A Functional Approach to Implicit and Explicit Attitudes of self-forgiveness: developing a perspective taking training

• Grant number: 15/19184-0
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): January 01, 2016
• Effective date (End): December 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Experimental Psychology
• Principal researcher: Antonio Celso de Noronha Goyos
• Grantee: Diana Ferroni Bast
• Home Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 16/11362-9 - The effects of perspective taking training on attitudes to autism and on psychological health in ABA tutors, BE.EP.PD

Abstract

This study aims to investigate a functional analytic model of self-forgiveness based on Relational Frame Theory (RFT) in which self-forgiveness is conceptualized as a repertoire of perspective-taking (deictic) relations in which a person is trained to take perspective on past failures. The current study will involve an RFT-based intervention targeting adult-level perspective-taking skills and directed at taking perspective on perceived real life personal failures. In the current study, 48 adults will be randomly assigned to one of three groups, a no treatment control group, an active group receiving mindfulness instructions (to pay attention in their thoughts without interfering) and an experimental group receiving RFT-based perspective-taking training. Participants will be assessed both pre- and post-intervention using measures of self-forgiveness and psychological health. Regarding the assessment of self-forgiveness, an empirically established RFT-based methodology (the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure, IRAP) will be used in addition to conventional self-report ("explicit") measures. Mixed group design statistics will be used to compare the effects of the interventions both within and across groups to examine the efficacy of the RFT-based model of self-forgiveness. It is expected that there will be positive changes from pre- to post-intervention for both the perspective-taking and mindfulness groups in comparison with the control group. It is also possible that there may be differences between the perspective-taking and mindfulness groups. This will be the first study to examine the effects of a functional analytically defined perspective taking intervention on multiple indices of psychological health, and as such it is hoped to obtain RFT-level insights that may lead to refinement of current self-forgiveness based approaches.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

ALASIRI, EMAN; BAST, DIANA; KOLTS, RUSSELL L.. ``Using the implicit relational assessment procedure (IRAP) to explore common humanity as a dimension of self-compassion{''}. JOURNAL OF CONTEXTUAL BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE, v. 14, p. 65-72, OCT 2019. (15/19184-0)