Dimensions of Coaching Behavior, Need Satisfaction, and the Psychological and Physical Welfare of Young Athletes

Grounded in self-determination theory (E. L. Deci & R. M. Ryan, 2000), the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of dimensions of coaching behavior to intrinsic need satisfaction and indices of psychological and physical well-being among male adolescent athletes. Participants were 265 British soccer and cricket players (M _age = 16.44). Structural equation modeling analysis, using maximum likelihood robust method, showed athletes' perceptions of autonomy support, mastery focus, and social support from the coach to predict their satisfaction of the needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, respectively. The satisfaction of the need for competence emerged as the most important predictor of psychological and physical well-being. The findings suggest that particular aspects of the social environment may be salient for fostering particular psychological needs. The results also underline the importance of perceived competence for the psychological and physical welfare of adolescents in team sports.     

Finer Distinctions: Variability in Satisfied Older Couples’ Problem‐Solving Behaviors

This study utilized observational and self‐report data from 64 maritally satisfied and stable older couples to explore if there were meaningful differences in how couples approached marital disagreements. Using a typology approach to classify couples based on their behaviors in a 15‐minute problem‐solving interaction, findings revealed four types of couples: (1) problem solvers (characterized by both spouses’ higher problem‐solving skills and warmth), (2) supporters (characterized by both spouses’ notable warmth), (3) even couples (characterized by both spouses’ moderate problem‐solving skills and warmth), and (4) cool couples (characterized by both spouses’ greater negativity and lower problem‐solving skills and warmth). Despite the differences in these behaviors, all couples had relatively high marital satisfaction and functioning. However, across nearly all indices, spouses in the cool couple cluster reported poorer marital functioning, particularly when compared to the problem solvers and supporters. These findings suggest that even modest doses of negativity (e.g., eye roll) may be problematic for some satisfied couples later in life. The implications of these typologies are discussed as they pertain to practitioners’ efforts to tailor their approaches to a wider swath of the population.     

Knowledge before Gettier

According to a historical claim oft-repeated by contemporary epistemologists, the ‘traditional’ conception of knowledge prevailed in Western philosophy prior to the publication in 1963 of Edmund’s Gettier’s famous three-page article ‘Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?’. On this conception, knowledge consists of justified true belief. In this article, I critically consider evidence for and against this historical claim, and conclude with a puzzle concerning its widespread acceptance.     

Learning new problem-solving strategies leads to changes in problem representation

Children sometimes solve problems incorrectly because they fail to represent key features of the problems. One potential source of improvements in children's problem representations is learning new problem-solving strategies. Ninety-one 3rd- and 4th-grade students solved mathematical equivalence problems (e.g., 3 + 4 + 6 = 3 + __) and completed a representation assessment in which they briefly viewed similar problems and either reconstructed each problem or identified it in a set of alternatives. Experimental groups then received a lesson about one or both of two solution strategies, the equalize strategy and the add–subtract strategy. A control group received no instruction. All children completed posttest assessments of representation and problem solving. Children taught the equalize strategy improved their problem representations more than those not taught it. This pattern did not hold for the add–subtract strategy. These results indicate that learning new strategies is one source of changes in problem representation. However, some strategies are more effective than others at promoting accurate problem representation.     

Aquinas’s Miracles and the Luciferous Defence: The Problem of the Evil/Miracle Ratio

Miracles and the problem of evil are two prominent areas of research within philosophy of religion. On occasion these areas converge, with God’s goodness being brought into question by the claim that either there is a lack of miracles, or there are immoral miracles. In this paper I shall highlight a second manner in which miracles and the problem of evil relate. Namely, I shall give reason as to why what is considered to be miraculous may be dependent upon a particular response to the problem of natural evil. To establish this claim, I shall focus upon Aquinas’s definition of a miracle and a particular free-will defence, the Luciferous defence.

The roles of emotion management and perspective taking in individuals’ conflict management styles and disposition to forgive

This study aimed to link two fields of research: conflict management and forgiveness. Adult participants (n = 122) and a validating sample of significant others (n = 122) completed measures of disposition to forgive, conflict style, emotion management, and perspective taking; and multi-dimensional models of their relationships were tested. Disposition to forgive was most consistently associated with problem solving and yielding conflict styles. Greater perspective taking was associated with greater forgiveness, and greater problem solving and yielding conflict styles, as well as with lesser fighting style; and perspective taking fully or partially mediated the relationship between ability to repair emotions and dispositions to forgive and problem solve during conflict. Significant other reports confirmed most of the findings based on self-report.     

Why good thoughts block better ones: the mechanism of the pernicious Einstellung (set) effect

The Einstellung (set) effect occurs when the first idea that comes to mind, triggered by familiar features of a problem, prevents a better solution being found. It has been shown to affect both people facing novel problems and experts within their field of expertise. We show that it works by influencing mechanisms that determine what information is attended to. Having found one solution, expert chess players reported that they were looking for a better one. But their eye movements showed that they continued to look at features of the problem related to the solution they had already thought of. The mechanism which allows the first schema activated by familiar aspects of a problem to control the subsequent direction of attention may contribute to a wide range of biases both in everyday and expert thought - from confirmation bias in hypothesis testing to the tendency of scientists to ignore results that do not fit their favoured theories.     

Social problem solving and autobiographical memory in posttraumatic stress disorder

This study investigated the relationship between overgeneral autobiographical memory and social problem solving in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Civilian trauma survivors with and without PTSD (N=41) provided autobiographical memories of events in response to positive and negative cue words. Participants also completed the means-end problem-solving (MEPS) procedure. PTSD participants reported more overgeneral memories, regardless of cue valence, than non-PTSD participants. Individuals with PTSD also displayed poorer problem solving than those without PTSD. Overgeneral autobiographical memory was strongly associated with deficits in problem solving. This study suggests that deficient problem solving in PTSD is associated with impaired retrieval of specific autobiographical memories.     

Observation can be as effective as action in problem solving

This study discusses findings that replicate and extend the original work of Burns and Vollmeyer (2002) , which showed that performance in problem-solving tasks was more accurate when people were engaged in a non-specific goal than in a specific goal. The main innovation here was to examine the goal specificity effect under both observation-based and conventional action-based learning conditions. The findings show that goal specificity affects the accuracy of problem solving in the same way when the learning stage of the task is observation-based as when it is action-based. In addition, the findings show that, when instructions do not promote goal specificity, observation-based problem solving is as effective as action-based problem solving.     

Using FMRI to test models of complex cognition

This article investigates the potential of fMRI to test assumptions about different components in models of complex cognitive tasks. If the components of a model can be associated with specific brain regions, one can make predictions for the temporal course of the BOLD response in these regions. An event-locked procedure is described for dealing with temporal variability and bringing model runs and individual data trials into alignment. Statistical methods for testing the model are described that deal with the scan-to-scan correlations in the errors of measurement of the BOLD signal. This approach is illustrated using a "sacrificial" ACT-R model that involves mapping 6 modules onto 6 brain regions in an experiment from Ravizza, Anderson, and Carter (in press) concerned with equation solving. The model's visual encoding predicted the BOLD response in the fusiform gyrus, its controlled retrieval predicted the BOLD response in the lateral inferior prefrontal cortex, and its subgoal setting predicted the BOLD response in the anterior cingulate cortex. On the other hand, its motor programming failed to predict anticipatory activation in the motor cortex, its representational changes failed to predicted the pattern of activity in the posterior parietal cortex, and its procedural component failed to predict an initial spike in caudate. The results illustrate the power of such data to direct the development of a theory of complex problem solving, both at the level of a specific task model as well as at the level of the cognitive architecture.