Arousal interventions for athletic performance: Influence of mental preparation and competitive experience

Abstract

Mental preparation, or “psych-up” strategies have been assumed to promote physical arousal which subsequently improves certain athletic performances. The present experiment examined the role of arousal changes in the use of psych-up strategies on a physical strength task and a reaction time-decision task for subjects varying in competitive experience. Eighty-four subjects were reliably divided into high, moderate, or low competitive experience groups and randomly assigned to one of three mental preparation strategies. These strageies, which the subjects employed during a mental preparation period for both tasks, were either: (a) a self-generated arousal strategy, (b) a prescribed arousal strategy, or (c) a placebo-control strategy. While heart rate was being monitored, each subject completed a baseline trial, then one trial following a 45 sec mental preparation period and one trial following a 45 sec distraction interval. Order of presentation of tasks and order of presentation of distraction and mental preparation trials were counterbalanced and statistically analyzed. The results support the utility of different mental preparation strategies for increasing strength performance, but not reaction time-decision performance, for subjects with moderate and high levels of previous competitive experience. Self-generated arousal strategies enhanced performance of moderate experienced subjects. Analyses of the heart rate data failed to support the assumption that physiological arousal mediates the influence of psych-up strategies. Mental preparation strategies improved athletes' performance on certain tasks, however these strategies do not necessarily achieve their effects through increased autonomic arousal.     

Sole Expression: A Trauma-Informed Dance Intervention

The primary treatment for individuals who have encountered violence and/or abuse is trauma-focused cognitive and behavioral modalities. However, these therapeutic approaches are not always effective for youth who have encountered this type of trauma. Trauma is often communicated through the body via physical ailments, particularly when words are insufficient to capture an individual’s experience or when adequate processing of the trauma is not possible due to profound stress. Dance offers an alternative form of therapy that can address “where” the trauma is held, relieve tension, and restore a sense of ownership with one’s body and mind. In this article, we discuss the development of Sole Expression, a trauma-informed hip-hop dance program for youth who have experienced abuse and/or exposure to violence. We provide an overview of establishing the team, securing funding, trauma training, program curriculum, and the related research. We conclude with recommendations for best practices that benefit both practitioners and the young people served.     

Mechanisms for the Relationship between Traditional Masculine Ideologies and Rape Myth Acceptance Among College Men

We explored mechanisms for the relationship between traditional masculine ideologies and rape myth acceptance. We hypothesized that locus of control would serve as a mediator for victim precipitation rape myths, and negative attitudes toward women would serve as a mediator for victim masochism and victim fabrication rape myths. Using a sample of 100 male college students, the results indicated that negative attitudes toward women mediated the relationship between traditional masculine ideologies and all 3 types of rape myths, but locus of control did not serve as a mediator for any. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Differential attentional allocation and subsequent recognition for young and older adult faces

Studies examining own-age recognition biases report inconsistent results and often utilize paradigms that present faces individually and in isolation. We investigated young and older adults' attention towards young and older faces during learning and whether differential attention influences recognition. Participants viewed complex scenes while their eye movements were recorded; each scene contained two young and two older faces. Half of the participants formed scene impressions and half prepared for a memory test. Participants then completed an old/new face recognition task. Both age groups looked longer at young than older faces; however, only young adults showed an own-age recognition advantage. Participants in the memory condition looked longer at faces but did not show enhanced recognition relative to the impressions condition. Overall, attention during learning did not influence recognition. Our results provide evidence for a young adult face bias in attentional allocation but suggest that longer looking does not necessarily indicate deeper encoding.     

Even better than the real thing: Alternative outcome bias affects decision judgements and decision regret

Three experiments demonstrated that decisions resulting in considerable amounts of profit, but missed alternative outcomes of greater profits, were rated lower in quality and produced more regret than did decisions that returned lesser (or equal) amounts of profit but either did not miss or missed only slightly better alternatives. These effects were mediated by upward counterfactuals and moderated by participants’ orientation to the decision context. That decision evaluations were affected by the availability and magnitude of alternative outcomes rather than the positivity of actual outcomes is counter to the outcome bias effect—a bias in which decisions are rated more positively when they led to more positive outcomes (despite a priori probabilities associated with the decision outcomes). Experiment 3 demonstrated that these effects represent a bias that occurs even when it is clear that the process by which decisions were made followed rational decision processes. This research suggests that when alternative worlds are even better than the desirable outcomes experienced, affect and cognition may be more strongly linked to the magnitude of alternative realities than to obtained outcomes.     

Why won’t they participate? Barriers to participation in worksite health promotion programmes

Research suggests that worksite health promotion (WHP) programmes, and specifically health risk assessment (HRA) surveys and health education workshops, can be effective in enhancing employees’ health. However, 50–75% of employees choose not to participate when offered the opportunity to do so. The reasons for nonparticipation and the characteristics of nonparticipants have largely been overlooked. Building on premises of Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, we hypothesize that nonparticipation results from lack or loss of resources, or from the perceived low value of resources. These barriers to participation are expected to be related to employees’ characteristics and beliefs (termed implicit barriers) and reflected in employees’ self-reported reasons for nonparticipation (termed explicit barriers). We surveyed a large random sample of participants and nonparticipants in a WHP programme (n = 1926 employees), which included two steps: a HRA survey and a health education workshop. Participants completed an anonymous web-based questionnaire. Implicit and explicit barriers that reflect resource availability (e.g., age, health status) and valuation (e.g., low value of making a lifestyle change) were identified. The magnitude and nature of these barriers differed between the HRA survey and the workshop. We discuss how future research on WHP programmes can build on these findings and propose practical implications for reducing nonparticipation.     

Surviving breast cancer: Women's experiences with their changed bodies

In this study, we explored women's experiences with their bodies following treatment for breast cancer. Eleven women who had been treated for the disease (M_{time since treatment} = 4.45 years) were interviewed. Data were collected and analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith et al., 2009). Four main themes emerged from the data: changing visibly and invisibly; experiencing intense thoughts and emotions; meaning of the body: a vehicle of health, well-being, and social expression; and managing and dealing with physical changes. Overall, the women experienced various physical changes that shaped, mostly in a negative way, their perceptions, thoughts, attitudes, feelings, and beliefs about their bodies. The women described attempts to make positive lifestyle behavior choices (e.g., diet, participate in physical activity), and used other strategies (e.g., wigs, make-up, clothes) to manage their appearances and restore positive body-related experiences. Based on these findings, it is important to be cognizant of women's body image concerns following breast cancer given the poignant and lasting effects they can have on their psychosocial and emotional well-being.     

Preservation of person‐specific knowledge in semantic memory disorder: A longitudinal investigation in two cases of dementia

The double dissociation involving person‐specific and general semantic knowledge is supported by numerous patient studies, though cases with preservation of the former are few. In this paper, we report longitudinal data from two cases. Their knowledge in both domains was preserved at the start of the investigation, but progressive deterioration was primarily observed on tests of general semantics. These data strengthen the evidence‐base for preservation of person‐specific knowledge in semantic memory disorder, and support its separate representation from object knowledge.     

Object and action picture naming in English and Greek

When two orthographically similar words are displayed using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), the repeated letters in the second critical word (W2) are not detected, leading to a deficit in reporting this word known as repetition blindness (RB). In Turkish, letters containing diacritic markings (e.g., y, ö) are considered separate letters, yet are visually highly similar to their non-diacritic analogues (s,o). Two experiments used the phenomenon of RB to investigate whether diacritic letters are represented as more similar to their non-diacritic analogues than are two unrelated letters. In Experiment 1, substantially more RB was found for words differing in just a diacritic (i y im-isim) compared to orthographic neighbours (words differing in a visually non-similar letter, such as ilim-isim). In Experiment 2, the amount of RB for identical words (isim-isim) was comparable to words that differed by a single diacritic marking (i y im-isim). We conclude that diacritic letters are mentally represented as variants of their non-diacritic analogue. Letter / word recognition researchers may be interested in pursuing these findings using standard techniques such as backward masking and orthographic priming.     

Do Middle-Class Students Perceive Poor Women and Poor Men Differently?

In this study, we examined attitudes toward poor women, stereotypes about them, attributions for their poverty, and whether these thoughts and feelings differ from those about poor men. In our Midwestern college students sample (n = 206), attitudes toward poor women were significantly more positive than attitudes toward poor men. In addition, stereotypes of poor women were both more positive and more consistent with gender stereotypes than were those of poor men. Participants endorsed internal attributions for the poverty of both women and men more strongly than external or cultural attributions. However, the content of these attributions was different for the two target groups. Poor women were held responsible for nontraditional familial and reproductive patterns, whereas poor men were held responsible for lack of initiative and self-improvement. For poor men, all types of attributions included references to ability or willingness to work. The three types of attributions were more conceptually distinct for poor women.