The Concept of Mental Toughness: Tests of Dimensionality,Nomological Network,and Traitness

Mental toughness has received increased scholarly attention in recent years, yet conceptual issues related to its (a) dimensionality, (b) nomological network, and (c) traitness remain unresolved. The series of studies reported in this article were designed to examine these three substantive issues across several achievement contexts, including sport, education, military, and the workplace. Five studies were conducted to examine these research aims—Study 1: N = 30; Study 2: calibration sample (n = 418), tertiary students (n = 500), athletes (n = 427), and employees (n = 550); Study 3: N = 497 employees; Study 4: N = 203 tertiary students; Study 5: N = 115 army candidates. Collectively, the results of these studies revealed that mental toughness may be best conceptualized as a unidimensional rather than a multidimensional concept; plays an important role in performance, goal progress, and thriving despite stress; and can vary and have enduring properties across situations and time. This series of studies provides a foundation for further basic and applied research of mental toughness across various achievement contexts.     

Relations among mothers' expressivity, children's effortful control, and their problem behaviors: a four-year longitudinal study

Longitudinal relations between mothers' expressivity, children's effortful control, and their problem behaviors were examined when children (N = 181) were 6.5-10 years old (T2) and again 2 (T3) and 4 (T4) years later. Mothers reported on their expression of positive and negative dominant emotion. Mothers and teachers reported on children's effortful control and externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors. In structural equation models, variables exhibited consistency over time. Further, the relation between mothers' expressivity (positive minus negative dominant emotion) at T2 and children's externalizing problems at T4 was mediated by T3 effortful control. The same process of mediation was significant for teacher- but not mother-reported internalizing problems. The results provide one explanation for how emotion-related socializing behaviors influence children's problem behaviors.     

Relations of proactive and reactive dimensions of aggression to overt and covert narcissism in nonclinical adolescents

In recent years, there has been increasing acknowledgment of the multidimensionality of narcissism and that different types of narcissism may relate differently to other domains of functioning. Similarly, aggression—a frequently discussed correlate of narcissism—is a heterogeneous construct. In this study, the relations of proactive and reactive aggression with overt and covert manifestations of narcissism were examined in a sample of 674 Italian high school students (mean age=15.5 years, SD=2.1 years). Overt narcissism was positively related to both proactive and reactive subtypes of aggression, whereas covert narcissism related only to reactive aggression. Vanity, Authority, Exhibitionism, and Exploitativeness were the components of overt narcissism related to Proactive Aggression (all remained unique correlates when controlling for Reactive Aggression), whereas Reactive Aggression was associated with the Exhibitionism, Superiority, and Entitlement subscales (only the latter was uniquely related when controlling for Proactive Aggression). Aggr. Behav. 36:21–27, 2010. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Evaluation of a Mental Toughness Training Program for Youth-Aged Australian Footballers: I. A Quantitative Analysis

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of two different psychological skills training (PST) packages in enhancing mental toughness among three youth-aged (under 15 years old) Australian football teams. We compared a program targeting the keys to mental toughness identified previously (Gucciardi, Gordon, & Dimmock, 2008 Gucciardi, D. F., Gordon, S. and Dimmock, J. A. 2008. Towards an understanding of mental toughness in Australian football. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 20: 261–281. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) with a more traditional PST program targeting self-regulation, arousal regulation, mental rehearsal, attentional control, self-efficacy, and ideal performance state as well as a control group. Overall, both intervention groups reported more positive changes in subjective ratings of mental toughness, resilience, and flow than the control group. Similar ratings for mental toughness were reported by the parents and coaches. Both PST packages appeared to be equally effective in enhancing mental toughness.     

Child Pornography Offending Seen Through Three Theoretical Lenses

Understanding the complex issues surrounding child pornography offending is still in its infancy, and questions regarding the etiological underpinnings of sexually deviant interests and behaviors for these offenders remain both salient and unanswered. This article considers these questions through the lenses of three psychological theories of behavior: (1) social learning theory, (2) courtship disorder theory, and (3) behavioral economics. The development and maintenance of child pornography offending, as well as the potential for off-line escalation of those behaviors, from each theoretical perspective is discussed and the implications for theoretically grounded clinical practice is explored.     

Chaotic attractors in the therapeutic system 1

Because little research had been done on the presence and role of latent communication in the context of team‐conducted family therapy, the writers set out to monitor unconscious responses generated under these conditions. Specifically, they investigated an ongoing family treatment situation conducted according to the “reflecting team model.” One team of therapists handles the actual treatment session, while the other observes from behind a one‐way mirror. During the course of a session, the second team makes suggestions to the treatment team either by telephone or by calling the therapists out of the treatment room.

As the project developed, the writers found that the unconscious responses of both family and treatment teams indicated a process at work beyond the conscious intentions of the participants. That is, the therapeutic enterprise was functioning as a dynamical system, whose increasing complexity suggested a self organizing principle at work. This paper traces the development of the system's movement toward greater complexity, identifies the specific interventions that indicate this process, describes how all participants demonstrated a high degree of resonance and synchronization with this overarching‐self organizing pattern. This paper serves to alert therapists to the role of unconscious communication within the therapeutic system and postulates that the generation of form within psychotherapy follows many of the same self organizing processes found in other human and non human systems.