The relationship between passion and athlete identity in sport: the mediating and moderating role of dedication

BACKGROUND

In addition to the fact that the concept of passion in sports plays a significant role in the formation of the identity concept of athletes, the dedication of athletes to the sports branches they are interested in also has a significant impact on their passion for the sport they are interested in as well as their identity as an athlete. In this direction, the research aims to investigate the role of dedication as a mediator and moderator in the relationship between athlete identity and passion in sport.

METHODS

The research was designed using the quantitative research technique of relational surveying. As data collection instruments for the research, the athlete identity scale, the passion in sport scale, and the sports commitment scale were utilized. 237 amateur and professional athletes, of which 142 were male and 95 were female (Mage = 22.7), participated voluntarily in the study by random sampling. The data were analyzed with the PROCESS and Jamovi programs in order to examine the direct and indirect effects.

RESULTS

Significant effects of sports passion on commitment and athlete identity were found. Since both dedication and athlete identity had a significant effect on passion for sports, it was determined that passion for sports continues to influence athlete identity through the medium of dedication. The moderator significance of medium, high, and low values of devotion was determined.

ETHICS APPROVAL NUMBER

226394, date of registration: 03/11/2022.

CONCLUSION

On the basis of the results of the statistical analyses, it was determined that the concept of dedication has a mediating and moderating effect on the relationship between sports passion and athlete identity.

Effects of achievement goals on learning interests and mathematics performances for kindergarteners

Background

Studies have investigated the effects of achievement goals on learning interests and mathematics performance above the elementary-school level. However, few studies have explored this topic among kindergarteners based on sound theoretical frameworks.

Methods

Through the enrollment of 15 kindergarten teachers and 180 kindergarteners, this study re-validated newly developed measurements of kindergarteners' achievement goals and learning interests and used these measures to further clarify the effects of achievement goals on learning interests and mathematics performances using structural equation modeling.

Results

The results indicate that (1) task-approach goals have positive effects on situational interest and advanced arithmetic performance, whereas task-avoidance goals have positive effects on individual interest. (2) Self-based goals have null effects on most learning interests and mathematics performance, but they have significant negative effects on numbering and counting performance. However, most of these null effects represent negative tendencies. (3) Other-approach goals have positive effects on situational interest and basic arithmetic performance, whereas other-avoidance goals have null effects on these outcomes but have an almost significant positive effect on numbering and counting performance. (4) Task-based goals and self-approach goals are generally beneficial for learning interests and mathematics performance.

Conclusion

These results suggest that task-based goals and other-approach goals may be implemented with consideration of the potential long-term detrimental effects of social comparison on learning outcomes. Furthermore, possible negative effects of self-based goals must be monitored to prevent them from undermining learning outcomes. This study revealed consistent, inconsistent, and new evidence that, respectively, verifies, complements, and contradicts findings on the learning outcomes of students above the elementary-school level.

The correlation of honesty-humility and learning goals with academic cheating

Academic cheating is a problem that affects many educational institutions and has become increasingly significant with the new challenges of online education. Recent studies have found that learning goals are correlated with cheating behavior among students. In this study, we investigated whether learning goals are still a predictor of cheating behavior when controlling for students' Honesty-Humility (emanated from the HEXACO model of personality) within a sample of 311 German university students. Regrading students' learning goals, we assessed their learning approach, performance approach, performance avoidance, and work avoidance. The result shows an intermediate negative and highly significant association between Honesty-Humility and academic cheating. Learning goals did not explain any incremental variance in academic cheating that goes beyond the Honesty-Humility factor. As the only exception, the work avoidance goal was found to also predict cheating behavior, but this positive association seems to be not as strong as the negative correlation between Honesty-Humility and academic cheating. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these results and make recommendations for future research.

Personal Achievement Goals, Learning Strategies, and Perceived IT Affordances

What people perceive when they interact with technologies are not the features and functionalities of the technology but rather the behaviors it affords them. Affordance perception determines how organizational information technology (IT) is used by employees and the benefits they provide to organizations and their members. In this article, we explain how employees who pursue different personal goals and use various learning strategies come to perceive different IT affordances. We identify three distinct pathways: (1) performance-avoidance goals are positively associated with surface processing, which leads to perceptions of common in-role IT affordances; (2) performance-approach goals are positively associated with surface processing and effort regulation and these learning strategies lead to perceptions of common and specialized in-role IT affordances; and (3) mastery goals are associated with deep processing, effort regulation, and peer learning, which are positively associated with perceptions of specialized in-role and extra-role IT affordances. By identifying the different pathways to perceived affordances, the article identifies potential interventions that can help managers steer employees toward certain affordances and away from other, less desirable affordances.

The Curvilinear Relationships Between Top Decision Maker Goal Orientations and Firm Ambidexterity: Moderating Effect of Role Experience

Ambidextrous firms are those that can simultaneously manage exploitative and explorative innovation, which is why ambidexterity is key for firms that desire to pursue strategic entrepreneurship. Researchers have explored many of the reasons why some firms are more ambidextrous than others. However, little attention has been devoted to understanding how attributes of top decision makers can influence their firms' ambidexterity. By drawing on upper echelons theory and goal orientations research, we explain how firms' ambidexterity can be affected by top decision makers' motivations in achievement situations (i.e., goal orientations). Testing our hypotheses on a sample of 274 top decision makers of firms in the United States, we find that top decision makers' learning goal orientation - their desire to take risks and maximize learning-has an inverted U-shaped relationship with ambidexterity while top decision makers' performance prove goal orientation - their desire to demonstrate competence with existing skills - has a U-shaped relationship with ambidexterity. These effects are weaker for top decision makers who have greater role experience.

Does Setting Goals Enhance Parenting Intervention Effects? A Field Experiment

People who pursue approach goals (i.e., desired outcomes to be reached) tend to be more likely to achieve their goals than people who pursue avoidance goals (i.e., undesired outcomes to be prevented). We tested this premise in a brief preventive parenting intervention targeting parental praise to reduce disruptive child behavior. We also tested whether goal setting effects depend on behavior change phase (initiation versus maintenance) and parents' regulatory focus (high versus low promotion and prevention focus). Parents (N = 224; child age 4-8) were randomized to one of four conditions: an approach goal-enhanced or an avoidance goal-enhanced intervention condition, a no-goal intervention condition, or a waitlist control condition. Outcomes were parent-reported and audio-recorded positive parenting and disruptive child behavior. Results show that goal setting had very limited effects. Setting avoidance goals, not approach goals, improved self-reported positive parenting. However, goal setting did not enhance effects of parenting intervention on observed (i.e., audio-recorded) positive parenting and disruptive child behavior. Furthermore, goal setting effects depended neither on the phase of change, nor on parents' regulatory focus. This field experiment suggests that setting approach goals does not enhance the brief parenting intervention to improve parent-child interactions.

Relations of multivariate goal profiles to motivation, epistemic beliefs and achievement

We examined whether undergraduates’ achievement goal orientations could be represented as profiles and whether profiles were linked to self-reported motivation, epistemic beliefs and academic achievement. Data collected during an undergraduate course were analyzed using a clustering technique. Using the 2 × 2 goal model (Elliot & McGregor, 2001 ), we identified five achievement goal profiles. Our findings suggest the interaction of goal orientations supports varying interpretations of students’ motivation and learning beliefs. Although no statistically significant differences in achievement were found across clusters, a High-Approach-Low-Avoidance cluster displayed an adaptive profile that was most positive towards learning and self but least anxious about exams. In contrast, a Performance-Avoidance-Dominant cluster demonstrated a maladaptive pattern of lowest self-efficacy and task value, and higher anxiety. Further, High-Approach-Low-Avoidance and Low-Performance-Avoidance clusters recognized that knowledge is not simple and authority could be questioned, compared to the other groups.

A meta-analysis of induced achievement goals: the moderating effects of goal standard and goal framing

In this paper, we present a meta-analysis of the motivational and performance effects of experimentally induced achievement goals and the moderating effects of goal standard and goal framing; comprising 90 studies which provided 235 effect sizes (11,247 participants). The findings show that, relative to performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals and no-goals, induced mastery-approach goals enhanced performance, but not motivation. With regards to the goal standard used in the inducement, mastery-approach goals related to better performance than performance-approach goals, when mastery-approach goals were based on task-referenced standards or when social comparison was used as a standard for inducing performance-approach goals. With regards to the goal framing used in the inducement, mastery-approach goals were more beneficial when achievement goals were induced by means of goal content. We therefore conclude that goal framing and goal standard should be taken into consideration in achievement goal research and practice.

University Student Mental Well-Being during COVID-19 Outbreak: What Are the Relationships between Information Seeking, Perceived Risk and Personal Resources Related to the Academic Context?

In light of rising concern about the coronavirus pandemic crisis, a growing number of universities across the world have either postponed or canceled all campus and other activities. This posed new challenges for university students. Based on the classification proposed in the Mental Health Continuum model by Keyes, the aims were to estimate university students’ prevalence of mental health during lookdown outbreak, and to examine the associations between mental health and, respectively, academic stress, self-efficacy, satisfaction for degree course, locus of control, COVID-19 risk perception, taking into account the level of information seeking about pandemic. Overall, 1124 Italian university students completed a self-report questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive and correlational analyses. Results showed that 22.3% of participants were flourishing, and levels of mental well-being appeared in line with normative values in young Italian adults; levels of academic stress were not significantly higher than those found in other student samples before the COVID-19 outbreak. Students with high levels of information seeking presented higher levels of well-being and risk perception. Results could be considered useful to realize training pathways, to help the university students to improve their well-being, post-pandemic.

University Student's Academic Goals When Working in Teams: Questionnaire on Academic Goals in Teamwork, 3 × 2 Model

Group work is a very common practice in higher education when it comes to developing key competences for students' personal and professional growth. The goals that students pursue when working in teams determine how they organize and regulate their behavior and how they approach the tasks. The academic goals are a relevant variable that can condition the success of the group, as they guide and direct the students toward involvement in the task, the effort they make, and the desire to increase their academic competence, and their learning. Thus, the need arises to create new evaluation instruments to help us understand the importance of academic goals when students work as a team. The purpose of this paper is to corroborate the construct validity of the questionnaire on teamwork learning goals (QTLG) based on the achievement goal questionnaire (3 × 2 AGQ) of Elliot et al. (2011) in the context of teamwork, and to determine if the model 3 × 2 offers a better fit to the data than other models, such as: 2 × 2; Trichotomous; Definition; Valence, among others. The results obtained from a sample of 700 students from 6 Spanish universities confirm that, in the context of teamwork, the 3 × 2 model fits the data better than the rest of the models subjected to confirmatory analysis, with contrasting evidence of validity and reliability. Therefore, we considered it a useful instrument for studying motivation in the group work context. The QTLG has practical applications, allowing us to explore in detail the academic goals of university students.

Effects of elite athletes’ aim orientation on basic psychological needs and fear of failure

Purpose: This research was carried out in order to analyze elite athletes’ aim orientation, basic psychological needs and fear of failure in perspective of several variables, and to reveal the differences among these variables. Material and Methods: Sample of the research consisted of elite athletes from different branches who had been in different regions of Turkey in 2016-2017. Number of elite athletes in this research was (n=521) in total, 378 of whom were males and 173 of whom were females. These elite athletes had been chosen by random sampling. As data collection tools, Basic Psychological Needs Scale, which was adapted to Turkish by Kesici et al (2003), Fear of Failure Scale which was adapted to Turkish by Kahraman and Sungur (2016), Scale of Task and Ego Orientation in Sports that was adapted to Turkish by Toros (2004) were used in the study. Results. It was concluded that females had lower fear of “unclear future” and “experiencing shame and embarrassment” than males. It was revealed that as the age of the participants went up, their needs for relationship, fear of unclear future, fear of experiencing shame and embarrassment, and task orientation increase. It was found out that participants who had direct branches had higher “need for relationship” and “fear of unclear future” in comparison with the ones who had indirect branches. Conclusion: According to the results of the study, it was found that there was meaningful difference in sub-dimensional fear of failure in terms of gender variable, in sub-dimensional fear of failure, in basic psychological needs and in aim orientation with regards to age variable, in sub-dimensional basic psychological needs and in fear of failure in terms of branch variation (direct - indirect) variable.

Examining the Cross-Level Influence of Dispositional and Team Goal Orientations on Employee Self-Regulation and Performance in a Complex Task Environment

The study examined the mediating role of individual’s self-regulatory processes of deep cognitive strategies (meaningful learning rather than a reproduction of knowledge) and negative affect in the relationship between dispositional and team goal orientations and team member’s performance of complex tasks. Thirty-three research and development teams and their managers participated. Results demonstrated that dispositional performance orientation (focus on success) increased negative affect, which, in turn, lowered employee job performance. Whereas team learning orientation (focus on learning and improvement) decreased negative affect, which, in turn, was associated with higher employee job performance. Additionally, both dispositional and team learning orientations were positively and significantly associated with individuals’ use of deep cognitive strategies. However, deep cognitive strategies were not associated with employee performance. Findings suggest that managers of teams performing complex tasks may want to consider ways to create and sustain a high learning orientation in order to reduce negative affect and increase use of deep cognitive strategies within their teams.

Effects of test stress during an objective structured clinical examination

OBJECTIVE

The existence of test stress has been widely reported among professional students. To our knowledge, no studies exist that explore student stress response to objective structured clinical examinations. The aim of this study was to evaluate possible correlations between stress and objective structured clinical examination performance in a sample of chiropractic students.

METHODS

A total of 116 students completed a 2-part questionnaire to assess test stress and the physiological symptoms and signs of stress. Heart rate, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic were measured during the physical examination laboratory class within the first 3 weeks and then again just prior to their objective structured clinical examination in week 5. Statistical tests were then performed for questionnaire data, heart rate and blood pressure differences, and correlation between the objective structured clinical examination grade and symptoms and signs.

RESULTS

Questionnaire results showed that 5.1%-22.4% of students sometimes or often felt a certain degree of stress. More than 50% had 1 or more physiological symptoms and signs of stress. The objective structured clinical examination heart rate (75.23 ± 11.20 vs 68.16 ± 8.82, p < .001), systolic blood pressure (120.43 ± 9.59 vs 114.97 ± 11.83, p < .001), and diastolic blood pressure (73.00 ± 7.93 vs 69.32 ± 7.76, p < .001) were significantly higher than baseline. There were also negative linear correlations between objective structured clinical examination grades and physiological symptoms and signs and between objective structured clinical examination grades and feeling statement score.

CONCLUSION

The results support our hypothesis that chiropractic students experience stress when performing the objective structured clinical examination and that high levels of stress had a negative impact on performance.

When Challenging Art Gets Liked: Evidences for a Dual Preference Formation Process for Fluent and Non-Fluent Portraits

Although fluency theory predominates psychological research on human aesthetics, its most severe limitation may be to explain why art that challenges or even violates easy processing can nevertheless be aesthetically rewarding. We discuss long-standing notions on art’s potential to offer mental growth opportunities and to tap into a basic epistemic predisposition that hint at a fluency counteracting aesthetic pleasure mechanism. Based on divergent strands of literature on empirical, evolutionary, and philosophical aesthetics, as well as research on disfluency, we presumed that challenging art requires deliberate reflexive processing at the level of “aboutness” in order to be experientially pleasing. Here, we probed such a cognitive mastering mechanism, achieved by iterative cycles of elaboration, as predicted by our model of aesthetic experiences. For the study, two kinds of portraits were applied, one associable to a high fluency and one to a high stimulation potential (according to results of an extensive rating study). In Experiment 1, we provided a repeated evaluation task, which revealed a distinctive preference effect for challenging portraits that was absent in the visual exposition conditions of a familiarity and a mere exposure task (Experiment 2). In a follow-up task (Experiment 3) this preference effect was observed with a novel and more encompassing pool of portraits, which corroborated its stability and robustness. In an explorative stimulus-transfer task (Experiment 4), we investigated the presumed underlying mechanism by testing whether the observed effect would generalize onto novel portraits of the same artist-specific styles. Results discounted an alternative interpretation of a perceptual adaptation effect and hinted at meaning-driven mental activity. Conjointly, findings for inexperienced viewers were indicative of an elaboration based mastering mechanism that selectively operated for mentally challenging portraits. Moreover, findings were in line with a dual-process view of human preference formation with art. Theoretical implications and boundary conditions are discussed.

The student-institution fit at university: interactive effects of academic competition and social class on achievement goals

As compared to continuing-generation students, first-generation students are struggling more at university. In the present article, we question the unconditional nature of such a phenomenon and argue that it depends on structural competition. Indeed, most academic departments use harsh selection procedure all throughout the curriculum, fostering between-student competition. In these departments, first-generation students tend to suffer from a lack of student-institution fit, that is, inconsistencies with the competitive institution’s culture, practices, and identity. However, one might contend that in less competitive academic departments continuing-generation students might be the ones experiencing a lack of fit. Using a cross-sectional design, we investigated the consequences of such a context- and category-dependent lack of fit on the endorsement of scholastically adaptive goals. We surveyed N = 378 first- and continuing-generation students from either a more competitive or a less competitive department in their first or final year of bachelor’s study. In the more competitive department, first-to-third year decrease of mastery goals (i.e., the desire to learn) was found to be steeper for first- than for continuing-generation students. In the less competitive department, the reversed pattern was found. Moreover, first-to-third year decrease of performance goals (i.e., the desire to outperform others) was found to be steeper within the less competitive department but did not depend on social class. This single-site preliminary research highlights the need to take the academic context into account when studying the social class graduation gap.

Mastery-approach goals eliminate retrieval-induced forgetting: the role of achievement goals in memory inhibition

The present study examined how achievement goals affect retrieval-induced forgetting. Researchers have suggested that mastery-approach goals (i.e., developing one's own competence) promote a relational encoding, whereas performance-approach goals (i.e., demonstrating one's ability in comparison with others) promote item-specific encoding. These different encoding processes may affect the degree to which participants integrate the exemplars within a category and, as a result, we expected that retrieval-induced forgetting may be reduced or eliminated under mastery-approach goals. Three experiments were conducted using a retrieval-practice paradigm with different stimuli, where participants' achievement goals were manipulated through brief written instructions. A meta-analysis that synthesized the results of the three experiments showed that retrieval-induced forgetting was not statistically significant in the mastery-approach goal condition, whereas it was statistically significant in the performance-approach goal condition. These results suggest that mastery-approach goals eliminate retrieval-induced forgetting, but performance-approach goals do not, demonstrating that motivation factors can influence inhibition and forgetting.

Effects of Implicit Failure Priming on Cognitive and Motor Performance in Elementary School Children

Previous research showed that failure primes in academic learning contexts can impair the performance of both older school children and college students. The present research tested the effect of failure priming on cognitive and motor performance in elementary school children. We hypothesized that children incidentally confronted with a cue previously learned to indicate failure would perform worse on a cognitive task (Study 1, N = 54 second-graders) and a motor task (Study 2, N = 60 third-graders) than children confronted with a cue indicating success or children in a control group. The results showed that the failure prime group performed worse than the success prime group on an intelligence test (Study 1) and a ball-throwing exercise (Study 2). Neither experimental group differed from the control group. Our studies confirmed previous findings, showing that failure primes can be learned early in life and quickly (e.g., 1 year of failure prime exposure, Study 1). Furthermore, even a one-trial learning process (Study 2) suffices to turn an inherently neutral cue into a failure prime. This failure prime, in turn, can impair different types of performance such as cognitive and motor performance.

The role of working memory in achievement goal pursuit

The present research examined the role of working memory in the pursuit of qualitatively different achievement goals. Pursuit of a mastery-approach goal entails a focus on developing self-referential competence while a performance-approach goal entails a focus on demonstrating normative competence. Across two experiments it was found that, when working memory is loaded, individuals pursuing a mastery-approach goal experienced larger performance decrements than individuals pursuing a performance-approach goal or those in a no-goal control. It was also found that reliance upon working memory intensive strategies (explicit strategies) was more evident for those in a mastery-approach condition, whereas reliance upon less working memory intensive strategies (implicit strategies) was more evident for those in the performance-approach condition. Results suggest that a motivated focus on developing self-referential skill relies heavily on working memory, facilitated by the use of deliberative, 'step-by-step' strategies during goal pursuit. Conversely, a focus on demonstrating normative skill depends less on working memory, facilitated by the use of more heuristic 'short-cut' strategies during goal pursuit. These findings show, for the first time, that working memory plays an important, but selective, role in achievement goal pursuit.

Time Pressure Undermines Performance More Under Avoidance Than Approach Motivation

Four experiments were designed to test the hypothesis that performance is particularly undermined by time pressure when people are avoidance motivated. The results supported this hypothesis across three different types of tasks, including those well suited and those ill suited to the type of information processing evoked by avoidance motivation. We did not find evidence that stress-related emotions were responsible for the observed effect. Avoidance motivation is certainly necessary and valuable in the self-regulation of everyday behavior. However, our results suggest that given its nature and implications, it seems best that avoidance motivation is avoided in situations that involve (time) pressure.

Using Traces to Investigate Self-Regulatory Activities: A Study of Self-Regulation and Achievement Goal Profiles in the Context of Web Search for Academic Tasks

Traditional approaches of researching self-regulated learning (SRL) fail to capture how learners actually employ studying tactics, how tactics are strategically adapted to specific learning contexts, and how learners adapt tactics and interweave them to form an efficient strategy. Computer traces can capture SRL “on the fly,” and enable researchers to track learning events in a nonlinear environment without disrupting the learner’s thinking or navigation through content. More importantly, data obtained in real time allow “virtual” re-creation of learners’ actions during studying. There were 107 Chinese university students’ traces collected while they solved assigned problems through searching the web. By linking their regulatory activities during online search to their goal profiles, results showed that mastery-approach-dominant students were most strategic, whereas performance-avoidance-dominant students were least. Moderately motivated students showed a mixed pattern of deep and surface study strategies. Implications of the findings were also discussed.

Effectiveness of a brief intervention using mental simulations in reducing alcohol consumption in corporate employees

A theory-based intervention aimed at reducing corporate employees' alcohol consumption in excess of guideline limits is presented. The intervention adopted an outcome mental simulation technique and was administered to a sample of corporate employees from three companies. A single-arm randomized-controlled design was adopted. All participants completed baseline psychological measures and self-reported number of alcohol units consumed and binge-drinking occasions. Participants allocated to the intervention condition were presented with a mental simulation exercise. One month later, participants completed follow-up measures of the psychological variables and alcohol consumption. Results revealed a significant effect of the mental simulation intervention on number of units of alcohol consumed at follow-up. There was no effect of the intervention on frequency of binge-drinking occasions. There was no evidence for the mediation of the effect of mental simulations on alcohol consumption by the perceived behavioural control and motivation variables. Results support the efficacy of the mental simulation intervention in reducing alcohol consumption but not in reducing binge drinking or alcohol consumption in excess of guideline limits, among corporate employees. Results are discussed with respect to the importance of the mental simulation intervention to inform practice and the proposed processes by which mental simulations affect alcohol consumption.

Achievement motives and emotional processes in children during problem-solving: Two experimental studies of their relation to performance in different achievement goal conditions

In two studies, the influence of key emotional and motivational factors on performance in different achievement goal-type situations is examined. In study 1, based on 314 sixth-graders, two types of goal situations were induced; performance and mastery. The goals were examined with respect to important antecedents (e.g., motive dispositions) and several consequences (e.g., performance, satisfaction, pleasant affect, worry, and emotionality). The results showed that the motive to achieve success (M_s) produced positive affects, satisfaction, and increased performance, whereas the motive to avoid failure (M_f) produced worries and performance reduction. In study 2, based on 331 sixth-graders, three types of goal situations were induced; performance–approach, performance–avoidance, and mastery goals. The findings revealed that the most important single factors positively related to performance were M_s and mastery–goal situation. In addition, high M_s pupils performed better under mastery condition than under performance condition. Finally, avoidance-goal situation accentuate the negative effects of high M_f on performance.

Achievement Motivation and Memory

Little research has been conducted on achievement motivation and memory and, more specifically, on achievement goals and memory. In the present research, the authors conducted two experiments designed to examine the influence of mastery-approach and performance-approach goals on immediate and delayed remember–know recognition memory. The experiments revealed differential effects for achievement goals over time: Performance-approach goals showed higher correct remember responding on an immediate recognition test, whereas mastery-approach goals showed higher correct remember responding on a delayed recognition test. Achievement goals had no influence on overall recognition memory and no consistent influence on know responding across experiments. These findings indicate that it is important to consider quality, not just quantity, in both motivation and memory, when studying relations between these constructs.

Prediction of Intrinsic Motivation and Sports Performance Using 2×2 Achievement Goal Framework

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of 2×2 achievement goals on intrinsic motivation and performance in handball. Participants were 164 high school athletes. All completed the 2×2 Achievement Goals Questionnaire for Sport and the Intrinsic Motivation subscale of the Sport Motivation Scale; the coach for each team rated his athletes' overall sports performance. Using simultaneous-regression analyses, mastery-approach goals positively predicted both intrinsic motivation and performance in sports, whereas performance-avoidance goals negatively predicted sports performance. These results suggest that athletes who pursue task mastery and improvement of their competence perform well and enjoy their participation. In contrast, those who focus on avoiding normative incompetence perform poorly.

A theory-based intervention to reduce alcohol drinking in excess of guideline limits among undergraduate students

OBJECTIVES

Undergraduate students frequently exceed guideline limits for alcohol intake in a single session and are highly susceptible to associated health, social, and economic problems. Psychological theory suggests that interventions aimed at reducing alcohol consumption should target both motivational and volitional phases of action to be effective. This study reports an integrated theory-based intervention aimed at reducing undergraduates' alcohol consumption in excess of guideline limits.

DESIGN

The study adopted a 2 (motivation: mental simulation vs. no mental simulation) × 2 (volitional: implementation intention vs. no implementation intention) randomized controlled design presented in an online format.

METHODS

Undergraduate students (N= 238; females, n= 133, M age = 20.11, SD= 2.09; males, n= 105, M age = 20.38, SD= 1.35) completed baseline psychological measures and self-reported alcohol consumption as units consumed and heavy episodic drinking occasions followed by the intervention manipulation (if any). One month later participants completed follow-up measures of the psychological variables and alcohol consumption.

RESULTS

 Significant reductions in alcohol consumption were observed at follow-up. Participants receiving a mental simulation intervention reported significantly fewer units of alcohol consumed and heavy episodic drinking occasions. Among participants with high baseline alcohol consumption, participants in the combined mental simulation and implementation intention intervention group consumed significantly fewer units than other groups.

CONCLUSION

Results support the use of these theory-based strategies to reduce alcohol drinking in excess of guideline limits among undergraduates. There was preliminary support for the interaction between the two strategies among heavier drinkers. Targeting both motivational and implemental phases of action poses a high probability for success in changing alcohol-related behaviour in this population.