Young Tennis Players’ Competitive Task Involvement and Performance: The Role of Goal Orientations,Contextual Motivational Climate,And Coach-Initiated Motivational Climate

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of situational and dispositional factors in contributing to competitive task involvement and performance in young tennis players. One hundred fifty-one adolescent tennis players and their coaches participated in the study. Participants responded to instruments measuring pre-game dispositional goal orientations and perceptions of the motivational climate and post-game task involvement in the competition by assessing concentration, loss of self-consciousness, and autotelic experience, perceptions of coach-initiated motivational climate in competition, and self-evaluation of game performance. In addition, coaches evaluated the players’ performance. Results showed that task involvement was predicted by players’ perceptions of a coach-initiated learning motivational climate in competition. Loss of self-consciousness was predicted by the players’ perceptions of a coach-initiated performance climate in competition. Finally, coaches’ and players’ assessment of performance were predicted by autotelic experience, concentration, and by perception of coach-initiated learning and performance orientation in competition.     

Measuring Postural Sway in Sitting: A New Segmental Approach

Global measures of trunk sway are traditionally used even though the trunk comprises a multiple number of segments. The authors’ aim was to measure the seated sway of typically developing children using a multisegment approach. Twenty typically developing children divided into 2 groups, older and younger than 10 years old, participated in this study. The children sat unsupported for 30 s while their posture and sway were quantified using stereophotogrammetry. The tendency in both age groups was to sit with a backward tilted pelvis and a kyphotic trunk. The sitting position was most varied in the younger group. Marker sway amplitude and velocity in sitting were age dependent, with reduced sway amplitude and velocity with increased age for all segments. Anteroposterior intersegmental angular sway was not age dependent. The difference in marker sway in the anteroposterior direction for the younger group appeared to result from an equally stable trunk supported on a less stable pelvis. Mediolateral marker sway and intersegmental angular sway showed a clearer age dependency. Trunk postural control does not appear to differ between children older and younger than 10 years old, but sagittal plane pelvic stability can explain the increased sway reported in younger children.     

Right-wing authoritarianism predicts prejudice against “homosexuals” but not “gay men and lesbians”

Can different social category labels for a single group be associated with different levels of prejudice — specifically, sexual prejudice? Some theorizing, and a pilot study in the present research, suggests that the label “homosexuals” carries more deviance-related connotations than does the label “gay men and lesbians.” Given that right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) correlates positively with prejudice against groups stereotyped as deviant, it was hypothesized that RWA would predict greater prejudice against “homosexuals” than “gay men and lesbians” among heterosexual participants. Two studies supported this hypothesis and demonstrated that the effect was driven by both perceived threats to heterosexuals' values (i.e., symbolic threat; Study 1) and perceived fundamental differences between “homosexuals” and heterosexuals as social categories (i.e., psychological essentialism; Study 2). Implications for the factors that predict social categorization of and prejudice toward sexual minorities are discussed.     

Children with behaviour problems: the influence of social competence and social relations on problem stability,school achievement and peer acceptance across the first six years of school

The aims of the present study were to investigate the role for problematic children of the child's social competence, teacher relations and behaviour with peers for later problem persistence, school performance and peer acceptance, in terms of moderating (protective and exacerbating) and independent effects. Groups of children with externalizing (n=26) and internalizing (n=25) problems and a non‐problematic group (n=44) were followed from grade 1–6. Teachers rated behaviour problems and social competence in the first, third and sixth grades, the teacher–child relationship in third grade, and school achievement in sixth grade. Behaviour with peers was assessed in observations in later elementary school. Peer acceptance was assessed through peer nominations in sixth grade. Both problem groups had lower social competence, school achievement and peer acceptance in sixth grade than the non‐problematic group. There were moderating and independent effects of social competence, teacher and peer relations on outcomes, but these applied mainly to children with internalizing problems. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Connected guys: Endorsement of masculine honour predicts more frequent contact with members of criminal organisations

Italian criminal organisations (COs) engage in contact with community members to assert their control over local populations in Southern Italy. According to intracultural appropriation theory, COs’ presence in these regions is legitimised by values of masculinity and honour. Here, we test the role of these values in drawing people closer to COs, facilitating more frequent contact with COs’ members. Study 1 (N_T1 = 176, N_T2 = 170) used a two-wave longitudinal design demonstrating that endorsement of masculine honour predicts more frequent contact with COs after five months. In contrast, results revealed no longitudinal effect of contact frequency on masculine honour endorsement. Using a cross-sectional design, Study 2 (N = 314) extended these results by revealing an indirect effect of masculine honour on the tendency to see COs as embodying honour and respect (romanticisation), through more frequent contact with COs’ members. Limitations, directions for future research and implications of these results are discussed.     

Evidence for linguistic deficit in nonlexical processing in reading. A study of a Spanish-speaking patient

Previous studies have shown that in the so-called opaque languages (those in which spelling does not correspond to pronunciation), there are relatively independent routes for lexical and nonlexical processing, that is, for words and nonwords, both in spoken and in written language. On the other hand, in the so-called transparent languages (those in which pronunciation corresponds to written forms), empirical evidence is scarcer. In this study of a neurological patient (parieto-temporal lesion), speaker of a transparent language (Spanish) showing a specific deficit in nonlexical reading processing, linguistic analysis for words was relatively preserved. This finding suggests the use of various routes in the processing of transparent languages.     

Low social inclusion in childhood: adjustment and early predictors

The principal aim of the present study was to obtain a deeper understanding than hitherto of the concurrent correlates and prospective predictors of loneliness and poor peer acceptance, both falling under the umbrella term low social inclusion. Problematic and socially competent behaviours were investigated as possible predictors of low social inclusion in grade 6, as defined by self‐rated loneliness and degree of peer non‐acceptance, respectively. In grade 6 808 children participated whereof 323 were followed longitudinally from first grade. Loneliness in grade 6 was distinctively associated with high levels of internalizing problems, concurrently as well as prospectively. Peer acceptance, on the other hand, emerged as a complex, multifaceted aspect, with concurrent, independent predictions from both externalizing and internalizing problem behaviours as well as social competence, although prospective analyses found early externalizing problems to be the strongest predictor of peer acceptance. Moderating effects of social competence were sparse, although peer nominated social competence buffered peer acceptance for children with high levels of aggression in the concurrent analyses and social competence boosted peer acceptance for children with low problem levels in the predictive analyses. Social competence did not appear to buffer the negative impact of early problem behaviours on peer relations. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does self-consciousness increase or decrease priming effects? It depends

Self-consciousness has been shown to both increase and decrease the magnitude of prime-to-behavior effects. In this paper, we decouple the facets of self-consciousness into internal state awareness and self-reflectiveness and show that self-consciousness can be associated with multiple influences on automatic behavior. Specifically, we conducted an experiment demonstrating that increased internal state awareness decreased the magnitude of the prime-to-behavior effect, whereas increased self-reflectiveness amplified the effect. These effects operated independently of self-monitoring and suggest a multiple process approach to understanding prime-to-behavior effects.     

Photoelectric-helicoidal spirometer

This paper describes a photoelectric-helicoidal spirometer that has been designed in our laboratory. It includes a cylindrical helix (or turbine) partitioned in each of its blades by means of opaque plates transversally disposed. These plates obstruct the ray of light emitted by a diode, preventing it from reaching a photoreceptor located at the opposite side of the turbine. These basic elements are located in a module that can be adjusted to a mask that covers nostrils and mouth. Control software for this device is also described. The software facilitates a graphical representation of respiratory activity, as well as its storage in the computer. Software has been designed to be adaptable to any digital-to-analog converter. Both the device and the software have several advantages over traditional spirometers, as well as other nonspirometric techniques for studying respiratory activity.     

Single-letter recognition as a function of exposure duration

The time course of visual letter recognition was investigated in a single-stimulus identification experiment. On each trial, a randomly chosen stimulus letter was presented at 1 of 12 equiprobable positions that were equally spaced around the circumference of an imaginary circle centered on fixation. Exposure duration was varied from 10 to 200 ms, and the letter was followed by a pattern mask. The subject's task was to report the identity of the stimulus letter but refrain from guessing. For the briefest exposures, correct reports never occurred. For longer exposures, the function relating the probability p of recognizing the letter to the duration t of the stimulus exposure was well approximated by an exponential distribution function: p(t) = 1 − exp[−v·(t−t ₀)], where v is the rate of processing and t ₀ is the minimum effective exposure duration. The generality of this finding may be limited to cases in which stimuli are highly discriminable and response criteria are conservative. Extensions to Poisson counter or random walk models are considered for cases in which stimuli are confusable. Received: 1 July 1997 / Accepted: 2 July 1998