Empirical Sport Psychology Related Research Articles

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,

Sara D’Esposito

The job I have chosen to do my interview on is a sports psychologist. The responsibilities of a sports psychologist include the following things: evaluate what the client is in need of as well as evaluating their abilities; and observe athletic performance and behaviors that go with that; come up with different strategies that are going to help the client overcome whatever they are having a hard time with and putting these strategies into effect; putting an update on the athletes performance; seeing that the individual has the ability to develop as time goes on; working with a other psychologists, nutritionist, and physiologists; providing the individual with counseling and different kinds of workshops that go over the different

The authors claim that players go through three different stages in sport development: the sampling, specializing and investment years. Athletes participate in a great number of sports in the sampling stage (less structures activities, intended to maximize enjoyment and flexible rules adapted to age (Côté & Hay, 2002); in the remaining two stages, athletes reduce the number of sports played and focus to practice in deliberate activities related to the sports chosen (this include more organised activities, involve effort, produce no instant rewards, and are inspired by the desire of improving performance instead of pure enjoyment; Ericsson et al., 1993).

Seeing so much of my personal identity being represented as a soccer player helps me relates to students in a counseling setting because I know what some of them are going through in regards to transitioning from student-athlete to a student. I believe that using a frame work like Danish et al. (1992) is an excellent tool to help student-athletes transaction over to being a student. It also helps student-athletes apply any skills they learned in their sport and apply such knowledge to other aspects of their lives (career, personal development, etc). Counselors must make an attempt to really understand this population so that athletes can transition to retired life so that they do not dwell on events that are not in their control (ex. injury, being cut, etc). by utilizing models of coping and transition, it helps counselors prepare their student-athletes to have a guide on how to adapt to their new life outside of being an athlete. Counselors need to pay special attention to student-athletes that may struggle through this transition due to not seeing outside of the sport world so that they can reduce the chances of suffering and feel empty from leaving something that they see as a part of

The field in psychology that I have chosen to write about is the field of sports psychology. This field interested me because of its ties to the world of sports which is my true passion in life. The first experience I had with this field of psychology was during my time attending Diablo Valley College, which around the time I began to find an interest in the field of psychology as a whole. Even though this was field that I truly found interesting, I personally haven’t spent the time to diligently look into the field until taking this course this year. The goal of this career research paper is for to learn as much as my chosen field in psychology as possible.

It has been identified that through sports psychology one can improve their physical ability and performance. Sports psychology is the study of how the mind, mental states and behaviour effect sporting performance. There are several sport psychology techniques, which have helped me become a better volleyball player. These techniques include planning for performance, controlling arousal levels, mental rehearsal and concentration.

In earlier days sports psychology was mostly concerned with developing assessment methods that would identify those people with the potential to become serious superior athletes. Today the focus is on psychological training, exercises that strengthen the mental skills that will help athletic performances on the path to excellence. These skills include mental imagery and focus training. If an athlete is serious about becoming the best he or she can possibly be, the most essential ingredient is commitment to practice the right things. It takes incredible commitment to reach the top: a commitment to rest and train the body so it can perform under the most demanding conditions and a commitment to train the mind to

The statistical data was treated to show the mean and the standard deviation (SD). Student t-test was then applied to examine the significance of the treatment of each group. No significance was observed when comparing the pretreatment mean values of the two groups showing high values in the stability indices and indicating all participants had balance problems. When comparing the mean and the SD each group pre and post treatment, both groups showed improvement (reduction in values) and statistically significance in all stability indices:

Roper, E. A. (2008). Women’s Career Experiences in Applied Sport Psychology. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 20(4), 408-424.

From a psychological perspective, athletes may be prone to experience depression symptoms when they face declines in their athletic performance or a catastrophic (“choking”) athletic performance (Wolanin, Gross & Hong, 2015). Based on the foundation of sport psychology, this research paper will seek to understand how emotional disorders can impact an athlete’s performance, providing a systematic review of research to theory, treatment and prevention. In addition to any legal or ethical concerns, as well as any relevant issues of cultural or human diversity.

The percentage of responses reveal the factors participants identify as influencing their participation in sports. I read and reread the transcripts and field notes and extracted from them all the factors that participants identified. I listed first the factors a on a sheet of card board. I then ranked the factors on the basis of their frequency of mention, and this helped highlight the most influential and least influential factors impacting on participants’ participation in sport. For the purpose of demonstration, the frequency counts comprise responses from 70 participants in which participants identified more than one factor that influenced their participation in

The previous sections highlighted post-retirement issues experienced by athletes, (i.e., hardships, future concerns, identity issues, career planning decisions, etc.). To summarize, the literature has consistently supported that most athletes struggle with retirement (Warriner & Lavallee, 2008; McGannon & Mauws, 2000; & Reifsteck, 2011), and that athletes who are forced to retire may experience more transition-related difficulties than those who are not (Lavallee, Gordon, & Grove, 1997; & Heird & Stienfeldt, 2013). Since the average age of athletic retirement is 33 years old (Hadavi, 2011), most retired athletes are required to obtain a new occupation; however, most athletes have difficulty obtaining a job or feeling competent once they find a job (Stephan, Bilard, Ninot, & Deligniers, 2003). Furthermore, Stephan, Bilard, Ninot and Delignieres (2003) found that athletes revealed feelings of incompetence towards their new occupation that lasted as long as 8 months. Therefore, a review evaluating successful career planning models in general is necessary, as there are few post-retirement career-planning models for athletes in existence (Lavallee, 2005; Morris & Cherry, 2007; Stambulova, 2010). Prominent career planning models that will be discussed include Holland’s theory of vocational personalities, organizational investment, narrative career counseling, and social cognitive career theory.

During the first interview (6 weeks after retirement), athletes reported their most difficult adjustment was a substantial decrease in physical activity (Stephan et al., 2003). In addition, the athletes stated they disliked relinquishing their athletic identity and adopting an ordinary identity (Stephan et al., 2003). Lastly, they stated that they missed the traveling associated with their athletic careers (Stephan et al., 2003). During the second interview (five months after retirement), the athletes attempted to avoid a passive and relaxing lifestyle (Stephan et al., 2003). In addition, they expressed difficulties relying on themselves to make important decisions, as they had been accustomed to their coaches making those decisions

In a similar qualitative study, Marks (2014) examined the experiences of six former NCAA, Division 1 and Division III athletes who were forced to retire because of injury. Participants were required to complete a questionnaire that asked for demographics including gender, ethnicity, sport played, nature of injury, and when the injury took place (Marks, 2014). Following the questionnaire, the athletes completed an interview with the researcher. Topics covered in the interview included information about the athlete’s career, information about experiencing the injury, coping strategies used after the injury, and thoughts and feelings after learning the injury was career-ending (Marks, 2014). The reactions of the athletes in this study were consistent with the reactions of athletes in the previously discussed studies. One athlete felt disappointed while watching his teammates being drafted at the same time he was supposed to be drafted (Marks, 2014). Another athlete expressed feelings of depression, as he attempted to come back his senior year, but could not physically sustain the demands of the sport (Marks, 2014). Although Marks (2014) only obtained six participants for her study, she provided results that were consistent with that of Sparks (1998), and Heird and Steinfeldt (2013). Moreover, each of the three previously discussed studies were based off of athletes who were forced into retirement. Therefore, it is imperative to examine the specific transition effects

Plato once said, “In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but for the two together. With these two means, man can attain perfection.” If we delve into this quote we can see that even 2400 years ago in ancient Greece a famous philosopher linked physical activity with education and that the two are not mutually exclusive. A study presented to the American College of Sports Medicine, for instance, found that workers who spent 30 to 60 minutes at lunch exercising reported an average performance boost of 15 percent. There are many studies that show adult work productivity with the encouragement of exercise in the work place, where the lack of research lies is in the younger populations. One area that needs to be addressed deeper is the effect of physical activity on cognitive functioning across the school age spectrum along with the productivity of adults who exercise regularly or are encouraged to exercise in the work place.