Assessing verbal motivating operations and their influence on virtual food selection and relational responding

There is a concern regarding correspondence between verbal and overt behavior. Verbal behavior measured by the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) has been found to have better correspondence with overt behavior than verbal behavior measured by self-reports (Nicholson & BarnesHolmes, 2012). Additionally, Jackson et al. (2016) found that verbal behaviormeasured by the IRAP can be used to identify verbal stimuli (words or phrases) that increase exercising behavior. The authors conceptualized the verbal stimuli that increased exercising behavior as motivative augmentals. Motivative augmentals are verbal stimuli that increase the reinforcing value of a consequence, and thus increase the probability of behaviors for which the consequence is contingent. Furthermore, verbal behavior measured by the IRAP has been found to be malleable under the appropriate conditions (Cullen, Barnes-Holmes, BarnesHolmes, & Stewart, 2009). The current study investigated the relationship between the IRAP, self-reports and simulated shopping behavior and evaluated the effects of a verbal intervention across each measure. Results of the study indicated that shopping and survey responses changed in the expected direction following the intervention, but implicit relational responding did not. In fact, there was very little correspondence between the IRAP and other results.