Profile of Mood States: Australian normative data

The Profile of Mood States was administered to 90 Australian women, 30 depressed, 30 anxious, and 30 nonpsychiatric controls. Both clinical groups scored higher than the McNair, Lorr, and Droppleman (1971) normative samples on the negative mood states and scored lower on Vigor. The means for these groups are presented and compared with the 1971 normative data of McNair, Lorr, and Droppleman.     

A shortened version of the Profile of Mood States

The feasibility of using a shorter version of the Profile of Mood States is examined. Eighty-three cancer patients were administered the Profile of Mood States. The scales' internal consistency (coefficient alpha) and the items' face validity were used as criteria for eliminating items. The number of items was reduced from 65 to 37 and the correlation coefficients between the short and original scales were all above .95, indicating the suitability of the short version for estimating the original mood scale scores in this population.     

French adaptation of the shortened version of the Profile of Mood States

The French adaptation and validation of the short version of the Profile of Mood States is examined. A sample of 110 women diagnosed with breast cancer and 50 men with prostate cancer were administered the French Canadian adaptation of the shortened version of the profile (37 items). Means, test-retest correlations, and internal consistency coefficients (alpha) replicated the English initial validation. These results support the reliability of the French Canadian version. In addition, significant decrease from initial to retest testing for Anxiety, Depression, and Confusion subscales also supported construct validity.     

Test-retest reliability of the Profile of Mood States using visually impaired athletes

The test-retest reliabilities of the Profile of Mood States when items were read aloud on consecutive days to 15 nationally ranked visually impaired athletes ranged from .78 to .95, so the scale can be used with visually impaired athletes who cannot complete the profile in the traditional written manner.     

Central clinical states: An examination of the Profile of Mood States and the Eight State Questionnaire

Two multidimensional mood-state inventories, the Profile of Mood States (POMS) and the Eight State Questionnaire (8SQ), were administered to 289 Australian college undergraduates. Intercorrelations for the combined 14 subscales were subjected to a higher-order factor analysis in order to elucidate the central clinical states within the mood-state sphere. Results suggested four major state dimensions pertaining to Neuroticism, Hostility/Anger, Vigor, and a combined Extroversion/Arousal-Fatigue entity. Both three- and five-factor solutions were taken out for comparative purposes. Furthermore, separate higher-order factorings of the POMS on normative samples of 350 male and 650 female psychiatric outpatients were conducted, corroborating three of the four central state dimensions, at least in the case of females. The implications of these findings for behavioral assessment are discussed.This study was supported by a Research Development Grant awarded to the author by the University of Melbourne.     

驾驶员情绪状态量表信度与效度的初步研究

本量表由愤怒、疲劳、精力、紧张和慌乱等5个分量表组成。每个分量表包括若干个形容词(如紧张的、烦恼的等),共34个形容词。各分量表的信度系数(Cronbach’s alphas)在0．763—0．893之间,全量表为0．863。除运用主成份因素分析法判断结构效度外,还通过比较安全组与事故多发组驾驶员的情绪状态得分检验量表的结构效度。研究结果表明,本量表具有较高的信度和效度,符合心理测量学标准,可作为评估驾驶员情绪状态的工具。     

Mood change and marathon running: A pilot study using a Swedish version of the POMS test

Regular exercise is said to have positive effects on mood, especially if the exercise intensity is low to moderate. However, the acute effects resulting from participation in a strenuous competition, such as a marathon race, have been studied less. The present investigation used the Profile of Mood States (POMS) test to measure mood, before and after the 1989 Stockholm Marathon. A total of 106 male runners (mean age 40.0 years), with finishing times between 3h and 3h 45 min participated as subjects. Results showed great changes between pre- and post-marathon scores, most of them significant at the p less than 0.001 level. Furthermore, differences between a faster and a slower group of runners were demonstrated with regard to mood states, even though plasma glucose levels were comparable. It is concluded that participation in a marathon race greatly effects mood, mainly in a more negative way than low to moderately intense exercise does.     

Coding processes in the free recall of associated word lists

An experiment is reported on the free recall of lists of 18 words. The lists consisted of words that were strongly or weakly associated to the eliciting stimulus, were members of either a single category or more than one category and were arranged into sets of three associated words or six associated words. Each list was presented once only and free recall required after a filled interval of 18 s. One half of the subjects were provided with cues at recall: the remainder were given no assistance. Recall efficiency increased with association level and with restricted category membership of the words in a set. Clustering at recall (when adjusted for opportunity) was greater in the 6×3 lists than in the 3×6 lists. The provision of cues only led to a significant facilitation in recall with lists consisting of 6 sets of 3 words. A detailed analysis of the recall data suggested the importance of the category membership variable in the production of the later recall.     

Profile of Mood States Research in Sport and Exercise Psychology: Past,Present, and Future

Abstract

A review was conducted of the sport and exercise literature for the years 1971 to early 1998 in which the Profile of Mood States (POMS) figured prominently. Analyses indicated that there were 258 published articles in which the POMS was used with athletic or exercise samples during this time period. Of these articles, 226 were data-based and the remainder dealt with general, theoretical, or psychometric issues. Prominent journals publishing the data-based research, leading authors, sport samples used, gender issues, and temporal trends in the use of the POMS were noted. Anticipated future developments include: improvements in research methodologies used to study relationships among sport, exercise, and mood; continued validation of abbreviated forms of the scale as well as a form for use with youth samples; and increased utilization of the POMS for mood profiling.     

EQUIWORD: A software application for the automatic creation of truly equivalent word lists

Word lists are most commonly used in the investigation of human memory. To prevent transfer effects, repeated measures of memory for words require multiple lists of different words. Yet, the psycholinguistic properties of all word lists employed should match as closely as possible to avoid confounding with the independent variable(s) in question. Although comprehensive databases for word norms exist, to our knowledge no tool is available that automates the creation of such equivalent word lists. Instead, matching different lists is often accomplished prima facie. We have therefore developed a Windows program called EQUIWORD that completely automates the creation of word lists that are truly parallel with respect to a wide range of attributes. EQUIWORD takes psycholinguistic databases of different formats as input and computes several coefficients of distance for every possible word pairing. Program output consists of a list of all word pairs sorted according to their distance. On that basis, creating equivalent word lists is simply done by selecting the pairs with the lowest distance coefficients.     

Recall of short word lists presented visually at fast rates: Effects of phonological similarity and word length

Phonological similarity of visually presented list items impairs short-term serial recall. Lists of long words are also recalled less accurately than are lists of short words. These results have been attributed to phonological recoding and rehearsal. If subjects articulate irrelevant words during list presentation, both phonological similarity and word length effects are abolished. Experiments 1 and 2 examined effects of phonological similarity and recall instructions on recall of lists shown at fast rates (from one item per 0.114-0.50 sec), which might not permit phonological encoding and rehearsal. In Experiment 3, recall instructions and word length were manipulated using fast presentation rates. Both phonological similarity and word length effects were observed, and they were not dependent on recall instructions. Experiments 4 and 5 investigated the effects of irrelevant concurrent articulation on lists shown at fast rates. Both phonological similarity and word length effects were removed by concurrent articulation, as they were with slow presentation rates.     

ListChecker Pro 1.2: A program designed to facilitate creating word lists using the University of South Florida word association norms

Various areas of research (e.g., memory, metamemory, visual word recognition, associative priming) rely on the careful construction of reliable word lists. ListChecker Pro 1.2 is a computer program that accesses the University of South Florida word association norms (Nelson, McEvoy, & Schreiber, 1998, 2004) to report characteristics of words (e.g., frequency, concreteness), as well as direct and indirect associative relationships (e.g., shared associates, mediators). The present article presents the input requirements, menu options, and output obtained by ListChecker Pro 1.2. In addition, a randomly selected list of words from the associative versus semantic priming literature was submitted to ListChecker Pro 1.2 to demonstrate how seemingly unrelated words can be associated. The zipped file containing the program and database can be downloaded from www .eakinmemorylab.psychology.msstate.edu.     

Sense of Coherence and Mood States: Exploring the Causal Relationships

The current study seeks to explore the effect of an academic course on sense of coherence (SOC) and transitory mood states. Moreover, the causal relationships between SOC and transitory mood states was evaluated. Second-year pharmacology students completed pencil-and-paper questionnaires at the beginning of the semester and 3-1/2 months later. The study group ( n  = 37) participated in an academic course developed to teach cognitive behavior concept and practice, whereas the control group ( n  = 43) had additional sessions of laboratory work. SOC increased significantly after the course while tension–anxiety and confusion decreased significantly. Structural equation analyses in the study group suggested that SOC was modified by confusion and perceived stress. No such pattern was observed in the control group.     

Effects of color of paper on which the Profile of Mood States is printed on the psychological states it measures.

The Profile of Mood States was printed on four different colors of paper (yellow, red, green, blue) and white to test whether the color of paper would influence mood state scores of 246 college students. Univariate analyses of variance identified color effects only on the Fatigue scale.     

Culture and validity of the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised and Profile of Mood States in a New Zealand student sample

New Zealand students' performance was examined on assessments of psychopathology and mood as compared to normative data from the United States. New Zealand university students (N = 137) completed the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) and Profile of Mood States (POMS). Mean performances differed significantly from normative data for each SCL-90-R scale. No significant differences were found for the POMS scales. Within the sample, European (n = 82), Maori (n = 24), and Asian (n = 24) participants differed significantly on SCL-90-R obsessive-compulsive, phobic anxiety, and anxiety scales and POMS scales of tension and confusion. Implications for assessment of New Zealand samples are discussed.     

On the nature of talker variability effects on recall of spoken word lists.

In a recent study, Martin, Mullennix, Pisoni, and Summers (1989) reported that subjects' accuracy in recalling lists of spoken words was better for words in early list positions when the words were spoken by a single talker than when they were spoken by multiple talkers. The present study was conducted to examine the nature of these effects in further detail. Accuracy of serial-ordered recall was examined for lists of words spoken by either a single talker or by multiple talkers. Half the lists contained easily recognizable words, and half contained more difficult words, according to a combined metric of word frequency, lexical neighborhood density, and neighborhood frequency. Rate of presentation was manipulated to assess the effects of both variables on rehearsal and perceptual encoding. A strong interaction was obtained between talker variability and rate of presentation. Recall of multiple-talker lists was affected much more than single-talker lists by changes in presentation rate. At slow presentation rates, words in early serial positions produced by multiple talkers were actually recalled more accurately than words produced by a single talker. No interaction was observed for word confusability and rate of presentation. The data provide support for the proposal that talker variability affects the accuracy of recall of spoken words not only by increasing the processing demands for early perceptual encoding of the words, but also by affecting the efficiency of the rehearsal process itself.     

A review of the profile of mood states (POMS) in the prediction of athletic success

Abstract

The Profile of Mood States (POMS) is a self-report inventory that has been used by numerous researchers attempting to identify the personality states that reliably differentiate athletes of differing levels of ability. The paper began by reviewing the studies by Nagle, Morgan, Hellichn, serfass, and Alexander (1975). Morgan and Pollock (1977), and Morgan and Johnson (1978). These studies popularized the use of the POMS in the sport setting The review highlighted the fact that the POMS was orighally employed as one of several psychological inventories desighed to assess an athlete's state of mental health. Specifically, these studies hypothesized that successfid athletes would possess more positive emotional and mental health than unsuccessfid athletes. With respect to the POMS this would be reflected by successful athletes scoring lower than unsuccessfid athletes on the scales of depression, tension, anger, fatigue, and confusion and higher than unsuccessful athletes on the scale of vigor. The POMS was found to be of limited value in diffkreutiating the successll from unsuccessful athlete. Despite this fact, studies Continued to be published that examined the POMS' ability to diffrrentiate athletes of diffenhg levels of ability. This misunderstanding is attributed to researchers' Mure to distinguish between two common approaches to the study of entiate a) the athlete from the nonathlete and, b) athletes of differing levels of ability. The Profile of Mood States (POMS) is a self-report inventory that has been used by numerous researchers attempting to identify the personality states that reliably differentiate athletes of differing levels of ability.     

When lust is lost: orthographic similarity effects in the encoding and reconstruction of rapidly presented word lists

A reconstructive account of memory is presented to explain the finding that report of a word (C2) appearing in a rapidly presented list is reduced when it is orthographically similar to an earlier word (C1) in the list. By this account, the effect arises when the list is reconstructed from memory, not at the time of list presentation as proposed by accounts based on failure of encoding or tokenization. The reconstructive account is supported by a series of experiments that show a retroactive effect in which report of C1 is enhanced by similarity to C2; a nonword C1 can either interfere with or enhance report of C2, depending on how accurately C1 is encoded; manipulation of reconstructive processes can eliminate or enhance the effect of orthographic similarity; and a bidirectional trade-off in the report of an orthographically similar C1-C2 pair, whereby report of one member compromises report of the other.