The role of dark‐side of motivation and intention to continue in exercise: A self‐determination theory approach

Motivation plays an important role when it comes to regular physical exercise. Hence, low levels of intentions to continue exercising in the future may ultimately lead to higher rates of exercise dropout. The first objective of the present research was to test a theoretical model considering the dark side of motivational determinants on intentions towards exercising in the future. The second objective consisted in comparing groups with different characteristics, as a way to identify individuals with weaker intention, which is believed to be an indicator of a higher dropout risk. In total, 544 (294 female; 250 male) gym exercisers aged between 18 and 58 years (M = 35.00; SD = 11.57) partook in the present research. Participants were engaged in fitness group classes (n = 273) or in cardio/resistance workouts (n = 271), and their exercise experience ranged from 3 to 120 months (M = 47.41; SD = 7.54). Results showed that the measurement and the structural model had an excellent fit. In addition, the structural model was invariant between gender, fitness activities, and exercise experience. Each group displayed different explained variance in intention to continue exercising. Overall, male, young adults and more experienced exercisers had stronger intentions towards exercising. Fitness instructors should be aware of their own thwarting behaviors, especially when interacting with female, young and less experienced exercisers, since they have weaker intentions to exercise in the future, possibly representing an increased risk of withdrawal.     

Variables related to the emergence of differential patterns in work motivation

Several longitudinal studies have shown that motivation at work acts chaotically. In very few cases, it may be linear or random. However, the factors that might explain why these different patterns emerge have not been analysed to date. In this exploratory study, we interviewed 73 employees whose motivational patterns were previously known. The results revealed that chaotic patterns were associated with high levels of motivation, self-efficacy beliefs, and perceptions of instrumentality, and also with intrinsic personal goal orientation and a perception of high work control. Linear patterns were associated with extrinsic goals and a perception of work as difficult, and random patterns were linked to high flexibility at work.     

Body dissatisfaction in Latin and Spanish adolescents

The present paper has two aims: firstly to analyse and compare body dissatisfaction of Spanish and Latin adolescents, and secondly to determine the impact of sociocultural factors and Body Mass Index (BMI) on dissatisfaction. The sample is made up of 403 adolescents, 191 Spaniards and 212 Latin-Americans, all of them students in Basque Country high schools. They were assessed by the Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ), the CIMEC-26 (a questionnaire designed to assess the influence of the aesthetic body model), and the BMI. The results show that the Latin adolescents have a higher level of body dissatisfaction than the Spanish. This is due to the greater influence in the Latin adolescents of sociocultural factors.     

医疗广告影响公众就医行为的心理探析

利用耗散结构理论自组织概念来分析中医对病情的描述、诊断及治疗方法。先用伯纳德(Bénard)涡流概念来说明自组织耗散结构一般性质。再通过一个病案表明自组织概念与中医诊疗手段的一致性。自组织概念为研究中医提供了有力的数学工具。     

An application of bi‐logical theory to the study of psychic change and mourning4

The authors propose that the process of psychic change involves the ‘working through’ of mourning for the loss of ‘theories of life’ that are based on narcissistic omnipotent beliefs. These theories need to be changed by other more realistic ones regarding how to resolve the inherent and natural problems of existence. Questioning the ‘truth’ of these theories of life, as well as the acquisition of the perception of the existence of time, makes up part of the process referred to, and this applies to the analyst in a certain way as much as to the patient. Such problems are lived, re‐edited and revised in the transference/countertransference relationship. The authors present a clinical illustration. They explore the concepts of symmetry, asymmetry, homogenization and differentiation in MatteBlanco's bi‐logical theory and propose that these are important to the comprehension of the dynamic of the psychic changes which occur in a non‐static analytic process.     

A cortical framework for invariant object categorization and recognition

In this paper we present a new model for invariant object categorization and recognition. It is based on explicit multi-scale features: lines, edges and keypoints are extracted from responses of simple, complex and end-stopped cells in cortical area V1, and keypoints are used to construct saliency maps for Focus-of-Attention. The model is a functional but dichotomous one, because keypoints are employed to model the “where” data stream, with dynamic routing of features from V1 to higher areas to obtain translation, rotation and size invariance, whereas lines and edges are employed in the “what” stream for object categorization and recognition. Furthermore, both the “where” and “what” pathways are dynamic in that information at coarse scales is employed first, after which information at progressively finer scales is added in order to refine the processes, i.e., both the dynamic feature routing and the categorization level. The construction of group and object templates, which are thought to be available in the prefrontal cortex with “what” and “where” components in PF46d and PF46v, is also illustrated. The model was tested in the framework of an integrated and biologically plausible architecture.

On the autonomy of phonological encoding: Evidence from slips of the tongue in Spanish

The present study focuses on the relationship between the processes of lexical retrieval and phonological encoding in sentence production. An analysis of spontaneous slips of the tongue in Spanish reveals that (1) there is as yet no clear evidence for a lexical bias effect on sublexical errors (segment movement and substitution), and hence for positive feedback from phonological encoding to the level of lexical representation; and (2) meaning and form appear to be largely dissociated in lexical errors, which lends support to the hypothesis that lexical retrieval proceeds in two independent stages during sentence production. These findings are discussed in the light of two alternative accounts of language production mechanisms: the interactive activation model and the structural, processing-stages model.This research has been supported by grant no. PB87-0531 from the Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica, Spanish Ministry of Education. We thank Kathryn Bock, Gary Dell, and David Swinney for helpful comments and discussion.