Working within an Individual Zone of Optimal Functioning (IZOF) framework: Consultant practice and athlete reflections on refining emotion regulation skills

Objective

To examine how working within Hanin’s (2000a) Individual Zone of Optimal Functioning theoretical model (IZOF) informs intervention development for enhancing athletes’ emotion regulation skills.

Design

A single case study design was adopted to examine the applied process of facilitating a female university cross-country runner’s emotion regulation skills.

Method

Consultant reflections followed Boud’s (2001) reflective learning model for immediate and delayed reflection that informed an action research narrative organized round Kellmann and Beckmann’s (2003) action research cycle. A social validation interview was conducted following program completion to examine the athlete’s responses to the emotion regulation intervention.

Results

Consultant’s professional practice decisions and action taken to support the intervention are highlighted. Specifically, the employment and extension of Hanin’s (2000c) IZOF profiling process to inform the development of athlete skills in emotion regulation are described. Moreover, how the content and intensity of performance related subjective emotion, physiological symptom, and cognitive zone profiles for optimal performance guided the identification and enhancement of techniques contributing to effective emotion regulation is illustrated. Athlete interview responses support the overall efficacy of the intervention program.

Conclusion

The present case study supports the efficacy of working within an IZOF framework from a consultant perspective. Furthermore, athlete reflections suggest enhanced skills in emotion regulation were perceived to result from the intervention.     

Perceived coach-autonomy support, basic need satisfaction and the well- and ill-being of elite youth soccer players: A longitudinal investigation

Objectives

Drawing from the basic needs theory [BNT; Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2002). An overview of self-determination theory. In E. L. Deci, & R. M. Ryan (Eds.), Handbook of self-determination research (pp. 3-33). Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press], the major purpose of the present study was to test a hypothesized sequence of temporal relationships between perceptions of coach-autonomy support, basic need satisfaction and indices of well- and ill-being. A subsidiary aim was to ascertain the assumed mediational role of basic need satisfaction in explicating the perceived autonomy support and well-/ill-being relationships over time.

Design

A field-based longitudinal design was employed.

Methods

Participants (N = 54 males) from an elite youth soccer academy in the UK completed a multi-section questionnaire tapping the targeted variables on six occasions across two competitive seasons.

Results

Multi-level regression analyses revealed that perceptions of coach-autonomy support positively predicted within-person changes and between-person mean differences in basic need satisfaction and well-being over time. Satisfaction scores for the needs for competence and relatedness were found to predict within-person changes in subjective vitality. These same needs partially mediated the coach-autonomy support-subjective vitality link over the two seasons.

Conclusions

The findings partially support the tenets of BNT, and are discussed in terms of their practical application to participants involved in an elite youth sport setting.     

THE ATHENS/JERUSALEM TEMPLATE AND THE TECHNO‐SECULARISM THESIS—KICKING THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD

Abstract. The publication of my article “Athens, Jerusalem, and the Arrival of Techno‐secularism” (2005) in Zygon was followed by twenty‐one responses, most of them critical. In this essay I reply by clarifying the earlier one, separating out its two major theses: the Athens/Jerusalem template and the techno‐secularism thesis. The Athens/Jerusalem template is a typology that provides a historical basis for understanding why religion/science conflicts persist by showing that the contrasts between intellectual knowledge and revealed knowledge are permanent features of Western cultural history. Postmodern criticisms often have a negative edge, rejecting “canonical” accounts but not presenting alternative explanations. Historical context is helpful in understanding religion/science conflicts, which continue to exist. The present cultural situation is that technology is replacing religion—and science—as the dominant condition and theory of our culture. Evidence for the techno‐secularism thesis can be seen in the nature of electronic entertainment, which invades the silence required for religious contemplation and obscures the scientific laws that are the basis for the new technology.     

A REPLY TO ANNE KULL,EDUARDO CRUZ,AND MICHAEL DeLASHMUTT

In my reply to the essays by Anne Kull, Eduardo Cruz, and Michael DeLashmutt, I turn first to Cruz's charge that my use of “the sacred” is at odds with a growing religious studies mainstream that understands religion in secular terms. I suggest that this latter approach has its own problems, deriving partly from its neglect of the political, constructed nature of the category of “religion.” Second, in relation to Cruz's suggestion that my lack of attention to explanation compromises my claim to be social scientific, I defend a broader understanding of the human sciences and explore the relationships between understanding, critique, and history, and between sociology and theology. Third, reflecting on DeLashmutt's suggestion that I neglect the way that technical invention provides a glimpse of divine creativity, and the myth making that goes on around technology in vehicles such as science fiction, I argue that such issues have to be approached in a radically historical way. I conclude by identifying three challenges: to explore more deeply how technological objects form part of human being‐in‐the‐world, to show how my approach might offer practical resources for assessing technological and environmental developments, and to expand my analysis to include non‐Western religious traditions.     

Technology in Medicine: Ontology,Epistemology, Ethics and Social Philosophy at the Crossroads

In reference to the different approaches in philosophy(of medicine) of the nature of (medical) technology,this article introduces the topic of this specialissue of Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, that is,the way the different forms of medical technologyfunction in everyday medical practice. The authorselaborate on the active role technology plays inshaping our views on disease, illness, and the body,whence in shaping our world.     

Effort,play, and sport

The effort involved in playing sports calls for a hermeneutical reflection on the power that we have to move our bodies. Drawing on Paul Ricoeur’s phenomenology of the lived body and his later ontology of the flesh, I explore how athletic displays of agility, strength, and speed within the theater of sporting competitions exemplify the way that the effort made by athletes attests to their will and desire to succeed. The agonistic spirit of the Greek Olympics is evident in sporting events where competitors or teams strive against one another. At the same time, the players’ willingness to enter the field of play has a counterpart in real-life situations over which we cannot exert complete control. The contingencies of the game in which the players are caught up are a model of the absence of aseity that is a mark of all human existence. By setting the playing field off from the concerns of everyday life, the game places this feature of the human condition on stage. The players’ physical exertion is the sign of a form of consent that sets the will, desire, and effort to exist against the wish for absolute freedom. Sporting competitions are therefore a theater for dramatizing the misery and grandeur of a specifically human freedom.     

The influence of peer groups in organized sport on female adolescents' identity development

IntroductionEngagement in the process of identity development has been identified as the most significant milestone of adolescence (Erikson, 1968) and peer groups serve as a key facilitator in this process (Kroger, 2007). Peer groups are particularly significant in the lives of female adolescents, as females derive a substantial part of their identity through these relationships (Josselson, 1987). Despite the significance of personal identity development in adolescence and the importance of peer groups in this process, this area has not been explored in the extant sport psychology literature.PurposeTo investigate the potential influence of peer groups in organized sport on female adolescent identity development.MethodsData were collected through photo-elicitation and semistructured interviews of eight female athletes between the ages of 13 and 17 years. Participants in the study played a variety of sports and competed at various levels. Data were analysed using a thematic narrative approach.ResultsParticipant stories suggest that interactions with peers in sport assist female adolescent athletes in developing their psychological (including emotional and intellectual), social, and physical selves.ConclusionStories shared by the female athletes suggest that a relationship exists between peer influence and identity development in sport. Findings are interpreted through Erikson's (1968) Theory of Psychosocial Development and the nature of the relationships in which peer influence on identity development occurs are discussed. Recommendations for future research are proposed.     

基因编辑技术临床应用的伦理问题与审查制度规制

针对“基因编辑婴儿”事件暴露出的我国伦理监管体系漏洞,尤其是伦理审查制度的缺陷,通过借鉴国外先进经验,提出构建对医疗机构伦理委员会的初次审查进行两次独立复审的行政监管制度,即“地方-国家”二级独立伦理审查制度。该制度由医疗机构等基层单位的伦理委员会进行初次审查,然后由省级行政主管部门的伦理委员会进行第一次独立审查,再由国家卫生健康委员会的伦理委员会进行第二次独立审查。二级独立伦理审查制度较为符合我国的实际情况,有助于规范生物医学研究活动秩序,实现基因编辑技术与伦理监管体系的良性互动与协调发展。     

The effect of a virtual reality environment on gaze behaviour and motor skill learning

ObjectiveVirtual reality (VR) systems hold significant potential for training skilled behaviours and are currently receiving intense interest in the sporting domain. They offer both practical and pedagogical benefits, but there are concerns about the effect that perceptual deficiencies in VR systems (e.g. reduced haptic information, and stereoscopic display distortions) may have on learning and performance. ‘Specificity of learning’ theories suggest that VR could be ineffective (or even detrimental) if important differences (e.g. perceptual deficiencies) exist between practice and real task performance conditions. Nevertheless, ‘structural learning’ theories suggest VR could be a useful training tool, despite these deficiencies, because a trainee can still learn the underlying structure of the behaviour. We explored these theoretical predictions using golf putting as an exemplar skill.MethodIn Experiment 1 we used a repeated measures design to assess putting accuracy (radial error) and quiet eye duration of expert golfers (n = 18) on real putts before and after 40 VR ‘warm up’ putts. In Experiment 2, novice golfers (n = 40) were assigned to either VR or real-world putting training. Putting accuracy and quiet eye durations were then assessed on a real-world retention test.ResultsBoth visual guidance (quiet eye) and putting accuracy were disrupted temporarily when moving from VR to real putting (Experiment 1). However, real-world and VR practice produced comparable improvements in putting accuracy in novice golfers (Experiment 2).ConclusionOverall, the results suggest that: (i) underlying skill structures can be learned in VR and transferred to the real-world; (ii) perceptual deficiencies will place limits on the use of VR. These findings demonstrate the challenges and opportunities for VR as a training tool, and emphasise the need to empirically test the costs and benefits of specific systems before deploying VR training.