Unit 1 (from study guide)

What are two main objectives of sport psychology—provide examples for each

1) Understanding the effects of psychological factors on performance (being focused vs. distracted, positive mindset vs. negative mindset)

2) Understanding the effects of physical activity on psychological development (Exercise makes you feel good!)

Explain four reasons with examples why someone would use a sport psychologist

1) Improve Performance

• Developing skills like meditation, positive self talk, knowing your abilities, and training as an athlete to do everything you could to win and it’s okay if not

2) Overcome Pressures of Competition

• How does one focus on themselves with a roaring crowd? Judges watching? The skill level of the competitors?

3) Enhance Experience of Youth Sports Participants

• Teamwork, fun, positive environment, confidence building

4) Provide Psychological Assistance with Injury Rehabilitation

• What ‘little wins’ and milestones can we help them reach in their recovery (like walking again)? How do we get them to want to recover in a work situation where maybe they don’t want to go back to work?

Explain differences between educational sport psychology and clinical sport psychology

Educational = NOT licensed, NOT trained to treat those with emotional disorders, sport and exercise background, “mental skills coach”

Clinical = Licensed by state; delivers mental health and sport psychology services to student-athletes, can diagnose

Explain structure of personality (3 parts)

1) Psychological Core/Identity

• the REAL YOU, values, most stable over time

2) Typical Responses/behaviors

• How we normally respond to world around us. Type A/B. Try new skills or afriad.

3) Role Related Behaviors

• how do you act around friends, parents, teachers, at job, at school, etc different enviornments

Compare and contrast state (situation) and trait measures of personality. Why are both needed for a better understanding of personality in sport?

Trait = Behavior is determined by traits, “it’s just who they are”

Situation = the situation + environment is more important than who they are

We need both to understand the person as a whole. Who they are as a person will influence how they naturally will behave, but the situation and environment will also influence how the person will react or be motivated to continue.

Ex: Resiliency in a person matters just as much as a trainer that gives positive feedback and pushes them

What are the four approaches to studying personality?

• trait approach

• Situation approach

• Interactional approach

• Phenomenological approach

Explain interactional approach and phenomenological approach to studying personality.

Interactional = both trait and situation, the most favorable approach, understanding both the personality of the person but also their upbringing and current situations

• ex: growing up with high standards might develop a perfectionist personality

Phenomenological = both trait and situation BUT ALSO the persons interpretation of the situation they’re placed in

• ex: hardworking player gets injured and now has to watch practices but they interpret it as an opportunity to learn and grow and get stronger and has more a positive outlook rather than learned helplessness

Explain the difference between trait sport confidence inventory and state sport confidence inventory

Trait = charts that ask questions based on how you would feel in general/most of the time

• ex: compare your confidence to perform under pressure with that of the most confident athlete you know

State = charts that ask questions based on how you feel RIGHT NOW

• ex: compare the confidence you feel right now to perform under pressure with that of the most confident athlete you know

Discuss Morgan’s mental health model (iceberg profile). Should we use this assessment to predict athletic success?

-the first iceberg shows the amount of athletes with certain traits

-the second iceberg shows the traits that produced the more successful athletes

*The athletes with more Vigor had more success

It gives a good outline of what type of qualities can make successful athletes, but it ignores the situation and circumstances that those athletes were/are performing in so we should not use it as an ultimate predictor.

Explain the concept of moving from traits to strategies.

Traits are useful ot know and understand the type of person you are working with, but ARE NOT PROVEN to be accurate predictors of success.

We want to move from just categorizing traits as successful or not successful to mental strategies, skills, and behaviors, DEVELOP SKILLS and LEARN

What are four of the eight psychological skills/strategies of successful athletes?-What two of these skills are your strengths, what two can you improve?

1) Arousal Regulation

2) High Self Confidence

3) Better Concentration

4) Feeling in Control (goal setting)

I feel like concentration and high self confidence are my strengths, but I could improve on feeling in control (rather than focusing on my situation) and arousal regulation (because I get anxious and shaky).

Should psychological tests be used for team selection? Explain

NOOOOOOOOO they can give you an idea of what some of your players will act like naturally, but it is not a predictor of success or how they will actually perform in different situations or under different coaching styles

What is motivation?

= is the “why” you want to do something, taking into consideration the interaction between the individuals characteristics and the situations they are in

How does our book define motivation? Explain the two parts.

1) Direction of Effort

• someone seeks out or is attracted to certain situations, “the draw in”

2) Intensity of Effort

• HOW MUCH effort someone puts into a particular situation

Explain four major misconceptions of motivation.

1) that motivation = arousal

• too much arousal can cause mistakes

2) that an increase in motivation = an increase in performance

• there is not always a direct relation because there is other factors to consider

3) Little engine that could belief

• don’t overhype yourself

4) that motivation is a stable personality trait

• it fluctuates!!

Explain three of the five strategies for increasing motivation—be able to apply to specific exercises or sport examples

1) Consider both situational and trait factors

• The athlete might not be inherently lazy; there could be other things going on that impacts ability to perform: time, external pressures from family, mental health, how is the team environment and coaching?

2) Understand people’s multiple motives for involvement

• friends, competition (wanting to win), just in general feeling good

3) Change environment

• what can a coach do to make practice not the same old same old? include a little fun, be mindful of staleness

4) YOU - how you act can impact others motivation, mindset, leave it at the door

5) Applying some of the theories we know to try and change their behavior (attribution, achievement goal, need achievement, deci’s cognitive evaluation)

Explain the Self Determination Theory and all parts of this theory and be able to apply to an example

WHY DO PEOPLE PARTICIPATE??? Are their needs met to make them want to be there?
1) Competence

• People see progress in themselves and that makes them want to continue, ex: “I am good at ——-”

2) Autonomy

• giving participants a say in what they are doing or having a sport where they have that aspect of control, ex: a pitcher can control what pitch to throw in the game, having them involved in their goal setting (what matters to them)

3) Social Connectedness

• relatedness and belonging: do they love people there and with the people they are with?

Attribution Theory

• How do people attribute their success and failure? what do they “blame?” It is PERCEPTION and not fact

• shapes how they think the future will go

1) Locus of Causality = internal (the athlete) or external (the environment) cause?

2) Stability = stable (traits and competition level) or unstable (temporary conditions, feelings, effort, luck) cause?

3) Locus of Control = how does the athlete believe they can control the cause? Controllable (what they can control, effort, prep, focus, strategy) or uncontrollable (out of their control, weather, opponents, innate ability)

Achievement Goal Theory

1) How do orientate your goals?

• task/mastery (focus on you and your skills/improvement) or ego/outcome (comparing yourself to others and the competition)

2) What climate are you in mentally?

• task/mastery (focused on improvement and learning) or ego/outcome (focused on social status and winning rather than learning)

3) How able do you think you are when setting these goals?

• Approach (wanting to get better and aiming to achieve something) or Avoidance (not wanting to fail and aiming to avoid a bad thing happening)

Need Achievement Theory

Are you a high achiever or low achiever?

• High = seek challenges and enjoy competing, not focused on “what if I fail,” perform better when evaluated, getting better is more important than winning all the time

• Low = worry about failure and associate failure as a reflection of self, perform worse when evaluated, avoid risks

what chance is the most incentive for high achievers?

50/50

Deci’s Cognitive Evaluation Theory

• sub theory of self-determination theory

• where is the intrinsic motivation coming from? Are they enjoying it for themselves or forced to do it?

1) Informational Aspect = perceived competence, “Am I good at this?”

2) Controlling Aspect of Rewards = are they doing it because they want to be there or because there was a reason outside of themselves keeping them there (ex: parents sining up, payment, etc)

Explain learned helplessness and explain ways to break the cycle of learned helplessness

You LEARN this

= when someone believes their efforts and actions have no impact on the skill outcome; you’re just stuck the way you are

• how to break the cycle = set more task goals (milestones), use approach rather than avoidance goals (we want to achieve not focus on the bad things), what are you attributing it to (can you focus on things you can control)

Explain intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation. (from Chapter 7: pp. 140-151)

Intrinsic = motivated to learn how to do things because winning is not everything, experience stimulation and enjoyment from what they do and want to continue being there

Extrinsic = motivated to receive rewards or obtain extrinsic goals (like winning) *not BAD but not good to use solely

Discuss three principles for the effective use of external rewards (p. 148 and PPT)

1) Meaningful

• more important than money value (caring genuine feedback)

2) Motivational but not controlling

• like a gift, not held over the person’s head (like a scholarship)

3) Earned

• worked for it and earned it rather than just given to everyone for participating

4) Sparingly used

• we dont want to just rely on extrinsic motivation

Explain difference between harmonious passion and obsessive passion.

harmonious = want to do it and can

obsessive = that they HAVE to do it

Define goals and explain the five types of goals we discussed: objective, subjective, outcome, performance and process goals. Provide examples for each.

= goal is an aim, purpose, or a desired result that you plan and work to achieve

1) Objective Goal

• a standard to reach (ex: run a 6 minute mile)

2) Subjective Goal

• general statement and purpose (ex: I want to have fun )

3) Outcome Goal

• Competitive result (ex: I want to win and go to state)

4) Performance Goal

• Competitive result against YOURSELF (ex: I want to beat my last mile time)

5) Process Goal

• What do we need to focus on DAILY to meet the performance goal/outcome goal (ex: mini tasks like getting sleep, eating good meals, doing a certain workout routine etc)

How can focusing on an outcome goal be positive and how can it be negative relative to competitive performance?

Focusing on an outcome goal only, can create a bunch of anxiety and pressure when that is the sole goal to reach even if it is an overarching goal to have (whcih is good). It is better to focus more on process goals in order to reach the overall outcome goal.

Discuss Nick Saban’s approach and steps to setting and achieving goals. (video)

1) Do you have some direction? What are your goals? -outcome goals

2) once you have the goal what are you doing everyday to get there? -process goals

3) You have to have the self discipline to do the things you know you have to do to reach the goal but ALSO the self discipline to NOT do the things that will hinder you from reaching that goal

Explain mastery approach/mastery avoidance and performance approach and performance avoidance goals and provide examples

Mastery Approach = mastery the skill, (ex: run 5 seconds faster than last mile)

Mastery Avoidance = avoiding failing the skill, (ex: dont run slower than the last mile)

Performance Approach = reaching the best outcome, (ex: finish in top ten)

Performance Avoidance = avoiding the worst outcome, (ex: dont finsih in the bottom half)

Explain SMARTS goals

‘Achievable, believable, and committable”

S) Specific

M) Measurable

A) Action-oriented

R) Realistic

T) Timely

S) Self-determined

Explain common problems in goal setting and how to overcome these problems.

1) Convincing people to set goals

2) setting too many goals too soon (you need to focus down)

3) failing to adjust goals (becoming more outcome oriented rather than process orientated)

4) failing to set performance and process goals

5) setting only technique related goals when you need to acknowledge the team too

While goal setting is certainly a powerful technique for increasing motivation and enhancing performance, research indicates at times it might be appropriate to abandon a goal. When is it appropriate to do so? What factors should influence this decision? (book/lecture)

If the goal is just not working, we don’t want to stay stuck on “failing”; we need to just adjust and move forward. We need to take into consideration whether the goal is truly not working or is not attainable or if we are just “giving up” on it.

Define reinforcement

Use of rewards or punishment that increases or decreases the likelihood of a similar response occurring in the future

According to Gould (2024) what are benefits to children who have positive coaches?

1) they like their teammates better

2) they have more enjoyment

3) they like their coaches better

Explain the three reward characteristics to consider for increasing motivation.

1) The Type of Reward

• social, material, activity reinforcers (game rather than drill), special outings

2) Reinforcement Schedule (how often??)

• There is a fine line between rewarding often to get a desired response and rewarding too often, where the person then relies on the reward rather than the skill

3) Behaviors to Reward

• small improvements (milestones), performance not just outcome (because we want to influence their internal attributions rather than external things they can’t control)

Explain the difference between consequences and punishment.

Consequence = taking something away (ex: taking away phone)

Punishment = adding something (ex: running more laps)

When a coach punishes an athlete for not completing the skill correctly, what are three negative results?

1) causes higher anxiety and lower confidence

2) a fear factor or anger instilled

3) doesn’t help the mistake that was made and becomes a missed learning opportunity

Why does a coach choose to use physical punishment (additional physical work in practice)

Can be an immediate response in frustration towards the athlete, might work short term but does not work long term as a primary motivator

What are some examples of how to change behavior more effectively?

• Developing Discipline = setting the expectations beforehand, creates a positive team environment and interaction, creates a caring culture PROACTIVE rather than REACTIVE

• Remember the WHAT (was wrong), WHY (was it wrong), and HOW (to avoid it in the future)

You are taking over as coach of a team that has a history of losing and that recently had a tyrannical coach. Intrinsic motivation therefore low. What would you do to build intrinsic motivation with this team. What types of rewards and coaching behaviors would you use. Incorporate research findings and theory to support your methods.

If they had a tyrannical coach, I would want to first change the environment and coaching style. A big part of instilling motivation comes from you and your attitude towards the players. I need ot give meaningful feedback to each player, acknowledging their successes and the goals that they have. I also want to make sure that practice does not become mundane by switching it up, or having surprise outings, or at least letting teammates pick drills. There needs to be a shift from the controlling coach to the uplifting, personally connected, and sharing autonomy of the team coach. I want to create an environment that creates high achievers, according to the need achievement theory. I want my athletes to not be scared of failure, but rather excited to learn and progress. They need to be reminded of why they love the sport according to the self-determination theory, which means also understanding that winning isn’t everything and that achieving performance goals is just as important as outcome goals.