Confirmatory factor analysis of the group environment questionnaire with co-acting sports

To assess whether the Group Environment Questionnaire is applicable to athletes in co-acting sports such as track and field, the factor structure of the Group Environment Questionnaire among a heterogeneous sample of 199 co-acting team sport athletes was investigated. A confirmatory factor analysis did not support the hypothesized four-factor model. A subsequent exploratory factor analysis yielded two independent factors that had no interpretable pattern of the four Group Environment Questionnaire factors within them. While this finding requires replication and confirmation, the four-factor model of the Group Environment Questionnaire does not appear to be as valid for co-acting sports as for interacting sports.     

Task,Coping, and Scheduling Self‐Efficacy in Relation to Frequency of Physical Activity1

Self‐efficacy has been shown to be a robust predictor of exercise and other health‐related behaviors (e.g., Bandura, 1986, 1995, 1997; Godin, Desharnais, Valois, & Bradet, 1995; Maddux, 1995; McAuley, Wraith, & Duncan, 1991). Maddux has proposed that there are different types of self‐efficacy and that these types may fulfill different roles in the motivation of behavior, perhaps based on characteristics of the target behavior. The purpose of this study was to examine 3 different types of self‐efficacy: task, coping, and scheduling and their respective usefulness in distinguishing among persons reporting different levels of exercise involvement. A cross‐sectional telephone survey using exercise behavior as the selection criterion was completed with 203 adults. Results showed that coping and scheduling efficacy were the best disciminators of level of exercise behavior. Task efficacy did not clearly distinguish between exercise groups. The theoretical and applied implications are discussed, particularly noting specific targets for future intervention.     

Alphabetizing in old age

Abstract: A long term, intensive analysis with a woman in old old age is reported. An attempt is made to answer the question, ‘What, in analytic work, is healing?’. The patient's previous classical Jungian work is contrasted with the author's developmental perspective. It is suggested that an enactment, representing what Neville Symington has called an analyst's act of freedom, was crucial in effecting a profound transformation in the patient's psyche.     

The relation between risk factors for binge eating and bulimia nervosa: a population-based female twin study.

This study investigated the differential risk factors for the initiation of binge eating and the transition from binge eating to bulimia nervosa. Women from a population-based twin registry (850 complete pairs) were assessed with respect to specific measured variables (including demographics, religiosity, lifetime psychopathology, current symptomatology, and personality) and latent genetic and environmental variables. Because of the relative rarity of bulimia nervosa, statistical power was low, but findings suggested considerable overlap between the genetic risk factors for the development of binge eating and the genetic risk factors for the transition from binge eating to bulimia nervosa. Genetic risk factors for binge eating and bulimia nervosa may be largely similar, whereas nonshared environment may be important in influencing the risk for bulimia nervosa once binge eating is initiated.