Sport Psychology

Question 1

What is sport psychology?

Answer 1

Science that focuses on psychological principles in the sport/exercise settings

Question 2

Who implements the psychological principles?

Answer 2

Sport psychologist (provide psychological council)

Can be adopted by:
Coaches
Athletes

Question 3

What role does self-confidence play?

Answer 3

Self confidence ties into the development of motivation

Question 4

What are the two types of self-confidence?

Answer 4

Global: relates more to a general form of confidence

Situation-specific: relates to a particular context

Question 5

What is self-efficacy?

Answer 5

Form of situation-specific self-confidence

Belief in ability to execute actions requires to produce a desired outcome.

Those with high self efficacy work harder, persist longer and achieve better outcomes

Question 6

Where does self-efficacy come from?

Answer 6

Bandura: 4 elements

1. Successful performance: experiencing success allows athletes to develop their sense of self-efficacy
2. Vicarious experience: can be derived from viewing the success of skilled others who model the behaviour
3. Verbal persuasion: encouragement from coaches, family and peers can help to enhance self efficacy. Can also occur through self talk.
4. Emotional arousal: emotional and physiological arousal can impact attention and skill development. Important that people be optimally aroused to be attentive.

Question 7

What is the psychological momentum of sport psychology?

Answer 7

A positive or negative change in cognition and behaviour that causes events that results in a shift in performance and competitive outcome

Question 8

What is the hot-hand phenomenon?

Answer 8

Idea that performance temporarily improves after a string of successors.

If they believe they have this their confidence will grow.

An illusion due to cognitive biases: streaks of repeated success are more memorable than alternations between scores and misses. Therefore overestimate the frequency of successful streaks

Question 9

What is arousal?

Answer 9

State anxiety -> athletic performance

Question 10

What is the inverted U hypothesis?

Answer 10

Demonstrates relationship between arousal and performance.

Moderate arousal = max performance

Extreme ups and downs in arousal are linked to detriments to performance

Question 11

How does the inverted U hypothesis work for complex and simple skills?

Answer 11

Complex skills: far less arousal is needed. (Complex fine motor skills)

Simple: higher level of arousal needed for optimal performance (gross motor activities)

As skill becomes less complex the amount of arousal required for optimal performance increases

Question 12

How does the inverted U hypothesis change for ability levels?

Answer 12

Beginners: less arousal is required for optimal performance

Expert: more arousal is needed for optimum performance. This is why skilled athletes use things that boost arousal in competitive situations compared to novices

Question 13

What is the individual zone of optimal functioning

Answer 13

Optimal levels of anxiety different from person to person

Control techniques can be used fall into the optimal range. If I deal level can be determined athletes can attempt to reach the ideal through control techniques

Question 14

What are stresses

Answer 14

Unhelpful stress can hinder performance

Such as worrying about: 
Failure 
Injury 
Opponents 
Evaluation 
Physical and mental errors 
Fatigue 
Distractions 
Weather conditions

Question 15

What is the two ways of coping with stress

Answer 15

Approach style: opposed to avoidance

Problem or action focused: majority of coping is in this form

Question 16

What is self talk? And what are the 3 forms of it?

Answer 16

It is the verbalisation of perceptions feelings instructions and reinforcement it is an effective coping strategy to improve athletic performance

• task specific statements: reinforce aspects of techniques
• encouragements: reminding yourself you can do it
• mood words: increase arousal

Question 17

What is the anxiety stress spiral

Answer 17

When experiencing high stress it needs to be controlled and brought down to optimum level if anxiety hinders performance it can lead to more anxiety

Question 18

What are some relaxation strategies

Answer 18

Progressive relaxation: systematically tending and relaxing each muscle group

Autogenic training: Feelings associated with a heavy and warm sensation in limbs

Meditation: uncritically focussing attention in single thought, sound or object

Biofeedback training: uses instruments to monitor things like heart rate you can use them to monitor and observe things slow your heart rate which can then be used in a sporting context

Question 19

What are some energising strategies

Answer 19

Some people have excessively low arousal and need to energise prior to sporting events

Pep-talks: High energy self talk

Music: can evoke sense of power and decrease distractions like fatigue and discomfort

Physical movement: can increase heart rate the same way steady breathing reduces excessive arousal

Question 20

Augmented feedback?

Answer 20

Feedback from an external source

Can be provided during or after performance

Assists the acquisition and improvement of motor behaviour

Question 21

Instructional vs motivational self talk?

Answer 21

Instructional self talk = better performance

Question 22

What is automatic self talk?

Answer 22

Phrases of cues athletes use address to themselves (vary in consciousness and intention)

Question 23

How is self- talk effective?

Answer 23

Enhances attentional focus:

Reduces distractions

Question 24

What are internal distractions?

Answer 24

Stimuli that evolve from within the self

Question 25

What are external distractions?

Answer 25

refer to stimuli from from the environment

Question 26

How do distractions impact performance?

Answer 26

Attention is misdirected and processing efficiency is affected because distractions use up working memory