READING 1

Investigating leadership, gender, and coaching level using the Revised Leadership for Sport Scale.
Journal of Sport Behavior, 20, 313-322.

The purpose of the study was to determine possible differences in leadership behaviors, using
the Revised Leadership for Sport Scale (RLSS), between male and female coaches and among
different coaching levels. The researchers submitted two hypotheses. The first hypothesis was that
male and female coaches would respond differently to the RLSS in overall leadership behaviors.
The second hypothesis was that differences on the RLSS would occur among coaching levels: junior
high, high school, and college.

The sample was nonrandom, including 162 coaches that were chosen on a volunteer basis.
Within the sample, 118 (0.73) of the coaches were male, while 44 (0.27) were female. With regard
to coaching level, 25 (0.15) were junior high coaches, 99 (0.61) high school, and 38 (0.24) at the
college level. While this is a good sample size, the problem lies with the distribution of the sample.
The sample number for junior high coaches, in particular, is rather low. A larger sample with regard
to all categories would have aided in the data analysis, particularly when looking for possible
interactions between gender and coaching level.

The instrument utilized was the Revised Leadership for Sport Scale (RLSS) developed by Zhang,
Jensen, and Mann in 1996. This scale is used to measure six leadership behaviors: training and
instruction, democratic, autocratic, social support, positive feedback, and situational
consideration. The scale uses 60 statements, which were preceded by In coaching, A Likert scale
was then given for each statement: 1 = never; 2 = seldom; 3 = occasionally; 4 = often; and 5 =
always. This produced an ordinal level data set. Scales were administered in a number of
environmental settings: classrooms, gymnasiums, practice fields, and offices. The internal
consistency for each section was calculated: 0.84 for training and instruction; 0.66 for democratic;
0.70 for autocratic; 0.52 for social support; 0.78 for positive feedback; and 0.69 for situational
consideration. There was no information, however, regarding the validity of the RLSS.

A MANOVA was used to analyze the data for differences between male and female coaches
with regard to leadership behaviors. This is not consistent with the type of data collected. The RLSS
used a Likert scale (ordinal), yet a MANOVA would be most applicable for normally distributed,
quantitative data. The analysis showed there were no significant differences between male and
female coaches in overall leadership behaviors. When the six leadership styles were examined
separately, there was a significant difference in social support between males and females. In
general, females scored much higher than did the male coaches.

A MANOVA was also used to examine the data for differences between the three levels of
coaching (junior high, high school, and college) with regard to leadership behavior in general.
There were significant differences between the three levels. When breaking down the six behaviors
and examining them individually, an ANOVA was used to analyze the data. Again, because the
data for the RLSS is ordinal, an ANOVA is not the best analysis tool. The three coaching levels scored
differently on three of the six behaviors: democratic behaviors, training and instruction, and social
support. High school coaches scored much higher than college level coaches in democratic
behavior. Junior high coaches were significantly lower in training and instruction than either high
school or college coaches. Junior high coaches also demonstrated a lesser degree of social
support than either the high school or college coaches.

A MANOVA was again used to analyze the data for any interaction between gender and
coaching level with regard to overall leadership behavior. Once again, a better analysis method
could have been chosen based on the nature of the data collected. The results indicated no
significant interactions.

The ecological generalizability for the study is fairly high. The surveys were mailed out, and
returned on a volunteer basis. However, due to the nonrandom nature of the sample, the results
would not generalizable beyond the 162 participants in the study. There was no effect size is listed
for the study.

In order to reduce threats to internal validity, the participants were asked to respond honestly
and confidentiality was stressed so that the coaches might feel more at ease in responding. No
other efforts were indicated.
 The researchers mention that the scales were given in a variety of settings. This could present a
threat to the internal validity in that participants might not have been entirely focused on
completing the scale, but instead on coordinating practice, completing paperwork, etc. There are
a number of other factors that could affect the internal validity of the study, yet were not addressed
by the researchers. Coaching experience would greatly affect the responses of the participants,
yet this was not considered in the study. The gender of the athletes may be a contributing factor
to the coach’s responses. It is not unreasonable to suppose that coaches of female athletes,
particularly at the junior high and high school levels, will demonstrate more social support than those
of male athletes. The nature of the sport could also be critical. Certain coaching styles are more
applicable for individual sports (wrestling, track, and tennis) than for team sports (football, soccer,
and basketball). The socioeconomics and population of the school itself could play a factor.
Certain schools have better athletes and programs in a particular sport, while others may not be
able to field a winning team. In addition, at the high school level, coaches are occasionally
asked/forced to work with a program they have no knowledge of or desire to coach due to staffing
shortages. This could dramatically influence a coach’s response to the scale questions. The history
of the program as well as the individual coach’s personal coaching history could greatly influence
responses. If the program has had several losing seasons in a row, perhaps the attitude of the coach
could be different than that of a coach who has recently won a state title.

An additional set of questions regarding the personal history of the coach in question could have
helped reduce many of these threats. With additional information, the researchers may have been
able to use a modified matching system when analyzing the results. By increasing the number of
independent variables to include things such as coaching experience and gender of the athletes,
the researchers could have reduced some of the potential threats to internal validity. In addition,
bringing coaches together to a common setting could have reduced location threat. Coaches
meet seasonally for clinics. Perhaps obtaining permission to administer the survey during these
meetings would have been possible. It would have also been possible to actually go to individual
schools and meet with the coaches as a group to administer surveys. This method would have
given a good cross-section of gender and coaching experience for a variety of sports.

While the study has merit, the methods need to be re-evaluated. The power of the study needs
to be increased by obtaining a larger sample size. The numerous potential threats to internal validity
need to be addressed and minimized where possible. It would also be helpful to be given data
regarding the validity of the RLSS. Without these, it is impossible to evaluate the potential
meaningfulness of this study.
 READING 2

All of the readings this week deal with emotions and their influence on our perceptions and
judgments. Even though I’ve been interested in emotional research for a while, this is the first
time that I’ve had an opportunity to read empirical studies that examine the phenomenon. The
Bodenhausen, Kramer, & Susser article was particularly interesting because it combined
emotional theories with stereotypic judgments, another topic that I am inherently I'm interested
in. The article was also a great example of the methodological process and theory development
and testing, something you have been stressing to our class all semester.

Based on Macrae’s stereotype rebound article that we read, I was thinking that stereotype
suppression might be an alternate explanation for Bodenhausen’s findings. Bodenhausen et al.
showed that happy individuals made more stereotypical judgments than neutral mood
individuals. Experiment 2 showed that these stereotypical judgments occurred even when the
happy participants were not cognitively distracted. Perhaps the feeling of happiness suppresses all
other negative thoughts, including stereotyping. Our neutral emotion state is one in which we are
aware of both our negative and positive thoughts. A state of happiness suppresses negative
thoughts, including stereotyping and elevates our mood. When negative thoughts are brought
back into our consciousness, like being asked to make a judgment call, then these thoughts are
more negative than usual. This is evidence by the fact that Bodenhausen et al.’s participants in a
happy mood rated stereotyped targets more negatively than the non-stereotyped targets. This
was not seen in the neutral group because their negative thoughts had not been suppressed via a
feeling of happiness. Therefore their negative judgments did not rebound and subsequently the
stereotyped and non-stereotyped individuals were rated equally. Experiment 4 can also be
explained along this line of logic. Participants who were held accountable for their judgments were
less stereotypic than those who were not accountable in the happy condition. The fact that
participants were going to be held accountable made their processing conscious and more
effortful. They may have become aware of their rebound effect and tempered their judgments. If
Macrae’s participants would have been told that they were going to have to explain their
paragraphs about the skinhead or explain why they chose to sit in the seat they did, I’m sure their
stereotypic reactions would have been tempered as well.

I was also intrigued by the Sinclair, Mark, & Clore article and how it related to Bodenhausen
et al. Both articles demonstrated how participants in happy moods rely on automatic processes or
mental heuristics when interpreting information or making a judgment. Sinclair et al. demonstrated
how happy people are influenced the same by strong and weak persuasive arguments. However,
unhappy people engage in more effortful processing and therefore more influenced by stronger
arguments and discount weaker ones. Unlike Bodenhausen et al., Sinclair et al. showed that when
participants are aware of the cause of their mood, the effects of mood disappear and the
argument quality affects attitude. It would be interesting to take this paradigm and apply it to a
stereotype judgment situation like in Bodenhausen et al. What if Bodenhausen’s participants had
been made aware of the fact that their recall experience had influenced their mood? It seems
likely that the effect of happiness on participant’s ratings would be attenuated. There should be
no differences between the neutral mood condition and the happy mood conditions on
stereotypical judgment ratings. The participants should become aware of the external influences
on their emotion and therefore could not use their mood to cue their processing (automatic vs.
conscious).

I am also a little confused about the influence of negative emotions on stereotypic

judgments. Both Sinclair et al. and Bodenhausen et al. suggests that happy people use more
automatic mechanisms in processing information. On the other hand, unhappy people engage in
more motivated an conscious thinking because they are, let’s say not at an ideal goal state or their
rate of movement towards a goals state is not ideal, in the terminology of last week’s authors. Why
then do unhappy people and happy individuals both make stereotypic judgments? If unhappy
people are engaging in effortful processing shouldn’t they realize that they are stereotyping and
be more likely to not make stereotypic judgment, in a Devine-like interpretation? Bodenhausen
appears to be saying that happy people will make stereotypical judgments because they are using
heuristic cues and also people in negative mood will make stereotypical judgments because they
are more deeply processing environmental cues. The two statements are contradictory. Would
motivational accountability also attenuated stereotypical judgments in people with negative
affect as well? This also seems like a good follow-up study.
 READING 3

Losing Joe's Place

by Gordon Korman

It's not often that one finds a novel as wacky and as full of unexpected surprises as Losing
Joe's Place, a book by Gordon Korman. It is the story of Jason Cardone and his friends Ferguson
"The Peach" Peach and Don "Mr. Wonderful" Champion, and a summer they spend in the big city
of Toronto, subletting the totally cool bachelor apartment that belongs to Jason's brother, Joe. Joe's
instructions to the three teenagers boil down to one main thing: DON'T GET EVICTED! The story shows
us just how hard it can be to follow this one simple direction.

One great thing about the book is the way Korman developed the characters. Each person
has a definite personality. The Peach is an engineering genius who needs to improve everything he
sees. His "better than you are" attitude tends to get on everyone's nerves. Jason, our hero, seems
to be allergic to work, and while his roommates spend the summer slaving away at a variety of jobs,
Jason finds ways to avoid job interviews. At the same time, he becomes a genius in the kitchen,
which helps him later on in the story. Mr. Plotnick, the boys' landlord and owner of the Olympiad
Delicatessen, is one of the greediest and most annoying people you'll ever meet in a book, and the
boys spend a lot of their time trying to find ways to get even with him. Perhaps one of the weirdest
characters in the book is Rootbeer Racinette, a huge bearded giant who can chew a hole in an
unpoppable truck tire and take a two-by-four in the stomach as hard as you'd care to swing it.
Rootbeer spends the summer with the boys, taking turns getting the boys into and out of trouble
(between bouts of Manchurian Bush Meditation and pursuing some of the strangest hobbies in the
world).

Another great thing about the book is the plot. Just as it seems that the boys are going to
finally solve their problems and have a great summer, another problem arises that they have to
solve, or else they will have to go back home to Owen Sound as the total failures that their parents
expect: they run out of money more than once; they fight over the love of a girl they meet in
Toronto, and they wind up becoming the secret restaurant kings of the city, all because of a
chocolate memory. Whenever you think that things can't get worse, they can, and the whole book
builds toward the finish that you hoped couldn't happen...

Losing Joe's Place is a great book for anyone who likes to see somebody else have a whole
lot of funny, funny troubles. The story is hilarious and keeps you on the edge of your seat, and the
characters are strange and interesting enough to make you want to know more about what will
happen to them next. Out of four stars, I would give this book at least three and a half.