Male and Female Athletes' and Nonathletes' Expectations about Sport Psychology Consulting

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore expectations of athletes and nonathletes about sport psychology consulting. Tinsley's (1982) Expectations About Coun-seling-Brief form was revised using sport psychology terms. The revised instrument, Expectations About Sport Psychology Consulting (EASPC) questionnaire, was administered to 111 athletes (64 male and 47 female) and 166 nonathletes (72 male and 94 female) attending an NCAA Division I university. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the data fit the hypothesized 3-factor model (i.e., personal commitment, facilitative conditions, and consultant expertise). A 2 (College Sport Participation) 2 (Gender) MANOVA and follow-up discriminant function analyses revealed that females had higher expectancies of personal commitment than did males whereas males believed that consultants were more directive and more capable of solving problems quickly than did females. No significant differences were obtained between athletes and their peers. The results indicate that the EASPC instrument might be a valuable tool for determining expectations about sport psychology consulting.     

Building self-efficacy in tennis players: A coach's perspective

Abstract

The purpose of the present investigation was to assess the degree to which high school and age group tennis coaches use 13 strategies for influencing self-efficacy and their evaluation of the effectiveness of those strategies. Self-efficacy rating differences between categories of coaches (e.g., male versus female, successful versus less successful, more versus less experienced, physical education/coaching courses versus no courses) were also examined. Subjects were 222 high school and age group coaches in the Southwest and results indicated that they used all 13 strategies designed to enhance self-efficacy to a moderate degree and found these techniques to be at least moderately effective. More specifically, the most often used strategies to enhance self-efficacy as well as those strategies found most effective included encouraging positive self-talk, modeling confidence oneself, instruction-drilling, liberally rewarding statements, and verbal persuasion. Few between-coach differences were found in efficacy use and effectiveness ratings. Hcsults are discussed in terms of Gould, Hodge, Peterson, and Giannini's (1989) study concerning the use of efficacy enhancing strategies in elite coaches as well as Bandura's self-efficacy theory.     

Help or hinder? When recommendation signage expands consideration sets and heightens decision difficulty

This research examines whether recommendation signage helps or hinders the consumer when faced with choosing from large product assortments. In spite of frequent usage and retailer intuition suggesting that providing recommendation signs (e.g., “Best Seller,” “Award Winner”) should help consumers in the choice process, we propose that signs can hinder choice for consumers with more developed preferences by adding to the complexity and difficulty of the decision process. In three experiments using horizontally differentiated products in multiple categories, we provide evidence that recommendation signs create preference conflict for consumers with more developed preferences, leading these consumers to form larger consideration sets and ultimately experience more difficulty from the decision-making process. In addition, we show that these effects are mitigated for consumers with less developed preferences and when the choice is from a small assortment. The results suggest that recommendation signage may not be an effective tool for aiding choice from large assortments; instead signage can exacerbate the difficulties associated with having too many choices, with implications on purchase quantity.     

Faculty Perceptions about Tenure at Private Christian Liberal Arts Colleges

This study investigates faculty perceptions of tenure at 38 institutions of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) with a sample of 988 faculty with tenure, 734 on a tenure track, 427 who are not on a tenure track, and 411 from institutions without tenure. Major findings that emerges are (1) more male have earned tenure; (2) the majority of tenures faculty agreed that the criteria for advancement and promotion are clear; (3) most disagree that tenure is an outmoded concept; (4) faculty with tenure are more likely to believe that tenure attracts the best minds; (5) CCCU faculty working toward tenure report lower levels of extensive stress than the national sample.     

Trajectories of relationship satisfaction: Independent contributions of capitalization and support perceptions

Associations among perceptions of partner responses to disclosures about capitalization and support experiences and relationship satisfaction were examined over 1 year in 268 individuals in romantic relationships. Multilevel modeling indicated that capitalization and support perceptions covaried over 1 year, but they independently predicted contemporaneous relationship satisfaction and appeared to be compensatory processes. However, with increasing relationship duration, support perceptions became more strongly associated with relationship satisfaction, whereas capitalization perceptions became less strongly associated with relationship satisfaction, suggesting that capitalization perceptions may play less of a buffering role with time. Results suggested that perceiving partners as interested and enthusiastic in the face of triumph, and as caring and supportive in the face of difficulties, serve important and independent relationship maintenance functions.     

Lottery Semantics: A Compositional Semantics for Probabilistic First-Order Logic with Imperfect Information

We present a compositional semantics for first-order logic with imperfect information that is equivalent to Sevenster and Sandu’s equilibrium semantics (under which the truth value of a sentence in a finite model is equal to the minimax value of its semantic game). Our semantics is a generalization of an earlier semantics developed by the first author that was based on behavioral strategies, rather than mixed strategies.     

Talking normalization: the role of communication in integration

Deinstitutionalization has generally had a positive impact on the lives of people with learning disabilities, although provision of appropriate and individualized support in the community has proved difficult. Communication is often seen in isolation, its role within integration passing unacknowledged. This paper suggests an integrated framework around individual needs. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.