Overcoming Performance Slumps: Psychological Resilience in Expert Cricket Batsmen

The purpose of this study was to explore the experience of performance slumps in cricket from the perspective of psychological resilience. Findings from a thematic analysis of a focus group (n?=?4 athletes) and one-to-one interviews (n?=?10 athletes) with 14 expert cricket batsmen indicated that numerous factors associated with psychological resilience protected players experiencing poor performance from the negative effects of stress, enabling them to successfully implement strategies to overcome slumps. These strategies fostered the strengthening and acquisition of technical, tactical, and psychosocial resources that protected players against future slumps. The findings suggest practical strategies to aid players experiencing slumps to overcome their performance difficulties.     

FEMINISM AS LIFE RAFT

We looked at relationships between academic women's feminist identity and their perceptions of discrimination. From a sample of self-labeled feminist professors of psychology who had participated in the Feminist Teaching Project, we examined previously transcribed interviews and also collected new, auxiliary information. We expected to find that our respondents would view feminism as both provoking discrimination and helping them cope with discrimination. We found that experiences with gender discrimination were common among our sample, but that feminism in isolation was not perceived by our respondents as a provocation for problems. Rather than making it hard for women to swim in academic waters, feminism seemed to serve as a life raft for many professors.     

Acting Theory Applied to Counseling: Stanislavski Continues to Contribute to Psychic Healing

ABSTRACT

This article explores a specific aspect of Stanislavski’s methods of training actors to examine the potential benefits for helping clients in the cultivation of new perceptions through empathy, which may, in turn, help toward psychic healing. Stanislavski’s methods of training actors, which is rooted in understanding the human condition, are the underpinnings for most modern acting theories. This discussion builds an additional bridge between acting theory and counseling theory to investigate additional therapeutic benefits of acting in a clinical setting. This article adds to the conversation of the possibility of expanding applications of drama therapy based on specific aspects of acting theories.     

Candidate Effects on Election Outcomes: Political Skill,Campaign Efficacy,and Intentions in a British General Election

Integrating Social/Political Influence Theory with the Theory of Planned Behavior, we argue that personal resources (i.e., political skill, self-efficacy) enable political candidates to form more ambitious campaign intentions, and thus perform better in elections. We tested this model with a sample of political candidates (N = 225) campaigning in a British general election. Three months before polling day, candidates provided self-ratings of political skill, domain-specific self-efficacy (i.e., campaign efficacy), and personal campaign intentions during the campaign period. Our results demonstrated that political skill was positively related to campaign efficacy, and intentions, via campaign efficacy. We also found a significant indirect effect for political skill on electoral performance (i.e., percentage of the vote), through campaign efficacy and intentions. Implications of our results for understanding candidate effects in campaigns and future research are discussed.     

The international student sojourn,identity conflict and threats to well-being

ABSTRACT

This article reports findings from a qualitative (interview) study of the identity conflict experienced by five international students at a university in the south of England for whom real and perceived challenges to national self-image were shown to be unsettling. The article suggests that our cultures of origin are centrally important to our private and personal sense of self and it argues that counsellor educators and counsellors need to understand their students' and clients' emotional and behavioural problems in the context of their cultural identities. In this research, there was a strong emotional response to threats to collective identity, which appeared to be influenced by both the degree of students' cultural identification and their country's global standing. The following themes were generated from a thematic analysis and capture the essence of student responses to perceived derogation of their national identity: re-identifying with the culture of origin; allying with the West; resisting the discourse of western supremacy; and acquiescence with stigma. Of importance to all participants' perceptions of derogation was their location in the western world.