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.     

Evidence Supporting the Importance of Peripheral Visual Information for the Directional Control of Aiming Movement

The focus of the present study was on determining whether the high level of directional accuracy found in aiming studies in which the subjects can see their hand in the visual periphery supports the existence of a kinetic visual channel or, rather, the advantage of binocular over monocular vision for movement directional control. The limits of this kinetic visual channel were also explored. The results of the 1st experiment indicated that seeing one's hand in the visual periphery is sufficient to ensure optimal directional aiming accuracy. Further, no differences in aiming accuracy were noted between monocular and binocular vision. These results supported the existence of a visual kinetic channel. In the 2nd experiment, whether this kinetic visual channel would operate with movements slower (55°/s) than those usually used in studies that had proved its existence (over 110°/s) was determined. The results indicated that this visual kinetic channel was operative even at relatively slow movement velocities. Central vision of the hand seemed to be used for on-line directional control of relatively slow movements.     

Estimating Latent Variable Interactions With Nonnormal Observed Data: A Comparison of Four Approaches

A Monte Carlo simulation was conducted to investigate the robustness of 4 latent variable interaction modeling approaches (Constrained Product Indicator [CPI], Generalized Appended Product Indicator [GAPI], Unconstrained Product Indicator [UPI], and Latent Moderated Structural Equations [LMS]) under high degrees of nonnormality of the observed exogenous variables. Results showed that the CPI and LMS approaches yielded biased estimates of the interaction effect when the exogenous variables were highly nonnormal. When the violation of nonnormality was not severe (normal; symmetric with excess kurtosis < 1), the LMS approach yielded the most efficient estimates of the latent interaction effect with the highest statistical power. In highly nonnormal conditions, the GAPI and UPI approaches with maximum likelihood (ML) estimation yielded unbiased latent interaction effect estimates, with acceptable actual Type I error rates for both the Wald and likelihood ratio tests of interaction effect at N ≥ 500. An empirical example illustrated the use of the 4 approaches in testing a latent variable interaction between academic self-efficacy and positive family role models in the prediction of academic performance.     

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.     

How “American” is Barack Obama? The Role of National Identity in a Historic Bid for the White House

Against the backdrop of the 2008 presidential election, we examined the extent to which the American identity was implicitly and explicitly associated with Barack Obama compared to Tony Blair (Study 1), Hillary Clinton (Study 2), and John McCain (Studies 3 and 4). When conscious control was relatively limited and targets were categorized based on race, the American identity was less strongly associated with Obama than with the other candidates. This effect was stronger than when the candidates were categorized based on their personal identity (Studies 1–4), gender (Study 2), political affiliation (Study 3), or age (Study 4). In addition, the extent to which candidates were differentiated in terms of implicit and explicit associations with the American identity predicted the relative willingness to actively support them.     

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.     

A Note on the Conscious Controls of Motor Units by Children Under Six

A simple form of training the conscious control of motor units in skeletal muscle has been demonstrated in a series of children under age 6. Easy boredom is the chief deterrent in the very young. So long as a child understands and cooperates, he can learn to isolate single units in a period of about 30 min.