More than sport: A social-identity intervention to support transitions out of elite sport.

Elite athletes often make large personal sacrifices to pursue excellence, but there is insufficient support for them when they leave elite sport. Identity loss is central to athletes' transition trajectories and hence the management of identity change is a crucial area for support. The More Than Sport (MTS) program is a novel digital intervention that aims to provide this support-helping athletes manage identity change in the process of leaving elite sport. The present research aims to study elite athletes' experiences with the MTS program and their perceptions of its usefulness in managing the transition away from elite sport. We undertook a qualitative study with athletes (N = 25) from three countries (the United Kingdom, Australia and Belgium) using reflexive thematic analysis to explore their experiences of the program and their feedback on program content. We identified three key themes and eight subthemes. The first key theme was Value of the Program, and this was underpinned by four sub-themes that centred on Program importance and novelty, how Positive and confronting experiences afford insight, the Value of developing shared understanding, and Realising the value of social groups. The second key theme was Engagement with Program Elements and here participants commented on Program content and Delivery format. The final key theme was Time and Place for Identity Management Programs which included the sub-themes of Optimal timing and Additional program beneficiaries. Overall, the results highlight the value of MTS specifically, and identity management efforts more broadly, to help elite athletes adjust successfully to life beyond sport.

"I'm more than my sport": Exploring the dynamic processes of identity change in athletic retirement.

Retirement is one of the most impactful career transitions athletes face. Researchers recognise the role that athletic identity plays in this, but analysis of identity content and change processes is limited. Addressing this gap, we conducted a qualitative study exploring the experience of identity change in 21 competitive and successful elite athletes who had retired from sport. All participated in a one-session psychoeducational program that explored the challenges of transitioning out of sport before being interviewed about their understanding of identity in sport, and their experiences negotiating identity loss and change in retirement. Using reflexive thematic analysis, we identified three themes: (i) the role of identity and self-categorizations in shaping sport performance, (ii) adjusting to identity loss (with subthemes indicating that this experience varied depending on the extent to which a person had multiple or exclusive identities), and (iii) attempts to remoor identity in the transition (with subthemes of searching for a new identity and actively repurposing identity). We interpret these themes through the lens of the Social Identity Model of Identity Change and show that this provides a framework for extending our understanding the complexities of identity change associated with retirement from elite sport.

HIV Diagnostics and Vaccines: It Takes Two to Tango.

Current serologic tests for HIV screening and confirmation of infection present challenges to the adoption of HIV vaccines. The detection of vaccine-induced HIV-1 antibodies in the absence of HIV-1 infection, referred to as vaccine-induced seropositivity/seroreactivity, confounds the interpretation of test results, causing misclassification of HIV-1 status with potential affiliated stigmatization. For HIV vaccines to be widely adopted with high community confidence and uptake, tests are needed that are agnostic to the vaccination status of tested individuals (ie, positive only for true HIV-1 infection). Successful development and deployment of such tests will require HIV vaccine developers to work in concert with diagnostic developers. Such tests will need to match today's high-performance standards (accuracy, cost-effectiveness, simplicity) for use in vaccinated and unvaccinated populations, especially in low- and middle-income countries with high HIV burden. Herein, we discuss the challenges and strategies for developing modified serologic HIV tests for concurrent deployment with HIV vaccines.

Measuring leadership in sport: Development and validation of the Identity Leadership Inventory - Youth (ILI-Y).

The social identity approach to leadership posits that leaders' effectiveness depends on their ability to represent, advance, create, and embed a shared sense of social identity among their followers. Although significant progress has been made in investigating the benefits of identity leadership in adult sports, research in youth sports is still in its infancy. One reason is the lack of a youth-centric inventory that adequately measures identity leadership in this population. To bridge this gap, we developed and validated a long (16 items) and short (5 items) version of the Identity Leadership Inventory for Youth Sport (ILI-Y or ILI-Y-Short-Form) through five studies conducted in three phases of research. Data were primarily collected in football in the United Kingdom, involving a total of 1096 participants. Results of Phase I of this study provided little to no evidence that the ILI - originally developed for adults - was understandable (Study 1) and had factor validity and internal consistency (Study 2) in a sample of youth athletes. Therefore, in Phase II, the ILI was revised, leading to the development of the ILI-Y, which was understandable for youth athletes (Study 3). Results from Phase II (Study 4) also indicated that the ILI-Y exhibited a unidimensional factor structure, which was subsequently confirmed in Phase III (Study 5). This last phase offered additional evidence for the discriminant, criterion, and incremental validity of the ILI-Y and its short form, along with their measurement invariance across genders and age groups, and internal consistency. This study provides sports psychology researchers and practitioners with a valid measure to assess identity leadership in youth sports.

The Power of Peer Leaders: Exploring the Link between Peer Leadership Behaviors and Sustainable Work Outcomes.

Most leadership studies primarily focus on formal leaders, often overlooking the influence of leaders within the team. While prior research has shown that peer leaders can have a beneficial impact on various team outcomes, it is yet unclear which peer leadership behaviors precisely foster a supportive and sustainable work environment. Building upon the recent identification of 10 peer leadership roles and 37 underlying functions, the current study aims to investigate the relationships between these peer leadership roles and functions and key outcomes (i.e., job satisfaction, team cohesion, team effectiveness, and OCB). A total of 31 organizational teams, comprising 182 employees from diverse sectors, participated in a quantitative survey. Employing multilevel modeling analysis, the findings demonstrated that each leadership role and nearly every function predicted at least one outcome, highlighting their significance within organizational teams. Additionally, Necessary Condition Analysis revealed that specific roles and functions were necessary for generating one or more outcomes. Finally, we found that most of the significant relationships remained consistent across teams, regardless of their size, tenure, or level of team identification. These findings refine our understanding of shared leadership and how peer leaders can create a sustainable workplace by fostering employee well-being and productivity in organizational teams.