Physically active students' intentions and self-efficacy towards healthy eating

This study investigated intentions and self-efficacy of physically active university students towards healthy eating. The application of Planned Behavior theory has shown that attitudes, intention, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms play an important role in shaping people's behavior. 96 students, who participated in physical activities, voluntarily completed the Questionnaire for the Planned Behavior Model and the Health Behavior Questionnaire. The former examines attitudes, intentions, perceived behavioral control, and the lately added attitude strength, and role identity towards the behavior factors. The latter assesses one's efficacy expectations towards healthy eating. The regression showed strong associations between the examined variables, signifying that attitudes, perceived behavioral control, and role identity could account for one's intention towards healthy eating behaviors. On the other hand, one's self-efficacy for healthy eating could be explained from the attitudes, intention, perceived behavioral control, and attitude strength held. Overall, systematic participation in physical activities appeared to be accompanied with a relatively healthier diet, while self-efficacy had a significant association with maintaining the healthy eating behaviors. Possible interpretations, limitations, and implications for health professionals are discussed.     

Combined effect of goal setting and self-talk in performance of a soccer-shooting task

To examine the combined effect of goal setting and self-talk, 41 professional and semiprofessional soccer players from four different teams were tested on a soccer-shooting task. Teams were assigned to one of four conditions: (a) self-talk, (b) goal setting, (c) goal setting plus self-talk, and (d) do your best control. Subjects performed one baseline measurement and three experimental sessions. Analysis showed that performance, compared to the do your best condition, in the combined condition is immediately enhanced, whereas self-talk and goal-setting effects were significant from Session 3. No significant differences in performance were observed among experimental groups, except in Session 2, during which the combined group scored significantly better than the goal-setting group. It seems that, whereas both goal setting and self-talk are effective in enhancing performance, some advantage may be derived from a combined intervention. Findings are discussed in the perspective of past research efforts on goal setting and self-talk.     

The Moderating Effects of Self-Talk Content on Self-Talk Functions

The purpose of the study was to examine whether different types of self-talk serve different functions. Twenty-one female swimming class students were initially tested on an experimental water polo precision task. After a three-day program during which participants practiced self-talk on swimming drills, they were tested again on the experimental task, using attentional and anxiety control self-talk cues. In addition, participants completed a questionnaire assessing perceived functions of self-talk, for each of the two self-talk cues that were used. Repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed that according to participants’ perceptions the anxiety control self-talk cue had greater impact on anxiety control than the attentional self-talk cue (p < .01), whereas effects for attention, effort, confidence, and automaticity were similar when using attentional and anxiety control cues. Furthermore, repeated measures MANOVAs for each self-talk cue revealed that both cues mostly assisted concentration to the task (p < .01). The results partially support that the use of different types of self-talk may serve different functions depending on the content of the employed cues.     

Self-talk and Competitive Sport Performance

The purpose of the present study was to test the effectiveness of a 10-week self-talk intervention on competitive performance in young swimmers. Participants were 41 swimmers (M age 14.59, SD = 1.58 years), whose performance was recorded on 2 competitive occasions with a 10-week interval. In-between the 2 competitions, participants in the intervention group followed a self-talk training program. The results showed that the intervention group had greater performance improvements than the control group, thus, supporting the effectiveness of the program in enhancing sport performance in a competitive environment. The findings provide directions for the development of effective self-talk interventions.     

Greek students' attitudes toward physical activity and health-related behavior

A three-wave study over one year with 882 adolescents, aged 10 to 16 years at the initial testing, examined psychosocial variables regarding four health-related behaviors: exercise, eating fruit, smoking, and drug use. Analysis showed that during the stages of the study, high school students' exercise behavior decreased and their smoking behavior increased as well as their willingness to use drugs. It seems that study of physical education and health education during adolescence must take into account the possible differences in psychosocial variables associated with health-related behaviors as well as the different stages of adolescence.     

Prediction of intent in robotics and multi-agent systems

Moving beyond the stimulus contained in observable agent behaviour, i.e. understanding the underlying intent of the observed agent is of immense interest in a variety of domains that involve collaborative and competitive scenarios, for example assistive robotics, computer games, robot–human interaction, decision support and intelligent tutoring. This review paper examines approaches for performing action recognition and prediction of intent from a multi-disciplinary perspective, in both single robot and multi-agent scenarios, and analyses the underlying challenges, focusing mainly on generative approaches.     

Exogenous spatial precuing reliably modulates object processing but not object substitution masking

Object substitution masking (OSM) is used in behavioral and imaging studies to investigate processes associated with the formation of a conscious percept. Reportedly, OSM occurs only when visual attention is diffusely spread over a search display or focused away from the target location. Indeed, the presumed role of spatial attention is central to theoretical accounts of OSM and of visual processing more generally (Di Lollo, Enns, & Rensink, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 129:481–507, 2000). We report a series of five experiments in which valid spatial precuing is shown to enhance the ability of participants to accurately report a target but, in most cases, without affecting OSM. In only one experiment (Experiment 5) was a significant effect of precuing observed on masking. This is in contrast to the reliable effect shown across all five experiments in which precuing improved overall performance. The results are convergent with recent findings from Argyropoulos, Gellatly, and Pilling (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 39:646–661, 2013), which show that OSM is independent of the number of distractor items in a display. Our results demonstrate that OSM can operate independently of focal attention. Previous claims of the strong interrelationship between OSM and spatial attention are likely to have arisen from ceiling or floor artifacts that restricted measurable performance.     

The Effectiveness of Teaching a Life Skills Program in a Sport Context

This research examined the role of attraction to one's team in predicting alcohol and marijuana use among intercollegiate athletes. Attraction to team and alcohol-related information were collected via an online survey and marijuana use-related information was gathered in a live setting. We investigated the influence of attraction to one's team above and beyond the influence of gender and perceived norms, and attraction to team as a moderator of these relationships. Attraction to one's team accounted for significant variance in marijuana use, and alcohol-related consequences after controlling for alcohol consumption. Regression analyses revealed significant interactions between gender, attraction to team, and norms in predicting alcohol and marijuana use. Stronger attraction to one's team may increase alcohol use but decrease marijuana use among male athletes, suggesting the importance of attraction to team when developing interventions for athletes.     

Sex and sport-related differences in satisfaction among Greek swimmers

The purpose was to test the applicability of the Scale of Athlete Satisfaction for Greek swimmers and to assess sex and sport-related differences for swimers' mean satisfaction. The sample of 351 Greek swimmers comprised 186 males and 165 females competing in five categories of the National Swimming Championhip in Greece. Their mean age was 16 yr. (SD=2; range 13 to 28 years). A confirmatory factor analysis supported the factorial validity of the scale. Analysis indicated that sex, weekly practice schedule, and sport experience differentiated facets of satisfaction among these swimmers. This scale is reliable and valid for measuring athletes' satisfaction with individual sports.     

Predicting students' intention to smoke by theory of planned behaviour variables and parental influences across school grade levels

Differences were examined in Theory of Planned Behaviour determinants of students' intention to smoke including parents' attitudes towards smoking and parents' current cigarette use among Greek students of different school grade levels. Students (N?=?763) aged 10-18 years reported their attitudes towards smoking, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, self-identity and intention to smoke while their parents (N?=?525) reported their attitudes towards smoking and their current cigarette use. All the TPB variables increased from lower to higher school grade level. Multi-sample path analyses showed that parent's attitudes towards smoking positively predicted students' intention to smoke only for elementary school children. Parents' current cigarette use did not contribute significantly. Students' attitudes, perceived behavioural control and self-identity predicted systematically intention to smoke in contrast to the subjective norm that did not contribute at all. Perceived behavioural control contributed to a higher degree in intention to smoke for senior high school students compared to the junior high school and elementary students. Self-identity contributed to a higher degree in intention to smoke for elementary compared to the junior high school students. The results of this study suggests that the determinants of smoking vary between early and late adolescence.