The Preliminary Development of the Scale for Effective Communication in Team Sports (SECTS)

Within sport psychology, a vague concept of effective team communication has been broached. Because of a lack of theoretical basis and skewed measurement, this construct is presently misunderstood and underutilized. A total of 681 athletes participated in a series of studies designed to construct a measurement of effective team communication in sports. Independent exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and subsequent confirmatory factor aalysis (CFA) uncovered a 4-factor model. The 4 emergent factors were defined as Distinctiveness, Acceptance, Positive Conflict, and Negative Conflict. Acceptance, distinctiveness, and positive conflict were consistently positively correlated to all aspects of cohesion, while negative conflict was negatively correlated to task cohesion. Post hoc analyses suggested that male athletes exchanged more distinctiveness and negative conflict than did female athletes. The resultant scale is offered as a theory-based, data-driven measurement of effective team communication in sports.     

The effects of interpersonal relationship and character gender on adolescents' resolutions of moral dilemmas

An experimental study using two forms of the Defining Issues Test [Rest, J. R. (1979). Revised manual for the Defining Issues Test. Minneapolis: Moral Research Project, University of Minnesota.], modified to present either a high degree of relationship among characters or a low degree of relationship among characters, was conducted with 114 college students. The gender of the characters in the dilemmas was also systematically varied. Both male and female students evidenced principled (Stages 5 and 6) reasoning more often when dilemma characters were male than when story characters were female. Participant gender and relationship condition were significant factors in the frequency of Stage 4 reasoning. Male students in the low-relationship condition evidenced Stage 4 (“Law and order”) reasoning most often when story characters were male, while male students, like female students in all conditions, showed Stage 4 reasoning more often when female characters were presented in the high-relationship condition. The degree to which moral decisions were supportive of an affected character revealed more support when story characters were female than when they were male. Results indicate that even in hypothetical situations, moral judgments vary with the gender of the person being judged and to some degree with the relationships among those involved in the dilemma. These findings are consistent with a view that multiple, equally valid approaches to moral judgment might exist and affect the development of male and female students differently.     

The Hearts and Guts of White People

Beginning with the experience of a white woman's stomach seizing up in fear of a black man, this essay examines some of the ethical and epistemological issues connected to white ignorance. In conversation with Charles Mills on the epistemology of ignorance, I argue that white ignorance primarily operates physiologically, not cognitively. Drawing critically from psychology, neurocardiology, and other medical sciences, I examine some of the biological effects of racism on white people's stomachs and hearts. I argue for a nonideal medical theory focused on improving wellness in a society that systematically has damaged the health of people of color. The essay concludes that to be fully successful, critical philosophy of race must examine not just the financial, legal, political, and other forms of racism, but also its biological and physiological operations.     

REVIEWS

Feminism and Addiction, Claudia Bepko (Ed.). New York.
Feminist Perspectives on Addictions, Nan Van Den Bergh (Ed.). New York.
Engendered Lives, Ellyn Kaschak. New York.
Seldom Seen, Rarely Heard: Women's Place in Psychology, Jams Bohan (Ed.).
Still Loved by the Sun: A Rape Survivor's Journal, Migael Scherer. New York.