The stages and processes of exercise adoption and maintenance in a worksite sample.

We applied the model of the stages and processes of change to exercise adoption and maintenance. This model has shown promise in advancing theory and treatment of the addictions and other negative health behaviors, but there have been few systematic attempts to apply the model to positive health behaviors, such as exercise adoption. Questionnaires dealing with the stages and processes of exercise change were developed and administered to a sample of 1,172 participants in a worksite health promotion project. The sample was split randomly into halves for (a) initial model development and testing and (b) confirmatory measurement model testing. Additional model confirmation was obtained by examining the hierarchical structure of the processes of change and by conducting Stage x Process analyses. Results suggest that the underlying constructs derived from smoking cessation and other addictive behaviors can be generalized to exercise behavior. Understanding the stages and processes of exercise behavior change may yield important information for enhancing exercise adoption, adherence, and relapse prevention at both individual and public health levels.     

Changing men's male gender-role attitudes by applying the elaboration likelihood model of attitude change

The traditional male gender role has been associated with a host of psychological and physical problems. In this study, 118 male university students viewed one of two videotaped interventions based on R. E. Petty and J. T. Cacioppo's [(1986) Communication and Persuasion: Central and Peripheral Routes to Attitude Change, New York: Springer-Verlag) elaboration likelihood model of attitude change (ELM) or were in a control group. One intervention was designed to create less traditional male gender-role attitudes, the other to enhance participants' attitudes toward seeking psychological help. Both interventions significantly changed male gender-role attitudes on Brannon Masculinity Scale scores, but not their Gender Role Conflict Scale—I scores, and neither influenced help-seeking attitudes. The overall pattern of scores suggests that men's attitudes about the male role may be less resistant to change than attitudes about one's own gender role or one's fear of femininity.     

Common reasoning about admissibility

We analyze common reasoning about admissibility in the strategic and extensive form of a game. We define a notion of sequential proper admissibility in the extensive form, and show that, in finite extensive games with perfect recall, the strategies that are consistent with common reasoning about sequential proper admissibility in the extensive form are exactly those that are consistent with common reasoning about admissibility in the strategic form representation of the game. Thus in such games the solution given by common reasoning about admissibility does not depend on how the strategic situation is represented. We further explore the links between iterated admissibility and backward and forward induction.     

Grouping students for instruction: effects of learning style on achievement and attitudes

The present study examined the effects of matching and mismatching American middle-school students with a preference for learning alone or learning with peers with selected instructional treatments in order to determine the impact upon their attitudes and achievement in social studies. Analysis revealed that the learning-alone preference performed significantly better in the learning-alone condition and that the learning-with-peers preference performed significantly better in the learning-with-peers condition. However, no-preference students also performed significantly better in the learning-alone condition than with peers. In addition, data revealed that the learning-alone and the learning-with-peers students had significantly more positive attitudes when matched with their preferred learning style; the nopreference students had more positive attitudes in the learning-alone condition.     

Debunking myths about self-quitting. Evidence from 10 prospective studies of persons who attempt to quit smoking by themselves

This article examines data from 10 longterm prospective studies (N greater than 5,000) in relation to key issues about the self-quitting of smoking, especially those discussed by Schachter. When a single attempt to quit was evaluated, self-quitters' success rates were no better than those reported for formal treatment programs. Light smokers (20 or less cigarettes per day) were 2.2 times more likely to quit than heavy smokers. The cyclical nature of quitting was also examined. There was a moderate rate (mdn = 2.7%) of long-term quitting initiated after the early months (expected quitting window) of these studies, but also a high rate (mdn = 24%) of relapsing for persons abstinent for six months. The number of previous unsuccessful quit attempts was unrelated to success in quitting. Finally, there were few occasional smokers (slips) among successful long-term quitters. We argue that quitting smoking is a dynamic process, not a discrete event.     

The Analytic Truth and Falsity of Disjunctions

Disjunctive inferences are difficult. According to the theory of mental models, it is because of the alternative possibilities to which disjunctions refer. Three experiments corroborated further predictions of the mental model theory. Participants judged that disjunctions, such as Either this year is a leap year or it is a common year are true. Given a disjunction such as Either A or B, they tended to evaluate the four cases in its ‘partition’: A and B, A and not‐B, not‐A and B, not‐A and not‐B, as ‘possible’ or ‘impossible’ in ways that bore out the difference between inclusive disjunctions (‘or both’) and exclusive disjunctions (‘but not both’). Knowledge usually concerns what is true, and so when participants judge that a disjunction is false, or contingent, and evaluate the cases in its partition, they depend on inferences that yield predictable errors. They tended to judge that disjunctions, such as follows: Either the food is cold or else it is tepid, but not both, are true, though in fact they could be false. They tended to infer ‘mirror‐image’ evaluations that yield the same possibilities for false disjunctions as those for true disjunctions. The article considers the implications of these results for alternative theories based on classical logic or on the probability calculus.     

Performance of Faller and Nonfaller Older Adults on a Motor–Motor Interference Task

Typically, falls in older adults occur when 2 tasks are performed simultaneously, due to the increased motor demand required to maintain stability and attention to perform the other task. The authors' purpose was to investigate walking while grasping, transporting, and placing a dowel on a predetermined target while manipulating difficulty levels of the manual task. Faller and nonfaller older adults performed a walking block (manual tasks combined with gait) and a stationary block (upright stance combined with manual tasks). The manual task involved grasping, transporting, and placing the dowel over a target. The results showed that fallers underperformed when compared with nonfallers in the task of placing the dowel over the target. The main difference observed between the groups was found in the condition that required allocation of attention between tasks and greater accuracy in the final placement of the object. Fallers showed gait stability similar to the nonfallers, but fallers were less accurate than nonfallers in the object placement task, especially for the highest level of difficulty. Thus, fallers seem to use a stability-first strategy. Fallers had problems in executing the manual tasks, which suggests a more global change in motor behavior rather than specific changes to balance control.