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Physical activity (PA) levels among adolescent girls continue to steadily decline, especially for those classified as 'at-risk'. To mitigate these trends, Girls United and on the Move (GUM) was created as a dual-component PA and psychosocial program. The primary purpose of this study was to explore participant experiences within GUM, with a secondary purpose of qualitatively informing future PA programs for 'at-risk' adolescent girls. Semi-structured interviews (N = 30) were conducted with a purposeful sample of girls from the GUM program. An inductive thematic analysis was utilized to analyze verbatim transcripts. Two themes were generated from the data: 1) Girls uplifting girls, outlining the importance of a girls-only environment and introducing opportunities for alternative PAs, and 2) finding balance between the physical and psychological, detailing the importance of the dual-component program. These findings provide support for the acceptability of an integrated psychosocial and PA program for at-risk adolescent girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-compassion has been identified as a resource for athletes to manage demanding and evaluative sport experiences. Despite growing research interest, there remains unanswered questions about athletes' self-compassion levels across genders, sport types (e.g., team versus individual), and competition levels (e.g., local versus provincial). Further investigation is also needed to identify factors that facilitate or deter athletes' use of self-compassion. With a sample of athletes (TV = 146; Mage = 22.26 years) living in Canada, the purpose of this study was to (a) examine athletes' self-compassion levels across differing sport contexts, and (b) explore perceptions of self-compassion as enabled and/or restricted in their sport contexts. Aesthetic sport athletes had lower self-compassion (M = 2.95) than non-aesthetic sport athletes (M = 3.16; t(139) = -1.88, p = .03, d = 0.34), and athletes competing locally had higher self-compassion (M = 3.32) than athletes competing provincially (M = 3.04), nationally (M = 2.99), and internationally (M = 2.86; F(4,139) = 2.20, p = . 04, η2 =. 06). Self-compassion did not differ between genders or team and individual sport athletes. Salient environmental factors that nurture athletes' self-compassion included providing a safe and supportive environment and emphasizing doing one's best in sport, whereas excessive negativity from others and perceived pressures in sport inhibit athletes' self-compassion. Our findings suggest target groups for intervention and considerations for self-compassionate sport environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers propose self-compassion as a resource for athletes, yet, it remains unclear how self-compassion relates to athletes' positive body and eating experiences in sport. The purpose of this research was to explore the role of self-compassion in Canadian women athletes' body appreciation and intuitive eating, applying an explanatory sequential mixed methods design. Quantitative results (n=90) highlight that self-compassion was positively related to body appreciation (r=.68, p< 01) and intuitive eating (r=.53, p< .01) and negatively related to disordered eating (r=-.59, p< .01), compulsive exercise (r=-.37, p< .01), and state self-criticism (r=- .45, p< .01). Further, self-compassion contributed beyond self-esteem in study variables (ΔR²s .04 to .09, ps <01). Three generated themes highlight women's experiences (n=6): (a) the uniqueness of sport, (b) compassionate awareness, and (c) personalized expectations. The findings highlight that self-compassion plays a role in Canadian women athletes' body and eating attitudes by promoting adaptive perspectives, and protecting and facilitating well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior studies have shown that behavioral performance is better when detecting specific familiar items based on real‐world experience (e.g., an own‐age face, a specific bird for bird experts), compared to less familiar items (e.g., an other‐age face). These biases emerge from exposure to and interactions with initially less familiar items, which allow for better discrimination and search (e.g., finding an other‐age face in a crowd). However, many broad categories in the natural environment (e.g., vintage objects, exotic fruit) contain perceptually distinct items that people can accurately search for individually, even if the objects are not as familiar. How might real‐world familiarity impact search in these cases? Recent studies suggest that the N2pc event‐related potential (ERP, neural marker of target selection) may be more sensitive than behavioral performance in reflecting prior knowledge, and perhaps familiarity, during visual search. In two experiments, the present study investigated the behavioral effects (Experiment 1) and N2pc effects (Experiment 2) of searching for distinct familiar (modern) versus less familiar (vintage) objects in younger adults. Experiment 1 also included a sample of older adults, who were familiar with both types of objects. Overall, the behavioral results did not reveal robust differences in searching for modern versus vintage objects. However, the N2pc in younger adults was present when searching for modern objects, but not for vintage objects. The N2pc results suggest that this neural marker may be more sensitive than behavioral measures in reflecting familiarity from real‐world experiences with object categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chronic pain is multidimensional and includes an emotional dimension in addition to the physical and cognitive dimensions. Self-compassion, being touched by and open to one's own suffering, has been identified as a useful resource during difficult experiences. The purpose of this narrative inquiry was to explore the role of self-compassion in the emotional experiences of women with chronic pain. Seven women participated in focus groups, reflective photo voice and one-on-one interviews. Three collective narratives were generated highlighting the women's sources of emotional pain and suggesting self-compassion as a constructive approach to manage the emotional dimension of chronic pain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a mixed methods research design, we explored self-compassion and eudaimonic well-being in young women athletes. In a quantitative study (n = 83), we found that self-compassion and eudaimonic well-being were positively related (r = .76, p < .01). A model of multiple mediation was proposed, with self-compassion, passivity, responsibility, initiative, and self-determination accounting for 83% of the variance in eudaimonic well-being. In a qualitative study (n = 11), we explored when and how self-compassion might be useful in striving to reach one's potential in sport. Self-compassion was described as advantageous in difficult sport-specific situations by increasing positivity, perseverance, and responsibility, as well as decreasing rumination. Apprehensions about fully embracing a self-compassionate mindset in sport warrant additional research to explore the seemingly paradoxical role of self-compassion in eudaimonic well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objectives of this study were to test the associations between physical self-discrepancies (actual:ideal and actual:ought) and physical activity behavior, and to examine whether motivational regulations mediate these associations using self-discrepancy (Higgins, 1987) and organismic integration (Deci & Ryan, 1985) theories as guiding frameworks. Young women (N = 205; M(age) = 18.87 years, SD = 1.83) completed self-report questionnaires. Main analyses involved path analysis using a polynomial regression approach, estimation of direct and indirect effects, and evaluation of response surface values. Agreement between actual and ideal (or ought) physical self-perceptions was related to physical activity both directly and indirectly as mediated by the motivational regulations (R(2) = .24-.30). Specifically, when actual and ideal self-perceptions scores were similar, physical activity levels increased as actual and ideal scores increased. Furthermore, physical activity levels were lower when the discrepancy was such that ideal or ought self were higher than actual self. These findings provide support for integrating self-discrepancy and organismic integration theories to advance research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]