Agtarap, Wright, Mlynski, Hammad, and Blackledge took an initial step in providing support for the predictive validity of a new conceptual analysis concerned with behavioral restraint - defined as active resistance against a behavioral impulse or urge. The current study was designed to partially replicate and extend findings from their study, employing a common film clip protocol and a procedure for inducing low- and high levels of fatigue. Analyses indicated that key cardiovascular (CV) responses rose with the evocativeness of the film clip among low fatigue participants but fell with the evocativeness of the film clip among high fatigue participants. This is consistent with the prediction that high fatigue participants would put forth more restrain intensity than low fatigue participants when confronted with the less evocative clip, but less restraint intensity than low fatigue participants when confronted with the more evocative clip. Behavioral restraint performance - quantified as duration of facial non-neutrality - was also consistent with predictions, being impaired by fatigue under high- but not low evocativeness conditions. Findings support the broad theoretical suggestion that fatigue influence on behavioral restraint is multifaceted, dependent on the perceived magnitude of the impulse or urge experienced and the importance of resisting it.

The goal of the current study was to evaluate the ways in which religious behaviors and perceived social support are associated with the relationship between depressive symptoms and health-related quality of life for this group. We hypothesized (1) that religious behaviors moderate the relationship between depressive symptoms and health-related quality of life, (2) perceived social support mediates the relationship between depressive symptoms and health-related quality of life and (3) that religious behaviors moderate the mediational indirect effect of perceived social support in the depression and health-related quality of life relationship. Findings from a sample of 244 HIV-positive individuals provided evidence to support direct, conditional, and indirect effects on the depressive symptoms and health-related quality of life relationship. A discussion of the findings, implications for future research and clinical practice are provided.

This study examined professional practice issues in sport psychology such as qualifications, credentialing, graduate training, and the scope of practice in order to address questions about who should be teaching and providing such services. We used frequencies, t-tests, and chi-square analyses to assess trends among licensed psychologists in the subdiscipline of sport psychology. Analyses show that 26.7% (n = 52) reported providing services to individual athletes and 17.9% (n = 35) to teams in which their work focused on directly improving sport performances. Additionally, 58.5% (n = 114) reported providing mental health services to individual athletes and 10.3% (n = 20) to sport teams. These results suggest services provided to individual athletes and groups/teams of athletes seem to emphasize mental health concerns. Regarding supervision, 18.5% (n = 36) indicated they had received supervision related to improving athletes' sport performance and 35.9% (n = 70) for mental health services they had provided. Another 17.5% (n = 34) indicated having provided supervision to other professionals who were working with athletes to improve their sport performance and 40.0% (n = 78) for those who were addressing athletes' mental health. Overall, 26 (13.3%) of the psychologists had published articles concerning sport and performance psychology …

The current study used secondary analysis of existing data to examine associations between bullying experiences, parental partner violence, and partner violence in young adulthood. We hypothesized that bullying in adolescence would be associated with witnessing parental IPV in adolescence and IPV in young adulthood. We believed that deficits in social information processing, particularly hostile attribution biases, would be associated with adolescent bullying. Lastly, we believed that decentering would act as a moderator, affecting the relationship between adolescent bullying and IPV in adulthood. We used correlational and moderation analyses to examine these hypotheses and found that relational bullying victimization was associated with witnessing parental IPV, and the frequency of bullying perpetration was associated with IPV perpetration in adulthood. We found that some aspects of bullying victimization were negatively associated with being unassertive, bullying perpetration was associated with hostile attribution biases, and the relationship between bullying and IPV was significant only at certain levels of decentering maturity.

Binge-watching, the act of watching large amounts of television at a time, has become a popular phenomenon internationally; however, it has yet to be sufficiently defined. In order to define binge-watching, data was collected on specific watching instances from 216 undergraduate students at a large research university. Hierarchical and k-means cluster analyses were conducted in Phase I to empirically determine how binge-watching should be defined. In Phase II, that definition was tested by correlating the number of instances of binge-watching in a one-week period, collected by seven days of daily diary logs, with several theoretically related measures including body mass index, dissociative tendencies, psychological distress, compulsion to watch, boredom proneness, and escapism through watching. The data-driven definition was found to be that eight hours or more of continuous watching was binge-watching, while anything less than that was not. In Phase II, the frequency of binge-watching through the seven-day period was calculated based on that new definition. The frequency of binge-watching was positively correlated with body mass index and dissociative tendencies with statistical significance at the alpha = .05 level. Compulsion to watch was not statistically significant; however, there was a positive correlation. These findings indicate that the proposed data-driven definition …

Self-forgiveness is a growing sub-field of the broader study of forgiveness, and initial research has linked self-forgiveness to positive mental and physical health outcomes. However, the extant literature on self-forgiveness is in its infancy, and there is a need for further research to understand the predictors of self-forgiveness and the clinical implications that might follow. The current study aimed to build on the extant literature by exploring two sets of predictors of self-forgiveness: (1) the four Rs as proposed in Cornish and Wade's four-R therapeutic model of self-forgiveness (i.e., responsibility, remorse, restoration, and renewal) and (2) personality as measured by the Big Five. This study also explored how responsibility for the offense and humility might moderate the relationship between self-forgiveness and well-being. Participants were undergraduates recruited from a large, public university in the southwestern United States. They were instructed to describe a recent interpersonal offense they had committed and complete a questionnaire. The overall results suggest that there is a negative cross-sectional relationship between responsibility, remorse, and restoration with self-forgiveness and that, when taken together, the four-Rs account for a significant amount of variance in self-forgiveness. Neuroticism was negatively associated with self-forgiveness while conscientiousness and extraversion were positively associated with …

There are many identified factors that correlate with whether an individual experiences adverse symptoms following a traumatic event. Research indicates that betrayal, where the victim is betrayed by another individual, may be one of these factors. Betrayal Trauma Theory (BTT) posits that betrayal during trauma increases the likelihood of developing adverse psychological symptoms. BTT objectively dichotomizes traumas as high betrayal or low betrayal traumas based on details of the event. Though literature finds those who experience high betrayals experience more severe symptoms of PTSD, depression, anxiety, and dissociation than those who experience low betrayals, this objective classification is limited as it is based solely on the circumstances of the trauma and does not give the victim the option of indicating whether they felt betrayed. We believe perceptions of betrayal, whether the event meets the objective criteria of betrayal put forth by BTT or not, is an important predictor of trauma-related outcomes. This study (N = 244) found that perceived betrayal predicts symptoms of PTSD and depression independently, as well as when controlling for objective betrayal, dependence on the perpetrator, event centrality, anxiety, and dissociation. These findings indicate perceived betrayal is a unique construct that should be included in the operationalization …

The work group in charge of editing the trauma disorders in the upcoming edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) made several changes to the trauma criteria. Specifically, they simplified the criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and added a new trauma disorder called complex PTSD (CPTSD). To assess the new and newly defined trauma disorders, Litvin, Kaminski and Riggs developed a self-report trauma measure called the Complex Trauma Inventory (CTI). Although the reliability and validity of the CTI has been supported, no empirically-derived cutoff scores exist. We determined the optimal CTI cutoff scores using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses in a diverse sample of 82 participants who experienced trauma and were recruited from an inpatient trauma unit, student veteran organizations, and university classrooms. We used the Clinician-Administered Interview for Trauma Disorders (CAIT) to diagnose the presence of an ICD-11 trauma disorder, and we correlated the results of the CAIT with the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for the DSM-5 to establish the convergent validity of the CAIT, r = .945, p < .001. For the ROC analyses, the CTI was used as the index test and the CAIT was used as the criterion test. The area under the curve (AUC) …

In research on disordered eating in female collegiate athletes, psychosocial correlates including elevated scores on measures of body image concerns, weight pressures, sociocultural internalization, and mood state were found significantly more often in either the eating disorder or symptomatic group as opposed to the asymptomatic group. Unique or nuanced pressures exist for male athletes as well, specifically a different ideal for body image, often described by a drive for muscularity. I examined these effects in a sample of 698 male collegiate athletes. All participants completed questionnaires, which provided measures of drive for muscularity, social desirability, body satisfaction, negative affect, sociocultural pressures, sport weight pressures, and internalization and social comparison among other factors not pertinent for this analysis as part of a larger study. Exploratory factor analysis confirmed the existence of five factors (general and sport pressures, internalization, body dissatisfaction, negative affect and drive for muscularity) to which a sixth was added to reflect dietary intent, all of which are explained in the Petrie and Greenleaf sociocultural model. A logistic regression showed that dietary intent and drive for muscularity differentiated significantly between the symptomatic/eating disordered athletes and those who were asymptomatic.

The purpose of this study was to explore theorized predictors, intrapersonal effects, and interpersonal effects of political humility. Participants (N = 469) were adults recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk and undergraduate students who completed a series of measures online. First, I found that political humility is (a) positively associated with openness to experience, (b) negatively associated with political commitment, and (c) not significantly related to political diversity in one's social network. Second, regarding intrapersonal effects, I found that political humility was (a) positively associated with low emotional reactivity when presented with a different political perspective, (b) identifying positive aspects of the opposite political perspective, and (c) not significantly related to identifying negative aspects of one's own political perspective. Third, I found that both the self-reported political humility of the participant and the perceived political humility of the individual who hurt or offended the participant were positively associated with one's motivation to forgive the individual. Fourth, I found that the association between political humility and forgiveness was not significantly moderated by how close the participant felt to the offender before the hurt or offense. I conclude by discussing my findings in light of the present literature on humility.