Psychology of sport and exercise最新文献

This essay provides a reflective commentary on Smith et al.'s "25 years of qualitative research in sport and exercise psychology" piece. Alongside summarising the primary insights of their review, I seek to situate current qualitative sport and exercise work within psychology's long-standing quest for scientific legitimacy. Including a whistle-stop tour of the history of psychology, I argue that a form of disciplinary imposter syndrome has shaped psychological science and continues to influence contemporary qualitative research. The consequences of this scientism are a trend towards formulaic, risk-averse, qualitative inquiry-by-numbers. Extending Brinkmann's (2015) McDonaldization metaphor, I propose McDowellisation; which positions qualitative methodolatry as motivated by a quest to appear more objective, more scientific, and ultimately more like our "real science" quantitative cousins. The danger is that the field of qualitative research foregoes the very qualities that inspired its rise. My optimistic conclusion is to follow the lead of those scholars that have rejected rigid fast-food processes in favour or rigorous, reflexive, interpretive work across a broad range of methodologies.

Elite athletes face a range of challenges throughout their careers including injury, selection, funding status, and retirement. To support athletes to plan for and overcome these challenges, Career Assistance Programs (CAPs) have been developed to support personal and professional development, yet engagement with these services remains low. The aim of this study was to explore the perceived barriers to athletes' engagement with personal development within the UK High-Performance sport system. Underpinned by ontological relativism and epistemological constructivism, 15 elite athletes who were on a funded UK Sport World Class Olympic or Paralympic Program participated in semi-structured interviews. The dataset was analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Three themes were developed: The Athlete Bubble, outlines the barrier of the performance-driven culture, Head in the Sand reflects the fear of retirement, and Bridging the Employment Gap highlights the tension of meeting training demands with work opportunities. Findings reveal how cultural expectations, elite sport environments, coach-athlete relationships and scheduling conflicts inhibit athlete engagement with personal development. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the cultural and systemic barriers that shape how athletes interpret and navigate their development journeys and offers direction for developing more integrated, athlete-centered CAPs.

Purpose: This study aimed to examine the effects of 12 weeks of resistance training (RT) on sleep quality, mental health, cognitive function, and functional capacity among older women with both good and poor subjective sleep quality.

Methods: A total of 160 older women (69.2 ± 5.7 years) were randomly assigned to two experimental conditions: the RT group and the control group (CG). Each group was further divided based on their initial subjective sleep quality ratings into Poor Sleep RT, Good Sleep RT, Poor Sleep CG, and Good Sleep CG. The supervised RT program, which lasted 12 weeks in the training groups, included eight exercises performed with 8-12 repetitions and progressive loading. Sleep quality and mental health were assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale, and the Beck Anxiety Inventory. Cognitive functions were measured using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, Trail Making Test A and B, Verbal Fluency Test, and Stroop Test. Functional capacity was evaluated using the 6-min walk test, the 4-m usual walking speed test, the walking agility test, and the 30-s chair stand test.

Results: Interaction effects were observed in specific mental health outcomes and sleep quality (P < 0.05). In the Poor Sleep RT group, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) scores decreased from 7.26 ± 2.89 to 4.61 ± 2.83 (P < 0.001), with post-training values lower than those in both control groups. The Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) scores also significantly declined in both RT groups, as seen in the Poor Sleep RT group, where scores decreased from 6.40 ± 4.00 to 2.65 ± 4.19. Similarly, depressive symptoms (assessed by the PHQ-9) decreased post-training in both RT groups, showing lower values than the controls. Additionally, similar interaction effects provoked by RT were revealed for cognitive performance (P < 0.05) and functional capacity (P < 0.05).

Conclusion: Our results suggest that a 12-week RT program can improve subjective sleep quality, mental health, cognitive function, and functional capacity, regardless of initial sleep quality levels.

Objective: Contemporary research has highlighted the important role of affect, affect-related cognitions (e.g., remembered/anticipated affect), and enjoyment for exercise adherence. The peak-and-end rule postulates that the affective peaks and end encountered during an episode of experience influence how pleasant/unpleasant the episode is remembered. This study aimed to explore the influence of these specific moments on affect-related cognitions, enjoyment, and exercise frequency.

Method: This study was based on a randomized controlled trial with two parallel groups. Forty-six non-regular exercisers (M_age = 32.00 years; SD = 8.62; 43.5 % male) were randomly allocated. Both groups participated in three exercise sessions structured according to the Frequency-Intensity-Time-Type (FITT) principle. However, in the experimental group, participants were encouraged to regulate their intensity using strategies theorized to promote pleasure. The Feeling Scale (FS) was used to measure affective responses. Linear regression analyses were applied to test the ability of FS peaks and FS end, in addition to the FS mean, FS slope, and FS start to predict remembered affect, next-session anticipated affect, enjoyment, and post-intervention exercise frequency (first week and the average of 8-week follow-up).

Results: All FS variables, except for the FS slope, meaningfully predicted remembered/anticipated affect and enjoyment (10 %-47 % explained variance). Regarding post-intervention exercise frequency, both affect-related cognitions and enjoyment exhibited significant predictive power (7 %-20 % explained variance).

Conclusion: The results corroborate the relevance of the peak and end rule and the value of affect-related cognitions and enjoyment for exercise adherence. Future studies should further test these concepts in longer interventions and follow-up periods.

Numerous aspects of resistance exercise-such as the structural components of training sessions, program design, and physical training parameters-have been extensively analyzed. However, the psychological factors affecting resistance training have received less attention. Factors such as goal setting, attentional focus, and feedback are recognized as potential influences on its effectiveness. Upon reviewing the relevant literature, several limitations and knowledge gaps have been identified within each of these three topics in resistance training. Among these issues, two concerns were consistently noted: the lack of non-acute training studies and low statistical power. These problems may be attributed to the limited research resources available for a single study. Therefore, instead of planning three small-scale trials exploring the effects of goal setting, attentional focus, and feedback on resistance training, this Stage 1 registered report outlines a factorial design that combines the investigation of these research questions into a single study with a larger sample size. The results are proposed to be published in separate articles addressing the outcomes of goal setting, attentional focus, and feedback.

This Stage 2 registered report analyzed the rates at which hypotheses were supported in registered reports versus traditional publications within sport and exercise science. A title and abstract search using the term "registered report∗" conducted in late 2024 yielded 4235 records from PubMed and 1011 from Scopus. After removing duplicates, 4693 records were screened, and 14 full texts were reviewed independently by two authors. Ten registered reports that included at least one hypothesis were identified, resulting in 41 hypotheses. By matching journal and publication year, 59 traditional articles were selected, yielding 162 hypotheses. When restricted to the first hypothesis, as in prior research, the support rates were 70 % for registered reports and 86 % for traditional articles, a marginally significant difference (p = .095). When all hypotheses were included, the support rates were 54 % and 79 % for registered reports and traditional publications, respectively-a statistically significant difference (p < .001). These findings provide initial evidence that, similar to the field of psychology, registered reports in sport and exercise science are less likely to report conclusions supporting the stated hypotheses compared to traditionally published counterparts. Exploratory analyses showed that the difference in positive findings between psychology and sport and exercise for traditional articles was statistically significant (p = .014). However, this finding should be interpreted with caution due to potential confounding factors, including differences in publication periods, study selection strategies, and whether journal matching was applied.

Exercising can be theorized as the result of choosing one behavior over alternative behaviors. The Decisional Preferences in Exercising (DPEX) test is a computerized, easy-to-use, publicly available (open source Python code: https://osf.io/ahbjr/) and highly adaptive research tool based on this rationale. In the DPEX, participants are asked to choose between two images by pressing a key on the computer keyboard, one showing a physical exercise and the other showing a non-exercise behavioral alternative in a series of trials. Combinations are randomly assembled from two definable pools of stimuli trial-per-trial. The test can be scored either based on a crossed random effects model (facilitating the use of different stimulus material in different studies without compromising the comparability of test scores) or with a simple proportion score. Data from diverse study samples (N = 451) showed strong correlations of DPEX scores with past and future exercise behavior (r = 0.42 and 0.47 respectively) as well as with affective experiences with exercise (e.g., 'pleasure-displeasure': r = 0.47). DPEX test scores discriminated between exercisers and non-exercisers according to receiver operating curve (ROC) analysis. The DPEX may be used to examine research questions derived from dual process theories, the effects of psychological states on behavioral choices can be tested, or the effects of behavior change interventions can be evaluated. The DPEX helps to avoid common method bias in the assessment of exercise behavior, for example, when psychological variables are measured with questionnaires.