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At least 307 records · Page 17Linked to original sources
PubMed2006

Self-determination in sport commitment.

The study tested utility of self-determination and sport commitment theories to understanding young athletes' sport commitment. 343 young athletes (M= 13.5 yr., SD= +/- 1.1) from soccer, basketball, volleyball, handball, and water polo teams volunteered to participate. All completed the Sport Motivation Scale and the Sport Commitment Questionnaire. Pearson correlations showed a strong relationship between commitment and intrinsic motivation scores. In contrast, extrinsic motivation scores were not significantly correlated to commitment, whereas amotivation scores showed a negative correlation to commitment. Path analysis resulted in strong positive association of intrinsic motivation and commitment. Amotivation had small negative relation to commitment. According to the model tested, social constraints and involvement opportunities were not significant contributors to sport commitment. An alternative model supported the mediating role of enjoyment to psychological commitment. The results showed that high self-determination is supportive of sport commitment, whereas low self-determination reduces sport commitment.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Perceptions of unconditional and conditional worth among college students.

Self-esteem scales tend to represent conditional perceptions of self-esteem. The Worth Index has been previously validated as an effective measure for identifying both conditional and unconditional perceptions of worth. We administered the Worth Index to 1,161 college-aged students at Brigham Young University to assess their current perceptions of unconditional and conditional worth. Both men and women agreed more strongly with items involving unconditional worth than conditional worth. A negative correlation was found between ratings of unconditional and conditional worth. Women had lower unconditional worth scores than men, which was related to being more likely to wish they were someone else, desire to have a better body, and to being concerned about weight. Agreement with two overview measures of self-esteem involving a "good" sense of self and stability of self-esteem was positively associated with agreement on statements about unconditional worth. This research shows the importance of incorporating unconditional worth into self-esteem measures.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Self-regulation and recovery: approaching an understanding of the process of recovery from stress.

Stress has been studied extensively in psychology. Only recently, however, has research started to address the question of how individuals manage to recover from stress. Recovery from stress is analyzed as a process of self-regulation. Several individual difference variables which affect the efficiency of self-regulation have been integrated into a structured model of the recovery process. Such variables are action versus state orientation (a tendency to ruminate, e.g., about a past experience) and volitional components, such as self-determination, self-motivation, emotion control, rumination, and self-discipline. Some of these components are assumed to promote recovery from stress, whereas others are assumed to further the perseverance of stress. The model was supported by the empirical findings of three independent studies (Study 1, N=58; Study 2, N=221; Study 3, N= 105). Kuhl's Action Control Scale measured action versus state orientation. Volitional components were assessed with Kuhl and Fuhrmann's Volitional Components Questionnaire. The amounts of experienced stress and recovery from stress was assessed with Kellmann and Kallus's Recovery-Stress Questionnaire. As hypothesized in the model, the disposition towards action versus state orientation was a more distant determinant of the recovery from stress and perseverance of stress. The volitional components are more proximal determinants in the recovery process. Action orientation promotes recovery from stress via adequate volitional skills, e.g., self-determination, self-motivation, emotion control, whereas state orientation furthers a perseverance of stress through rumination and self-discipline.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2006

Physical activity in the process of psychiatric rehabilitation: theoretical and methodological issues.

Physical activity can potentially perform a valuable role within the context of psychiatric rehabilitation in terms of physical and mental health benefits. Theoretical and applied considerations have driven the search for the causal mechanism(s) that underpin mental health change through physical activity. To date, no single mechanism has been found to consistently explain changes. A key reason for this is that the occurrence of, and recovery from, mental health problems is influenced by many diverse factors. Both theoretical and methodological issues affect our ability to identify and understand these factors and, subsequently, our ability to promote psychiatric rehabilitation through physical activity. Alternative theoretical and methodological approaches are discussed here with the aim of encouraging a broad-based research agenda which will most effectively serve the needs of mental health service users. These approaches differ widely in scope but all share one thing in common: a personalized understanding of the process of mental health change in psychiatric rehabilitation.

Biological Psychiatry↗
PubMed1988

Loosening the bonds of cancer: how feasible?

This paper assesses the scope that exists for increasing the personal autonomy of people with cancer. Current organization of cancer services does little to promote autonomy. However, coping theory suggests that autonomy can be enhanced by complementary therapies, by changing perceptions of cancer, and by techniques which minimize the emotional response to the stress of this disease.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1995

Assisted suicide and the savings clause.

In December 1994, the Michigan Supreme Court decided a group of cases comprising constitutional challenges to a Michigan statute against assisted suicide and prosecutions of Dr. Jack Kevorkian for his role in two incidents of suicide. The court rejected arguments that the statute infringed a right of "personal autonomy" under the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution; it noted that, although US Supreme Court opinions indicate that decisions to withdraw or reject life-sustaining treatment are constitutionally protected, a legal difference exists between permitting death to occur by natural means and taking affirmative steps to end life. The Michigan court also decided that Kevorkian could not be charged with murder for supplying only the means by which suicide occurred, but he could be charged with a common law crime of assisting in suicide although the statute outlawing such actions became effective only after the suicides occurred. Because suicide was a crime under the prerevolutionary English Common Law, which forms the foundation of Michigan law, assisting in suicide is also a residual crime under the "savings clause" of the Michigan statutes, which incorporates common law crimes into the law of that state when no superseding statute exists.

Criminal Law↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Quality of life and supported employment: a case study of three women with developmental disabilities.

This paper presents the findings of a qualitative case study of the quality of life of three women with developmental disabilities. In-depth interview data were collected from the women who had previously worked in a sheltered workshop environment and were, at the time of study, working in supported employment in the community. Interviews were also conducted with each woman's job coach and a family member or close friend. On-site observations of the women in their supported employment environments were also undertaken. Results show that the women's own perceptions about their quality of life were not always as family members and job coaches expected, and that the purported benefits of supported employment for the three women with developmental disabilities were not always realized. Occupational therapists have an opportunity to facilitate the occupational performance of adults with developmental disabilities but they must be willing to engage in wider health and social policy change if they are to make significant gains.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed2003

Caring for the spirit: lessons from working with the dying.

Spiritual care is integral to palliative care, and palliative care experience in offering spiritual care can be a resource for the emerging healthcare interest in spirituality. Spirituality is best understood in terms of the web of relationships that gives coherence to our lives, uniquely identifying each person. In palliative care, responsibility for spiritual care is shared by the whole team, with leadership given by specialist practitioners such as pastoral care workers. The palliative care approach to spiritual care may, however, be transferred to other contexts and to individual practice. Spiritual care encourages and supports people in a quest for meaning and personal autonomy. It is offered, not imposed.

Humans↗
PubMed1999

Ethical issues in molecular pathology: paradigms in flux.

Recent advances in molecular pathology and molecular genetics have created new concerns about the use of human biologic materials in research. Since researchers now have the ability to extract and amplify DNA from minuscule archived samples, virtually any human tissue sample can potentially become the template for a test that provides information that may relate to the inherited genes of an individual. Researchers using human biologic materials should follow the 3 basic principles that have been defined for all ethical human subjects research: respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. Institutional Review Boards are responsible for providing review of the risks and benefits of research proposals to safeguard the rights and welfare of human subjects. Currently, there is considerable debate concerning the role of informed consent procedures and the Institutional Review Board oversight process in situations when researchers use human biologic materials that have been anonymized or coded. In 1999, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission is expected to make recommendations to President Clinton and the National Science and Technology Council that are expected to clarify the balance between respect for personal autonomy and the societal need to pursue biomedical research to improve the health and welfare of all individuals.

Ethics, Medical↗
PubMed1997

Learning from our patients: one participant's impact on clinical trial research and informed consent.

This Perspective includes an essay on modifying phase I clinical trials, written by George Zimmer, who was a professor of English and a commentary on that essay. Professor Zimmer was a cancer patient who participated in the phase I clinical trial program at the University of Chicago. His ideas are eloquently expressed and have had a profound effect on our investigational research for anticancer agents. Although at times his suggestions may seem radical, Professor Zimmer urges us to reconsider the 50-year-old Nuremberg paradigm that participants in human research are ignorant and vulnerable and must be protected. Although we must protect patients who have life-threatening diseases from coercive inducements and misplaced hopes, we must also listen carefully and thoughtfully to our patients. This is particularly true when, as research participants in the face of sacrifice and the threat of a life-ending diagnosis, they have made the effort to express their concerns. With the effect of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome movement on clinical studies and on drug research and development, a precedent has been set that allows patients to reshape their role as participants in research trials. On a personal level, the essay by Professor Zimmer has had a significant effect on our research methods and, indeed, the focus of our research efforts. Thus, it is with a sense of respect and honor that we share George Zimmer's thoughts and our comments about the influence he has had on our research practices.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Insulating ethical policymaking from politics: three views.

Above politics and beyond the law. That is what those in the field of health care ethics expect of their field, at least in the United States. We differentiate between what the law allows and what ethics expects, and we go to great lengths to champion the protection of ethical decision making from political influence and to preserve individual autonomy, personal integrity, and self-determination in the face of social pressure. We like the "supreme court" model as a structure to ensure autonomous decision making when it comes to ethical situations and deliberations. This view is consistent across organizational levels--from individual membership groups, to national commissions, to international bodies, but it is not easy to achieve, as the following articles show.

American Medical Association↗
PubMedDate not supplied

A feminist case against euthanasia. Women should be especially wary of arguments for "the freedom to die".

Feminists, among others, should not be too quick to hail assisted suicide and euthanasia as extensions of human freedom. Indeed, there are good reasons why women should be especially suspicious of such "reforms." First, it is not clear that a person has a moral right to end his or her existence. Feminists understand that suicide and murder are irretrievably linked, and that a person is not a monad. We often hear of suicide attempts in which the person's body--by vomiting up poison, for instance--overrules his or her mind. If there can be such miscommunication between a mind and a body, how are we to trust the communication between a person and the physician ready to assist his or her suicide? Ambivalent motivation and ambiguous meanings have always characterized human relations. In the past, however, an absolute taboo against suicide or euthanasia cemented a patient's right to expect the care of his or her physician, family, and community. If we were to discard that taboo, we would subtly alter these relationships and make each other more vulnerable. History suggests that women, minorities, the ill, the old, and the handicapped would be most at risk. Finally, the assisted-suicide debate has even larger social implications. Unconditional respect for the gift of life is eroding in the United States. The suicide rate is already climbing at all levels of society, especially among teenagers. Wouldn't the acceptance of suicide and euthanasia make it even more acceptable for people to check out of all kinds of uncomfortable situations--marriages or life?

Aged↗