Sport Psych
Module 1: Sport Psychology
- Sport psychology: needs to emphasize influence of psychological factors on sport performance/experience, and recognize impact of sport performance on psychological factors
(need how sport impacts you, not just you impacting sport)
o Science in which broad principles of psychology are applied in a sport or exercise setting to enhance performance
o Study of psychological and emotional factors on sport performance and the effect of sport involvement on psychological emotional factors
- Sport psychology situations:
o Anxiety
o Internal conflicts- team cohesion
o Lack of communication
o Performance goals
o Performance
o Organizational leadership/team dynamics
- Sport technology/science: HR monitoring/ wearable technology -> not sport psych but will in the future (invasion of privacy/ how it impacts performance, people feeling monitored)
Paper 1:
What do we know:
· Social Aspects of Sport Psych
· Social ties, working under social conditions
· Motivation
§ Frameworks and research paradigms
§ Negative: perfectionism
· Individual Differences
· Anxiety, self-perceptions, confidence, perfecitonism
· Psychological Skills
· Self-talk, imagery, arousal management, goal setting
· Youth Development
· Positive youth development
· Clinical Sport Psych
- Early history:
o Cyclists riding alone or in groups- social facilitation
- Coleman Griffith:
o Father of North American sport psychology (established a lab and wrote about it)
- Performance enhancement
o Optimizing systematic skills training, confidence, focus, emotional regulation, motivation
o Educational approach
- Mental health Counseling
o Addressing life issues and mental health disorders
o Giving support to someone with issues stemming deeper
o Therapeutic approach – traditional
- Career categories:
1. Applies sport psychology practitioner
· Performance related, PST
· Hard to find full time positions
2. Clinical psychology
· Mental health issues outside of performance
3. Physical activity and health
· Sport coaches, athletic trainers
4. Academic sport psychology
· PhD, teaching, training
Paper 2:
- What do we know:
o 1920: PST focussed
o Realizing sport environments can impact mental health
o Integration of mental health and clinical competencies in applied sport psychology
o ASP becoming more holistic
Module 2: Interventions
Paper 3:
What is the rationale for why they are doing this research: inefficiency in health care resources
What do we know:
- KTA: knowledge to action
- Knowledge translation: exchange, synthesis, and application of knowledge- strengthen healthcare system
- Knowledge transfer: systematic approach to capture, collect, share knowledge
- Knowledge exchange: collaborative problem solving
- Research utilization: science implemented in practice
- Implementation: innovation put in practice
- Dissemination: journals spreading knowledge
- Diffusion: communicated through social system, lacks development of knowledge or creation
- Continuing education: for health professionals to further train them and enforce research
- Continuing professional development: about patient needs, skills, attitudes
Paper 4:
Intro:
What do we know:
IKT: Integrated knowledge translation
Researchers work with knowledge users to identify a problem and have the authority to implement research recommendations
Continuous collaboration and stakeholder engagement
Time spent engaging in knowledge inquiry prior to creating initial intervention tools
Shared knowledge
Practical guidelines
IKT Focus: collaboration and bidirectional knowledge exchange throughout entire process (researchers- knowledge users)
IKT purpose: research findings are relevant, usable, applicable to real-world. Knowledge into practice and policy with goal of improving outcomes and addressing practical challenges
Paper 5:
Intro:
What do we know :
IM: Intervention Mapping
IM Focus: systematic development and planning of interventions. Structured 6 step approach based on theory, evidence, and needs of population
IM Purpose: guide theoretically sound, evidence based, successful interventions
Structures approach
Theoretical foundation
Stakeholder involvement in development of program
1. Logic Model of the Problem:
· Work with planning group
· Conduct needs assessment
· Context for intervention
· State goals
2. Program Objectives:
· Expected outcomes
· Select determinants for behaviour
· Create logic model of change
3. Program Design:
· Choose evidence-based theory
· Design
4. Program production
· Refine program
· Draft protocols
5. Program implementation
· Identify potential program users
· State outcomes and performance objectives
6. Evaluation plan
· Write effect
· Indicators and measures
· Complete plan
Module 3: Individual Consulting
3A
Paper 6:
Intro:
What is the rationale for why they are doing this research:
- Professional philosophy
- How to consult
· What do we know
· Professional philosophy: consultant’s beliefs about
· Nature of reality
· Place of sport in human life
· Basic human nature
· Personal role in consulting
· Means of influencing intervention goals
Pyramid: stable to dynamic, bottom layer influences the upper layers
Personal Core Beliefs and Values:
- Foundation
- Views on human nature
- Free will vs determinism
- Rational vs irrational
Theoretical Paradigm:
1. Psychoanalytic
· Early life experiences highly impacts development
· Mostly unconscious -> behaviour
· Motivation to reduce drives/inner conflicts
· Anxiety underlies problems/defense
· Transference/countertransference
· Insight into psychological dynamics and problems are necessary for behaviour change
1. Behaviourism
· Learned by external environment
· Modified by techniques and procedures (like positive reinforcement)
· Analyze, plan, monitor for behaviour change
1. Cognitive behavior
· Empowerment
· Psychoanalysis + strategies
· Modify thinking patterns
CBT: identification of thought patterns, cognitive restructuring, stress management, goal setting/imagery/relaxation, performance monitoring, feedback
1. Humanistic
· Freedom of choice
· Moment-moment experiences
· Relationships
1. Eclecticism
· Developing unique approach client to client
Models of Practice/ Consultants Role:
- Decided by personal core beliefs and theoretical paradigm of behaviour change
1. PST
· Develop psychological skills -> performance
· Foundation skills
· Performance skills
· Facilitative skills
· Video, training programs, competition plans
· Narrow
1. Counseling model
· Non-sport related areas for coping and growth
· Don't need problems to be stronger
1. Medical model
· Clinical
· Elimination of sickness
· Proactive and intervention
· Don't assume all athletes have coping mechanisms
1. Interdisciplinary sport science model
· Not just psychological
· Physical, technical, tactical, theoretical, and psychological
1. Supervisory consulting with integrative approach
i. Coaches implement PST
2. Models as tools
· Choose model depending on the situation
· Setting to setting or within an intervention
1. Consultant role
· Consultant vs expected by client
· Clinical or educational
Intervention goals:
- Contextual
- Educating administrators
- Grounded in personal core beliefs, theoretical paradigm, models of practice
Intervention techniques and methods
- Growing support
- Lacks adequate guidelines in the field
- Contextual factors have top down influence
Paper 7:
Intro:
· What do we know:
· Educational PST
· Mental practice:
· Imagery
· 90% improvement in performance
· Self talk
· Verbalized statements
· Multidimensional
· Interpretive elements
· Dynamic
· Instructional and motivational
· Goal setting
· Proficiency in a task
· Practice goals >>
· Specificity, focus, goal
· Relaxation
· Reducing arousal - medication
· Not much known
· Pre-performance routine
· Strategy cognitive or behavioural
· All levels of sport
· No systematic review
· What don't we know (gap/ novelty they are trying to provide)
Alternative PST approaches
· Quiet eye training
o Visual search pattern
o Focussing more on relevant stimuli
o Can improve performance
· Biofeedback
o HR, muscular,
o Increased accessibility
Contemporary approaches
· Altering internal experiences or regulating attention
· ACT acceptance commitment therapy: how they think and feel
o Human to have emotions
o Holistic
o Non-judgmental acceptance
o Mindfulness techniques
o Values commitment
o Transformation through acceptance
· MAC mindfulness and commitment:
o Eliminates distress
o Acceptance
o Can have a greater impact than PST on behavioural issues
o Minimal evidence
Future directions
· NFT neurofeedback training
o Cortical activity- left hemisphere less in professionals
· Virtual reality
On-line
· Could be less effective
Sporting failure
· Choking under pressure
· Consider PST
· Working with athletes after failure
3B
Mixed methods:
Convergent: putting together quantitative and qualitative
Explanatory: quantitative then qualitative
Exploratory: qualitative then quantitative
Paper 7: Hut et al.
Intro:
What is the rationale for why they are doing this research: PST vs MSPE
- MSPE: mindfulness based intervention
Methods:
What are we doing that allows us to answer research questions
Mixed methods
PST: progressive muscle relaxation, positive self-talk, imagery
MSPE: diaphragmatic breathing, body scans, and meditation
Quantitative assessment: flow, anxiety, mindfulness, emotion regulation activities)
What is the novelty of this assessment: first time ever done with a RCT
Who are they doing it with and why:
Track and field student athletes
How are they doing it and why
Background questionnaire
Flow Scale x2: measure optimal psychological flow
Depression and Anxiety scales
Mindfulness scale
Emotion scales
Sport rating scale
Program evaluation scale
- Sessions for MSPE or PST
Results:
What did they find - linking with discussion (is what they found what they are emphasizing in the discussion)
Both: Reduced sport anxiety, mindset, attention, well-being
MSPE: improved sport satisfaction with sport performance
Use of the exercises was extremely low (not that effective of an intervention)
Discussion
Emphasize results (talk about aligning with or contradicting previous literature and what are the contributions)
- The study highlights the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of using a train-the-trainer approach for delivering mental skills interventions in university athletic departments.
Limitations:
a small sample size and potential influence of team schedules on participants' commitment to the training.
Interpretation – overlapping questions
Fatigue bias/ response acquiescence
Train to trainer not well explored
Future directions: could explore optimal program delivery by varying session times, frequencies, or durations based on recommended improvements from participants.
Paper 8: Dohme et al.
Intro:
What is the rationale for why they are doing this research : MST for young er athletes (not just adults)
- MST: Mental Skills training through qualitative means (novel)
Methods:
What are we doing that allows us to answer research questions
15 month
- Preintervention: 9 months getting to know athletes
- Intervention: catered to individuals- emotional control + focus, workshops
- Evaluation: data, observation, field notes, semi-structured interviews
Who are they doing it with and why
Tennis players – younger- to gage benefits of MST
Results:
What did they find - linking with discussion (is what they found what they are emphasizing in the discussion)
the players showed better use of MST (focus and emotional regulation), and they could talk more openly about them with their coach.
Discussion
- Unique aspects of the study include its grounding in critical realism and action research principles, emphasizing prolonged immersion in the intervention setting to understand athletes' needs and interests.
- Research bias- researchers were tennis players- but Martin likes it
- Novel to evaluate intervention qualitatively
- Critical realism: critical lens to something, everyone has their own experiences, but there is a reality to what is attainable and true
- Interpretivism: everyone has a different understanding of reality
Limitations: include the lack of quantitative data and the need for future research to explore the effectiveness of shorter or longer preintervention phases and involve parents in educational programs.
Future directions: There's a call for more accessible and appropriate educational opportunities for parents and coaches to support youth athletes' psychological development.
Module 4: Team based intervention
Paper 9: 5R shared leadership program
Intro:
What is the rationale for why they are doing this research: The purpose of the readings was to explore and analyze qualitative insights and key findings from the implementation of the 5RS program, aiming to understand its impact on shared leadership, team dynamics, and organizational performance, while also identifying areas for improvement and future research directions.
What do we know:
- The 5R Shared Leadership Program (5RS): is designed to implement this hybrid approach through Shared Leadership Mapping and principles derived from social identity theory, aiming to build leadership capacity and achieve collective goals.
- Shared leadership: involves empowering team members to take on leadership roles within their areas of expertise, has been shown to improve a variety of positive outcomes including team performance and member well-being.
5 R’s:
1. Readying: why does we matter (team identity)
2. Reflecting: who are we (how others see us)
3. Representing: Who do we want to be/ goal setting
4. Realising: how to become us (embedding identity in practice/ implementing strategies
5. Reporting: did we become us
- The Power of a Bottom-Up Approach:
- Empower all team members by involving them in the decision-making process, enhancing the intervention's effectiveness.
- Cultivate leadership within the team, ensuring a shared responsibility and a rich, cohesive team culture.
- Emphasize inclusivity and participation, ensuring every team member contributes to the collective destiny.
Methods:
What are we doing that allows us to answer research questions:
Case study, critical realist
Workshops
Longitudinal qualitative analysis (questionnaires, structured interviews)
Who are they doing it with and why:
Belgian university volleyball team
Results:
- The main takeaway is that the success of teams and organizations in outperforming others is attributed to leadership, particularly through the innovative 5R Shared Leadership Program, which promotes team effectiveness and well-being by combining the strengths of formal leaders with those of team members in a shared leadership structure.
- Shared leadership- distributed responsibility and pressure, improved team dynamics
- Shared team identity: strengthened cohesion
- Team functioning: improved cooperation
Discussion
- Needs to be clear or is frustrating
- Needs continual assessment/ adjustment
- Unique to teams/ dynamics
- Needs close monitoring of leaders
- Different because not traditional individual-centric model
- Limitations: Qualitative assessment / generalizability
Paper 10: 5RS in Basketball teams
Intro:
Purpose: The main purpose of the second paper is to explore the effect of the timing of implementing the 5R Shared Leadership Program, comparing its effectiveness when started at the beginning of the season versus halfway through the season.
What do we know:
· Athlete leaders can be either formally appointed (e.g., team captain) or emerge informally through interactions.
· Athlete leaders fulfill distinct roles: task leader, motivational leader, social leader, and external leader.
· Teams with leaders fulfilling these roles tend to have stronger teamwork, resilience, and ultimately better performance.
· Effective leadership is tied to creating a shared social identity ('us') within the team.
What don't we know (gap/ novelty they are trying to provide):
It addressed limitations of previous studies by including a wait-list control condition, equal representation of female and male teams, and conducting the intervention in both the first and second halves of the season.
Methods:
What are we doing that allows us to answer research questions
16 basketball semi-elite teams
Randomized wait-list control design
Workshops
4 months
Results:
- Effectiveness: ability to create and advance a shared sense of 'us', thereby enhancing team identification and improving overall team functioning.
- Gender differences: similar between males and females
- Follow-up effects: long-term benefits (maintained through second half of season)
- Timing effects: indicated that participation in 5RS during the second half of the season entailed benefits similar to those observed in the first half, including improved identity leadership skills, team identification, social support, intrinsic motivation, team confidence, reduced burnout, and improved health. BUT potentially stronger effects in second half
Discussion
- Regardless of the timing, 5RS was beneficial, although potentially stronger effects were observed in the second half of the season.
Strengths:
- Experimental design with a wait-list control group allowed for identifying the unique effect of 5RS.
- Train-the-trainer approach demonstrated the applicability of 5RS, opening the possibility of large-scale rollout.
- Investigation conducted on actual basketball teams during a whole competitive season enhanced transferability to real-world settings.
- Longitudinal nature of the study provided insight into multiple exploratory aims regarding 5RS follow-up effects, timing, gender differences, and training individuals in providing 5RS.
Limitations and Future Directions:
- Comparison with a no-treatment control group limits the ability to validate findings against a group receiving alternative treatment.
- Inclusion of data from beyond one competitive season could provide more detailed information on long-term effects.
- Consideration of a control group tracked for the entire season could enhance study design.
- Implementation of more frequent and controllable measures for team performance could improve accuracy in assessing the influence of 5RS.
- Further research could test 5RS in different settings such as other team sports, individual sports, and organizational teams.
- Attrition and dropout rates
- Practical considerations- implementing it is resource intensive and difficult for time management
- Causality and Confounding variables: randomization doesn’t guarantee causality
The 5RS provides tangible objective/quantitative data to inform the leadership structure within a team, which is superior to previous more subjective approaches
- Intervention has sound theory
- Rigorously developed/ systematic
- Provides autonomy and ownership to athletes
Guest Lecture: Leading Mind-fully
Not a mental health intervention
Open:
Poise: Have your thoughts, without your thoughts having you
Acceptance and defusion
Negative thoughts: evolutionary advantage in the past
Acceptance: open to experience - normal to have negative thoughts but need to manage them (not necessarily change them)
Spending time trying to get rid of negative thoughts takes away from the time you want to spend doing what you want
Living with it and carrying on is better than missing out completely to shut them out
Defusion: thoughts are products of our minds- not take them so seriously they aren't rules of thumb
Holding onto fireworks that explode- holding onto feelings
Notice what is going on
Exercise: saying negative thoughts super super slowly or in a silly voice - take out the seriousness , "I am having the thought that…"
Aware
Attention: Notice where your light is shining; Be where your feet are
Observing the present moment
Awareness: can develop it, like a muscle, start small and increase over time
Task focused (vs self-focused)
Relevant
Kind and curious (vs self-critical)
Present
What pulls you away
Worry
Social media
Disappointment
Lack of confidence
Failure
Dwelling
Past or future
Benefits
Awareness
Energy
Performance
Reducing burnout
Orienting behaviour