Prevalence,correlates, and psychosocial outcomes of sport participation in young adult cancer survivors

Young adult cancer survivors (YACS) face unique challenges from their disease and treatments that may influence their sport participation choices as well as their psychosocial response.ObjectivesTo examine the prevalence, correlates, and psychosocial outcomes of sport participation in YACS.DesignA provincial, population-based mailed survey of 588 YACS in Alberta, Canada, was completed in May 2008 and included measures of sport participation, psychosocial health (depression, self-esteem, and stress), quality of life (QoL), and medical and demographic variables.ResultsOne third (32.5%) of YACS reported participating in a sport in the past month with the most common being golf (40.8%) and ice hockey (8.3%). YACS participating in sport reported an average frequency of 1.7 (SD = 1.0) days/week and an average duration of 119 min/session (SD = 68) for a total of 189 (SD = 164) min/week. Independent t-tests showed that YACS who participated in sport reported better psychosocial health and QoL including physical QoL (p < 0.001), mental QoL (p < 0.001), self-esteem (p < 0.001), depression (p < 0.001), and stress (p < 0.001). In multivariate regression analysis, 8.5% (p < 0.001) of the variance in sport participation was explained by being male (β = 0.17, p < 0.001), Caucasian (β = 0.15, p = 0.001), in better general health (β = 0.15, p < 0.001), and having a normal body mass index (β = ?0.10, p = 0.024).Discussion/conclusionsSport participation is associated with better psychosocial health and QoL in YACS but only a third participated in the past month. Randomized controlled trials examining sport as an intervention strategy to increase physical activity and improve health outcomes in YACS are warranted.     

Putting the ‘heart’ back into community psychology: some South African examples

In this paper we explore the impact of emotional dynamics in the field of community psychology and the value of psychodynamic concepts in making sense of this. Emotional processes have often not been very well acknowledged or conceptualized in writing in the area of community psychology practice. This neglect is understandable given the individualizing, pathologizing and medicalizing assumptions underlying many psychological theories of emotion. Psychodynamic ideas may, however, make a useful contribution to understanding central concerns in community psychology in so far as they are able to shed light on emotional processes in groups, the political determinants of emotional response and the emotional dynamics of power, which are all central to the thinking of community psychologists. Using examples drawn from a long-term programme of consultation to community-based services in South Africa, we explore the potential of psychoanalytic understandings of emotional processes in illuminating some of the complexities and challenges faced in developing effective community partnerships and working towards the empowerment of communities.     

Parental Responses to School-aged Children’s Sibling Conflict

The goals of this study were: (1) to describe and compare parental responses to school-aged siblings’ conflicts; (2) to explore the sibling relationship structural correlates of the parental responses; and (3) to assess the links between type of parental response and sibling relationship quality and children’s psychosocial and physical well being. One parent from eighty-two families (mothers = 68; fathers = 13; 1 missing) of firstborn (Mage = 9.84 years old) and secondborn (Mage = 7.16 years old) children completed an anonymous survey. Parents employed a child-centered strategy most often and sanctioned sibling aggression least often in response to siblings’ conflicts. Closer age spacing among siblings was related to parents’ sanction of physical aggression. Parental response type was associated with sibling relationship quality and children’s psychosocial and physical well being. The differential associations between parental response type, sibling experiences and children’s mental and physical well being are discussed.     

See an object,hear an object file: Object correspondence transcends sensory modality

An important task of perceptual processing is to parse incoming information into distinct units and to keep track of those units over time as the same, persisting representations. Within the study of visual perception, maintaining such persisting object representations is helped by “object files”—episodic representations that store (and update) information about objects' properties and track objects over time and motion via spatiotemporal information. Although object files are typically discussed as visual, here we demonstrate that object–file correspondence can be computed across sensory modalities. An object file can be initially formed with visual input and later accessed with corresponding auditory information, suggesting that object files may be able to operate at a multimodal level of perceptual processing.     

Aging and Remote Memory Declines: Preliminary Findings

Relatively little research has examined the effect of aging upon remote memory, especially among individuals who have entered their 10th decade of life. The present study examined whether remote memory deteriorates in a group of 132 neurologically normal men and women ranging in age from 50 to 97. Remote memory was measured with a modification of the Presidents Test. The data revealed that higher levels of education corresponded with better remote memory. Additionally, age-related differences in memory occurred only in men, with those aged 90 years and older showing significantly worse remote memory than other age groups. Potential explanations and implications of these data are delineated.     

Implicit and explicit prejudice and interracial interaction.

The present research examined how implicit racial associations and explicit racial attitudes of Whites relate to behaviors and impressions in interracial interactions. Specifically, the authors examined how response latency and self-report measures predicted bias and perceptions of bias in verbal and nonverbal behavior exhibited by Whites while they interacted with a Black partner. As predicted, Whites' self-reported racial attitudes significantly predicted bias in their verbal behavior to Black relative to White confederates. Furthermore, these explicit attitudes predicted how much friendlier Whites felt that they behaved toward White than Black partners. In contrast, the response latency measure significantly predicted Whites' nonverbal friendliness and the extent to which the confederates and observers perceived bias in the participants' friendliness.     

Disinhibition of stereotyping: context,prejudice, and target characteristics

The present research examined the moderating influences of individual differences in sexism on the application of gender stereotypes to stereotypic versus nonstereotypic targets as a function of contexts that induced sex stereotypic or counterstereotypic responses. Specifically, participants first received an attribution task in which they were induced to explain a variety of gender relevant situations in gender stereotypic or nonstereotypic ways. Participants were then presented with an ostensibly unrelated person judgment task in which they were asked to judge two women who acted either ambiguously stereotypically or nonstereotypically. The initial opportunity to express stereotypes without censure accentuated stereotype application, but only for highly prejudiced participants rating a woman who acted in an ambiguously stereotypical (i.e. unassertive) manner. We consider the implications of these findings for processes of stereotype disinhibition, and the moderating influences of individual differences in prejudice, target characteristics, and local norms. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the nature of attitude–behavior relations: the strong guide,the weak follow

This study investigated the role of attitude strength as a moderator variable with regard to the direction of the relation between attitudes and behavior. The hypothesis was tested that strong attitudes guide behavior, whereas weak attitudes follow behavior in accordance with self‐perception principles. The study (N = 106) consisted of two sessions. In session 1, attitudes and attitude strength (certainty, importance, centrality) towards Greenpeace were measured. One week later, participants returned to the laboratory (session 2) and were given the opportunity to donate money to Greenpeace. After the participants' decision to donate money or not, attitudes towards Greenpeace were measured again. The results were consistent with the predictions. First, strong attitudes were more predictive of donation behavior than weak attitudes. Moreover, session 2 attitudes of weak attitude participants were influenced by their donation behavior, whereas no such effect was found among strong attitude participants. Finally, strong attitudes were also found to be more stable over time than weak attitudes. The results provide a complete overview of the moderating role of attitude strength with regard to the bi‐directional attitude‐behavior relationship. Results are discussed in the light of attitude retrieval versus attitude‐construction processes. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

From repetition to conviction: Attitude accessibility as a determinant of attitude certainty

The present experiment investigated the influence of attitude accessibility on several meta-attitudinal strength measures. It was predicted that certainty and perceived likelihood of change, i.e., commitment-related attributes of attitude strength, are influenced by changes in attitude accessibility, while no effects were expected for importance and perceived centrality to values and the self, i.e., centrality-related attributes. Accessibility was manipulated by having participants express their attitudes either repeatedly or only once. As hypothesized, accessibility and measures of commitment were enhanced after repeated expression compared to single expression. Furthermore, mediation analyses supported the idea that subjective commitment may be inferred from the ease of attitude retrieval. Centrality-related attributes were found to be unaffected by the accessibility manipulation. The results are discussed in the light of a multi-dimensional structure of attitude strength and antecedent processes of meta-cognitive attributes of strength.