A Tale of Two Traditions in Applied Sport Psychology: The Heyday of Soviet Sport and Wake-Up Calls for North America

This paper is the second of two essays designed to acquaint English-speaking readers with the work of Avksenty Tcezarevich Puni (1898–1986), one of the fathers of Russian sport psychology. In our previous essay “The Russian origins of sport psychology: a translation of an early work of A. Tc. Puni” (Ryba, Stambulova, & Wrisberg, 2005 Ryba, T. V., Stambulova, N. B. and Wrisberg, C. A. 2005. The Russian origins of sport psychology: A translation of an early work of A. Tc. Puni. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 17: 157–169. [CSA][Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), we discussed Puni's innovative ideas of psychological preparation of athletes based on his classic paper “Psychological preparation of athletes for a competition” that was published in 1963. In that essay, we grounded Puni's pioneering work within the specific socio-political and historical context of his era by providing a brief overview of his life (including extensive explanatory footnotes) in pre- and post-Socialist Revolution Russia. In this paper, we attempt to further historicize the work of Puni on the psychological preparation of athletes by discussing his ground-breaking model of Psychological Preparation for a Competition (PPC) and contrasting that work with the activity of sport psychology consultants taking place in North America during the same time period (i.e., 1960s and 1970s). In a concluding section, we will discuss some of the lessons sport psychology consultants have learned in the decades since Puni developed his model and suggest some ways future models might expand on Puni's view of the provision of psychological assistance for athletes.     

Empathy and feedback processing in active and observational learning

The feedback-related negativity (FRN) and the P300 have been related to the processing of one’s own and other individuals’ feedback during both active and observational learning. The aim of the present study was to elucidate the role of trait-empathic responding with regard to the modulation of the neural correlates of observational learning in particular. Thirty-four healthy participants completed an active and an observational learning task. On both tasks, the participants’ aim was to maximize their monetary gain by choosing from two stimuli the one that showed the higher probability of reward. Participants gained insight into the stimulus–reward contingencies according to monetary feedback presented after they had made an active choice or by observing the choices of a virtual partner. Participants showed a general improvement in learning performance on both learning tasks. P200, FRN, and P300 amplitudes were larger during active, as compared with observational, learning. Furthermore, nonreward elicited a significantly more negative FRN than did reward in the active learning task, while only a trend was observed for observational learning. Distinct subcomponents of trait cognitive empathy were related to poorer performance and smaller P300 amplitudes for observational learning only. Taken together, both the learning performance and event-related potentials during observational learning are affected by different aspects of trait cognitive empathy, and certain types of observational learning may actually be disrupted by a higher tendency to understand and adopt other people’s perspectives.     

The Events of 1648–1649: Contemporary Reports and the Problem of Verification

Writing the history of the events of 1648–1649 has been especially difficult. The chronicle sources used by modern historians to unravel the course of the war, irrespective of whether the author was a Jew, a Pole, or a Ukranian, privilege argument over accuracy. Their priority is to justify national ideologies, and they are replete with motifs, topoi, and symbols that do not easily strip away. One motif is that of the “wars of mercenaries,” in which elements typical of professional soldiery appear to cut across religious or even national lines. Two additional topoi, “the purification of the land” and the “syndrome of the overturned world,” repeat constantly, both describing what must be either done or reversed to achieve national deliverance. To take the chronicles at face value is to risk simply reproducing the topoi, if not the myths, of the chronicles themselves. Yet the chronicles do convey the framework of ideas within which authors desired their accounts to be read: a framework that is perennially a cosmic one of purification and total renewal. By the same token, it is from this point, and this point only, that an actual reconstruction of events may begin. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Contribution of Individualism vs. Collectivism to Cross-national Differences in Display Rules

Despite the fact that display rules are an important concept of theories of emotion and contemporary psychology, relatively little cross-cultural research has been done on them. This study examined cross-national differences in display rules of emotion, and investigated the degree to which those differences could be attributed to Individualism and Collectivism (IC) measured on the individual level. Participants in the US, Japan, South Korea, and Russia completed a comprehensive measure of display rules assessing behavioral tendencies for seven universal emotions in four social contexts in two rating domains. They also completed Matsumoto et al .'s (1997) Individualism–Collectivism Interpersonal Assessment Inventory. The results confirmed the existence of cross-national differences in IC and display rules, and indicated that IC and display rules were correlated. Significant differences between the countries remained even after IC was controlled for, and effect size analyses comparing cross-national differences when IC was controlled and not indicated that IC accounted for approximately 30% of the effect sizes related to cross-national differences. This study is unique in that it not only used the concept of IC to explain and predict differences; it also quantitatively assessed the degree to which IC contributed to those differences. These findings are discussed in terms of the utility of the IC concept to understanding cross-cultural and cross-national differences in emotion.     

Would You Be Happier If You Looked Better? A Focusing Illusion

Some people might believe that individuals who are more satisfied with their body are also happier. However, people tend to overrate the influence of some factors (e.g. money or health) on their happiness; a phenomenon termed the focusing illusion. Our aim was to examine the focusing illusion in relation to body satisfaction. We experimentally manipulated body satisfaction and life satisfaction focus by varying the order of relevant measurement scales. Volunteers (N = 97) completed two questionnaires placed in separate envelopes to control the order of scales administration. Participants either completed the Body Satisfaction Scale followed by the Satisfaction with Life Scale or vice versa. In line with the focusing illusion the association between body satisfaction and life satisfaction was significantly stronger when participants were asked about their body satisfaction first. Body satisfaction as a focusing illusion may need to be considered by scientist as well as lay people who try to look better and be happier.     

Lions (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Panthera leo</Emphasis>) solve,learn, and remember a novel resource acquisition problem

The social intelligence hypothesis proposes that the challenges of complex social life bolster the evolution of intelligence, and accordingly, advanced cognition has convergently evolved in several social lineages. Lions (Panthera leo) offer an ideal model system for cognitive research in a highly social species with an egalitarian social structure. We investigated cognition in lions using a novel resource task: the suspended puzzle box. The task required lions (n = 12) to solve a novel problem, learn the techniques used to solve the problem, and remember techniques for use in future trials. The majority of lions demonstrated novel problem-solving and learning; lions (11/12) solved the task, repeated success in multiple trials, and significantly reduced the latency to success across trials. Lions also demonstrated cognitive abilities associated with memory and solved the task after up to a 7-month testing interval. We also observed limited evidence for social facilitation of the task solution. Four of five initially unsuccessful lions achieved success after being partnered with a successful lion. Overall, our results support the presence of cognition associated with novel problem-solving, learning, and memory in lions. To date, our study is only the second experimental investigation of cognition in lions and further supports expanding cognitive research to lions.     

Procedural Multimedia Presentations: The Effects of Working Memory and Task Complexity on Instruction Time and Assembly Accuracy

Procedural text conveys information of a series of steps to be performed. This study examined the role of verbal and visuo‐spatial WM in comprehension and execution of assembly instructions, as a function of format (text, images, multimedia) and task complexity (three or five steps). One hundred and eight participants read and executed 27 instructions to assemble a LEGO^TM object, in single and dual task conditions. Study times and errors during assembly were measured. Participants processed faster pictorial and multimedia instructions than text instructions, and made fewer errors in the execution of multimedia instructions. Dual task affected more text or picture‐only, than multimedia presentation. A verbal secondary task caused more errors in text or picture‐only presentations, and spatial secondary task also caused interference in text‐only instructions. Overall, these results support the multimedia advantage, and the role of both verbal and visuo‐spatial WM, when understanding instructions. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Collateral Reports and Cross-Informant Agreement about Adult Psychopathology in 14 Societies

To advance international mental health assessment, instruments that have been internationally validated are needed. To this end, we analyzed ratings from 14 societies on the Adult Behavior Checklist (ABCL), a collateral-report form parallel to the Adult Self-Report (ASR; Achenbach and Rescorla 2003) for ages 18 to 59. Both the ABCL and the ASR assess problems, personal strengths, and adaptive functioning. For a sample of 8322 see note below collaterals, we found strong consistency across societies regarding which ABCL problem items tended to obtain relatively low, medium, or high ratings. Most societal effect sizes (ESs) for problem scale scores were small to medium (< 13.9 %), but the ES for the ABCL Personal Strengths scale was 25 %. For most of the same participants (N = 8,302), we analyzed cross-informant agreement between self-reports on the ASR and collateral reports on the ABCL. Cross-informant correlations for problem scale scores averaged .47, with considerable societal variation. Problem score means were higher on the ASR than the ABCL in every society, but the size of the difference varied across societies. Mean item ratings on the ABCL and ASR were highly correlated within every society (mean r = .92), but within-dyad item rating agreement varied widely in every society (mean r = .39). In all societies, non-corroboration of self-reported deviance and of collateral-reported deviance was common. Overall findings indicated considerable similarity but also some important differences in collateral-reported problems and adaptive functioning across 14 societies.     

“Set your minds on things above”: shifting from trauma-based ruminations to ruminating on God

In this study, the authors investigated the relationship between trauma-based “Christian rumination,” mindfulness, and focusing on God among an online sample of Christian adults (N?=?234) from the United States. Participants endorsed experiencing a range of traumatic events, including natural disasters, car accidents, the death of loved ones, assault, and abuse, as well as the tendency to continue to think about the event. Using structural equation modelling, results revealed that “Christian rumination,” consisting of trauma-related ruminations (e.g., “why” and “what if” questions about the traumatic event, questioning God’s availability in the midst of the traumatic event), was positively associated with attempts to focus on God as a form of religious coping, mediated by mindfulness skills (i.e., attention, present focus, awareness, acceptance). The authors conclude by discussing a manualized treatment approach in development, based on the empirically-confirmed theoretical model in the present study, along with study limitations.