McKenna, Ian (2010) Developing an Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) to Assess Obese and Normal- Weight Individuals’ Attitudes to Healthy and Unhealthy Foods. PhD thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth.
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Abstract
The current doctoral thesis sought to develop an IRAP that could assess obese
and normal-weight individuals’ attitudes to healthy and unhealthy foods. Three
empirical studies directly compared the ability of IRAP and explicit measures to
assess obese and normal-weight individuals’ food biases in a two-hour and
unrestricted food deprivation state. An additional objective of the research programme
was to determine if it was possible to detect reliable differences in neurophysiological
activity while participants completed a food-attitude IRAP. Finally, the research
aimed to examine the malleability of implicit attitudes to healthy and unhealthy foods.
All studies presented participants with an IRAP and explicit measures. The IRAP
presented “pro-unhealthy” and “pro-healthy” trials. The difference in mean-responselatency
between “pro-healthy” and “pro-unhealthy” trials indicated participants’ bias
towards healthy or unhealthy foods. The advantages of the IRAP were highlighted
across the empirical investigations: (a) unlike any other implicit measure, it
differentiated between the implicit responses of obese and normal-weight individuals
to healthy and unhealthy foods, accounting for variance beyond that provided by a
range of explicit measures; (b) the IRAP effects were relatively robust across studies;
(c) a measure of neurological processing (EEGs) was successfully obtained while
participants completed the IRAP, and the findings yielded some patterns that appear
consistent with previous research; and (d) it revealed the malleability of implicit
responses using an acceptance-based intervention, an effect that has not yet been
reported in the literature on psychological acceptance or implicit attitudes. Overall,
therefore the pattern of results in these studies highlighted the utility of the IRAP for
future investigations of implicit food attitudes among obese and normal-weight
individuals. Finally, the current research programme adds to previously published
IRAP studies showing the efficacy of the IRAP as a measure of implicit bias across a
range of domains.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) |
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Keywords: | Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure; IRAP; Obese and Normal- Weight Individuals’ Attitudes; Healthy and Unhealthy Foods; |
Academic Unit: | Faculty of Science and Engineering > Psychology |
Item ID: | 2587 |
Depositing User: | IR eTheses |
Date Deposited: | 21 Jun 2011 15:16 |
URI: | https://mu.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/2587 |
Use Licence: | This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here |
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