Sport Psychology

Psychological skills training - 3 step process

1. Education phase:

   • Players made aware of psychological skills and how they could benefit and improve their performance

2. Acquisition phase:

   • Determine specific psychological skills that would benefit them and improve their performance

3. Practice phase:

   • The necessary mental skills are regularly practiced until players use them without conscious thought in game

4 components that make up optimal performance

• Tactical skill

• Psychological skill

• Physiological preparation

• Technical skills

Mental skills

1. Stress management

2. Concentration

3. Arousal

4. Motivation

5. Self confidence

Mental skills - Stress management

• Stress occurs when there is an imbalance between the demands of the tasks and the ability level of the performer to respond in a situation where failure has consequences

Mental skills - Concentration

• Ability to focus on a task at hand whilst ignoring irrelevant cues or distractions

Mental skills - Arousal

• The degree of stimulation or alertness present in a performer about to perform a skilled task

Mental skills - Motivation

• The direction and intensity of effort by a performer towards a given task

Mental skills - Self confidence

• The belief that a performer has in their own ability to successfully perform a desired skill or behaviour

Strategies - Mental Skills

1. Goal setting:

   • Process of deciding on something you want to achieve, planning the steps to follow that will help reach the goal, and then working towards achieving the goal.

2. Relaxation:

   • An activity undertaken to reduce tension and the effect of physical and mental stress involves having relaxation activities to achieve physical or mental benefits

3. Imagery:

   • The mental recreation, using as many senses as possible, of a successful past performance or skill.

4. Performance routine:

   • A ritual a performer follows to prepare for the execution of a task or skill

5. Self talk:

   • Talking to/think to yourself positively before, during or after performance

Self Talk

• Aims to enhance self esteem, motivation, attentional focus and performance

  • Positive cue words

  • Positive emotions

• Benefits performance:

  • Reinforcing sill learning

  • Changing bad habits

  • Motivating the performer

  • Focusing attention

  • Building self confidence

Self Talk - Stress

• Can be used to reduce stress by helping the athlete feel as though they are good enough to meet the demands of the task

Self Talk - Motivation

• Use self talk to increase their motivation and performance

Self Talk - Concentration

• Athletes use phrases to help maintain their concentration and focus on a particular aspect of their performance

Self Talk - Arousal

• Self talk increases or decreases arousal levels depending on what the athlete desires

Methods of Personal Relaxation

• Music

  • Mellow tunes have a calming effect

• Massage

  • Can help relax physically + mentally

• Meditation

  • Involves focusing the mind on a particular thing for a certain period

• Floatation tanks

  • Minimal stimulation by reproducing weightlessness to lower stress

• Breathing control

  • Helps during games

Relaxation - Mathcing hypothesis

• Certain relaxation tips are more appropriate than others, depending on the situation/circumstance

• Should use a technique relevant to the type of stress symptoms they are displaying such as physical vs mental

  • Physical:

    • Massage

    • Autogenic training

  • Mental:

    • Meditation

    • Music

    • Thought stopping → float tank

Relaxation - Stress

• Relaxation strategies are used to reduce the impact of the physical effects of stress

Relaxation - Motivation

• High moticantion can mean performance decline associated with trying too hard

• Over motivated athletes use relaxation techniques to try and control their thoughts and focus on performance rather than outcomes

Relaxation - Concentration

• High level can shift quickly from broad to narrow missing relelvant cues

• Relaxation helps concnetration on relevant cues

Relaxation - Arousal

• Athletes should use more appropriate relaxation methods to reduce arousal levels

• Eg, over aroused can use meditation, but a basketball player might use breathing techniques

Relaxation - Self confidence

• Mentally fresh athletes have increases self confidence

Performance routine - Arousal

• Can increase or decrease arousal

Performance routine - Stress

• Can be used to focus on the task instead of worrying

• Decreases stress but giving belief they are in control, decreasing physical effects

Performance routine - Motivation

• Motivation can be heightened by routine

  • Wake up time

  • Food

  • Routine for the day

Performance routine - Concentration

• Helps the athlete focus on relevant cues

• Control emotions and gather thoughts

• Particularly important during critical moments when concentration is compromised

Performance routine - Self confidence

• Can help increase self confidence as the athlete can relate to past successes with routine

• Also imagery

Goal Setting - Types of goals

• Outcome goals:

  • Focus: end results, times, finishing place, ranking or medals

  • Often difficult to achieve as can be linked to others achievement

• Performance goals:

  • Used to compare

• Process goals:

  • Actions to achieve performance goal

Goal setting - Arousal

• Can help maintain

Goal setting - Motivation

• Significant impact on motivation

• Effective goals ^ motivation

Goal setting - Concentration

• Allows conc. on particular performance aspect

Goal setting - Stress

• Decreases stress, which decreases physical effects

Goal setting - Self confidence

• Positive or negative influence

Imagery

• Increases neural pathways

• Provides mental template of rehearsed sequences

• Slows down complex skills

• Two types:

  • Internal

  • External

Imagery - Stress

• Decreases stress by creating a mental picture

Imagery - Motivation

• Motivates an athlete to strive for improvement

Imagery - Concentration

• Focus on a particular skill

Imagery - Arousal

• Imagining important for cues

Imagery - Self confidence

• Increases by creating a mental picture

Question: How can mental skills strategies be used to improve performance?

• How can an athlete improve their performance by using:

  • Goal setting

  • Relaxation

  • Imagery

  • Performance routines

  • Self-talk

Question: How can mental skills strategies be used to improve the mental skills of the performer?

• How can goal setting, relaxation, imagery, performance routines and self talk be used to improve an athletes self - confidence, concentration, arousal regulation, motivation or stress management.

Group cohesion

• The term used to describe the extent to which a group stays together and united in the pursuit of common goals and objectives

• Two types:

  • Task Cohesion:

    • How committed are the team members to achieving their predetermined common performance goal

  • Social Cohesion:

    • The degree to which team members like each other and enjoy being together. Reflects friendship within the group.

• Task and social cohesion can be independent of each other

Strategies to improve group cohesion - Use of leadership

• Leadership groups used to increase power whilst setting standards

• Typically established during formation stage

• Develops social and task cohesion

Strategies to improve group cohesion - Communication

• So all members understand their roles and responsibilities

• Having clear and understood expectations

• Having regular team meetings

Strategies to improve group cohesion - Goal setting (individual + team)

• Set challenging and realistic goals

• Make clear what everyone must do

• Prioritize team goals over individual

Strategies to improve group cohesion - Team building

• Helps developing social cohesion by encouraging social interaction

• Typically develop social cohesion

• Specific activities such as pre season camps

Strategies to improve group cohesion - Roles + Expectation

• Everyone has their own group roles and norms, which influence the behaviour of members

• Formal roles = task

• Informal = social

Benefits of Cohesion

• Communication + motivation are extensive

• There is an increased feeling of the group rather than individuals

• Players work together to achieve team goals ahead of personal ones

• Enjoy each others success

Barriers to Cohesion

• Personality clashes between members

• Unclear/conflicting roles

• Frequent changes

Factors affecting group cohesion

• Social loafing

• Leaderships

• Team dynamics

Factors affecting group cohesion - Social loafing

• The tendency of individuals to lessen their effort when they are part of a group

• Occurs under the following conditions

  • An individual athlete perceives other athletes to be working at a lower intensity, giving an excuse to put in less effort

  • A belief that their efforts won’t make a difference to the team and the desired outcome will still be reached

  • Task is perceived as meaningless

Social loafing - Traits

• Decreased effort at training

• Arrives late

• Misses training

Social loafing - Impact on individual + team performance

• Individual athletes are prone to social loafing → common in teams with same task eg. rowing

• Individual athlete perceives the team will win even without every player at best

Social loafing - How it can be minimized

1. Write a team contract

   • Expectations

   • Responsibilities

   • Communication

2. Develop rules of conduct

3. Create appropriate group sizes

4. Evaluate all members of a group individually

5. Provide regular feedback to each individual

Factors affecting group cohesion - Leadership

• Refers to the leadership style the coach and captain used and how this affects group cohesion

• Key to developing a socially and task cohesive team

• Ensures most appropriate leadership style is used for the environment they are working in

• Mutual respect/positive relationships between athletes → coaches are crucial

• Good leaders will set:

  • Team goals

  • Individual roles

  • Team rules

Factors affecting group cohesion - Team dynamics

• The collective identity/goals/aims/norms/standards of the team

• These factors include:

  • Team stability - maintaining the same playing group over time increases cohesion

  • Relationship between stability and cohesiveness

  • Prior successes and failures increase cohesion

  • Common goals

Team dynamics - Three levels

1. Co-acting activities

2. Mixed activities

3. Interacting activities

Team dynamics: Co-acting activities

• Team members work independently of each other to achieve the result

• There is little or no communication between players, and the result is determined by tallying individual scores

Team dynamics: Mixed activities

• Have a combination of co-acting and interacting activities

  • In cricket the batting players communicate, the others do not interact with them therefore communication issues

Team dynamics: Interacting activities

• Require a high level of interaction between team members if the team is to achieve its goal.

• Ball games such as hockey, netball and rugby are interactive as they require all players to communicate continuously if optimum is to be acheived