Sport-Related Identities and the "Toxic Jock"

Little attention has been paid to the multidimensional nature of athletic involvement, which includes identity formation as well as participation in sports activities. Five hundred eighty-one sport-involved undergraduate students completed a questionnaire assessing their sport-related identities, goal orientations, primary sport ratings, and conformity to masculine norms. F-tested mean comparisons and hierarchical linear regressions were used to explore the characteristics associated with two distinct sport-related identities ("athletes" and "jocks"). Jock identity was associated with an ego-oriented approach to sports (men only), whereas athlete identity was associated with a task-oriented approach (both genders). Jock identity was positively associated with conformity to masculine norms, particularly for men, whereas athlete identity was positively associated with some masculine norms (i.e., Winning) and negatively associated with others (i.e., Playboy). These findings help to identify the correlates of a "toxic Jock" identity that may signal elevated risk for health-compromising behavior.     

Youth helmet design in sports with repetitive low- and medium-energy impacts: a systematic review

Concussion awareness in youth sports has increased secondary to recent legislation, public health campaigns, and media coverage. The potential for long-term negative sequelae is now widely recognized and there have been a number of initiatives nationwide to prevent pediatric head injuries, including efforts to design more effective helmets for repetitive impact sports. The primary aim of this review is to systematically assess the literature regarding helmet design in youth sports specifically designed to mitigate repetitive low- and medium-energy impacts. Secondary aims include identifying areas for future research and opportunities for helmet design improvement. A systematic review of the literature was performed to identify articles relating to youth helmet design and biomechanical studies of concussion in youth sports. Pubmed, Google scholar, Cochrane Review and article citations were used to identify all pertinent English articles between 1971 and January 2016. A total of 14 studies met criteria for inclusion in this review, three of which included clinical outcomes (all Level of Evidence II) and eleven of which included biomechanical outcomes. The vast majority focused on adolescents playing football. Six of the biomechanical studies demonstrated improved biomechanical metrics in helmets with increasing foam thickness and number of foam layers. Two clinical studies also seem to support this concept, with significant caveats. To date, there are limited clinical and biomechanical data on youth helmet design. There is a need for further research in order to optimize helmet design and reduce the number and severity of pediatric sports-related head injuries.     

The identification of alienated parents and children: Implications for school psychologists

This study sought to determine which factors associated with parents and children were the best predictors of parental alienation. The levels of alienation of parents of 49 students in two selected fourth-grade classrooms in a Midwestern urban school district were assessed using the Dean Alienation Scale. The levels of parental alienation were compared with parent and child variable. High levels of alienation were associated with single, unemployed female parents, whose child was a female with few perceived friends. The degree of alienation was not related to the race, achievement, or attendance of the student. However, a weighted combination of the 12 variables was significant in terms of predicting the parental level of alienation.     

Differentiating children with school-related problems after four years using the Miller assessment for preschoolers

In a four-year follow-up study, the performance of 338 children on the Miller Assessment for Preschoolers was compared to indices of school functioning. Criterion measures included: retention in school, poor teachers' observations, assignment to special services or special classes, and below average report card grades. Results showed that preschoolers with low MAP scores were significantly more likely to be represented in school problem categories than were preschoolers with higher MAP scores. MAP Total scores differentiated problem and no-problem school children under all eight problem categories. These results confirm the predictive value of the MAP. Implications for refining school outcome variables in validity research on preschool screening instruments are discussed.     

The impact of uphill cycling and bicycle suspension on downhill performance during cross-country mountain biking

ABSTRACT

Non-propulsive work demand has been linked to reduced energetic economy of cross-country mountain biking. The purpose of this study was to determine mechanical, physiological and performance differences and observe economy while riding a downhill section of a cross-country course prior to and following the metabolic “load” of a climb at race pace under two conditions (hardtail and full suspension) expected to alter vibration damping mechanics. Participants completed 1 lap of the track incorporating the same downhill section twice, under two conditions (hardtail and full suspension). Performance was determined by time to complete overall lap and specific terrain sections. Power, cadence, heart rate and oxygen consumption were sampled and logged every second while triaxial accelerometers recorded accelerations (128 Hz) to quantify vibration. No differences between performance times (P = 0.65) or power outputs (P = 0.61) were observed while physiological demand of loaded downhill riding was significantly greater (P < 0.0001) than unloaded. Full suspension decreased total vibrations experienced (P < 0.01) but had no effect on performance (P = 0.97) or physiological (P > 0.05) measures. This study showed minimal advantage of a full suspension bike in our trial, with further investigations over a full race distance warranted.     

Technology Infusion and Higher Education: Changing Teaching and Learning

This article examines the position that, while technology infusion into the teaching and learning process has occurred, gains have nonetheless come slowly. The question of whether or not such infusion is necessary is considered. Barriers to more rapid expansion of technology assisted learning are enumerated, and changes needed to speed infusion are identified. These include changes at the system level and those to be made by individual faculty.     

Biological significance attenuates overshadowing, relative validity, and degraded contingency effects

Miller and Matute (1996) showed that blocking is attenuated when the blocked conditioned stimulus (CS) is “biologically significant” (i.e., when the CS has the potential to elicit vigorous responding of any kind). To the extent that blocking is representative of cue competition, this finding suggests that biological significance protects CSs against cue competition effects in general. In the present experiments, we tested this possibility by examining the influence of biological significance of CSs on other examples of cue competition, namely, overshadowing, the relative stimulus validity effect, and the degraded contingency effect in rats. In Experiment 1, we found that intense auditory stimuli induced transient unconditioned lick suppression, thereby indicating that intense sounds were of high inherent biological significance. In Experiment 2A, we found that cues with high inherent biological significance were protected from overshadowing. In Experiment 2B, this finding was extended to cues with high acquired biological significance, which was obtained through prior pairings with a reinforcer of the valence opposite to that used in the overshadowing treatment. In Experiments 3 and 4, we found that cues with high inherent biological significance attenuated the relative validity effect and the degraded contingency effect, respectively. These results lend support to the view that biological significance (inherent and acquired) protects stimuli from cue competition effects, a finding that is problematic for many contemporary theories of learning.