Self-handicapping tendencies, coping, and anxiety responses among athletes

Objectives: Four studies examined relationships between self-handicapping tendencies and reactions to two different yet potentially stressful sport situations (i.e., dealing with a performance slump and emotional reaction prior to competition). Design: Retrospective and prospective cross-sectional survey. Methods: For studies 1 and 2, participants were 65 male athletes (mean age=20.45) and 141 male and female athletes (mean age=21.5), respectively. Participants in study 1 completed the Self-handicapping Scale (SHS) and slump-related coping was assessed using the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS). Participants in study 2 completed the SHS and slump-related coping was assessed using the modified Ways of Coping in Sport Scale (WCSS). For studies 3 and 4, participants were 220 male athletes (mean age=22.60) and 120 male and female athletes (mean age=34.75), respectively. Participants from both studies completed the SHS and emotions prior to competition were assessed using the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory (CSAI-2). Results: Data from study 1 showed that self-handicapping tendencies were related to emotive-oriented coping. CISS emotion scale scores accounted for 25% of the variance in SHS scores. Data from study 2 showed that self-handicapping tendencies were related to denial/avoidance and wishful thinking subscale scores of the WCSS. Together these two variables accounted for 11% of the variance in SHS scores. Data from studies 3 and 4 showed positive relations between self-handicapping tendencies and cognitive state-anxiety. Cognitive state-anxiety accounted for 8% of the variance in SHS scores in study 3 and 12% of the variance in SHS scores in study 4. Conclusions: Results from studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that self-handicapping tendencies are related to general and specific emotion coping strategies when dealing with a slump. Results from studies 3 and 4 show that self-handicapping tendencies are related to precompetitive cognitive state-anxiety.

Psychopathy and self-monitoring : additive and interactive effects on self-presentation tactics /

The purpose of this study was to determine the relative contributions of psychopathy and self-monitoring to the prediction of self-presentation tactics (behaviours that individuals use to manipulate their self-image). Psychopathy is composed of two main factors: Factor 1, which includes manipulativeness and shallow affect, and Factor 2, which includes irresponsibility and anti-social behaviours. Self-monitoring is a personality trait that distinguishes between those who adapt their behaviour to fit different social situations (high self-monitors) and those who behave as they feel regardless of social expectations (low selfmonitors). It was hypothesized that self-monitoring would moderate the relationship between psychopathy and self-presentation tactics. One hundred and forty-nine university students completed the Self-Monitoring Scale (Snyder, 1974), the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale - Version III (Paulhus et aI., in press), the Self-Presentation Tactics scale (Lee, S., et aI., 1999), the HEXACO-PI (a measure ofthe six major factors of personality; Lee, K., & Ashton, 2004), and six scenarios that were created as a supplementary measure of the selfpresentation tactics. Results of the hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that self-monitoring did moderate the relationship between psychopathy and three of the selfpresentation tactics: apologies, disclaimers, and exemplification. Further, significant interactions were observed between Factor 1 and self-monitoring on apologies and the defensive tactics subscale, between Factor 2 and self-monitoring on self-handicapping, and between Factor 1 and Factor 2 on exemplification. Contrary to expectations, the main effect of self-monitoring was significant for the prediction of nine tactics, while psychopathy was significant for the prediction of seven tactics. This indicates that the role of these two personality traits in the explanation of self-presentation tactics tends to be additive in nature rather than interactive. In addition. Factor 2 alone did not account for a significant amount of variance in any of the tactics, while Factor 1 significantly predicted nine tactics. Results are discussed with regard to implications and possible directions for future research.

Achievement and Social Strategies and the Cumulation of Positive and Negative Experiences During Young Adulthood

These longitudinal studies focused on investigating young adults during transition into a new educational environment. The aims were to examine: (1) what kinds of achievement and social strategies young adults deploy, (2) whether the deployment of these strategies predicts people's success in their studies, their life events, their peer relationships, and their well-being, (3) whether young adults' success in dealing with educational transition (e.g. success in studies, life events, peer relationships and well-being) predict changes in their strategies and well-being, and (4) the associations between young adults' social strategies, interpersonal behaviour, person perception, and their peer relationships and satisfaction with them. The participants were students from Helsinki university and from two vocational institutes (the numbers ranging between 92 and 303). The results revealed that achievement and social strategies contributed to individuals' success in dealing with both the academic and interpersonal challenges of a new environment. Social strategies were also associated with online interpersonal behaviour and person perception, which mediated their impact on peer relationships. Achievement and social strategies changed as a result of environmental feedback. However, they also showed high stability, forming reciprocal and cumulative associations with the feedback the individuals received about their success in dealing with educational transition: the use of functional strategies, such as optimistic, defensive-pessimistic and planning-oriented strategies, increased their success, which in turn enhanced their well-being and further deployment of functional strategies. The opposite was true in the case of dysfunctional strategies, such as self-handicapping and avoidance. Key words : Achievement strategies, social strategies, transition, young adults, life events, sociometric status, social behaviour, person perception, well-being.

Autokontzeptua : alderdiak, jatorria, funtzioak, desadostasunak, aldaketak eta kontsistentzia.'Autoconcepto : aspectos, origen, funciones, disconformidades, cambios y consistencia'.

Resumen tomado de la publicación

Wearing Eye Tracking Technology During Batting Practice: Assessing the Experiences of Professional Baseball Athletes

Utilizing wearable technology in sport allows for the collection of motor behavior data during task engagement. This data can be assessed in real-time or retrospectively. Although enriching the scope of performance data, the consequences of wearable technology on the athlete-user, specifically the cognitive effects, has not been fully investigated, hence the purpose of this study. This qualitative study examines the cognitions of 57 professional baseball players who wore eye tracking technology whilst engaged in batting practice. Their verbal self-reports were framed by temporal context: before-during-after task. Three themes emerged during the pre-task segment: social appearance anxiety, claimed self-handicapping, and curiosity. During the task of batting, verbal behavior contained motivational and instructional overt self-talk while claimed self-handicapping was sustained. The final, post-performance segment was marked by the re-emergence of curiosity from the pre-task period as well as self-evaluation/appraisal. Given the participants were professional athletes, their performance has greater career implications than amateur competitors. Nonetheless, the verbal behavior elicited while wearing eye tracking technology indicates an awareness of the equipment by the user. This study found cognitive effects from wearable technology; more research is required to under-stand the scope and nature of those effects on cognitive and motor behaviors.

Toward Self-Organising Service Communities

This paper discusses a framework in which catalog service communities are built, linked for interaction, and constantly monitored and adapted over time. A catalog service community (represented as a peer node in a peer-to-peer network) in our system can be viewed as domain specific data integration mediators representing the domain knowledge and the registry information. The query routing among communities is performed to identify a set of data sources that are relevant to answering a given query. The system monitors the interactions between the communities to discover patterns that may lead to restructuring of the network (e.g., irrelevant peers removed, new relationships created, etc.).