Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) was developed to specifically target experiential avoidance (EA) rather than any specific diagnostic category. A functional ACT manual was presented and used to treat diagnostically diverse clients in a large sliding fee-for-service training clinic. A multiple baseline across participants and behaviors research design was used to evaluate session-by-session changes in EA, values identification, valued action, and clinical distress. The Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-2 (AAQ2), Valued Living Questionnaire (VLQ), and Outcome Questionnaire (OQ-45) were given to measure processes and outcomes given the functional ACT model presented in the introduction to the paper. Baseline included the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I and II Disorders given across 2-5 50- minute sessions. The treatment phase consisted of 7-10 50-minute sessions. Participants were 10 clients. Four participants completed sufficient treatment sessions (4-9) to test the study hypotheses. Participants generally improved across time, but most improvements could not be attributed to the functional application of ACT due to changes during baseline for AAQ, VLQ-Consistency, and OQ-45. VLQ-Importance significantly improved for all participants given ACT.

The purpose of this study is twofold. One is that of developing an instrument for determining a child's concept of how he is thought of by his mother and his father; in other words, a method of measuring parental acceptance as it is perceived by the child, himself. The development of this instrument will be discussed in Chapter IV. The second purpose of this study is that of determining whether or not there is any significant relationship between the child's perception of parental acceptance and the social acceptability of the child, as measured by a sociometric instrument.

The current study evaluated three subjects with developmental disabilities, using a Mindfulness activity protocol to promote psychological flexibility, as well as exercising this developed flexibility to reduce problem behaviors. The success of the Mindfulness procedure was evaluated using a multiple baseline across participants design. Results of this study presented that after partaking in Mindfulness activities, all participants displayed decreases in problematic behavior, as well as increased scores on the Children’s Psychological Flexibility Questionnaire (CPFQ). Overall, there was a general trend of reduced problematic behavior from baseline to post-intervention. Participants’ behavioral frequency rates were reduxed an overall average of 25.2%. In addition to general maladaptive behavior reductions, participants’ CPFQ scores were improved across participants by an overall average improvement of 11.8%.

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The aim of this research project was to conduct a manual development study and an open clinical trial in order to demonstrate the feasibility and efficacy of a mindfulness and acceptance based intervention for increasing cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) in sedentary adults through adherence to a fitness walking program. Development of the treatment manual followed a 3-phase process (literature review and initial draft preparation, expert review, draft revision) based on expert systems analysis, and organizational structure was derived from Carroll and Nuro's Stage Model for Psychotherapy Manual Development. Field experts (N=3) were provided with the manual draft, as well as a semi-structured interview form for revision data. The manual included treatment introduction sections for the therapist and the participant, as well as 8 topic modules. In the10-week open trial, sedentary adults (N=24) engaged in a fitness walking program, while attending regular group therapy sessions whose content was based primarily on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Results indicated a large significant decrease in total walk test time [t(18) = 4.61, p = .0002, d = 0.64], with a mean decrease of 64.69 seconds. A moderate significant increase in estimated V0₂max [t(18) = -4.05, p = .0007, d = -0.43] was also evidenced, with a mean increase of 2.9 ml/kg/min. Analyses indicate a moderate non-significant increase in general experiential acceptance as measured by the AAQ-II [t(18) = 1.18, p = .26, d = 0.37], and a large significant increase in experiential acceptance of exercise-related internal experiences [t(18) = -9.19, p < .0001, d = -2.09] as measured by the PA-AAQ. Finally, feasibility and acceptability of the intervention were demonstrated through high levels of adherence to the walking program, group attendance, and measures of comprehension. This study demonstrated the usefulness of ACT in the field of behavioral medicine, particularly with health behavior change. / Ph. D.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a common chronic illness thought to be originated and maintained by a combination of physiological, psychological and social factors. IBS is known to be associated with a high psychosocial impact on patients’ lives. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an emerging model of conceptualization and treatment that states that most suffering in chronic illness can be explained by a lack of psychological flexibility or acceptance to experience aversive bodily sensations, thoughts or emotions. ACT treatments target the increase of psychological flexibility as a key change for improvement in outcomes. Recent studies suggest that ACT could not only be an effective alternative treatment for IBS, as it might provide a valuable model of understanding of the relations between the different factors related to this condition and its outcomes. The first aim of the present research was to investigate the role of psychological flexibility in IBS, in particular, how acceptance relates to psychological, emotional and physical factors in this condition. The second aim was to investigate the effectiveness of an ACT based intervention in increasing psychological flexibility in IBS and thereby improving IBS Outcomes. These aims were addressed by conducting two related studies. In Study 1, a sample of 121 IBS patients attending a specialized gastroenterology clinic completed a series of self-report measures of psychological flexibility (acceptance), psychological factors known to be associated with IBS and IBS outcomes. Results indicated that higher levels of acceptance were generally associated with and predicted better levels of IBS biopsychosocial factors. Results also showed that acceptance mediated most of the relationships between IBS predictors and Outcomes. Also, psychometric analyses of a novel measure of IBS Acceptance (i.e. IBS Acceptance and Action Questionnaire) created for this study demonstrated that it had good reliability and validity. In Study 2, fifty six IBS patients enrolled in an intervention involving a one day ACT workshop and an ACT based self-help workbook. Thirty six participants provided follow-up data up to 6 months after the workshop. Results indicated that there were significant increases in acceptance and significant improvement in IBS outcomes between pre-treatment and follow-up. Further to that, analyses indicated that changes in IBS Outcomes occurred through changes in acceptance as hypothesized by the ACT model. These studies suggest that psychological flexibility processes are important in the understanding of IBS and that improvement in this condition may result from a more psychologically flexible stance to it. Although preliminary, these studies provide a basis for the further development and application of the ACT model of conceptualization and treatment in IBS.

New information systems will only improve organisational performance if they are accepted and used to their full capacity. It is therefore important to be able to understand, explain and predict the factors affecting technology acceptance. One model which has been successful at this is the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM; Davis, 1986). This study tests an extension of the TAM in a mandatory usage environment. The extended TAM proposed here incorporates two new independent measures; past behaviour and perceived behavioural control. Participants were 285 members of an Australian Government Department who had been using a new information system for approximately 4 months. Usage of the system was mandated in organisational policy and there were no alternative systems or processes available to participants to complete their job requirements. Results indicate that when information system usage is mandatory (or nonvolitional) perceived behavioural control significantly increases the ability of the extended TAM to predict system acceptance behaviour. Furthermore, self-reports of system usage were not related to the participants intention to use the system and user satisfaction was the only dependent variable accurately predicted by the model. Past behaviour did not predict either behavioural intention or behaviour in this study. The implications of these findings for technology acceptance in modern organisations and areas for future research are discussed.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Ashland Theological Seminary, 2005. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 146-151).

Since People used a lot of information technologies in different societies, no matter private enterprises or public administrations all effort to use the newly information technologies (especially in internet application), to increase the speed and correctness of dealing with information and cost down. For example in enterprise, internet changes the relation between business and business, customer and business, and the competition model between business and business. In government, public administrations used information technologies and communication to redesign the organizations, simply the processing to improve the efficiency and response citizen¡¦s demand immediately. Therefore information technologies change, deal with, disseminate the paths and speed of knowledge. The influence existed not only in enterprises, but also changing the style that government accessed and managed knowledge. Kaohsiung city government pushed the Knowledge Management System. But the rejection of members in organization has huge influence in pushing KM, on the other hand Technology Acceptance Model is a major method in discussing the behavior of information technology acceptance recently. This research reviews some literature about knowledge management, and analysis the IT and knowledge management portal in the members of Kaohsiung city administration to propose the model influence KMS acceptance for an reference base when public sectors plan and build KMS. The research surveies the employees of secretariat of Kaohsiung city government, including the amanuensis in first level administration and schools. We distributed 285 questionnaires and received 137 effective questionnaires. After using LISREL and SPSS 10.0, the foundings of this research is: 1. It is usefulness to use TAM2 to measure the acceptance of knowledge management system. It also proves the acceptance between KMS and general IT system consilient. 2. The difference of population is not signality for the behavior intension of using KMS. 3. It is also not signality between scocial norm and perceived usefulness in this research. 4. Kaohsiung city government has not enough effort in pushing KMS. It must depended on high-up to built knowledge sharing culture in the organization.and practice real knowledge management