Linda Jane Duffy

Home Field Advantage: Does Anxiety Contribute?

The primary purpose was to assess whether scores on anxiety among professional soccer players differed when playing a match at home or away. The Illinois Self-evaluation Questionnaire was administered to 30 professional soccer players from the English league (mean age 25) one hour before a match at home and away. Analyses showed no significant differences between scores on anxiety measured before matches at home or away. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Signing the Organ Donor Card: The Relationship Between Expressed Attitude, the Actual Behavior, and Personality Traits

Advances in medical technology have been instrumental in the development of transplantation as a life-saving procedure, which promises to be the positive choice treatment for organ failure in the future (Randhawa & Darr, 1997). However, there are not enough organs to meet the ever increasing demand, a trend that seems likely to continue unless some form of appropriate action is taken. Researchers have suggested that people in the West are favorable toward and are knowledgeable about organ donation(n1) and its benefits for potential recipients (Kent & Owens, 1995; Shanteau, Harris, & VandenBos, 1992). Although strong feelings of pride have been expressed by those who decide to become organ donors (Parisi & Katz, 1986), general attitudes and intentions may not necessarily be predictive of specific behavioral acts (Jaccard, King, & Pomazal, 1977). According to Manstead (1996), there is, indeed, a worrisome inconsistency between what people say (attitudes) and what people do (actual behavior). People may thus report positive attitudes toward organ donation because it is the socially desirable and humanitarian thing to do, whether they seriously intend to donate their body parts for transplantation purposes (Cleveland, 1975). Radecki and Jaccard (1997) identified cultural, religious, altruistic, and normative beliefs, as well as knowledge, as possible intervening psychological variables affecting actual behaviors toward becoming a donor. Commitment to donating ones organs may also be related to variables such as fear of dying, life after death, and anxiety levels (Cleveland).

British and Indian attitudes toward ‘Western’ counselling: A quantitative comparative study

This study compared the attitudes towards ‘Western’ counselling and counselling services of Indians living in the United Kingdom for more than 10 years with British citizens of white origin and Indians living in India. Overall, 162 participants took part in the study, 49 were Indians living in India (24 men and 25 women, mean age = 20.94, SD = 2.16), 53 were Indians living in the United Kingdom (24 men and 29 women, mean age = 23.55, SD = 4.04) and 60 were British citizens of white origin (30 men and 30 women, mean age = 29.12, SD = 10.93). All Indian participants were fluent in English. Participants completed a 12-item attitude questionnaire, based on the Likert scale rating ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree with the statements, together with questions on awareness of counselling services and its significance and sources for seeking help and finding information about counselling. Overall Indians in the United Kingdom seem to have the more favourable views towards Western counselling compared to the Indians in India, and even British participants. However, there was a substantial gender difference with Indian men in the United Kingdom being more favourable than Indian women in the United Kingdom. Overall, more positive attitudes towards counselling were reported from participants who had previous experience of counselling. Furthermore, Indians in India seemed to show less awareness of Western counselling practices than the other two groups of participants. Finally, it was found that most Indians in India and British participants would seek help first from family members only rather than other sources, whilst UK Indians are more likely to ask a friend for help. The internet seems to be a more popular source for finding information on counselling services for the British participants, whilst social interactions are seen as a more dominant source for Indians in the United Kingdom and in India.

Human figure drawings by children in hospital and mainstream schools

Abstract Aim: The main aim of the present study was to investigate the extent to which children in a hospital school use emotion in human figure drawing of themselves and their best friend. Method: Twenty-nine children from a hospital school, 15 male and 14 female (mean age, 9.17, SD = 2.12) and 28 children from a mainstream school in north London, 13 male and 15 female (mean age, 9.1, SD = 2.13) were asked to draw a whole picture of themselves and one of their best friend. The order of drawing was randomly counter-balanced. Emotional indicators in human figure drawings were used for the analysis of the drawings. In addition, the height of each figure was measured in centimetres. Results: Long stay hospital school children placed more emotional indicators on drawing their best friend than short stay or mainstream schoolchildren. Furthermore, there was a significant overall gender difference, with boys showing more emotional indicators than girls. In addition, the size of the drawing showed a significant overall difference, with all children drawing themselves taller than their best friends. Conclusion: Long stay hospitalised childrens emotion can be assessed by analysis of the drawings of their best friend using a set of emotional indicators.

Defining extreme sport: conceptions and misconceptions

One feature of how sport is defined is the distinction between extreme and non-extreme sport. BASE jumping is an example of an “extreme sport” because it involves a high degree of risk, whilst swimming is classified as “non-extreme” because the risks involved are minimal. This broad definition falls short of identifying the extent of risk and ignores the psychological, social-demographic and life style variables associated with engagement in each sport.

Effects of physical activity on debilitating behaviours in 13- to 20-year-old males with severe autism spectrum disorder

The presented study investigated the extent to which engaging in a therapeutic sporting programme in males with severe autism spectrum disorder (ASD) improves the debilitating behaviours commonly associated with ASD. Furthermore, the views of parents of the autistic participants were assessed concerning the effectiveness of the programme. Participants were eight 13- to 20-year-old males born in the United Kingdom from a school and sports college for pupils with severe learning difficulties. The selection was using volunteer sampling from the “Monday Club” initiative, run by Saracens Sports Foundation in partnership with a local school and specialist sports college. The Gilliam Autism Rating Scale, 3rd edition was administered to identify and measure the severity of ASD behaviours at four time periods namely: at programme entry as the baseline (Time 1, T1), a second time after 8 weeks (Time 2, T2), a third time after 16 weeks (Time 3, T3), and a fourth time post programme (Time 4, T4). The results showed that for the more severe cases of ASD (Autism Index >101) there was no positive change in subscale performance from T1 to T2. For milder cases (Autism Index, 71–100) there were subtle non-significant improvements on the subscale scores from T1 to T2. Of the 6 subscales at T2, emotional responses, cognitive style, and maladaptive speech approached significance at the P=0.05 level. At T3 and T4, there was also no statistically significant improvement in ASD behaviours compared to the baseline for either condition. Finally parents’ were “very satisfied” with their child’s participation in the physical activity programme.

A Cross-Continental Study on Children's Drawings of Football Players: Implications for Understanding Key Issues and Controversies in Human Figure Drawings

Professionals examine various aspects of girls’ and boys’ drawings as a way of understanding their intelligence, personality and emotional state. However, the extent to which such measures could be universally generalised or attributed to a specific cultural norm is still a debatable issue. In the present study five key features of children’s drawings namely: the size (height) of the drawings, profile or full face, figure in action or static, shaded or non-shaded and the nature of additional details were examined from a cross-cultural perspective, and by providing a topic (football) for which children’s drawing of a human figure could provide opportunities for the latter indices to manifest and flourish. Children from three countries; England, Iran and Brazil, representing three continents took part in this study. The participants were asked to draw a football player from their own country and from the other participating countries. The results showed that Brazilian children differ from Iranian and English children by drawing significantly smaller figures and putting more football action in the drawings. Shading of the figure drawn was more prevalent amongst English children. Such findings have implications for the interpretation of key aspects of childrens drawings in educational, clinical and therapeutic settings and from a universal vs. culturally-specific viewpoint.

Dropout Reasons in Iranian Youth Roller Skaters

The main drop-out reasons from the sport of roller skating amongst Iranian youth skaters has been examined. A questionnaire with 53 items (adopted from Enoksen, 2011) representing seven subscales namely: training factors and facilities, executive factors and team, education and work obligations, motivational aspects, social-cultural environment, choice of other sport activities and interests and economic factors was especially developed for this research. Responses were measured on a Likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” in relation to each statement. In all 112 skaters predominantly male (mean age 17.1, SD = 1.63) with a mean = 5.43 years of experience (SD = 2.92) that had discontinued in the past two years completed the questionnaire. Results of one sample t-tests showed that all factors expect “social-cultural environment” are significant indicators for drop out from skating with “economical factors” scoring the highest ranking. Correlational analysis showed that younger participants agree more strongly that “executive factors and team” and “education and work obligations” were the best predictors of drop out. Those with fewer years of experience considered “training factors and facilities”, “motivational aspects and social and cultural environment” as more likely reasons for quitting. Implications of the findings are discussed.