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When pandemic hits
(2020)
The governmental lockdowns related to the COVID-19 pandemic have forced people to change their behavior in many ways including changes in exercise. We used the brief window of global lockdown in the months of March/April/May 2020 as an opportunity to investigate the effects of externally imposed restrictions on exercise-related routines and related changes in subjective well-being. Statistical analyses are based on data from 13,696 respondents in 18 countries using a cross-sectional online survey. A mixed effects modeling approach was used to analyze data. We tested whether exercise frequency before and during the pandemic would influence mood during the pandemic. Additionally, we used the COVID-19 pandemic data to build a prediction model, while controlling for national differences, to estimate changes in exercise frequency during similar future lockdown conditions depending on prelockdown exercise frequency. According to the prediction model, those who rarely exercise before a lockdown tend to increase their exercise frequency during it, and those who are frequent exercisers before a lockdown tend to maintain it. With regards to subjective well-being, the data show that those who exercised almost every day during this pandemic had the best mood, regardless of whether or not they exercised prepandemic. Those who were inactive prepandemic and slightly increased their exercise frequency during the pandemic, reported no change in mood compared to those who remained inactive during the pandemic. Those who reduced their exercise frequency during the pandemic reported worse mood compared to those who maintained or increased their prepandemic exercise frequency. This study suggests that under similar lockdown conditions, about two thirds of those who never or rarely exercise before a lockdown might adopt an exercise behavior or increase their exercise frequency. However, such changes do not always immediately result in improvement in subjective well-being. These results may inform national policies, as well as health behavior and exercise psychology research on the importance of exercise promotion, and prediction of changes in exercise behavior during future pandemics.
The affective response during exercise is an important factor for long-term exercise adherence. Pottratz et al. suggested affective priming as a behavioral intervention for the enhancement of exercise-related affect. The present paper aims to replicate and extend upon these findings. We conducted a close replication with 53 participants completing a brisk walking task in two conditions (prime vs. no prime). Affective valence was assessed during exercise, and exercise enjoyment and remembered/forecasted pleasure were assessed postexercise. We could not replicate the findings of Pottratz et al., finding no evidence for positive changes in psychological responses in the priming condition. However, linear mixed models demonstrated significant interindividual differences in how participants responded to priming. These results demonstrate that affective priming during exercise does not work for everyone under every circumstance and, thus, provide an important contribution to the understanding of boundary conditions and moderating factors for priming in exercise psychology.
The Implicit Association Test (IAT) aims to measure participants' automatic evaluation of an attitude object and is useful especially for the measurement of attitudes related to socially sensitive subjects, e.g. doping in sports. Several studies indicate that IAT scores can be faked on instruction. But fully or semi-instructed research scenarios might not properly reflect what happens in more realistic situations, when participants secretly decide to try faking the test. The present study is the first to investigate IAT faking when there is only an implicit incentive to do so. Sixty-five athletes (22.83 years +/- 2.45; 25 women) were randomly assigned to an incentive-to-fake condition or a control condition. Participants in the incentive-to-fake condition were manipulated to believe that athletes with lenient doping attitudes would be referred to a tedious 45-minute anti-doping program. Attitudes were measured with the pictorial doping brief IAT (BIAT) and with the Performance Enhancement Attitude Scale (PEAS). A one-way MANOVA revealed significant differences between conditions after the manipulation in PEAS scores, but not in the doping BIAT. In the light of our hypothesis this suggests that participants successfully faked an exceedingly negative attitude to doping when completing the PEAS, but were unsuccessful in doing so on the reaction time-based test. This study assessed BIAT faking in a setting that aimed to resemble a situation in which participants want to hide their attempts to cheat. The two measures of attitude were differentially affected by the implicit incentive. Our findings provide evidence that the pictorial doping BIAT is relatively robust against spontaneous and naive faking attempts. (B) IATs might be less prone to faking than implied by previous studies.
Background: The use of psychoactive substances to neuroenhance cognitive performance is prevalent. Neuroenhancement (NE) in everyday life and doping in sport might rest on similar attitudinal representations, and both behaviors can be theoretically modeled by comparable means-to-end relations (substance-performance). A behavioral (not substance-based) definition of NE is proposed, with assumed functionality as its core component. It is empirically tested whether different NE variants (lifestyle drug, prescription drug, and illicit substance) can be regressed to school stressors.
Findings: Participants were 519 students (25.8 +/- 8.4 years old, 73.1% female). Logistic regressions indicate that a modified doping attitude scale can predict all three NE variants. Multiple NE substance abuse was frequent. Overwhelming demands in school were associated with lifestyle and prescription drug NE.
Conclusions: Researchers should be sensitive for probable structural similarities between enhancement in everyday life and sport and systematically explore where findings from one domain can be adapted for the other. Policy makers should be aware that students might misperceive NE as an acceptable means of coping with stress in school, and help to form societal sensitivity for the topic of NE among our younger ones in general.
Spielberger's (1972) Trait-State-Anxiety theory distinguishes between anxiety as a trait (A-trait) - involving a stable characteristic of a person to react with anxiety in response to varying situations and anxiety as a state (A-state), a situation-dependent reaction to a stimulus perceived as threatening. Using a general instead of a sport-specific measure, a previous study provided only mixed support for core predictions of the theory as related to sports (Schwenkmezger, 1985). With the aid of enhanced instruments and statistical methods, we tested these predictions again. The multidimensional and competition-specific assessment of anxiety results in support for the assumption of a stable A-trait and a fluctuating A-state, whereby the A-trait not only predicts the intensity of A-states but also the A-state variability. The repeated assessment of A-states prior to two competitions reveals a rather low relative consistency (i.e., interindividual differences across measurements were only moderately stable). Especially this latter finding suggests that, in order to gain a full understanding of the experience of competitive anxiety in athletes, sport psychologists should not only assess competitive A-traits, but also repeatedly measure competitive A-states.
Self-leadership and volition are conceptually similar concepts. Both propose self-influence strategies that aim to improve the motivation and self-direction necessary to perform well. The present study assesses whether self- leadership strategies maintain construct-specific variance when compared with the similar strategies of volition. Results from a questionnaire study (N=320) indicate that self-leadership and volitional strategies are distinguishable and only moderately (r=.33) correlated. Self-leadership, therefore, supplements volition during goal attainment. Findings are discussed in light of the Rubicon model of action phases.
REFS-D
(2019)
Ziel des vorliegenden Artikels ist die teststatistische Überprüfung und Validierung einer deutschsprachigen Version der Referee Self-Efficacy Scale (REFS). Die REFS erfasst im englischsprachigen Original die Selbstwirksamkeit von Schiedsrichterinnen und Schiedsrichtern mit den Subskalen Wissen über das Spiel, Entscheidungsfindung, Druck und Kommunikation. Die Items wurden mit Hilfe der Übersetzung-Rückübersetzung ins Deutsche übertragen. Die Struktur und die psychometrischen Eigenschaften der deutschen Items wurden anhand einer Stichprobe aus 265 deutschsprachigen Fußballschiedsrichterinnen und -schiedsrichtern überprüft. Da die im englischsprachigen Original vorgeschlagene Skalenzuordnung der REFS nach der Übersetzung ins Deutsche nicht replizierbar war, wurden Items mit mangelhaften Skaleneigenschaften aus der deutschsprachigen REFS-Version (REFS-D) ausgeschlossen. Das Resultat der Analysen ist eine Skala mit acht Items, die sich drei Subskalen, Spielumsetzung, Druck und Kommunikation, zuordnen lassen. Die REFS-D weist zufriedenstellende interne Konsistenzen und signifikante mittelhohe Korrelationen mit allgemeiner Selbstwirksamkeit auf. Trotz einiger Einschränkungen stellt die REFS-D als ökonomische Skala einen Ansatzpunkt für zukünftige Forschung dar.
Quality management of sport psychology care in competitive sports - (no) effect without acceptance?!
(2011)
In the past decade quality management (QM) has grown to be one of the most important topics in the area of applied sport psychology. There we discuss structures, processes, and results concerning QM, considering the QM model of the European Foundation of Quality Management (EFQM). In terms of results, quality can be defined in three areas: the coaching process itself (e. g., satisfaction and well-being of coach and client), psychological skills (e. g., efficacy of techniques used by the client), and health, personality, as well as sport performance (e. g., client's motor behavior in training and competition). Measures and processes to improve and ensure quality in these three areas are discussed as being dependent on four types of determinants: associated institutions, sport psychologists (i.e., individual competence and valence of tasks), coaching character, and socio-economic factors. As key processes of QM in this complex structure, both orientation to stakeholders and communication about quality and QM measures are identified.
Physical activity (PA) can play an important role in improving the mental and physical health in patients with mental disorders but is not well studied in this population. The aim of this study was to assess the status of PA in outpatients with mental disorders, compare the convergence of self-rating and accelerometer measurement and examine the influence of social cognitive variables from the Motivation-Volition (MoVo) model and clinical measures on PA. Eighty-four patients were recruited from three psychiatric outpatient clinics and local psychiatrists (Distribution of ICD-10-Diagnoses: F3.x = 59.5%, F4.x = 20.2%, F2.x = 17.9%, F1.x = 2.4%). PA, Self-efficacy, Outcome-expectancies, Intention, Self-concordance, Action- and Coping-planning, Health-related Quality of Life (SF-12) and Psychiatric Symptoms (SCL-27) were assessed through questionnaires. PA was assessed objectively by accelerometers. Most of the participants did not reach PA recommendations. Subjective and objective measurement of PA showed good accordance for total PA on group level but lower accordance on individual level. Motivational and volitional determinants of health behavior change showed a similar pattern of correlations with PA as in populations without mental disorders. Outpatients with mental disorders have the ability and are willing to perform PA but a large proportion of our sample did not meet PA recommendations. To assess group levels of PA, subjective and objective measurement seem equally apt, for individual diagnostics, a combination of both should be considered. Social cognitive determinants of health behavior change seem to be as helpful for the design of PA interventions for patients with mental disorders as they are in other populations.
Objectives: Anticipated affective responses influence decision-making processes in profound ways. The present study emphasized the role of anticipated regret and assessed the additive and interactive effects of anticipated regret in predicting doping intentions among adolescent athletes. Design: Survey-based, correlational. Method: Two hundred and sixteen adolescent athletes (M age = 17.37, SD = 1.68, 79.1% males) from team sports took part in the study and completed structured and anonymous questionnaires on social cognitive variables relevant to doping use, anticipated regret from engaging in doping and doping intentions. Results: Variance-based structural equation modeling showed that anticipated regret significantly predicted doping intentions over and above the effects of past use of doping substances and nutritional supplements, and other social cognitive predictors, and the overall model predicted 72% of the variance in doping intentions. Further analysis of interaction effects showed that anticipated regret significantly interacted with past use of nutritional supplements, and subjective and descriptive social norms in predicting doping intentions. Conclusions: Anticipated regret represents a theoretically relevant and important predictor of doping intentions in sports, and can have a protective role against pro-doping use intentions among athletes with past use of nutritional supplements. Regret also appears to be relevant to social norms and expectations, thus, highlighting for the first time a normative component in the process linking anticipated affective responses with behavioural intentions. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Mindfulness and acceptance describe the skills necessary to experience emotions and thoughts (e.g., performance-interfering cognitions) consciously and without judging them. This article introduces the mindfulness and acceptance approach and its potential in the context of competitive sports. Definitions as well as research results related to mechanisms of action and differential psychological aspects are given and the efficacy of the approach in the field of clinical psychology is reviewed. The rationale and implementation of the mindfulness-acceptance-commitment approach, an approach adapted for performance enhancement, is illustrated. Finally, evidence from psychotherapy research is presented, and a recommendation for the use of mindfulness and acceptance in the context of competitive sports is given.
Objective: Questionnaires are often applied in sports psychology to measure a person's trait or state. However, the extent to which the questionnaire captures differences because of trait or state influences is often unclear. The latent state-trait (LST) theory offers the opportunity to separate both variance sources. This separation allows estimating specific reliability coefficients. Design: The present paper gives a theoretical introduction to LST and its basic ideas. Using a real data set with N = 156 athletes we exemplify the steps necessary to derive the LST coefficients. All athletes filled out a comprehensive inventory assessing competitive anxiety on two occasions. Method: The data are analysed with structural equation models based on LST principles. Results: The results confirm the questionnaire's trait saturation. Conclusion: Finally, results are discussed in light of practical and theoretical implications.
The current body of evidence suggests that in healthy participants, implicit attitudes towards physical activity explain variance in exercise behaviour beyond explicit cognitive processes. However, such relationships have not been examined in psychiatric patients, although this may contribute to a better understanding of the motivational and volitional resources needed to self-regulate their exercise behaviour. Therefore, the present cross-sectional study aimed to assess implicit attitudes towards exercise among psychiatric in-patients, and to correlate these implicit attitudes with their physical activity levels. Patients (N = 101) showing a psychiatric disorder, but no severe cognitive impairment, were directly recruited from psychiatric clinics. Their physical activity levels were assessed using both accelerometers and self-reports. Additionally, patients reported psychiatric symptoms and performed a single-target implicit association test (ST-IAT) with exercise employed as the target category. Of all patients, 39% showed a preference for exercise, whereas 13% showed an aversion towards exercise. The implicit attitudes of the remaining participants were equally strong for both concepts. Based on correlational analysis (correcting for age, sex, psychiatric symptoms severity, and ST-IAT sequence), no association was found between ST-IAT score, or self-reported and objectively assessed physical activity. Consequently, the link between exercise behaviour and implicit attitudes towards physical activity found in healthy participants could not be observed in psychiatric patients.
The development of cynical attitudes towards elite sport is a core symptom of athlete burnout and has been associated with dropout from elite sport. To date, this phenomenon has mainly been studied by investigating explicit attitudes towards sport, whereas athletes’ automatic evaluations (i.e. implicit attitudes) that have been shown to influence behavior as well were not considered. This study aimed to compare explicit and implicit attitudes towards sport of young elite athletes with high (N = 24) versus low (N = 26) burnout symptoms. Using self-reported measures, general and athlete burnout symptoms were assessed. Additionally, a single-target implicit association test was administered to examine participants’ automatic evaluation of sport. Statistical analysis revealed greater emotional/physical exhaustion and sport devaluation in athletes reporting high compared to low burnout symptoms. Implicit attitudes towards sport did not significantly differ between the groups. Furthermore, no significant correlations were observed between different athlete burnout symptoms and implicit attitudes. Athletes with high burnout symptoms show a tendency to explicitly detach themselves from sport, thus fostering sport devaluation as a core symptom of athlete burnout. However, this process does not seem to be reflected in their implicit attitudes towards sport.
The goal of the present paper is to propose a model for the study of automatic cognition and affect in exercise. We have chosen a dual-system approach to social information processing to investigate the hypothesis that situated decisions between behavioral alternatives form a functional link between automatic and reflective evaluations and the time spent on exercise. A new questionnaire is introduced to operationalize this link. A reaction-time based evaluative priming task was used to test participants' automatic evaluations. Affective and cognitive reflective evaluations, as well as exercising time, were requested via self-report. Path analyses suggest that the affective reflective (beta =.71) and the automatic evaluation (beta =.15) independently explain situated decisions, which, in turn (beta =.60) explain time spent on exercise. Our findings highlight the concept of contextualized decisions. They can serve as a starting point from which the so far seldom investigations of automatic cognition and affect in exercise can be integrated with multitudinous results from studies on reflective psychological determinants of health behavior.
Exercise or not?
(2023)
Objective: Individuals’ decisions to engage in exercise are often the result of in-the-moment choices between exercise and a competing behavioral alternative. The purpose of this study was to investigate processes that occur in-the-moment (i.e., situated processes) when individuals are faced with the choice between exercise and a behavioral alternative during a computerized task. These were analyzed against the background of interindividual differences in individuals’ automatic valuation and controlled evaluation of exercise.
Method: In a behavioral alternatives task 101 participants were asked whether they would rather choose an exercise option or a behavioral alternative in 25 trials. Participants’ gaze behavior (first gaze and fixations) was recorded using eye-tracking. An exercise-specific affect misattribution procedure (AMP) was used to assess participants’ automatic valuation of exercise before the task. After the task, self-reported feelings towards exercise (controlled evaluation) and usual weekly exercise volume were assessed. Mixed effects models with random effects for subjects and trials were used for data analysis.
Results: Choosing exercise was positively correlated with individuals’ automatic valuation (r = 0.20, p = 0.05), controlled evaluation (r = 0.58, p < 0.001), and their weekly exercise volume (r = 0.43, p < 0.001). Participants showed no bias in their initial gaze or number of fixations towards the exercise or the non-exercise alternative. However, participants were 1.30 times more likely to fixate on the chosen alternative first and more frequently, but this gaze behavior was not related to individuals’ automatic valuation, controlled evaluation, or weekly exercise volume.
Conclusion: The results suggest that situated processes arising from defined behavioral alternatives may be independent of individuals’ general preferences. Despite one’s best general intention to exercise more, the choice of a non-exercise alternative behavior may seem more appealing in-the-moment and eventually be chosen. New psychological theories of health behavior change should therefore better consider the role of potentially conflicting alternatives when it comes to initiating physical activity or exercise.
The initial interview is important for psychological counseling regarding the acquisition of diagnostic information and in terms of establishing a professional counseling relationship. In applied sports psychology there so far exist no clear guidelines to structure this process. To improve the quality of sports psychological consultations, the present study introduces and evaluates a semi-structured guideline for an initial interview in which the content and form of the consultation are determined, the concerns of the client are systematically explored, and the objectives of the collaboration and the further process are defined. Eleven sport psychology trainees participated in our study and conducted initial interviews with actors. One interview was conducted by using the initial interview guide and the other interview was created individually by each sport psychology trainee based on his own expertise. The results showed that the quality of the interview process (i.e., formal requirements, use of open questions) as well as the satisfaction of the consultant with the interview was significantly higher when following the guideline. No differences were found regarding the quality of the consultation findings and the satisfaction of the athletes with the interview. The results are discussed with respect to their theoretical and practical implications.
Basketball referees' decisions in ambiguous situations are supposed to adhere to common standards. We propose that standards can be established by video training-programs. Thirty-three German elite basketball referees participated in an online experiment. Feedback during a learning phase influenced decisions (foul vs. no call) in a subsequent test phase. These results provide a starting point for further investigations into establishing standards for referees. They suggest that establishing standards for referees' decisions in ambiguous situations may be a worthwhile approach for improving the quality of referees' decisions.