Sports Psychology Study Guide 2

Three factors of concentration

Selective attention, maintaining focus, and situational awareness.

Selective attention

The ability to focus attention on relevant information while filtering out irrelevant information.

Maintaining focus

The ability to sustain attention on the appropriate task or information despite distractions.

Situational awareness

The ability to understand what is happening around you and recognize information that is relevant to performance.

Broad external focus

Attention directed toward a large amount of information in the external environment.

Broad internal focus

Attention directed toward a wide range of thoughts, feelings, plans, or internal information.

Narrow external focus

Attention directed toward one or a small number of external cues.

Narrow internal focus

Attention directed toward a specific internal thought, feeling, or mental process.

External distracters

Things outside the athlete that interfere with concentration, such as crowd noise, opponents, weather, and officials.

Internal distracters

Thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, worries, or memories that interfere with concentration.

Choking

A significant decrease in performance under pressure despite possessing the ability to perform successfully.

Choking process

Pressure causes self-consciousness, focusing on automatic movements, worrying, or distraction, disrupting performance.

Self-talk

Thoughts or statements athletes say to themselves that influence thoughts, emotions, attention, and behavior.

Uses of self-talk

Increase confidence, control anxiety, improve concentration, increase motivation, direct attention, and regulate emotions.

ABC model of self-talk

A = Activating event, B = Beliefs/self-talk/perception, C = Consequences (emotional and behavioral reaction).

Effect of self-talk on reaction

The athlete's interpretation, beliefs, and self-talk about an event influence the emotional and behavioral response.

Thought stopping

A technique used to interrupt negative or unproductive thinking and replace it with more useful thoughts.

Reframing negative self-talk

Recognize the thought, stop it, check if it's realistic/useful, and replace it with a productive statement.

Improving concentration

Use routines, imagery, self-talk, goal setting, attentional cues, relaxation, and practice focusing under distractions.

Two types of pain in sport

Performance pain (from intense effort) and injury pain (results from physical damage).

Climate of risk

An environment where athletes feel pressure to take risks, play through pain, and prioritize performance over health.

Stress and Athletic Injury Model

Explains how stress increases injury risk by influencing physiological responses, attention, and behavior.

Factors that increase injury risk

Psychological stress, major life events, daily hassles, poor coping, personality factors, and previous injury.

Psychological response to injury

A process involving cognitive appraisal leading to emotional responses and behavioral responses.

Cognitive appraisal following injury

The athlete's interpretation of injury seriousness, career implications, and perceived control.

Emotional responses after injury

Anger, frustration, sadness, anxiety, fear, depression, isolation, helplessness, or relief.

Behavioral responses after injury

Following rehabilitation, avoiding rehab, withdrawing socially, seeking support, or returning too quickly.

Normal responses to athletic injury

Temporary sadness, frustration, anger, anxiety, uncertainty, and concern about returning.

Warning signs of poor adjustment to injury

Persistent depression, extreme anger, social withdrawal, lack of cooperation with rehab, and hopelessness.

Integrative Model of response to injury

Recognizes response is influenced by personal and situational factors, cognitive appraisal, emotions, and behavior.

Counseling referral guidelines

Refer when psychological difficulties are significant or interfere with functioning/rehabilitation.

Psychological factors during rehabilitation

Motivation, confidence, goal setting, adherence, pain management, anxiety adjustment, and social support.

Role of sport psychology in sports medicine

Help athletes cope with injury, maintain motivation, manage stress, improve rehab adherence, and prepare to return.

Sport psychology interventions for injured athletes

Goal setting, imagery, positive self-talk, relaxation, confidence-building, and emotional regulation.

Other ways to help injured athletes recover psychologically

Maintain team connections, provide accurate info, establish realistic goals, and communicate regularly.

Anorexia nervosa

Severe restriction of food intake, intense fear of gaining weight, and distorted body weight/shape perception.

Bulimia nervosa

Recurrent episodes of binge eating followed by compensatory behaviors like purging or excessive exercise.

Disordered eating

Unhealthy eating patterns that may not meet full diagnostic criteria but still negatively affect health and performance.

Female Athlete Triad

Interrelationship among low energy availability, menstrual dysfunction, and poor bone health/low mineral density.

Signs and symptoms of eating disorders

Weight changes, restrictive eating, food obsession, avoiding meals, excessive exercise, and fatigue.

Factors contributing to eating disorders

Body-image concerns, sport pressure, perfectionism, psychological stress, dieting, and social pressures.

Action for suspected disordered eating

Refer the individual to an appropriate professional, such as a counselor or physician.

Overtraining

Excessive training stress without sufficient recovery, leading to decreased performance and negative effects.

Staleness

A persistent negative response to training characterized by performance difficulties, fatigue, and mood disturbances.

Burnout

A psychological, emotional, and physical response to prolonged stress with exhaustion and loss of motivation.

Common symptoms of burnout

Exhaustion, reduced motivation, decreased performance, irritability, negative attitudes, and emotional fatigue.

Factors leading to burnout

Excessive training, insufficient recovery, high expectations, lack of control, perfectionism, and monotony.

Iceberg Profile

A mood-profile where a healthy athlete shows high positive and low negative mood characteristics.

Burnout mood profile

A less desirable mood pattern with increased negative mood states and decreased positive mood states.

Who can experience burnout?

Athletes, trainers, officials, coaches, and other people involved in sport.

Causes of coach burnout

High workloads, constant pressure to win, long hours, organizational demands, and insufficient recovery.

Burnout prevention

Proper recovery, reasonable training loads, variety, rest, realistic expectations, and social support.

Burnout treatment

Reduce demands, increase recovery, address stress sources, restore balance, and modify training.

Burnout prevention in children

Avoid excessive pressure/specialization, provide rest, make sport enjoyable, and focus on development.

Coach's role in child's sport

Create a positive environment, provide instruction/feedback, emphasize enjoyment, and avoid pressure.

Parent's role in child's sport

Provide support, encouragement, and perspective without excessive pressure or living through the child.

Sport specialization

Focusing on one sport year-round at a relatively young age instead of multi-sport participation.

Concerns of early sport specialization

Increased overuse injuries, burnout, reduced enjoyment, excessive pressure, and limited skill development.

Aggression in sport

Behavior intended to harm or injure another individual, either physically or psychologically.

Major types of aggression

Hostile aggression and instrumental aggression.

Hostile aggression

Aggressive behavior motivated primarily by anger and the intention to injure or harm another person.

Instrumental aggression

Aggressive behavior used as a means to achieve another objective, such as gaining a competitive advantage.

Causes of aggression

Frustration, anger, provocation, learned behavior, environmental factors, social norms, and perceived injustice.

Frustration and aggression

When prevented from reaching a goal, frustration increases anger and makes aggression more likely.

How aggression is learned

By observing and imitating others, particularly when those behaviors are rewarded or reinforced.

Environmental influences on aggression

Crowd behavior, coaching behavior, opponents, officials, game circumstances, and social norms.

How spectators contribute to aggression

Through cheering, taunting, hostility, social pressure, and modeling aggressive behavior.

Why spectators become aggressive

Emotional investment, team identification, frustration, crowd dynamics, anonymity, and perceived injustice.