The Effects Of Psychological Emotional On Sport Performance

Do college athletes with high self-confidence perform at a higher level and what influences the confidence of collegiate athletes the most? I am interested in this topic because I feel there could be a correlation between college athlete’s confidence levels and their athletic success. Personally, I believe that athletes who have confidence in them selves achieve at a higher level, and coaches who help to instill this confidence in their players have more successful teams.

Common factors that can contribute to performance anxiety include; fear of performance failure, negative social evaluation and/or physical harm, as well as disruption of a well learned routine (Cox, p.201, 2007). The effects of these factors can be further heightened in correlation with importance of an event, or the level of competition. These fears and feelings of anxiety may affect the athlete’s perception of their abilities and hinder their self-confidence, which can be detrimental to their performance. Patterns of perfectionism can also lead to sport-related anxiety, mainly involving setting exceptionally high performance standards of oneself (Cox, p.202, 2007). Setting high standards can often be beneficial to a performance, but athletes that succumb to unrealistic thoughts, that nothing but a perfect/ideal performance is good enough, are more likely to experience negative emotions and heightened levels of anxiety due to the discrepancy between ideal and current self/situation (Koivula, Hassmén, Fallby, 2001).

Brown explores the influence of media expectations on athletes by way of questionnaire and performance answered by different athletes. Each participant in the study was given two different scenarios, to perform their sport with the media representatives presents and not present. In conclusion, Brown did not find a significant effect on self-confidence or performance during his study. Furthermore, since performance did not change, there was no surprise when Brown did not find any change in self-confidence either since both are closely correlated.

Sports—which involve emotion, competition, cooperation, achievement, and play—provide a rich area for psychological study. People involved in sports attempt to master very difficult skills, often subjecting themselves to intense physical stress as well as social pressure. research has expanded into numerous areas such as imagery training, hypnosis, relaxation training, motivation, socialization, conflict and competition, counseling, and coaching. Specific sports and recreational specialties studied include baseball, basketball, soccer,

The present review will analyze and critique five empirical sport psychology-related research articles. Moreover, the discussion of each article will include which statistical method was used, why it was used, and whether or not it was appropriate for the data. In addition, the article discussion will include a description and possible critique of the author’s interpretations of the results.

Something that has always been in my life and repeatedly been said to me, or mentioned is that during a sporting event everything is mental. Now what I have always wondered was that everything in the mental game is based on one’s own preferences, the way one thinks and processes information and how he reacts to a situation. There are various components of an athlete’s mental game such as motivation, agility, confidence; all of which contribute in actual competitions, games or even at practice. More importantly, confidence is more complex because it is what is affected most of the mental game, that’s what makes or breaks an athlete, and that can be affected by a coach, parent, or negative teammate, it’s not just personal thoughts reflecting

The beneficial aspects of participating in sports are often noted but there is another side that cannot be ignored. Mental health issues among elite athletes is a topic of increasing interest and public awareness. Sport-related factors such as injury, overtraining and failure in competition are showing to influence the prevalence of mental health issues in elite athletes. Whatever the cause or reason mental health issues and concerns cannot be ignored. High performance athletes need to be provided with mental health support, despite the negative stigma of mental health issues and the concept of mental toughness in athletes. In the past, there has been a “widespread assumption has existed within the sporting world that only emotionally and mentally strong athletes are able to complete at the highest levels. Psychological disorders, such as depression, were thought to infrequently occur among elite athletes” (Hammond et al, 2013, pg.276) There may actually be an increased risk for mental health issues in athletes as they are less likely to; seek treatment, reveal symptoms, are more accustomed to work through pain, fear of showing signs of weakness and may not have developed healthy coping mechanisms to deal with failure. In addition, many athletes have not developed their identity outside of being an athlete and therefore if this role is threatened by injury or illness, they may experience a significant sense of loss. Treating a psychological ailment in athletes should be given as much importance as treating a physical

82 male and female undergraduate students from Princeton University were randomly assigned to a sports intelligence condition, or a racial primed/not primed condition (Stone et al., 1999). Participants who were assigned to the sports intelligence condition read instructions that stated that the true purpose of the test was to measure personal factors that were related to the ability to think strategically during the performance of a task (Stone et al., 1999). Participants who were assigned to the racial prime/no prime condition were given instructions that stated the purpose of the test was to measure psychological factors that were related to general sports performance (Stone, Lynch, Sjomeling & Darley, 1999). Additionally, all participants were asked to fill out a five-item self-report measure on anxiety along with a demographic questionnaire where they were asked to indicate their age, race, gender, and year in school (Stone et al., 1999). This demographic questionnaire was presented first for the racial primed condition and last for the condition that did not receive any racial priming (Stone et al., 1999). During the performance task, participants were given a golf club and ball and were asked to hit the ball into one of three holes using the fewest strokes possible (Stone et al., 1999).

The field of sports psychology is only beginning. A short while ago in 1898 an experiment that was conducted by Norman Triplett successfully discovered a positive correlation between a biker’s performance and a social component or audience. Since then the only major progress has been the sports psychology lab established at the University of Illinois in 1925. The man responsible for the lab Coleman Griffith has also offered courses that teach the nature of sports psychology. Griffith’s research focuses on the factors that effect athletic performance such as “reaction time, mental awareness, muscular tension and relaxation, and personality”. Fortunately, a new study has surfaced the Psychology

The ultimate quest for sport psychologists is to establish what psychological factors produce the winning formula or to try to establish a profile of the successful athlete. Within the psychological framework attempts, to determine the "ideal athletic personality" have only been marginally successful (Morgan 1980, in White, 1993). One of the categories observed in order to understand and move towards the 'ideal athletic personality' is that of Psychological Skills Training (PST), "It is contended that mental skills training is a significant part of sport psychology and is of particular importance to athletes and coaches" (Rushall, 1995, p0.3).

For High Performance athletes, there can be a lot riding on their results and performance in competition. If athletes develop an over-reliance on sporting success as a source of self-worth and identity, it can lead to serious emotional issues if things do not go as desired. Athletes often identify their self-worth with their ability to perform, and performance failure has been significantly associated with depression (Taylor, 2015 pg.11; Troijan, 2016, pg. 137) Athletes face many struggles and when something goes wrong it can leave them not knowing where to turn for help. They can be left with they feelings that they are nothing, undeserving, and alone. This may also exacerbate their feelings of seclusion, depression, or grief. Most athletes

Hoar cites Graham Jones (1991) as proposing the direction dimension of perceived anxiety, which relates to the translation of perceived anxiety to either debilitative or facilitative behaviour. Simply, athletes differ in the way they handle anxiety, some athletes perceive anxiety as a sign of readiness, and others perceive it as a reason to believe they are unable to perform at a high level. Jones’ proposal is highlighted in an article by Martinant and Ferrant (2007) which aims to find meaning groups of athletes based on intensity, direction, and frequency of anxiety.

Football is a very dangerous, physical, high contact sport, whether it be at the high school level, collegiate, or professional. Injuries are common among football athletes whether it may be concussions, breaks, fractures, or tears. The scenario explained below demonstrates how injuries have the ability to affect an athlete’s self-confidence through Bandura’s Theory of Self-Efficacy. This example surrounds a two sport high school athlete in football and baseball.

Children who participate in sports are developing rapidly in sports skills, sportsmanship, and psychologically, but does this come from organized sports are just nature’s process. Children develop emotional and social benefits from participating in sports. Children experience character and leadership development through peer relations leading to an increase in self-esteem and a decrease in anxiety levels. Children will get opportunities to experience positive and negative emotions throughout their practice and games trials. It is important for the coach to understand the “psychology of youth sports and physical activity participation” (Weinberg & Gould, 2011 p.516).

In this report, I am going to talk about the effects of personality and motivation on sports performance and I will do this by looking at the different theories relating to sports performance and how sports athletes deal with the effects of personality and motivation in sports performances.