Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Playing Down To The Competition? Making Sense Of A Golfer's Frequently Used Excuse, Alejandro J. Regalado

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Golf is a sport that continues to develop throughout the years. The development of the sport exceeds the fascinating technological advances of the clubs, balls and gadgets and has taken a new sector of people by storm. Every year golf seems to capture a new audience and more over a new generation of women have taken a liking to the sport. With all these great advances there still seems to be a question out there on why performance fluctuates so much?

This fluctuation can be seen by the avid sports observer on any weekend of a PGA tour event, yearly …

The Effects Of Individual Differences On Employment Incentives, Andrew J. Laginess

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation sought to examine the interaction between employment incentives and various individual differences. The main objectives were to create a taxonomy of incentives, explore how personal characteristics influence individuals’ attraction to different types of incentives, and shed light on how individual differences affect preferences for incentive systems that are tied to performance versus those that are independent of performance. Four studies were conducted to achieve those objectives, utilizing expert ratings and data from over 800 undergraduate students. A preliminary categorization system with 14 types of incentives was developed, which served as a framework for the subsequent exploration of incentive–individual …

Stress And Coping Style: An Extension To The Transactional Cognitive-Appraisal Model, Kerry A. Newness

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the current research was to integrate multiple theories of stress appraisals and to empirically test two separate transactional cognitive-appraisal models. It was predicted that the core self-evaluation personality characteristics and motivation orientation would moderate the relationship between challenge and hindrance stressors and coping style. Furthermore, it was predicted that coping would buffer the adverse effects of stress on domain performance and satisfaction. A series of multiple regression analyses were conducted to investigate the predicted moderators. Results suggest that core self-evaluations moderate the relationship between challenge stress and problem-focused coping as predicted in the challenge model but not …