Sports Psychology and Sociology

Sports Psychology

  • Recognized over the past 40 years due to:
    • Expansion of the scientific body of knowledge
    • Athletes’ need for guidance
    • Although it cannot be quantified like some disciplines, it cannot be overlooked.
  • Personality: a pattern of characteristic thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that distinguishes one person from another and persists over time and in different situations.
    • Significant research has been done into the relationship between personality and athletic performance, yet still limited knowledge.
  • Athletes vs. non-athletes are more:
    • Stable
    • Extroverted
    • Competitive
    • Dominant
    • Authoritarian
    • Self-confident
    • Achievement-oriented
    • Persistent
    • Psychologically well-adjusted
    • Conservative in political views
  • Comparing Personality: Different Skill Levels
    • Elite vs. less-skilled athletes differ in certain psychological states
    • Profile of Mood States identified an “iceberg” profile
    • Although mood states differ, personality traits are not different
    • Personality traits: stable characteristics
    • Personality states: situation-specific feelings
    • Interaction theory considers traits, states, and situation-specific factors.
    • Iceberg profile

Developmental Effect of Sport on Personality

  • Athletic experience can shape a person
  • But certain personality traits attract sports involvement
  • Gravitational hypothesis suggests that individuals who possess stable and extroverted personalities tend to gravitate towards sport
  • Arousal: a physiological state of readiness and psychological activation
    • Involves the autonomic nervous system to prepare for fight or flight
    • Can sometimes produce amazing feats of strength, power, and endurance
    • Arousal U-shaped: optimal arousal is different for everyone
  • Stress: an unemotional, non-specific response of the body to a stressor
    • Can be either positive (eustress) or negative (distress), depending on the interpretation of the situation
  • Anxiety: Tension and worry that result from distress
    • Trait anxiety: more permanent, occurs across various situations
    • State anxiety: “right now” state, situation-specific
      • Cognitive: psychological component due to fear of negative social evaluation that results in worrying (“I’m afraid of losing”)
      • Somatic: physical component due to the perception of physiological response like muscular tension (“I feel nervous before the event”)
  • Anxiety and Athletic Performance Pre-competitive anxiety
    • State anxiety experienced before an event
    • Has a significant effect on athletic performance
    • Cognitive
      • Remains high days prior, then fluctuates when the event starts
      • Linear relationship: the lower, the better the performance
    • Somatic
      • Remains high 1 day prior, then decreases once the event starts
      • Inverted U relationship: needed, but when too high, performance decreases
  • Cognitive Load
    • Short term
      • The amount of mental resources used in working memory to perform various tasks
      • Only 5-9 items can be stored in working memory, and only 2-4 can be processed.
      • Multiple cognitive tasks lower performance
      • When there are multiple inputs, the chance of switching is HIGH
      • Email, phone, shiny object, sound, beep, movement, etc.
    • Long-Term Stressors
      • What’s on your mind?
      • Deadlines
      • Relationships
      • Events & Expectations
      • Psychological Effects: Limited mental capacity
      • Inability to sleep
      • Easily aggravated
      • Forgetful
      • Psychological Effects
      • Reduced recovery
      • Weight gain
      • Increased blood pressure
  • Relaxation Interventions
    • There are several active strategies athletes can use to manage their cognitive state anxiety.
    • Although each technique should be tried, one may end up working the best
      • Progressive Muscular Relaxation
        • Ask the subject to inhale and tense a specific muscle group for approximately five seconds.
        • Then, exhale and release the tension from the muscles, concentrating on the feeling of relaxation.
        • Repealed, often systematically, from head to toes
        • Valuable right before the event
      • Positive Imagery
        • With closed eyes, imagine performing well in the exact environment that causes anxiety.
        • Also, imagine positive feelings associated with successful performance
        • Requires practice
      • Positive Self-Talk
        • Reassuring oneself with positive thoughts and statements
        • Example: “I’m a good free-throw shooter” versus “What will the coach or my team think of me if I blow this shot?”
        • Attitude is a little thing that can make a big difference.
  • Motivation and Sport
    • Motivation: direction, energy, and intensity of behavior
    • Used synonymously to mean inspiration, enthusiasm, or the will to win.
    • Achievement Motivation
      • State anxiety experiences before an event
      • Athletes’ predisposition to approach or avoid a competitive situation
      • It includes the concept of the desire to excel
      • Not innate like hunger or thirst
      • Developed or learned
      • Needed, but when it is too high, performance decreases
      • McClelland-Atkinson model of achievement motivation
        • Motive to achieve success = intrinsic motivation (IM)
        • Fear of failure = cognitive state anxiety (CSA)
        • Achievement motivation = IM - KSA
        • If the desire to participate is greater than the fear of failure, participate/perform.
        • If fear of failure is greater than desire to participate, will not participate/perform.
      • Modified McClelland-Atkinson model
        • The original model is unable to show that higher achievement motivation leads to better performance consistently
        • Extrinsic motivation introduced
        • E.g., money, a trophy, and other forms of reward
        • Acknowledges that factors external to athletes may influence their performance
        • Explains why those with a high fear of failure and low intrinsic motivation end up participating and performing
  • Self-Confidence, Self-Efficacy, and Motivation
    • Self-confidence distinguishes individuals showing high and low achievement motivation and generally determines athletic success.
    • Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy
    • Self-efficacy: Individuals’ belief in their success at a particular task
    • Self-confident across various situations, while an individual with a high level of self-efficacy feels confident about succeeding at a particular task
    • Sporting environment = specific situation
    • What enhances self-efficacy? (four things that enhance self-efficacy)
      • Successful performance
      • Vicarious experience
      • Verbal persuasion
      • Emotional arousal

What Enhances Self-Efficacy?

  • Successful Performance

    • Most importantly, it raises expectations for future success
    • Repeated success leads to
      • High self-efficacy and
      • Low influence of occasional failure
    • Tips:
      • Bread won skill learning into a small piece
      • Practice, practice, practice,
      • Highlight success and downplay setbacks

  • Vicarious Performance

    • Demonstrating repeated success through participatory modeling
    • A highly competent model performs a task before athletes try on their own
    • Athlete observes to see how it is done correctly
    • The model assists the subject in a successful performance of the task

  • Verbal Persuasion

    • Constant engagement and specific skill instruction provided by the teacher or coach
    • Athletes learn by hearing, just as they do by watching
    • Tips:
      • Specific better than general feedback
      • Have an athlete repeat back the instructions
      • Focus on the positive aspects

  • Emotional Arousal

    • Too much of too little emotional arousal will hurt an athlete's development of self-efficacy
    • Tips:
      • When learning a skill, keep things relaxed
      • Get to know your athletes, as some will need more arousal, while others will need to be taught to relax.

  • Goal-Setting Strategies

    • Another way to improve athlete participation motivation

  • Causal Attribution In Sport

    • Attribution theory: assumes that people strive to explain, understand, and predict events based on their perceptions
      • Whether these perceptions are correct or incorrect is beside the point
      • What the athlete believes to be true is important for future motivation
    • Development of Causal Attribution Theory
      • Outcomes can be attributed
        • Internally = personal force (ability + effort)
        • External = environmental force (task difficulty and luck)
      • Stability
        • Stable attributes that are relatively unchanging from one day to the next versus unstable attributes
      • Locus of control
        • Internal - attributes the athlete perceives as uncomfortable, while externally, as uncontrollable.
    • Affective Responses Associated with Causal Attributions
      • Internal attribution generally results in a greater effect than external attribution.
      • There may be a cause-and-effect relationship among attributions, outcome, and affective response.
    • Causal Attributions, Future Expectations, and Motivation
      • Attribution endorsement has an important impact on the athlete’s expectancy for future performance.
      • Whenever an outcome is different from what was expected based on experience, an athlete tends to endorse an unstable attribution (e.g., effort/luck)
        • When an outcome is as expected, based on past performances, a stable attribution (e.g., ability of task difficulty) is endorsed.
        • We should be able to predict future expectations about athletic performance based on the types of attributions individuals indicate for their present performance.
      • Tips:
        • Ascribing failures to unstable causes does not imply repeated failure; therefore, in young athletes, it helps to attribute failure to lack of effort.
        • In young athletes, success should be attributed to both table and internal factors, because stable attribution will improve expectancy for future success and internal attribution will enhance self-confidence.

  • Philosophy of Sport

    • Meta Discipline
    • Subdisciplines of Philosophy
      • Metaphysics - the study of what is real
      • Aesthetics - the study of beauty
      • Ethics - the study of how we ought to live
      • Logic - the study of argument analysis
      • Epistemology - the study of the theory of knowledge
    • Philosophy Today
      • Application of the same questions that arise from the “big five” to a broad array of topics
        • Contact resolution
        • Feminism
        • Race relations
        • Sport
      • Metadisciplinary - examines and evaluates disciplines themselves.
      • The primary tool is logic.
      • Requirements for philosophical analysis: intellectual integrity, open-mindedness, critical attitude
      • Requirements of Philosophical Analysis
        • Intellectual integrity: a commitment to an honest search for truth, conceptual clarification, or a heightened understanding
        • Open-mindedness: being open to rationally founded views that are inconsistent with your own.
        • Critical attitude: an assumption of fallibility as a willingness to entertain all reasonable claims as true, if only provisionally, to increase understanding for all parties involved

  • The Nature of Sport

    • Early competent sport
    • Greek roots
      • The Greek word athlein (the root of the English word athlete) means:
        • “To contend” or “to fight for a prize”
        • “To suffer” or “to endure”
      • The contests in which athletes competed were called agones (places of combat, arenas, contests, labors, or struggles)
      • Preparation for war and the province of males only
      • Today, there are thousands of types of sports
      • New sports are accessible to both males and females
    • Aretism
      • The ideal of competitive sports is striving for human excellence
    • The “Goods” of Sport
      • Children
        • Do not have a fully developed rational faculty
        • Mostly motivated by external goods (e.g., approval, recognition)
      • Adults
        • Have a fully developed rational faculty
        • Some can appreciate internal benefits
        • Others are motivated by external goods like recognition
        • Professional athletes can be motivated by external goods such as money and fame

  • Integrity

    • INtegrity demands
    • 1. Commits to play by the rules
      • Fair play = pursuing victory to the best of one’s ability while keeping within the rules of the contest.
      • A win-at-all-costs attitude predominates, commonly leading to “bending of the rules
    • Commitment to Play by the Rules
      • Rules determine what physical skills or activities are admissible and inadmissible.
      • Competitive sport is fundamentally a test of certain skills within rule-determined guidelines.
      • Winning teams or athletes are those that best or most effectively display skills within the rules of competition.
      • At the highest level of competition, athletes do not seem so committed to winning by the rules.
      • Coaches, athletes, and teams do “whatever it takes” to win.
      • Cheating has become an accepted part of recruitment procedures by college coaches and assistant coaches.
    • Respect for self and others
      • Integrity demands:
        • 2. Respect for self and others
          • Winning at all costs leads to poor treatment of themselves and others by athletes and coaches.
          • Example: plan to injure a star player

  • Sport and Society

    • In Democratic Societies:
      • Individuals decide for themselves what sorts of goods ought to be included
      • Competitive sport is generally included
      • Members must contribute for the good of the whole and have responsibility to others and to society itself.
      • Applies to competitive athletes
      • Sport is chiefly about the development of character, which cannot be developed in isolation from the community.
      • Best running city state (team/sport) is very much like an organic being
      • The analogy of hurting a finger
      • Evaluative claim
        • Well-being of the city-state (team/sport) > well-being of its citizens
      • Pragmatic claim
        • To attain stability and unity in a city-state, each citizen must subordinate concern about oneself to concern about others
      • Ego-puffing - players making themselves visible in team sports by:
        • Exceptional play
        • Showboating
        • Taunting
        • Fighting opponents, managers, or teammates
    • Life Beyond Sport
      • A range of opportunities is available for personal fulfillment
      • Sports is just one of them
      • Parents should cultivate competitive athletics in children relative to their talents and wants

  • The Growth of Sport in North America

    • Sport as Leisure
      • Early North America
        • Elite class: Cricket, fox hunting, snowshoeing
        • Rural settlers: shooting, horse racing, hunting, running
      • First Industrial Revolution
        • Individual games, sports, or content of skill and endurance
      • Second Industrial Revolution
        • Team sports emerge
        • Lacrosse, “bat and ball”
      • Late 1800
        • Development of basketball, football, and ice hockey
        • The light bulb invention changes leisure time
    • Baseball
      • “Bat and ball” or “town ball”
      • Exact data and the place or origin are debated
      • The era of modern baseball began in 1845, when Alexander Cartwright formed the Knickerbockers Base Ball Club and wrote down the formal rules of
      • The first official game played under these rules was in 1846
      • Spread throughout the US during the Civil War to keep troops’ morale high
      • Enjoyed by all - blacks, social elites, middle class, farmers, and urbanites.
    • Basketball
      • The first North American sport of origin other than lacrosse
      • Developed in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith, a visiting Canadian scholar attending the prestigious YMCA training in Massachusetts
      • The first game used a soccer ball and two peach baskets with a small hole for a broom to push the ball out
      • Developed as a form of recreation to pass the time during winter

  • Football

    • The “Boston Game”
    • Can be traced to a combination of rugby and soccer rules
    • The first game was in 1869 between Princeton and Rutgers in America
    • The first rule was in 1876
    • Introduction of rugby style through scrimmage in 1874

  • Sport as a Commodity

    • The social nature of sports changed end of the 19th century
    • Professional sports took root during the “Golden Age” of sport (the Great Depression years)
    • Men’s professional sports have become a form of entertainment, and the Olympics have taken on momentum
    • Post WWII to 1950s - a commercial expansion of sport
      • through economic prospects, population growth, and technological advancements
    • Media
      • People covering sports
      • Entertainment industry
      • Actual content
      • Technological platform
    • Emergence of Mass and Online Media
      • Radio helps to keep track of favorite players and feel connected; before receiving results via a telegraph or watching later in cinemas
      • Sport popularity and participation grew over the latter half of the 20th century
      • 1950-1960s: Basketball is the most televised sport
    • Sport for All
      • Historically, there have been some significant barriers to sport related to gender, race, ability, and age.
      • Two landmark decisions in US legal history helped change the face of sport in North America.
        • Brown vs Board of Education
        • Title IX of the Education Amendments (1972)
        • Ensured that equal opportunity and funding would be available regardless of sex
      • Sport for All - Four Core Principles
        • Expand national interest in and awareness of the benefits of regular physical activity, fitness, sports participation, and good nutrition.
        • Stimulate and enhance coordination of programs within and among the private and public sectors and promote physical activity, fitness, sports participation, and good nutrition.
        • Expand the availability of quality information and guidance regarding physical activity, fitness, sports participation, and good nutrition.
        • Target all Americans, with a participating emphasis on children and adolescents, as populations or communities in which specific risks or disparities in participation in, access to, or knowledge about the benefits of physical activity, fitness, sports participation, and good nutrition have been identified.
      • Sport and American Culture
        • Culture is defined as the ways of life people create in a society
          • Not something that is imposed upon a group
        • What is a Sport Culture
          • Historically created over time
          • Culturally negotiated
          • Affected by political and economic issues in society
          • Also, the creative sphere of human life
        • Sports Fanatics vs Sports Fans

  • The commercialization of sport has increased steadily since the 1950s

    • But sports have been more commercialized than they are today
    • Economic factors now dominate major decisions about the business of sport
    • “Under what conditions does commercial sport grow and prosper?”
      • A market economy
      • Large, densely populated cities
      • Areas with a relatively high standard of living
      • A large amount of capital
    • Professional Sport in North America
      • Minor league teams are usually owned by individuals and groups that rarely make money and are lucky to break even.
      • Building and maintaining a competitive franchise in today’s market is extremely difficult and takes time, money, and effort.
      • Ownership of the top North American professional franchises is much different.
    • Sport as a Spectacle
      • Media sport spectators help leverage huge profits.
      • The sport-media nexus refers to the interdependent relationships between sports organizations, media companies, and corporate sponsors.s
      • The nexus has played a powerful role in the commercialization of sport and fitness cultures.
    • Television
      • “Sportainment” - equivalent of a television movie that claims to be based on a true story
      • Sports account for a growing proportion of the income made by television companies.

  • Women in Sports

    • 1. Lack of Rights
      • Women were not allowed to vote, get an education, make their own decisions, etc.
      • This prevented them from making decisions concerning their participation in physical activity.
    • 2. Emphasis on Reproduction
      • Women were described almost exclusively by their biology as reproductive organisms.
      • Physical exertion was tough to destroy a woman’s potential to have children.
    • 3. Societal expectations
      • Women were expected to act “ladylike”
      • Female athletes were negatively labeled because they did not act according to these norms.
      • Many sports were discouraged because they prevented women from acting “lady-like”
      • Example: Bicycling
      • Female athletes were expected to emphasize their femininity
    • Access to Sport for Women
      • The single most important chance in the world of sport over the past generation was the increased participation of females.
      • 1. New Opportunities
        • Development of new teams and programs since the late 1970s has been linked with increased participation
      • 2. The Global Women’s Rights Movement
        • Over the past 30 years:
          • Emphasized that females excel as human beings when they are allowed to develop their intellectual and physical abilities.
      • 3. The Expanding Health and Fitness Movement
        • Since the mid-1970’s research has highlighted the many health benefits of regular participation in physical activity
      • 4. Increased Media Coverage of Women In Sport
      • 5. Political Pressure and Equal Rights Legislation
        • Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972
        • Title IX
          • Bernice Sandle of UMD showed discrimination against women in hiring practices.
          • Went to a congressional hearing on women ‘s rights
          • The focus is on ex discrimination in all areas of institutions
          • Title IX applies to any federally funded institution
          • Discrimination in STEM disciplines, employment, housing, and health care
          • But it is most known for its effect on intercollegiate sports
          • 3 Prong Test for Compliance (big ticket)
            • AN institution complies with Title IX when:
              • Opportunities for males and females are substantially proportional to their respective enrollments
              • Where one sex has been underrepresented, a history and continuing practice of program expansion responsive to the developing interests and abilities of that sex
              • Where one sex is underrepresented and cannot show a continuing practice of program expansion, whether it can be demonstrated that the interests and abilities of that sex have been fully and effectively accommodated by the present program.
          • Title IX’s Positive Effect
            • At the college level, there has been a substantial increase in participation.