Digital behavior change interventions (DBCIs) provide customized advice, ongoing support, and Web- and mobile-based platforms for learners who want to change their undesirable behaviors. DBCIs have been successful in the past for delivering interventions that support sustained changes to health behaviors, such as disease prevention and health…

Five groups of 15 female subjects reporting fear of snakes participated in two behavioral avoidance tests employing a snake as the target object. Results are discussed both in terms of implications for psychotherapy outcome research design and possible usefulness of situational variables in the development of more effective anxiety-reduction…

Subjects were randomly assigned to one of three groups: standard WAIS administration; a praise condition with praise for each correct WAIS response; and a self-monitoring condition with direct feedback on response accuracy. Results indicated that specific feedback is effective in inducing IQ test performance change in normal adults. (NG)

Investigates the efficacy of two behavioral self-control procedures as additions to the typical treatment for college students' study behavior--study skills advice. Predicted self-monitoring would be an effective treatment addition to study skills advice and study skills advice would be superior to the control groups. Results supported…

College students were treated with either a standard or modified version of systematic desensitization. Relative to a no-treatment control group, both treatment methods produced significant reductions in both the treated and untreated fears. The implications these findings have for two alternative conceptions of systematic desensitization are…

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)

High- and low-fear subjects were assigned to noise or false heart-rate feedback. Contiguity between the shock-snake stimuli was varied in order to provide a test of an aversion relief model. As was predicted, low-fear as compared to high-fear subjects approached the snake significantly more after exposure to false heart-rate feedback. (Author)

Subjects were pretested on objective and subjective responses to test suggestions of the Barber Suggestibility Scale. After being exposed to one of three treatments--experimenter modeling, hypnotic induction, or control--each subject was retested. Experimenter modeling was as effective as hypnotic induction in enhancing responsiveness to test…

Accelerated massed desensitization and anxiety management training were compared with standard systematic desensitization in terms of reducing self-reported test anxiety in high test-anxious college students. All three treatments significantly reduced test anxiety as compared with a waiting list control group. (Author)

High- and low-anxiety groups performed a learning task after receiving either achievement-orienting or neutral instructions. While the results showed an overall superiority of low- to high-test-anxiety groups, there was a significant Test Anxiety x Instructions interaction. The results are interpreted in terms of attentional blocks that…

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)

Test-anxious students were assigned to four treatment groups, a placebo group, or an untreated control group. Four treatment groups resulted from combinations of two treatment rationales (active coping and passive reciprocal inhibition) and two treatment procedures (self-control and standard). Treatment groups were equally effective in reducing…

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…

Expectancy instructions were introduced six times during the four-week treatment, and effectiveness of these instructions was demonstrated with independent nonreactive measures of subjects' expectancies. An analysis of self-report, behavioral, and unobtrusive measures of snake anxiety revealed significant main effects for instructions, with…

High and low general-self-esteem subjects performed a series of anagrams on which they either appeared to succeed or fail or received little evaluative feedback. Their persistence at a subsequent set of anagrams was assessed. Following initial failure low-self-esteem subjects persisted less than high-self-esteem subjects. (Author)