These findings in concert with case history data suggest that the thought-stopping-covert-assertion treatment "package" may hold considerable promise as an efficient and effective clinical tool. (Author)

Applied an integrative model of change to the study of subjects (N=872) changing their smoking habits on their own. The subjects represented five stages of change: (1) precontemplation; (2) contemplation; (3) action; (4) maintenance; and (5) relapse. Relapsers' responses were a combination of contemplation and action. (JAC)

The findings of this study are interpreted as providing a preliminary indication that self-reward strategies are superior to self-punitive and self-recording strategies in the modification of at least some habit patterns. (Author)

The concept of self-control is analyzed in terms of a two-stage process: general cognitive set and specific self-controlling responses. Primary attention is given to incorporation of the cognitive set into a fuller understanding of behavior modification. (Author)

Using speech anxiety as the target behavior, this study compared two self-control desensitization procedures. Speech-anxious community residents (N=42) volunteered for participation in the program and were seen within a group context for a total of seven therapy sessions. No differential effectiveness was found between the two desensitization…

Ex-smokers (N = 61) who had stopped smoking as part of a televised "clinic" were assigned to either a tape-reinforcement or nonreinforcement condition and were followed up a month later. A self-regulated reward system can be an extremely cost-effective tool in preventing short-term recidivism among neophyte ex-smokers. (Author)

College-student snake phobics received one of four treatments to reduce their snake avoidance behavior. Behavioral and self-report assessment showed all three treatments relative to the control to be highly and equally effective in reducing snake avoidance behavior. (Author)

The abstinence violation effect (AVE) proposed in Marlatt and Gordon's model of smoking relapse was operationalized as a combination of internal, stable, and global causal attributions for smoking following the attainment of abstinence from smoking. Smoking cessation program participants who relapsed following a slip reported significantly higher…

This study investigated the therapeutic feasibility of self-administered punishment of imagined behavior. With heavy-smoking males, the imagined-smoking treatment was the only highly effective therapy. It was significantly more effective than the placebo or actual-smoking treatments, and it replicated. (Author)

Assessed the relationship of a measure of self-efficacy to posttreatment smoking status in 74 adults. End-of-treatment self-efficacy scores were significantly correlated with follow-up smoking status at 3-month and 6-month follow-up, but not at 1 year. Smoking during treatment was associated with lower end-of-treatment efficacy scores. (WAS)

Subjects receiving nonaversive treatment were assigned to maintenance strategies: modeling, participant observing, or self-monitoring control. Subjects showed a mean smoking rate of 46% of baseline at one year and no significant relapse between six months and one year. Differences and correlations with attribution and other questionnaire measures…

A 25-year-old male suffering from pervasive anxiety was treated with a modified induced anxiety procedure. Results indicated that as modified induced anxiety was sequentially applied to anxiety levels, there was a corresponding decline in self-monitored anxiety at the targeted level. (Author)

Relaxation as self-control and desensitization were compared to a wait-list control in reduction of rest and other anxieties. Active treatments differed significantly from the control treatment. Subjects in both treatments reported less debilitating test anxiety, whereas desensitization subjects showed greater facilitating test anxiety. (Author)

Smokers (N = 90) were assigned to 10 treatment conditions; another 20 smokers were included in a no-apply control group. The treatment effects of aversive conditioning were negligible, and in some instances they were surpassed by the effects of controls for nonspecific treatment factors and placebo effects. (Author)

Student volunteers who experienced problems in impulsive overspending of money were randomly assigned to either a self-control treatment condition or to a placebo condition. Those in the self-control condition evidenced a significantly greater change (55 percent reduction in spending) than placebo control subjects, who showed a slight average…