Sport And Performance Psychology PDF

**Sport and performance psychology** Lecture 1. Is 'the perfect race/match' an unattainable goal? - Yes, even the best players don't play perfect matches - Perfection is not necessary to be the best at something Performance = potential performance -- performance losses - Performance loss...

**Sport and performance psychology** Lecture 1. Is 'the perfect race/match' an unattainable goal? - Yes, even the best players don't play perfect matches - Perfection is not necessary to be the best at something Performance = potential performance -- performance losses - Performance losses happen when you're under pressure. Even the best players underachieve when they're under pressure - The winners are the players with less performance losses than the other athletes - The level of training for the winners is so high that they can underachieve and still win "It's about overcoming your mistakes in the race and remaining composed" - Set realistic goals - Deal with mistakes - Don't lose hope when you make mistakes and lose motivation "Strive for perfection but do not expect it" - How to remain composed when something goes wrong? - That is what sport and performance psychology is about The four aspects of athletic performance - Physical - Psychological - Tactical - Technical *The mental side of sport* - The psychological aspect of athletic - How you play = how you can play -- performance losses Mental training is typically directed at avoiding performance losses - To teach, develop and maintain mental skills that help athletes to focus exclusively on "how you play" while ignoring internal distractors (self-generated concerns) and external distractors (weather conditions etc) = help "to remain composed" How you can play is influenced by performance gains Afbeelding met tekst, schermopname, Lettertype, Rechthoek Automatisch gegenereerde beschrijving The mental side of sports influences both performance losses and performance gains Mental side of sports: APA 1. Acknowledge 2. Practice 3. Act *How important is the mental side of sport?* - If mental processes are crucial for athletic success, psychologists should be able to help sports competitors to enhance their athletic performance - By increasing their performance gains - By forestalling their performance losses Applied sport psychology is about enhancing athletes performance and helping them reach their potential (rather than addressing mental health issues) - However, part of the sport psychologist's job is to be able to provide therapeutic services (likely by referral to a clinical specialist) - For example, by developing individuals mental toughness, regarded by athletes and researchers as a key characteristic of successful athletes *What is mental toughness?* Mental toughness in the sport psychological literature \- Hardiness is a constellation of personality characteristics that enables people to mitigate the adverse effects of stressful situations 4C's model of mental toughness 1. Control = the capacity to feel as if one could exert an influence in the situation 2. Challenge = the habit as perceiving potentially stressful situations as positive opportunities rather than threats 3. Commitment = stickability or the extent to which an individual is likely to persist with a goal or work task 4. Confidence = a strong belief in one's capability to complete a task succesfully Mental toughness is a vague concept: little agreement exists about what the construct itself actually means or about what theoretical mechanisms underlie it - In coaching, research or other frameworks: be clear about the constructs you use How important is the mental side of sport? - The mental aspect of sport is very important - You often hear "Sports are 90% mental" agree or disagree? Disagree - If people lack the competence, fitness, strength, technical and tactical skills, the mental piece is completely irrelevant - Competence or skill level, rather than mental factors, determines fluctuations in performance - Amateur athletes in particular tend to attribute their inconsistency or lack of progress to mental factors saying things like "it's all in my head". However, low-skilled individuals typically perform inconsistently, even in low pressure situations Agree - When competing against an opponent of similar ability, mental factors make the difference (i.e. determing the athletes performance losses) - Why? Mental factors are more sensitive to pressure situations than physical, technical, and tactical factors The correct answer may be that it is not possible to determine the weight of each separate component because - Weight is a function of person, time, context and moment - The different components (body and mind) are actually inseparable In any case: mental factors, as part of an holistic system, are critical predictors of performance gains and performance losses Expertise, or the capacity to perform = How you can play - Genetics VS. Practice and training - There are people that are 'high responders' to training Skills, abilities and knowledge = How you play - Opportunity to perform - Social support - Athlete support programs - Birthdate - Birthplace What does research say about the development of the world's best talent? There is now empirical evidence that more successful athletes - Show higher levels of motivation - Command a high range of mental skills - Display higher levels of mental toughness and resilience, including - Higher levels of confidence and perceived control - Better abilities to cope with adversity - Greater resistance to 'choking' Implications for mental practice: Mental practice should focus on 1. Developing mental skills and enhancing sustainable motivation 2. Improving one's expertise 3. Optimizing opportunities to develop and train Motivation: Self-Determination Theory - Motivation = the psychological forces that determine the direction of a person's behaviour, a person's level of intensity or effort, and a person's self-regulation and level of persistence. The self-determination theory framework The conditions that move an athlete to act, think and develop: - Intrinsic motivation: an action is performed because the behaviour is inherently satisfying, because it satisfies the basic needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness - Extrinsic motivation: the activity is perceived as means to a separable outcome - Amotivation: the absence of motivation Lecture 2. The SDT (self-determination theory) framework: mini-theory Cognitive Evaluation Theory Do rewards (credits, money, trophies) undermine intrinsic motivation? - Does the fact that you get a trophy if you win a tournament undermine your intrinsic motivation? - No, probably not - Thwarting peoples' basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness decreases their intrinsic motivation - When individuals are autonomously motivated in their actions, rather than feeling controlled to act, they experience - More interest, excitement and meaning - Less anxiety - Because rewards do not necessarily undermine people's autonomous motivation, SDT has shifted its emphasis away from intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and toward autonomous and controlled motivation Mini-theory Organismic Integration Theory - Addresses types of extrinsic motivation that differ in the degree to which they are autonomous or controlled - External regulation: people around me reward me when I do my sport - Introjected regulation: I feel better about myself when I do my sport What is perfection? - In sport and performance psychology, perfectionism is typically perceived as an individual difference variable - How is it conceptualized/assessed/measured? **Perfectionism:** The striving for flawlessness and the setting of excessively high standards for one's performance - In the domains of sport, dance, and exercise, striving for perfection can be a routine part of participation - Perfection is very personal: something that is a high standard for someone, can be a very normal standard for someone else Perfection paradox - Perfectionists may be vulnerable to motivation, well-being, and performance difficulties *When and why is perfectionism adaptive?* Higher-order or hierarchical models of perfectionism Afbeelding met tekst, schermopname, Lettertype, ontwerp Automatisch gegenereerde beschrijving The 2 x 2 model of perfectionism  Type of evaluative standard in goal pursuit 1. Other-based= interpersonal standard = normative approach: I want to perform better than others 2. Self-based = intrapersonal approach = ipsative approach: I want to perform better than I did last month 3. Task-based = absolute standard, inherent in a task = criterion approach: I want to get a hole-in-one in golf The 3 x 2 achievement goal model Two types of valence: approach and avoidance =Afbeelding met tekst, schermopname, Lettertype, nummer Automatisch gegenereerde beschrijving Focusing on goals based on approach is better But in sports, only the winner gets the prize, which makes it a zero-sum game. Such incentive structures emphasize other-based goals **Goal systems** A competition situation does not necessarily imply the motivation to compete against an other-based standard There can also be achievement motivation: the motivation to compete against a valenced standard Successful athletes often combine other-, self, and task-based goals  **Self-efficacy and goal setting** Self-efficacy: the belief in one's capacity to achieve a specific goal Can vary in terms of - Level - Strength - Generality Self-efficacy theory: A strong sense of self-efficacy drives adaptive motivational and behavioural outcomes, including performance Factors that influence self-efficacy 1. Mastery experiences 2. Vicarious influences 3. Physiological and emotional states 4. Verbal persuasion Why does self-efficacy lead to performance? - Goals tend to enhance performance Self-efficacy goal performance Propositions of goal setting theory Characteristics of effective goals - Difficult - Specific - Specific and measurable Through which mechanisms does self-efficacy lead to goals: Mediators between self-efficacy and goals - Perceived control - Optimism - Anxiety - Low self-efficacy anxiety motivation to avoid failure easy goal OR excessively difficult goal So in terms of goal setting it is best to have strong self-efficacy beliefs to be able to translate arousal into a challenge/approach state rather than a threat/avoidance state WHY does goal setting work: Mediators between goal and performance - Direction, attention and concentration - Energy, effort, and intensity - Regulation and persistence - Task-relevant strategies and action plans WHEN does goal setting work: Moderators between goal and performance - Ability - Goal commitment - Feedback - Resources Afbeelding met tekst, schermopname, lijn, Lettertype Automatisch gegenereerde beschrijving What are potential pitfalls associated with strong self-efficacy beliefs? - The Dunning-Kruger effect: overestimating our own abilities - These knowledge gaps prevent us from catching our errors and learning from them Lecture 3. Pressure, emotions, and focus **Pressure and ambition** In a society groaning under performance pressure, ambition does not immediately evoke a positive image in everyone's mind - A possible reason for this is that ambition is associated with being the best, which may make people vulnerable to motivation, well-being, and performance difficulties - However, individuals can also be ambitious on a personal level, relying on personal criteria, for instance, as a traveller, parent, or music lover - Or individuals may have ambitions in the social or societal domain, such as combating poverty, fight discrimination, etc - Consistent persistence and pursuit of desired outcomes (= AMBITION) and accordingly, feelings of pressure, occur in all areas! Lazarus and Folkman's Theory of stress and coping Pressure situation - Perceived demands of the situation - Arousal - Release of biochemical substances From pressure situation to arousal there is primary appraisal part 1: The perceived relevance of an event - Reactions - Emotions such as anxiety and excitement - Cognitions such as attributions and interfering thoughts - Behaviour, including performance The reactions are primary appraisal part 2: If the event is relevant... - Is it a threat - Does it harm - Does it feel like a challenge - Potential benefits From reactions back to the pressure situation there is secondary appraisal: the perceived options to cope with a stressor - Distress occurs when an individual perceives an inability to cope with a stressor, or when there is an anticipated threat to well-being Assessing distress - Physiological (heart rate, respiration) - Self-report (mental health, affect, cognitions, emotion) - Behavioral (crying, shaking) Notes: - Arousal refers to the intensity of the experience - Anxiety refers to the direction: it is an emotional label for negatively interpreted arousal - Anxiety involves feelings of nervousness and apprehension, worries, and somatic symptoms - Anxiety can never be healthy or helpful **Perspectives on arousal** Quiescence theory: the higher arousal the lower performance Drive theory: you need a certain amount of arousal for performance, the higher arousal the higher performance Both of these theories are summarized in the Yerkes-Dodson Law: There is a level of maximum performance where arousal is optimal, not too high and not too low Low arousal: Underaroused - Low motivation - Boredom - Apathy psych up: For example by playing loud music Moderate (optimal arousal) - High motivation - High energy - Sharp perception psych up: More arousal - High (overaroused) - Irritability - Increased errors - Indecisiveness psych down Cusp-Catastrophe model - Same curve as Yerkes-Dodson when under the condition of low cognitive state anxiety = moderator - When cognitive state anxiety is high: choking can occur when at a certain level of arousal Individual zones of optimal functioning - An athlete with a low individual zone of optimal functioning needs a low level of arousal for best performance - An athlete with a high individual zone of optimal functioning needs a high level of arousal for best performance - An athlete with a moderate individual zone of optimal functioning needs a moderate level of arousal for best performance (curve looks like Yerkes-Dodson) Differences with Yerkes-Dodson law: - Optimal levels of arousal varies from individual to individual - The optimal level of arousal is not a single point but a bandwidth **Challenge/ threat appraisals and mental health/illness** Theory of challenge and threat states in athletes  Anxiety: negatively interpreted arousal, unpleasant emotion or mood Can be classified as - Somatic or physiological - Cognitive - Behavioural - Trait - State **Intense anxiety: choking under pressure (CUP)** The occurrence of a dramatic anxiety based performance impairment meeting the following conditions - The performance decline is acute in a situation where performance pressure is high - The athlete is capable of performing better - Self-efficacy is very low - Athlete is bothered by self-presentational concerns - Strong focus on avoiding mistakes - The athletes continues to work hard with high motivation to succeed because the situation is perceived as important Conditions leading to choking - Perceived importance of the competition - Critical plays in a competition - Having a strong personal identity as athlete - Evaluation by coach, parent, peers,,, Physical changes - Increased muscle tension - Increased breath rate - Racing heart rate - Clammy hands Attentional changes: - Self-consciousness emotions and self-focus - Distraction and negative thoughts (what do other people think) Self-focus models of choking: anxiety increases athletes levels of self-consciousness and causes them to focus their attention inward rather than to the task Distraction theories: Anxiety consumes working memory resources and causes inefficient processing of task-relevant information, shifting attention away from the task at hand Physical and attentional changes Performance impairments - Timing and coordination breakdown - Muscle tightness and fatigue - Avoidance motivation - Rushing - inability to tend to task-relevant cues Afbeelding met tekst, schermopname, persoon, Menselijk gezicht Automatisch gegenereerde beschrijving Acknowledge the pressure and cope with it: between arousal and reactions As we remember from the theory of stress and coping, secondary appraisal is self-regulation and coping, which are mental skills: perceived opportunities to manage and effectively cope with the situation - transforming the arousal into action attention - cognitive control strategies - effective arousal management **Attention** Why do athletes lose their attention? Eberspächers hierarchical rings of attention - Ring 1: task-based goals - Ring 2: external distractions - Ring 3: what ought to be (comparisons, disctractions by own performances: "I used to..") - Ring 4: thoughts about winning/ losing... - Ring 5:...and its consequences - Ring 6: existential thoughts Nideffer's theory of attentional and interpersonal style  Attentional focus: external vs. internal - External focus of attention: performers focus on the effects that their movement have on the environment - Internal focus of attention: performers focus on their own body movements - Control focus (no focus instruction) An external focus is more effective in improving the learning and performance of motor skills. The optimal external focus for a given skill may depend on the performers level of expertise: experts distal, novices proximal. When seeking to repair impaired movement in practice settings, an internal focus may be more effective. Why do athletes lose their concentrations? - Telling someone not to think about something automatically leads to them thinking about that thing = Ironic Processes Model - It is better to focus on something that you do need to think about General purpose concentration skills: to help athletes achieve a state of mind in which there is no difference in what they are doing and what they are thinking about Principles and techniques of effective concentration 1. Prepare and decide to concentrate 2. Be single-minded: focus on one thought at the time 3. Do exactly what you are thinking: focus on specific and relevant actions 4. Keep your mind on track: re-focus regularly Self-regulation and coping: transforming arousal into action - Specify task-based approach goals: encourage athletes to focus on task-based information and controllable actions - For example: the Quiet Eye phenomenon: the final fixation toward a relevant target prior to the execution of the critical phase of movement - Keep an external focus of attention Quiet Eye: why it may work - It provides a focus on what is effective and controllable - Timely information about targets from the gaze system - It provides the external focus of attention - It helps create a more relaxed pre-performance state Lecture 4. Psychological skills training Self-regulation and coping Acceptance-commitment training (ACT): 3R model - The 3R model is used to teach athletes how to handle adversity and negative and dysfunctional thoughts - It can also be used when they face unexpected positive experiences which need adjustment as well 1. Register in an open, nonjudgmental way, what is going on in your mind 2. Release unwelcome thoughts and emotions, accept fluctuating internal states 3. Re-focus: mindfully re-engage in the task at hand For example, by setting a task-approached goal Attribution theory: explaining the cause of events (and tells you how to approach next events) - Consistency (stable/unstable): a similar outcome every time the situation occurs? - Distinctiveness (global/specific): a similar outcome across high-stakes finals? - Consensus (personal/universal): do others perform similarly in the same situation? - Attribution (internal/external): hard work or luck? Goals and values: acceptance and commitment training - What's the difference between goals and values? - Working worth values -- or meaning -- is to clarify what is overarchingly important to athletes in their sport venture - Values are important resources particularly in times of pressure or adversity - Committed action: consciously chosen actions in line with athlete's values: being appreciative and responsible - Experiental avoidance: avoidance of possible negative consequences, driven by negative reinforcement Helping athletes to clarify their values: value profiling - Competition, training, preparation and recovery, life outside sports - Inner circle: actions are in line with values - Outer circle: actions are not in line with values Performance profiling: the original version - Generation of the fundamental qualities that constitute elite performance in the participants sport - Conceptualization of each quality - Athletes self-assessment of their ability in each of their chosen performance qualities - Additional options: Athletes' assessment of the the ideal player's ability in each of their chosen performance qualities ---\> Discrepancy between self and ideal. **Cognitive control strategies** Self-talk - Strategic: re-focus on your swing - Organic: good swing, well done, now holing the putt - Spontaneous: oh no, water - Goal-directed: focus on the rhythm of your swing (task-approach) Because cognitions are considered important in the emotion process, cognitive control strategies may not only boost performance, but also emotion regulation Key findings self-talk research 1. Two underlying dimensions of self-talk - Positive vs negative: the content - Motivational vs instructional Also debilitative/facilitative, which refers to the impact of self-talk 2. Benefits of self-talk were seen for the use of positive self-talk 3. Instructional self-talk seems to be more effective for the performance of fine motor tasks whereas motivational self-talk seems to be more beneficial in tasks requiring strength or endurance or before competition to 'psych up' 4. There is no clear evidence for the possible benefits of positive self-talk over the use of negative self-talk 5. There is a lack of self-talk investigations employing competitive or highly skilled athletes 6. Negative self-talk does not have a detrimental effect on motor skill performance Rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT): counter dysfunctional beliefs with more helpful thoughts ABC network: Activating events Beliefs Consequences of one's beliefs: cognitive, emotional, behavioural REBT helps altering the beliefs and negative thinking patterns Cognitive control strategies: 1. Self-talk 2. Reframing: "so may people might see me fail" "a nice crowd to see me" 3. Negative thought stopping (crisis management during a game) Block out negative thoughts and re-focus on task at hand - For example by using a physical cue (stop sign) or a mantra ("go go go") **Effective arousal management** 1. Arousal reappraisal 2. Pre-performance routines: a characteristic sequence of thoughts and actions which athletes adhere to prior to skill execution 3. Motor imagery (or mental imagery): static vs dynamic - How do we measure motor imagery? Measure the imagined time it takes to complete a task - Mental chronometric paradigm: the greater the congruence between the physical and imagined time it takes to complete a task, the higher the quality of the motor imagery - Its main function is to aid self-regulation of thoughts (cognition), affect (motivation), and behaviour - Tends to be used for different purposes, including mental preparation: - Premortem analysis (or prospective hindsight): imagining that a particular event already happened, and considering which factors you DO and DON'T have control over - Simulation training and distraction skills: place the athlete in real life scenarios during practice in order to simulate possible distractions that could occur during a competition: "To be ready for anything and everything" - It's a top-down knowledge driven process: imagery arises from our interpretation of stored information to use within working memory to re-create an experience, or to create new experiences that have not yet occurred expert athletes tend to benefit more from mental imagery than novices do - Empirical findings: engaging in motor imagery contributes to enhancing motor performance and motor learning - Dynamic has a positive synergistic effect compared to static - When imagery pertains to simulating an action or movement, the key characteristics are: - Additional research findings: - Athletes high in imagery ability (those who show special skills in generating and controlling vivid images) profit more from mental imagery than athletes low in imagery ability - Controllability is the ability to manipulate images so they do what you want them to do, vividness is the ability to use all senses to make the images clear and detailed. - Ranking of conditions in which skilled performance improves the most 1. Mental imagery combined with physical practice 2. Physical practice alone 3. Mental imagery alone 4. Not practiced at all - It is largely unclear how mental imagery works. The evidence favours the functional equivalence model of mental rehearsal: motor imagery and action preparation/execution share related neutral activity 4. Relaxation techniques - Muscle to mind: more physical in nature - Mind to muscle: more cognitive in nature - Are needed -- as integral part of other mental techniques or in itself -- to be able to regulate arousal, to refocus and to be in control - Are trainable and become more and more profound with practice, particularly when performers have a growth mindset Does psychological skills training (PST) enhance sport performance? 1. Psychological and psychosocial interventions enhance sport performance 2. This positive effect may last a month 3. Involvement of an active social agent (coach) has a greater effect than simply providing the technique alone PST interventions can enhance performance, however, 97% of the included PST interventions were low in quality - Practitioners must be careful when making claims about the review-level evidence for their PST interventions. Lecture 5. **What is a team?** A collection of two or more individuals who\... 1. Have a shared purpose common goal and focus 2. Possess a common identity unified 3. Share a common fate engaged and dedicated 4. Are task interdependent synchronization 5. Exhibit structured patters of interaction and communication and hold common perceptions about the group structure coordinated interaction How to build a team? Clubs and teams typically select individual "stars", assuming that having more individual talent in sports teams is linearly associated with team performance. Can teams have too much individual talent? - "Most of the time, great players aren't willing to sacrifice for the greater good" - Mechanism: Professional teams with very high levels of talent underperform because they coordinate badly, so having a moderate level of talent within the team is best - Implication: It is important to select players who are willing to work together to achieve team goals - This applies to teams characterized by high levels of task interdependence Task interdependence - Sequential task interdependence and outcome interdependence - Reciprocal task interdependence and outcome interdependence - Outcome interdependence (co-acting team) For co-acting teams -- which may be a selection of individual "stars" -- does team cohesion matter as well? **Team cohesion**: a dynamic process which is reflected in the tendency for a group to stick together and remain united in the pursuit of its instrumental objectives and/or for the satisfaction of member affective needs Carron et al.: Model of group cohesion 1. Group integration -- social: an individual member's feelings about the similarity and unification of a social unit 2. Individual attraction to the group -- social: an individual member's feelings about the other members of the team - "I am going to miss the members of the team after the season" - Can be enhanced by having fun together 3. Individual attraction to the group -- task: a team member's feelings about his personal involvement with the group's task 4. Group integration -- task (= Team cohesion) : an individual member's perceptions of the similarity, closeness, and bonding within the group as a whole with regard to the task - "We all take responsibility for the losses" Afbeelding met tekst, schermopname, Lettertype, nummer Automatisch gegenereerde beschrijving How to measure team cohesion? - Group Environment Questionnaire - Asking players to assess their own and their teams performance across matches: Do they take responsibility for any loss or poor performance by the team? - By measuring you can enhance (a particular dimension of) team cohesion Conclusion - When team performance is low, team cohesion is low as well - That is, players do not tend to take individual responsibility for poor performance by the team Are there any potential disadvantages of high (task or social) cohesion? Potential disadvantages of high social cohesion: 1. Communication problems among friends - Not wanting to criticize who you are close with 2. Challenges in fully focusing on the task at hand - Having too much fun: social issues dominating task concerns 3. Exclusion of task-effective individuals who do not adhere to the social norms of the group Potential disadvantages of high task cohesion: 1. High pressure to perform 2. Low social and personal enjoyment due to a strong, unbalanced focus on the task **Team building interventions** - Improve performance, win matches - Enhance team cohesion, for example, by discussing players' biases about their own and team performance - Working on any of the 6 things that make a team! - Facilitate open and honest communication - Addressing the input and throughput variables of Carron and Spink's model of team building - Addressing the variables of McEwan and Beauchamp's conceptual framework for teamwork and team effectiveness in sport Carron and Spink's model of team building  Four stage applied team building approach 1. Introductory stage: providing the coach with an overview of the benefits of cohesion 2. Conceptual stage: explaining the input-throughput-output model 3. Practical stage: brainstorming to identify strategies to develop cohesion 4. Intervention stage: coach and/or sport psychologist delivers intervention Interventions: 1\. Direct intervention paradigm: the psychologist works directly with all members of the team and is in direct contact with the athletes 2\. Indirect interventions paradigm: the sport psychologist acts as a consultant for the coaching staff who has the direct responsibility to implement the team-building protocols with their athletes - This is the more sustainable paradigm - Coaches typically work with their athletes on a daily basis and know them very well - Many coaches are reluctant to relinquish their control over the team - Coach-delivered interventions tend to be more effective 3.A mixture of these McEwan and Beauchamp's conceptual framework for teamwork and team effectiveness in sport Afbeelding met diagram, tekst, schermopname, schets Automatisch gegenereerde beschrijving Team building interventions - Team goal setting Team goal-setting intervention: does it work? - Yes, teams with goal-setting interventions scored higher on team cohesion at the end of the season than teams without goal-setting interventions - The team in the goal-setting condition remained stable, while the control condition decreased in perceptions of cohesion (=performance loss) - Such interventions strengthen athletes' social identity: Who we are is reflected in the extent to which we identify and align ourselves with various social groups A social identity approach to team interventions Afbeelding met tekst, schermopname, Lettertype, lijn Automatisch gegenereerde beschrijving Team building intervention:  Team building interventions - Enhancing collective efficacy Afbeelding met tekst, schermopname, diagram, lijn Automatisch gegenereerde beschrijving The determinants of collective efficacy beliefs: - Preparation effort - Practice performance - Perceptions of cohesion - Team identity - Team conflict - Confident leadership! Team building interventions - Emotion-focused interventions What functions do emotions serve for those who experience them? 1. Emotion as motivational state, drive or motive 2. Emotion as incentive 3. Emotion as feedback information Emotions influence not only those who experience them, but also those who observe them Other's emotional expressions can transport social information that influences one's own behaviour and performance - Research: positive emotions from coach lead to positive emotions and better performance in players Social-functional perspectives: emotions serve to coordinate interaction between individuals Emotions As Social Information Theory (EASI): emotional expressions elicit affective, cognitive, and behavioural responses from others, which facilitates social coordination Lecture 6. Expertise development and talent selection Talent - The talent myth: inherent talent dictates how well you perform - Talent is not fixed innate gifts - Talent = potential or capacity to excel in a certain domain that requires special skills and training - Talent development = the process trough which potential turns into manifest abilites Expertise - Specialist skills and knowledge - Repeated demonstrations of superior performance - Observed in exceptional achievements There are a few athletes who are at the top, better than everyone else: reaching true expertise is rare Explanations for sport expertise - Talents is in the genes - Another very popular belief: you need to practice 10.000 hours/ 10 years before becoming very good **Genes underlying sport performance** Can expertise be found in particular genes? - The speed-gene - No!! Anthropometric and physiological factors (hardware) - Partly genetically determined - Evolution of sport-specific body compositions **Developing expertise** Deliberate practice - Structured and not necessarily enjoyable - 10.000 hours - Extending memory span - Expert musical skills Deliberate practice in sport, downsides - There are relatively large differences between sports and athletes: for ice hockey, for example, you only need 40.000 hours to be at the top - Risk of overuse injuries and burnout in youth For children: it may be better to practice deliberate play in sport - Nurturing through play and practice - Deliberate play: Developing expertise - Early specialization or early sampling? - Early sampling - The importance of quantity + quality - may be better because there are less overuse injuries - there is less attrition/dropout Early sampling trajectory - Sampling years: 6-12 - Specializing years: 13-15 - Investment years: 16+ In early specialization, the sampling years are skipped A combination of sampling/specialization may depend on the type of sport - Late specialization is when someone starts a sport when they are older, but becomes very good very fast - It depends on the sport if this is possible New horizons on developing expertise - Dynamic network model - Practice is just one of the elements of developing expertise - Others are for example: friends support, coaching support, ability **Perceptual-cognitive skills** Expert perceptual-cognitive skills - The best athletes are very good at decision making, anticipation, and game reading - Recall and recognition, visual search, occlusion, think aloud Recall and recognition - From chess to other sports - An experiment was done to check if experts were better at recalling the position of chess pieces better than non-experts in a game vs at random - The results showed that experts were better at this than non-experts when playing a game, but just as good when the pieces are placed at random - Conclusion: professionals are better at recognizing patterns Visual search Occlusion Temporal occlusion: based on advanced ques (information of the other person's body pattern), professionals can already anticipate what is going to happen next, even if they can't see it. Instead of non-experts needing to actually see what happens and then reacting to it (for example seeing where the ball is going). Spatial occlusion: professionals use the image of the whole body to predict where the ball is going, while non-experts only look at the ball Thinking aloud + eye-tracking - Thinking aloud: people are required to talk about and/or give a running commentary on their thoughts and actions as they tackle real or simulated problems in their specialist domain Theoretical explanations: - Experts say it is not in the "hardware" - Knowledge-based perception - Input processing output Theory of indirect perception - Encoding -- interpretation/calculation -- execution - The dominant explanation Theory of direct perception - Attune to information from the environment that specifies direct information - You see something directly: for example a football flying at you gets bigger as it gets near you, so you know that it's coming at you, and then you use that information to respond directly - Faster than indirect perception Affordances in sports - Relative to action capabilities of a given animal **Selecting talented athletes** Predicting future performance - What are the best predictors X of the criterion Y? Challenges of talent selection - Skills needed change over time Careers patterns can be atypical (nonlinear), making it hard to predict who reaches the top Talent development is a complicated process - Early indicators are often unreliable - Sports are also changing, which makes predicting future performance difficult Pitfalls of scout/coach judgments - Risk of including less relevant information - Judgments are subject to bias - Anchoring: the first thing that you judge influences your judgment of all that follows - Halo effect: how much you like someone (or how attractive they are) influences your other judgments of them - Difficulty to combine information in the mind Judgment approaches - Differences in the way information is combined and weighted - Clinical judgment - Based on gut feeling, intuition, experience - Actuarial judgment - Based on decision rules, formulas, algorithms - Based on statistics or a simple action plan - Literature shows that this works best - Why it would work: Five step plan to improve talent selection Improving assessment based on five steps 1. Determine variables that are important for future performance 2. Determine how to score these variables 3. Determine how to weigh the scores 4. Combine assessments based on the algorithm determined 5. Make selection decision based on the combined score Lecture 7. New directions: mindset and resilience **Fixed vs growth mindset** "Your intelligence/endurance/skills is something that you can't change very much" Agree: fixed mindset - Entity theorist - Goals: performance-avoidance - Effort belief: negative - Attribution: Helpless Disagree: growth mindset - Incremental theorist - Goals: Learning oriented - Effort belief: positive - Attribution: Resilient **Growth mindset controversies** 1. Do mindsets predict student outcomes? - Fixed mindset predicts lower achievement among students facing academic challenges - However, heterogeneous effect this association cannot be captured with a sing, summary effect size - Strongest correlations among people facing academic difficulties and setbacks - Heterogeneity among cultures and within cultures 2. Do student mindset interventions work? - Work but also heterogeneity among results - A growth mindset is not the idea that people can get higher scores if they try harder (attribution manipulation) - It is the idea that ability itself has the potential to be developed (and not about the magnitude or ease of that change) 3. Are mindset intervention effect sizes too small to be interesting? What are appropriate benchmarks for effect sizes? - A typical effect size for an educational intervention is.57 SD mindset interventions are smaller - Effect sizes are also based on immediate posttests, low-quality research, and lab experiments - Conclusion: psychological interventions with a.20 effect size on real-world outcomes is impressive 4. Do teacher mindset interventions work? - So far, not - Field will need to learn how to address teacher's mindsets about themselves and students, and which practices work well for students' mindsets **How can we foster a growth mindset?** - Learning/reading the science behind a malleable bran - Focus on learning rather than performance/ output - Celebrate mistakes, embrace challenges and obstacles - Create atmosphere of belonging - Practice psychological skills - Attentional control - Imagery - Routines and rituals - Activation management: meditation, or loud music to activate yourself - Cognitive restructuring **Resilience** What is resilience? - Resilience as a trait vs state - A. maintain well-being and functioning following stressors - B. grow or thrive after stressors - C. bounce back from stressors Agreement among researchers: - Positive or successful adaption to stressors or adversity, or bouncing back from stressors - Multidisciplinariy + dynamic + individual specific - "Thy dynamic process by which a biopsychosocial systems returns to the previous level of functioning, following a perturbation" - Hence, resilience can be measured in time Levels of resilience after an adverse event 1. Succumbing 2. Survival with impairment 3. Resilience (recovery) 4. Thriving  What resilience is not - Resistance, stiffness, robustness - Growth, thriving - A trait - Mental toughness - Hardiness - GRIT **Measuring resilience** What and how - Stressors and responses to stressors - Stressors: training load, performance, pleasure, meaningful events, physical complaints - Responses: physical state, confidence, motivation, mood - Measure repeatedly - Use self-reports and sensors Considerations when measuring resilience 1. Confidentiality 2. Not using the data for the purpose of making selection decisions 3. Avoiding socially desirable responses 4. Individual administration 5. Reactions to repeated measurements and anticipations of questions 6. Resources available at the club 7. Efficient and effective communication and pipeline between club, university, and data scientists The 'resilient athlete' project - Detect warning signals to predict physical and mental breakdowns of individual athletes and provide this personalized feedback to coaches - This, in turn aims at supporting decision making about training and competition to ultimately maintain or enhance performance and health How to analyse the data and communicate findings - Extract resilience information out of time series 1. Searching for instabilities in the system - Critical fluctuations may be an early warning signal of sports injuries - Use this information to prevent injuries 2. Determining how quickly or when an athlete bounces back to their normal level of functioning at the occurrence of a resilience relapse (monitor return-to-play)