Effects of (de)motivating supervision styles on junior doctors' intrinsic motivation through basic psychological need frustration and satisfaction: an experimental vignette study.

In clinical practice, junior doctors regularly receive supervision from consultants. Drawing on Basic Psychological Needs Theory, consultants' supervision styles are likely to affect junior doctors' intrinsic motivation differently in terms of psychological need frustration and psychological need satisfaction. To examine the effects of (de)motivating supervision styles, we conducted two experimental vignette studies among junior doctors. In Study 1 (N = 150, 73.3% female), we used a 2 (need support: high vs. low) x 2 (directiveness: high vs. low) between-subjects design and, in Study 2, a within-subjects design with the same factors (N = 46, 71.7% female). Both studies revealed a consistent positive effect of need-supportive supervision styles on psychological need satisfaction (+), need frustration (-), and intrinsic motivation (+). Particularly in Study 2, the main effect of need-supportive styles was strengthened by supervisor's directiveness. Moreover, in both studies, the effects of supervision styles on intrinsic motivation were explained through psychological need frustration and psychological need satisfaction. We discuss the implications of these findings for postgraduate clinical training.

Resilience in sports: a multidisciplinary, dynamic, and personalized perspective.

Athletes are exposed to various psychological and physiological stressors, such as losing matches and high training loads. Understanding and improving the resilience of athletes is therefore crucial to prevent performance decrements and psychological or physical problems. In this review, resilience is conceptualized as a dynamic process of bouncing back to normal functioning following stressors. This process has been of wide interest in psychology, but also in the physiology and sports science literature (e.g. load and recovery). To improve our understanding of the process of resilience, we argue for a collaborative synthesis of knowledge from the domains of psychology, physiology, sports science, and data science. Accordingly, we propose a multidisciplinary, dynamic, and personalized research agenda on resilience. We explain how new technologies and data science applications are important future trends (1) to detect warning signals for resilience losses in (combinations of) psychological and physiological changes, and (2) to provide athletes and their coaches with personalized feedback about athletes' resilience.

The link between empowering leadership and employees' perceptions of the effectiveness of blended working.

Linked to technological and societal developments, including the COVID-19 pandemic, employees are increasingly being given the opportunity to blend onsite and remote working including flexibility as to when and where they work. Despite the proliferation of such blended working, there is little empirical research on how leaders in organizations can contribute to facilitating its effectiveness. In the present study, we hypothesized that an empowering leadership style would be positively associated with employees' perceptions of the effectiveness of blended working. Additionally, grounded in Self-Determination Theory, we hypothesized that the satisfaction of employees' work-related psychological needs for autonomy and for competence would mediate this relation. Results of a field study (N = 405 employees) using a two-wave panel design supported a cross-lagged effect of empowering leadership on employees' perceptions of the effectiveness of blended working. However, no evidence was found for the hypothesized mediated relations. Our findings could be of value to organizations as they indicate a specific leadership style that is likely to facilitate the effectiveness of blended working.

Nonergodicity in Load and Recovery: Group Results Do Not Generalize to Individuals.

PURPOSE: The study of load and recovery gained significant interest in the last decades, given its important value in decreasing the likelihood of injuries and improving performance. So far, findings are typically reported on the group level, whereas practitioners are most often interested in applications at the individual level. Hence, the aim of the present research is to examine to what extent group-level statistics can be generalized to individual athletes, which is referred to as the "ergodicity issue." Nonergodicity may have serious consequences for the way we should analyze, and work with, load and recovery measures in the sports field. METHODS: The authors collected load, that is, rating of perceived exertion × training duration, and total quality of recovery data among youth male players of a professional football club. This data were collected daily across 2 seasons and analyzed on both the group and the individual level. RESULTS: Group- and individual-level analysis resulted in different statistical outcomes, particularly with regard to load. Specifically, SDs within individuals were up to 7.63 times larger than SDs between individuals. In addition, at either level, the authors observed different correlations between load and recovery. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that the process of load and recovery in athletes is nonergodic, which has important implications for the sports field. Recommendations for training programs of individual athletes may be suboptimal, or even erroneous, when guided by group-level outcomes. The utilization of individual-level analysis is key to ensure the optimal balance of individual load and recovery.

Psychological distress among frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic: A mixed-methods study.

BACKGROUND: Novel virus outbreaks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, may increase psychological distress among frontline workers. Psychological distress may lead to reduced performance, reduced employability or even burnout. In the present study, we assessed experienced psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic from a self-determination theory perspective. METHODS: This mixed-methods study, with repeated measures, used surveys (quantitative data) combined with audio diaries (qualitative data) to assess work-related COVID-19 experiences, psychological need satisfaction and frustration, and psychological distress over time. Forty-six participants (nurses, junior doctors, and consultants) completed 259 surveys and shared 60 audio diaries. Surveys and audio diaries were analysed separately. RESULTS: Quantitative results indicated that perceived psychological distress during COVID-19 was higher than pre-COVID-19 and fluctuated over time. Need frustration, specifically autonomy and competence, was positively associated with psychological distress, while need satisfaction, especially relatedness, was negatively associated with psychological distress. In the qualitative, thematic analysis, we observed that especially organisational logistics (rostering, work-life balance, and internal communication) frustrated autonomy, and unfamiliarity with COVID-19 frustrated competence. Despite many need frustrating experiences, a strong connection with colleagues and patients were important sources of relatedness support (i.e. need satisfaction) that seemed to mitigate psychological distress. CONCLUSION: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an increase of psychological distress among frontline workers. Both need frustration and need satisfaction explained unique variance of psychological distress, but seemed to originate from different sources. Challenging times require healthcare organisations to better support their professionals by tailored formal and informal support. We propose to address both indirect (e.g. organisation) and direct (e.g. colleagues) elements of the clinical and social environment in order to reduce need frustration and enhance need satisfaction.

Losing the Home Field Advantage When Playing Behind Closed Doors During COVID-19: Change or Chance?

Due to restrictions against the COVID-19 pandemic, spectators were not allowed to attend soccer matches at the end of the 2019/2020 season. Previous studies suggest that the absence of a home crowd changes the home field advantage in terms of match outcomes, offensive performance, and referee decisions. However, because of the small sample sizes, these changes may be random rather than meaningful. To test this, we created 1,000,000 randomized samples from the previous four seasons with the exact same number of matches played behind closed doors in Europe's four most elite soccer leagues at the end of the 2019/2020 season. We found that across countries (Germany, Spain, Italy, and England), performance indices and referee decisions (except red cards) indeed changed to the detriment of the home team beyond the level of chance. However, this overall pattern could be ascribed to specific countries. Most importantly, the proportion of points won by the home teams declined significantly only in Germany, which was accompanied by a meaningful increase in (1) the proportion of goals scored by the away teams and (2) the proportion of yellow cards given to the home teams. We conclude that the home field advantage may indeed be lost when spectators are absent. However, in future studies, more detailed behavioral analyses are needed to determine the robustness and the behavioral determinants of this phenomenon across leagues and countries.

Predicting Dropout From Organized Football: A Prospective 4-Year Study Among Adolescent and Young Adult Football Players.

Previous studies have shown that enjoyment is one of the key predictors of dropout from organized sport, including organized football. However, prospective studies, particularly studies focused on long-term dropout, are largely lacking. Drawing on the basic principles of interdependence theory, in the present prospective study among 1,762 adolescent and young adult football players (27.1% women, mean age 17.74 years, SD = 1.35), we tested the predictive value of sport enjoyment, perceived alternatives, and restraining forces on football players' short-term (6 months) and long-term (4 years) dropout from organized football. As anticipated, the results of the logistic regression and follow-up analyses indicate that players' enjoyment was the main predictor of (short-term and long-term) dropout. In addition, relative to remainers, dropouts perceived more alternatives in terms of other sports, had fewer family members involved in their football club, and were older at the time they started playing organized football. We conclude that particularly measures aimed at enhancing sport enjoyment may prevent players from dropping out from organized football in both the short and long term. In addition, dropout rates may be reduced by attracting and engaging youth at a very young age (from 6 years), and their siblings, parents, and other family members as well.

Facing Repeated Stressors in a Motor Task: Does it Enhance or Diminish Resilience?

The aim of the present research is to test whether resilience in a motor task enhances or diminishes when encountering stressors. We conducted a lateral movement task during which we induced stressors and tracked the movement accuracy of each participant over time. Stressors corresponded to organismic constraints (i.e., visual occlusion), task constraints (i.e., movement sensitivity), or both types of constraints in an alternating pattern. In order to determine resilience, we introduced a measure combining the strength of a stressor and the relaxation time. Across the three conditions, we found that resilience was enhanced rather than diminished over time. This supports the notion that stressors in the form of constraint alterations can be beneficial to human motor performance.

A Quantitative Study of the Impact of Functional Classification on Competitive Anxiety and Performance Among Wheelchair Basketball Athletes.

In adaptive sports (also known as Para sports, disability sports, or Paralympic sports), athletes are assigned to classes that indicate their functional potential, regardless of talent, training, or experience. The aim of the present study among wheelchair basketball athletes (n = 141) was to explore the role of functional classification as a potential stressor. Specifically, we looked into the anecdotal relationship between classification and athletes' concern about "performing in accordance with one's class." Based on a serial mediation research model, we examined the links between functional classification and three outcome variables (i.e., cognitive worry, somatic arousal, and game performance) through the mediator variables of perceived competitive demands and sport-specific self-efficacy. Unexpectedly, we did not find any evidence of a classification effect on either the mediator variables or competitive anxiety. However, we did find positive correlations between functional classification and athletes' contribution to their team's score, which align with research supporting the proportionality and the validity of the functional classification system. Moreover, regardless of classification, mediation analyses revealed an indirect link between perceived competitive demands and cognitive worry through sport-specific self-efficacy. These findings suggest that, regardless of classification, athletes' self-efficacy may be increased by managing their appraisals of competitive demands and that their cognitive worries may be reduced by self-efficacy interventions.

The Link Between Employees' Sense of Vitality and Proactivity: Investigating the Moderating Role of Personal Fear of Invalidity.

Proactive behavior has emerged as a key component in contemporary views of individual work performance. Hence, a central question in the literature is how to enhance employees' proactive behavior. We investigated whether the more that employees experience a sense of vitality (i.e., energizing positive affect), the more likely they are to show proactive behavior at work, and whether this applies only to employees with a low personal fear of invalidity [(PFI) i.e., the inclination to be apprehensive about the risks/negative consequences of making errors]. Experimental (N = 354) and cross-sectional field (N = 85) studies provided consistent evidence for a positive relation between employees' sense of vitality at work and their self-rated proactivity. The predicted moderation effect was observed only for manager-rated proactivity. We conclude that feeling energized in the workplace is not necessarily associated with observable proactive behavior. It is only when employees experiencing a sense of vitality at work are not prone to fearing the risks/negative consequences of making errors that they are more likely to show observable proactive behavior in an organization.

Predicting Resilience Losses in Dyadic Team Performance.

In the current study, we applied the dynamical systems approach to obtain novel insights into resilience losses. Dyads (n = 42) performed a lateral rhythmical pointing (Fitts) task. To induce resilience losses and transitions in performance, dyads were exposed to ascending and descending scoring scenarios. To assess changes in the complexity of the dyadic pointing performance, reflecting their resilience, we performed cross-recurrence quantification analyses. Then, we tested for temporal patterns indicating resilience losses. We applied lag 1 autocorrelations to assess critical slowing down and mean squared successive differences (MSSD) to assess critical fluctuations. Although we did not find evidence that scoring scenarios produce performance transitions across individuals, we did observe transitions in each condition. Contrary to the lag 1 autocorrelations, our results suggest that transitions in human performance are signaled by increases in the MSSD. Specifically, both positive and negative performance transitions were accompanied with increased fluctuations in performance. Furthermore, negative performance transitions were accompanied with increased fluctuations of complexity, signaling resilience losses. On the other hand, complexity remained stable for positive performance transitions. Together, these results suggest that combining information of critical fluctuations in performance and complexity can predict both positive and negative transitions in dyadic team performance.

Antifragility in Climbing: Determining Optimal Stress Loads for Athletic Performance Training.

In the past decades, much research has examined the negative effects of stressors on the performance of athletes. However, according to evolutionary biology, organisms may exhibit growth under stress, a phenomenon called antifragility. For both coaches and their athletes, a key question is how to design training conditions to help athletes develop the kinds of physical, physiological, and behavioral adaptations underlying antifragility. An answer to this important question requires a better understanding of how individual athletes respond to stress or loads in the context of relevant sports tasks. In order to contribute to such understanding, the present study leverages a theoretical and methodological approach to generate individualized load-response profiles in the context of a climbing task. Climbers (n = 37) were asked to complete different bouldering (climbing) routes with increasing loading (i.e. difficulty). We quantified the behavioral responses of each individual athlete by mathematically combining two measures obtained for each route: (a) maximal performance (i.e. the percentage of the route that was completed) and (b) number of attempts required to achieve maximal performance. We mapped this composite response variable as a function of route difficulty. This procedure resulted in load-response curves that captured each athlete's adaptability to stress, termed phenotypic plasticity (PP), specifically operationalized as the area under the generated curves. The results indicate individual load-response profiles (and by extension PP) for athletes who perform at similar maximum levels. We discuss how these profiles might be used by coaches to systematically select stress loads that may be ideally featured in performance training.

Dynamic, not stable: Daily variations in subjective age bias and age group identification predict daily well-being in older workers.

This work examines the hypothesis that older workers' responses to negative events at work depend, in part, on daily fluctuations of subjective age bias (SAB; how old people feel compared to their actual age) and age group identification (age GI). We tested whether SAB and age GI fluctuate over time, whether they influence attributions of negative daily work events as age-related, and thereby predict older workers' daily affect and cognitive engagement in their work. A diary study with 169 older workers (aged 50-70 years) demonstrates that there are substantial daily variations in SAB and GI. Daily fluctuations of SAB and age GI respectively predicted attributions of negative personal (e.g., forgetfulness) and social (e.g., social exclusion) work events to age. Age attributions, in turn, negatively predicted affect and daily cognitive engagement over and above event occurrence. In other words, when confronted with negative daily work events, the short-term dissociation from one's chronological age and age group (i.e., feeling younger and identifying less with other older adults) seems to benefit older workers' well-being. (PsycINFO Database Record

Individual differences in satisfaction with activity-based work environments.

Satisfaction with activity-based work environments (ABW environments) often falls short of expectations, with striking differences among individual workers. A better understanding of these differences may provide clues for optimising satisfaction with ABW environments and associated organisational outcomes. The current study was designed to examine how specific psychological needs, job characteristics, and demographic variables relate to satisfaction with ABW environments. Survey data collected at seven organizations in the Netherlands (N = 551) were examined using correlation and regression analyses. Significant correlates of satisfaction with ABW environments were found: need for relatedness (positive), need for privacy (negative), job autonomy (positive), social interaction (positive), internal mobility (positive), and age (negative). Need for privacy appeared to be a powerful predictor of individual differences in satisfaction with ABW environments. These findings underline the importance of providing work environments that allow for different work styles, in alignment with different psychological need strengths, job characteristics, and demographic variables. Improving privacy, especially for older workers and for workers high in need for privacy, seems key to optimizing satisfaction with ABW environments.

Stimulated by Novelty? The Role of Psychological Needs and Perceived Creativity.

In the current research, we aimed to address the inconsistent finding in the brainstorming literature that cognitive stimulation sometimes results from novel input, yet other times from non-novel input. We expected and found, in three experiments, that the strength and valence of this relationship are moderated by people's psychological needs for structure and autonomy. Specifically, the effect of novel input (vs. non-novel input), through perceived creativity, on cognitive stimulation was stronger for people who were either low in need for structure or high in need for autonomy. Also, when the input people received did not fit their needs, they experienced less psychological cognitive stimulation from this input (i.e., less task enjoyment and feeling more blocked) compared with when they did not receive any input. Hence, to create the ideal circumstances for people to achieve cognitive stimulation when brainstorming, input novelty should be aligned with their psychological needs.

On Ethically Solvent Leaders: The Roles of Pride and Moral Identity in Predicting Leader Ethical Behavior.

The popular media has repeatedly pointed to pride as one of the key factors motivating leaders to behave unethically. However, given the devastating consequences that leader unethical behavior may have, a more scientific account of the role of pride is warranted. The present study differentiates between authentic and hubristic pride and assesses its impact on leader ethical behavior, while taking into consideration the extent to which leaders find it important to their self-concept to be a moral person. In two experiments we found that with higher levels of moral identity, authentically proud leaders are more likely to engage in ethical behavior than hubristically proud leaders, and that this effect is mediated by leaders' motivation to act selflessly. A field survey among organizational leaders corroborated that moral identity may bring the positive effect of authentic pride and the negative effect of hubristic pride on leader ethical behavior to the forefront.

Feeling younger and identifying with older adults: Testing two routes to maintaining well-being in the face of age discrimination.

Integrating the social identity and aging literatures, this work tested the hypothesis that there are two independent, but simultaneous, responses by which adults transitioning into old age can buffer themselves against age discrimination: an individual response, which entails adopting a younger subjective age when facing discrimination, and a collective response, which involves increasing identification with the group of older adults. In three experimental studies with a total number of 488 older adults (50 to 75 years of age), we manipulated age discrimination in a job application scenario and measured the effects of both responses on perceived health and self-esteem. Statistical analyses include individual study results as well as a meta-analysis on the combined results of the three studies. Findings show consistent evidence only for the individual response, which was in turn associated with well-being. Furthermore, challenging previous research, the two responses (adopting a younger subjective age and increasing group identification) were not only theoretically, but also empirically distinct. This research complements prior research by signaling the value of considering both responses to discrimination as complementary rather than mutually exclusive.

Permeability of Group Boundaries: Development of the Concept and a Scale.

The perceived possibility of movement between groups, referred to as permeability of group boundaries, is considered a key factor in explaining intergroup relations. However, so far, permeability has been conceptualized in different ways and there exists no validated measure. Integrating different conceptualizations, we developed a scale distinguishing membership permeability (e.g., a person changing from one sport team to another) versus status permeability (e.g., a person acquiring a higher social status). Scale validation occurred across samples representing five lower status groups (older adults, women, obese, lower educated, ethnic minorities). Our scale was related to central indicators of intergroup relations such as self-reported intergroup attitudes (e.g., identification) and endorsement of behavioral strategies (individual mobility, collective action). Moreover, it distinguished permeability characteristics of different types of social groups. The scale provides a novel theoretical conceptualization of permeability and can be used to examine levels and correlates of permeability perceptions across social groups.

Embedding the psychosocial biographies of Olympic medalists in a (meta-)theoretical model of dynamic networks.

Based on in-depth interviews, Hardy et al. focused on the role of psychosocial factors in the development of elite and super-elite athletes. They reveal interesting differences and commonalities in the frequencies at which certain aspects related to life events, personality, contextual factors, etc. were reported. Here, we argue that insights in the development of (super-)elite athletes will advance if we go beyond explanations in the frequency-domain, and search for process explanations in the time-domain. This means that we should investigate how athletes develop from one time point to the next, and the next, etc., thereby examining how (psychosocial) factors change and combine across time, as well as how the timing of events can shape an athlete's further developmental trajectory. We therefore present a process-oriented dynamic network model of talent development, assuming that (super-)elite performance develops out of structures of dynamically interacting (psychosocial) factors, which we illustrate using the outcomes of Hardy et al.

Psychological Momentum During and Across Sports Matches: Evidence for Interconnected Time Scales.

This study on psychological momentum (PM) in sports provides the first experimental test of an interconnection between short-term PM (during a match) and long-term PM (across a series of matches). Twenty-two competitive athletes were striving to win a prize during a rowing-ergometer tournament, consisting of manipulated races. As hypothesized, athletes who had developed long-term positive PM after two successful races were less sensitive to a negative momentum scenario in the third race, compared with athletes who had developed long-term negative PM after two unsuccessful races. More specifically, the exerted efforts, perceptions of momentum, and self-efficacy were higher for participants who had developed long-term positive PM, and their perceptions of momentum and self-efficacy decreased less rapidly. These results illustrate a typical complex dynamical systems property, namely interconnected time scales, and provide deeper insights into the dynamical nature of PM.