Can implementation intentions help to overcome ego-depletion?

Research on ego-depletion suggests that the ability to self-regulate one’s behavior is limited: Exerting self-control on an initial task reduces performance on a subsequent task that also requires self-control. Two experiments tested whether forming implementation intentions could prevent ego-depletion and/or offset the effects of ego-depletion. Experiment 1 found that participants who formed implementation intentions during an initial ego-depleting task subsequently showed greater persistence on an unsolvable puzzles task compared to participants who did not form implementation intentions. Experiment 2 found that among participants who had been ego-depleted during an initial task, forming implementation intentions improved subsequent performance on a Stroop task to the level exhibited by non-depleted controls. Thus, implementation intentions help to enhance people’s ability to self-regulate their behavior.     

Prayer spaces in schools: a subversion of policy implementation?

Based on a major evaluation project, this article presents an emerging theme from research on the activities supported by Prayer Spaces in Schools, an organisation supporting ‘pop-up’ prayer spaces in schools across the UK and internationally. Evaluating the activities primarily in terms of their possible contribution to spiritual development, a number of important issues arose relating to policy on education and religion. This article focuses on how some engage with these prayer spaces as a way of reimagining and renegotiating educational policy. Based on data gathered from interviews with staff and students (aged 7–16) across seven schools in England, questionnaire responses from 555 students across 15 schools and feedback from two prayer spaces conferences, a hermeneutic approach is used to compare the interpretations of staff with those of students and the implicit positions of policy documents. This article explores various forms of policy implementation and how staff engagement with prayer spaces can be seen as a form of subversion, with staff tactically subverting policy implementation sometimes in order to promote the very intention of those policies – a form of what we refer to as subversive obedience.     

Improving performance through implementation intentions: Are preexisting response biases replaced?

Commonly, the focus of a planned behavior is to attain some future goal. An alternative to this type of goalfocused, or goal-oriented, strategy is to emphasize the action required to meet the goal rather than to emphasize the goal itself. Previous research has suggested that an action-oriented plan, also known as an implementationintention strategy, increases the chances of successfully reaching an intended future goal with minimal effort by making conscious, deliberate behaviors automatic. We investigated whether, within a Simon task, an implementation-intention strategy eliminates the contribution of preexisting response biases or whether it acts in addition to them. Results of two experiments show that an implementation-intention strategy provides a specific performance benefit that is in addition to, but not in place of, preexisting response biases.     

CircE: An R implementation of Browne’s circular stochastic process model

In confirmatory analysis of whether data have a circumplex structure, Browne’s (1992) model has played a major role. However, implementation of this model requires a dedicated program, CIRCUM, because the analysis routine is not integrated in any of the most widely used statistical software packages. Hence, data entry and graphical representation of the results require the use of one or more additional programs. We propose a package for the R statistical environment, termed CircE, that can be used to enter or import data, implement Browne’s confirmatory analysis, and graphically represent the results. Using this new software, we put forward a new approach to assess the sustainability of theoretical models when the analysis is carried out at the level of questionnaire items. The CircE package (for either Mac OS X or Windows) and additional files may be downloaded from http://brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

Evidence that implementation intentions reduce drivers’ use of mobile phones while driving

Implementation intentions are IF-THEN plans that have the potential to reduce mobile phone use while driving and thus contribute towards the prevention of road traffic crashes. We tested whether an intervention, designed to promote the formation of implementation intentions, could reduce drivers’ use of mobile phones. A randomized controlled design was used. The participants (N = 136) were randomised to an implementation intention or a control condition. Self-report questionnaires were administered to all participants at both pre- and one-month post-intervention to measure the use of mobile phones while driving, goal intentions and the theoretically derived motivational pre-cursors of goal intentions (attitudes, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control). Immediately following the pre-intervention questionnaire, the participants in the implementation intention condition (n = 67) were given a volitional help sheet, which asked them to form implementation intentions by specifying target driving situations that tempted them the most to use a mobile phone and linking them with goal-directed responses that could be used to resist the temptation. The participants in the control condition (n = 69) were asked to specify target situations that tempted them the most to use a mobile phone while driving and to generally try to avoid using a mobile phone in those situations. One-month post-intervention, the participants in the implementation intention condition reported using a mobile phone less often while driving in their specified target driving situations than did the participants in the control condition. As expected, no differences were found between the conditions in the reported frequency of mobile phone use in unspecified driving situations, goal intentions or any motivational pre-cursor of goal intentions. The implementation intention intervention that was tested in this study is a potentially effective tool for reducing mobile phone use while driving in target driving situations, where behaviour-change is most needed.     

How do implementation intentions promote goal attainment? A test of component processes

Implementation intentions are plans that specify the when, where, and how of goal striving in advance, and have been shown to enhance rates of goal attainment compared to merely forming respective goal intentions. The present research investigated whether the accessibility of the specified situation (cue accessibility) and the strength of the association between the specified situation and the intended response (cue-response linkage) explain the impact of implementation intentions on goal achievement. Findings indicated that participants who planned how to undertake a verbal task better attained their goal compared to participants who did not form a plan. Crucially, implementation intention effects were mediated by the accessibility of the specified cue and by the strength of cue-response links. These findings support the idea that implementation intentions benefit performance because control of behavior is delegated to specified situational cues that initiate action automatically.     

How can the impact of implementation intentions as a behaviour change intervention be improved?

Interventions requesting individuals to form implementation intentions, specific plans regarding how and when to enact behaviour, have been shown to be effective in changing a wide range of health, social, and organisational behaviours. A small proportion of studies have sought to identify, within full-factorial designs, under what circumstances and for whom implementation intention-based interventions are most effective. This review covers this issue. A number of potential moderators of the effects of implementation intentions on behaviour were identified (intentions, motivation type, collaboration, plan reminders, goal type, plan type, conscientiousness, perfectionism, procrastination, stress). Of these, the strength of one's intentions have been tested, and supported, most often as a moderator of implementation intention effects. For some of these moderators (e.g., conscientiousness, goal difficulty) the results were contradictory but for others the results were more consistent (e.g., motivation type, plan reminders). Additional moderators might be identified by comparing effects of implementation intentions across studies.     

Why do we SLIP to the basic level? Computational constraints and their implementation.

The authors introduce a new measure of basic-level performance (strategy length and internal practicability; SLIP). SLIP implements 2 computational constraints on the organization of categories in a taxonomy: the minimum number of feature tests required to place the input in a category (strategy length) and the ease with which these tests are performed (internal practicability). The predictive power of SLIP is compared with that of 4 other basic-level measures: context model, category feature possession, category utility, and compression measure, drawing data from other empirical work, and 3 new experiments testing the validity of the computational constraints of SLIP using computer-synthesized 3-dimensional artificial objects.     

Comparing implementation intention interventions in relation to young adults’ intake of fruit and vegetables

This study tests whether the effectiveness of implementation intention-based interventions to increase fruit and vegetable intake in a young adult population can be enhanced using additional pre-intervention instructions and alternative formats; namely, an ‘if-then’ implementation intention versus a more general, ‘global’ plan that does not explicitly link a situational cue with a goal-directed response. Participants (N?=?557) completed pre-test measures of planning, motivation and behaviour with respect to increasing their fruit and vegetable intake before being randomised to a 3 (intervention format: control vs. ‘if-then’ vs. ‘global’ implementation intentions)?×?2 (pre-intervention instruction vs. no pre-intervention instruction) between-participants design. Results revealed a significant intervention format by time interaction, such that intake significantly increased by 0.50 portions in the if-then format condition compared with 0.31 in the global format and 0.01 in the control condition. These results suggest that ‘if-then’ manipulations are superior in promoting behaviour change in an applied setting. The use of pre-intervention instructions had no additional effect on behaviour, providing evidence for the efficacy of implementation intentions even when experimenter demand is reduced. Evidence is also presented to suggest that reported increases in intake are not related to demand characteristics.     

Motion as manipulation: implementation of force–motion analogies by event-file binding and action planning

Tool-improvisation analogies are structure-mapping inferences implemented, in many species, by event-file binding and pre-motor action planning. These processes act on multi-modal representations of currently perceived situations and eventuate in motor acts that can be directly evaluated for success or failure; they employ implicit representations of force-motion relations encoded by the pre-motor system and do not depend on explicit, language-like representations of relational concepts. A detailed reconstruction of the analogical reasoning steps involved in Rutherford's and Bohr's development of the first quantized-orbit model of atomic structure is used to show that human force-motion analogies can in general be implemented by these mechanisms. This event-file manipulation model of the implementation of force-motion analogies is distinguished from the standard view that structure-mapping analogies require the manipulation of explicit, language-like representations of relational concepts.     

Is working memory necessary for implementation intentions to enhance prospective memory in older adults with cognitive problems?

Implementation intentions are an effective strategy for improving prospective memory in older adults. However, their efficacy has never been assessed in older individuals with cognitive problems (i.e., individuals with subjective memory complaints or objective memory impairments). Furthermore, although most authors consider implementation intentions to depend on automatic processes, some studies have shown the necessity of residual preserved controlled processes for implementation intentions to be efficient. We examined the efficacy of implementation intentions in prospective memory in 45 older participants consulting a memory clinic. Half of the participants were instructed to form an implementation intention, the other half receiving standard instructions. Analyses showed that working memory moderated the efficacy of implementation intentions, which were efficient only in individuals with better working memory. These results corroborate the claim that a minimal level of cognitive resources is required for the technique, although implementation intentions might depend principally on automatic processes.     

Adaptation and implementation of the German social–emotional learning programme Papilio in Finland: A pilot study

This study investigated the cross-national adaptation and implementation of Papilio, a German social–emotional learning programme, in Finnish early childhood education and care (ECEC) centres. Papilio is a developmentally focused, scientifically based intervention programme focused on preventing behavioural problems and fostering social–emotional competence in children aged 3–7. The aim of this study was to investigate and evaluate the cross-national adaptation and cross-cultural adaptation and implementation of Papilio in the Finnish ECEC context. Results from qualitative interviews with one Finnish Papilio trainer, 11 early childhood education (ECE) teachers, two ECE special education teachers and two nursery nurses are supplemented with teachers' and nursery nurses' (N = 75) questionnaire data. Qualitative thematic analysis revealed that cultural adaptations were necessary on four levels: accommodation of materials, adaptation of the contents of the materials, structure and delivery. The materials and training contents were culturally adapted, whereas the delivery of the intervention was adapted according to Finnish ECEC practices. The structural adaptation included discarding timeout, due to opposition by some educators. The educators were committed to implementing the programme as instructed and resolving the practical difficulties they encountered. Their motivation to implement Papilio increased as they observed improvements in the children's social–emotional competence during intervention.     

Does knowing translate to doing? Practitioners’ experiences of Circle of Security-Parenting (COS-P) training and implementation

This study sought to understand how practitioners perceive and experience the Circle of Security-Parenting (COS-P) training, and further, how they integrate and implement it into practice, and how these experiences influence their use and understanding of the program and its underlying model. A thematic analysis of semistructured interviews at two time points (shortly after training and 3–6 months after training) was used to explore 12 practitioners’ experiences of COS-P training and subsequent implementation. Three main themes were identified; clinical salience, personal salience, and partial use of the program. The findings reflected participants’ common perception that the model is relevant and generalizable to a wide variety of contexts. It also highlighted potential barriers to implementation, particularly practitioners’ experiences using only components of the COS-P program in isolation. The results suggest practitioners’ assumptions about client complexities, vulnerabilities, and/or incapacities, can prompt practitioners to withhold the use of COS-P (in part or whole), thereby potentially neglecting key components required for client change. The only participants who implemented the COS-P training in full had additional training in Circle of Security.     

Antialiasing: A technique for smoothing jagged lines on a computer graphics image—an implementation on the Amiga

Images displayed on computer graphics displays often suffer from the presence of aliasing artifacts that give a jagged appearance to lines or polygon edges displayed on the screen. This paper details the problems associated with these artifacts and presents a method for drawingantialiased lines—ones in which the artifacts have been considerably reduced. The line-drawing routine is further developed to incorporategamma correction, to take into account the nonlinear relationship between the intensity of the light emission from the phosphor of the monitor and the grayscale values used to control the intensity on the screen.     

Identifying the ‘if’ for ‘if-then’ plans: Combining implementation intentions with cue-monitoring targeting unhealthy snacking behaviour

Implementation intentions aimed at changing unwanted habits require the identification of personally relevant cues triggering the habitual response in order to be effective. To facilitate successful implementation intention formation, in the present study, planning was combined with cue-monitoring, a novel way to gain insight into triggers for unhealthy snacking. It was tested whether keeping a cue-monitoring diary and tailoring implementation intentions accordingly improves plan effectiveness. A 2 Monitoring (cue-monitoring, control)?×?2 Planning (implementation intention, goal intention) between subjects design was adopted. Participants (N = 161) monitored their unhealthy snacking behaviour for a week using either a cue-monitoring or a control diary. Participants then formulated a goal intention or an implementation intention tailored to their personal cue. Snacking frequency and caloric intake from unhealthy snacks were examined using a seven-day snack diary. The results did not indicate an interaction but yielded a main effect of Monitoring. Cue-monitoring either or not combined with implementation intentions reduced unhealthy snacking behaviour compared with control. Findings emphasise the effectiveness of cue-monitoring, suggesting that on the short term, cue-monitoring suffices to decrease unhealthy snacking, without additional benefit from planning. Future research should examine whether supplementing cue-monitoring with implementation intentions is required to establish long-term behaviour change maintenance.     

New directions in offender typology design,development, and implementation: Can we balance risk,treatment and control?

It should come as no surprise that there is no “one-stop shopping” offender typology available that can identify the risk level, targeted treatment protocols, and control levels of the offender groups examined in this special issue: murderers, sex offenders, batterers, violent prisoners, and violent mentally ill offenders. We are in desperate need of further research establishing the links between offender risk level, offender treatment needs, and offender control requirements for each of these offender groups. This article provides a “state of the art” discussion of the key issues that must be addressed by policymakers, practitioners, and ultimately, the public, vis-à-vis the design, development, and implementation of typologies for each of these targeted groups of offenders. This is followed by our assessment of the lessons learned from the great prison classification experiment. We conclude by providing an assessment of new directions in the development of typologies of offenders and the communities in which offenders reside, based on the simple notion that offender change–not offender control–needs to be the primary focus of the next generation of correctional classification systems.     

Does implementation of reforms authorized in Section 28 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act affect the complexity of the questions asked of young alleged victims in court?

This study examined whether the implementation of Section 28 (S28) of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act and the introduction of mandatory ground rules hearings reduced the complexity of the questions English lawyers asked when examining child witnesses. This study compared cases with (n = 43) and without (n = 43) the S28 special measures and involved children aged 6–15 testifying as alleged victims of sexual abuse. Defense lawyers' questions in the S28 condition comprised fewer words, clauses, false starts, multiple negatives, and temporal and numeric attributes than in the non‐S28 condition. When questioning younger children, lawyers used fewer words, clauses, references to “before/after,” and passive voice. These results demonstrated that S28 successfully reduced the complexity of the questions and that lawyers in both conditions partially adjusted the complexity of their questions to accommodate children's developmental capabilities.