Athletes’ Motivation Regulations and Need Satisfaction Across Combinations of Perceived Coaching Behaviors

Cluster analysis was used to identify combinations of perceived coaching behaviors (i.e., autonomy support and four controlling coaching behaviors). Motivation regulations and need satisfaction were tested for differences across profiles. Results revealed 3 profiles of college swimmers (N = 165) based on their responses to measures of study variables. The profiles had relatively more autonomy support or more controlling coaching behaviors or a combination of the 2. The profile with greater autonomy support and lower controlling coaching behaviors reported the most positive motivation experiences. Findings illustrate the independence of these coaching behaviors and offer practical suggestions for college swim coaches.     

Genre of Music and Lyrical Content: Expectation Effects

This study was designed to examine whether people's expectations differ regarding how music lyrics affect individual behavior as a function of music genre. Because legislative attention and media publicity have been biased against certain types of popular music (i.e., heavy metal and rap), the authors expected that those genres of music would be viewed more negatively than other genres of popular music, for which there has been little or no negative publicity (i.e., pop and country). Participants (N = 160 college students) rated their perceptions of how the lyrical content of a song would affect listeners' behavior. The authors presented prosocial or antisocial lyrical passages to students (N = 160) under the guise of four musical genres (heavy metal, rap, pop, and country). Participants rated the potential impact of the lyrics on listeners' behavior. Findings indicated that lyrics labeled as heavy metal or rap were perceived as less likely to inspire prosocial behavior but not more likely to inspire antisocial behavior than the same lyrics labeled as country or pop.     

Cognitive involvement in the mood response system

There is currently common agreement that moods are organized responses that affect many psychological subsystems, including the cognitive subsystem. The pleasant versus unpleasant quality of an individual's mood was the dependent measure in this study, which examined cognitive correlates of mood level. A set of tasks hypothesized to change with mood, an adjective scale measuring present mood state, and four personality scales were administered to 194 students. Results indicate that three tasks—giving advice to others, estimating the probability of events, and subjective ratings of associations to words—are correlated with mood state and mood-related traits (e.g., emotional distress). Because of the measurement of mood along a pleasant-unpleasant continuum, the present findings of cognitive change can be generalized to any mood that is mostly pleasant or unpleasant. Results also indicate that individuals low in neuroticism had greater correspondence between self-reported mood and performance on affect-sensitive tasks. The changes in cognition are discussed in the context of a spreading-activation view of mood effects and a depressive-schema theory of information processing. More generally, the results suggest that moods lead to broad influences on cognitive responses over considerable portions of an individual's life-span.Preparation of this article was supported in part by an Individual National Research Service Award, MH08978, from the National Institute of Mental Health to the first author. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Phoebe Ellsworth, Steven Tublin, Daniel Weinberger, and the reviewers for comments on earlier drafts of this article.     

Stress and the Control Beliefs of Prisoners: A Test of Three Models of Control-Limited Environments1

Three models are proposed to explain the relationship between individual differences in beliefs and stress responses in control-limited environments: (1) the Environmental Incongruency, (2) Differential Stress Responses, and (3) Undifferentiated Responses. The present research examined the support for each model using inmates differing in control beliefs and prison as the control-limited environment. The results did not support either the Incongruency or the Differential models. In contrast with previous studies of control-limited environments, there was no evidence of change in passive stress responses over time in prison, but there was an increase in active responses (e.g., conflicts with other inmates) early during incarceration. As predicted by the Undifferentiated Response M odel, inmates who were more external in Locus of Control experienced significantly more active and passive stress reactions. No differences were found in stress as a function of their internal beliefs.     

Contributions of Seymour Sarason to the field of mental retardation

The contributions of Seymour Sarason to the field of mental retardation are presented against the background of the pivotal changes in society's perception of the retardate that occurred following World War II. Sarason's key contributions to that change in terms of broadening the scientific approach to the issues in the field and advocating reform in the treatment and education of the retarded are briefly sketched.     

The personality characteristics of adolescents who use and misuse alcohol

The relationship between alcohol use and misuse and personality was investigated using 347 high school students. Students were tested with a battery which included measures of alcohol involvement (AAIS) and personality (CPI). The results demonstrated that as adolescents increasingly became involved in alcohol, the more their personality characteristics differed from those adolescents not involved or minimally involved with alcohol. The implications are discussed in light of past theories of alcohol misuse in adolescence.     

The experience and meta-experience of mood

Mood experience is comprised of at least two elements: the direct experience of the mood and a meta-level of experience that consists of thoughts and feelings about the mood. In Study 1, a two-dimensional structure for the direct experience of mood (Watson & Tellegen, 1985) was tested for its fit to the responses of 1,572 subjects who each completed one of three different mood scales, including a brief scale developed to assist future research. The Watson and Tellegen structure was supported across all three scales. In Study 2, meta-mood experience was conceptualized as the product of a mood regulatory process that monitors, evaluates, and at times changes mood. A scale to measure meta-mood experience was administered to 160 participants along with the brief mood scale. People's levels on the meta-mood dimensions were found to differ across moods. Meta-mood experiences may also constitute an important part of the phenomenology of the personal experience of mood.     

Computer methods and ecological validity in reading research

Computer-based procedures for obtaining word-by-word reading times are evaluated in terms of criteria for basic research and for ecologically valid research. Ecological validity can sometimes compromise experimental designs that should control extraneous variables or separate confounded factors. Two reading paradigms that were developed for basic research on linguistic coding mechanisms are also shown to meet many of the criteria for ecological validity.