title: Flourishing after retirement : understanding the sport career transition of New Zealand's elite athletes

authors: Ryan, Leanna

subjects: flourish

abstract: Researchers have written extensively about the transitional experiences of former athletes and theorised about how to affect healthy and positive outcomes for athletes. While some studies have revealed significant psychological distress amongst retired athletes, others have found no indication of adjustment difficulty. Thus, the present study took a more specific approach, and aimed to identify the factors which either influenced post adjustment difficulty or led to flourishing in transitioned athletes. Data was collected from 81 former elite New Zealand athletes by means of a questionnaire, distributed amongst various sporting codes and organisations. The questionnaire included measures of athletic identity, flourishing and emotional responses. Results indicated that athletes who had stronger athletic identities also had higher levels of flourishing after retirement. Furthermore, those who retired voluntarily demonstrated high levels of flourishing and less post sport adjustment difficulty in comparison to those who retired involuntarily. Planning for retirement also resulted in significantly less post-retirement adjustment difficulty. Additionally, female athletes who displayed high levels of athletic identity also experienced more negative emotions when dealing with retirement. These findings demonstrate the importance of planning and preparing for retirement, as it has the potential to lead to more positive long terms outcomes for athletes. A better understanding of athletic identity and the experiences of athletes who retire involuntarily will allow governing sporting bodies and sport psychologists the opportunity to identify early the athletes who may be more prone to adjustment difficulties, and intervene appropriately. The development and implementation of a proper athlete transition programme or process within New Zealand would better support healthy and smooth transitions out of sport, and lead to more positive outcomes for athletes.

text: Flourishing after retirement : understanding the sport career transition of New Zealand's elite athletes Researchers have written extensively about the transitional experiences of former athletes and theorised about how to affect healthy and positive outcomes for athletes. While some studies have revealed significant psychological distress amongst retired athletes, others have found no indication of adjustment difficulty. Thus, the present study took a more specific approach, and aimed to identify the factors which either influenced post adjustment difficulty or led to flourishing in transitioned athletes. Data was collected from 81 former elite New Zealand athletes by means of a questionnaire, distributed amongst various sporting codes and organisations. The questionnaire included measures of athletic identity, flourishing and emotional responses. Results indicated that athletes who had stronger athletic identities also had higher levels of flourishing after retirement. Furthermore, those who retired voluntarily demonstrated high levels of flourishing and less post sport adjustment difficulty in comparison to those who retired involuntarily. Planning for retirement also resulted in significantly less post-retirement adjustment difficulty. Additionally, female athletes who displayed high levels of athletic identity also experienced more negative emotions when dealing with retirement. These findings demonstrate the importance of planning and preparing for retirement, as it has the potential to lead to more positive long terms outcomes for athletes. A better understanding of athletic identity and the experiences of athletes who retire involuntarily will allow governing sporting bodies and sport psychologists the opportunity to identify early the athletes who may be more prone to adjustment difficulties, and intervene appropriately. The development and implementation of a proper athlete transition programme or process within New Zealand would better support healthy and smooth transitions out of sport, and lead to more positive outcomes for athletes.

year: 2019

title: SQAB 2012:Timing

authors: Shahan, Timothy A.

abstract: This special issue of Behavioral Processes reports the proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Quantitative Analyses of Behavior (SQAB) held in Seattle, Washington May 24–26, 2012. The special issue focuses on research that examines the subjective experience of the passage of time. All papers make use of models and theories to frame their research and explanations. Internal clock models of various flavors help frame those discussions. Information processing based models such as Scalar Expectancy Theory (SET; Gibbon, 1977) rely on assumptions about sources of error in a pacemaker-accumulator model of an internal clock. Others such as the Behavioral Theory of Timing (BeT; Killeen and Fetterman, 1988) and Learning to Time (LeT; Machado, 1997) place special emphasis on the role of behavior and associative processes in mediating timing. Other models do not posit pacemaker counter systems, such as the Attentional Allocation Model (e.g., Zakay, 1993) which builds its explanations on assumptions about the competition for attentional resources between temporal and non-temporal tasks. Relative-Coding Hypothesis holds that responding is controlled by the relative value of temporal samples (Molet and Zentall, 2008). The Striatal Beat Frequency Model (e.g., Matell and Meck, 2000) offers a very different sort of model based on cortical activity. One thing in common between these models is that they are called on to help to explain timing behavior by providing a mechanism for action. The collection of papers in this special issue is noteworthy because of the diversity of models, methods, and species that have been used.

text: SQAB 2012:Timing This special issue of Behavioral Processes reports the proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Quantitative Analyses of Behavior (SQAB) held in Seattle, Washington May 24–26, 2012. The special issue focuses on research that examines the subjective experience of the passage of time. All papers make use of models and theories to frame their research and explanations. Internal clock models of various flavors help frame those discussions. Information processing based models such as Scalar Expectancy Theory (SET; Gibbon, 1977) rely on assumptions about sources of error in a pacemaker-accumulator model of an internal clock. Others such as the Behavioral Theory of Timing (BeT; Killeen and Fetterman, 1988) and Learning to Time (LeT; Machado, 1997) place special emphasis on the role of behavior and associative processes in mediating timing. Other models do not posit pacemaker counter systems, such as the Attentional Allocation Model (e.g., Zakay, 1993) which builds its explanations on assumptions about the competition for attentional resources between temporal and non-temporal tasks. Relative-Coding Hypothesis holds that responding is controlled by the relative value of temporal samples (Molet and Zentall, 2008). The Striatal Beat Frequency Model (e.g., Matell and Meck, 2000) offers a very different sort of model based on cortical activity. One thing in common between these models is that they are called on to help to explain timing behavior by providing a mechanism for action. The collection of papers in this special issue is noteworthy because of the diversity of models, methods, and species that have been used.

year: 2013

title: Pōwhiri process in mental health research

authors: McClintock, Kahu

subjects: indigenous mental health research

abstract: Within the health research context, indigenous people globally have a commitment to provide their own solutions. Māori, the indigenous people of Aotearoa (New Zealand) value the traditional Pōwhiri process of engagement and participation in mental health research. The practices and protocols within the Pōwhiri process (use in the Doctorate of Philosophy (2010) and Auckland University) are premised on the notion of respect and positive relationships between the tangata whenua (hosts or research participants) and manuwhiri (guests or researchers). This paper briefly describes the Pōwhiri process, which may be a model applicable to research with other indigenous cultures.

text: Pōwhiri process in mental health research Within the health research context, indigenous people globally have a commitment to provide their own solutions. Māori, the indigenous people of Aotearoa (New Zealand) value the traditional Pōwhiri process of engagement and participation in mental health research. The practices and protocols within the Pōwhiri process (use in the Doctorate of Philosophy (2010) and Auckland University) are premised on the notion of respect and positive relationships between the tangata whenua (hosts or research participants) and manuwhiri (guests or researchers). This paper briefly describes the Pōwhiri process, which may be a model applicable to research with other indigenous cultures.

year: 2010