Image Repair: Exploring Trump's Tweets in Response to Family Separation Crisis

Image repair was brought into the spotlight in 2018 when the family separation crisis put President Trump under significant public scrutiny when his image was tarnished regarding his actions towards the issue. This study’s objective was to identify the image repair strategies Trump employed in his tweets in order to repair his image, and evaluate their overall effectiveness during this time. A qualitative approach to content analysis was used to categorize the image repair strategies according to Benoit’s (1995, 1997) typology. Gallup presidential approval ratings were also used to determine the effectiveness of those strategies. The analysis yielded the use of reducing offensiveness, denial, and evading responsibility as predominant defense strategies employed by Trump. Political polarization and demographic characteristics were two of the main factors that impacted the effectiveness of the used strategies

Effects of Psyching-Up on Sprint Performance

Hammoudi-Nassib, S, Nassib, S, Chtara, M, Briki, W, Chaouachi, A, Tod, D, and Chamari, K. Effects of psyching-up on sprint performance. J Strength Cond Res 31(8): 2066–2074, 2017—The present research aimed at examining whether the psyching up (PU) strategies improve performance in 30-m sprinting. Sixteen male sprinters (age, 20.6 ± 1.3 years; body mass, 77.5 ± 7.1 kg; height, 180.8 ± 5.6 cm) participated in this study. Before each experimental session, the Hooper index was used to monitor the subject’s feeling for the quality of sleep of the previous night, perceived quantity of stress, delayed onset muscle soreness, and fatigue. After completing general and specific warm-up, participants had to rate their degree of self-confidence. Then, they were asked to follow 1 of these 4 conditions: Imagery (experimental PU condition), Preparatory arousal (experimental PU condition), Attention placebo (control condition), and Distraction (control condition) during the final 30 seconds of the rest period right before performing a 30-m sprint. Participants separately and randomly performed all conditions. Results showed that although the imagery and preparatory arousal strategies contributed to increase the performance in the short-distance sprints (from 0 to 10 m), the imagery strategy contributed to increase the performance in the 30-m sprints. These findings support the general view that the PU strategies could improve athletic performance.Scopu

The relative contributions of ACE genotypes on personality traits in Tunisian athletes

BACKGROUND: The present study attempted to test whether the ACE genotypes can be associated with particular personality traits that can be potentially used as predictors of athletic performance. Eighty seven track and field athletes (47 males, 40 females; aged 20.55±2.22) competing at an international level, voluntarily participated in this study. The athletes were prospectively classified into two groups according to their genetic polymorphism to physical efforts: endurance group (allele I, N.=48) and power group (allele D, N.=39). This genetic predisposition has been granted with athletes’ specialty. METHODS: Personality trait was assessed before competition and the ACE gene polymorphism was examined by polymerase chain reaction. RESULTS: The results revealed strong relationships between score performances and psychological constructs. Using allele I (related to the endurance), calmness explained 31% of the variance, and when sociability was added to the equation, 43% of the variance of score performance was further explained. On the other hand, nervousness explained 23% of the variance using allele D (related to the power), and when aggressiveness was added to the equation, 34% of the variance of score performance was then explained. CONCLUSIONS: The current study is the first to interpret the relationship between the ACE gene and personality traits and has provided evidence that the distance runners and power athletes exhibited different personality profiles associated with their ACE I/D polymorphism predisposition.Scopu