Behavioral Indicator of Resiliency to Distress (BIRD)
FREE for use with an Inquisit Lab or Inquisit Web license.Background
The Behavioral Indicator of Resiliency to Distress (BIRD) task is a child friendly computerized behavioral assessment tool developed in 2006 by C.W. Lejuez, Stacey Daughters and colleagues at the University of Maryland and published by Stacey Daughters and colleagues in 2009. The BIRD task was developed as a child friendly alternative to the PASAT-C distress tolerance task used in adult populations to study people's ability to stay on task while continuously feeling stressed or frustrated. This ability, known as 'distress tolerance', is linked to better emotional regulation, lower internalizing symptoms and less self-destructive behavior such as drug abuse, criminal behavior and health-related risk taking.
Task Procedure
The participant is presented with a circle of 10 boxes. Randomly a box gets highlighted in green and the participant is asked to press the box as fast as possible to earn a point and free a bird from its cage. The points are only earned if the participant is fast enough to press the box before the next one is highlighted and the participant can always see how many points they have earned at any given point.
The participant works through three timed levels with each level increasing the speed with which the boxes are highlighted. During the last level the participant has the option to quit the task prematurely by pressing an escape button.
What it Measures
The BIRD Task is a behavioral assessment tool of distress tolerance in children and adolescents.
Psychological domains
- Emotion Regulation: Ability to monitor, evaluate, and modify one's emotional responses in a way that aligns with one's goals and values
- Distress Tolerance: Ability to stay on a goal-oriented task while enduring emotional distress
- Impulsivity: Tendency toward rapid reactions to internal or external stimuli without considerations of negative long-term consequences
Main Performance Metrics
- Quitting: whether the escape button is pressed
- Level 3 Duration: time spent on the last, most challenging level
Psychiatric Conditions
Lower distress tolerance is linked to
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Drug Abuse
- Alcoholism
- Psychopathy
- Criminal Behavior
Available Test Variations
The Bird Task designed by Daughters et al (2009) as a manipulation/measure of distress tolerance. This is a version of the PASAT-C task for children and adolescents.
An adaptation of the Bird test of distress tolerance used in the ABCD Consortium's longitudinal study on cognitive development from childhood to early adulthood.
An adaptation of the Bird test of distress tolerance used in the ABCD Consortium's longitudinal study on cognitive development from childhood to early adulthood.
References
Search Google Scholar for peer-reviewed, published research using the Inquisit Behavioral Indicator of Resiliency to Distress (BIRD).
Lejuez CW, Daughters SB, Danielson CW, Ruggiero K. The Behavioral Indicator of Resiliency to Distress (BIRD) 2006 Unpublished manual.
Daughters, S.B, Reynolds, E.K., MacPherson, L., Kahler, C.W., Danielson, C.K., Zvolensky, M. & Lejuez, C.W. (2009). Distress tolerance and early adolescent externalizing and internalizing symptoms: The moderating role of gender and ethnicity. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 47, 198–205.