History of Sports Psychology

The relationship between mind & body has been known for centuries.

Ancient Greeks believed exercise was an important component of both physical and mental health, in the sixteenth century, Mendez wrote the book entitled “Book of Bodily Exercise”, which discussed the effects of exercise on the mind.

Psychologist & Philosopher James said,
“Everyone knows the effect of physical exercise on the mood: how much more cheerful and courageous one feels when the body has been toned up, than when it is run down…  Those feelings are sometimes of worry, breathlessness, anxiety, and tension; sometimes of peace and repose.  It is certain that physical exercise will tend to train the body toward the latter feelings.  The latter feelings are certainly an essential ingredient in all perfect human character.”

Exercise and sports psychology is concerned with the psychology of human movement as it is reflected in our behaviour, thoughts and feelings of the individuals engaging in that movement.

Many of the theories and methodologies that are used in exercise and sports psychology come from its parent discipline psychology.

Exercise and sports psychology has two primary research objectives:

Determination of the psychological antecedents of participation in sports and physical activity

•         Personality factors that might lead someone to participate in sports or physical activity.
•        Examine effects of pre-competition anxiety or confidence on performance.

Determine what the psychological consequences of participating in sports or physical activity.

•      How exercise might influence anxiety, depression or well-being.
•     How sports performance might influence feelings of self-confidence or self-efficacy.

Personality

Have you ever tried to describe your own personality? If you have, you probably found yourself listing adjectives like funny, outgoing, happy or stable. Maybe you remembered how you reacted in various situations. Is there more personality than these kinds of attributes? Many theorists have attempted to define personality and they agree on one aspect: uniqueness. In essence personality refers to the characteristics or blend of characteristic to make a person unique. (Weinburg&Gould 2007)

The best way to understand personality is through a structure.

The structure can be divided into three separate but related levels.

The characteristics or blend of characteristics that make a person unique can be applied into this structure…

(Hollander 1967)

• Psychological core
• Typical responses
• Role- related behaviour 

  

      Psychological Core:

The most basic level of your own personality, this is the deepest component it includes your attitudes and values, interests and motives and beliefs about yourself. The psychological core represents the centrepiece of your personality and is the ‘THE REAL YOU’ not who others think you are. For example: basic values might revolve around the importance of family, friends in your life.

Typical Responses:

Typical responses are the ways that we each learn to adjust to the environment or how we usually respond to the world around us. For example: you might be happy, shy and even tempered, the often typical responses are good indicators of your psychological core.

Role Related Behaviour:

This behaviour is the most changeable aspect of your personality. Your behaviour changes as your perceptions of the environment change. Different situations require playing different roles. For example: Being at university, being a football coach to then being with family and loved ones.

Psychodynamic Approach (Freud, 1933)

Behaviour is determined by a number of unconscious, constantly changing factors that often conflict with one another. Emphasis is placed on understanding the person as a whole, rather than identifying isolated traits.

• ID: basic instincts – no conscious control. Eating when hungry
• EGO: Conscious link with situation. Seeks to satisfy desire of ID.
• SUPEREGO: your ‘moral arm’. Judges whether behaviour of EGO is appropriate

These components interact to produce individual patterns of behaviour in sporting situations

According to this theory, personality is formed because of a permanent state of conflict between seeking (ID), releasing (EGO) and inhibiting (SUPEREGO) behaviour.This theory provides a good explanation for aggression in sport. However, this raises the question is personality nature or nurture?

The psychodynamic approach is complex; it views personality as a dynamic set of processes that are constantly changing and often in conflict with one another (Vealey, 2002). 

Trait Approach

Behaviour is determined by relatively stable traits that are fundamental units of personality. These traits predispose one to act in a certain way, regardless of the situation.

WHAT ARE TRAITS?

• A trait is said to be a characteristic inherited at birth
• Causes you to act in a certain way
• Stable and enduring across all situations

Trait theory attempts to predict behaviour via personality traits *B=F(P)*

Cattell (1965) identified 16 groups of traits, arranged in hierarchical order with the strongest overriding others. Measurement through questionnaires.

Cattell's sixteen factors of personality, all bipolar are listed below.

                                                         1   2   3    4    5   6   7   8
                  reserved                   -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -     outgoing
                   less intelligent                                                     more intelligent
                   affected by feelings                                            emotionally stable
                   submissive                                                          dominant
                   serious                                                                happy-go-lucky
                   expedient                                                             conscientious
                   timid                                                                    venturesome
                   tough-minded                                                      sensitive
                   trusting                                                                suspicious
                   practical                                                              imaginative
                   forthright                                                             shrewd
                   self-assured                                                        apprehensive
                   conservative                                                        experimenting
                   group dependent                                                 self-sufficient
                   uncontrolled                                                         controlled
                   relaxed                                                                 tense

Eysenck (1968) supported Cattells work, although suggested that ‘personality types’ should be used.

Therefore, a number of possible behaviours could happen although the personality type would still predict response.

Eysenck developed an inventory that was based on the theory that personality could be measured from looking at TWO dimensions.

• Introversion – Extroversion 
• Neuroticism – Stability            

Distance runners have been found to be mainly introverted whilst footballers have been found to be mainly extroverts

Athletes have been found to be towards the unstable, neurotic end of the scale. This may explain why they have the drive to train hard.

Girdano (1990)

Developed from trait theory is the ‘Narrow Band approach’

Very simply, it defines 2 personality types: type A and type B

TYPE A:

• Highly competitive, strong desire to succeed, works fast, likes control, suffers stress

TYPE B:

• Non-competitive, un-ambitious, works at slower pace, does not enjoy control, relaxes easily

Trait approach

Current impact: Has little influence.

Weakness: Knowing traits will not always help predict behaviour in particular situations.

Contribution: Emphasizes the importance of traits and the measurement of such dispositions.

Situational/State Approach

This differs from the trait approach in that behaviour is determined largely by the situation or environment.

Current impact: Has little influence.

Weakness: Situation will not always influence individual behaviour.

Contribution: Emphasizes the importance of the situation.

Social Learning Theory – Bandura (1963)

B=F(E)

States that behaviour changes with the situation

Rather than being born with characteristics, we learn them from other people, especially those we hold in high esteem

• e.g. significant others such as role models, friends & parents

Therefore responses by the individual cannot be predicted

Learning takes place in two ways:

• Observation (modelling)
• Social reinforcement

Weakness:

Doesn’t take into account inherited behaviours

Some relationship exists between personality traits and states and sport performance, but it  is far from perfect or precise, no single definitive personality profile has been found that consistently distinguishes athletes from non-athletes. Few personality differences are evident between male and female athletes.

 Morgan’s (1980) mental health model shows that successful athletes exhibit greater positive mental health than do less successful athletes. However, precise predictions have not been achieved and should not be used for team selection.

The Iceburg Profile

                                                                                               

Type A behaviour patterns (particularly the anger-hostility component) are associated with cardiovascular disease and appear to be altered via exercise. Exercise and increased fitness appear to be associated with increases in self-esteem, especially in individuals with low self-esteem.

Motivation

What is Motivation?

Motivation can be defined simply as the direction and intensity of one’s effort (Sage, 1977). Sport and exercise psychologists can view motivation from several specific vantage points, including achievement motivation, motivation in the form of competitive stress, and intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. These varied forms of motivation are all parts of the more general definition of motivation.

Direction of effort refers to whether an individual seeks out, approaches, or is attracted to situations, Intensity of effort refers to how much effort an individual puts forth in a situation and direction and intensity of effort are closely related.

Motivation can be categorised into two types:

• Intrinsic
• Extrinsic

Intrinsic Motivation

• Intrinsic (self) motivation comes from our own inner drive.

                                E.g. taking part in something for enjoyment

• The pleasure of being successful and performing skilfully
• Pleasure gained from being with others
• Improving skill and fitness levels

Extrinsic Motivation

• Extrinsic motivation comes from rewards and outside pressures.

                Examples: Winning competitions

• Being praised for our achievements
• To satisfy the expectation of parents and coaches
• Material Rewards e.g. money and medals.

The views of motivation;

Participant- or Trait-centred View-

• Motivated behaviour is primarily a function of individual characteristics (e.g., needs, goals, personality).

Situation-Centred View-

• Motivated behaviour is primarily determined by the situation.

Interactional View-

• Motivated behaviour results from the interaction of participant factors and situational factors.

Achievement Motivation

Achievement motivation

• A person’s orientation to strive for task success, persist in the face of failure, and experience pride in accomplishments (Gill, 2000)

Competitiveness

• “A disposition to strive for satisfaction when making comparisons with some standard of excellence in the presence of evaluative others” (Martens, 1986)

What is Achievement Motivation?

“…the athlete’s predisposition to approach or avoid a competitive situation”.

This is much more than getting motivated for a one off event.

“..it is the fundamental, internal drive that motivates athletes to commit a large proportion of their lives to achieve a particular goal.” (Cox, 1985)

Your motivation to do well in an achievement situation is referred to as achievement motivation. Sport specific achievement motivation = Competitiveness.

McClelland-Atkinson Model

• The Need to Achieve Success (TAS): People with the tendency to approach success
• The Need to Avoid Failure (TAF): People with the tendency to avoid failure

The need to achieve success:

These people are motivated to succeed and not worried about the possibility of failure.

They are more competitive and tend to be stimulated by situations involving risk.

They are more likely to accept challenges where the probability of success is low and perceive easy tasks to be too boring to attempt.

Enjoy being evaluated on the basis of Ego/ability goals.

The need to avoid failure:

These people are scared of failure and as such lack a competitive edge.

Hate being evaluated on Ego/ability goals as these might lower self-esteem.

They are more likely to accept challenges where the probability of success is quite high or attempt tasks that are impossible because they might actually get credit for having a go against the odds (heroic failure)!

Attribution Theory

Attribution categories:

• Stability
• Locus of causality
• Locus of control

Attributions	Psychological result
Stable Internal cause In one’s control	Increased expectation of success Increased pride or shame Increased motivation

Achievement Goal Theory

Outcome goal orientation (or competitive goal orientation) focuses on comparing performance with that of others and defeating others.

Task goal orientation (or mastery goal orientation) focuses on improving relative to one’s own past performances.

Ronnie O’Sullivan

Ronnie O’Sullivan’s is a well-known snooker player, not just because of his amazing skills within snooker but his attitudes and personality. From a sports psychology view his personality and motivation levels reflect on his sports performance levels. As we all know motivation and personality links in together, Ronnie O’Sullivan is a big icon to analyse. I feel that he has both intrinsic and extrinsic factors to motivate his success as he likes the rewards that he gets such as the money involves for example he retired early and came back into the snooker world once again for the money. But he also does the sports for his father which is a big impact for him which is an intrinsic factor. For his personality he would be classed as a type A personality group. His personality when player a game of snooker is a not great as he would walk out after a game instead of waiting around.



Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbIs8jb-Ryc