Beliefs and behavioural intentions towards pharmacotherapy for stuttering: A survey of adults who stutter.

PURPOSE: Although considerable efforts have been made to investigate the effectiveness of pharmacological treatments for stuttering, little is known about how the stuttering community perceives these treatments. This study aimed to assess and quantify beliefs regarding pharmacotherapy for adults who stutter and to establish whether behavioural intentions to undertake treatment were related to these beliefs. METHOD: An adapted version of the Beliefs about Medicine Questionnaire was completed by adults who stutter. Participants also reported perceptions of their stuttering including its overall impact, ratings of previous speech therapy, and behavioural intentions to initiate pharmacotherapy and speech therapy in future. RESULTS: Necessity and concern beliefs were distributed widely across the sample and in a pattern indicating a relatively balanced perception of the benefits and costs of medication prescribed specifically for stuttering. Of the study's measures, the necessity-concerns differential most strongly predicted the behavioural intention to initiate pharmacotherapy. The overall impact of stuttering predicted intentions to seek both pharmacotherapy and speech therapy. Participants reported the likelihood of pursuing pharmacotherapy and speech therapy in equal measure. CONCLUSIONS: The theoretical model of medication representations appears to be a useful framework for understanding the beliefs of adults who stutter towards the medical treatment of their disorder. The findings of this study may be of interest to clinicians and researchers working in the field of stuttering treatment and to people who stutter considering pharmacotherapy.

Testing the effects of explicit and implicit bidimensional attitudes on objectively measured speeding behaviour.

Bidimensional attitudes have been shown to independently predict behaviour, with the positive dimension of attitude being a stronger predictor of behaviour than the negative dimension (e.g., Elliott, Brewster, et al., 2015, Br. J. Psychol, 106, 656). However, this positivity bias has been demonstrated with explicit attitude measures only and explicit attitude measures tap deliberative processes rather than automatic processes, which are known to be important in the execution of many behaviours. The aim of this study was to test whether implicit bidimensional attitudes can account for variance in speeding behaviour over and above explicit bidimensional attitudes and whether the positivity bias that is typically found with explicit attitudes generalizes to implicit attitudes. A total of 131 drivers completed a questionnaire measuring their explicit bidimensional attitudes towards speeding. They also completed Implicit Association Tests measuring their implicit bidimensional attitudes. Two weeks later, speeding behaviour was measured using a driving simulator. Explicit attitudes accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in subsequent speeding behaviour. Implicit attitudes accounted for a statistically significant increment to explained variance. The positive dimension of both explicit and implicit attitudes predicted speeding behaviour but the negative dimensions did not. Theoretical implications for understanding the potential attitudinal causes of behaviour and practical implications for behaviour-change interventions are discussed.

Conditional or unconditional? The effects of implementation intentions on driver behavior.

Implementation intentions (if-then plans) exert conditional effects on behavior, meaning that their ability to change behavior is conditional upon encountering the critical situation specified in the if component of the plan. In the present study, we tested whether implementation intentions can exert unconditional effects on behavior. Consistent with the process of operant generalization, we hypothesized that implementation intentions would change behavior, not only in situations that are contextually identical to those specified in the if component but also in contextually similar situations. Implementation intentions were not expected to generate behavior-change in contextually different situations to those specified. Participants (N = 139) completed questionnaires measuring speeding behavior and motivation to speed. Experimental participants then specified implementation intentions to avoid speeding in critical situations that were contextually identical, similar, or different to those subsequently encountered on a driving simulator. Control participants received educational information about the risks of speeding. All participants then drove on a driving simulator. Consistent with the hypotheses participants in both the contextually identical and similar conditions exceeded the speed limit less frequently than did controls. There was no difference in speeding behavior between the contextually different and control conditions. Implications of the findings for behavior-change are discussed.