Submit an Abstract

Welcome to the NASPSPA Conference Abstract Submission and Review System (AbSRS). Before submitting an abstract using AbSRS, please take a moment to review the information about the submission requirements and process.

Membership

You must be a current NASPSPA member in order to submit your abstract. The abstract submission process requires you to login with your active membership credentials to start the process. NASPSPA memberships run on the calendar year and renewals that are made after October 1 are automatically credited for the subsequent calendar year. You can update your membership here.

Authorship

An individual may be the first author on no more than two presentations (inclusive of verbal and poster presentations) each year. There is no limit on the number of abstracts you can co-author as a non-first author. Additional information regarding Ethical Guidelines and the use of Non-Discriminatory Content is available in Section 2C “Guidelines for abstract submission and presentations” in the NASPSPA Policy Manual.

Presentation types

Verbal and poster presentations and symposia will be accepted. You have the option of indicating your preference when you submit your abstract, as well as to indicate if you are only willing to accept a presentation of a certain type. Detailed information about presentation format will be provided at a later date, but generally:

• If you are accepted for a verbal presentation, you will be asked to give a presentation of 12 minutes with 3 minutes for questions.

• If you are accepted for a poster presentation, you will prepare a standard conference poster that will be posted on a poster board in a conference meeting room, and you will be asked to be available during your assigned poster session to answer questions. Requirements for poster size will be posted on the web at a later date when presentation formats are announced.

• Symposia are expected to be organized around a theme with a logical connection between speakers and/or a discussant to bring things together. Symposia should not consist of a collection of verbal presentations on one topic, nor from one laboratory. Representation from multiple universities is encouraged. An ideal format is a short introduction, three speakers, and a discussant, but this is not mandatory. A symposium must be submitted as a single submission by the person organizing the symposium. The symposium organizer should collect all of the abstracts from the speakers who will comprise the symposium (including an abstract for the introduction), and submit them by the abstract submission deadline.

Scientific content

Data-based, theoretical, or research review papers that have not been previously published in an archival scientific publication or presented elsewhere at a national or international conference are eligible for submission.

Formatting content

• Title: Only the first letter, first letter after a colon or sentence-ending punctuation, and acronyms/names should be capitalized. Please be careful to write the title in sentence case.

• Body: The abstract body should NOT include section headings (i.e., Introduction, Methods, etc.), the title, or author information.

• Length: All abstracts (regardless of whether you are submitting for a verbal or poster presentation, or the individual abstracts that comprise a symposium) have a maximum length of 2100 characters (including spaces). To check the number of characters in your draft in Word, select your abstract text (do not include any title or author information), click on the “Review” tab in the header, then select “Word Count”. This will give you a pop-up window with the statistics of your highlighted text. Focus on the “Characters (with spaces)” line to ensure you have less than 2100.

• Data-based abstracts should include some data in the abstract. Theoretical and review abstracts should clearly demonstrate the evidence-base underlying the abstract.

• Important Note: All information should be entered in final publication-ready form. The way you submit is the way it will be shown in the program and in the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology (JSEP) Supplement.

• Example: See below for an example of an appropriately formatted abstract. You can download it in Word format (click here) to use as a template.

How do I look? The impact of body awareness and self-objectification on motor performance in women

Elizabeth Cox, April Karlinsky, Joseph Manzone, Timothy N. Welsh, Catherine M. Sabiston, University of Toronto

Drawing on tenets of self-objectification theory, women and girls internalize a focus on their body’s appearance rather than its functional attributes. Although self-objectification promotes constrained and ineffective motor performance in girls, it is unknown how body awareness and self-objectification impact motor performance in women. The present study examined the impact of body awareness and self-objectification on performance in women. It was hypothesized that greater body awareness would predict reduced performance during a visual-motor aiming task, and this relation would be mediated by self-objectification. Women (N = 80, M_age = 20.6 ± 3.1 years) completed the state Self-Objectification Questionnaire. To prime awareness of the body, participants were assigned athletic clothing to wear for the duration of the study, had their picture taken, weight, height, and waist circumference measured, and completed a body size distortion task. Participants then completed a visual-motor aiming task while sitting beside a full-length mirror. Their behaviour was video recorded. For each participant, number of clothing adjustments and self-views in the mirror were coded and summed, and mean body distortion score was calculated. Z-scores were calculated and summed to create a composite body awareness measure (CBA). Mean and standard deviation (SD) of reaction time (RT) were calculated across aiming task trials. Based on the linear regression models, CBA was significantly related to SD of RT (β = 0.006, CI: 0.002, 0.010, p = 0.002), whereby increased CBA predicted increased SD of RT. The indirect effect of self-objectification was β = -0.001, CI: -0.002, 0.000, p = 0.054. These results suggest women’s body awareness and perception of their body as an object rather than as an effective instrument may lead to inefficient motor performance. Over time, this relatively inefficient performance could deter participation in physical activity. More work is needed to explore this possible link between body awareness, motor performance and physical activity. Funding: SSHRC, NSERC.

Where/how to submit

To submit your abstract, click on the button below. For detailed instructions on the process to submit, click here to download the step-by-step instructions.

If you would like to be considered for the NASPSPA Outstanding Student Paper Award, please click here to download the instructions.