Intra-individual changes in 3x2 achievement goals, friendship goals, motivational regulations and consequences in physical education

Introduction: This research examines intraindividual changes in 3x2 achievement goals in physical education classes during one semester, as well as the relationship of these changes with those in other motivational and outcome variables. Method: A total of 334 (178 boys and 156 girls) high school students (M = 13.12, SD = 1.05) completed five questionnaires in two different school years. Results: The results of the true intraindividual change model (TIC) provided unequivocal support for the separation of task-based and self-based goals, as well as the structures based on both valences of approach and avoidance. They also showed different intraindividual change patterns in the 3x2 achievement goals, indicating a progression in the stability of the goals depending on their definition. Intraindividual variability in achievement goals is directly related to intraindividual variability in dependent variables, with the task-approach goals TIC being the most adaptive. Conclusions: These goals should be prioritized.

Estimating Difference-Score Reliability in Pretest–Posttest Settings

Clinical, medical, and health psychologists use difference scores obtained from pretest–posttest designs employing the same test to assess intraindividual change possibly caused by an intervention addressing, for example, anxiety, depression, eating disorder, or addiction. Reliability of difference scores is important for interpreting observed change. This article compares the well-documented traditional method and the unfamiliar, rarely used item-level method for estimating difference-score reliability. We simulated data under various conditions that are typical of change assessment in pretest–posttest designs. The item-level method had smaller bias and greater precision than the traditional method and may be recommended for practical use.

Depression Dynamics Across a Decade: Daily Affective Experience and Yearly Depressive Symptomatology

Recent conceptualizations of depression and supporting empirical work suggests that elevations and allievations of depressive symptoms can be understood from a dynamic systems perspective. Specifically, depression is proposed to result from strong-feedback loops in a system comprised of highly interdependent component parts (e.g., affect states). Supporting this perspective, individual differences in emotional interia and strong connections across emotions at micro-level timescales have been consistently associated with individual differences in depressive symptomatology such that individuals with greater emotional inertia and cross-emotion relations show higher levels of depressive symptoms. Importantly, however, individual differences do not necessarily translate to intraindividual change. The present study explores whether emotional connectivity at the daily timescale differs within individuals across a ten-year span and how these associations relate to intraindividual changes in depressive symptomatology. The results of these individual-level analyses will help further a dynamic systems perspective of depression and help inform clinical interventions for depression.

Development of Interest and Role of Choice During Sequential Knowledge Acquisition

Interest is an important motivational element for learning in the school environment. However, little research has directly addressed how interest changes over time as knowledge accumulates. To gain a better understanding of how knowledge acquisition influences intraindividual change of interest, we developed a novel paradigm in which participants gain step-by-step information about lesser known countries. After reading each piece of information, participants rated their interest in the country. Growth-curve modelling showed that interest grows during knowledge acquisition until it eventually stalls and starts to decline. We also found that the opportunity to choose information boosted the growth in interest and delayed its decline. Further analysis revealed that people disengaged from a topic (i.e., stopped accessing information about a particular country) when their interest started to decrease.

Synergistic effect of sclerostin and angiotensin II receptor 1 polymorphism on arterial stiffening

Aim: We aimed to establish the association between sclerostin (a glycoprotein involved in bone metabolism) and development of pulse wave velocity (PWV) in the general population. Methods: A prospective cohort study with a total of 522 subjects. Aortic PWV was measured twice (at baseline and after approximately 8 years of follow-up) and intraindividual change in PWV per year (ΔPWV/year) was calculated. Results: ΔPWV/year increased across the sclerostin quintiles, but generally in a strong age-dependent manner. However, a significant independent positive association between sclerostin and ΔPWV/year was observed exclusively in C allele carriers of rs5186 polymorphism for the angiotensin II receptor 1 (n = 246). Conclusion: Sclerostin concentrations were associated with an accelerated natural course of arterial stiffening, but only in interaction with renin-angiotension system.

Individual variation in the development of the Western Vowel System of Utah

The BIT, BING, BET, BAT, BAN, BOOK, and BUT vowels of ten Utah English speakers (born 1883–1928) were analyzed over the course of several decades of their adult lives. Most speakers participated in the Western Vowel System by lowering BIT and BET, retracting BAT, and raising BAN, with some fronting BOOK and BUT. Speakers generally did not exhibit monotonic change across the years from expected positions for BET, BAT, and BAN, and for the most part for BOOK and BUT; however, most speakers showed change with regard to BIT, though speakers differed from each other on the direction of change. Even for those vowels with no consistent direction of intraindividual change, however, in many cases speakers were inconsistent in their production from year to year. Further, speakers’ envelopes of variation were different for various vowels, with the widest range of intraindividual variation in BET and BAT, less variation in BAN and BUT, and little in BIT and BOOK. It is suggested that the envelope of variation is at least as much as an important issue for studies of linguistic behavior across adulthood as any actual shift in linguistic behavior across real time.

Measurement Burst Designs in Lifespan Developmental Research

The study of human development across the lifespan is inherently about patterns across time. Although many developmental questions have been tested with cross-sectional comparisons of younger and older persons, understanding of development as it occurs requires a longitudinal design, repeatedly observing the same individual across time. Development, however, unfolds across multiple time scales (i.e., moments, days, years) and encompasses both enduring changes and transient fluctuations within an individual. Measurement burst designs can detect such variations across different timescales, and disentangle patterns of variations associated with distinct dimensions of time periods. Measurement burst designs are a special type of longitudinal design in which multiple “bursts” of intensive (e.g., hourly, daily) measurements are embedded in a larger longitudinal (e.g., monthly, yearly) study. The hybrid nature of these designs allow researchers to address questions not only of cross-sectional comparisons of individual differences (e.g., do older adults typically report lower levels of negative mood than younger adults?) and longitudinal examinations of intraindividual change (e.g., as individuals get older, do they report lower levels of negative mood?) but also of intraindividual variability (e.g., is negative mood worse on days when individuals have experienced an argument compared to days when an argument did not occur?). Researchers can leverage measurement burst designs to examine how patterns of intraindividual variability unfolding over short timescales may exhibit intraindividual change across long timescales in order to understand lifespan development. The use of measurement burst designs provides an opportunity to collect more valid and reliable measurements of development across multiple time scales throughout adulthood.