Sports Psychology

Self Confidence- You believe that you can perform a desired behaviour

Trait Confidence- Confidence over a range of situations 

State Confidence- Confidence in individual situations, affected by performers percieved ability at the task

Belief is important but cannot make you perform better than your skill level

Optimal self confidence is when you feel sure you can achieve your goals

Self Concept- Description of you across different roles you have in life, includes your skills/abilities, appearence, social self, academic self and relationships.

It is a fluid concept

Confidence is based on your level of competitiveness and achievement motivation (personality), amount of past success, your belief to succeed in future and the situation

Self confidence is influenced by a variety of sources and not just from an athletes internal thoughts

Factors i.e. age, gender

Sources i.e support, skills

Constructs i.e confidence in decisions or physical skills

Self esteem is how confident you are in yourself

Methods of improving confidence

Encouragement

Vicarious experience

Practice

Physical and mental preparation

Environmental comfort

Effective leadership

Self efficacy is self confidence in a specific situation, it affects choice of activity, effort and persistance levels

Goal setting benefits

Reduces social loafing and improves cohesion

Maintain motivation and task persistance

Sustained effort

Improve confidence

Arousal- A state of physiological and psychological activation

Inverted U- Higher arousal = higher performance until optimal when it will start to decrease

Catastrophe Theory

Steady increase with higher arousal = higher performance, until optimal when you get heavy decline.

Something may cause the drop

Break may be taken to steady

IZOF theory 

Individualized zone of optimal functionality

Each person has their own zone of arousal to perform their best.

Drive Theory

Increase in arousal is proportional to increase in performance.

Only works on well learnt compound tasks

Factors affected by arousal

Attention span

Aggression levels

Stress and anxiety levels

Flow states

Choking

Effects of arousal 

Under aroused= lack of concentration and attention

Moderate arousal= good selective attention and concentration

Over arousal= Lose focus, miss cues, become anxious, muscle tension, poor decision making

Flow states

Positive flow state- movements feel easy, focused, positive thoughts

Negative flow state- too tense or too relaxed, negative thoughts, things keep going wrong

Stress- A mental or emotional response of the body to any demand placed on it

Eustress- good form of stress, helps increase levels + focus, attention of performance, increase intrinsic motivation

Distress

Bad form of stress

Extreme anxiety, nerves or worry

Percieved inability

Increased arousal + performance drop

Internal sources of stress

Thoughts, feelings, beliefs, trait anxious, self esteem

High trait anxious people find all comps stressful

People with low SE have less confidence

Increased doubts

External sources of stress

Event importance, uncertainty of outcome

The more important event the more stress 

The more uncertain an outcome the more stress

Stress response model

Environmental demands (penalty in WC)

Perception of demands, make a judgement (penalty may be comfortable or not)

Stress response (physical or physchological)

Actual behaviour (how well you perform the skill)

Symptoms of stress

Sympathetic nervous system- speeds up

Inc Heart/Breathing rate, increased adrenaline, dry mouth

Parasympathetic nervous system- slows down

Helps body relax, body temp, HR & BR decrease

Anxiety- A negative emotional state associated with feelings of nervousness, apprehension or worry

Trait Anxiety

General disposition of a performer to percieve situations as threatening

Naturally anxious people will feel apprehensive 

More likely to be state anxious

State Anxiety

This occurs in a particular situation

Linked to mood so can change from oment to moment

Influenced by trait anxiety

Cognitive Anxiety

Reduced concentration

Nerves or worry

Unable to make decisions

Sleep disturbance

Unable to relax and lose temper quickly

Somatic Anxiety

Racing HR

Faster breathing

Butterflies

Chest tightness, dry mouth

Feeling under prepared

Behavioural Anxiety

Playing it safe

Talking, eating or walking quickly

Fidgetting

Moody

Accidents/ clumsy

Competitive anxiety theory- 

How anxious= levels of trait anxiety and importance of event

= how tense or relaxed

Multidimensional theory

Relationship between state anxiety + performance

In 3 parts (cognotive and somatic state anxiety and self confidence

Reversal theory

Says that effect that arousal has on performance is dependant on how arousal levels are seen by the individual. Could percieve high arousal as a challenge

Dependant on personality and optimal arousal levels

Negative consequences of anxiety and stress

Negative mental state, loss of self confidence, decrement in performance, possible injury (hormonal response cause weak tissue), agression

Positive responses of stress and anxiety

Positive mental state, improved self confidence, improvement in performance, increased energy, motivation and focus

Aggressive Act

Any form of behaviour directed towards the goal of harming or injuring another living being who is motivated to avoid such treatment.

Must be physical or verbal

Must involve causing harm or injury

Towards another living being

Intent to cause harm

Assertive behaviour

Playing with high energy and emotion but within the rules of the game

Hostile Aggression

Acts of aggression with the goal to inflict harm or injury for the sake of it

Accomponied by anger

Frustration builds up

Relational Aggression

Spreading negative rumours or ostracising someone socially

Can lead to peer rejection

Instrumental aggression

Acts of aggression used for a non aggressive goal. Not accompinied by anger

Instinct theory

All people have an instinctive inborn need or tendancy to be aggressive that builds up until it needs to be expressed

Social learning theory

Learnt through modelling and imititave behaviour

Frustration- Aggression theory

Direct result of frustration due to failure or goal blockage

Adapted Frustration- Agression theory

Acknowledges role of socially learned cues can lead to not repeating behaviour

Outcome goals

To do with results and success based

If realistic, motivation maintained

Not realistic, not achieved, lost motivation- stress

Task orientated goals

Improvements in technique or performance

Can be achieved even without a win

Make evaluation based on own performance

Known as performance or process goals

Performance goals are against previous performances

Process goals are improvements in technique

Mastery Goals

Set with the aim of mastering specific skills and techniques

Thought Stopping

Involves recognising that the athlete has started to worry. Use of a trigger word

Self Talk Uses

Building self confidence

Arousal control

Add encouragement pre-performance

Interactive team

Outcome of performance depends on interaction and co-ordination of team

Co-Active team

Members are performing the same skills at the same time together

Tuckmans theory

Forming- Members become familiar, know roles, asses strengths and weaknesses, decide if they belong

Storming- Conflicts begin, question leader, try to gain important roles

Norming- Conflicts subside, co-operation + stability,  work to goals, cohesion develops

Performing- progress + function as a unit, no conflict, own decisions and responsibility, motivation is high and function is best

Adjourning- Take a break, successful teams may move backwards 

Ringlemann effect

As group size increases, individual productivity of people in the group decreases up to 50%

People aren't accountable and can hide

Social Loafing

Group members dont put in 100% 

Group situation= lost motivation

When performers percieve they are not being recognised for their effort

Steiners model of group effectiveness

Actual productivity (current achievement) = Potential productivity (perfect performance team could achieve given ability and resources) - faulty processes (issues that obstruct performance, Motivational (giving 100%) or coordination (poor performance, interaction or personal circumstances))

Autocratic leader- when the leader makes the decisions

Democratic leader- When the leader includes the group in decisions

Emergent leader- when a leader comes around naturally

Proscribed leader- a leader appointed from an external source

Chelladurais model

Change the leaership style based on the situation to best affect the team.

They need to be flexible