Goal orientation,evaluative fear,and perceived coach behavior among competitive youth swimmers in Germany and Japan

ObjectivesThe primary objective of this study was to compare youth athletes from two culturally distinct nations (Germany and Japan) on key aspects of their psychological make-up (goal orientation, fear of evaluation) and perceived coach support.DesignData were obtained with questionnaires distributed during a training session and analyzed with regression as well as multivariate and univariate analyses of variance.MethodThere were 56 German (30 female, 26 male) and 117 Japanese (60 female, 57 male) swimmers with a mean age of 13.2 (SD = 2.0) and 14.1 (SD = 1.8) years, respectively. All of the athletes participated regularly in high-level competitions.ResultsAs hypothesized, the German athletes were more task than ego oriented and more task focused than the Japanese, whereas the latter group had higher ego orientation scores than the German swimmers and put similar emphasis on both task and ego concerns. Contrary to expectations, however, there were no differences between the national cohorts in evaluative fear. The Japanese swimmers perceived their training climates to be more competition oriented than did the German participants. In terms of coach–athlete interactions, the German athletes reported significantly more instruction, positive feedback, and social support than the Japanese. Coach variables contributed significantly to the Japanese participants' feelings of satisfaction, with no such correlations in the German sample.ConclusionsResults are interpreted through cultural traditions and may be partly explained by differences in individualism. Practical recommendations for coaches and consultants are offered in light of the research findings.     

Smiles make it easier and so do frowns: masked affective stimuli influence mental effort

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that exposure to masked emotional expressions during the performance of cognitive tasks influences effort mobilization. In support of the predictions, participants who processed masked sad faces during task performance under "do your best" instructions showed stronger sympathetic nervous system discharge to the heart (shorter pre-ejection period, higher systolic blood pressure) than participants who were exposed to masked smiling faces or angry faces. Assessed task appraisals suggest that these effects on effort-related cardiovascular reactivity occurred because the masked emotional stimuli influenced the level of experienced task difficulty. The findings are compatible with the effects of consciously experienced affect on effort-related cardiovascular response.     

Higher-order factors of the big five and basic values: empirical and theoretical relations

The Big Five Model of personality and Schwartz's theory of basic values are two prominent taxonomies that offer a convenient way to organize the major individual differences in, respectively, personality traits and personal values. Both taxonomies provide a hierarchical framework, whose components can be traced back to a smaller number of broader dimensions. The current study investigated the relationship between the two superordinate factors of personality encompassing the Big Five dimensions (alpha and beta) and the four higher-level value types from Schwartz's theory (Self-transcendence, Self-enhancement, Conservation, and Openness to change). To examine the relations between higher-order traits and values, we relied on factor analysis and multidimensional scaling. Results indicated that alpha and beta were differently related to the Conservation versus Openness to change dimension. Alpha was positively related to values that emphasize protecting stability and respecting norms and traditions, and negatively related to values emphasizing receptiveness to change and independence of thought, feeling, and action. The opposite pattern of relations was found for beta.     

Implementation intentions as goal primes: Boosting self‐control in tempting environments

People often forget their long‐term strivings because their environment confronts them with attractive temptations. Previous research suggests that self‐control failures can be prevented by reminding people of their higher‐order goal. Therefore, we hypothesized that using implementation intentions as a tool to directly re‐activate people's higher‐order goal in tempting situations would effectively enhance self‐control. We tested this in the domain of dieting behavior. Results demonstrated that this specific planning strategy activated the dieting goal for unsuccessful dieters when exposed to tempting food cues (Study 1) and reduced their consumption of calorically dense food across 2 weeks (Study 2) compared to those in control conditions. This suggests that preparing people to think of their higher‐order goal when tempted can be used to protect ongoing goal striving. Appealing to higher‐order goals potentially makes implementation intentions flexible instruments of self‐regulation as this should trigger motivated behavior to reach goals and initiate various goal‐instrumental actions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Linear mapping of numbers onto space requires attention

Mapping of number onto space is fundamental to mathematics and measurement. Previous research suggests that while typical adults with mathematical schooling map numbers veridically onto a linear scale, pre-school children and adults without formal mathematics training, as well as individuals with dyscalculia, show strong compressive, logarithmic-like non-linearities when mapping both symbolic and non-symbolic numbers onto the numberline. Here we show that the use of the linear scale is dependent on attentional resources. We asked typical adults to position clouds of dots on a numberline of various lengths. In agreement with previous research, they did so veridically under normal conditions, but when asked to perform a concurrent attentionally-demanding conjunction task, the mapping followed a compressive, non-linear function. We model the non-linearity both by the commonly assumed logarithmic transform, and also with a Bayesian model of central tendency. These results suggest that veridical representation numerosity requires attentional mechanisms.     

The difficulty with the well-formedness of ontological statements

When Russell argued for his ontological convictions, for instance that there are negative facts or that there are universals, he expressed himself in English. But Wittgenstein must have noticed that from the point of view of Russell's ideal language these ontological statements appear to be pseudo-propositions. He believed therefore that what these statements pretend to say, could not really be said but only shown. Carnap discovered a way out of this mutism: what in the material mode of speech of the object language looks like a pseudo-proposition can be translated into a perfectly meaningful proposition in the formal mode of speech (in the metalinguistic mode of speech of the logical syntax of language). But is this ascent into the metalanguage necessary? Taking advantage of Lésniewski's logical system there exists another way outwe can expand the number of categories of our ideal language. But Le?niewski's formulas raise another profound problem, the problem of “semantical muteness” (cf. W. G. Lycan ‘Semantic Competence and Funny Functors’ Monist 64 (1979), 209–222).     

College Freshmens’ Orientation to Experts’ Personal Characteristics After Failure and the Customary Description of Others in Terms of Dispositions1

A laboratory experiment examined a cognitive response (static thinking) to the stressful experience of a shortcoming. Psychology freshmen performed a memory task that was manipulated in terms of its psychological relevance and difficulty. Additionally, experienced press to succeed was quantified in terms of the specificity of participants’ professional goal in the area of psychology. A control condition performed no task. Dependent measures were personal characteristics ascribed to professional psychologists. The results indicated a strong general tendency to use dispositions to describe others. But in accordance with theoretical predictions by Wicklund (1986a, 1986b), the orientation to traits and external qualities of professional psychologists (i. e., experts) after failure on a psychologically relevant task was correlated with the level of specificity of participants’ professional goal in the area of psychology. These findings suggest that the general orientation to dispositions when describing others is replaced by the process of static thinking after the stressful experience of personal incompetence and when the persons to be described are experts.     

Dynamische Komplexität in der Therapeut-Klient-Interaktion

The importance of client-therapist-relationship in psychotherapy has often been stressed. On the one hand, the quality of this relationship has proved to be an important predictor of therapy outcome, on the other hand the relationship itself is realized as a complex dynamic pattern of interpersonal interaction. It seems appropriate to investigate this dynamics by a microprocess analysis with high resolution. Interactive plans (idiographic self-presentation unities) of client and therapist were coded by a sampling frequency of 10 seconds. The coding system of plan activation follows the idea of synchronous musical score notation of different orchestra instruments. It allows for the representation of contextualized interactive behaviors. The context is introduced by the consideration of synchronous and diachronous plan-activation patterns of the interaction partners. The observed dynamic patterns are fulfilling the prerequisites of usual definitions of “chaos”: irregularity of the process, restricted prediction horizon, and still some global order of the dynamic process. Based on nominal data (on-off-patterns), a method for the identification of order within irregular patterns of plan activations is presented. The frequency distributions of plans realize the shape of 1/f^α-noise, indicating features of self-organized criticality within the dynamic system of client-therapist-interaction.     

Socratic Proofs and Paraconsistency: A Case Study

This paper develops a new proof method for two propositional paraconsistent logics: the propositional part of Batens' weak paraconsistent logic CLuN and Schütte's maximally paraconsistent logic Φ_v. Proofs are de.ned as certain sequences of questions. The method is grounded in Inferential Erotetic Logic.