Relation of perfectionism with athletes' burnout: further examination

The purpose was to examine the different aspects of perfectionism and athletes' burnout. College athletes (N = 320) with mean age of 19.7 yr. (SD = 1.4) completed the Chinese version of the Multiple Perfectionism Scale for Sport and the Eades' Athlete Burnout Inventory. Results indicated that perfectionism could be separated into adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism. Adaptive perfectionism was linked to reduced athletes' burnout while maladaptive perfectionism was associated with athletes' burnout. In addition, significant interaction was found between adaptive perfec tionism and maladaptive perfectionism on athletes' burnout. Results suggest that high maladaptive perfectionism and low adaptive perfectionism corresponds to higher scores on athletes' burnout. Perfectionism should not be treated as an all-or-nothing disposition. The extent of athlete burnout can vary with the interaction effects of the two types of perfectionism. In terms of practical implications in intervention work, coaches and sport psychologists should try to reduce athletes' maladaptive perfectionism and increase adaptive perfectionism.     

Conscious and unconscious forms of memory in different implicit tests

This study investigated how shallow processing (complexity rating), deep processing (pleasantness rating), and semantic generation (translating from English) of Chinese words affects conscious memory (CM) and unconscious memory (UM) of the words with three implicit tests: word association, word identification, and word-stem completion. A metacognition-based dissociation procedure was used to estimate the two forms of memory for each test. Except for the shallow condition preceding the word-association test, all three study conditions produced a positive effect on the estimate of CM. The estimate of UM did not benefit from any of the study conditions in the word-association test, it benefited from the shallow and deep conditions but did not benefit from the generation condition in the stem-completion test, and it benefited from the shallow condition but did not benefit from the deep and generation conditions in the word-identification test. Implications of these results for CM and UM operations are discussed.     

Gender differences in Taiwan university students' attitudes toward Web-based learning.

This study explored gender differences on university students' attitudes toward Web-based learning in Taiwan. A Web-based Learning Attitude Survey (WLAS) was developed. The WLAS consisted of five scales, including access, social structure, content, pedagogy, and community relationship toward Web-based learning. By using an online survey, this study gathered the responses of 1,866 Taiwanese university students (940 males and 926 females) whose ages ranged from 18 to 23. The results showed significant gender differences in the aspects of social structure, content, and community relationship involved in Web-based learning. Interestingly, although females might consider the Internet a masculine-dominated technology, they displayed more favorable attitudes than males did regarding the impacts of socioeconomic status (the social structure scale) on students' performance of Web-based learning. Moreover, females possessed more positive attitudes than males toward the helpfulness and variety of the content for Web learning. However, they did not think the virtual interaction on the Internet could develop adequate teacher-student and peer relationships (the community relationship scale). Some follow-up interviews were also conducted with selected students, and the implications derived from this study were discussed.     

Risk perception in Taiwan

In a questionnaire study, 51 Taiwanese college students were asked to judge 48 natural and human-made hazards on nine risk characteristics. Another group of 61 students were asked to rate the magnitude of 80 hazards and their attitudes toward these hazards. To evaluate the dimensionality of risk perception, participants' ratings for the nine risk characteristics were analyzed using Profile Analysis via Multidimensional Scaling approach. Two dimensions of risk perception were identified: (i) Involuntary versus Immediate Effect; and (ii) Delayed Effect versus Known to Science and Chronic. The relationships of risk perceptions and perceived public and private responsibilities in risk management were examined. Catastrophic, certain-to-be-fatal, dreaded, and uncontrollable risks were perceived as more deserving of public risk management, while controllable risks that were known to science, known to those exposed, and chronic were perceived as more deserving of private management. In particular, diseases are perceived as most deserving of private risk management and least deserving of public risk management; and technologies are perceived as most deserving of public risk management and least deserving of private risk management.     

Modeling Customer Loyalty from an Integrative Perspective of Self-Determination Theory and Expectation–Confirmation Theory

Purpose  This research conceptualizes and tests an integrative model of customer loyalty by linking two important theories: expectation–confirmation theory and self-determination theory. Design/Methodology/Approach  The model is examined using data obtained from 207 part-time students who have encountered the service of a skincare and beauty salon in Taiwan. These students work as full-time professionals in a variety of industries during the daytime and are financially independent for their daily consumption. Findings  The empirical results of this study indicate that loyalty is positively influenced by both intrinsic regulation and identified regulation, while introjected regulation and external regulation are insignificantly related to loyalty. Affected positively by service expectation and service confirmation, satisfaction has positive influences on all four dimensions of self-determined motivation—namely, intrinsic regulation, identified regulation, introjected regulation, and external regulation. Implications  The findings of this study show that the proposed model helps to learn about loyalty formation and its mediating mechanism in service contexts. Intrinsic regulation and identified regulation may be applied as two potential checkpoints for management to learn the actual status of customer loyalty based on a constant service quality offered by the service provider. Originality/Value  This study is one of the earliest to integrate expectation–confirmation theory and self-determination theory to explore loyalty. Besides, this study transplants the traditional application of self-determination theory from educational service to commercial service in general so that efficient strategies can be made for boosting loyalty.     

Inhibitory response capacities of bilateral lower and upper extremities in children with developmental coordination disorder in endogenous and exogenous orienting modes

This study was designed to investigate separately the inhibitory response capacity and the lateralization effect in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) in the endogenous and exogenous modes of orienting attention. Children with DCD on the lower extremities (DCD-LEs), along with age-matched controls, completed four tasks that involved various applications of asynchronous stimuli to the feet or hands at various intervals. The results demonstrated that children with DCD-LEs had a significantly longer reaction time than the controls for all tasks, and were not alert to the appearance of the target. However, they displayed a deficit in volitional shifts of attention (endogenous mode), but not in automatic dislocation of attention (exogenous mode), whenever they performed the tasks with either their lower or their upper-limbs-even 6 months after the initial study. These findings confirm the deficit in the inhibitory response capacity in terms of volitional movement of attention by children with DCD. Additionally, the negative effect of lateralization on the bilateral extremities was not present in children with DCD-LEs. Significantly differences in response ability were detected only between the dominant and non-dominant sides of upper-limbs, but not between the lower-limbs, suggesting a future avenue for further experimentation on bilateral extremities.     

Mechanisms of deficit of visuospatial attention shift in children with developmental coordination disorder: A neurophysiological measure of the endogenous Posner paradigm

The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare the mechanisms of brain activity, as revealed by a combination of the visuospatial attention shifting paradigm and event-related potentials (ERP) in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and typically developing children. Twenty-eight DCD children and 26 typically developing children were recorded with regard to their behavioral performance and ERP measures during a variant of the endogenous Posner paradigm, in which they should react to visual targets preceded by spatial cues or presented uncued. Children with DCD showed longer reaction time and a deficit in inhibitory response capacity when compared to typically developing children. The electrophysiological characteristics also showed distinct modulatory effects upon attentional orienting, anticipatory mechanisms, and cognitive-to-motor transfer in children with DCD: longer cue-P3 and target-N1 latency, smaller target-P3 amplitude, an elongated interval between N2 and the motor response (N2-RT), and small areas on contingent negative variation (CNV). The combined analysis of behavioral performance and ERP data suggested that children with DCD had deficits of slower target identification (N1), less ability in interhemispheric (P3) and cognitive-to-motor transfer speed (N2-RT), as well as a less mature anticipatory and executive process (CNV).     

Validation of the Gratitude Questionnaire (GQ) in Taiwanese Undergraduate Students

The aim of this study was to translate and validate the Gratitude Questionnaire (GQ; McCullough et al. 2002) using Taiwanese undergraduate students. A total of 608 college students (M _age = 20.19, SD = 2.08) were recruited for the current study and they completed the GQ, optimism, happiness, and big five personality questionnaires. Confirmation factor analysis indicated that a five item model was a better fit than the original six item model. Cross-validation also supported the modified Chinese version of the GQ. In addition, the Chinese version of the GQ was, as expected, positively correlated with optimism, happiness, agreeableness, and extraversion, which supported its construct validity. The Cronbach’s α was .80 for the Chinese version of the GQ, indicating satisfactory validity and reliability in a Taiwanese student sample. It was concluded that the Chinese version of the GQ would be useful for assessing individual differences in dispositional gratitude.