Relationships between self-concept and achievement

This study is based on a multifaceted and hierarchical model of self-concept and explores the relationships between the various facets of self-concept and academic achievement. The model of self-concept has general self-concept at the apex, then academic self-concept, presentation of self, and social self-concept. There are 7 third-order factors: achievement, ability, and classroom self-concepts (academic), physical self-concepts (social). Further, there are four specific-subject and peer and family self-concepts (social). Further, there are four specific-subject self-concepts. The argument proposed in this study is that the relations between achievement and the facets of academic self-concept are greater than the relations between achievement and presentation of self and social self-concept. This argument is not rejected. Adolescents consistently evaluate themselves across various academic subjects, but there are no relationships between achievement and other aspects of the self.     

Bicyclists’ speed adaptation strategies when conducting self-paced vs. system-paced smartphone tasks in traffic

The increasing prevalence of mobile phone usage while cycling has raised concerns, even though the number of cyclists involved in accidents does not increase at a comparable rate. A reason for this may be how cyclists adapt travelling speed and task execution to the current traffic situation. The aim of this study is to investigate speed adaptation among cyclists when conducting self-paced (initiated by the cyclist) vs. system-paced (initiated by somebody else) smartphone tasks in real traffic.Twenty-two cyclists completed a track in real traffic while listening to music, receiving and making calls, receiving and sending text messages, and searching for information on the internet. The route and the types of tasks were controlled, but the cyclists could choose rather freely when and where along the route to carry out the tasks, thus providing semi-naturalistic data on compensatory behaviour.The results clearly show that cyclists use conscious strategies to adapt their speed to accommodate the execution of secondary phone tasks. Regarding tactical behaviour, it was found that cyclists kept on cycling in 80% of the system-paced cases and in 70% of the self-paced cases. In the remaining cases, the cyclists chose to execute the phone task while standing still or when walking. Compared to the baseline (17.6 ± 3.5 km/h), the mean speed was slightly increased when the cyclists listened to music (18.2 ± 3.7 km/h) and clearly decreased when they interacted with the phone (13.0 ± 5.0 km/h). The speed reduction profile differed between self-paced and system-paced tasks with a preparatory speed reduction before task initiation for self-paced tasks.In conclusion, when the cyclists had the chance they either stopped or adapted their speed proactively to accommodate the execution of the phone task. For self-paced tasks, the speed reduction was finalised before task initialisation, and for system-paced tasks the speed adaptation occurred in reaction to the incoming task. It is recommended to investigate whether the observed compensatory behaviour is enough to offset the possible negative effects of smartphone use.     

Urban cyclists’ perspectives on post-collision behaviour change: A qualitative study

This study explores whether urban cyclists change on-road cycling behaviour following a collision(s) with a motor vehicle, an area that has not been explored in quantitative and qualitative transportation research. Purposive sampling was employed and data was collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews with 9 males and 9 females from Toronto, Canada. An inductive realist thematic method was used to analyze the data. Overall, three main themes were drawn out: cycling reflexivity, cycling behavioural change and resistance to cycling behavioural change. Eliciting the theme of cycling reflexivity, these findings reveal that all post-collision cyclists actively contemplated behavioural change, and the adoption or resistance toward cycling behavioural change was influenced by intersectional internal and external dispositions emanating from pre-collision cycling behaviours. By adopting general modifications and or defensive cycling practices, in total, 12 cyclists described cycling behavioural change. In contrast, eliciting the resistance toward cycling behavioural change theme, 6 participants indicated that there were no observable modifications in post-collision cycling behaviour. Grounded in the locus of control theory and the health belief model, this study elucidates cycling behavioural change as a psychological and behavioural coping mechanism employed by this particular cohort of cyclists in an effort to mitigate future collisions with motor vehicles. These novel findings set the stage for future research into cyclists’ post-collision experiences grounded in psychological and or behavioural research paradigms.     

Contextual interference processing during fast categorisations of facial expressions

We examined interference effects of emotionally associated background colours during fast valence categorisations of negative, neutral and positive expressions. According to implicitly learned colour–emotion associations, facial expressions were presented with colours that either matched the valence of these expressions or not. Experiment 1 included infrequent non-matching trials and Experiment 2 a balanced ratio of matching and non-matching trials. Besides general modulatory effects of contextual features on the processing of facial expressions, we found differential effects depending on the valance of target facial expressions. Whereas performance accuracy was mainly affected for neutral expressions, performance speed was specifically modulated by emotional expressions indicating some susceptibility of emotional expressions to contextual features. Experiment 3 used two further colour–emotion combinations, but revealed only marginal interference effects most likely due to missing colour–emotion associations. The results are discussed with respect to inherent processing demands of emotional and neutral expressions and their susceptibility to contextual interference.