Background: Growing concerns about replicability, reproducibility, and transparency have led to the adoption of several open research practices aimed at reforming the academic ecosystem. The current study explores international researcher’s awareness and use of open research practice and variations across regions, disciplines, methodologies, and career level. Methods: A total of 3,017 researchers (45 countries; 24 disciplines) completed the Brief Open Research Survey, reporting their awareness and use of eleven common open research practices and factors that would support their adoption. Results: Respondents reported high awareness of Open Access Publishing, Preprints, and Open Data and awareness only fell below 50% for Research Co-production and Registered Reports. Use was high for Open Access Publishing, but fell below 50% for Preprints, Open Data, Open Research [term], Open Materials, Open Peer Review, Open Code, Preregistration, Research Co-production, Replication, and Registered Reports. Awareness and use varied across the sampled regions (e.g., Europe vs. Asia), disciplines (e.g., Psychology vs. General & Others in Sciences), methodologies (e.g., quantitative vs. qualitative), and career stages (e.g., PhD students vs. Professors). Respondents reported that the top five supportive strategies of open research were incentives from funders, institutions and regulators; dedicated funding; recognition in promotion and recruitment criteria; more training; and more information. Conclusions: Awareness is uniformly higher than use across open research practices and there are important variations between regions, methodologies, and career stages, as well as discipline-specific practices.
Exposure is highly effective for treating acrophobia and there is growing consensus that cognitive mechanisms play an important role in exposure-based therapies. The present randomized controlled trial investigated whether adding a Cognitive Bias Modification - Interpretation (CBM-I) training to a single-session exposure therapy further facilitates cognitive change. The sample included diagnosed acrophobia patients (N = 81), all of whom received exposure therapy. One day later they were randomized to receive either CBM-I or a sham training. The CBM-I trained patients to interpret and appraise ambiguous, height-related scenarios in a less threatening and adaptive manner, whereas the sham training comprised ambiguous, neutral scenarios. Outcomes included changes in interpretational biases (Encoding Recognition Task, Heights Interpretation Questionnaire, Scrambled Sentences Task), acrophobia-related symptoms (Acrophobia Questionnaire), and behavioral avoidance (Behavioral Approach Test). In intention-to-treat analyses patients receiving CBM-I showed a greater reduction in interpretational biases post-training compared to the sham condition (primary outcome). However, group differences were not sustained at follow-up, with both groups demonstrating improvements across all outcomes, except for the Scrambled Sentences Task. No significant group differences in reductions in other acrophobia-related cognitions, symptoms, or behavior emerged over time. Exploratory analyses revealed strong associations between the assessed cognitive, behavioral, and subjective outcomes, but not with the hormonal measures (progesterone, estradiol). To conclude, our findings suggest that while CBM-I can temporarily facilitate cognitive change in the context of exposure, its long-term benefits and downstream effects may require further optimization. Future research should refine CBM-I protocols to maximize its efficacy as a potential adjunct to exposure therapy.
