Examining the Effects of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) on the Irrational Beliefs of Blue-Chip Professionals

Abstract

The extant literature reveals a scarcity of research applying rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) in business settings. Against the backdrop of severe market conditions and inevitable involuntary job loss, the application of psychological interventions to reduce mental and physical health issues is highly pertinent and potentially valuable. This paper reports the effects of an intensive REBT programme on the irrational beliefs of staff undergoing redundancy from a Blue-Chip organisation. A repeated-measures single-group intervention design was adopted so that changes in irrational beliefs could be assessed over the course of the REBT programme. Results indicated significant reductions in total irrational beliefs, other-depreciation, need for achievement, and demand for fairness from pretest to posttest phases. Social validation data indicated perceived psychological and performance benefits. Results are discussed with reference to mechanisms of change, study limitations, and applied research issues.Keywords: business, emotions, applied psychology, intervention, job loss, social validation Examining the Effects of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) on the Irrational Beliefs of Blue-Chip Professionals "I have been made redundant before and it is a terrible blow; redundant is a rotten word because it makes you think you are useless." -Billy Connolly Blue-chip businesses trade in a constantly changing and often unpredictable environment. The economic uncertainty that many organisations are functioning within forces sudden but necessary changes in staffing for the businesses to continue to trade. Unfortunately, as a consequence of leaner financial times, redundancies or layoffs have increased. Indeed, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) reported in 2012 that almost 2.7 million people were made redundant between 2008 and 2012 in the U.K., equivalent to one in ten employees at the start of the recession.There is little doubt that redundancy, also known as a layoff or involuntary withdrawal from work, has a negative psychological impact on the employees it affects. Indeed, research indicates that increased redundancy begets short and long term mental and physical health issues, and impaired psycho-social functioning (Beale & Nethercott, 1985;Catalano, 1991;Penkower, Bromet, & Dew, 1988;Price, Choi, & Vinokur, 2002). Job loss is associated with anxiety, aggression, apathy, passivity, and depression (Cohn, 1978;Leana & Feldman, 1988; Warr, 1978). Job insecurity, considered to be a prelude to job loss (Dekker & Schaufeli, 1995), can be augmented by planned redundancies that have not yet occurred. Work conditions characterised by uncertainty causes stress for employees (Sell, Brief, & Schuler, 1981) stemming from the anticipation of job loss and ambiguity about the future (Joelson & Wahlquist, 1987). In addition, job insecurity is associated with lower job satisfaction and increased self-reported physical stress symptoms (Heaney, Isreal, & House, 1994), and increased psychosomati...

The Development and Initial Validation of the Irrational Performance Beliefs Inventory (iPBI)

“…Secondary beliefs are derived from the primary belief (Dryden, 2012). The goal of REBT is to reduce irrational beliefs in favour of rational beliefs.Researchers have applied REBT to develop functional emotions and effective performance in contexts such as competitive sport (Turner, 2014;Turner & Barker, 2013) and business (Turner & Barker, 2015). However, one limitation hindering research developments in performance settings is the lack of a contextually-specific irrational beliefs measure that is short enough for test-retest purposes and aligns closely with contemporary measures, so that a more accurate understanding of the specific conditions or subpopulation with which a tool works best in can be gained.…”

The Effectiveness of Training Based on Rational-Emotional-Behavioral Therapy on Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy

“…Turner and Barker studied REBT effects upon irrational believes among blue-chip professional's base on results, post-test stage indicated significant decreasing in irrational believes, need to achievement and justice demand than pre-test stage. 25 Ellis and Joffe found that by participating at REBT sessions, 40 persons stated that their thought. The disturbance was improved, 48 persons responded better to their problems, 58 persons stated that have disturbance feeling, 26 persons have found more risk ability, 23 persons stated that success in their days' affairs and 24 persons showed their feelings and reactions.…”

“…22 This scale consists of 25 items; every 5 items has known as one subscale. These 5 subscales consist of: self-appraisal, gathering career information, goal selection, planning, and problem-solving, person's opinions scored by 5-degrees scale from "I'm not sure at all" until "I'm sure completely" the scores range have been 25 22 Bavi and colleagues 23 reported internal conformity coefficient of this test by Cronbach α = 0.93. Sadeghi stated questionnaire reliability coefficient by Cronbach α = 0.89.…”

The Influence of Personality Traits on Irrational Beliefs in Malaysian Teachers

“…In line with REBT's hypothesis, a number of studies have offered the empirical evidence on the association between irrational beliefs and dysfunctional emotions (Brown, Dowd, & Freeman, 2010) as well as the correlation between irrational beliefs and maladaptive behaviours (Szentagotai & Jones, 2010;Turner & Barker, 2015). According to David, Montgomery, Macavie, Bovbjerg, Macavie, and Bovbjerg (2005) and Dryden (1999), there are four main categories of irrational beliefs which are demandingness, awfulizing or catastrophizing, global evaluation or self-downing and low frustration tolerance.…”

“…REBT posits that people always mistakenly blame external events for their unhappiness (Ellis, 1994). In the face of adversity, it is the belief about the situation but not the situation itself that leads to emotional disturbances (Ellis, 1994;Turner & Barker, 2015). In REBT, beliefs are at the core of individuals' emotions and behaviours (Dryden and Branch, 2008).…”