Motivational profiles and flow in physical education lessons

The purpose of this study was to use cluster analysis to identify differences in goal orientation and motivational climate profiles among students in physical education classes as well as differences among the observed clusters on perceived flow experiences. 983 students of 14- to 15-yr.-olds (M = 14.8 yr., SD = 0.91) from a large Spanish metropolitan school district were participants and completed questionnaires assessing goal orientations, motivational climates, and perceived flow. Analysis showed three distinct clusters with 40.3% of the sample with a High Motivation cluster, 27.6% in a Low Motivation cluster, and 32.2% in a Mastery Motivation cluster. These three clusters differed significantly in ratings of perceived flow. Clusters also showed different composition by sex. Implications of these results with regard to instruction in physical education classes are discussed.     

Measuring the Creative Process: A Psychometric Examination of Creative Ideation and Grit

Within the investment theory of creativity (Sternberg & Lubart, 1996), creativity is defined as a 2-part process of buying low by investing in unusual ideas and then selling high by convincing others of the value or usefulness of these new ideas. This process requires both creative ideation and perseverance. The purpose of this research was to examine the psychometric properties of instrumentation proposed to assess the 2 underlying constructs in this definition: the creative ideational behavior required to buy low and the persevering behavior required to sell high. In particular, psychometric properties of a creativity ideation measure, the Runco Ideational Behavior Scale (RIBS Scale: Runco, Plucker, & Lim, 2001) and a perseverance measure, the Grit Scale (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007) were examined in this study. Two samples of undergraduate students (N = 187; N = 817) completed a survey including these two scales and demographic information. Factor analyses were performed on the RIBS and Grit Scales. The RIBS Scale was found to have a 2-factor structure and 2 proposed new subscales. The Grit Scale’s previously reported 2-factor structure was confirmed.     

Happiness, Income, and Beyond

This commentary to Carol Graham’s paper deals with the nature of the relationship between income and happiness. Carol Graham focuses her contribution on what I call the positive-coefficient hypothesis in economic theory; which states that, on average, well-being rises with income. The hypothesis was first questioned by Richard Easterlin’s pioneering work and it has captured a lot of attention from happiness researchers during the last decade. My contribution deals with a related hypothesis, which I call the close-relationship hypothesis in economic theory. The hypothesis states that a person’s income is a good predictor of his or her well-being. I show that this hypothesis is rejected by happiness research, and I discuss the implications of this rejection.     

Prejudice and attitudes of acculturation: perspectives of autochthonous and immigrants

This study is framed in a wider research on the acculturation process through a new acculturation model. The aim of this paper is to analyse the mutual prejudice between ethnic groups in contact and its relation to their preferred acculturation attitude. A questionnaire composed by various scales was given to four groups of people living in municipalities with high rate of African immigrants in Almería: Maghrebis, Sub-Saharans, Spaniards who evaluated the Maghreb out-group and Spaniards who responded on the Sub-Saharan out-group. The results obtained indicate a relation between prejudice and acculturation attitude, as the lowest scores in prejudice are hold in each group by people preferring integration , whilst the highest ones come from those who bow to exclusion/marginalisation.     

Reliability and acceptability of web-based administration of Spanish ages and stages questionnaires third edition®

to analyse the reliability of 6 age intervals of Spanish web-based Ages and Stages Questionnaires Third Edition (WB-ASQ-3) and parents' acceptability, in a clinical practice context, during COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown in Chile. Cross-sectional study with a longitudinal component. Internal consistency was analysed by Cronbach's alpha and Pearson product–moment correlation, Pearson's correlations between intervals questionnaires were analysed. Acceptability was determined using a parental satisfaction survey. 1061 children completed 2318 validated questionnaires. Scores were compared with normative sample, except for Gross motor at 8 and 12 months, and Communication at 12, 18 and 24 months, without differences to the previous Chileans sample. In domain analysis, Cronbach's alpha ranged from 0.36 to 0.80 and reached 0.74 to 0.81 for the overall test. Strong positive correlation between the domain and overall score was obtained. Correlation between most questionnaires at different ages was positive and significant. Parental surveys show high satisfaction; parents were thankful for being able to monitor children's development. WB-ASQ-3 is a reliable and feasible screening system, particularly when the test is taken as a whole, rather than by domains. It is remarkably high acceptability among parents, especially in complex times such as the lockdown and the COVID-19 pandemic.     

Christian protesters for democracy in Taiwan: a study of two American missionaries under Taiwanese martial law

Christians played a significant role in the course of Taiwan’s self-determination movements and the pro-democratic Tangwai movement during the 1960s and 1970s. While most researchers laid their focus on the Presbyterian Church ministers, the stories of Methodist pastor Milo Thornberry and Catholic priest Ronald Boccieri have rarely been mentioned. Thornberry helped Peng Ming-min to escape the country and Boccieri sheltered Chen Chu in his parish church. Consequently, the two American missionaries were listed as personae non gratae and expelled from the island by the Kuomintang (nationalist) regime. Although they were involved in the respective political incidents to different degrees, they had some things in common: compassion for native Taiwanese, concern for social justice and human rights, and conviction in witnessing to the gospel by non-violent action and fighting against injustice. This article uses interviews, autobiographies, memoirs, Foreign Ministry archives and newspapers to recount their stories that have not appeared in the historiography of their churches. It discusses how the Catholic and Methodist Churches maintained harmonious relations with the government for the benefit of their evangelistic work during the period of martial law. Finally it looks into the reasons why the two missionaries dared to disobey their churches’ official positions and the Washington government’s instruction that expatriates in Taiwan should not interfere in local politics.     

An extended motor network generates beta and gamma oscillatory perturbations during development

This study examines the time course and neural generators of oscillatory beta and gamma motor responses in typically-developing children. Participants completed a unilateral flexion–extension task using each index finger as whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG) data were acquired. These MEG data were imaged in the frequency-domain using spatial filtering and the resulting event-related synchronizations and desynchronizations (ERS/ERD) were subjected to voxel-wise statistical analyses to illuminate time–frequency specific activation patterns. Consistent with adult data, these children exhibited a pre-movement ERD that was strongest over the contralateral post-central gyrus, and a post-movement ERS response with the most prominent peak being in the contralateral precentral gyrus near premotor cortices. We also observed a high-frequency (∼80 Hz) ERS response that coincided with movement onset and was centered on the contralateral precentral gyrus, slightly superior and posterior to the beta ERS. In addition to pre- and post-central gyri activations, these children exhibited beta and gamma activity in supplementary motor areas (SMA) before and during movement, and beta activation in cerebellar cortices before and after movement. We believe the gamma synchronization may be an excellent candidate signal of basic cortical motor control, as the spatiotemporal dynamics indicate the primary motor cortex generates this response (and not the beta oscillations) which is closely yoked to the initial muscle activation. Lastly, these data suggest several additional neural regions including the SMA and cerebellum are involved in basic movements during development.     

Intra-Household Arrangements and Economic Satisfaction

This paper studies the nature of intra-household arrangements in Mexico on the basis of the relationship between a person’s economic satisfaction and her household income. It also studies different theories of the family. The main results support the argument that Mexican families are mostly altruistic and communitarian, with the evidence rejecting a cooperative-bargaining model in Mexican families. Special consideration is given to the situation in low-income families, where marginalization from the household’s economic resources may expose a person to substantially severe economic deprivation. Intra-household arrangements may vary across countries and cultures. Thus, their understanding is crucial for making cross-country comparisons based on household income and per-capita income measures.     

Life satisfaction and satisfaction in domains of life: is it a simple relationship?

This paper studies the nature of the relationship between life satisfaction and satisfaction in domains of life. The domains-of-life literature assumes that a person’s overall satisfaction with his or her life depends on his or her satisfaction in many concrete areas of life, which are classified into a few main domains of life. This paper addresses the issue of what characteristics the relationship between life satisfaction and satisfaction in domains of life has by focusing on its specification. The domains-of-life literature has commonly assumed that an additive relationship between domains satisfaction and life satisfaction does exist. This paper argues that the use of an additive relationship has substantially restricted our comprehension of the relationship; since it makes impossible to empirically address questions such as: Is life satisfaction just a weighted average of domain satisfactions? How easy is it to substitute satisfaction in one domain by satisfaction in another? Is it reasonable to expect similar additional benefits when we continuously improve satisfaction in one domain? What happens with our life satisfaction when we manage to continuously improve satisfaction in all domains? What happens with the importance of one domain when satisfaction in another domain declines? The paper argues that there could be substantial gains in the understanding of the relationship by assuming alternative specifications. At an empirical level the investigation works with four different specifications: an additive relationship, a semi-logarithm relationship, a logarithm–logarithm relationship, and a constant elasticity of substitution (CES) relationship. Using a database from Mexico, the investigation finds out that an additive specification provides – at least for Mexico – a goodness of fit similar to those of alternative specifications. However, there are some relevant issues in the relationship between domains satisfaction and overall life satisfaction that cannot be studied with an additive specification; hence, the?use of an alternative specification – in particular a CES specification – is preferable if the objective is to understand rather than to predict life satisfaction.