Validation of a Coping Scale in an African Context

The research aims were to compile and validate a multi-dimensional coping measure, taking African-centred coping behaviour into consideration. In a pilot study the Setswana-COPE (S-COPE) and the Africultural Coping Systems Inventory (ACSI) were administered to Setswana-speaking participants (N = 274). Selected items from these measures were combined into a single 35-item measure, the N-COPE, which was administered to another group of Setswana-speaking participants (N = 1050) together with a number of measures of psychological well-being. Reliability coefficients yielded a Cronbach alpha of.74 for the N-COPE total. Criterion-related validity was determined by correlating the N-COPE with other measures of psychological well-being. It was concluded that the N-COPE showed promising results for use in this context, but further refinement and validation is necessary.     

Experiences of young adult women with emotionally absent fathers

This study explored the experiences of young adult women (n = 11) who grew up with emotionally absent fathers. The women (White: Afrikaans) were between the ages of 20 and 31 (5 were married, 1 was engaged, 1 was in a relationship, and 4 were single). The participants completed in-depth interviews regarding their retrospective perceptions of emotionally absent father experiences and the related effects on them. Data were thematically analyzed. Findings indicated that the participants experienced difficulty in sharing emotions with their fathers and fathers did not show affection or express their love. The participants perceived their fathers to have shown no interest, approval or acknowledgement of them, and viewed them as untrustworthy. They also believed that relationship qualities with their fathers influenced how they related to men in general. Father emotional absence negatively impacts on daughter's emotional well-being.     

Sport Psychological Characteristics of Talented 13-Year Old Adolescents

The objective of this study was to determine whether the sport psychological profiles of talented 13-year-old sport participants differ from less talented participants. 162 grade 8 learners with a mean age of 13.2 ± 0.33 years voluntarily participated in the study. The participants were subjected to the Australian Talent Search protocol and completed the Athlete Coping Skills Inventory for Sport (ACSI-28). The group was categorize according to the median of all the tests of the talent identification protocol (TID) in a talented (TG) and a less talented group (LTG). The TG obtained higher means in all seven sport psychological characteristics: coping with adversity, peaking under pressure, goal setting, confidence, coachability and the average coping profile, concentration and freedom from worry. The results indicate that talented adolescents exhibit specific sport psychological characteristics compared to less talented adolescents.     

Personality profiling of South African rugby union players

This study aimed to investigate whether differences exist in the personality profiles of professional and semi-professional rugby union players. Participants were 73 male rugby players, 52 professional players and 21 semi-professional players. All participants completed the NEO Five-Factor Personality Inventory (NEO-FFI) as part of the WebNeuro Sport online assessment. An independent sample t-test showed a statistically significant difference in neuroticism between the professional and semi-professional players. The magnitude-based inference method confirmed the results of the independent sample t-test with a moderate effect. The potential practical value of these findings is that the Neuroticism scale of the Big Five personality dimensions can be used as a screening tool for indicating which players a team would want to recruit and invest time and money in since these players will most likely be capable of progressing to the top level in their sport.     

Experiential avoidance and self‐compassion in chronic pain

The present study investigates the role of coping, experiential avoidance, and self‐compassion on psychological distress prediction (i.e., depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms). A battery of self‐report questionnaires was used to assess coping, experiential avoidance, self‐compassion, and psychological distress in 103 adults with chronic pain from Portuguese primary health care units. Hierarchical regression analyses were performed and showed that experiential avoidance and self‐compassion are the factors that mostly explain psychological distress. Our results suggest that when people with chronic pain are willing to remain in contact with particular private experiences without attempting to control them, they reported less depression, anxiety, and stress. Implications for clinical practice were discussed, suggesting the importance of helping people with chronic pain to increase their willingness to pain rather than avoiding it.     

Linking exercise and causality orientations to change in well‐being among older adults: does change in motivational variables play a role?

A self‐determination theory process model of change in well‐being was tested among older adults in a 16‐week randomized exercise‐trial (n = 118, M = 74.3 years, SD = 4.6, 68% females). The exercise intervention increased participants' autonomous motivation and perceived competence over the first 7 weeks. Moreover, autonomous orientation gave rise to perceived competence, while impersonal orientation was related to increased controlled motivation. Changes in motivational variables were positively related to changes in vitality over the trial, while change in controlled motivation was negatively related to changes in vitality and subjective well‐being. Bootstrapping analyses supported an indirect exercise–vitality path through autonomous motivation and perceived competence, and an indirect autonomous orientation–vitality path through perceived competence.     

Anxiety and Attention: Is There an Attentional Bias for Positive Emotional Stimuli?

Empirical research has shown that anxiety is associated with a systematic bias in the cognitive system. Anxious individuals (clinically anxious patients and normal individuals with high-trait anxiety) are characterized by a pattern of selective processing that favors the encoding of threatening information. Is this attentional bias specific to threat-related information, or does it operate for positive emotional stimuli? The research directly connected with the existence of an attentional bias for threat in anxiety was examined.     

The Impact of Abuse and Learning Difficulties on Emotion Understanding in Late Childhood and Early Adolescence

Children's affective experiences and cognitive abilities have an impact on emotion understanding. However, their relative contribution, as well as the possibility of an interaction between them, has rarely been examined. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the influence of severe abuse and learning difficulties on simple and complex components of emotion understanding in late childhood and early adolescence. A total of 28 older children and young adolescents were selected for the study. Half of the participants had suffered from severe abuse, and half of these abused children additionally had learning disabilities. The remaining half of the sample had no history of abuse but were matched with the abused children on learning difficulties, age and gender. The participants’ emotion understanding was assessed with the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC). Results showed that (a) learning difficulties but not abuse had an impact on emotion understanding, (b) there was no interaction effect of abuse and learning difficulties on emotion understanding, and (b) the observed effects of learning difficulties were most apparent for the understanding of relatively complex components of emotion and not for simple components. The results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications.     

General theories of explanation: buyer beware

We argue that there is no general theory of explanation that spans the sciences, mathematics, and ethics, etc. More specifically, there is no good reason to believe that substantive and domain-invariant constraints on explanatory information exist. Using Nickel (Noûs 44(2):305–328, 2010) as an exemplar of the contrary, generalist position, we first show that Nickel’s arguments rest on several ambiguities, and then show that even when these ambiguities are charitably corrected, Nickel’s defense of general theories of explanation is inadequate along several different dimensions. Specifically, we argue that Nickel’s argument has three fatal flaws. First, he has not provided any compelling illustrations of domain-invariant constraints on explanation. Second, in order to fend off the most vehement skeptics of domain-invariant theories of explanation, Nickel must beg all of the important questions. Third, Nickel’s examples of explanations from different domains with common explanatory structure rely on incorrect formulations of the explanations under consideration, circular justifications, and/or a mischaracterization of the position Nickel intends to critique. Given that the best and most elaborate defense of the generalist position fails in so many ways, we conclude that the standard practice in philosophy (and in philosophy of science in particular), which is to develop theories of explanation that are tailored to specific domains, still is justified. For those who want to buy into a more ambitious project: beware of the costs!