Group assertion training for adult male offenders: Internal validity

BEHAVIOR THERAPY 12, 274--279 (1981)

BRIEF REPORTS Group Assertion Training for Adult Male Offenders: Internal Validity D. R o s s GILMOUR IAIN A . M C C O R M I C K

CHRISTINA A. DE RUITER Department of Justice, Wellington, New Zealand As the initial step in the assessment of assertion training for adult offenders, a multiple baseline across the role played behavior of three subjects selected randomly from the training group was undertaken. A considerable degree of realism in the role plays was achieved by allowing flexibility in the wording, presentation of the prompts, and discretion for the interactor to counter excuses given by the subject, all within a detailed underlying structure that ensured consistent stimulus conditions across both subjects and occasions. Training resulted in marked changes of the target behaviors for all subjects, and these being maintained or continuing to increase throughout the study.

Assertion training programs have been used with a wide variety of clinical populations including children (Bornstein, Bellack, & Hersen, 1977), college students (McFall & Twentyman, 1973), chronic psychiatric patients (Bloomfield, 1973), and delinquent adolescents (Sarason & Ganzer, 1969). The evaluation of assertion training effects with adult offenders may be a potentially fruitful area of research, as offenders have been reported to tend towards underassertiveness (Keltner, Marshall, & Marshall, Note 1). Kirchner, Kennedy, and Draguns (1979) found significantly higher ratings of aggression in offenders compared with demographically similar nonoffenders, and while they did not find a significant difference between the groups on assertion they cited evidence that suggests underassertiveness and aggression occur frequently among offenders and that both may be linked in a number of ways to antisocial acts. The effectiveness of both assertion and social skills training has most commonly been evaluated by the analysis of role played behavior (BelWe wish to acknowledge the support and assistance given by the Superintendent and staff of Wi Tako Prison. Requests for reprints should be sent to D. R. Gilmour, Psychological Services, Department of Justice, P.O. Box 31171, Lower Hutt, New Zealand. 274 0005-7894/81/0274-027951.00/0 Copyright 1981by Associationfor Advancementof BehaviorTherapy All rightsof reproduction in any formreserved.

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lack, H e r s e n , & Turner, 1978) but recently the validity of these assessment p r o c e d u r e s has been questioned, i.e., role played behaviors can no longer be a s s u m e d to be an accurate representation of the behaviors that occur in real life situations (Bellack et al., 1978; Bellack, H e r s e n , & L a m parski, 1979; Wessberg, Mariotto, Conger, Farrell, & Conger, 1979). Despite this, role plays enabling naturalistic b e h a v i o r to be analysed under controlled laboratory conditions can be usefully e m p l o y e d to d e m o n s t r a t e if and h o w behavioral changes can be attributed to t r e a t m e n t variables (Kazdin & Rogers, 1978). In order to assess the effectiveness of a group assertion training prograin for offenders, a series of studies were planned. This study is designed to examine the extent to which subjects in the assertion training group actually learned the skills that were taught and the extent to which the behavioral changes can be attributed to the training.

METHOD

Subjects T h r e e males f r o m a minimum security institution were chosen randomly from a group of 10 inmates who volunteered to participate in group assertion training. The group had been selected on the basis that they could describe incidents of unassertiveness that had led to serious problems.

Assessment On 12 weekly occasions, the three subjects were individually videotaped participating with an interactor who was also a group trainer. Role plays were structured and aimed to produce flexible but consistent stimulus conditions across both subjects and occasions. 1 The role play situations were chosen from a m o n g those used in the existing training package and were selected as being well suited to the use and m e a s u r e m e n t of a particular skill. Three different role plays were used in which subjects were instructed to (1) refuse to buy insurance f r o m a persistent salesman, (2) refuse to go to a bar for a drink with a persistent friend, and (3) try to gain a raise in p a y from an e m p l o y e r when an anticipated one had been declined. Each one was structured in that there were a n u m b e r of set areas that were available for use by the interactor. F o r example, with the insurance role play four areas were available: (1) personal savings, (2) house mortgages, (3) tax savings, and (4) protection for dependants or next of kin. There were subpoints for each area, e.g., for (1) personal s a v i n g s - - 0 ) a regular a m o u n t builds up, (ii) if you do not save m o n e y it can slip through y o u r fingers, and (iii) you need only save a small amount. Flexibility was introduced by not fixing the actual wording or presentation 1 The role plays used in this experiment were similar to the Extended Interaction Test (McFall & Lillesand, 1971) in that they aimed to achieve a high degree of realism, but both the instructions and role plays were more highly structured.

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order of the different prompts, and by allowing the interactor to counter any excuses given by the subject. Once an excuse had been countered the interactor returned to one of the set areas and the role play continued until the subject gave in, or for 3-min duration. Role play one was analysed for the number of excuses, defined as the number of verbal utterances that offered reasons or explanations for behavior or attitudes attributed to the person by the interactor or for avoiding the other's requests or demands. Each excuse was counted as having begun and ended at the point the interactor spoke. Fogging was analyzed in the second role play; this behavior was defined as any verbal utterance that acknowledges and repeats back part of, all of, or at least the ideas contained in the other's immediately preceding statement or question. Role play three was employed to assess the use of the skill, negative inquiry, defined as any statement that asks for further criticism from the other speaker. The videotaped role plays were coded by a psychologist who, while aware of the overall aim of the study, was not involved in the training. The experimental design consisted of a multiple baseline across three behaviors: excuse giving, fogging, and negative inquiry. While five skills were taught, only three were used in the multiple baseline as this seemed sufficient to enable a clear demonstration of control. Apart from an initial baseline, all assessments were made immediately prior to the training sessions.

Training Procedure Several assertion training groups were conducted prior to the current program and the training procedure had been refined to produce a structured yet flexible and easily repeated format. The training consisted of two phases; individual pretraining, which involved up to three sessions to train minimal levels of conversational and nonverbal skills, and secondly, group training, which consisted of 11 2-hour sessions conducted by three psychologists. The weekly training sequence was (1) theoretical aspects of assertiveness, (2 & 3) further theoretical aspects with a focus on the methods people use to manipulate others' behavior, e.g., taking advantage of excuse giving, (4) broken record, (5, 6, & 7) fogging and fogging to criticism, (8) negative assertion, and (9, 10, & 11) negative inquiry and summary. These skills are outlined by Smith (1975), and throughout the training the appropriate and responsible use of these skills was emphasized.

RESU LTS Reliability was calculated by two Justice Department psychologists on all data by dividing agreements between observers by total observations. Inter-observer agreement for the three target behaviors ranged between 75% and 100%, with a mean of 93.7%. Agreement on total frequency of target behaviors was fogging, 92%; excuses, 96%; and negative inquiry,

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FIG. 1. Frequency of target behaviors (excuses, fogging, negative inquiry) for subjects one, two, and three over weeks 1 to 12. 100%. Agreement on occurrence of behavior per role play was fogging, 80%; excuses, 100%; and negative inquiry, 100%. Agreement on nonoccurrence of behavior per role play was fogging, 75%; excuses, 100%; and negative inquiry, 100%. Fig. I summarizes the behavioral effects of training. High and stable levels of excuse giving behavior were evidenced for Subject 1 and 2 during baseline, while Subject 3 showed greater variability. When training began, substantial decreases in excuse giving were evidenced. While there was some response variability for Subject 1, the mean rate during training was low. Little response variability and a low rate of responding was noted for Subject 2, and training greatly reduced the variability in the data for Subject 3. The rate of fogging during baseline for all subjects was low and stable. Training evidenced substantially increased rates of responding and greater variability. The rate of negative inquiry during baseline was low and showed moderate variability. During training, the rate of responding for Subject 1 was high and stable, while for Subject 2 the rate remained low for the first posttraining session and then increased substantially. N o data were obtained for Subject 3 as, despite efforts made by the authors to ensure that all subjects would be available for the duration of the study, he was unexpectedly transferred to a prerelease hostel.

DISCUSSION The results indicate that the subjects did learn the assertive skills as all trained target responses substantially and rapidly altered in the appro-

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priate direction. The effectiveness of the training procedure was demonstrated by the relatively low variability during baseline (except for Subject 3, excuses), the rapid change during training, the trained response rated being maintained or changing in the appropriate direction throughout the experiment, and by the change in each of the target responses being discreet occurring only after training in the specific skill. The role play measures used in this experiment were designed to achieve control over the relevant stimuli by having a considerable amount of underlying structure, while maintaining realism by allowing sufficient flexibility for the role plays to flow naturally within that structure. The generally stable response rates before and after treatment suggest that consistent stimulus conditions occurred across both subjects and occasions. This tends to indicate that the role plays did have sufficient structure to maintain the necessary control over the interactor's behavior. The flexibility of the role plays did enable a considerable degree of realism to be achieved, as indicated by the subjects' comments that the role plays were lifelike and by the subjects' behaviors within the role plays. For example in the role play three (where subjects were asked to try to obtain a raise in pay from an employer when an anticipated one had been declined), when the interactor criticized the subjects for poor performance on the job, all subjects were observed to raise their voices and use strong language such as "if that's what you think you can stick your f- . . . . job." The results of this study suggest that the training program can alter role play performance. However this does not mean that the prison inmates can apply the assertive skills in nontraining situations or that training effects are durable or that assertion training is useful in reducing recidivism. Research on these aspects is now underway.

REFERENCE NOTE 1. Keltner, A. A., Marshall, P. G., & Marshall, W . L . The description of assertiveness in a prison population. Unpublished manuscript, 1977.

REFERENCES Bellack, A. S., Hersen, M., & Lamparski, D. Role play tests for assessing social skills: Are they valid? Are they useful? Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1979, 47, 335-342. Bellack, A. S., Hersen, M., & Turner, S . M . Role play tests for assessing social skills: Are they valid? Behavior Therapy, 1978, 9, 448-461. Bloomfield, H . H . Assertive training in an outpatient group of chronic schizophrenics: A Preliminary report~ Behavior Therapy, 1973, 4, 227-281. Bornstein, M. R., Bellack, A. S., & Hersen, M. Social skills training for unassertive children: A multiple baseline analysis. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1977, 10, 183-195. Kazdin, A. E., & Rogers, T. On paradigms and recycled ideologies: Analogue research revised. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 1978, 2, 105-117.

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Kirchner, E. P., Kennedy~ R. E., & Draguns, J. G. Assertion and aggression in adult offenders. Behavior Therapy, 1979, 10, 452-471. McFall, R. M., & Lillesand, D . B . Behavioral rehearsal with modelling and coaching in assertion training. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1971, 77, 313-323. McFall, R. M., & Twentyman, C. Four experiments on the relative contributions of rehearsal, modelling, and coaching to assertion training. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1973, 81, 199-218. Sarason, J. G., & Ganzer, V . J . Developing appropriate social behaviors in juvenile delinquents. In J. D. Krumboltz & C. E. Thoreson (Eds.), Behavioral counselling: Cases and techniques. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1969. Smith, M. J. When I say no I feel guilty: How to cope using the skills of systematic assertive therapy. New York: Bantam Books, 1975. Wessberg, H. W., Mariotto, M. J., Conger, A. J., Farrell, D., & Conger, J . C . Ecological validity of role plays for assessing heterosocial anxiety and skill of male college students. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1979, 47, 525-535. RECEIVED: March 19, 1980; REVISED: April 8, 1980 FINAL ACCEPTANCE: August 6, 1980