An experimental medicine approach to Behavior Change

Mohamed Abouelker

The City College of New York

 3/10/2020

Supervised by professor Sara Jacobson

Abstract

The first report is “An experimental medicine approach to Behavior Change The Relationship Between Self-Report and Lab Task Conceptualizations of Impulsivity” by Melissa A. Cyders and Aya Coskunpinar.  The second report is “Everyday Stress Response Targets in the Science Behavior Change” by multiple authors from various universities. the third research, “Targeting Couple and Parent-Child Coercion to Improve Health Behavior” by four authors from New York University and Theodore P. Beautchaine from The Ohio State University.

 It is evident in the three papers that they follow a specific format. The format is broken down into seven sections; Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Methods, Results, discussion, and references. Each Section is as equally important as the other because each plays a specific role that leads the reader to comprehend the message intended by the author(S). The most common keywords used in the three papers are “Impulsivity,” “self-report,” and “construct validity.” Defining these key terms helps the reader proceed through the text and understand the context. A “self-report study” is a type of survey, questionnaire, or poll in which respondents read the question and select a response by themselves without researcher interference. “Construct validity” refers to how well a test or tool measures the construct that it was designed to measure. The Behavioral Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory designed for the study of human subjects. 

In the first research paper, the introduction is very detailed and provides much information. For example, “Recent research has suggested that both self-report and lab task conceptualizations of impulsivity can be separated into discrete aspects of rash action.”(Cyders and Coskunpinar, 2012, p.121). It provides recent studies that have findings related to the intended research topic of human behavior and based on these findings; the authors produced a hypothesis there are ten different types of impulsivity such as negative urgency and positive urgency. This writing style helps the readers comprehend the experiment procedures faster as the readers know what is going on and what is intended. 

The fourth section in the first report, methods, researchers used 77 undergraduate students (54 females). Then, materials used are listed such as the immediate and delayed memory task, The GoStop impulsivity paradigm, The two-choice impulsivity paradigm, The two-choice impulsivity paradigm, The Brown–Peterson task, The TIME paradigm, and The UPPS-P impulsive behavior scale. All these terms are defined, and the way they are used is stated in the description. However, there is a flaw that is spotted in this experiment that might negatively affect its credibility to the reader. The flaw is the type of experimental group. Females should be equal with males; graduate students should be used and also, adults, all In the same ratio in order to get more accurate results. The procedure is included in this section as it stated that all participants are going to be given a series of computer questionnaires and tasks to complete. Impulsivity measures were taken during collecting the results and were put in a table. Statistical measurements were done on these data such as the standard deviation, mean and other statistical tests. Results of these statistical tests were discussed in the conclusion in the last part of the report. The findings say that “negative urgency, lack of planning, lack of perseverance, sensation seeking, and delay responding all have medium effect sizes with delay responding, suggesting lack of specificity of delay responding tasks to tap into specific self-report aspects of impulsivity.” (Cyders and Coskunpinar, 2012, p.124). This means that the urgency traits are to be markers of a tendency to respond reflexively to emotion, whether through impulsive action or ill-advised inaction. 

The second and third research reports follow a different structure other than the first one. Those two reports are much more detailed and packed; only an interested reader in the subject would read all of it. They have more sections, and each section has a lot of information. This can be a con and a pro at the same time. One might find this study informative, and it is good to know it, and others will find these studies boring and not necessary. 

The primary purpose of the second research, “Everyday Stress Response Targets in the Science of Behavior Change,” is to study the effects of everyday stress that a person might face daily. The hypothesis states that the more stress a person faces, the more influence on everyday behavior and health. (Smyth, Sliwinski,…Almeida, 2018). These changes most likely go to an array of negative outcomes. “we present a conceptual overview of our approach to developing an everyday self-report stress response assay to measure stress response targets, which are comprised of stress response components (described more fully below) and stress response indicators (how components are indexed).”(Smyth, Sliwinski,…Almeida, 2018). This introduction is followed by multiple procedures like proposing stress response targets, stating primary challenges for operationalizing the stress targets, dynamic testing, a framework for the approach, reliability, and precision of indicators, characterization of the time course of indicators and testing associations between stress response targets and health behaviors. Each section shows the step by step actions and the way data is recorded. In the discussion of this research, there is an approach that stress assay negatively affects the human’s capacity for making healthy choices, for example playing a video game vs. playing sport. The researchers concluded “we plan to apply a similar approach to investigate the temporal patterning of our focal health behaviors—physical activity and sleep. Connecting these two lines of analyses will provide useful information for devising our stress assay.” (Smyth, Sliwinski,…Almeida, 2018). Researchers are planning to apply further experiments on medicines that could help the individual to make healthier choices under daily pressure and stress.

The third research report, “Targeting Couple and Parent-Child Coercion to Improve Health Behaviors.” The report does not define the term “Coercion,” so the reader must look it up himself or herself to find out that it is forcing someone to do something involuntarily. In the abstract and introduction, there is a proposal of the effect of Coercion on health behaviors. Also, “This phase of the NIH Science of Behavior Change program emphasizes an “experimental medicine approach to behavior change,” (Smyth, Sliwinski,…Almeida, 2018).  that seeks to identify targets related to stress reactivity, self-regulation, and social processes for maximal effects on multiple health outcomes.  Trying to find a medicine to control an individual’s behavior is an idea that was proposed in the second research’s conclusion which proves that every research in the subject of behavior depends on the other as they come to similar results.

The third report yields to the procedure of the experiment which goes to multiple steps and each is well defined. Steps include setting up the experimental medicine approach, coercive process, building the tools to allow coercion to be targeted in experimental medicine, assays of coercive conflict, and Testing the malleability of indicators through brief and targeted intervention. There is a severe approach that says that coercion causes type 2 diabetes and oral health which are two major public health problems. Researchers came up with the conclusion that “Coercion involves the negative reinforcement of behavioral and emotional escalation through hostile efforts to compel another person into complying with one’s desires.” (Smyth, Sliwinski,…Almeida, 2018). The researchers are proposing future research studying the potential moderators of interference effect on coercion effects on the individual’s health. (Smyth, Sliwinski,…Almeida, 2018).

The significant differences between the three reports include the structure and the content. The second and third researches have many sections, full of information and follow the same format because they are under the same journal. On the other side, the first research is more summarizing as it gives the significant points not going a lot in detail and is more understandable and enjoyable to read. A significant difference notice Is defining the key terms in the paper in which the first research has and the other two lack. The first research has a list of materials used, but in the other two, the reader must read and figure out himself or herself. Also, the first research provides the numbers of his experimenting samples, people or objects, the other two do not. 

 Overall, the three reports are well funded by major organizations and universities and peer edited by experienced people full of knowledge. Those researches were written most coherently to convey their message to the reader. The reports included acknowledgments and funding credits. Therefore, these articles are well credible to readers and are worthy of spending time learning from them and the significant differences are in the structure of the context and the type of diction used.

References

Cyders, M. A., & Coskunpinar, A. (2012). The relationship between self-report and lab task 

conceptualizations of impulsivity. Journal of Research in Personality, 46(1), 121-124. 

Smyth, J. M., Sliwinski, M. J., Zawadzki, M. J., Scott, S. B., Conroy, D. E., Lanza, S. T., . . . 

Almeida, D. M. (2018). Everyday stress response targets in the science of behavior change. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 101, 20-29. 

Smyth, J. M., Sliwinski, M. J., Zawadzki, M. J., Scott, S. B., Conroy, D. E., Lanza, S. T., . . . 

Almeida, D. M. (2018). Everyday stress response targets in the science of behavior change. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 101, 20-29.