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This study examined the effects of 1-week exercise deprivation on the mood and subjectively perceived physical symptoms of college students highly committed to exercise; it employed the experience sampling method (ESM). Male and female subjects (N=21) filled out questionnaires four random times a day in response to the tone of a pager for 35 days. Subjects who were randomly assigned to the experimental condition refrained from exercising between Days 15 and 21 of the procedure whereas those in the control group maintained their regular levels of physical activity. Results indicated that subjects in the experimental group reported more symptoms than at baseline and in comparison to the control group during and following the week of exercise withdrawal. Results are interpreted in light of Pennebaker's (1982) competing cue, selective attention, and schema hypotheses. Suggestions for the application of the ESM in exercise and sport psychology are provided.

This research describes the development and validation of a measure designed to assess feeling states that occur in conjunction with acute bouts of physical activity—the Exercise-Induced Feeling Inventory (EFI). The EFI consists of 12 items that capture four distinct feeling states: revitalization, tranquility, positive engagement, and physical exhaustion. The multidimensional structure of the EFI is supported by confirmatory factor analysis. The subscales have good internal consistency, share expected variance with related constructs, are sensitive to exercise interventions, and appear responsive to the different social contexts in which activity may occur. After describing the psychometric properties of the EFI, several directions for theory-based research are proposed.

This study was designed to examine perceptions of causality and perceptions of success in women's intercollegiate gymnastics and to determine the relative influence of perception of success on causal explanations for performance and the reciprocal influence, if any, of causal attributions on perceptions of success. Intercollegiate gymnasts were asked to indicate how successful they felt their performance had been on each of four Olympic gymnastic events. The gymnasts also completed the Causal Dimension Scale (Russell, 1982) following performance of each event. The score awarded by the judges for each event was employed as an objective, absolute measure of performance. Multivariate analyses of variance that revealed more internal, stable, and controllable attributions for performance were made by those gymnasts who scored high and perceived their performance as more successful than those gymnasts who scored lower and perceived their performance as less successful. The results of this study are discussed in terms of new approaches to attribution research in sport.