Achievement Motivation among High School Basketball and Cross-Country Athletes: A Personal Investment Perspective

Abstract

Goal perspective research in the sport setting has primarily focused on task and ego goal orientations, while failing to address the influence of social goals (e.g., Urdan & Maehr, 1995). Maehr and Braskamp's (1986) personal investment theory allows researchers to examine achievement motivation from a multidimensional perspective that incorporates social factors of motivation. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the nature of the personal incentives, sense of self, and perceived options (Maehr & Braskamp, 1986) of basketball and cross-country athletes via semi-structured interviews. Results from content analyses revealed that athletes defined positive and negative experiences through task-, ego-, and socially-oriented personal incentives as well as sense of self and perceived options components. Socially-oriented personal incentives and sense of self components were more prevalent for the basketball athletes than for the cross-country athletes. Notable sport group differences suggest the need to further examine social factors of motivation with a broader representation of individual and team sport athletes.     

Sleep Symptoms as a Partial Mediator Between Combat Stressors and Other Mental Health Symptoms in Iraq War Veterans

Sleep symptoms are a prominent feature of mental health disorders like PTSD and depression. However, it is unknown whether sleep symptoms mediate the relationship between combat stress and these disorders. We examined the mediating role of sleep symptoms on the relationship between combat stress and PTSD; and the relationship between combat stress and depression using data from 576 Army veterans of the Iraq War surveyed in 2004. Correlational analyses revealed that when insomnia was included in the model, the correlation between combat stressors and other depression symptoms decreased by 65%; and when nightmares were included in the model, the correlation between combat stressors and other PTSD symptoms decreased by 69%. We replicated these analyses using individual items assessing PTSD and depression and found that the insomnia and nightmare items had the largest and second largest mediation effect between combat stressors and PTSD and depression symptoms. Our result support the theory that sleep symptoms contribute to the development and/or maintenance of other mental health symptoms and that early treatment of sleep symptoms may mitigate the other mental health consequences of combat stress.     

A titration procedure for generating escape behavior

In a grid-shock escape paradigm using time-out as reinforcement, both fixed-ratio and variable-interval performances were established directly from a continuous reinforcement schedule with rats and guinea pigs. A procedure was developed that employed a stepwise decrease in reinforcement time for all responses except the terminal response. Acquisition and long-term maintenance data were obtained from Ss trained on this titrated negative-reinforcement procedure.     

Associations Between Clinic-Referred Boys and Their Fathers on Childhood Inattention-Overactivity and Aggression Dimensions

The question asked in this study of 70 clinically referred 6- to 12-year-old boys with behavior problems was whether or not childhood inattention-overactivity and aggression are transmitted specifically from biological fathers to sons. Fathers' self-reported childhood inattention-overactivity on a retrospectively valid measure was exclusively associated with parents' ratings of their sons' current attention problems on the Mothers' Operational Measure for Sub-grouping (MOMS), the Revised Child Behavior Checklist (RCBCL), and an approximated DSM-IV inattention dimension. Fathers' self-reported childhood aggression was not associated with ratings of their sons' aggression on the MOMS or DADS (a parallel instrument for fathers), nor on DSM-III oppositional or conduct disorder dimensions, but it was exclusively associated with RCBCL ratings of sons' aggressive and delinquent behavior. None of the nonspecific correlations (father inattention-overactivity with son aggression or father aggression with son inattention-overactivity) was significant.     

Psychoanalytic supervision and the larger truth

If one asks, then, what is the larger truth in supervision and where is it to be found, the answer is that it is to be found in the history and character of the student; in the intersubjective encounter between the student and the supervisor; in the secret use of supervision by the student as he creatively searches for himself. However one chooses to define truth or to speak to a theory of supervision, it is important to note that supervision is not purely an educational activity nor a therapeutic one. It lies somewhere in between and therefore requires some unique theoretical formulations.     

Compensatory Response to Anticipated Densities1

The coping processes associated with crowding stress were conceptualized as dynamic sequences of personal or situational adjustments and readjustments directed toward maintaining desired frequencies of social contact. By studying ongoing coping processes as subjects prepared for anticipated crowding, evidence of social withdrawal as a response to crowding was obtained. In addition, findings suggested that these processes were sensitive to change in the situation, seeking or avoiding interaction as anticipated group size changed. Subjects who were subsequently told that they would be interacting in small groups rather than in larger groups reported less crowding and discomfort than subjects whose anticipation of large group interaction was maintained. Furthermore, subjects whose expectations of large group interaction were disconfirmed increased facial regard for others following disconfirmation, indicating a greater willingness to interact. These findings were discussed as evidence of optimization processes governing desired levels of social contact, intimacy, and personal space.