Rediscovering the Positive Psychology of Sport Participation: Happiness in a Ski Resort Context

Interrelated functions of the three orientations to happiness were examined by a cross-sectional survey, in the context of a ski resort experience. Accordingly, a conceptual framework of pleasure, flow, and involvement influencing satisfaction was established. Utilizing structural equation modeling, the conceptual framework was tested by analyzing data collected from 279 participants who enjoyed skiing and/or snowboarding. Results from bootstrap test indicated that direct and total effects from flow had the highest predictive power on satisfaction. In contrast, pleasure showed higher explanatory power on subjective experiences of flow and meaning, and influenced satisfaction only by indirect effects through those elements. Together, these findings support the research model synthesizing the behavioral constructs of sport participation with subjective well-being perspectives. Moreover, the expanded model in a sporting context further evidences the functional roles of the orientations to happiness by results consistent with extant literature of positive psychology. Roles of embodiments of orientations to happiness in an action-based exercise and its implications are further discussed.     

Demographic and Experiential Correlates of Public Attitudes Towards Cell-Free Fetal DNA Screening

This study seeks to inform clinical application of cell-free fetal DNA (cffDNA) screening as a novel method for prenatal trisomy detection by investigating public attitudes towards this technology and demographic and experiential characteristics related to these attitudes. Two versions of a 25-item survey assessing interest in cffDNA and existing first-trimester combined screening for either trisomy 13 and 18 or trisomy 21 were distributed among 3,164 members of the United States public. Logistic regression was performed to determine variables predictive of interest in screening options. Approximately 47 % of respondents expressed an interest in cffDNA screening for trisomy 13, 18, and 21, with a majority interested in cffDNA screening as a stand-alone technique. A significantly greater percent would consider termination of pregnancy following a diagnosis of trisomy 13 or 18 (52 %) over one of trisomy 21 (44 %). Willingness to consider abortion of an affected pregnancy was the strongest correlate to interest in both cffDNA and first-trimester combined screening, although markedly more respondents expressed an interest in some form of screening (69 % and 71 %, respectively) than would consider termination. Greater educational attainment, higher income, and insurance coverage predicted interest in cffDNA screening; stronger religious identification also corresponded to decreased interest. Prior experience with disability and genetic testing was associated with increased interest in cffDNA screening. Several of these factors, in addition to advanced age and Asian race, were, in turn, predictive of respondents’ increased willingness to consider post-diagnosis termination of pregnancy. In conclusion, divergent attitudes towards cffDNA screening—and prenatal options more generally – appear correlated with individual socioeconomic and religious backgrounds and experiences with disability and genetic testing. Clinical implementation and counseling for novel prenatal technologies should take these diverse stakeholder values into consideration.     

Understanding the psychological processes of the racial match effect in Asian Americans

Some studies on mental health outcomes research have found that when clients and therapists are ethnically or racially matched, this tends to be related to greater satisfaction and better outcomes. However, the precise underlying mechanism for the match effect has not been extensively examined. In this experimental study, we tested the effect of racial match on critical counseling processes (i.e., therapist credibility and the working alliance) using a sample of 171 Asian American respondents. We also examined Asian ethnic identification as a potential moderator of the racial match effect. Structural equation modeling analyses indicated that racially matched individuals perceived greater experiential similarity with the therapist than nonmatched individuals, and experiential similarity was positively associated with therapist credibility. Although racial match did not predict attitudinal similarity, attitudinal similarity was strongly related to the working alliance and therapist credibility. Counseling implications are discussed.     

Congruency sequence effect in cross-task context: Evidence for dimension-specific modulation

The congruency sequence effect refers to a reduced congruency effect after incongruent trials relative to congruent trials. This modulation is thought to be, at least in part, due to the control mechanisms resolving conflict. The present study examined the nature of the control mechanisms by having participants perform two different tasks in an alternating way. When participants performed horizontal and vertical Simon tasks in Experiment 1A, and horizontal and vertical spatial Stroop task in Experiment 1B, no congruency sequence effect was obtained between the task congruencies. When the Simon task and spatial Stroop task were performed with different response sets in Experiment 2, no congruency sequence effect was obtained. However, in Experiment 3, in which the participants performed the horizontal Simon and spatial Stroop tasks with an identical response set, a significant congruency sequence effect was obtained between the task congruencies. In Experiment 4, no congruency sequence effect was obtained when participants performed two tasks having different task-irrelevant dimensions with the identical response set. The findings suggest inhibitory processing between the task-irrelevant dimension and response mode after conflict.     

Rhythm typology of Korean speech

According to their rhythmic properties, spoken languages have been classified by linguists into three categories, i.e. stress-timed, syllable-timed and mora-timed. Recently, this intuitive classification has been confirmed valid with perceptual studies. These studies have shown that both newborn infants and adults, upon hearing the pure rhythms of certain languages, are only able to discriminate between languages of the different categories mentioned above. These results indicate that the capacity of the categorization of the human cognitive system makes possible the classification of language that is not yet explored rhythmically. Here, we investigate the Korean spoken language through the adults discrimination tasks with resynthesized speech. Experimental results indicate that the Korean language is, like Japanese, one of the mora-timed languages.