Strengthening the relationship between physical activity and physical self-concept: The moderating effect of controllable attributions

Individuals who are more physically active, compared to those who are less physically active, typically report more favourable perceptions of their physical appearance and functioning (i.e., physical self-concept). However, there is limited empirical evidence examining how psychological processes associated with physical activity can affect the strength of this relationship. In the current study, perceptions of controllability (i.e., controllable attributions) was tested as a moderator of the relationship between physical activity and physical self-concept. A sample of 189 adults (M_age = 23.8 years; n_male = 76, n_female = 112, n_unspecified = 1) read hypothetical scenarios that elicited emotions specific to achievement or failure. Participants completed measures assessing their attributions for each scenario, together with self-report physical activity and physical self-concept. In the final models, the relationship between physical activity and physical self-concept was stronger among those participants who reported higher perceptions of controllability. The effectiveness of physical activity interventions may be improved through attributional retraining to adaptive (controllable) attributions.     

Moral Values Reveal the Causality Implicit in Verb Meaning

Prior work has found that moral values that build and bind groups—that is, the binding values of ingroup loyalty, respect for authority, and preservation of purity—are linked to blaming people who have been harmed. The present research investigated whether people's endorsement of binding values predicts their assignment of the causal locus of harmful events to the victims of the events. We used an implicit causality task from psycholinguistics in which participants read a sentence in the form “SUBJECT verbed OBJECT because…” where male and female proper names occupy the SUBJECT and OBJECT position. The participants were asked to predict the pronoun that follows “because”—the referent to the subject or object—which indicates their intuition about the likely cause of the event. We also collected explicit judgments of causal contributions and measured participants' moral values to investigate the relationship between moral values and the causal interpretation of events. Using two verb sets and two independent replications (N = 459, 249, 788), we found that greater endorsement of binding values was associated with a higher likelihood of selecting the object as the cause for harmful events in the implicit causality task, a result consistent with, and supportive of, previous moral psychological work on victim blaming. Endorsement of binding values also predicted explicit causal attributions to victims. Overall, these findings indicate that moral values that support the group rather than the individual reliably predict that people shift the causal locus of harmful events to those affected by the harms.     

Predicting counterproductive work behavior: Do implicit motives have incremental validity beyond explicit traits?

This study extends research on the link between personality and Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB) by investigating whether the implicit Affiliation, Achievement, and Power motives contribute to the prediction of CWB beyond basic personality traits. Employees high in Affiliation, Achievement, and Power motives may disengage from CWB because it is not rewarding and thwarts goal attainment. In Study 1 (N = 263), we found that Affiliation predicted self-rated CWB beyond traits. In Study 2 (N = 121), we found that Affiliation and Power predicted supervisor-rated CWB. Our findings thus suggest to also consider implicit motives as personality determinants of CWB.     

Achievement motive,autonomous motivation,and attendance at fitness center: A longitudinal prospective study

ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to test whether achievement motive, autonomous forms of exercise motivation (intrinsic motivation, identified regulation), and controlled forms of exercise motivation (introjected regulation, external regulation) would predict gym attendance over 30 consecutive weeks in a sample of new gym members.DesignA longitudinal prospective study with four distinct measurement occasions was employed. Psychological variables and gym attendance were assessed in the first, fourth, 15th, and 30th week after starting the membership.MethodParticipants were 229 new gym members. The implicit achievement motive was measured using the Picture Story Exercise. The explicit achievement motive and exercise motivations were measured with questionnaires. Gym attendance was obtained via self-reports and also recorded electronically. Multilevel growth modeling was used as the main analysis method.ResultsParticipants overestimated their self-reported gym attendance; the overall gap between self-reported and actual attendance was 39%. The achievement motive did not predict participants’ gym attendance over the 30-week period, neither for self-reported nor for actual. The effect of autonomous motivation was mixed. Intrinsic motivation predicted self-reported, but not actual, gym attendance over the 30-week period, whereas the evolution of intrinsic motivation was unrelated to gym attendance. Identified regulation was unrelated to gym attendance, but the increase in identified motivation over time positively predicted both self-reported and actual gym attendance. Controlled motivation was unrelated to gym attendance.ConclusionsContinuous and regular participation in an exercise program is more likely when individuals enjoy the program and consider it personally important.     

青少年的同伴选择与同伴影响：基于学业投入与学业成就的纵向社会网络分析

以756名中学生为研究对象,对学业投入、学业成就、同伴团体进行追踪测量,探讨青少年同伴团体的学业投入及学业成就是否存在同伴选择与同伴影响效应。结果表明：（1）在1年的追踪时间中,青少年学业投入的发展呈下降趋势,初始水平与下降速度负相关,学业成就的发展呈上升趋势,初始水平与上升速度无显著相关;（2）学业投入与学业成就存在同伴选择效应,青少年倾向选择与自己学业投入及学业成就相似的个体构建同伴团体;（3）青少年的学业投入及学业成就与同伴逐渐趋近相似,即同伴影响效应显著。     

Explicit and implicit attitudes towards food and physical activity in childhood obesity

This study investigated differences in the explicit and implicit attitudes towards food and physical activities between children with obesity (n=38) and a matched control group (n=38). The implicit attitude was assessed using the Extrinsic Affective Simon Task (EAST; J. Exp. Psychol. (50) (2003) 77), a modified version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT; J. Personality Social Psychol. (74) (1999) 1464). It was expected that both groups would report a positive explicit attitude towards healthy food and intense physical activities, and a negative explicit attitude towards unhealthy food and sedentary activities. Of particular interest was the hypothesis that children with obesity would have a more positive implicit attitude towards unhealthy food and sedentary activities than the control group. Results revealed no differences between groups in the explicit attitude towards food and physical activity. Children and adolescents with obesity had a more pronounced positive implicit attitude towards food in general. The relevance of these findings in terms of prevention, treatment and further research is discussed.     

Parenting, achievement strategies and satisfaction in ice hockey

The aim of this study is to understand adolescent players' satisfaction as a function of parenting styles, players' achievement strategies, and their norm breaking behavior. Finnish 14- and 16-year-old ice-hockey players (n=1018) completed a questionnaire measuring their achievement strategies (SAQ; Nurmi, Salmela--Aro & Haavisto, 1995 b), as well as scales of norm breaking and satisfaction, prepared for the present study. The parents (n=979) filled in scales measuring their parenting styles (CRPR; Pulkkinen, 1996) and attitudes towards norm breaking. Results revealed that players from authoritative families who showed a high level of mastery-orientation expressed high satisfaction in playing ice hockey. Results also showed negative associations between authoritative parenting and both task irrelevant and norm breaking behavior. Parents with parental stress and those with authoritarian parenting styles showed positive attitudes to norm breaking behavior, and players from authoritarian and parental stress homes showed norm breaking behavior in ice hockey. There was no association between norm breaking behavior and player satisfaction. Our results contribute to the planning of a coaching system that serves more educational and developmental purposes, and that encourages the desire to play ice hockey as a hobby.     

Academic Self-Schemas and their Self-Congruent Learning Patterns: Findings Verified with Culturally Different Samples

This paper reported two studies investigating high school students’ academic self-schemas in learning mathematics and their self-congruent learning engagement patterns. Using cluster analyses, Study 1 located two contrasting groups of students holding positive and negative self-schemas in learning mathematics among Chinese participants. MANOVA analyses showed that these two groups of Chinese schematic students differed from each other in the use of achievement goals, approaches to learning, and expected levels of performance. These findings were validated and extended in Study 2 using a culturally different sample, Australian students. Again, cluster analyses successfully classified Australian participants into positive and negative schematic clusters. It was also found that these two groups of schematic students approached learning mathematics in a self-congruent manner similar to those found in Study 1. The converging results in both studies lent empirical support to the theoretical formulation of positive and negative schematic students and the validity of using the self-schema concept to investigate motivation and learning. The differences in their learning engagement patterns were discussed in terms of students’ different academic self-schemas in learning mathematics.