Verbal aggressiveness of physical education teachers and students' self-reports of behavior

The purpose of this study was to develop a test for describing verbally aggressive behaviors of physical education teachers as perceived by secondary school students. The sample of 130 students (70 boys and 60 girls) were students in the second year of secondary school in Greece. 12 items designed for students were structured to describe possible verbal aggressive behaviors of physical education teachers as perceived by students and students' intention to respond. Exploratory factor analysis using the principal components method and varimax rotation yielded three factors, namely, (i) personal insults, threats, irony and their effect, (ii) intention to respond, and (iii) insults and threats toward others. Eigenvalues were greater than 1.00 for each of three factors which accounted for 69% of the total variance. Values of Cronbach alpha were .86, .88, and .78 for the three factors, respectively.     

Understanding Body Language

The article details the significance of nonverbal communication or body language for the counselor in interview situations. The article gives background material of the research done in the area of nonverbal communication and quotes extensively from the leaders in the field. The article includes illustrations of messages sent by arm and hand gestures, feet movements, eye movements, silence, posture, appearance, the use of time and space, and the grouping of individuals. The article also includes a discussion of kinesics, the study of body movements; proxemics, the study of the use of personal space; and culture as a guiding factor in body language.     

Fight-seeking motivation in dating partners with an aggressive relationship

The author studied aggression among dating couples to determine if partners' fight-seeking motivation could explain the phenomenon. Intact dating couples were classified as aggressive if either partner reported having perpetrated 2 or more acts of assaultive violence in the past year. The author asked participants to rate the extent to which they and their partners intentionally physically or verbally fought with one another, felt calmer after physical or verbal conflict with their partners, and sought to increase sensory stimulation by taking part in high-risk activities. Together, these ratings constituted a measure of fight-seeking motivation. Results of a logistic regression analysis showed that couples classified as aggressive (48%) had relationships longer in duration than did nonaggressive couples. In addition, both men and women in aggressive relationships had greater fight-seeking motivation than did individuals in nonaggressive relationships.     

Self-determined motivation in physical education and its links to motivation for leisure-time physical activity, physical activity, and well-being in general

The present study tested a trans-contextual model based on self-determination theory of the relations between motivation in physical education, motivation in leisure-time physical activity, physical activity, and psychological well-being. Participants were 329 Norwegian upper secondary school students (M age = 16.5 yr., SD = 0.7). Students' perceptions of autonomy-supportive teachers in physical education were expected to be positively associated with students' psychological needs satisfaction in physical education, which was expected to be positively related to autonomous motivation for physical education participation. In turn, autonomous motivation for physical education was expected to be positively associated with perceived competence and autonomous motivation for leisure-time physical activity, which both were expected to be positively associated with leisure-time physical activity and psychological well-being in general. Structural equation models and bootstrapping supported the hypotheses and the indirect links between variables. Sex differences indicate that more research is needed on how to motivate girls to be more physically active in leisure time.     

Concurrent and prospective effects of multi‐dimensional aggression and anger on adolescent alcohol use

This study examined the relationship between alcohol, anger, and aggression in high school students. Anger and three types of aggressive expression (verbal, physical toward people, and physical toward objects) were evaluated cross‐sectionally and prospectively, via structural equation modeling for relationships to alcohol use in Mexican American and white non‐Latino 9–10th (Time 1) and 11–12th grade (Time 2) students. At both times cross‐sectionally, anger and aggressive anger expression tended to correlate positively with alcohol use in each ethnicity/gender group. However, prospectively, aggressive forms of anger expression tended not to be related to alcohol use two years later. Only verbally aggressive anger expression was related to alcohol use two years later and then, only for Mexican American and white non‐Latino females. There was, therefore, little basis for causal links between aggressive anger expression and alcohol use in a general population of high school students. Aggress. Behav. 30:356–372, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Warm or competent? Improving intergroup relations by addressing threatened identities of advantaged and disadvantaged groups

Applying the Needs‐Based Model of Reconciliation to contexts of group disparity, two studies examined how messages from outgroup representatives that affirmed the warmth or competence of advantaged or disadvantaged groups influenced their members' intergroup attitudes. Study 1 involved natural groups differing in status; Study 2 experimentally manipulated status. In both studies, advantaged‐group members responded more favorably, reporting more positive outgroup attitudes and willingness to change the status quo toward equality, to messages reassuring their group's warmth. Disadvantaged‐group members responded more favorably to messages affirming their group's competence. Study 2 further demonstrated that the effectiveness of reassuring a disadvantaged group's competence stemmed from restoring its threatened dimension of identity, irrespective of a change of the status quo. In line with Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), these results indicate that beyond the competition over tangible resources, groups are concerned with restoring threatened dimensions of their identities. Exchanging messages that remove identity‐related threats may promote not only positive intergroup attitudes but also greater willingness to act collectively for intergroup equality. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Contrasting effects of a hot and a cool system in anger regulation on cooperative behaviours

Angry mood and aggression are strongly associated. However, it is not socially acceptable to express strong aggression. Non-cooperative behaviours might be another aspect of aggressive behaviour. The present study examines the expression of non-cooperative behaviours after angry mood induction. Eighty-five university students were randomly assigned to hot or cool focus recall of a past angry event. At baseline, trait aggression and rejection sensitivity were evaluated. Just before the recall task, participants' state of angry mood was measured by the Anger Mood Scale. Then they engaged in either hot or cool focus recall of a past rejection event. Immediately after the mood induction, angry mood was measured again. They were then instructed to play the Mixed Motive game with an unknown person. Participants in both groups became angrier after the mood induction. One-way analysis of covariance, controlling for trait anger and rejection sensitivity, showed that the hot-focus participants gave significantly fewer points to the other person than the cool-focus participants. Participants high on trait aggression sent more verbally aggressive messages. The findings suggest that non-cooperative behaviour is another form of anger related aggression and might be more socially important than overt aggression.     

Women's advantage at remembering others' appearance: A systematic look at the why and when of a gender difference

Women recall the appearance of others better than men. The goal of the present research was to shed light on the explanations and boundary conditions of this gender difference. In three studies (592 participants), the authors tested potential mediators and moderators of the gender difference. Results corroborated the robustness of the gender difference. General task motivation, general memory ability, importance of appearance, appearance knowledge, attention paid to target, gazing at target, and communal or agentic orientation could not explain why women were better at recalling others' appearance than men were. Except for importance of appearance and appearance knowledge, which both decreased the magnitude of the gender difference, general task motivation, attention paid to target, length of exposure to target, delay in responding, cognitive load, and response format (verbal vs. nonverbal) had no effect on the gender difference. Results are discussed in relation to gender differences found in the nonverbal sensitivity literature.     

The effects of sex-role taking on children's responses to aggressive conflict situations

The effects of sex-role taking on children's responses to aggressive conflict situations were investigated in the present study. Subjects were 40 boys and girls aged 8–9, who were asked to take the role of boy and girl story characters involved in the following kinds of aggressive situations: victim of a verbal attack, victim of a physical attack, and witness to an attack upon a friend. A significant interaction effect between type of conflict situation and sex of story character was obtained. Subjects expected boy characters to retaliate more strongly than girl characters when intervening in an attack upon a friend, and girl characters to retaliate more strongly than boy characters when being verbally or physically assaulted. These findings suggest the importance of situational factors in determining children's sex-stereotyped expectations for aggressive retaliation.     

Achievement goal orientations and motivational outcomes in youth sport: The role of social orientations

ObjectivesSocial goal orientations, which reflect ways of conceptualizing competence in terms of social relationships with others, have been researched minimally in the physical domain. While the relationship between task and ego orientations and motivational outcomes has been well-studied, the link of friendship, group acceptance, and coach praise orientations with enjoyment, perceived physical competence, and intrinsic motivation warrants further study.MethodMale and female middle-school students (N = 303) completed questionnaires assessing task, ego, coach praise, friendship, and group acceptance orientations; enjoyment; perceived physical competence; and motivation. Two approaches to data analysis (variable-centered, person-centered) examined whether social orientations were significantly related to motivational outcomes among adolescents.ResultsVariable-centered analysis (i.e., canonical correlation) showed that social orientations were related to enjoyment, perceived physical competence, and intrinsic motivation. Person-centered analyses (i.e., cluster analysis, MANOVA) classified participants with similar patterns of goal orientations and then compared the emergent groups on motivational outcomes. Participants who defined success using either higher task, ego, and social goal orientations or higher friendship and lower ego orientations reported the most adaptive responses (higher perceived competence, enjoyment, and intrinsic motivation).ConclusionsSocial orientations in sport are important to consider alongside task and ego orientations in research stemming from achievement goal theory. Defining success or competence in terms of social relationships can have positive motivational benefits in sport.     

Improving arithmetic performance with number sense training: An investigation of underlying mechanism

A nonverbal primitive number sense allows approximate estimation and mental manipulations on numerical quantities without the use of numerical symbols. In a recent randomized controlled intervention study in adults, we demonstrated that repeated training on a non-symbolic approximate arithmetic task resulted in improved exact symbolic arithmetic performance, suggesting a causal relationship between the primitive number sense and arithmetic competence. Here, we investigate the potential mechanisms underlying this causal relationship. We constructed multiple training conditions designed to isolate distinct cognitive components of the approximate arithmetic task. We then assessed the effectiveness of these training conditions in improving exact symbolic arithmetic in adults. We found that training on approximate arithmetic, but not on numerical comparison, numerical matching, or visuo-spatial short-term memory, improves symbolic arithmetic performance. In addition, a second experiment revealed that our approximate arithmetic task does not require verbal encoding of number, ruling out an alternative explanation that participants use exact symbolic strategies during approximate arithmetic training. Based on these results, we propose that nonverbal numerical quantity manipulation is one key factor that drives the link between the primitive number sense and symbolic arithmetic competence. Future work should investigate whether training young children on approximate arithmetic tasks even before they solidify their symbolic number understanding is fruitful for improving readiness for math education.     

Teaching apes to ape language: explaining the imitative and nonimitative signing of a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes)

Fifteen videotaped conversations of a chimpanzee signing with his trainers were examined in order to determine (a) whether the ape was using imitation to learn about new language forms as some human children do and (b) whether the ape's nonimitative utterances implied knowledge of linguistic structures. The answers to both questions were negative. The evidence suggests that the utterances lacked the semantic and syntactic organization found in the utterances of most children. Instead of learning to use signs as symbols for communicating propositional messages, the ape learned to use gestures as nonsymbolic instrumental responses under the stimulus control of objects in the signing context and verbal and nonverbal cues from the trainers. Other research now underway with chimpanzees may eventually reveal whether this performance is characteristic of chimpanzees in general or is the result of particular training strategies used to teach language to chimpanzees.     

Co-occurring Aggressive and Depressive Symptoms as Related to Overestimations of Competence in Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Research indicates that on average, children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) overestimate their competence in various domains. ADHD also frequently co-occurs with disorders involving aggressive and depressive symptoms, which themselves seem to influence estimations of self-competence in social, academic, and behavioral domains. In particular, high levels of aggressive behavior are generally associated with overestimations of competence, and high levels of depressive symptoms are related to underestimations of competence. This paper reviews studies of overestimations of competence among children with ADHD and examines the extent to which comorbid aggressive or depressive symptoms may be influencing these estimates. Although significant challenges arise due to limited information regarding comorbidities and problematic methods used to assess overestimations of competence, existing evidence suggests that ADHD may be associated with overestimations of competence over and above co-occurring aggression. As well, studies suggest that comorbid depression may reduce the appearance of overestimations of competence in children with ADHD. Underlying mechanisms (e.g., neuropsychological deficits or self-protection) of overestimations in children with ADHD are discussed, each with particular clinical implications for the assessment and treatment of ADHD. Future research would do well to carefully consider and explicitly describe the comorbid aggressive and depressive characteristics among individuals with ADHD when overestimations of competence are examined.     

Goal orientations, motivational climate, equality, and discipline of Spanish physical education students

This study analyzes how dispositional goal orientations and perception of different motivational climates are related to the students' perception of sex-related egalitarian treatment and the appearance of disciplined or undisciplined behaviors in physical education classes. Analyses showed that ego orientation is a predictor of undisciplined behavior. Task orientation was positively associated to discipline. The perception of task-involving motivational climate is related to the students' perception of equal treatment. On the contrary, the perception of ego-involving climate has been linked positively to the prediction of the perception of sex discrimination in physical education classes and negatively to the perception of equality and the appearance of disciplined behavior. This study discusses the implications of these results related to teaching instructional actions in physical education classes.     

The Impact of Teasing on Children’s Body Image

Being teased about one’s physical appearance in childhood has been found to have a strong impact on the way in which adolescent and adult women perceive their bodies. Teasing is also strongly related to self-esteem in children. However, little is known about the impact of teasing on the development of body image in childhood. Through a quantitative study of the experience of being teased and body image satisfaction in a group of 431 primary aged children, we examined the prevalence, type and impact of teasing on children’s perceived body image satisfaction. The results of our study indicated that many children, especially those who are over or underweight experience being teased. This experience does have a negative impact on children’s body image. This is especially significant for young girls and boys who are overweight. Underweight young boys also suffer negatively from this experience. It is important for parents and others to understand that what may be perceived as friendly banter with their children may not necessarily be innocuous. Further research exploring the concept and construct of teasing in childhood is warranted.     

先前学业成就与学习动机、策略的关系:学业情绪的中介作用

采用整群抽样法抽取高中生670名,分别用学业情绪问卷、学习动机问卷和学习策略问卷来探讨学业情绪在先前学业成就与学习动机、学习策略之间的中介作用。以学业情绪的控制-价值理论和认知-动机模型为基础,运用偏差矫正百分位的非参数Bootstrap法对学业情绪的中介作用进行检验,结果发现:积极学业情绪在先前学业成就与学习策略、学习动机间起完全中介效应;消极学业情绪在先前学业成就与学习策略、学习动机间起部分中介效应。     

The trichotomous achievement goal model and intrinsic motivation: a sequential mediational analysis

This experiment was designed to extend the research by Elliot and Harackiewicz (1996) on the trichotomous achievement goal model in several important ways and to more thoroughly document the processes through which the goals in the trichotomous model influence intrinsic motivation. Results indicated that performance-avoidance goals undermined intrinsic motivation relative to performance-approach and mastery goals; the latter goals evidenced the same intrinsic motivation. These results were obtained using highly evaluative performance goal manipulations, with early adolescent participants, and for a motor task relevant to physical ability. Sequential mediational analyses revealed that competence valuation, state anxiety, and task absorption processes accounted for the observed effects. Perceived competence served neither mediating nor moderating roles.     

LEADERSHIP AND NONVERBAL BEHAVIORS OF HISPANIC FEMALES ACROSS SCHOOL EQUITY ENVIRONMENTS

Nonverbal behaviors of Hispanic elementary school students and their peers were examined in a small-group cooperative task with a total of 202 subjects. Thirty-five randomly selected groups were videotaped in ten desegregated schools; each group was gender-homogeneous, with three Hispanic and three Anglo students. Analysis of the videotapes revealed that Hispanic females used less vertical and horizontal space than Anglo females, and were also less likely to verbally interrupt or physically intrude on other group members. They had similar rates of handling the group resource cards and were given similar leadership scores by multi-ethnic trained observers. Among males, Hispanics are significantly more likely to use vertical or upward movements and physical intrusions, while Anglos use more verbal interruptions.
School and social status factors such as high-and low-equity desegregated school programs, ethnic and gender status, and school status variables of academic grades and English word knowledge had varying effects on teacher and peer ratings of leadership. High-equity schools garnered higher leadership scores for Hispanic females from both peers and teachers when all other nonverbal behaviors were controlled. This positive effect of the school on leadership ratings was evident only for males in teacher ratings. Hispanic females and their peers do reflect adult models of nonverbal behavior and leadership, and that leadership is enhanced in the perceptions of teachers and peers when they participate in a high-equity desegregated elementary school.     

Rorschach measures of aggressive drive derivatives: a college student sample

This study investigated measures of aggressive drive derivatives on the Rorschach and Personality Assessment Inventory with 70 college students. As predicted, (a) self-reported physical aggression potential was related to Rorschach measures of identification with the aggressor and aggressive impulses, (b) suicidal ideation with impulsivity was related to a Rorschach measure of aggressive impulses turned toward the self, and (c) the borderline features scale was related to a Rorschach pathological object relations measure. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that a Rorschach measure of emotional impulsivity added unique variance to these Rorschach aggression variables in predicting self-reported physical aggression potential, suicidal ideation with impulsivity, and borderline features. Finally, caution is advised in applying our findings when there is motivation to suppress aggressive responses