Goal orientations of young male ice hockey players and their parents

In this study, the researchers investigated the relationship between parent and player dispositional goal orientations associated with playing youth hockey. The authors used the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (J. L. Duda & J. Whitehead, 1998) to measure task and ego orientation in 123 boys (10-13 years old) and 1 of their parents. Sons rated their own goal orientations for hockey and their perceptions of their parent's goal orientations. Parents rated their goal orientations for their son and their perceptions of their son's goal orientations. Mothers and fathers did not differ in their goal orientations for their son. Travel-team and nontravel-team players did not differ. For ego orientation, the son's self-ratings correlated significantly with the parent's goals for the son, but not for task orientation. Sons reported being significantly more ego-oriented than their parents desired. Sons perceived that their parents had goal orientations similar to their own. The data from this study are congruent with the assertion that parents socialize their children's goal orientations and that ego orientation may be more salient and easily communicated than task orientation.     

Female relative age effects and the second-quartile phenomenon in young female ice hockey players

ObjectivesRelative age effects exist across sports and cultures (Cobley, Baker, Wattie, & McKenna, 2009), though a recent, unusual trend is females born in the second quartile of the selection year are most over-represented on elite teams. The first purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that the second-quartile phenomenon was the result of first-quartile female athletes registering to play male sport. Due to the nature of the collected data, a secondary purpose was to examine relative age effects across female age divisions.DesignCross-sectional, with multiple chi-square analyses.MethodPlayers included 29,924 female ice hockey players (ages 7–17 years) from the Ontario Hockey Federation. Birthdates were converted into quartiles following the Hockey Canada selection year.ResultsRelative age effects (with the second quartile most over-represented) existed for the entire sample (χ² [3, 29923] = 401.95, p < 0.001), those registered for female ice hockey (χ² [3, 24984] = 369.90, p < 0.001) and those registered for male ice hockey (χ² [3, 4938] = 37.88, p < 0.001). The strength of the effect lessened as athletes aged.ConclusionIt appears the second-quartile phenomenon cannot be explained by athletes’ choice to play male sport. Further, female relative age effects appear strongest at younger ages. The discussion includes integration of results with previous literature, along with plausible explanations.     

A comparison of the social status and social behavior of Aggressive and Aggressive/Withdrawn boys

The purpose of this study was to clarify contradictory findings concerning the social status of aggressive youngsters. This was undertaken by dividing kindergarten boys into either Aggressive [A] or Aggressive/Withdrawn [A/W] groups, as proposed by Ledingham [1981]. Both groups were found to be high on peer-nominated rejection, but the A group was also high on peer-nominated popularity while the A/W group was low. Similarly, both groups were observed to be high in negative peer interactions, but the A group was also high in positive interactions. It was noted that valuable information regarding the social status and social behavior of aggressive youngsters would be lost if such subgrouping is not undertaken. The relationship between Ledingham's categorizations and others reported in the literature was discussed.This research was supported in part by NIH grant No. 32992 to the first author.     

Conception and self-attribution of sex-role behavior: A cross-cultural comparison between Swedish and kibbutz-raised lsraelian children

The conception of typical female and male sex-role behavior and self-attribution of sex-role behavior in Swedish children were compared to conception and self-attribution in kibbutz-raised Israelian children. Two hundred and fourteen Swedish children aged 7–8 years and 68 Swedish and 56 Israelian children aged 10–12 years participated. It was hypothesised that Swedish children would be more traditional regarding sex-role behavior both with respect to their conception and to their self-attribution than the kibbutz-raised Israelian children since the strive for equality between the sexes, according to the kibbutz ideology, has been more pronounced in Israel than in Sweden. The results did not confirm the hypothesis. No cultural difference was found neither with respect to conception of typical female and male sex-role behavior, nor to the proportion of traditional and androgynous sex-typing regarding self-attribution.     

Coping behavior of Finnish adolescents: Remarks on a cross-cultural comparison

As part of a larger cross-cultural project, the present study analyses the coping styles of Finnish adolescents. A sample of 548 adolescents aged 15 to 17 years was investigated. Coping styles were defined by a matrix of 20 coping strategies applied across eight different developmental areas. Factor analysis revealed a three-dimensional structure of coping styles. The first dimension involves activities such as seeking support or taking advice (Active Coping), the second emphasizes the adolescent's appraisal of the situation and the search for a compromise (Internal Coping/Compromising) and the third includes defenses like denial and withdrawal (Withdrawal) and may be regarded as dysfunctional. The Finnish adolescents most frequently employed functional forms of coping like Active Coping and Internal Coping/Compromising: dysfunctional coping style such as Withdrawal was used less often. In addition, significant main effects for age and gender were found. Girls favored more Active Coping and support seeking behavior, as compared to boys. Both functional coping modes showed an increase with age. A comparison of coping styles across eight different problem areas revealed situation specific influences, too. The discussion compares the coping styles of Finnish adolescents with results of two parallel studies focussing on German and Israeli adolescents, using the same instrument. In spite of the considerable impact of environmental and historical conditions in the three countries, the similarities in coping behavior were impressive.     

Familiarity overrides complexity in rhythm perception: a cross-cultural comparison of American and Turkish listeners

Despite the ubiquity of dancing and synchronized movement to music, relatively few studies have examined cognitive representations of musical rhythm and meter among listeners from contrasting cultures. We aimed to disentangle the contributions of culture-general and culture-specific influences by examining American and Turkish listeners' detection of temporal disruptions (varying in size from 50-250 ms in duration) to three types of stimuli: simple rhythms found in both American and Turkish music, complex rhythms found only in Turkish music, and highly complex rhythms that are rare in all cultures. Americans were most accurate when detecting disruptions to the simple rhythm. However, they performed less accurately but comparably in both the complex and highly complex conditions. By contrast, Turkish participants performed accurately and indistinguishably in both simple and complex conditions. However, they performed less accurately in the unfamiliar, highly complex condition. Together, these experiments implicate a crucial role of culture-specific listening experience and acquired musical knowledge in rhythmic pattern perception.     

Relationship of personalized jerseys and aggression in women's ice hockey

The present study examined the relationship between aggression and players' names on uniforms in collegiate women's ice hockey. Aggression was defined as mean penalty minutes per game. Information, i.e., win/loss record, penalties, and names on uniforms, about the 2002-2003 season women's ice hockey team was obtained via e-mail from 53 of 72 (74% return rate) sports information directors (Division I = 23, Division II = 2, Division III = 28). Analysis indicated that teams with personalized jerseys had significantly more penalty minutes per game than teams without personalized jerseys. However, as the majority of the teams with personalized jerseys were Division I teams and the majority of the teams without personalized jerseys were Division III teams, it is unclear whether results were due to personalized jersey or competition level of play.     

A cross-cultural comparison of personality: English and Austrian children

The Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire was given to 457 boys and 431 girls in Austria. Factor comparisons indicated that the dimensions of psychoticism, extraversion, neuroticism, and social desirability were identical in Austria and in England. Minimal item changes were required to produce a viable Austrian scoring key with satisfactorily high reliabilities for all dimensions except in the case of P for girls, which was somewhat weaker. Austrian norms indicated that boys score higher than girls on P and E but lower on N and L. Direct cross-cultural comparisons revealed few marked personality differences between Austrian and English children, there being a slight tendency for the former to score higher on psychoticism, extraversion and the lie scale but slightly lower on neuroticism.     

Forming and reacting to overall fairness: A cross-cultural comparison

This study compared the cross-cultural formation and reactions toward overall fairness perception of employees from the US, China, Korea, and Japan. Distributive justice was related to overall fairness less strongly for Americans and Japanese than for Chinese and Koreans. In contrast, interactional justice was related to overall fairness more strongly for Americans and Japanese than for Chinese and Koreans. As expected, materialism seems to provide a coherent account of these cultural differences. In addition, overall fairness showed a stronger effect on turnover intention for Americans than for Chinese and Koreans. For job satisfaction, the effect of overall fairness was stronger for Americans than for Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese. Power distance seems to provide an adequate account of these cultural differences.     

Influencing and adjusting in daily emotional situations: A comparison of European and Asian American action styles

Emotions are for action, but action styles in emotional episodes may vary across cultural contexts. Based on culturally different models of agency, we expected that those who engage in European-American contexts will use more influence in emotional situations, while those who engage in East-Asian contexts will use more adjustment. European-American (N=60) and Asian-American (N=44) college students reported their action style during emotional episodes four times a day during a week. Asian Americans adjusted more than European Americans, whereas both used influence to a similar extent. These cultural differences in action style varied across types of emotion experienced. Moreover, influencing was associated with life satisfaction for European Americans, but not for Asian Americans.     

Self-esteem,personality and Internet Addiction: A cross-cultural comparison study

Previous work from Germany and Austria highlighted the importance of personality and excessive private Internet usage for Internet Addiction (IA). In a cross-cultural approach we tried to replicate a negative association between IA and the personality trait of self-directedness in Bulgaria, Germany, Spain, Colombia, China, Taiwan and Sweden and as well the finding that persons with a damaged self-esteem have a higher proclivity for becoming Internet addicted in Bulgaria, Spain, Germany and Colombia. In total N = 989 took part in the study. Results show that the personality dimension self-directedness was negatively correlated to the IA score of the participants in all samples. In contrast, no interaction effect between implicit and explicit self-esteem on IA could be observed.     

Socialist realism in the Soviet Union: Portrayal of Western European and North American businessmen

Success in Soviet trade negotiations depends to a great extent on the images that the Soviet negotiators form of their Western counterparts. These images, in turn, depend to a great extent on the images presented to such Soviet negotiators during their education, through various tales and stories.     

An investigation of African American and European American students' perception of teaching behavior

Teaching behaviors are associated with a range of student academic and mental health outcomes. Substantial academic, school disciplinary, and mental health disparities across African American and European American students suggest that diverse students may view and interpret teaching behaviors differently. The Teaching Behavior Questionnaire measures students' perceptions of teaching behaviors. The purpose of the current study was to examine the scale's factor structure among European American high school students using exploratory factor analysis and, subsequently, cross-validate using confirmatory factor analysis based on African American student data. Results supported reconceptualizing the scale according to a three-factor model in both groups. Implications related to the interpretation and use of scores are discussed.     

Gaze characteristics of elite and near-elite athletes in ice hockey defensive tactics

Traditional visual search experiments, where the researcher pre-selects video-based scenes for the participant to respond to, shows that elite players make more efficient decisions than non-elites, but disagree on how they temporally regulate their gaze. Using the vision-in-action [J.N. Vickers, J. Exp. Psychol.: Human Percept. Perform. 22 (1996) 342] approach, we tested whether the significant gaze that differentiates elite and non-elite athletes occurred either: early in the task and was of more rapid duration [A.M. Williams et al., Res. Quart. Exer. Sport 65 (1994) 127; A.M. Williams and K. Davids, Res. Quart. Exer. Sport 69 (1998) 111], or late in the task and was of longer duration [W. Helsen, J.M. Pauwels, A cognitive approach to visual search in sport, in: D. Brogan, K. Carr (Eds.), Visual Search, vol. II, Taylor and Francis, London, 1992], or whether a more complex gaze control strategy was used that consisted of both early and rapid fixations followed by a late fixation of long duration prior to the final execution. We tested this using a live defensive zone task in ice hockey. Results indicated that athletes temporally regulated their gaze using two different gaze control strategies. First, fixation/tracking (F/T) gaze early in the trial were significantly shorter than the final F/T and confirmed that the elite group fixated the tactical locations more rapidly than the non-elite on successful plays. And secondly, the final F/T prior to critical movement initiation (i.e. F/T-1) was significantly longer for both groups, averaging 30% of the final part of the phase and occurred as the athletes isolated a single object or location to end the play. The results imply that expertise in defensive tactics is defined by a cascade of F/T, which began with the athletes fixating or tracking specific locations for short durations at the beginning of the play, and concluded with a final gaze of long duration to a relatively stable target at the end. The results are discussed within the context of gaze research in open and closed skills, as well as theoretical models of long-term memory and decision making in sport.     

Dysexecutive syndrome in schizophrenia: A cross-cultural comparison between Japanese and British patients

This study tested the hypothesis that the dysexecutive syndrome of schizophrenia is impervious to cultural differences. 18 Japanese and 22 British patients and 14 Japanese and 19 British control subjects were compared on the BADS (Behavioural Assessment of Dysexecutive Syndrome), a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment battery, designed for 'ecological validity', and other measures of frontal executive functions (EFs). Both cultural groups of schizophrenic patients showed equally severe impairment in most executive tests including the BADS (verbal fluency and intelligence were less impaired). Irrespective of cultural origin, similar neuropsychological deficits were found in patients with minimal intellectual deterioration. Our study suggests that socio-cultural background does not affect the dysexecutive profile of schizophrenia very much, and that neuropsychological assessment may possibly provide added clinical information relevant to the management and rehabilitation of schizophrenic patients across different cultures.