Date of Award
5-1-2020
Degree Name
Master of Science
Department
Behavior Analysis and Therapy
First Advisor
Dixon, Mark
Abstract
The purpose of the current study is to evaluate whether ACT techniques, such as acceptance activities, has an impact on an individual’s delayed and/or probabilistic discounting behavior measured by discounting tasks and other self-reported measures related to eating behaviors and health. Participants in an intervention and control group completed a monetary food and disease delay discounting survey before and after completing either a brief ACT session or completing a control activity. Thirty-six undergraduates participated in the present study and a pre-, post-control groups design was utilized to evaluate the effects of the intervention. Independent t-tests were conducted, and the results of those analyses showed that ACT was no effective in decreasing discounting on the monetary food, and disease discounting survey pre-test AUC 0.9147 (SD=0.1295) and post-test survey AUC 0.8794 (SD=0.1737). There were no statistically significant changes for the ACT or control group Implications of these findings and future research are discussed. Keywords: ACT, discounting, obesity, students
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