Assessing Achievement Goals in Sport: Caveats for Consultants and a Case for Contextualization

This paper advises practitioners of the limitations of employing nomothetic research tools for the idiographic assessment of athletes' achievement goal orientations. Consultants are encouraged to appreciate the scoring trends of the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (TEOSQ; Duda & Nicholls, 1992) and the Perceptions of Success Questionnaire (POSQ; Roberts, Treasure, & Balague, 1998) and to recognize that the measures may not bestow them with accurate and meaningful information on an athlete's motivational responses in the contexts of competition and practice. The contextual sensitivity of the TEOSQ and the POSQ is explored empirically among a sample of 179 high-level team and individual athletes. Repeated measures ANOVAs with follow-up paired t -tests illustrated how performers' goal orientations for competition differed significantly from their overall sport goal orientation. The findings are discussed with reference to the implications for practitioners and the development of appropriate contextual assessments of achievement goals at nomothetic and idiographic levels.     

A Clinician’s Primer for Idiographic Research: Considerations and Recommendations

Theorists and clinicians have long noted the need for idiographic (i.e., individual-level) designs within clinical psychology. Results from idiographic work may provide a possible resolution of the therapist’s dilemma—the problem of treating an individual using information gathered via group-level research. Due to advances in data collection and time series methodology, there has been increasing interest in using idiographic designs to answer clinical questions. Although time series methods have been well-studied outside the field of clinical psychology, there is limited direction on how clinicians can use such models to inform their clinical practice. In this primer, we collate decades of published and word-of-mouth information on idiographic designs, measurement, and modeling. We aim to provide an initial guide on the theoretical and practical considerations that we urge interested clinicians to consider before conducting idiographic work of their own.     

Network-level dynamics underlying a combined rTMS and psychotherapy treatment for major depressive disorder: An exploratory network analysis

BackgroundDespite the growing use of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) as a treatment for depression, there is a limited understanding of the mechanisms of action and how potential treatment-related brain changes help to characterize treatment response. To address this gap in understanding we investigated the effects of an approach combining rTMS with simultaneous psychotherapy on global functional connectivity.MethodWe compared task-related functional connectomes based on an idiographic goal priming task tied to emotional regulation acquired before and after simultaneous rTMS/psychotherapy treatment for patients with major depressive disorders and compared these changes to normative connectivity patterns from a set of healthy volunteers (HV) performing the same task.ResultsAt baseline, compared to HVs, patients demonstrated hyperconnectivity of the DMN, cerebellum and limbic system, and hypoconnectivity of the fronto-parietal dorsal-attention network and visual cortex. Simultaneous rTMS/psychotherapy helped to normalize these differences, which were reduced after treatment. This finding suggests that the rTMS/therapy treatment regularizes connectivity patterns in both hyperactive and hypoactive brain networks.ConclusionsThese results help to link treatment to a comprehensive model of the neurocircuitry underlying depression and pave the way for future studies using network-guided principles to significantly improve rTMS efficacy for depression.     

Brief Communications

Abstract

Evidence-based psychotherapy is typically based on treatment outcome for the “average” patient in aggregate designs; reports on individual non-responders are rarely published. In this observational study, we explored factors that might have contributed to non-response in long-term dynamic group psychotherapy. Eight patients (14%) who did not change were compared with 48 treatment responders on clinical variables, and their case stories were retrospectively scrutinized for explanatory factors. The non-responders had less initial distress, stayed for shorter durations in therapy, and were more dissatisfied with their group and therapists. Based on detailed case stories, attempts are made to tease out idiographic hypotheses why each patient did not change during group analysis.     

Thematic moment analysis: A didactic application of a procedure for phenomenological analysis of narrative data

Abstract

Following in the theoretical and methodological roots of the ‘Duquesne school,’ this work presents a procedure for the phenomenological analysis of narrative data. After describing its ‘approach,’ this work lays out the procedure for ‘thematic moment analysis’ using the work of Giorgi as a point of reference. Idiographic results of single datum of being afraid are presented along with the steps through which this ‘idiographic thematic narrative’ was developed. Procedures for arriving at ‘comparative analysis’ of more than one piece of data are presented and distinguished from claims of generality sought by works drawing on larger data pools. Finally, this work discusses issues of internal and external validity both specifically in regards to the ‘thematic moments’ procedure and in terms of phenomenological research in general.     

Consistency of performance-related emotions in elite athletes: Generalizability theory applied to the IZOF model

ObjectivesTo estimate the between- and within-individual consistency of the individual zones of optimal functioning (IZOF)-based emotion profiles describing successful and unsuccessful (sub-standard) performance situations.MethodThe methodology of generalizability theory (GT) was applied to two multifaceted measurement designs in studies of 12 highly skilled ice-hockey players assessed by the 28-item aggregated sport-specific emotion scale (Study 1) and a single-case involving elite soccer player (Study 2) using self-generated individualized emotion scale, respectively.ResultsA unique and specific interaction of emotions (the IZOF-“iceberg” or bell-shaped profile) characterized successful performance situations in both Study 1 and 2. This pattern with predominance of optimal pleasant and unpleasant emotions was consistently revealed in between- and within-individual comparisons. In contrast, failure (or sub-standard performance) could not be characterized in terms of one unique and specific profile. However, the findings clearly motivate future research to identify multiple emotion profiles to conceptualize sub-standard performance. The paper offers hypotheses to guide future research.ConclusionsFindings provided support for conceptualizing performance situations in terms of relatively stable optimal and dysfunctional patterns of interaction of pleasant and unpleasant emotions. Results also demonstrate that GT is a methodology that can accommodate idiographic as well as nomothetic approaches to estimating within-individual and between-individual consistency patterns of performance-related emotions.     

Developing emotion abilities and regulation strategies in a sport organization: An action research intervention

ObjectivesThis study aimed to improve the practice of individuals operating in a sport organization by providing an intervention to develop emotion abilities and strategies.DesignA two-phase action research approach was adopted to facilitate the objective and to assess the intervention's effectiveness.MethodIn the first phase of the intervention, 25 individuals fulfilling a range of roles (i.e., board of directors, chief executive officer, heads of performance and development, staff, administrators, national coaches and team managers, club coaches, national talent academy athletes) attended educational workshops over a 6 month period. In the second phase, three pivotal operators (i.e., national managers) received one-to-one coaching for a further 3 months. Data were collected using a range of self-report and performance measures, participant daily diaries, a researcher's log, and social validation interviews.ResultsFollowing social validation procedures the findings suggest that both phases were effective at improving the practice of participants, with significant improvements in regulation strategy use, perceptions of relationship quality, and closeness. However, only participants receiving the extended one-to-one coaching showed improvement in emotional intelligence ability scores.ConclusionsThe findings indicate that short-term generic interventions to promote the use of adaptive emotion regulation strategies may be effective in sport organizations, but the purposive development of emotional intelligence may require more longitudinal and idiographic approaches.     

Sudden gains as a long-term predictor of treatment improvement among children in community mental health organizations

ObjectiveSudden gains have been described as rapid, sizeable changes observed between treatment sessions and have been associated with improved treatment outcome in adults. The current study examined weekly sudden gains among children seeking treatment in the community mental health setting.MethodParticipants were 161 children (age M = 10.58, SD = 1.73; 69.6% male; 47.8% Caucasian) and their parents who were randomized to one of three treatment modalities and were administered weekly and quarterly assessments throughout treatment.ResultsWhen idiographic (youth- and parent-identified “top problems”) and nomothetic measures (standardized checklists) were used to calculate sudden gains (i.e., gain must be large: in absolute terms, relative to prior session, and relative to changes in prior and subsequent sessions), 20–42% of participants experienced at least one sudden gain during treatment. Most sudden gains occurred early in treatment, and session content of relaxation was associated with sudden gain presence. Using a modified Bonferonni correction, sudden gains predicted overall symptom levels at final assessment (i.e., last assessment obtained following post-treatment) even after controlling for pre-treatment symptom levels and magnitude of the overall gain from pre- to post-treatment.ConclusionsSuddenness of gains may have a direct effect on long-term treatment outcome among children in the community.     

Individual Pooling for Group-Based Modeling Under the Assumption of Ergodicity

Psychology principally utilizes nomothetic, interindividual approaches to model phenomena of interest. However, it is the case that these approaches do not always capture the processes for each individual in the sample. If the research is focused on individual processes, confining analysis to the idiographic level may be more appropriate. One way to overcome the nomothetic inability to capture idiographic processes is to identify those participants who meet the criteria of ergodicity and restrict analysis to the resulting sample. Under these conditions it is quantitatively justifiable to create a group model without concern that it may fail to represent each member's idiographic process. In this study we explore the utility of such a method by (a) applying an ergodic pooling test to a sample of dyads (N = 128) who provided daily (T = 50) self-reports of affect, (b) applying an ergodic pooling test to samples (N = 4) of simulated ergodic time series data (T = 50, 250, and 1,000), (c) modeling dyads and simulated subgroups identified as ergodic, and (d) comparing the results from a model specified at the group level with those from models specified at the individual level.     

Cognitive processing of personally relevant information

Abstract

Subjects performed an idiographic, computerised version of the modified Stroop colour-naming task after having undergone a film-induced mood manipulation designed to produce either anxiety, elation, or a neutral mood. The Stroop stimuli were words related either to the subject's positive current concerns (e.g. goals, interests), to the subject's negative current concerns (e.g. personal worries), or to neither. The results indicated that words strongly related to subject's positive as well as to negative current concerns produced significantly more Stroop interference than did words unrelated or weakly related to their current concerns. Although the films strongly influenced the subjects' moods in predicted directions initially, mood changes were largely not maintained throughout the experiment. Thus, it is not surprising that no significant interactions with word type were found. These results indicate that the “emotional Stroop effect” occurs in normal subjects as well as in anxious patients, and occurs with positive as well as with negative material of strong personal relevance.     

Development of the Idiographic functional status assessment: A measure of the personal goals and goal attainment activities of people with AIDS

Abstract

This study presents the development of the Idiographic Functional Status Assessment (IFSA), an interview to assess functional status according to each person's unique point of view. This idiographic method asks people to state their personal goals in terms of things they want to accomplish, problems they want to solve, situations they hope to avoid, roles and relationships they want to maintain, and pursuits they want to relinquish. After describing their goals, respondents rate goal attainment activities they have pursued in the past month in terms of level of difficulty, dependence and other performance dimensions. In a study of 224 people with AIDS, the idiographic measure provided functional status scales that were relatively stable over time, and that correlated well with other subjective well-being measures and heath status criteria. Goal content measures derived from the interview can be used to distinguish sub samples that differ in terms of the determinants of quality of life.     

A short and very short form of the physical self-inventory for adolescents: Development and factor validity

ObjectivesThe Physical Self-Inventory (PSI)—a French adaptation of the Fox and Corbin's [1989. The Physical Self-Perception Profile: Development and preliminary validation. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 11, 408–430] Physical Self-Perception Profile—was originally developed for use with adults and no study has systematically verified its psychometric properties in adolescent populations. Additionally, this instrument remains too long to be efficiently completed in combination with multiple other instruments within extensive longitudinal or idiographic studies. The purpose of the present investigation was thus threefold: (a) testing the factor validity and reliability of the original PSI in a sample of adolescents; (b) developing and testing the factor validity and reliability of a very short (i.e., two items per scale) form of the PSI in a sample of adolescents; and (c) testing the equivalence of the factor pattern, structural parameters, latent mean structure, and criterion-related validity of both forms of the PSI.DesignStructural equation modeling approach.MethodTwo samples participated in this series of studies. In Study 1, a sample of 1018 adolescents completed the adult PSI (25 items) and was randomly split in two sub-samples. In Study 2, a new sample of 320 adolescents completed a very short form of the PSI (PSI-VSF). Factorial validity and gender and multigroup invariance of these instruments (PSI, PSI-VSF) were tested using confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM).ResultsIn Study 1, CFA and SEM analyses provided evidence for the factor validity and reliability of a short (PSI-SF: 18 items) and very short (PSI-VSF: 12 items) form of the PSI for adolescents. In Study 2, CFAs and SEMs supported the equivalence of the factor pattern, structural parameters, latent mean structure, and criterion-related validity of both forms of the PSI (i.e., PSI-SF, PSI-VSF).ConclusionThe present results thus provide preliminary evidence regarding the reliability and validity of a short and a very short form of the PSI for French adolescents.     

Relative Effectiveness of Emotion Induction Procedures and the Role of Personal Relevance in a Clinical Sample: A Comparison of Film, Images, and Music

Qualitative differences between three types of media used for the laboratory induction of emotion (film clips, still images, and music) were explored using a clinical sample. The relative effectiveness at inducing negative emotion and the degree to which the induction elicited personally relevant experiences of emotion was examined. Nomothetic and idiographic media were included as stimuli, and comparisons were made across media types and selection type. Nomothetic and idiographic media did not significantly differ in levels of negative affect endorsed. Significant differences did emerge between media and selection types in degree of personal relevance, with nomothetic images rated lowest and idiographic music rated highest. Significant differences also emerged in ratings of positive affect, with greater personal relevance significantly related to greater positive affect. The qualitative differences in emotion induction procedures found in this study are discussed in relation to the potential importance of matching emotion induction procedures to specific emotion-related processes of interest when used for the laboratory study of emotion and psychopathology.     

Longitudinal idiographic analyses of appraisal and coping responses in sport

Objectives: To (a) identify perceived stressors encountered by high-performance female athletes and examine their attempts at coping with these specific stressors, and (b) to monitor athletes’ perceptions of their coping responses and assess how coping influenced on-going appraisal of the situation and subsequent coping.Method: Data were collected from four high-performance female soccer players (aged 21 to 28 years). Players maintained audio-diaries over a 6-week period during the season. They were also interviewed once at the start and again at the end of the data collection period.Results: Presented via idiographic profiles, results revealed certain recursive relationships between personal goals, stress appraisals, and coping responses. Stressors were reported when personal goals were threatened, and the coping responses that were employed appeared to influence subsequent stress reappraisals and coping.Conclusions: Appraisals and coping appear to occur in a recursive manner. Longitudinal idiographic approaches that include daily diaries may be useful in future research that considers other recursive relationships between goals, emotions, appraisal, and coping.     

The Challenge of Integrity: A Commentary on the Critique by Edwards and Lowis

Capps' idiographic analysis of Augustine's Confessions is discussed in terms of Allport's possible contradiction in stating idiographic goals while embracing nomothetic theory and techniques. The necessity of a methodological complementarity for this type of work is stressed to reduce subjective bias. The question of Augustine's religious orientation is then extended to include recent ideas. As interesting as idiographic treatments are, their most productive use may be for theory development to which nomothetic analyses are applied.     

On the Validity of Idiographic and Generic Self‐Concept Implicit Association Tests: A Core‐Concept Model

We present a core‐concept model (CCM) suggesting that stimulus centrality is an important factor in category representations in implicit measures. We tested the hypothesis that idiographic stimuli (first name, birthday) are more central and therefore assess self‐concept in Implicit Association Tests (IATs) more validly than generic and nonspecific stimuli (me, you). Superior validity of the idiographic variant emerged across three different domains of self‐concept. First, an idiographic self‐esteem IAT displayed higher correlations than a generic IAT with self‐assessments and observer‐assessments of self‐esteem. Second, an idiographic body scheme‐IAT predicted subjective ratings of body image and objective body‐mass index. Third, an idiographic aggressiveness‐IAT had higher incremental validity for unprovoked aggression when interacting with explicit measures of aggressiveness. We conclude that idiographic stimuli focus participants' attention on the core features of the self, hence, tapping into self‐related associations to a stronger degree than generic stimuli. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The adjective generation technique: Consistency of self-description in psychiatric patients

There has been considerable controversy about whether human behavior is consistent across situations and time. Using the adjective generation technique (AGT), Allen and Potkay (1973, 1977a) found that subjects' self-favorability was quite variable and concluded that this did not support Bem and Allen's (1974) position that the consistency would be greater if idiographic assessment techniques were utilized. Bem (1977) criticized this conclusion, making the points that the AGT is not idiographic and that the favorability value of each day should be considered as a single item in a larger test rather than be considered independently. The present study was designed to address both the consistency of behavior across time and also the controversy regarding the AGT. Eleven psychiatric inpatients completed the AGT for 30 consecutive days. The results indicated that while AGT values are highly variable on a day-to-day basis, these values are quite consistent when averaged across even short periods of time. These results are very similar to those reported by Epstein (1979).     

Predictors of competitive anxiety direction in male Tae Kwon Do practitioners: a multilevel mixed idiographic/nomothetic interactional approach

Objectives: To examine (a) affective states, proximity of competition and personality traits as predictors of anxiety direction and (b) investigate the role of personality characteristics in moderating the relationship between anxiety direction and proximity of competition and affective states.Method: A multilevel mixed idiographic/nomothetic approach. Intensity and direction of competitive anxiety and positive (PA) and negative affect (NA) were monitored in 22 male Tae Kwon Do practitioners across a week preceding a major competition using the experience sampling method (ESM). The participants were assessed on neuroticism and extraversion. Negative and positive affect and anxiety intensity and direction were measured at three random times a day across 1 week before the competition and 1 hour pre-competition.Results: Multilevel regression analyses revealed that cognitive anxiety intensity, positive affect, proximity to competition and extraversion were significant predictors of cognitive anxiety direction. Significant interaction effects of proximity to competition and neuroticism, and neuroticism and negative affect on cognitive anxiety direction were also observed. Somatic anxiety direction was a function of positive affect, somatic anxiety intensity, proximity to competition and the interaction effects of neuroticism and somatic anxiety intensity and neuroticism and proximity to competition.Conclusions: A multilevel mixed idiographic/nomothetic interactional approach may substantially assist in the explanation of intra- and inter-individual differences in anxiety direction.