Hussey, Ian (2015) Developing the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) to Assess Evaluations of Death Within Suicidality. PhD thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth.
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Ian Hussey - 2015 - PhD thesis - Developing The Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) To Assess Evaluations Of Death Within Suicidality.pdf
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Abstract
Over the last fifty years, psychological science can be credited with persistent efforts
to prevent and treat suicidal behaviours. However, the utility of such interventions is often
moderated by the ability to identity individuals who are likely to engage in suicidal behaviors
ahead of time. Less progress has been made on this front; the ability to accurately predict
such behaviors at an individual level remains limited. Recent evidence suggests that this may
be due in part to the field’s reliance on self-report measures. One promising avenue that has
emerged in recent years is the objective behavioural tasks referred to as “implicit measures”,
which have shown greater promising predictive validity relative to existing risk factors
derived from self-report measures. The current body of research sought to expand on these
findings and, specifically, to explore implicit evaluations of death in both normative and
suicidal individuals using the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP).
This thesis begins with a systematic review of the literature on implicit measures and
suicide. Based on the conclusions of this review, five analogue studies were conducted
exploring implicit studies to death in normative student populations. Two further experiments
developed a novel experimental methodology (i.e., manipulations of the IRAP’s “contrast
category”) in order to facilitate a more detailed understanding of what drives effects on the
measure. A final experiment compared implicit death-evaluations on the IRAP between
psychiatric patients with current suicidal ideation and normative controls. All studies
presented participants with one or more implicit measures (IRAP and IAT) and a number of
self-report measures. Generically, the IRAP presents participants with four category pairings
(e.g., “life-positive”, “life-negative”, “death-positive”, and “death-negative”), and compares
the relative ease with which they respond to these pairings with “true” relative to “false”. The
difference in mean response-latency between the two response options is referred to as an
implicit bias.
Together, these studies allowed for a more detailed interrogation of how death is
evaluated between individuals with and without a history of suicidal behaviours than was
previously possible. Specifically, across studies, results demonstrated the IRAP’s ability to
isolate specific implicit biases between categories, relative to other measures. The results
from the analogue studies were used to development and assess a death-evaluation IRAP that
is sensitive to mortality salience. A final experiment to conclude that suicidal ideation was
found to be associated with a specific rejection of the negativity (i.e., fearlessness) of death.
Results across studies indicate that differential patterns of implicit bias between
normative individuals and suicidal ideators were attributable to suicidality specifically rather
than the salience of mortality more generally, thereby providing a degree of construct validity
for death-evaluations on the IRAP. Importantly, these effects are consistent with leading
theories of suicide (e.g., Interpersonal Theory and Integrated Motivational-Volitional model),
and are in line with our stated goal to attempt to ground the effects found on implicit
measures more closely with existing theory. Overall, results suggest that the assessment of
implicit death-evaluations on the IRAP represents a good candidate for future research on the
prospective prediction of suicidal behaviours.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) |
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Keywords: | Developing; Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure; IRAP; Assess Evaluations; Death Within Suicidality; |
Academic Unit: | Faculty of Science and Engineering > Psychology |
Item ID: | 7781 |
Depositing User: | IR eTheses |
Date Deposited: | 18 Jan 2017 16:31 |
URI: | https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/id/eprint/7781 |
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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