practical applications of awareness, courage, and love: solving contemporary issues through social...
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Practical Applications of Awareness, Courage, and Love: Solving Contemporary
Issues Through Social Connection
Michael Thurston-Rattue, M.A. (Hons)Mavis Tsai, Ph.D.
Jonathan W. Kanter, Ph.D.Robert J. Kohlenberg, Ph.D.
Adam M. Kuczysnki, B.S.
Racism in 21st Century America
Psychological Literature and Workshop Introduction
Intergroup Anxiety (Plant &
Devine, 2003)
Intergroup Contact Theory
(Pettigrew, 1998)
“Fast Friends” (Reis and
Shaver, 1998)
MethodsAssigned to one of two identical 6-hour workshops
Measures: CoBRAS (Color Blind Racial Attitudes Survey), Intergroup Anxiety and Avoidance Scale, Symbolic Racism Scale, and Implicit Attitudes Test
Opening with ACT: Individual Exercises to Break Down Barriers
• Sentence Completion Game, e.g., “Mary had a little_______”.• Similarly, “________are the best dancers” and “________are smarter
than everyone else”.• Shark Tank Exercise: builds on the idea that the very process of trying
not to have certain thoughts makes them more likely to happen.• Instantiating ACT Principles: Acceptance and Cognitive Defusion.
Continuing with FAP: Group Exercises to Build Relationships
Eye Contact Exercise
Dig Deep Exercise (2 people), Loss Exercise (3-4 people) and Large Group Disclosure Exercise (15 people)
1) Self-disclosure
2) Reinforcing feedback
3) Reflection on feedback
Connecting with FAP
Each exercise is an example of Rule 2, intended to evoke CRB2s related to intimacy and self-disclosure.
Consequently this allows people to engage in Rule 3 with each other.
Mission Statement Exercise; encourages Rule 5.
Quantitative Results
• Analyses of the data yielded no trends in the data. According to our measures the workshop did not reduce racism.
Why?1. The students scored low at baseline, meaning there was little room
for them to move on our explicit measures.2. The IAT displayed very poor test-rest reliability within the control
group, and therefore was not a validly performing measure for our experimental group.
Qualitative ResultsStudents (N = 20) took part in semi-structured qualitative interviews to discover their thoughts on how the workshop could be improved, their experiences during the workshop and whether they noticed any changes in themselves since the workshop.
i) Decreased stereotyping, e.g., “It’s difficult to humanize somebody whom you don’t really have a lot of interactions with…but at that workshop you realize that there are more similarities than differences between black and white people.”
ii) Increased awareness of the effect of personal histories on behavior, e.g., “…[now when] I meet someone and they’re rude to me I don’t think ‘oh, they’re a mean person’, I think ‘oh, something must have happened to them; they have a back-story.’”
iii) Deepened social connections, e.g., “I think the best part about it for me, was watching people transform. Seeing people go from being cooped up and defensive, having their walls up, and slowly over the course of the workshop, have their walls come down, and share more and more to the point where they’re crying and they’re experiencing something that they don’t get to experience in everyday life.”
Differences from Racial Dialogue
Future Directions
Incorporating measures of social connectedness Adapt Social
Connectedness Scale and the
Inclusion of the Other in the Self
Scale
Therapists’ Multi-cultural Training
The Interpersonal Connections Study• A brief, 4-session, intervention targeting social connection • Manualized ACL protocol adapted for various relationship types and
brevity• Session 1: Life history; Skills review; Homework: risk & self care log• Session 2: Ways people feel cared about; Bringing longing into the moment;
Homework: risk & self care, closeness generating questions• Session 3: Empathy & constructive conflict; Homework: risk & self care,
practices for increasing intimacy, bucket list• Session 4: Speaking from the heart; Review, Appreciations & goodbye
• Long-term goal: Create powerful and effective drop-in groups for increasing social connection around the globe
Methods
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• Random assignment into groups:• FAP group (7 coaches: 5 female (2 Ph.D., 3 M.S.), 2 male (1 Ph.D., 1
M.S.; each supervised 5-6 sessions per dyad) • Control Group (a brief BA intervention to schedule 1-hour
activities for four weeks)
• Baseline, post, and 1-month follow-up assessments
Targeted Awareness, Courage, Love Skills
• N=58 individuals (29 dyads)• 38 Romantic• 2 Family• 18 Friends
• Self-report measures:• Fear of Intimacy• FAP Intimacy Scale
• Observational Coding• Social Support Task• Interpersonal Connections Discussion:
MethodsFAP Activity
n 28 30
Age 29.2 (8.7) 30.6 (11.1)
Gender 54% female 60% female
Ethnicity 72% Caucasian 67% Caucasian
Education 43% 4-yr College 40% 4-yr College
Relationship type 64% Romantic0% Friends36% Friends
67% Romantic7% Family27% Friends
FAP Intimacy Scale (FAP-IS)
• Measures the degree of intimacy within a specific relationship• Scale 0-6 (“Not at all” to “Completely”)• 14 items, sample items:• I felt comfortable telling this person things that I do not tell other people• I trusted this person with my deepest thoughts and feelings• I revealed to this person what I feel are my shortcomings
Leonard, R. C., Knott, L. E., Lee, E. B., Singh, S., Smith, A. H., Kanter, J., Norton, P. J., & Wetterneck, C. T. (2014). The development of the Functional Analytic Psychotherapy Intimacy Scale. The Psychological Record.
• Measures fear related to intimacy• Scale 1-5 (“Not at all characteristic of me” to “Very characteristic of me”)• 35 items, sample items include:• If O were upset I would sometimes be afraid of showing that I care.• I might be afraid to confide my innermost feelings to O.• I would feel at ease telling O that I care about him/her.
Fear of Intimacy Scale (FIS)
Descutner, C. J., & Thelen, M. H. (1991). Development and Validation of a Fear-of-Intimacy Scale. Psychological Assessment, 3, 2, 218-225.
Inclusion of Others in the Self Scale (IOS)
1 2 3 4
5 6 7
ResultsIOS
Conclusion: Both groups improve on IOS, a simple measure of closeness
ResultsFAP-IS
Conclusion: On FAP-IS, FAP group improves at post but improvement doesn’t last.
(This is looking at the whole sample.)
ResultsFIS
Conclusion: On Fear of Intimacy, neither group improves.
(This is looking at the whole sample.)
We recruited ANYONE who wanted to improve their relationship, so our sample included people who were already doing quite well.
What if we look just at the people who had room to improve?
ResultsFIS
No differences for low pretreatment fear of intimacy
Conclusion: When you look at those with low pretreatment fear of intimacy…
neither group improves on Fear of Intimacy.
ResultsFIS
Significant interaction for high pretreatment fear of intimacy F (2, 54) = .3.45, p = .038 FAP significantly lower at Post and 1-month follow-up FAP n = 13, Activity n = 16
Conclusion: When you look at those with high pretreatment fear of intimacy…
only the FAP group improves on Fear of Intimacy.
ResultsFAP-IS
No differences for low pretreatment fear of intimacy
Conclusion: When you look at those with low pretreatment fear of intimacy…
neither group improves on FAP-IS.
ResultsFAP-IS
Significant interaction for high pretreatment fear of intimacy F(1.4, 36.7) = 5.83, p = .01 FAP significantly lower at Post and 1-month follow-up FAP n = 13, Activity n = 16
Conclusion: When you look at those with high pretreatment fear of intimacy…
only the FAP group improves on FAP-IS.
Thank you!• Project Coordinator: Adam Kuczynski• CSSC Director & Data Analysis: Jonathan Kanter• Study coaches:• Andrew Fleming• Andy Paves • Crissy Anderson• Haley Douglas• Maria Santos • Nicole Stettler• Sarah Sullivan-Singh