Kavanagh, D., Matthyssen, N., Barnes-Holmes, Y., Barnes-Holmes, D., McEnteggart, C., & Vastano, R. (2019). Exploring the Use of Pictures of Self and Other in the IRAP: Reflecting upon the Emergence of Differential Trial Type Effects. International journal of psychology and psychological therapy, 19(3), 323-336.
The Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) assesses the relative strength of derived relational responding. A growing body of IRAP research has focused on assessing verbal relations pertaining to the self and others. This preliminary study sought to determine the feasibility of using matched pictures of self and of others across two IRAPs (N= 32). Both the self- and other-IRAPs also presented pictures of pens as the contrast category. The results of the IRAPs were broadly consistent with common-sense expectations. That is, participants confirmed more readily than they denied that a picture of a face was a face and that a picture of a pen was a pen. They also denied more readily than confirmed that a picture of a pen was a face and that a picture of a face was a pen. No significant differences in the sizes of the individual trial type effects, or differences among those effects, emerged between the two (self and other) IRAPs. However, two key differential trial type effects did emerge for both IRAPs, which relate directly to recent and on-going conceptual developments surrounding the IRAP and the analysis of the dynamics of arbitrarily applicable relational responding in general. These developments are considered and discussed in detail toward the end of the article.