Sports Psychology and Mental Skills

94 flashcards by MentisLibrary

The mental side of performance: arousal and anxiety, attention and focus, confidence, goal setting, imagery and self-talk, motivation, how skills are actually learned, team dynamics and athlete wellbeing.

What is sport psychology?
The study of how psychological factors affect performance and participation in sport, and how sport affects psychological wellbeing.
What is the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation?
Intrinsic motivation comes from the activity itself, such as enjoyment and mastery. Extrinsic motivation comes from outside it, such as trophies, money or approval.
What are the three basic psychological needs in self-determination theory?
Autonomy, competence and relatedness.
What is amotivation?
A state of having no reason to act, where the athlete no longer sees a link between effort and outcome.
What is the overjustification effect?
When a large external reward is introduced for an activity somebody already enjoys, intrinsic motivation for that activity can fall.
What is the difference between a task orientation and an ego orientation?
A task-oriented athlete judges success by personal improvement and mastery. An ego-oriented athlete judges success by beating others.
What is a motivational climate?
The achievement environment created by coaches, parents and teammates, ranging from a mastery climate that rewards effort and improvement to a performance climate that rewards outperforming others.
What is athlete burnout?
A syndrome with three features: emotional and physical exhaustion, a reduced sense of accomplishment, and devaluation of the sport.
Why do young athletes drop out of sport?
Common reasons include lack of enjoyment, too much pressure, conflict with other interests, perceived lack of competence and negative coaching experiences.
What did Locke and Latham's research establish about goals?
Specific and difficult goals produce better performance than vague goals or telling somebody to do their best, provided the person is committed and receives feedback.
What do outcome, performance and process goals mean?
Outcome goals concern results against others, performance goals concern personal standards such as a time or a percentage, and process goals concern the actions that produce them.
What makes a goal SMART?
Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.
Why do goals need to be difficult but achievable?
Performance rises with goal difficulty as long as the athlete believes the goal is attainable and stays committed. Impossible goals reduce effort and commitment.
What is goal commitment and how is it strengthened?
The degree to which an athlete is determined to reach a goal, strengthened by involvement in setting it, public commitment and a clear reason why it matters.
Why do long-term goals need short-term goals?
Because a distant goal gives no feedback for months, while short-term goals provide the regular evidence of progress that maintains effort.
How should goals be reviewed?
On a fixed schedule, comparing progress to the plan, and adjusting the goal or the plan rather than abandoning either at the first setback.
What is arousal in a sport psychology context?
A general physiological and psychological activation ranging from deep sleep to intense excitement, which is neutral in itself.
What is the inverted-U hypothesis?
The proposal that performance improves with arousal up to an optimal point, then declines as arousal continues to rise.
What are individual zones of optimal functioning?
Hanin's model proposing that each athlete has a personal band of emotional intensity within which they perform best, and that the band differs between individuals.
What is multidimensional anxiety theory?
The proposal that cognitive anxiety, meaning worry, and somatic anxiety, meaning physical symptoms, are separate and affect performance differently.
What is the difference between state and trait anxiety?
State anxiety is how anxious you feel right now in a specific situation. Trait anxiety is a stable tendency to perceive situations as threatening.
What is the catastrophe model of anxiety and performance?
It proposes that with high cognitive anxiety, performance does not decline gradually as arousal rises but can drop suddenly and sharply.
What is the directional interpretation of anxiety?
The same symptoms can be read as facilitative or debilitative, and athletes who interpret their symptoms as helpful tend to perform better.
What does research suggest about reframing anxiety as excitement?
Experiments have found that saying you are excited, rather than trying to calm down, improves performance in stressful tasks such as public speaking and singing.
What is choking under pressure?
A significant drop in performance under conditions of perceived pressure, despite the athlete having the skill and the motivation to perform well.
What is explicit monitoring theory?
The explanation that pressure makes athletes consciously attend to the step-by-step execution of a well-learned skill, which disrupts the automatic control that normally runs it.
What is distraction theory in relation to choking?
The explanation that pressure occupies working memory with worry, leaving less capacity for the task itself.
What is reinvestment in motor skills?
The tendency to consciously reapply explicit knowledge to control a skill that had become automatic, typically under pressure.
What is a pre-performance routine?
A consistent sequence of thoughts and actions performed before executing a skill, such as before a serve, a putt or a free throw.
How does slow diaphragmatic breathing help before performance?
Slow breathing with a longer exhalation reduces physiological arousal and gives the athlete a controllable action during a moment of stress.