Publication Date

2007

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Millis, Keith K.

Degree Name

Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy)

Legacy Department

Department of Psychology

LCSH

Animal phobias--Treatment; Animal phobias--Study and teaching

Abstract

This dissertation research compared the efficacy of two delivery methods of psychoeducation for spider phobia. Handout Delivery (HD) presented the psychoeducation explicitly, so participants were aware their phobias were being addressed. Story Delivery (SD) presented the information implicitly, embedded within a fictional narrative, so participants were largely unaware their phobias were being addressed. SD was hypothesized to produce greater fear reduction than HD, due to Narrative Interference (NI), the tendency for rich narrative to compete with or alter readers’ semantic memory. The results suggest that HD reduces self-reported phobic cognitions, whereas SD reduces phobic responses to spider stimuli. SD produced NI across general and circumscribed retrieval contexts, whereas HD produced NI primarily in a circumscribed retrieval context. These findings might suggest that SD is a more robust and generalizable delivery method for psychoeducation. SD might be more efficacious because story readers are focused on building a rich situation model, and are therefore less likely to evaluate, resist, and reject the psychoeducation.

Comments

Includes bibliographical references (pages [95]-107).

Extent

v, 143 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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