Reeves et al 2010 Flashcards
bacground knowledge
INFLATED RESPONSIBILITY MODEL SALKOVSKIS
Salkovskis (1985) proposed that intrusive thoughts activate dysfunctional beliefs about the degree of responsibility individuals should have over their own or a significant others’ safety. These beliefs lead to the conclusion that something must be done about the thought in order to put matters right again. Taking actions to neutralise the thoughts leads to a reinforcement of the belief that one’s actions - the compulsion - played a key role in protecting oneself or others. The reinforcement of these thoughts then makes the thoughts more likely.
participants
Non-clinical children aged 9 - 12. The sample was made up of 81 schoolchildren from the East of England. Children were excluded from the study if they had learning issues or were colour-blind.
procedure
The task was a sorting task. The children were given a bag with 120 sweets. There were six different colors. Children were told that the blue and green sweets contained nuts; the orange and gold sweets might contain nuts, and the brown and white sweets did not contain nuts. They were asked to sort them into three containers (with nuts, might have nuts, no nuts) and they were told that the sweets would be given to a class of children where one child had a severe nut allergy.
The children were randomly allocated to one of three conditions. In the inflated responsibility condition, the children were told that the researcher would not check the sweets and that they should be as careful as possible. In the moderate responsibility condition, they were not given any information about who would check the sweets or who would be to blame for a mistake. In the no-responsibility condition, they were told that the researcher would check the sweets and fix any mistakes before giving them to the children.
results
the children who had inflated responsibility engaged in more checking behavior. This included gazing at the sweet longer than a second, looking at the color key to verify if the sweet contained nuts, or asking the researcher to confirm the color of the sweet.
