. This scale has demonstrated high internal consistency, sufficient
test-retest reliability, as well as convergent validity with the Self-Esteem Scale
(Rosenberg, 1979) as well as other measures. The scale’s norms were developed from a
sample of participants drawn from English-speaking, elementary schools, high schools,
colleges and universities in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The sample included 1,334
participants (761 females; 571 males) between 12 and 25 years old (M = 16.8 years). This
has demonstrated validity and reliability over a wide age range, and can be given
confidently to children as young as 12 and to individuals well into adulthood. This
measure was selected because its items assess participants’ attitudes towards their own
appearance.
Procedure
Completion of self-report measures. After giving their informed consent,
participants completed the self-report measures via paper and pencil administration and
provided demographic information, including weight and height.
Task I—Response Task without Stigma. After the self-report measures, participants
began the first of 5 computer tasks. Task one involved a procedure whereby participants
were shown neutral stimuli (i.e., horizontal and vertical lines) and positive or negative
descriptors. Participants responded to stimuli across seven blocks of trials. The
presentation and location of the stimuli were arranged as outlined by Greenwald and
colleagues (2003; see Table 1).
The first block randomly assigned drawings of horizontal or vertical lines to one of
two categories, Horizontal (by pressing the keyboard letter “E”) or Vertical (by pressing
the keyboard letter “I”). On the second block, participants were instructed to press the E-
key for positive adjectives, and the I-key for negative adjectives. On the third block,
participants were instructed to press the E-key for positive adjectives or for horizontal
lines, and the I-key for negative adjectives or vertical lines. On the fourth block,
participants repeated the same task as in the preceding block but with twice as many
trials. On the fifth block, participants received the same stimuli as in block 1 with the
exception that key order was reversed (horizontal lines by pressing the keyboard letter “I”
or vertical lines by pressing the keyboard letter “E”). On the sixth block, participants
received the same stimuli as in block 3 with the exception that their order was reversed.
On the seventh block, participants repeated the preceding task but received twice as many
trials (see Table 1 for complete list of conditions). Throughout this experiment, key
assignment and order of training were counterbalanced (i.e., participants were randomly
assigned to receive either condition 1 first or condition 2 first). This design follows the
procedure outlined by Greenwald and colleagues (2003).
Task II—Response Task with Stigma. Task II involved a procedure whereby
participants were shown obesity or thin-relevant words and positive or negative
descriptors (see Table 1). The arrangement of the stimuli in Task II was identical to the
47WEINSTEIN, WILSON, DRAKE & KELLUM
TABLE 1. ILLUSTRATION OF THE IAT
Task 1— IAT with neutral stimuli Task 2—Obesity IAT
Block No. of Function Items assigned to Items assigned Items Items
trials left (E-key press) to right (I-key assigned to assigned to
press) left (E-key right (I-key
press) press)
1 20 Practice Horizontal lines Vertical lines Obese Not Obese
2 20 Practice Good Bad Good Bad
3 20 Practice Horizontal lines + Vertical lines + Obese + Not Obese +
Good Bad Good Bad
4 40 Test Horizontal lines + Vertical lines + Obese + Not Obese +
Good Bad Good Bad
5 20 Practice Vertical lines Horizontal Not Obese Obese
lines
6 20 Practice Vertical lines + Horizontal Not Obese Obese + Bad
Good lines + Bad + Good
7 40 Test Vertical lines + Horizontal Not Obese Obese + Bad
Good lines + Bad + Good
Note. For half the participants, the positions of Blocks 1, 3, and 4 are switched with those of
Blocks 5, 6, and 7 respectively. The procedure in Blocks 3, 4, 6, and 7 is to alternate trials that
present either a “Good” or a “Bad” word with trials that presented as either Horizontal or Vertical
lines. This procedure was recommended by Greenwald and colleagues (2003) to reduce the
possibility of an order effect.
presentation of stimuli in Phase I with the only difference being the use of obese and thin
words in place of the neutral stimuli (horizontal and vertical lines).
Task III—Matching-to-Sample (MTS) of Obesity Relevant Stimuli with Horizontal
and Vertical Line. For the third task of this study, participants completed a different
computer procedure. The purpose of this task was to train participants to develop
relational frames of coordination between socially loaded (Fat/Thin words) and neutral
stimuli. As with the previous IAT tasks, neutral stimuli were horizontal and vertical lines
(see Figure 2).
48RELATIONAL FRAME THEORY CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION
Figure 2. Directly trained and derived relations via Matching-to-Sample Training.
There were a familiarization block and three additional training blocks to this task.
Assignment of obese and non-obese stimuli to either class of the neutral stimuli
(horizontal or vertical lines) were counterbalanced to prevent the formal dimensions of
the neutral stimuli from influencing participant responses. Prior to beginning Task III,
participants were exposed to a block of familiarization training.
Familiarization block. The familiarization block displayed a single sample stimulus
and three comparison stimuli. All the stimuli used in the familiarization task were
arbitrary, as they were comprised of nonsense syllables. Participant responses were
reinforced for selecting a comparison stimulus in the presence of the sample. If the
participant made a correct choice the words "GOOD JOB - CORRECT!!" appeared on
the screen. If the participant made an incorrect choice, the word "INCORRECT"
appeared on the screen. Participants repeated the phase until they achieved 100%
accuracy.
Block 1—Training two conditional discriminations separately. Within each training
block, three 3-member sets of stimuli (A, B and C) were presented (see Figure 3). During
block 1, participants were conditioned to select one of three “B” comparison stimuli in
response to one of the three “A” sample stimuli (e.g., A1a-B1a, A2a-B2a, A3a-B3a) until
they achieved a criterion of 100% accuracy on a block of nine trials.
Block 2—Training two conditional discriminations separately. They then advanced
to block 2 of the experiment, in which three C comparison stimuli were conditioned to
49WEINSTEIN, WILSON, DRAKE & KELLUM
A-- Sample C—Comparison
B—Comparison stimuli
Stimuli stimuli
Wug Zoil Heavy Lean
(A1a) (A1b) (B1a) (B1b) (C1a) (C1b)
Dek Derf Chubby Skinny
(A2a) (A2b) (B2a) (B2b) (C2a) (C2b)
Nof Kift Fat Slim
(A3a) (A3b) (B3a) (B3b) (C3a) (C3b)
Figure 3. Illustration of sample and comparison stimuli for obese and non-obese MTS.
three “A” sample stimuli (e.g., A1a-C1a; A2a-C2a; A3a-C3a) until participants achieved
the same criterion described earlier.
Block 3—Mixed training. Participants then received one block of 12 random trials
of mixed training comprised of the relations and stimuli conditioned in the prior two
blocks. Participants were required to meet the 100% accuracy criterion described earlier
in order to advance.
Block 4—Testing phase. During this phase, the participants were exposed to a
number of trials that consisted of novel arrangements of the stimuli to test for any
emergent equivalence relations (e.g., B1a-C1a, B2a-C2a, B3a-C3a). No feedback was
provided during this block. Participants were required to achieve 100% accuracy for each
of the 18 trials presented in this block.
If participants succeeded in meeting the criterion for correct performance in all of
the training and testing blocks, they advanced to a second set of MTS training blocks
(e.g., A1b-B1b, A2b-B2b, A3b-B3b). The training and testing blocks in this second MTS
task were identical to the first, except that the socially relevant stimuli were different. If
the first MTS task contained obesity stimuli, then the second contained thin stimuli, and
vice-versa.
If participants did not meet the criterion for correct performance in the testing
blocks, they were cycled back through training blocks until testing criterion was
50RELATIONAL FRAME THEORY CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION
achieved. If participants indicated a preference to discontinue the study they were given
credit for their time and excused from the study. Five participants failed to complete
MTS training, and their data were not included in final analyses. Most participants
completed this experiment in 1.5 – 2.0 hours.
Task IV & Task V—Repeat IAT Response Task. Task IV and Task V repeated the
procedures presented in Task I & Task II (see Table 1). The purpose for this second task
was to determine if the horizontal and vertical lines previously paired with obese and
non-obese words influenced the response latency of participants at pairing positive and
negative attributes with the neutral stimuli.
RESULTS
Data Analysis Strategy
In previous studies, researchers have analyzed response latencies on the IAT task
with a scoring algorithm (Gray, Brown, MacCulloch, Smith, & Snowden, 2005;
Greenwald, Nosek, & Banaji, 2003). The algorithm involves calculating the difference in
average response latency between the two response tasks and dividing by the standard
deviation of all latencies for both tasks. Individual trials with latencies greater than
10,000 ms are eliminated, and participants are excluded if more than 10% of their trials
have latencies smaller than 300 ms. After removing these trials and participants, the
remaining latency scores are transformed into standard deviation units. When scored in
this way, the IAT score (called D) is similar to Cohen’s d calculation of effect size for an
individual’s responses in the task (Nosek, Greenwald, & Banaji, 2005). This IAT
D_score consists of one number that reflects, in standard deviation units, the magnitude
of the difference between stigma consistent and stigma inconsistent responses. The
analyses conducted in this study computed D_scores for both IATs (Traditional Obesity
and Derived Obesity). As the D_score has a rational zero point, it is possible to calculate
a significance test against a point estimate of zero difference. Also, the rational zero
allows for the calculation of Cohen's d by dividing the group mean by the group standard
deviation. This results in a Cohen's d of the D_scores (B. Nosek, personal
communication, December 10, 2005).
Latency—Replicating an Obesity effect on the Traditional IAT (see Figure 4)
Latencies were examined to determine if differences between the stigma consistent
and stigma inconsistent conditions could be detected. A demonstration of longer latencies
on the stigma inconsistent condition would replicate the findings from the Traditional
51WEINSTEIN, WILSON, DRAKE & KELLUM
Figure 4. Examples of the Stigma Consistent and Inconsistent Conditions on the Traditional IAT
Obesity IAT (Teachman, Gapinski, Brownell, Rawlins, & Jeyaram, 2003). In the present
study, forty-two of fifty participants demonstrated longer latencies on the stigma
inconsistent stimuli across all 40-test trials (mean total latency = 85.30 seconds, SD =
24.21) as compared to the stigma consistent stimuli (mean total latency = 67.60 seconds,
SD = 16.49; t (49) = 6.03, p < .001, one-tailed, d =. 85). Participant latencies were
converted to a D_score for a significance test against a point estimate of zero difference
(M = 0.38, SD = 0.4, t (49) = 6.77, p < .001, one-tailed, d = .96). It was therefore
determined that the obesity effect found by Teachman and colleagues (2003) had been
successfully replicated.
Matching-to-Sample Training & Testing
All participants were required to achieve 100% accuracy on each of the testing
blocks or be recycled to the beginning of training. The mean number of training blocks
necessary to reach 100% accuracy was 21.3 (SD = 6.61). Overall fluency scores were
computed in order to examine the ease with which participants learned the trained and
derived relations. Mean participant total fluency was 28.98 correct responses per minute
(or about 1 for every two seconds) for the entire sample with a standard deviation of 6.39
correct responses per minute. The range of correct responses per minute fell between
14.26 and 46.48.
Derived obesity IAT analytic strategy with matching-to-sample fluency criterion.
The distribution of fluency scores was examined for outliers. Dysfluent performances on
52RELATIONAL FRAME THEORY CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION
the MTS task were expected to disrupt the transfer of bias functions to the arbitrary
stimuli. Accordingly, participants yielding a fluency score 1.5 standard deviations below
the mean were excluded from the analysis. This resulted in the exclusion of five
participants. Differences on the Derived Obesity IAT task were examined using raw
latency scores, and the IAT Latency D_score (see Table 2 for means and standard
deviations). It should be noted that the arbitrary stimuli used in the MTS task and the
arbitrary stimuli used in the Derived Obesity IAT were topographically similar but not
identical (see Appendix B for a listing of the arbitrary stimuli used in both tasks). The
purpose of using topographically similar stimuli was to examine the possibility of transfer
of function and generalization along the formal dimensions of the stimulus classes.
Latencies were examined first to determine if the differences detected on the
Traditional Obesity IAT resembled differences on the Derived Obesity IAT for the
stigma consistent and stigma inconsistent conditions. As expected, at pre-test, prior to
matching-to-sample training, participants showed no difference on their raw latencies in
responding to the arbitrary stimuli, t (44) = 1.20, p > .05, d = .18. Responses transformed
to a D_score also showed no difference in responding, t (44)= 0.76, p >.05, d = 0.11. At
post-test, following Matching-to-Sample training, participant raw latencies showed the
expected bias effect, t (44) = 2.13, p < .05, one tail, d = .32. D_score at post-test for the
Derived Obesity IAT also showed the expected bias effect, t (44) = 2.11, p < .05, one tail,
d = 0.31.
Exploratory Analyses
To explore the influence of traditional self-report measures on derived relational
responding, data was collected for several such measures. These included the Glenn
Obesity Attitudes Scale (M = 131.90, SD = 14.65), the Body-Esteem Scale (M= 55.14,
SD = 12.69). None of the survey measures were significantly correlated with responding
on the Traditional Obesity IAT or the MTS task. This finding is consistent with other
efforts to link self-report measures to behavioral ones, insofar as self-report measures
often fail to detect bias found by behavioral measures (Banaji et al., 1997; Greenwald et
al., 1998; Greenwald & Farnham, 2000; Mellott & Greenwald, 2000). None of the survey
measures were significantly correlated with responding on the Derived Obesity IAT with
the exception of one measure, body-esteem, r = .29, p < .05.
DISCUSSION
The purpose of this study was to investigate the transformation of stigma functions
from socially relevant to arbitrary stimuli as a model of stigmatization and social
categorization. The results showed that when participants met the fluency-based training
criterion, the bias functions of obese stimuli successfully transformed the arbitrary
stimuli. These results indicate that a very brief conditioning history can affect a
transformation of bias functions to wholly arbitrary stimuli.
53WEINSTEIN, WILSON, DRAKE & KELLUM
TABLE 2. LATENCY(S) FOR THE DERIVED OBESITY IAT—
MEETING MTS FLUENCY CRITERION (N = 45)
M SD p Cohen’s d
Pre-Test
Stigma Consistent 60.54 11.04 n/a n/a
Stigma Inconsistent 62.41 13.15 n/a n/a
Difference scores 1.87 ± 2.62 10.46 .24 .18
D_score .04 .38 .45 .11
Post-Test
Stigma Consistent 53.19 10.26 n/a n/a
Stigma Inconsistent 55.75 10.29 n/a n/a
Difference scores 2.56 ± 2.02 8.03 .02 .32
D_score .12 .37 .02 .31
Methodological and Data Analysis Issues
In order to investigate the transformation of bias functions it was necessary to
determine if this bias existed within the subject pool. This was done by replicating the
Traditional Obesity IAT bias response (Teachman et al., 2003). In line with the wider
IAT literature, we selected the Latency Scoring Algorithm, or D_score, as the key
dependent variable. In the current study, effect sizes for latency were robust (d = .96),
suggesting that the Traditional IAT response for obesity had been successfully replicated
and that the expected bias was present in the population.
In a number of previous studies, self-report measures have failed to predict
performance on the IAT when the socially desirable response opposes the social
functions of the stimuli (Banaji et al., 1997; Greenwald et al., 1998; Greenwald &
Farnham, 2000; Mellott & Greenwald, 2000). The self-report measures used in the
current study also failed to predict performance on the Traditional Obesity IAT. Further,
these measures failed to predict performance on the Derived Obesity IAT with the
exception of the measure of body esteem. It may be that something about this
experimentally imposed learning history moderated the relationship between body-
esteem and flexibility (as measured by the IAT). However, such an interpretation would
be highly speculative as many relationships among different variables were examined
54RELATIONAL FRAME THEORY CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION
which increased the probability of Type I error. Subsequent studies could examine
whether and under what conditions such an effect might occur.
Differences found for the Traditional IAT vs. the Derived IAT
Effect sizes on the derived IAT were relatively small (d = .31) as compared to effect
sizes found with the traditional obesity IAT (d = .96). One could reasonably speculate
that the bias response in the traditional IAT is the result of life-long training history. In
contrast, the bias response observed on the experimental task was the result of a far
shorter training history (i.e., approximately 45 minutes of exposure to two MTS tasks).
This difference in training magnitudes may explain the difference in effect sizes.
Behavioral Contribution to Social Categorization
Current theory in social psychology does not provide a developmental account to
explain how arbitrary collections of stimuli become related. RFT offers a principled
account for how this occurs. According to Hayes and colleagues (2001), “Prejudice
involves a derived transformation of the functions of individuals based on direct or verbal
contact with the functions of a few members of conceptualized groups” (p. 202). In the
current study, the MTS procedure provided a training history that facilitated relational
responding among neutral images and stigma-related words. These neutral images, while
comparable in form, were not identical to the neutral images situated in the IAT task.
Nevertheless, a response bias was detected among these formally neutral stimuli
subsequent to the relational conditioning provided by the MTS tasks. These results
suggest that relational conditioning can provide a coherent and testable process account
for the development of stigmatized social categories. As such, this study contributes a
developmental link to the extant RFT literature on the generalizability of relational
responding among both arbitrary (see Fields & Reeve, 2001; O’Hora et al., 2002;
Rehfeldt, 2003; Rehfeldt & Hayes, 2000) and socially-relevant stimuli (e.g., Dixon,
Rehfeldt, Zlomke, & Robinson, 2003; Kohlenberg et al., 1991; Moxon et al., 1993; Watt
et al., 1991). The current results suggest that generalization and the transformation of
stimulus functions may sufficiently account for instances of stigma among social
categories.
The RFT and SKS models each attempt to explain the phenomenon of social
categorization. RFT is a behavior analytic theory based on a functional contextual
philosophy, while the SKS model is a social psychological theory founded on a
mechanistic philosophy. Despite these differences, the two theories provide substantially
overlapping descriptions of cognitive events. From an RFT perspective, the IAT
measures relational behavior among various classes of stimuli. Differential performance
among these various classes reflects different histories in respect to the stimuli in those
classes. The SKS model views the IAT as a measure of associations among stimuli, and
infers that differences in behavior are produced by differences in attitudes about the
stimuli in the procedure. RFT utilizes more specific language to describe the functions of
stimuli in respect to each other and accounts for these functions via a behavioral history.
55WEINSTEIN, WILSON, DRAKE & KELLUM
In the current study, the history responsible for the acquisition of stigma functions
by novel stimuli was provided by the MTS procedure. From an RFT perspective, this
procedure reinforced the likelihood of arbitrary stimuli acquiring social functions, even in
the absence of direct training for those functions. Instead, the means of this acquisition
was via the transformation of stimulus functions and stimulus generalization. The MTS
task from the SKS perspective is the same exercise as the IAT; with the difference being
an attempt to manipulate second order links by giving the otherwise unrelated concepts
first order links to a shared third concept. While the SKS model generates similar
predictions on the structure and strength of relationships among stimuli used in this study,
it does not provide a precise account for how events enter their putative “network”.
Despite this weakness, the SKS model offers a venue for behavioral researchers to
communicate with mainstream efforts to explore the phenomenon of social
categorization.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the adequacy with which predictions
consistent with Relational Frame Theory could assist in building a developmental
account of stigma. This account depends on the contextual control of stimuli, a topic of
familiar concern to the behavior analytic community (e.g., Guerin, 2005; McGlinchey &
Keenan, 1997; Weatherly, Miller, & McDonald, 1999). In this particular study,
contextual control was demonstrated when the relational responses of participants
generalized to the novel stimulus sets on the basis of their topographical dimensions
(horizontal or vertical lines). Efforts to demonstrate the transformation of function to the
formal properties of the arbitrary stimuli succeeded when participants met the training
criterion. Although this result suggests the need for careful training procedures, the
potential for future research in this area is promising.
A future study might produce larger effect sizes for the transformation of stigma
functions if the training history assigning obese and thin functions to the arbitrary stimuli
was more extensive. Participants likely have had years of training to perceive obesity as
undesirable. By contrast, participants received a comparatively brief amount of training
for relating weight-relevant words with horizontal or vertical lines. Therefore, to expect
the same magnitude of effects with the arbitrary stimuli after only a brief amount of
training seems unwarranted. Future efforts may provide larger effect sizes by utilizing
more potent training experiences. Another direction for future research might include
examining the effects of relational conditioning processes with a special population, such
as with a clinical sample. Participants whose struggles are reflected by the stimuli in the
procedure may also generate larger effects. Clinical samples have been used effectively
in respect to anxiety (Leslie et al., 1993), disabilities (Barnes, Lawlor, Smeets, & Roche,
1996), and prevalent examples of local prejudices (Watt, et al. 1991).
The spread of bias is a cultural phenomenon, and may be understood as a
requirement for admission to certain groups in order to receive the benefits of
membership. Anthropological studies in Indonesia and prospective field studies of
unionized shop stewards indicate biases favoring in-group membership in the distribution
of benefits (Brown, 1978; Jaspars & Warnaen, 1982). This phenomenon has been
demonstrated even when participants are divided into arbitrary groups by explicitly trivial
56RELATIONAL FRAME THEORY CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION
or random means. Over thirty studies have demonstrated in-group favoritism in the
distribution of rewards where group assignment was determined arbitrarily (e.g., with a
coin toss; Billig & Tajfel, 1973; Tajfel, Billig, Bundy, & Flament, 1971; Tajfel, Nemeth,
Jahoda, Campbell, & Johnson, 1970; Tajfel, 1982).
One dominant approach in explanations for stereotyping, prejudice, and
discrimination has been through the examination of the social context in which it occurs.
The origin of this account has frequently been attributed to the work of Gordon Allport
(1954). Allport believed that normal human behavior inevitably entailed the dividing of
objects and people into categories. Just as people might categorize certain toiletries into
toothbrushes and combs, preferring one for their teeth and the other for their hair, so, too,
people categorize each other into in-groups and out-groups, preferring one and disliking
or avoiding the other. Allport believed that all categories engender meaning upon the
world, and these early-formed generalizations tend to persist when useful. Allport’s
solution to the problem of prejudice turns on the role of a constructive social context.
Allport supported equal-status contact, in the pursuit of common goals, sanctioned by
institutional supports, and allowing perceptions of each other’s common humanity
(Gilbert, Fiske, & Lindzey, 1998).
From an RFT perspective, this would involve exposing participants to a variety of
relational conditioning that emphasizes and reinforces behaviors that support the relative
importance of shared super-ordinate goals rather than goals that promote division. When
inter-group competition prevails, the relational conditioning that tends to dominate results
in relational frames of distinction between groups and coordination within groups.
There is currently a developing body of research that attempts to alter reigning
frames of distinction by targeting conditioning processes that perpetuate prejudice and
stigma (see Hayes, Bissett, Roget, Padilla, Kohlenberg, Fisher, et. al., 2004; Lillis &
Hayes, in press). Returning to the example of obesity, at first the reader is asked to
evaluate their image of a nearly naked obese man as pleasant or unpleasant. After this
evaluation they are asked to reevaluate this image having learned that the image belongs
to the founder of a major world religion. In this example, since the functions of obesity
are assumed to be aversive, an obese image is likewise, expected to be an aversive. This
would represent transformation of an equivalence-based function. With this image being
transformed to having positive functions, (i.e. the image of Buddha) one might expect
behavior to accordingly correspond to changes in the functional properties of the
stimulus. Returning to the example of Hebrew speaking soldiers, with the functions of
other Hebrew speakers now transformed in such a way as to be seen as oppressors, an
intervention of the kind described above might change the functions of Hebrew speakers
by adding other functions besides the aversive ones. This could include exposure to a
new learning history whereby Hebrew speakers and related symbols come to be seen as
belonging to culture that has also suffered from political oppression and racism. A
powerful sense of shared suffering could transform relational frames of distinction or
exclusion to ones of equivalence, inclusion, and coordination.
One promising solution to the problems of social categorization could lie in the
development of interventions that have the functional outcome of disrupting the
57WEINSTEIN, WILSON, DRAKE & KELLUM
distinction between the observer and the observed (e.g., Hayes, 1984). By breaking down
the distinctions among categories, behaviors that depend on discrimination training are no
longer functional. To the extent that we understand conditioning processes that strengthen
and weaken relational learning histories, a developmental account of bias should follow.
This account could help to explain the role of stigma in the process of social
categorization, which in turn could provide direction towards the development of
technology designed to reduce the influence of stigma.
REFERENCES
Allport, G. W. (1954). The Nature of Prejudice. New York: Perseus Books Group.
Banaji, M. R., Greenwald, A. G., & Rosier, M. R. (1997). Implicit esteem: When collectives shape
individuals. Paper presented at the Preconference on Self, Toronto, Canada.
Barnes, D., Lawlor, H., Smeets, P. M., & Roche, B. (1996). Stimulus equivalence and
academic self-concept among mildly mentally handicapped and nonhandicapped children.
Psychological Record, 46 (1), 87-107.
Bessenoff, G., & Sherman, J. (2000). Automatic and controlled components of prejudice toward
fat people: Evaluation versus stereotype activation. Social Cognition, 18, 329-353.
Billig, M. & Tajfel, H. (1973). Social categorization and similarity in intergroup
behaviour. European Journal of Social Psychology, 3, 27-52.
Brown, R. J. (1978). Divided we fall: An analysis of relations between sections of a factory
workforce. In H.Tajfel (Ed.) Differentiation between social groups: Studies in the social
psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 395-429). London: Academic.
Craeynest, M., Crombez, G., De Houwer, J., Deforche, B., Tanghe, A., & De Bourdeaudhuij, I.
(2005). Explicit and implicit attitudes towards food and physical activity in childhood
obesity. Behavior Research and Therapy, 43, 1111-1120.
Crandall, C. (1991). Do heavy-weight students have more difficulty paying for college?
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 606-611.
De Houwer, J. (2003) The Extrinsic Affective Simon Task. Experimental Psychology, 50, 77-85.
Dixon, M. R., Dymond, S., Rehfeldt, R. A., Roche, B., & Zlomke, K. R. (2003). Terrorism and
relational frame theory. Behavior and Social Issues, 12, 129-147.
Dougher, M. J., Auguston, E, Markham, M. R., Greenway, D. E., & Wulfert, E. (1994). The
transfer of respondent eliciting and extinction functions through stimulus equivalence
classes. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 62, 331-351.
Dougher, M., Perkins, D. R., Greenway, D., Koons, A., & Chiasson, C. (2002). Contextual control
of equivalence-based transformation of functions. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of
Behavior, 78, 63-93.
Dymond, S., & Barnes, D. (1995). A transformation of self-discrimination response functions in
accordance with the arbitrarily applicable relations of sameness, more than, and less than.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 64, 163-184.
Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
Fields, L., & Reeve, K. F. (2001). A methodological integration of generalized equivalence
classes, natural categories, and cross-modal perception. The Psychological Record, 51, 67-
87.
Fiske, S.T. (2004). Social Beings: A core motives approach to social psychology. Hoboken, NJ:
John Wiley & sons.
58RELATIONAL FRAME THEORY CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION
Gilbert, D. T., Fiske, S. T., & Lindzey, G. (1998). The Handbook of Social Psychology. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Glenn, C. V., & Chow, P. (2002). Measurement of attitudes toward obese people among a
Canadian sample of men and women. Psychological Reports, 91, 627-640.
Gray, N. S., Brown, A. S., MacCulloch, M. J., Smith, J., & Snowden, R. J. (2005). An implicit test
of the associations between children and sex in pedophiles. Journal of Abnormal Psychology,
114, 304-308.
Greenwald, A. G., Banaji, M. R., Rudman, L. A., Farnham, S. D., Nosek, B. A.,& Mellott, D. S.
(2002). A unified theory of implicit attitudes, stereotypes, self-esteem, and self-concept.
Psychological Review, 109, 3-25.
Greenwald, A. G., & Farnham, S. D. (2000). Using the Implicit Association Test to measure self-
esteem and self-concept. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 1022-1038.
Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in
implicit cognition: The Implicit Association Test. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 74, 1464-1480.
Greenwald, A. G., Nosek, B. A., & Banaji, M. R. (2003). Understanding and using the Implicit
Association Test: I. An improved scoring algorithm. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 85, 197-216.
Guerin, B. (2005). Combating everyday racial discrimination without assuming "racists" or
"racism": New intervention ideas from a contextual analysis. Behavior and Social Issues,
14(1), 46-70.
Hayes, S.C. (1984). Making sense of spirituality. Behaviorism, 12, 99-110.
Hayes, S. C. (1989). Nonhumans have not yet shown stimulus equivalence. Journal of the
Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 51, 385-392.
Hayes, S. C. & Barnes, D. (1997). Analyzing derived stimulus relations requires more than the
concept of stimulus class. Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 68, 235-270.
Hayes, S. C., Barnes-Holmes, D., & Roche, B. (Eds.). (2001). Relational Frame Theory: A post-
Skinnerian account of human language and cognition. New York: Plenum Press.
Hayes, S. C., Niccolls, R., Masuda, A., & Rye, A. K. (2002). Prejudice, terrorism and behavior
therapy. Cognitive & Behavioral Practice, 9, 296-301.
Hayes, S. C., Bissett, R., Roget, N., Padilla, M., Kohlenberg, B., Fisher, G., Masuda, A.,
Pistorello, J., Rye, A., Berry, K., & Niccolls, R. (2004). The impact of acceptance and
commitment training and multicultural training on the stigmatizing attitudes and professional
burnout of substance abuse counselors: Research on acceptance and commitment therapy.
Behavior Therapy, 35, 821-835.
Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: Wiley.
Irving, L. (2000). Promoting size acceptance in elementary school children: The EDAP puppet
program. Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment & Prevention, 8, 221-232.
Jaspars, J. M. & Warnaen, S. (1982). Intergroup relations, ethnic identity, and self-evaluation in
Indonesia. In H.Tajfel (Ed.) Social Identity and Intergroup Relations. Paris: Cambridge
University Press.
Kohlenberg, B. S., Hayes, S. C., & Hayes, L. J. (1991). The transfer of contextual control over
equivalence classes through equivalence classes: A possible model of social
stereotyping. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 56(3), 505-518.
Leslie, J. C., Tierney, K. J., Robinson, C. P., Keenan, M., Watt, A., & Barnes, D. (1993).
Differences between clinically anxious and non-anxious subjects in a stimulus equivalence
training task involving threat words. The Psychological Record, 43(1), 153-161.
59You can also read
