Sport Psychology

Matt Jarvis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781134624928
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Sport Psychology is an introductory account of the major psychological issues in sport today. Major theories and up-to-date research are covered in the areas of personality, attitudes to sport, aggression in sport, anxiety and stress, social influences, motivation, and skill acquisition. A wide variety of sporting examples are used, ranging from football to ballet.

1
Introduction to sport psychology

What is sport psychology?

A brief history of sport psychology

What is a sport psychologist?

What is sport psychology?

Because there are many ways in which we can apply psychology to sport and given the wide range of activities that different cultures regard as sport, we need to adopt quite a broad definition of sport psychology. In 1996 the European Federation of Sport Psychology (FEPSAC) produced such a broad definition which, slightly simplified, reads: Sport psychology is the study of the psychological basis, processes and effects of sport. The term ‘sport’ is used, both in the FEPSAC definition of sport psychology and throughout this book, in the broad sense, including any physical activity for the purposes of competition, recreation, education or health. Psychology can be defined as ‘the science of mind and behaviour’ (Gross 1996).

Sport psychology, then, is a broad field. American sport psychologists draw a sharp distinction between academic sport psychology, which focuses on all the factors affecting participation and perform- ance in sport, and applied sport psychology, which focuses purely on applying psychology to enhance athletic performance (e.g. Cox 1998). So far, European writers have not usually made this distinction (Kremer and Scully 1994) and this book crosses freely between academic and applied sport psychology. The topics covered here, personality, attitudes, aggression, stress and anxiety, group dynamics, motivation and skill acquisition should be both of academic interest, and applicable to working with athletes and in some cases spectators.

A brief history of sport psychology

Sport psychology has existed in some form for almost as long as psychology itself. The first recorded study in sport psychology took place at the close of the nineteenth century. Norman Triplett (1898) performed what is often cited as the first experiment in social psychology as well as the first in sport psychology. Triplett investigated the phenomenon of social facilitation (discussed in detail in Chapter 6). He demonstrated that cyclists tended to cycle faster when racing against another cyclist than they could alone. Triplett did not pursue further sport-related research however and it was not until the 1920s that the discipline of sport psychology was formally established.

In 1925, Coleman Griffith set up the Athletic Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois. Griffith, who also put sport psychology on the map by establishing a university course, publishing two major textbooks and acting as consultant to professional sports teams, is often called the ‘father of sport psychology’. The early path of sport psychology did not run smoothly however, and the Athletic Research Laboratory closed in 1932 due to lack of funds.

Between the 1930s and the 1960s (at least in the Western world) there was little activity in the field of sport psychology. In the Soviet Union, sport psychology emerged as a discipline shortly after the Second World War. It is of course difficult to obtain accurate information about the practice of Soviet psychology during the Cold War, but it is commonly believed that, during the 1960 Melbourne Olympics, Eastern European teams employed sport psychologists (Kremer and Scully 1994). Certainly we know that, by the early 1970s, East German and Russian teams were routinely employing sport psychologists to enhance athletic performance in international events.

Sport psychology reappeared in the USA in the 1960s, and was taken up in Britain and the rest of Europe a few years later. The area has since expanded worldwide to become one of the fastest growing new academic disciplines. Interestingly, until very recently the study of sport psychology was firmly located in the domain of sport sciences as opposed to within psychology This may be changing however: in 1986 the American Psychological Association officially recognised sport psychology as a branch of psychology and in 1993 the British Psychological Society formed a Sport and Exercise Psychology Section.

What is a sport psychologist?

This question can be thought of in two ways: who can call themselves a sport psychologist, and what do sport psychologists do? To address the first question, currently in Britain there is no compulsory registration of sport psychologists, therefore (in theory) anyone can call themselves a sport psychologist. In reality of course, it would be highly unethical for anyone not properly trained to use the title ‘psychologist’ in any context. The British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES) keeps a register of approved sport psychologists. At the 1998 annual conference, the British Psychological Society’s Sport and Exercise Psychology Section approved the principle of granting the title ‘Chartered Sport Psychologist’ to appropriately qualified people. To register with BASES as a sport psychologist you need either a first degree in psychology and a higher degree in sport science or a first degree in sport science and a higher degree in sport psychology. To achieve chartered status from the British Psychological Society, it is necessary to have a BPS-approved first degree in psychology and a BPS-approved postgraduate training, including supervised practice.

There is some controversy surrounding the accreditation of sport psychologists. The BASES scheme for registration of sport psychologists has only existed since 1992 and many people who were already working as sport psychologists chose not to join the register or were unqualifled to do so. Anshell (1992) has pointed out that many of those working full-time with athletes do not have the time, resources or inclination to pursue the lengthy procedures necessary to become registered, and that registration thus excludes some of Britain’s most experienced practitioners. On the other hand, compulsory registration would provide a measure of protection for the public from dubious or underqualified practitioners. The issue of accreditation is likely to come to a head if the use of the term ‘psychologist’ becomes legally restricted, as is already true in some countries and is likely to become the case in Britain in the next century.

With regard to the second question, the work sport psychologists do is quite varied. The European Federation of Sport Psychology (1996) recognise three inter-related tasks for sport psychologists:

• research: investigation into all aspects of the psychology of sport, both theoretical and applied.
• education: teaching students, officials and athletes about sport psychology.
• application: assessment of, and intervention in, psychological problems connected to sport. This can involve acting as consultant to whole teams or counselling individuals.

Because sport psychology is now such a broad field, it is becoming impossible for sport psychologists to keep up with all aspects of their discipline. Nowadays, you will find that many sport psychologists have become highly specialised. For example, a psychologist may specialise in the area of motivation (see Chapter 7). They may carry out research into motivation, teach coaches about motivation and perhaps work with individual athletes to improve their motivation.

Further reading

European Federation of Sport Psychology (1996) Position statement of the FEPSAC: 1. Definition of sport psychology. The sport psychologist 10, 221–3. A brief official document explaining the aims and scope of sport psychology and its relationship to other disciplines.

Kremer J and Scully D (1994) Psychology in sport. London, Taylor & Francis. An excellent general account of the development of sport psychology, particularly interesting in its coverage of the relationship between sport and academic psychology and its analysis of the accreditation issue.

2
Personality and sport

Introduction

Trait theories

Other measurable personality variables

Applying trait and narrow-band theories to sport

Situational and interactional approaches

Applying the interactional model to sport

Social learning theory

Applying social learning theory to sport

Summary

Introduction

One of the most basic questions faced by psychology is ‘why are we all different?’ Of course in some ways we are all much the same, for example in the structure of our brains and the mechanisms of perception and memory. However there are huge differences between us in the ways we think, feel and behave in different situations. The psychology of personality is concerned with these individual differences. Pervin (1993) offered a simple working definition of personality: Personality represents those characteristics of the person that account for consistent patterns of behaviour. Broadly, four factors influence how we respond in any given situation: our genetic make-up, our past experience, the nature of the situation in which we find ourselves and our free will. Each of these factors is emphasised by one or more theories of personality.

Trait theories of personality emphasise the role of genetics in determining our individuality. Social learning theory, by contrast, sees personality as primarily determined by past experience. Situational and interactional views place more emphasis on the particular situation and less emphasis on the nature of the individual in determining how they act. Trait, social learning, situational and interactional theories are all ambitious approaches to personality that aim to describe the entire nature of the person. Narrow-band theories are less ambitious, focusing on a single aspect of personality. None of the main theoretical approaches to personality place much emphasis on free will, i.e. how we choose to think, feel and behave. Free will is a controversial idea in psychology. Although we may believe that we choose how to behave, it is always likely that we are influenced to some degree by our genetic make-up and our past experiences.

The study of personality can be said to underlie all sport psychology. When we look in later chapters at such topics as attitudes, aggression, motivation and anxiety, what we are really interested in is how and why people differ in these aspects, and how we can modify these to improve athletic performance. The answers to many of these questions can be found in personality theory.

Trait theories

There are two main assumptions underlying the trait approach to personality. First, an individual’s personality is made up of certain key characteristics or traits. Traits are the stable, enduring characteristics of a person. Second, individuals differ in each trait due to genetic differences. Traits can be measured according to three factors: their frequency, their intensity and the range of situations to which they can be applied. For example, a trait that appears in most of the major theories is extroversion—how lively, sociable and impulsive an individual is. We know someone is very extrovert if they display this kind of behaviour often, to an extreme and in a variety of quite different situations.

Eysenck’s theory

Eysenck (1952) initially proposed that personality could be completely described by just two traits: extroversion and neuroticism. Extroversion describes how lively, sociable and impulsive a person is, while neuroticism describes how emotionally stable they are. One question you might ask is why three different characteristics like liveliness, sociability and impulsivity are grouped together as one trait. The answer is that, through a mathematical process called factor analysis, Eysenck discovered that in most cases it is the same people who tend to be lively, impulsive and sociable. When characteristic behaviours tend to go together in this way, we can say that they make up one trait. Extroversion and neuroticism can be measured by a personality test called the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI). Some items from the EPI are shown in Table 2.1.

Figure 2.1 What Eysenck Personality Inventory scores show

Table 2.1 Items from the Eysenck Personality Inventory

You can probably see that Questions 1, 3 and 5 are part of the extroversion (E) scale, while Questions 2 and 4 are part of the neuroticism (N) scale. The E and N scales are each marked out of 24. A high score on the E scale would indicate that you are very extrovert while a low score would indicate that you are very introvert, i.e. quiet, solitary and not at all impulsive.

Progress exercise

Which of the following sports might a highly introverted person choose to participate in?

soccer solo transglobal sailing

rugby rock-climbing

cycling

A high score on the N scale would indicate that you are very neurotic, i.e. emotionally unstable, whereas a very low score would indicate that you are a very stable, ‘unflappable’ person. This is shown in Figure 2.1.

Most people score between 5 and 20 on each scale. In a later version of his theory, Eysenck (1975) added a third personality trait—psychoticism—a measure of how tender or tough-minded an ind...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction to Sport Psychology
• 2. Personality and Sport
• 3. Attitudes to Sport
• 4. Aggression In Sport
• 5. Arousal, Anxiety and Stress
• 6. Social Influences On Sporting Behaviour
• 7. Motivation and Sport
• 8. Skill Acquisition
• 9. Study Aids
• Glossary
• Bibliography