Tactical skills and ball speed during a field simulation of penalty kick strategies in soccer

This study investigates the efficacy of intermediate penalty kickers by comparing the effect of applying an automated WiFi system on the field of play to simulate a strategy that takes account of goalkeeper action (dependent) with another for which goalkeeper strategy is irrelevant (independent). Intermediate penalty kickers (n=12) took a pretreatment test of 32 kicks in a "real-play" situation with intermediate goalkeepers (n=3). Two groups of kickers underwent 11 treatment sessions using different strategies and then were administered a posttreatment test. The variables measured were the number of goals scored, whether the direction of the shot was the same or different from the direction of the goalkeeper's move (DDG), ball speed, and the duration of the kicking movement. Data suggested the goalkeepers had a greater capacity to identify advance cues when faced with independent strategy kickers and that dependent strategy kickers achieved lower ball speeds.     

Attentional network task performance in schizophrenic patients

Several studies have researched the attentional functioning of schizophrenic patients by means of the Attentional Network Test. The present work reviews these studies and assesses the clinical relevance of their results. Both the reviewed data and our own results suggest that the Attentional Network Test does not provide a clear-cut discrimination of the attentional profile of schizophrenic patients from a clinical point of view. However, after classifying patients according to their psychotic symptoms, it became evident that positive syndrome patients are less efficient at tasks that tap the orientation network.     

Types of semantic category and stimulus modality in procedural learning: implications for models of semantic memory

The present work attempts to determine whether procedural learning of a semantic categorisation task is influenced by the type of semantic category of the stimuli (biological and non-biological elements). It is also an attempt to determine the effect of the stimulus presentation modality on the categorisation task. A semantic categorisation task (4 series of 40 stimuli) was administered to 256 participants (128 classifying pictures, and 128 classifying words). Biological categories were responded to faster than non-biological ones although there were no significant differences between the interaction of the category type and the stimulus presentation modality. Reaction times progressively decreased with practice. However, the initial differences disappeared when subjects were trained. The way that current models account for these investigation findings is discussed. In addition, it is suggested that there is an attentional bias in favor of biological elements, which disappears when presumably less relevant elements become more relevant as a function of the task characteristics.     

Extrinsic Motives as Moderators in the Relationship Between Fairness and Work-Related Outcomes Among Temporary Workers

Purpose

This study assessed how motives for having a temporary job influence the effects of experienced fairness on work-related attitudes.

Design/methodology/approach

We examined the moderating effect of three motives for being in temporary employment (the autonomous or voluntary motive, the stepping-stone motive, and the controlled or involuntary motive) on the relationship between experienced fairness and outcomes. Hierarchical multiple regressions were performed on questionnaire data of a sample of 299 Dutch temporary workers.

Findings

For temporary employees who accepted temporary employment voluntarily, low fairness is related to lower self-reported performance. For employees who use their temporary job as a way to obtain permanent employment, fairness is not related to work-related attitudes and behavioral intentions. Those who are involuntarily in a temporary job react stronger on fairness and have a higher intention to quit.

Implications

Fairness is weakly related to work-related attitudes and behavioral intentions under two conditions: when perceived goal attainment is high, and when the worker is dependent on the temporary job to reach that goal. This study provides support for the assumption that motives may override automatic responses to fairness.

Originality/value

This article is one of the first studies that provide evidence for the influence of motives on reactions to fairness. Additionally, this study considers reactions to fairness in a growing contingent of the workforce, that is temporary workers. It provides evidence that the dynamics in fairness perceptions may be different for temporary workers in comparison to their counterparts with permanent contracts.     

Self-ambivalence and self-esteem

Self-ambivalence is defined as the co-presence of positive and negative self-evaluations. Using one established and three new measures of this construct, four studies (total N = 810) revealed markedly negative correlations between self-ambivalence and self-esteem (rs between -.37 and -.74). Further, self-ambivalence proved distinct from the related construct of self-concept clarity (Studies 2 and 3) and was fairly stable across a four-week period (r _tt = .53 and .72, Study 4). These results speak to the validity of the new measures and suggest that self-ambivalence is a common concomitant of low self-esteem. Directions for future research are outlined.     

Assessment of emotional reactivity produced by exposure to virtual environments in patients with eating disorders.

The aim of this study was to assess the usefulness of virtual environments representing situations that are emotionally significant to subjects with eating disorders (ED). These environments may be applied with both evaluative and therapeutic aims and in simulation procedures to carry out a range of experimental studies. This paper is part of a wider research project analyzing the influence of the situation to which subjects are exposed on their performance on body image estimation tasks. Thirty female patients with eating disorders were exposed to six virtual environments: a living-room (neutral situation), a kitchen with high-calorie food, a kitchen with low-calorie food, a restaurant with high-calorie food, a restaurant with low-calorie food, and a swimming-pool. After exposure to each environment the STAI-S (a measurement of state anxiety) and the CDB (a measurement of depression) were administered to all subjects. The results show that virtual reality instruments are particularly useful for simulating everyday situations that may provoke emotional reactions such as anxiety and depression, in patients with ED. Virtual environments in which subjects are obliged to ingest high-calorie food provoke the highest levels of state anxiety and depression.     

Different temporary work status, different behaviors in organization

This study examined the contributions of the psychological contract framework to an understanding of the effects of different work statuses on employees’ behavior. We compared temporary firm workers (n=71) with core workers (n=268) and direct-hire temporary workers (n=149) with core workers (n=42) in two different samples. As expected, temporary firm workers consider that they receive fewer socio-emotional inducements from the organization they work for (opportunities for promotion, career development, long-term employment), but direct-hire temporary workers who succeeded in having their contracts extended had a psychological contract in which socio-emotional components predominated. A psychological contract with a predominance of socio-emotional components was important for organizations because it mediated the influence of work status on civic virtue behaviors on the part of temporary firm workers, and directly and positively influenced these behaviors in direct-hired temporary workers (behaviors as assessed by their supervisors). Contrary to the hypothesis, psychological contract had a direct and positive influence on the in-role behavior of direct-hire temporary workers. The implications of the findings for psychological contract research are discussed.     

Knowledge, Naturalism, and Cognitive Ethology: Kornblith’s Knowledge and its Place in Nature

This paper explores Kornblith’s proposal in Knowledge and its Place in Nature that knowledge is a natural kind that can be elucidated and understood in scientific terms. Central to Kornblith’s development of this proposal is the claim that there is a single category of unreflective knowledge that is studied by cognitive ethologists and is the proper province of epistemology. This claim is challenged on the grounds that even unreflective knowledge in language-using humans reflects forms of logical reasoning that are in principle unavailable to nonlinguistic animals.     

Clinically Significant Change After Cognitive Restructuring for Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse

This study investigated the outcome of cognitive restructuring for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse in terms of clinically significant change. Twenty-six participants were assessed for depression, State anxiety, State anger, State guilt and self-esteem before and after 10 weekly sessions of group Rational-emotive behavior therapy, and at follow-up after 8 weeks. In contrast to a previous analysis of the data in terms of statistical significance, indicating significant improvements on all variables from pre- to posttreatment, an analysis based on clinically significant change showed a differentiated treatment effect. Cognitive restructuring was found to be highly effective in facilitating recovery on anxiety, depression and anger, but less effective for guilt and low self-esteem. Only 3 patients (11, 54%) recovered on all 5 variables, while 10 patients (38, 46%) showed recovery on at least 4 variables. Relationship to the perpetrator and pre-treatment irrational evaluative beliefs (measured by means of the Survey of Personal Beliefs) were found to be the best predictors of treatment outcome. A poor response to treatment was associated with the perpetrator being a close family member and with more Other-directed Shoulds, while recovery was associated with the perpetrator being a friend or stranger and with more Awfulizing, Self-directed Shoulds and negative Self-worth beliefs.     

Occasion Setting and Drug Tolerance

There is considerable evidence that drug-paired cues become associated with drug effects. It has been hypothesized that these cues act as Pavlovian conditional stimuli (CSs), and elicit conditional compensatory responses that contribute to tolerance. On the basis of a conditioning analysis of tolerance, we would expect that it should be possible to establish drug-paired cues as occasion setters, as well as conditional stimuli. Using feature-positive discrimination training, we evaluated the contribution of occasion-setting stimuli (as well as CSs) to tolerance to the hypothermic effect of ethanol in rats. The results indicated that a complete associative analysis of drug tolerance should incorporate not only the CS properties of predrug cues, but also the occasion-setting properties of such cues. The findings have implications for interpreting conflicting findings concerning extinction of tolerance and for cue-exposure treatments of addiction.