Psychology

Past research on parents' knowledge of concussion has shown that they understand the severity and consequences associated with the injury but have existing gaps in their knowledge for its management. This is a cause for concern due to the critical role parents play in their child's management process. This present study sought to address this area of concern with semi- structured focus groups to gain an insight on parents' perceptions and experiences with concussion management and an alternative method of care - neuropsychological baseline testing. What emerged from the focus groups was the core theme of navigating uncertainty. This theme encompassed the participants perceptions and experiences with having to take on the role of managing their child's concussion without a complete understanding of the management process. It incorporated aspects of injury diagnosis, methods of management, communication among stakeholders within the sporting community, the influence of concussion policy and parents' perceptions of neuropsychological baseline testing in the management process. A model was constructed to display the factors that influenced and guided parents' engagement with neuropsychological baseline testing.

Author Keywords: Communication, Concussion, Diagnosis, Management, Neuropsychological Baseline Testing, Uncertainty

Background: Researchers who study both attachment and criminal thinking propose that perceptions of the self and others explain why individuals engage in illegal behaviour (e.g., Bowlby, 1944; Mitchell & Tafrate, 2012). The purpose of this study was to combine these areas of research and examine how attachment views of self and others are associated with self and other models of criminal thinking patterns. Method: The first study included 582 undergraduate students and the findings were partially replicated in a second sample of adults recruited through social media (n =142). Participants completed measures of attachment, criminal thinking, and reported their engagement in illegal behaviours. Results: Structural equation modelling was used to test associations between models of the self and other. The respective models of the self and other for attachment and criminal thinking were associated, however, the cross paths were also associated for some groups and indicated a relationship where views of the self and other are predictive of one another in the context of relationships and criminal thinking. The findings were somewhat stronger for participants who reported engaging in deviant behaviour. Impact: To date, this study is the first to study the connection between attachment representations and criminal thinking, highlighting how our views of the self and others within relationships impact the complex way of thinking associated with criminal behaviour.

Author Keywords: adult attachment, attachment, criminal thinking, deviance

The Multidimensional Inventory of Personal Intelligence (MIPI) was designed to measure three related dimensions of the personal intelligence (PI) construct: emotional intelligence (EI), social intelligence (SI), and motivational intelligence (MI). The MIPI has psychometric properties and a theoretical structure that improves on the shortcomings of existing trait EI measures. The aim of the first study was to create and validate a shortened form (MIPI- Short) that maintains the same factorial structure of the original MIPI. The purpose of the second study was to validate the new scale with measures of conceptually similar constructs (e.g., emotional intelligence, Alexithymia) with various measurement methodologies (self-report, observer-report, and performance-based). Results from Study 1 found that the MIPI-Short had good factorial structure in two independent samples, as well as adequate internal reliability, and good incremental validity. The results of Study 2 demonstrated that the MIPI-Short had good construct validity as it generally related as expected with measures of EI and Alexithymia. The findings of both studies provide evidence for the validity of the MIPI-Short as a brief measure of Personal Intelligence. Directions for further research are emphasized, as the validation process is on-going for any assessment tool.

Author Keywords: Emotional Intelligence, Personal Intelligence, Socio-Emotional Competencies

Positive coaching techniques are gaining prominence in the sport of Gymnastics. Coaches are focusing on positive reinforcement, encouragement, and constructive feedback rather than relying solely on traditional, more authoritarian coaching methods. Furthermore, technology is being used to enhance coach-athlete relationships. Video analysis tools and performance tracking software allow for more detailed feedback and communication between coaches and gymnasts. Previous research has shown that sensory feedback, and physical cues and guidance impact both motor learning and motor skill performance. Spotting is a form of physical guidance (touch) that may be used by gymnastics coaches during both the learning phase of a skill and during performance, even after mastery. This research has examined whether and how spotting with touch influences the athlete's skill performance and confidence. The current study explored how spotting affects both skill performance and self-confidence of participants as they performed a basic skill (a backward jump onto a specified target) they have already mastered. We asked Intermediate-level gymnasts to perform a backward jump from height under two levels of landing difficulty, while being spotted with and without touch. Their confidence was measured in each condition using a brief survey. The timing, accuracy and precision of their landing was measured from video recordings of their performance. We evaluated the relationship between touch and skill performance to determine if it is affected by athlete self-confidence. It was hypothesized that physical guidance in the form of spot with touch would improve the accuracy and precision of the jump landing and that athletes would report higher levels of self-confidence in the touch versus no touch condition. We found no significant differences in skill performance and landing stability as assessed by rate of force development and peak force. We found that participants reported significantly higher levels of self-confidence when receiving spot with touch in the easy landing condition.

Author Keywords: gymnastics, physical guidance, self-confidence, skill performance, spotting, touch

Pharmacological cognitive enhancement is the use of prescription drugs to improve cognitive functioning in healthy individuals. Multiple ethical concerns have been raised by such use. The purpose of this project was to develop a reliable and valid measure to assess public attitudes about this issue. Participants were university students in Studies 1 (N = 465), 2 (N = 580) and 3 (N = 156). In Study 1 principal components analysis reduced the 90-item Attitudes Toward Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement Scale to 42 items that loaded onto four components: Cheating/Unfairness, Motivation, Expected Benefits and Safety. Subscale scores differentiated users and nonusers. In Study 2 confirmatory factor analyses supported the model and statistically significant associations were found with related constructs such as attitudes toward performance-enhancing drugs, and prescription drug expectancies. In Study 3 test-retest reliability over a 3-week interval was above .70 for 3 of 4 subscales. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Author Keywords: attitudes, cognitive enhancement, nonmedical use of prescription drugs, scale development, smart drugs

Social scientists have debated whether religious involvement is associated with differences in deviant behaviours for over a century. Religious practices and beliefs are often associated with less deviant behaviours in young adults, such as less frequent drug use and law-breaking. Empirical results on these associations, though, have been mixed, possibly due to heterogenous measures. Recent literature has begun teasing apart religious practices (e.g., attending church) from spiritual beliefs (e.g., believing in higher powers) and exploring their unique associations with different outcomes. The present study tested the independent and interactive effects of religion and spirituality in predicting deviance. Religion was negatively associated with some types of deviance, the relationship remained significant even after controlling for covariates. Spirituality was not reliably associated with deviance. There was an interaction between religion and spirituality, where the combination of the two was associated with the lowest level of deviance. Further findings and implications are discussed.

Author Keywords: deviance, religion, spirituality, youth

The traditions of spirituality and meditation have been found to connect to psychological health in the form of increased happiness, empathy, and decreased anxiety. The present study aimed to better understand how these practices might connect to such beneficial outcomes. A sample of 363 undergraduate student participants completed a questionnaire that measured their meditation practice, mindfulness, spirituality, happiness, empathy, and anxiety. Contrary to expectations, meditators and non- meditators did not significantly differ in their psychological health outcomes. These findings have implications for how meditators and non-meditator groups should be differentiated in research. Regarding spirituality, the purpose and meaning and innerness dimensions of the construct significantly predicted happiness and decreased anxiety, while the unified interconnectedness dimension significantly predicted empathy. The transcendence dimension of spirituality did not significantly predict psychological health. This pattern of results has implications for spiritual care interventions that intend to augment psychological health.

Author Keywords: Anxiety, Empathy, Happiness, Meditation, Psychological health, Spirituality

Sexual agency is receiving more attention in sexuality research though its contribution to sexual well-being has yet to be determined. Sexual agency has been theorized as an overarching concept comprised of both internal and external components. Both feelings and behaviours in the sexual domain can be impacted by prevalent culturally prescribed sexual scripts. The present study assessed sexual assertiveness, sexual self-concept, and comfort in sexual communication (i.e., together conceptualized as sexual agency) to determine if greater levels of these indices led to more direct consent communication, more intrinsic motivations for engaging in sex, and more positive sexual evaluations. Analyses were run separately on two samples: a student and community participant pool. Results indicate that greater sexual agency predicts being more intrinsically driven to engage in sex, using more direct consent communication, and reporting more positive evaluations of one's most recent sexual encounter. Gendered analyses reveal that cismen and ciswomen have similar levels of sexual agency, and rate their encounters similarly. Having greater sexual agency was a better predictor of experiencing sexual well-being compared to gender. Implications for policy development and sexual education curriculum reform are discussed, and future research directions are suggested.

Author Keywords: Sexual Agency, Sexual Consent, Sexual Motivations, Sexual Regret, Sexual Well-being

Despite the extensive application of Baumrind's parenting style typology, some argue that it may not adequately capture the implicit warmth Chinese parents embrace. This study attempted to examine whether mind-mindedness could be a key indicator for helping children understand the benevolent intentions behind their mothers' authoritarian parenting practices. Specifically, this study investigated the variations in parenting styles, mind-mindedness, and children's behavior problems in Canada and China, the relationship among these variables, and the moderating effect of mind-mindedness on the relationship between authoritarian parenting and children's behavior problems. Participants were 83 Canadian and 136 Chinese mother-child dyads. Data on parenting styles, mind-mindedness, and problem behaviors were collected from maternal reports and lab observations. As expected, while Chinese mothers exhibited more authoritarian tendencies than Canadian mothers, their mind-mindedness buffer against the negative effect of maternal high-power strategies on children's behavior problems after controlling for maternal age and education. These results provide new perspectives on understanding Chinese parenting.

Author Keywords: culture, externalizing behaviors, internalizing behaviors, mind-mindedness, parenting styles, preschoolers

Transracial adoption places the child with a family of a different ethnicity than their own. In the current study we qualitatively examine concerns associated with transracial adoption and investigate the relation between parent-child relationships and child social-emotional problems. Twenty-two adopted girls from China, 20 nonadopted Caucasian girls, and 23 nonadopted Chinese-Canadian girls, between 10-14 years, and their mothers were included. Thematic content analysis of interviews with adoptive mothers revealed that the transracial adoption experience had positive, negative, and neutral aspects. This included the parent-child relationship, the adopted child's view of their physical appearance, and the incorporation of cultural elements into the home. Quantitative analyses revealed no significant differences between the three groups on measures of parent-child relationship quality and child social-emotional functioning, which confirmed findings from the qualitative analysis. In the entire sample there were significant negative relations between quality of parent-child relationship and social-emotional functioning. These results suggest that early age of adoption may help decrease the likelihood of problematic parent-child relationships and social-emotional functioning in adopted children. It would be important to re-examine this question during adolescence when racial identity forms.

Author Keywords: Cultural Socialization, Developmental Psychology, Parent-Child Relationship, Social-Emotional Behaviour, Transracial Adoption