Extrinsic Motivation In Sports

Sports psychology deals with the mental and emotional aspects of physical performance. It involves describing, explaining and predicting attitudes, feelings and behaviours in an attempt to improve performance. In the film 'Coach Carter,' directed by Thomas Carter, sport psychology is used effectively to enhance the performance of a high school basketball team. However, this improved performance is not limited to the basketball court, it extends into the classroom where the students use goal setting, motivation, concentration and confidence control, ultimately to become accepted into college, avoiding a life of drugs, gangs and prison.

The team in the film is the epitome of a youth baseball organization who struggles with many early adversities. Thanks to their coach, Morris Buttermaker, the team would soon overcome many of their challenges. For this critique, I will examine a few situations in the film that helped the team conquer these adversities, all in which that can be theoretically addressed through the focal of sports psychology. Let’s take a look.

Self-worth in sports is not based on winning. Success is not winning. These are two concepts I did not realize until recently. When I was a little younger than I am now, I put a tremendous amount of pressure on myself to win, and to win was my main goal. I never set realistic personal goals for advancing my own abilities. I based my own self-worth on whether I won a game or lost a game. I felt like a loss directly reflected on me. A loss meant I failed. This caused me to have high anxiety and depression when I did loose a game, and made me want to win that much more in the next game, but in a non-constructive way. It was like putting that much extra pressure oneself to play better and not make mistakes. I did not see it as an issue with effort, but as a failure in my ability. I never considered personal goals as anything other than trying to get a win. It is clear that winning is not in control of one person, especially in team sports.

What motivates a student athlete on and off the field is well an individual’s personal goals. There are always things that are going to be in the back of an athletes head at school. Such as I’m too tired to do this, I’ve already done enough for today. With these kind of thoughts it could be hard for an athlete to find any form of

The success of any business depends on the productivity and satisfaction of its employees. Employees need to be motivated to work. Motivation can be defined as the inner force that drives individuals to accomplish personal and organizational goals. Motivation can be either intrinsic or extrinsic. For an individual to be motivated in a work situation there must be a need, which the individual would have to perceive a possibility of satisfying through some reward. Intrinsic motivation stems from motivations that are inherent and arise from performing the task of the job itself, which the individual gets a feeling of either positive or negative motivation as a result of

The term motivation is critical in improving someone’s health and wellbeing because motivation is the reason why someone would take part in sports or exercise. There are many models of motivation and behavioural change but we will focus on one called Trans-theoretical model. The model’s main focus is to explain the processes that might lead a person to exercise. The TM has five stages that a person goes through.

In retrospect, the social component of motivation seemed to be the most influential aspect of my early athletic success. My foundational motivation may have been created out of a desire to change who I was. But when I started to train in MMA, I found incredible emotional support, information, and enthusiasm from other martial art athletes. Cox (2007) points out the importance of social support when creating self-efficacy in athletics. Support from people not affiliated with MMA had a limited affect, while support from others doing the same sport that I was created a huge boost in performance and morale. This was most apparent during times of plateau or discouragement. That is when a fellow athlete could really have a big influence on

I support both extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is a motivation that students perform well to obtain awards or avoid some type isolation from others. Intrinsic motivation is a motivation that students undertake an activity for their own sake. (McCullough, 2008) I choose both to motivate my students because both help students want to strive more on their success. Encouraging student more to want to learn more is a good thing for students. Yes, I would blend the two in the classroom. I believe when students do good in their classwork and other things they should be rewarded for it, but I also believe that when they are not doing their class work or on task it should be consequences should be taking place.

Excessive rewarding for children in sports can play a role in depleting their competitive traits. Being competitive can be a good thing that will help children later in life when trying to be the best candidate for a job. “There has been a seismic shift in American culture in an effort to make each child feel special. The mentality has created an atmosphere where everyone gets a trophy, but awarding medals and trophies just for participation sets the bar very low, according to experts. Trophies make kids feel like finishing in last place may be good enough” ( Mens Journal http://www.mensjournal.com/adventure/races-sports/how-participation-trophies-are-making-our-kids-soft-20150725) Children need to understand that not everyone can win. Children who are rewarded no matter their rank do not strive to better themselves. They will believe that they have given enough effort because they received a trophy which signifies winning. “Studies have shown that rewarding kids just for

Each of the jobs requires a great amount of hard work, dedication, and varying skills and abilities depending on the tasks they are performing. Each of the different jobs conducted within our charitable organization include task identity, each worker must complete their specific portion of work from beginning to end, to then pass it on to the next employee so in the end they are all able to see a tangible result. Each of the jobs within our charitable ogranization include the first three core job characteristics, having skill variety, task identity, as well as a high level of task significance.

Motivation is a key factor in determining business success or failure. Successful organizations relentlessly seek to operate with a clear understanding of employee needs , and develop specific focus’ on how to meet them. Two key theories in organizational motivation are expectancy theory and equity theory. Both theories focus on the outcomes of a given decision or system rather than on individual employee needs. The goal of both process theories is to increase output.

An organization may have any number of goals, for example, sales growth, market leadership, profit maximization and customer satisfaction. It is clear that an organization will only be successful if employees are performing their tasks at a consistently high level and in line with the company’s objectives. To achieve this, organizations have tended to reward employees who demonstrate this high level of performance and behavior (Gatenby et al., 2008). These rewards may be intrinsic and/or extrinsic. Many theorists have critically discussed the core aspects of employee motivation, concluding that intrinsic and extrinsic rewards will only be motivating if these are of value to the individual. Intrinsic motivation lies in the internal satisfaction of an individual – concerning only the enjoyment of the task itself. Whereas extrinsic motivation focuses on external outcomes, in particular financial rewards (Psycnet.apa.org, 2017). In this essay rewards will be regarded as tangible or intangible assets in response to an individual’s achievement (Oxford Dictionaries⎪English, 2017), and motivation will focus on the behavioral aspects of why an individual’s productivity and performance increases.

Extrinsic motivation is where people are motivated by internal goals. An example of extrinsic motivation in my life is me going to class. I am motivated to go to class because I have external goals to graduate college with a degree. If I did not go to class, it would make this goal much harder to obtain. Another example of this in my life is going to my job. I go to job to make money, and to obtain my goal of paying off my car. If I did not have these external goals I would not have near as much motivation to do the things that I needed to do to have a better life and that is why intrinsic motivation is important. In the same way, intrinsic motivation is another reason that I go to class and I go to my job. Intrinsic motivation is where people are motivated by internal goals. My internal goals are met when I go to my job and to class because it gives me a sense of belonging and purpose in my life, which in turn makes me happy. This is an internal goal because it benefits my wellbeing.

What motivates you extrinsically? What are your intrinsic motivations? How do you balance extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in your life?

Motivation for sport and exercise psychologists can be explained by either extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, along with achievement motivation and motivation in the form of competitive stress. These are all part of the general definition of motivation within sport and exercise. Direction of effort and intensity of effort are key factors of motivation. Having direction of effort refers to whether an athlete has considered working on a problem or sees an attraction to certain situations, whereas how much effort an athlete puts into a situation is referred to as intensity of effort (Weinberg and Gould, 2015).