The Long and Winding Road: An Autobiographic Study of an Elite Athlete Mother’s Journey to Winning Gold

Within sport psychology, researchers have explored elite athlete mothers’ experiences. More work is needed to understand the nuanced psychosocial aspects of their athletic journeys. Studying autobiographical narratives is useful toward understanding the psychosocial nuances of motherhood and athletics in sociocultural context. Within the present study we sought to extend this understanding through studying one elite athlete’s—British runner Jo Pavey—journey as an athlete mother within her autobiography This Mum Runs (26 chapters totaling 253 pages). Thematic narrative analysis of key chapters focusing on pregnancy and motherhood in relation to training and competition allowed for the identification of a central theme—discovery narrative–reconfiguring the performance narrative—along with two subthemes: go with the flow and best of both worlds. The subthemes are used to illustrate the navigation of tensions in relation to an athlete mother identity grounded in family relationships to facilitate training and competition goals, within a discovery narrative. Applied sport psychology recommendations are made using narrative theory in relation to key findings. Recommendations focused on athlete stories and narrative resources as concrete entry points to encourage compatible athlete mother identities and sport career engagement. This study adds to sport psychology work that has used autobiography as theoretical, analytical, and applied resources to expand understanding of marginalized and/or hard to access topics in elite sport. This is the first autobiographic study to focus on elite athlete mother identities, furthering understanding of nuanced identity negotiation and experiences over time.

Lay Summary: Understanding of elite athlete mother's negotiation of identity and athletic career is expanded through studying published/public autobiographical narratives. A discovery narrative grounded in personal growth and family relationships facilitates strategies that facilitate training and competition goals.     

“My Culture, My Family, My School, Me”: Identifying Strengths and Challenges in the Lives and Communities of American Indian Youth

Historically, the majority of research with American Indian (AI) youth and communities has focused on vulnerabilities, problems, and needs rather than resilience, strengths, and assets. Adding to the limited research which has examined AI youth and communities using the strengths perspective, we examined community assets, personal strengths, community challenges, and personal hardships as perceived by reservation-based, Northern Plains AI youth via open-ended survey questions. The present study was conducted during the spring and fall of 2009 at a tribal school in the Northern Plains (N = 95; n = 37 males; n = 58 females; aged 14.4–20.95 years; M = 17.3, SD = 1.47 years). The majority of youth self-identified their ethnic background as solely AI (85.3 %), with small percentages reporting additional ethnic backgrounds. Analyses revealed that the people in their lives, especially their families, are significant sources of strength for AI youth. Findings also indicated that AI youth have a positive orientation toward themselves and their communities, which was evidenced by the fact that the youth identified more strengths than challenges in their lives. Somewhat unexpectedly, when asked what aspects of their lives and communities they would most like to change, a significant number of the youth identified they wanted to change “nothing” about their personal lives or their communities. Reasons for these responses are explored.     

Constance “Connie” Hanf (1917–2002): The Mentor and the Model

This article provides an account of the impact of Constance Hanf, Ph.D., developer of the well-known two-stage parent training model that bears her name. Past colleagues, interns, postdoctoral students, and undergraduate trainees reflect on their experiences with Dr. Hanf and comment on her influence on their careers, as well as the impact of the model on child behavior therapy. The paper first briefly describes child therapy as it existed before the advent of behavioral parent training, and subsequently describes Dr. Hanf's parent training model and career. Finally, we attempt to elucidate the personal side and professional impact of this very important figure in contemporary empirically based work with families.     

Same-Sex Intimate Partner Violence: Lesbian,Gay, and Bisexual Affirmative Outreach and Advocacy

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is pervasive and crosses all boundaries of sexual orientation, race, and class. Scholars contend that the intimidation of another person through abusive acts and words is not a gender issue. Organizations seeking to offer equitable services to survivors of IPV must intentionally establish themselves as inclusive agencies. This article presents a review of common societal myths and barriers to help-seeking for survivors of same-sex partner violence and offers program guidelines for lesbian, gay, and bisexual affirmative outreach services and advocate training.     

Spirituality and Substance Abuse Recovery

Researchers explored patient and staff perceptions of spiritual well-being and the spiritual needs of patients enrolled in a residential substance abuse treatment program. The Spiritual Well-Being Scale was used to gather quantitative data. Additionally, a brief questionnaire containing one qualitative and two quantitative questions was completed by both clients and staff. A statistically significant difference was found, indicating a more positive sense of spiritual well-being among patients upon discharge. Although the staff and clients of the residential program have similar perceptions regarding the concept of spiritual well-being, their definitions do not appear identical.     

Imaginative Faith: Apocalyptic,Science Fiction Theory,and Theology

Abstract : Both pastors and academic theologians have struggled with the place of apocalyptic language and imagery within the modern worldview. Many have dismissed apocalyptic as escapist and have alleged that it is divorced from the political and social concerns at the heart of contemporary theology and practice. Yet, contemporary critical theorists have overcome similar suspicions about science‐fiction and now embrace it as a unique vehicle for thinking about the ills and the promise of contemporary culture. This essay suggests that within contemporary critical theory one finds useful tools for reading and using apocalyptic language and imagery as a means for engaging a world threatened by sin and violence.     

Reflecting on Six Decades of Selective Exposure Research: Progress,Challenges, and Opportunities

For over 60 years, researchers have explored the validity of the selective exposure hypothesis, which states that people will seek out consonant, and avoid dissonant, information. In early cognitive dissonance‐based research, selective exposure received mixed support. More recently, researchers have begun to delineate the factors that regulate the occurrence of selective exposure in a multitude of contexts. In this review, we discuss a number of such moderators as well as the ebb and flow of research over the years. We propose that many of these factors can be conceptualized as influencing capacity and/or motivations to process information, and we discuss how this framework can help categorize past, and suggest future, moderators. Finally, we highlight that other research domains should be considered when exploring selective exposure effects, and that researchers should consider how findings from the selective exposure literature can fruitfully be applied to other domains.     

Collective Rationality and Collective Reasoning

Philosophical Studies -     

Reply to Gaus,Richardson, and Weber

Philosophical Studies -     

Global and local evaluations of public speaking performance in social anxiety

Differences in the relative use of global and local information (seeing the forest vs. the trees) may explain why people with social anxiety often do not benefit from corrective feedback, even though they pay close attention to details in social situations. In the current study, participants high (n = 43) or low (n = 47) in social anxiety symptoms gave a series of brief speeches, and then self-rated their speaking performance on items reflecting global and local performance indicators (self-assessment) and also received standardized performance feedback from an experimenter. Participants then completed a questionnaire asking how they thought the experimenter would rate their performance based on the feedback provided (experimenter assessment). Participants completed the self- and experimenter assessments again after 3 days, in addition to a measure of postevent processing (repetitive negative thinking) about their speech performance. Results showed that, as hypothesized, the High SA group rated their performance more negatively than the Low SA group. Moreover, the High SA group's ratings of global aspects of their performance became relatively more negative over time, compared to their ratings of local aspects and the Low SA group's ratings. As expected, postevent processing mediated the relationship between social anxiety group status and worsening global performance evaluations. These findings point to a pattern of progressively more negative global evaluations over time for persons high in social anxiety.