The Tools to Change

                             

                                               Photo Taken By FreemanSchool

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/freemanschool/5428071179/  

In the 1970’s, studies began to show that college-level self-management courses effectively promoted self-change in more than 90% of college students. These courses aim to promote positive and healthy outcomes, replace bad habits, and accomplish tasks using different strategies. Since then studies of self-management courses have examined the efficacy of the SM programs with different degrees of intensities including course content of course, feedback from professionals, and small group activities. Researchers have found that SM courses have changed both moderate and unhealthy clinically pathological behaviors such as nail-biting and depression without therapists’ help. In particular, Jean Choi and Kyong-Mee Chung examined the effectiveness SM courses contain in improving a target behavior within a college. They investigated the relationship between self-regulated behaviors and academic achievement. After conducting the study they found that the application of principles and skills taught by high-intensity SM courses were the most effective at promoting successful self-change.

In order to construct the experiment they took a sampling of 84 total college students and assigning 1-3 conditions. These were Experiment group I (high-intensity SM courses), Experiment Group II (low-intensity SM courses) and a third group that was a control. Each SM group ran for one semester and engaged in projects for 3 months with a required report at end. At the beginning of the semester students chose a target behavior they wished to modify and improve upon by course completion. In the high-intensity course students were taught SM theories and practical applications while participating in small group activities. The low intensity group did no activities, exercises, extensive group work; they were taught only general theory and excluded SM skills training. The control group was students enrolled in Clinical psychology which promoted understand of theory and current trends of clinical psychology.

To efficiently collect quantitative data they utilized four different scales. Each scale was created by earlier researchers and measured different behaviors in the form of a 5 point scale. The first scale, the Goal Attainment scale, was devised in order to measure goal achievement. Students would write down specific behavioral goals they would like to achieve and then how successful they believed to be from a scale from -2 to +2. The second scale called the Generalized Expectancy of Success Scale (GESS-R) was used to collect students expected level of success in a series of situations after they had completed their courses. Lastly, the Motivation and Expectancy Change Scale measured an individual’s motivation and expectancy for change.

After conducting the experiment and collecting data they found significant difference between High-intensity SM courses and the control group. There was no significant difference however in the success found between high and low intensity SM courses or the low intensity and control group. Posttest score differences were found for all three variables across the board; goal achievement, expected level of success, and motivation and expectancy for change. Each of the groups improved substantially across the board and supported the claim that high intensity SM courses successfully promoted self-change in college students.

When analyzing this data, the application of SM principles and skills were found to be effective in modifying target behavior. Furthermore, the level of successful behavioral change was found to be dependent on the SM course’s intensity and most likely to occur in high-intensity SM courses. This is backed by the fact that students found greater goal success with intensive academic intervention and detailed, personal feedback. Another interesting result they found is that successful behavioral change is related to positive cognitive change. If a student has a lack of optimism about their ability to succeed or they blame external circumstance for their failures, the application of SM skills appeared to be a useful strategy. Upon looking at all of the data from the experiment we can conclude that individuals using SM techniques have the tools to modify and improve cognitive processing, internal locus or control, and success expectancy. If college students what to be successful in college, then SM courese should be highly recommended.

Choi, Jean. "Effectiveness of a College-Level Self Management Course." Sage Journal 36.18 (2011). Print

Parenting Strong Willed Children Isn't Impossible

Working at summer camp shows children’s best and worst behavior. One day during the summer an 8 year old named Brandon had an “accident” and hid his poopy clothes in another child's laundry bag in an effort to frame him. Bad behavior like this is not common, however, there is always of possibility for it to occur. Forehand et al. conducted a behavior modification study that examines the behavior of children whose parents have read Parenting the Strong Willed Child. The study proves that there is a positive correlation between children’s good behavior and parents that have read Parenting the Strong Willed Child and been educated on children’s behavior.

Forehand et al. has done significant work before in the child behavior field, even writing the the book Parenting the Strong Willed Child. He has also done several other studies before to back up this current study. Extremely limited outside sources besides his own study calls into question the overall legitimacy of his approach, but the final data correlates well with his original hypothesis so this concern may be able to be dismissed. Forehand et al. developed a three intensity intervention program depending on child behavior. The three stages are individual counseling with a social worker, group counseling with a social worker, and parent self-administered programs. This study uses the Group Counseling (GC) method. Overall the point of this study is to back up Forehand et al.’s book with scientific data to increase its sales and legitimacy. This study is not independent from outside interests.

This study employs Group Counseling and literature as its method of educating parents on child behavior and parent reactions. The parents were first randomized into control and GC groups. The control was told the study would start in 7 weeks to make them blind to the fact they were the control. The GC group attended 6 2 hour meetings weekly to learn the correct behaviors. Both groups called into an anonymous phone line to report how they felt as parents and how their child’s behavior changed throughout the week. The study also did an evaluation before and after the study to see overall change. Finally there was a 2 month post evaluation to see if the behavior changes were temporary or not. The study used multiple scales to evaluate results. First the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory was used to measure child behavior. The Parent Recorded Behavior scale worked to record which behavior was worst among individual children. The last scale was the Parent Behavior which measured how well parents responded to bad behavior.

The study obtained data from both the GC group and the control group in order to compare the change in each group from the beginning of the study till the end. Child problem behavior was measured by Eyberg intensity and Eyberg problem. Eyberg intensity showed that the treatment group started at 134.44 and decreased all the way to 112.39. The control group started at 129.53 and decreased only slightly to 125.10. The Eyberg problem scale showed more dramatic change. The treatment group at first scored a 14.18 on average, but after completing the course scored a 8.20. The control group first scored a 12.88 on average, and with no training scored a 12.52 on follow up. All the other scales and qualitative measurements aligned with these first two results.


This study’s result offer firm back up in support of Forehand et.al’s book on parenting for troubled children. The group counciling and reading of specific chapters in the book clearly gave parents an edge in improving their child's behavior. This lead to happier and more incontrol parents. The parents reported a average level of satisfaction being 6 out of 7 for the book they read during the study. Parents greatly enjoyed the change it brought in their child. This satisfaction and reduction in bad behavior was not temporary though, at a two month post check up all the parents still reported improved behavior and were still satisfied with the program and book. This indicates a lasting behavioral change in the parent’s parenting technique. The lasting change is further support to use Forehand et. al’s book as a support tool to parent strong willed children.

Forehand et al’s study of parenting strong willed children is an exellent example of behavior modification being used to back up an instructional book. This study proves that the book offers good advice and may stop doubts in purchasing of it. The evidence and quantitative data is concusive and inarguable. Overall the only doubt can be cast when one considers that the author of the book also was the one who headed the study. An independent researcher would have made the results more legitamente.

Sleep Deprivation and the ICU

Almost 70 percent of Americans face sleep deprivation every day. It prevents them from being able to focus and work properly leading to fatal accidents, such car accidents with people falling asleep at the wheel. If sleep deprivation is so detrimental to healthy people, what would its affect on people who are ill? For many patients sleep is essential in a speedy recovery, however, almost all patients suffer from the inability to sleep. Scientists Biren Kamdar, Dale Needham, and Nancy Collop all came together to study the correlation between sleep deprivation and process of recovery in patients. They found that both physical and physiological recoveries can be affected positively and/or negatively depending on the amount of sleep people get, therefore, it is imperative that the reason why patients are losing sleep is understood so they can have a successful recovery.  Due to external disturbances such as noise, light, other patient care, patients found in ICU’s do not get an adequate amount of sleep leading to problems with the heart, respiratory and immune systems, and cognitive functions.

In order to observe a patient’s sleeping pattern, the group of scientist devised several methods that allowed them to monitor a normal night’s sleep and then compare it to a sleep that had outside factors acting on it. They measured the changes in body temperature, changes in respiration, blood flow, and rapid eye movement. After that all they had to do is compare, which external sources affected to body in these areas, and with that the sources of sleep depravation were found.

Although ICU’s are excellent places for receiving care quickly and efficiently, it is not always the easiest place to fall asleep. Noise is a common factor and unfortunately is hard to avoid and with the fact “that critically ill patients may be more sensitive to environmental noise as they are recovering” (Kamdar pg.5) it makes the situation even worse. Noise and can from a variety of sources, but mainly coming from the staff as they talk amongst one another or interact with the other patients. Lighting is also another factor that the patients have to deal with. Although some patients claim, “that light is less disruptive to sleep than noise and patient care activities” (Kamdar pg. 5) it is still just another factor that can affect a good night’s sleep. The last disturbance is not a surprise: mechanical ventilation. It can be difficult to fall asleep when there is a tube stuck down your throat, but there also other problems that ventilation can cause including “increased ventilatory effort, abnormal gas exchange, and patient-ventilator dysynchrony” (Kamdar pg. 6). Although these are essential in keeping the patients alive, they are still impeding on their recovery, therefore these machines must be improved soon if patients are truly to receive the best care possible.

Each of one of these disturbances can lead to physical and or psychological problems while the patients are in the ICU the first of these being problems with the respiratory system. Leading not only to shortness of breath, patients who are not able to breath correctly due to sleep deprivation can suffer from severe muscle fatigue due to the lack of oxygen in their system, and in some extreme cases the results can lead to the airway collapsing all together. Sleep deprivation can also cause difficulty for a proper amount of blood to reach the heart, leading to an “increased risk of acute myocardial infarction” (Kamdar pg. 6) or better known as a heart attack. Not all of the problems caused are strictly physical though. Mental health is also known to be affected leading to delirium and cognitive dysfunction. Alone, these conditions can be easily treated and pose little risk to a person. However, in recovering patients, delirium can lead to an unsteady circadian rhythm (the human biological clock) making it even more difficult to get rest and even cause states of confusion. And even after release, if a patient suffered from either of these mental conditions, they are far more likely to develop severe depression. “A systematic review of 14 studies of post-ICU depression revealed clinically significant depression in 28% of patients within the first year of ICU discharge” (Kamdar pg. 9).

In Kamdar’s study “Sleep Deprivation in Critical Illness: Its Role in Physical and Psychological Recovery” it is clearly shown that sleep deprivation as an adverse affect on patients in their time of recovery. Hopefully, as studies progress, we will be able to create a scenario where all patients are able to receive the care they require, without being a detriment to their recovery. And although most UNC students are not in the ICU, I still think this article holds value. It shows that sleep loss can have many negative affects on the body’s health, therefore students have to make sure to get enough, otherwise it will become more difficult to succeed in schoolwork and other activities.

Works Cited:

Kamdar, Biren B., Dale M. Needham, and Nancy A. Collop "Sleep Deprivation in Critical Illness: Its Role in Physical and Psychological Recovery." Journal of Intensive Care Medicine (2009): 1-16. Print.

The Importance of Sports Psychology

Every year during the month of March  basketball is highly covered due to March Madness. A lot of people fill out brackets with hopes of their favorite college team winning the NCAA Championship. Imagine if your favorite players in this tournament could perform better in games if they utilized their resources. This is the topic of Chris Gee's article How does Sport Psychology Actually Improve Athletic Performance? With the NBA, NFL, MLB and other sports organizations generating so much popularity, sports Psychology has transformed into a very popular topic; both as an academic area of study and practice. Sport Psychologists aim at to help athletes develop a well prepared mental state that should prove them successful when playing their sports. Many athletes and coaches are unaware or misinformed about what sport psychologist actually do, and as a result do not utilize these resources that can help prove them successful. The behavior modification article by Chris Gee aims “to provide the reader with a simple framework depicting how mental skills training translates into improved within-competition performance.” Gee provided the reader with background information about sports psychology and reasoning as to why athletes and coaches do not use the sport psychologists. Gee argues that athletes and coaches do not utilize their resources in sports psychology, and if they would athletes performance would be better.

The author first starts off with a brief history of sports psychology and how it has developed its current role in today society. Sports psychology is a relatively new area of study that began to emerge in the 1960s. Sports psychology has become very popular due to the emphasis and importance we place on athletics such as the NBA, NFL, or MLB. Athletics have become a very social thing that has developed into a cultural phenomenon and has garnered a large and diverse fan base. Sports Psychology combines a cultural phenomenon with a popular area of study. Though sports psychology is popular, athletes and coaches are not taking advantage of these services.

The first reason the author lists for athletes not utilizing the advantages of sport psychologists is that there is a genera lack of understanding “about the process and techniques that comprise a common sport psychology.” Some studies have even suggested that many athletes and coaches view sport psychologist in the same way psychiatrists, counselors, and “shrinks.” They feel as if they would be laying on a couch getting psychoanalyzed when that is not the case at all. The author then furthers his reasoning by sstating, many people in the sports industry think that sports psychologist are only for ““problem” athletes and thus not part of a general performance enhancement strategy” and stray way from the services.”

Then author then provides the reader with brief terminology sections that discusses words that pertains to an athlete’s athletic ability such as absolute and relative performance. The author provides the readers with examples that show how both an athlete’s relative and absolute performance both seem to increase with the help of a sport psychologist. The author then discusses the mental side of sports performance that sport psychology could greatly help such as the many different anxieties athletes at time experience such as precompetitive and elevated anxiety. Many people believe the mind and body are connected, so if an athlete is experiencing this it can negatively affect their performance.

The author then goes into strategies that sports psychologist use that improves overall sports performance. For example, many cognitive anxieties are dealt with “strategies that teach the athlete to be cognizant of his or her internal negative dialog and to replace these thoughts with more positive and reaffirming statements.” When dealing with somatic anxiety, there are many strategies that aim at helping athletes regulate their autonomic arousal response (i.e., relax themselves) by first teaching them what heightened arousal feels like and then relaxation strategies aimed at reducing it. These

In conclusion, the article How does Sport Psychology Actually Improve Athletic Performance? by Chris Gee was about how sport psychology has a lot of resources that many of the athletes coaches do not take advantage of. Gee argued that if they were to utilize the resources, athletic performance would be greatly improved. He provided the reader with background information about sports psychology and reasoning as to why athletes and coaches do not use the sport psychologists.

Works Cited

Gee, Chris. "How Does Sport Psychology Actually Improve Athletic Performance? A Framework to Facilitate Athletes' and Coaches' Understanding." Behavior Modification. SAGE Journals. Web. Mar. 2012. <http://bmo.sagepub.com/content/34/5/386.short>

Moving for Media

Picture taken by reuvenim on October 27, 2007
http://www.flickr.com/photos/reuvenim/1807513199/

“Turn that dang thing off and go outside.” my mother told my brothers and me. Of course the “dang thing” she was speaking of was the TV that had me mesmerized for hours at a time. Though at the time I despised my mother’s commands, now I realize how lucky I was. Some children do not have this forced motivation to do physical activity. This creates laziness and obesity tendencies, making TV viewing by kids a controversial subject. To find connections between physical activity, media usage, and weight gain, many groups began performing several studies. One study in particular was conducted by Karen and David Larwin called “Decreasing Excessive Media Usage While Increasing Physical Activity: A Single-Subject Research Study.” This study modified physical activity by making media usage dependent on the amount of physical activity performed. Karen and Larwin believe this will increase the amount of physical activity, decrease media usage and improve the overall health of the participant.

The Larwins think the increased accessibility of new forms of media is a large factor of poor fitness and obesity of today’s youth. They feel that by limiting the availability and time of usage and replacing this time with physical activity will result in better health. They proposed an innovative plan on how to achieve these changes. They would require a certain amount of physical exercise in order for a certain amount of media usage.

The volunteer participant for this modification was a 14-year-old adolescent female who had recently been prescribed by both her counselor and physician to increase her exercise. On her own attempts to lose weight, she made adjustments in her diet, but this was a failure. Coming into the modification she had gained ten pounds and believed physical activity to be a punishment and would rather spend her time on the computer or talking to friends on the phone.

For this study, her physical activity was measured by time on a Bowflex TreadClimber. Although this device has many functions, for this experiment it was used strictly as a regular treadmill. This device allowed the participant to easily measure time of physical exercise and also how far/fast she walked. To ensure that she maintained the appropriate amount of activity and was reinforced correctly, her parents and a hired research assistant oversaw the experiment. Their job was also to make sure the data was recorded properly.

The investigation lasted 7 weeks. The first two were the baseline stage in which the normal physical exercise and media usage was recorded. This was to get a starting point in which the results would be compared. The next part of the study was the two week first treatment phase. During this time the participant received 1 hour of media usage for every mile walked with a one mile minimum. Failing to reach this one mile marker resulted in no media usage. In the three week second treatment phase, she was required 1.5 miles before receiving any media time. After conducting the study, a follow-up was performed 5 weeks later and again 1 year later to check her progress or any relapses into her previous behavior.

The results for this experiment were very promising. As assumed, the participant did not use the treadmill once during the fourteen day baseline phase. This was consistent with her natural behavior before the study. During Treatment Phase 1, she increased her usage significantly. She walked it every day during the two week period. She achieved the one mile minimum on all but one day and surpassed this goal on two of the days. Overall, she averaged .98 miles a day during this time. During Treatment Phase 2, she continued to increase her physical exercise. She walked every day and averaged 1.81 miles per day. This is more than the expected 1.5 mile minimum a day. She was above this minimum criterion ten of the 21 days and was only below it on two of the days. From this data, the Larwin’s prediction seems very promising.

There were a few other trends in the data collected. The first trend involves her BCM (Body Mass Composition) index. This measures the percent of fat compared to muscle in the body. The higher the number, generally the more overweight the participant is. To begin her BMC was around 27, but as she continued to exercise and workout, it dropped finally reaching under 24 by the end of Treatment Phase 2. Another change observed was the time spent on the internet and phone. From the beginning the participant spent a total tome of over 100 minutes combine on the two. By the end of the study, she was down to about 42 minutes. This is almost a 60% decrease in total media usage. This was great news for the study, but further examinations were required. A follow-up was performed 5 weeks and one year after the initial study. Both of these came back positive with maintained or increased exercise in each.

Judging by the total increase in physical exercise and decrease in time spent on media, the conductors of this experiment deemed it a successful behavior modification. By using this as an example, all other people, especially students, can improve their health by doing this for themselves. I know here at UNC, every students has their own computer which results in countless hours wasted inside when they could be exercising. If they implemented this they would all be in better shape and squander less time frying their brains.

Karen H. Larwin and David A Larwin, Decreasing Excessive Media Usage While Increasing Physical Activity: A Single-SUbject Research Study; Behavior Modification; November 2008 32: 938-956, first published on June 10, 2008 doi: 10.1177/0145445508319668