On passion and sports fans: a look at football

The purpose of the present research was to test the applicability of the Dualistic Model of Passion (Vallerand et al., 2003) to being a sport (football) fan. Three studies provided support for this dualistic conceptualization of passion. Study 1 showed that harmonious passion was positively associated with adaptive behaviours (e.g. celebrate the team's victory), whereas obsessive passion was positively associated with maladaptive behaviours (e.g. risking losing one's job to go to a game). Study 2 used a short Passion Scale and showed that harmonious passion was positively related to the positive affective life of fans during the 2006 FIFA World Cup, psychological health (self-esteem and life satisfaction), and public displays of adaptive behaviours (e.g. celebrate the team's victory into the streets), whereas obsessive passion was predictive of maladaptive affective life (e.g. hating opposing teams' fans) and behaviours (e.g. mocking opposing teams' fans). Finally, Study 3 examined the role of obsessive passion as a predictor of partner's conflict that in turn undermined partner's relationship satisfaction. Overall, the present results provided support for the Dualistic Model of Passion. The conceptual and applied implications of the findings are discussed.     

Accessibility requirements take on new significance for publishers

Conclusion Publishers may wish to ignore disabilities legislation since it doesn’t apply directly to them, but their customers will not be able ignore the new laws when making purchasing decisions. Thus, as a practical matter each publisher must develop a game plan for how it will position itself to remain competitive in a marketplace where the timely availability of their print works in digital formats is becoming a Sine qua non on purchasing checklists. How individual publishers choose to tackle the new challenges will be determined by a number of variables including the type of content they publish (humanities, math, science, technical), the production systems they use, the length of their press runs, the shelf-life of their products, the level of service they are prepared to provide, the risks they are willing to take, and the dynamics of the markets they serve. A publisher’s strategy will need frequent review and modification because the variables involved in the accessibility environment are changing rapidly. New developments are occurring all the time in the legal environment, in production technologies, in assistive technologies, in distribution technologies, in digital rights management technologies, as well as in file standards. Solutions will need frequent tuning. For publishers, accessibility challenges do not stop with providing alternate formats for printed works. Those delivering their content over private networks via course management systems and over the Internet find that there are other accessibility requirements and standards to be met. It will behoove publishers to develop and implement informed operating policies and protocols that assure that onan ongoing basis its products and services meet applicable accessibility requirements and thus can fully compete in an increasingly demanding marketplace.     

Externally Contingent and Unstable Self‐Worth as Predictors of Depression in College Women: A 3‐Month Study

Undergraduate women completed measures of externally contingent self‐worth, self‐esteem instability, and depression at the beginning (Time 1) and again 3 months later near the end (Time 2) of an academic semester. Findings indicated that when Time 1 depression scores were controlled for, each Time 1 facet of self‐esteem made significant contributions to Time 2 depression scores. Implications of these findings for the counseling of depressed college students are discussed.