Effects of trait and situational self-handicapping on competitive anxiety among athletes

Initial evidence suggests that the employment of self-handicapping strategies has a beneficial effect on negative affective states associated with the perceived threat of evaluative contexts (Harris & Snyder, 1986; Leary, 1986). The present study sought to describe the type of self-handicapping behaviors demonstrated by youth athletes (N=238) as well as to assess the stress-buffering role of athlete self-handicapping on indices of competitive state anxiety. Specifically, it was hypothesized that among high trait-handicapping athletes, those who report a greater degree of performance-debilitating obstacles prior to competition would demonstrate lowered cognitive and somatic state anxiety as well as greater state self-confidence than nonhandicapping athletes. However, MANOVA results indicated that both high trait and situational self-handicappers demonstrate elevated state anxiety immediately prior to competition. Results are discussed in relation to the possible role of state anxiety as a salient self-handicapping strategy within competitive sport.     

The Past,Present, and Future of Student Affairs: A Professional Profile of Theodore K. Miller

Theodore K. Miller began his career in 1957 as the counselor for men at the University of Florida and then worked as a counseling psychologist at the State University of New York at Buffalo starting in 1962. He left there 5 years later to start a student personnel program at The University of Georgia. During his 30 years at Georgia, Miller established a nationally recognized graduate professional preparation program and became one of the most prominent figures in the field of college student development. This profile focuses on the professional influences in his life and on his role in developing quality assurance measures for counseling and human development programs and for student affairs functional areas.     

Anomaly Detection: Eye Movement Patterns

The symptom of a garden path in sentence processing is an apparent anomaly in the input string. This anomaly signals to the parser that an error has occurred, and provides cues for how to repair it. Anomaly detection is thus an important aspect of sentence processing. In the present study, we investigated how the parser responds to unambiguous sentences that contain syntactic anomalies and pragmatic anomalies, examining records of eye movement during reading. While sensitivity to the two kinds of anomaly was very rapid and essentially simultaneous, qualitative differences existed in the patterns of first-pass reading times and eye regressions. The results are compatible with the proposal that syntactic information and pragmatic information are used differently in garden-path recovery.     

God and objects: Beginning with existence

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

The role of values in the choice shift

In Study I, the self-ideal discrepancy in risk taking was found to be unrelated to the strength of values relevant to the risks under consideration, and the other-self discrepancy was found to be related to these values only by virtue of one of its components, inital preference. Hence the use of these discrepancies as measures of value strength must be questioned. This casts doubt on some of the evidence formerly thought to support the assumption that values provide the force that drives the choice shift. In Study II, two hypotheses derived from this assumption were not supported. In light of this result, and closely related negative findings from two other studies, it would appear that this assumption must either be discarded or revised. Some possible lines of revision are suggested. Some of the results were also prejudicial to two theories about the mechanism through which values or other forces allegedly produce the shift: norm-comparison theory and pluralistic-ignorance theory.     

Local dependence latent structure models

A local independence latent structure model, which assumesm latent classes, requires a minimum of 2m-1 items for the solution of the 2m ² latent parameters. If one adds 3 items to the test and if one assumes local dependence between pairs of items, thereby adding additional latent parameters, _ij , representing the association between itemsi andj, then it is possible to obtain estimates for all of the latent parameters: latent class frequencies latent probabilities, and measures of association between pairs of items. The solution consists of (1) forming (m + 1) × (m + 1) matrices of manifest data, which are singular, (2) solving for the _ij in equations that result from the singularity of the data matrices, (3) correcting the manifest data by removing the contamination due to local dependence, and (4) estimating the remaining latent parameters from the corrected data, using methods outlined in earlier literature.     

Visual and tactual form complexity:A psychophysical approach to perceptual equivalence

Equivalence of two modalities for processing form-complexity information was investigated by obtaining category judgments of the complexity of 100 random forms from 40 Ss who explored the forms visually and 40 Ss who explored them tactually. Intercorrelations of judgments and multiple regression analyses with form measures indicate that information was used in the same fashion independent of input modality. Latencies were interpreted as reflecting information gaining and processing capabilities.     

Commitment to Justice in Conflict between Unequal Status Persons

Possible determinants of a high-status person's conformity to the norm of justice and the consequences of this conformity on conflict resolution were explored. Ninety-six college students were induced to be high-status bargainers. Subjects believed that their partner was committed either to their group's self-interest or to justice in the conflict. Subjects negotiated with an opposing low-status bargainer who made a self-advancement appeal, an appeal based on an equity concept of justice, or an appeal based on a responsiveness to needs concept of justice. As predicted, subjects who believed that their partner was committed to justice as compared to the group's self-interest agreed more often to the low-status person's request for improved outcomes and indicated that they had a higher level of motivation to be just, more seriously considered the low-status person's position and situation, and were more willing to compromise. Contrary to expectations, subjects who were targets of the justice appeals did not agree significantly more often to the low-status person's request nor did targets of the self-advancement appeal. The data suggest that the norm of justice may elicit conformity when invoked by a group member, though it may induce little conformity when invoked by an opposing bargainer. Results were also interpreted as suggesting that seeking to do justice induces compromises toward the other bargainer's position by reducing egocentric biases.     

The development of children's mental tracking strategies on a rotation task

In two experiments, 5- to 13-year-old children were required to mentally track the rotation of a pointer around a circular backdrop, and to indicate the pointer's imagined position on the backdrop at the sound of a signal. In Experiment 1, children imagined the pointer rotate around its end point. In Experiment 2, children imagined the pointer rotate around its midpoint, and indicated the position of one of its two ends at the time of the signal. The end to be indicated was not specified by the experimenter until the time of the signal. Thus, children were required to use an imaging strategy that could keep track of the changing positions of both ends of the pointer. In both experiments, children older than 8 years of age generated linear distance × time functions indicating mental tracking, but younger children did not. In Experiment 2, the proportions of children at each grade level using holistic or part-to-part strategies to mentally track the pointer were comparable, as were mental tracking rates. The results were discussed in relation to both recent research on children's counting, and Piagetian and information-processing views of metal imagery development.     

Laterality differences in sensitivity to line orientation as a function of adaptation duration

Since available evidence indicates that the two cerebral hemispheres are differentially sensitive to different types of stimulus information, and that they also utilize different strategies in processing information, is it possible that the two hemispheres are differentially sensitive to adaptation? Three groups of four subjects each were adapted to black and white gratings using three adapting durations: 500, 1,000, and 5,000 msec. Immediately following adaptation, a test grating was presented in either the left or right visual field. The task of the subject was to determine whether the lines of the adapting and test gratings had the same orientation or not. Analysis showed that in the 5,000-msec and 1,000-msec conditions, more errors occurred with left visual field presentations, responses to left visual field presentations took longer, and a bias-free measure showed that subjects were more sensitive to right visual field presentations. For the 500-msec group, there were no apparent differences between left and right visual fields presentations. The results indicate differential effects of adaptation on the two hemispheres, suggesting sensitivity differences between the two halves of the brain.