Personality and performance in real-world competitions: Testing trait activation of fear of negative evaluation,dispositional reinvestment,and athletic identity in the field

ObjectivesBased on the trait activation principle, researchers have tested whether personality traits are capable of predicting sport performance (under pressure). Typically, however, these investigations followed experimental approaches in the laboratory and only rarely in the field. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to test for the generalizability of findings gained in these experimental studies and to investigate potential trait activation for real-world performance in competitions. Based on prior studies on the prediction of performance under pressure, the selected personality traits involved fear of negative evaluation, dispositional reinvestment, and athletic identity.DesignPersonality traits were used as predictors for low-pressure and high-pressure basketball free-throw performance.MethodFirst, 53 basketball players completed trait questionnaires. Second, directly prior to performance assessments, participants reported on perceived importance, their somatic and cognitive state anxiety, and confidence. Third, free-throw performance was assessed in a low-pressure condition (i.e., successful free-throw percentage for 30 attempts) and repeatedly in 12 high-pressure conditions within real basketball matches (i.e., successful free-throw percentage for total attempts).ResultsTwo main findings were identified: First, none of the traits predicted performance under low pressure. Second, under high-pressure, only fear of negative evaluation as well as state anxiety were significantly negatively associated with performance in competitions.ConclusionThese results extend existing literature and add applied and ecologically valid empirical support for the relevance of anxiety-related traits (i.e., fear of negative evaluation) and states for performance under pressure in real-world competitions, emphasizing the importance of self-presentational considerations in athletes when the stakes are high.     

Letter writing as a reflective practice: understanding the shuffling,shifting, and shaping of a researcher identity

This article presents letter writing as a form of arts-based inquiry and reflective practice. The author argues that letter writing can be employed to develop a reflective space for autobiographical reflection. The letter featured here captures and demonstrates the shuffling, shifting, and shaping processes of the author’s researcher identity through letter writing, and is informed by the theoretical underpinnings of reflective practice. It records and investigates the experiences that the author underwent during a compulsory course in the first year of a doctoral program at a North American university. Three interrelated themes are identified in the letter: the researcher identity in crisis, the nature of research, and future researcher identity. It is concluded that letter writing can facilitate the self-evolution, self-introspection, self-awareness, and identity change that emerges with, and through, reflection. Letter writing as a reflective practice offers the benefits of developing self-knowledge, independent thought, critical thinking, and deconstructive understanding of one’s experiences.     

Ecological momentary assessment of bulimia nervosa: Does dietary restriction predict binge eating?

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between caloric restriction (CR) and binge eating (BE) using ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Participants included 133 women with bulimia nervosa (BN) who completed an EMA protocol for 2 weeks. Logistic regression analyses tested whether CR increased the probability of BE episodes. The results revealed that the odds of BE increased on the day that restriction occurred as well as on the following day. In addition, both restriction and BE on one day predicted the likelihood of BE the subsequent day, but restriction for two days prior to the episode failed to add additional information for predicting BE. These findings support the cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) model of BN, suggesting that self-reported dietary restriction is predictive of subsequent BE episodes, and that reducing dietary restriction in treatment may lead to improvements in bulimic symptoms.     

家庭伦理失范:青少年犯罪的重要原因

青少年犯罪的原因是复杂的、多方面的,分析和研究青少年犯罪现象,可以得出结论:家庭伦理道德的失范是青少年犯罪的重要原因。     

Affective small stories – Witnessing an ‘ideal’ instance of knowledge mobilization

In this short reflective intervention, I utilize an innovative narrative format to document my account of being an invited academic witness for the Canadian House of Commons as a graduate student. Drawing upon layered forms of critical witnessing, I utilize five small stories to consider this seemingly ideal instance of sexual health knowledge mobilization that spanned academic, government, media, and social-profit sectors. I braid complex, messy threads to capture my affective wayfinding through the complicated institutional processes involved in the generation, representation, critique and control of sexual knowledge. Highlighting how this work can be more broadly applicable to graduate students and emerging scholars in related disciplines, I note how my critical witnessing is intertwined with social, economic and political conditions present in Canada and elsewhere. This work additionally illustrates experimental self-inquiry that disrupts distinctions between researcher/subject/seer and participant/object/seen.     

Supportive Coparenting,Parenting Stress,Harsh Parenting,and Child Behavior Problems in Nonmarital Families

Supportive coparenting is an identified protective factor for child development and behavioral outcomes. What is less known is how supportive coparenting dynamically links with other aspects of parenting and parent well‐being, particularly in multi‐stressed nonmarital families. This study used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study, analyzed within a structural equation model, to explore how mothers’ experience of maternal depression, maternal age, father education, and SES interacted with their parenting stress and supportive coparenting to impact child behavioral problems and harsh parenting practices. Among the findings, more supportive coparenting was found to be significantly associated with fewer child behavioral problems and less harsh parenting. Transmitted through supportive coparenting and parenting stress acting as mediator, maternal depressive symptoms were indirectly and positively related to harsh parenting practices and child behavior problems. These findings are discussed within the context of the broader literature and next steps for research are discussed.     

Ecology of Sites of Confinement: Everyday Life in a Detention Center for Illegalized Non‐citizens

Drawing on almost 3 years of fieldwork, comprising qualitative interviews and ethnographic observations, this study provides an exploration into the detention of illegalized non‐citizens in Italy. Taking the largest detention center as a case study, the fabric of everyday life and the lived experiences of people, both detainees and professional actors, are the focus of examination. An ecological community psychology framework, with a focus on justice, guided the data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Findings highlight the oppressive qualities of detention, and its ripple effects on people's life spaces. Scarcity of resources, activities, and information created a very distressing environment for detainees, also enhancing feelings of powerlessness and frustration in professionals willing to assist them. Uncertainty and instability, rather than coercion or discipline, emerged as modes of governing and dominating. Bound in a different space and time, detainees were turned into unwanted and expendable others, their confinement becoming a means to extract profit from them. Yet, people languishing in these sites displayed an extraordinary ability to cope with, resist, and challenge the persisting conditions of injustice they endured. We conclude by highlighting the potential of the proposed framework, and discussing broader implications of our findings and avenues for research and action.     

School Counselors,Multiple Student Deaths,and Grief: A Narrative Inquiry

A team of 5 school counselors were interviewed to learn how they professionally and personally experienced the deaths of multiple students in 1 year in their school while attending to the needs of the school community. By using narrative inquiry, 5 themes emerged from the analysis: gravity of the losses, logistics of care, personal vs. professional conflicts, increased student cohesion, and efficacy. Recommendations for counselor preparation, research, and counseling practice are offered.     

Ecological Predictors of Disciplinary Style and Child Abuse Potential in a Hispanic and Anglo-American Sample

Recent attention to multicultural issues has sparked recognition that parenting is also a culturally construed phenomenon. The present study involved a diverse sample of 90 Anglo-American and Hispanic parents examining predictors based on distal/proximal levels as conceptualized in the ecological model. The study examined background characteristics (e.g., minority status, educational level, income), intrapersonal (anger, parenting competence, parenting satisfaction), and extrapersonal (social support) factors in the prediction of child abuse potential and dysfunctional disciplinary style. Parents participated anonymously in an in-home assessment. Neither minority status nor income predicted abuse potential or parenting style beyond what was accounted for by educational level. The pattern of findings for the sample suggests the relative importance of anger expression, parenting self-efficacy, and social support satisfaction in both abuse potential and disciplinary style for both Hispanic and Anglo-American parents. Future research directions with diverse samples are considered, including the need for measures specifically designed to assess parenting issues in diverse cultural groups.     

Parental involvement in competitive youth sport settings

ObjectivesBased on ecological systems theory [Bronfenbrenner, U. (2005). Making human beings human: Bioecological perspectives on human development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage], the purpose of this study was to examine parents’ involvement in competitive youth sport settings.DesignData were collected through two distinct phases of fieldwork. Phase 1 involved longitudinal data collection with four families. Phase 2 involved observations of youth soccer settings.MethodData were collected from four families via individual interviews and audio-diaries and were supplemented through 120 h of observation. Data were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using grounded theory methodology.ResultsParents’ verbal reactions to their children's sport performance behaviors were placed on a continuum moving from more supportive to more controlling comments. These comments were categorized as praise/encouragement, performance contingent feedback, instruction, striking a balance, negative comments, and derogatory comments. Parents experienced empathy in that they perceived sharing the emotions their children felt in sport, and these emotions appeared to change in relation to dynamic game and contextual circumstances. Parents also thought that they possessed knowledge and expertise of sport, which they perceived enabled them to make comments to their children.ConclusionA series of reciprocal and bi-directional relationships were central to parents’ involvement in competitive youth sport.