Asian Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology最新文献

The purpose of the current study was to examine the moderation and mediation effects of mental toughness (MT) on the relationship between perceived stress and anxiety, and to test whether such effects are stronger in athletes than non-athletes. The sample consisted of 320 students (160 athletes, 160 non-athletes) from Nanyang Technological University. Multiple hierarchical analyses showed that MT moderated this relationship only in non-athletes, and partially mediated this relationship in both athletes and non-athletes. Moreover, mediation was found to be stronger in athletes; MT accounted for a substantially greater variance in anxiety outcome in athletes (82%) than non-athletes (33%), highlighting the importance of MT as a stress buffer pathway to lower anxiety. Additional variable control analyses revealed that training years did not benefit MT effects, suggesting that practice quality or competition level might be more critical in MT development. This study presents novel findings on the moderation and mediation perspective of MT on the perceived stress-anxiety relationship, which provides a more comprehensive foundation for future MT interventions using sports.

Australia has a proud history in physical activity and is known for its love of, and success in, sport. It is also sometimes perceived to be a physically active country yet statistics show similar troubling trends of inactivity and non-communicable disease as many other high income countries. In research and professional practice, however, Australia can be seen to have been ‘punching above its weight’ (given its small population) in physical activity and public health. It has been a leading country for research on a number of themes concerning physically active lifestyles, including mental health, physical activity correlates, interventions, sedentary behaviour, and guidelines. The role of exercise psychology, however, is less clearly demarcated. The research concerning physical activity and public health has adopted a behavioural medicine approach, of which psychology is just one part. In this paper, behavioural medicine and exercise psychology will be defined, and research strengths and trends in Australia outlined. Issues particularly important for Australia will be explored briefly in the context of exercise psychology, including indigenous health and those living in rural and remote locations.

Given that the Asian-South Pacific Association of Sport Psychology has recently passed 30 years since its creation, it would be interesting to examine the pattern of scientific publications of researchers from the Asian and South Pacific region over that period. This bibliometric analysis summarizes and analyses sport and exercise psychology publications from the region from the establishment of the Association in 1989 to the present. We conducted a systematic search of publications authored by researchers from the Asian and South Pacific region in nine sport and exercise psychology journals indexed in the Web of Science from 1989 to 2020. We analysed overall trends, the most prominent authors in terms of number of publications and citations, keywords as a reflection of noteworthy topics, and maps representing co-authorship, country, and institution clusters. Of the total of 1,003 publications, more than half were published after 2012. The most prolific authors with at least 30 publications each were James A. Dimmock, Ben Jackson, and Daniel F. Gucciardi who are all affiliated to Australian universities. Authors of the top 10 most cited publications are affiliated to Australian, New Zealand, and Singapore universities. The universities with the most publications were from Australia (University of Western Australia, University of Queensland, Curtin University, Victoria University, University of Wollongong, and Australian Catholic University), Hong Kong (University of Hong Kong), New Zealand (University of Otago), Singapore (Nanyang Technological University), and Taiwan (National Taiwan Sport University). There is co-authorship between countries in the Asian and South Pacific region as well as outside the region. Most of the collaborations outside the region were with the USA and England.

The purpose of this study was to explore the status of Taiwanese scholars' research in the field of exercise psychology in the past 30 years and to provide an overview of the research. With some modifications to Cooper's (2016) methodological instructions in research synthesis, a "quasi-systematic review" was adopted to collect, categorize and analyze Taiwanese scholars’ publications in the field of exercise psychology in the past three decades. The included papers were those published in international journals and the Taiwan Social Science Citation Index (TSSCI) journals. A total of 355 papers qualified for further analysis. Most selected papers were quantitatively-oriented. Also, we found both international and domestic journals had different features in terms of participants, research methods, and research topics. Further, we found that 73 papers (20.56%) examined “theoretical models of exercise behavior”; 271 papers (76.34%) examined “psychological effects of exercise”; 95 papers (26.76%) investigated “social cognition in exercise”; 272 papers (76.62%) studied “exercise and specific population”; and 20 papers (5.63%) were classified as applications/other.” Furthermore, in international journals, 140 papers (61.40%) were ranked as Q1; 57 papers (25.00%) as Q2; 27 papers (11.84%) as Q3, and 4 papers (1.75%) as Q4. In summary, Taiwanese scholars’ research in exercise psychology has unique features and topics. Government policy and research grants may explain the research directions and topics selected. It is suggested that Taiwanese scholars may expand their research beyond these limitations.

This review presents readers with an overall picture about what China sport psychologists are doing and what concerns they have in their research and practice. Firstly, organisational structure, important academic activities, and accreditation system of China sport psychology are introduced. Next, we present the three research areas of China sport psychology, i.e., competition psychology, exercise psychology, and psychology of physical education. In addition, three mental training models proposed by Chinese sport psychologists are discussed, i.e., the comprehensive model for psychological development, adversity training model, and psychological development system for Chinese athletes. In the last section of this review, the authors analyze prospective research areas for sport psychology, including perception and decision making in sport, neuro-efficiency and neuro-plasticity, self-control and sport performance, athletes’ mental health, dose effect of mental health promotion through exercises, moderators on the relationship between exercise and mental health, and the intention-behavior gap in physical and mental health promotion through exercise.