The purpose of this study was to explore factors which are predictive of parenting stress for first-time parents. Based on attachment theory and empirical research, the factors investigated were the responsibility for child care and housework, the current and retrospective relationship with the family of origin, the change in emotions related to parenthood, the marital relationship, and attachment and individuation.

Locus of desired control and participation in a retirement preparation program was investigated in relation to retirement attitudes and adjustment. Fifty-nine subjects, consisting of older workers and retirees from a large southwestern corporation, comprised the sample. An experimental group, consisting of 12 subjects, completed questionnaires prior to and following their participation in the retirement preparation program. A control group, consisting of 15 subjects, completed the same questionnaires at approximately the same times as did the experimental group, but did not receive retirement preparation. A third group, consisting of 20 retirees who had a previous retirement preparation experience and 12 retirees who had not had such a retirement preparation experience, completed similar questionnaires.

Proponents of the use of cotherapists have stressed the importance of compatibility for effective cotherapy teams; however, the nature of compatibility has received little attention in experimental literature. This study investigated the nature of an effective cotherapy relationship through use of concepts espoused by George Kelly in his personal construct theory. Based on the results of the study, it was recommended that cotherapists be paired on the basis of their cognitive congruence. It was further proposed that cotherapists, especially those low in content congruence, allow themselves sufficient time for case discussion prior to and following their therapy sessions.

This study examined the direct and indirect associations of the perceived coach-created motivational climate, athletes' implicit theory, and athletes' achievement goal orientation in relation to their levels of grit. Five hundred twenty-three Division I and II collegiate student-athletes (male = 246, female = 277) from five institutions across the south-central and southeast areas of the United States completed self-report measures assessing the previously described constructs. The measurement model fit the data well (SRMR = .055; CFI = .938; RMSEA = .067) and demonstrated invariance across the male and female athletes. The structural model demonstrated adequate fit (SRMR = .088; CFI = .918; RMSEA = .068). All direct and indirect paths in the model were significant in the expected direction, with the exception of the direct path from entity theory to ego goal orientation and the indirect path from ego-involving climate to ego goal orientation through entity theory, which were both non-significant. The mastery-incremental constructs accounted for 65% of the variance in grit. Results indicate that achievement motivation theory is an appropriate framework through which to examine grit, and achievement motivation constructs may be significant antecedents of grit's development. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

Utilizing an analogue research design conducted via the Internet, this study assessed athletic trainers' abilities to recognize, diagnose, and intervene with a hypothetical athlete experiencing depression, and examined the impact of their gender, athlete gender, and athlete's presenting problem on their decisions. Athletic trainers' perceived competency in using psychosocial interventions with athletes, history of referring athletes to psychology professionals, and training backgrounds in psychology also were examined. Participants (270 male and 370 female certified athletic trainers) were randomly assigned to one of six conditions (Athlete Gender X Presenting Problem). After reading the appropriate vignette, they completed questions related to the athlete's psychological symptoms and diagnosis, referral recommendations, and use of psychosocial interventions if working with the athlete. The vignettes were identical except for the athlete's gender and problem. Overall, athletic trainers accurately identified the athlete's depressive symptoms/diagnosis and need for psychological referral. They rated the athlete significantly higher in Depressive Symptoms than in Anger/Agitation Symptoms and Compulsive Behavioral Symptoms, and as more likely to be experiencing a depressive disorder compared to an adjustment disorder, anxiety disorder, sleep disorder, or substance abuse disorder. Female athletic trainers provided significantly higher ratings of Depressive Symptoms than males and the injured athlete was rated …

The present longitudinal study examined the effects and interactions of several variables thought to affect adjustment to conjugal bereavement. Questionnaires were administered to 147 conjugally bereaved subjects and to 46 persons bereaved of close relatives other than spouse. Independent variables included experienced competence (self-esteem, locus of control, coping self-efficacy, and prior coping strategies), impact of loss (anticipation and preventabillty of loss, centrality of relationship and life change), and perceived resources. All of the independent variables were found to be important predictors of adjustment in conjugal bereavement. However, hypothesized interactions among variables were generally not found. Experimental variables were better predictors of adjustment in conjugal bereavement than were demographic variables. Contrary to prediction, widowed subjects tended to become more lonely and showed increased bereavement adjustment difficulties over a six month period of time. However, post hoc analysis suggested that levels of adjustment do not decline over the long term in widowhood. The present study supports a view of widowhood as a multidimensional event, characterized by seemingly contradictory feelings, experiences, and behaviors.

Certain sport environments may contribute to the development of disordered eating and those that heavily emphasize weight and/or body shape can be particularly damaging to an athlete's body image, self-concept, and eating behaviors. In particular, female athletes in collegiate sports are at a greater risk for engaging in unhealthy behaviors because they face both societal pressures from Western culture to be thin, in addition to sport pressures that focus on performance and appearance. According to the American Medical Association almost half of American women are trying to lose weight, illustrating that societal pressures alone to be thin and attractive can influence the development of disordered eating. Athletes are exposed to the same sociocultural pressures as their nonathlete counterparts, and would be expected to have similar feelings about their bodies as women in general. Add subsequent pressures like team "weigh-ins," coaches' body comp preferences, judges' critiques, revealing attire, and endurance/strength demands, and the stage is set for the development of disordered eating. In the current study, participants were 414 Division-I female gymnasts, swimmers/divers, and they completed self-report measures assessing sport pressures, body satisfaction and disordered eating behavior to test Petrie & Greenleaf's etiological model. Results indicate that sport pressures do lead …

Personality characteristics of spousal and adult children and active potential caregivers of persons with Alzheimer's Disease were studied in order to better predict caregiver burden and aspects of well-being. Contrary to prediction, no differences were found between spouse and adult children active caregivers on measures of well-being. Additionally, adult children potential caregivers indicated feeling less control over their lives than spouse potential caregivers. When social desirability was controlled, active caregivers reported greater fluctuations in affect than did potential caregivers. As predicted, personality characteristics of individuals were found to have the biggest role in determining which individuals experience stress or burden.

Personal construct psychology, as formulated by George Kelly (1955), contributed substantial knowledge to the study of psychopathology. The small amount of research in the area of depression has focused generally on the content of self-constructs and the cognitive complexity characteristic. The purpose of this study was to examine the construct system of the depressed patient specifically by investigating the endogenicity, exogenicity, and severity of depressive symptoms in relationship to construct content as applied to others, cognitive complexity, and ordination.

The literature demonstrates that children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) often experience peer rejection as a result of their difficulties with interpersonal interactions. The manner in which children with ADHD process social information and the extent to which social difficulties may adversely impact these children has remained unclear. In the first part of the study, the perceptions of social support between boys (ages 7 to 11 years) with and without ADHD were compared. An analysis of variance procedure (ANOVA) was performed and children with ADHD were found to perceive significantly lower levels of social support from their classmates than normal peers at pretreatment. The groups did not differ significantly with regard to perceptions of parent, teacher, and close friend support. In the second part of the study, the role of ADHD parent training and its effectiveness in decreasing problem-behaviors, ameliorating social problems, and enhancing perceptions of social support was examined. Repeated measures MANOVAs revealed a significant rater (mother and teacher) by time (pretreatment and posttreatment) interaction effect for total behavior problems, externalizing behavior problems, internalizing behavior problems, and social problems. On each scale, mothers reported more behavior problems than teachers at pretreatment, but fewer problems than teachers at posttreatment …

Hypnosis has gained substantial support in the psychological community, as well as related health professions. The intense renewal of interest in hypnosis has also affected our legal-judicial system. Many police investigators trained in hypnosis operate from an exactcopy memory theory. They claim eyewitness eyewitness retrieve veridically stored memory traces from long-term memory, if questioned under hypnosis. Conversely, other researchers ascribe to a reconstructive memory theory. They believe hypnosis increases the likelihood of eliciting erroneous memories from eyewitnesses, especially under leading questioning. The purpose of the present investigation was to test the effects of hypnotic induction and anxiety on the accuracy of subjects' memory for eyewitnessed events when questioned with leading, non-leading, and embedded misinformation questions.

Social agents in the youth sport domain (coaches, parents, and peers) play a crucial role in developing the motivational approaches of youth sport athletes. One theory which has been useful in explaining the important role of such social agents has been Achievement Goal Theory (Nicholls, 1989). Specifically, Achievement Goal Theory was used to delineate various peer behaviors as being task-involving (Ntoumanis & Vazou, 2005) and was used to predict subsequent relationships relationship between the task-involving motivational-climate created by teammates and athletes’ mastery goal orientations and self-esteem, sport competence, enjoyment, and intention to continue playing sport. Participants were 405 boys aged 12-15 years. Using structural equation modeling, an exploratory analysis and confirmatory analysis revealed that higher levels of task-involving behaviors from peers predicted mastery goal orientation. Participants with higher mastery goal orientation reported greater sport competence, self-esteem, and more enjoyment; enjoyment was the strongest predictor of intention to continue. These findings both emphasize the importance of peer relationships within sport on a variety of motivationally and psychologically salient outcomes and provide direction for the development of training programs targeted to create positive and healthy sport experiences.

Despite research documenting the association between shame and aspects of poor psychological functioning, shame's adverse effects have remained largely invisible in modern societies. Shame has been described as the "attachment emotion" (Lewis, 1980), yet, there is little research that examines the relationship between attachment style and shame, and conclusions from this research are tempered by methodological limitations. The current study aimed to address methodological limitations with a quasi-experimental design and employed measures of state and trait shame, shame coping styles, an Emotional Stroop task for assessing implicit shame, and a shame mood induction procedure (MIP). This methodology provided a basis to examine differences by attachment style for 271 university students in state, trait, and implicit shame, as well as the use of maladaptive shame coping styles at baseline and following a shame MIP. Additionally, a qualitative analysis of the shame MIP written responses was conducted to provide a more nuanced understanding of the task used to elicit feelings of shame and individual differences in events identified as shame-triggering. Results revealed that students evidencing an insecure attachment style (i.e., preoccupied, fearful, or dismissive). reported significantly more state and trait shame compared to students evidencing a secure attachment style after the shame …

Achievement motivation theory suggests there are two primary approaches to achievement tasks: to appear competent or to develop a skill. These two different approaches to performance yield different affective and behavioral responses. Athletes holding a performance goal orientation tend to respond to challenges with behaviors exemplifying learned helplessness and increased anxiety. Athletes holding a mastery goal orientation tend to respond to challenges with greater effort and experience less sport-related anxiety. Individual athlete factors, such as grit, mindfulness, and achievement orientation may influence how athletes experience their environment and their levels of sport anxiety, and may interact with athletes' achievement motives to influence performance. I used hierarchical multiple regressions to test the main effects of feedback and mindfulness, and feedback and goal orientation, to determine if either mindfulness or goal orientation moderated the effects of feedback on performance. I also used simple regression to determine the relative predictive strength of mindfulness, grit, and goal orientation on athletes' experience of sport anxiety. Mindfulness, but not goal orientation, was a significant moderator of the feedback-shooting performance relationship, but particularly for athletes low in mindfulness; mastery-goal orientation, independently of feedback, was also a significant predictor of task performance. Mindfulness also emerged as the strongest …

Research indicates that victims of childhood abuse are at increased risk for transmitting violence in adulthood-a phenomenon known as the intergenerational transmission of abuse (ITA). Adult survivors of childhood victimization (i.e., child abuse or witnessed parental violence) are at increased risk for becoming abusive parents, perpetrators of intimate partner violence, and victims of intimate partner violence. The current study examined the latter form of ITA, in which a survivor of childhood victimization is re-victimized in adulthood by intimate partner violence. Attachment theory has been used to explain the ITA by positing that abuse is transmitted across generations via insecure attachment. The purpose of this study was to use structural equation modeling to test the attachment theory of ITA by examining the role of childhood and adult attachment in predicting re-victimization and symptoms of distress in adulthood. In the hypothesized model, childhood victimization by one's parents was hypothesized to predict adult intimate partner violence victimization through insecure attachment relationships in childhood (with one's parents) and adulthood (with one's partner). Furthermore, adult romantic attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance were hypothesized to predict different symptoms of distress. Self-report measures from 59 adult woman seeking services for intimate partner victimization at a domestic violence …

The primary goal of the current study was to extend previous research suggesting that coaches are the primary gatekeepers who may be a barrier to working with athletes by examining high school coaches likelihood to refer to, interest in, and intention to hire a sport psychologist. Specifically, the current study examined relationships between high school coaches’ sex, age, and type of sport coached (i.e., contact vs. non-contact) and their likelihood to refer athletes to a sport psychologist for a variety of presenting issues (i.e., poor attentional focus, poor leadership, family issues, etc.). It also examined relationships between coaches’ sex, age, and type of sport coached (i.e., contact vs. non-contact) and their interest in working with a sport psychologist. Finally, the study examined reasons why coaches did not plan to hire a sport psychologist. An examination of the possible reasons that high school coaches do not plan to hire a sport psychologist served an exploratory purpose. Participants included 450 coaches who coached high school sports in the United States. Results indicated that female coaches and non-contact sport coaches were more likely to refer athletes to a sport psychologist for a variety of referral issues than male coaches and coaches of contact …

The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not children diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD) can be distinguished from one another on the basis of both objective and subjective assessment of attention and behavior. First, children and adolescents diagnosed with ADHD, CAPD, and concomitant ADHD/CAPD were compared to participants with emotional problems on measures of attention/concentration, depression, anxiety, and parental reports of internalzing and externalizing behaviors. Overall, statistical analyses did not reveal significant differences between performances of children diagnosed with ADHD and those diagnosed with CAPD. However, clinical comparisons across groups of children diagnosed with ADHD, CAPD, comorbid ADHD/CAPD and Affective Disorders revealed condition-specific clinical profiles, thus providing some support for CAPD as a distinct clinical entity. Second, exploratory cluster analysis was performed to further investigate the relationship between ADHD and CAPD. This procedure lead to the identification of four distinct clusters. However, analyses of these clusters revealed no distinct pattern of performance for children diagnosed with either ADHD or CAPD. Rather, participants with these diagnoses were evenly distributed throughout the clusters. Additionally, no cluster clearly represented the expected clinical profile for a diagnosis of CAPD- namely, significant auditory attentional/processing problems …

The purpose of this study was to examine the career development of African-American male athletes and non-athletes. The study utilizes Gottfredson’s circumscription and compromise model of career development as a framework for understanding the way individuals go about selecting different career paths based on various contextual variables and career development processes. A sample of 71 African-American male college students completed self-report questionnaires measuring different aspects of their background make-up, relevant career development processes, and career development outcome variables. Results of the study suggest that non-athlete students have a more developmentally appropriate approach to careers. Results also suggest that perceived career barriers and career locus of control mediate the relationship between athletic status and maturity surrounding careers. Career development is a complicated process and further study on this population is very important, especially when considering athletes. Implications for the findings are discussed as are suggestions for directions of new research concerning African-American career development.

Two constructs, vicarious trauma (VT) and secondary traumatic stress (STS), describe therapists’ reactions to clients’ traumatic material. VT (TSI Belief Scale [BSL]), emphasizes cognitive belief system changes resulting from cumulative exposure to survivors. STS, (Compassion Fatigue Self-test for Psychotherapists [CFST]) combines PTSD and burnout symptomatology explaining sudden adverse reactions to survivors. Burnout (BO; Maslach Burnout Inventory [MBI]), links emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and deficient personal accomplishment to inadequate institutional supports in interpersonally demanding work. This study investigated BSL and CFST validity, counselor trauma history, and client exposure-related VT, STS, and BO in 105 trauma counselors. Results demonstrate concurrent validity between BSL and CFST; other results dispute adequate validity. BO, and client exposure were related. Traumatized counselors scored higher than non-traumatized counselors on CFST, BSL, and SCL-90-R.

Mental preparation is an important component in athletic performance. Mental preparation often involves imagery of the actual execution of the physical act. Imagery may be either "external" or "internal." External imagery occurs when people view themselves performing an act from the perspective of an external observer. Internal imagery requires that the person feel those sensations that are involved while participating in a physical act. The assumption that internal imagery will be more likely to improve athletic performance was tested using intermediate league bowlers for a period of ten weeks.

Female collegiate athletes have been identified as a group at risk of developing eating disorders (EDs) and unhealthy weight control behaviors. Interventions grounded in cognitive dissonance theory and those that incorporate mindfulness-based interventions have shown improved body image and reductions in internalization and ED symptomatology over time in female non-athletes. However, few studies have examined the efficacy of intervention programs among female athletes, and, despite early promising results, previous research has been limited in several ways (e.g., methodology, small sample size). The purpose of this study was to conduct a long-term (i.e., three years) qualitative follow-up evaluation of Bodies in Motion (BIM), an ED prevention program developed specifically to acknowledge the unique experience and needs of female athletes with respect to their bodies as women and athletes. Results indicate that, similar to their initial experiences, now-retired athletes reported increased awareness of sport and societal messages and their impact on body image, shifted perspectives in their view of themselves and their bodies, and ongoing use of skills to manage body image in their lives. Further, with the passage of time, athletes continued to report a positive experience in the program and the utility of Bodies in Motion as they navigated challenging …

This study investigates the impact of sociocultural mediators in relation to eating disorders among male undergraduates. Literature on eating disorders has demonstrated that a thin body shape ideal depicted in the media directly contributes to eating pathology among females, but little research has investigated the direct effects of ideal body shape images among men. The focus of the present investigation was to assess the direct effects of exposure to the ideal male body shape on men’s affect, self esteem, body satisfaction, and endorsement of U. S. societal ideals of attractiveness. In addition, the relation of these variables to bulimic symptomatology was examined. Modeling a study conducted on women (Stice & Shaw, 1994), male undergraduates between the ages of 18 to 25 participated in premeasure (N = 169) and post measure (N = 95) conditions. Participants in the post measure were randomly exposed to pictures from magazines containing either male models depicting the ideal body shape, an average body or pictures of clothing without models. Results from repeated mulitvariate analysis indicated that exposure to the ideal body shape condition did not demonstrate significant negative changes in men’s affect, self esteem, body satisfaction or endorsement of U. S. societal ideals of attractiveness. …

The purpose of this study was first to determine whether or not paradoxical communication could be designed to contain therapeutic levels of the core therapeutic conditions, and, second, to determine how paradoxical counselor communication compared to nondirective communication on the social influence dimensions of attractiveness, expertness, and trustworthiness. For the first phase, four judges rated audiotapes on the level of the core therapeutic conditions on one of four counseling conditions (paradox high or low on core conditions, and nondirective high or low on core conditions). For the second phase, 133 undergraduate college students were asked to listen to the four counseling conditions on audiotapes and to rate the counselor on the social influence dimensions

The present study addresses questions regarding the cognitive functioning of recently detoxified male alcoholics during increasing time periods of abstinence. Such questions relate to whether alcoholic males between the ages of 30 and 55 demonstrate a recovery to normal cognitive functioning within a six week abstinence period.