Modern sport culture is replete with qualities thought to make burnout prevalent, including high training volumes and competitive demands, near year-round training, and in some sports, specialization at young ages. Given this sport landscape and the concerns raised by sport scientists and others involved in the sport community (coaches and administrators), the importance of athlete
Athletes are often faced with a variety of factors that can throw off their focus on the athletic task, such as worry, unexpected events, and physical exhaustion. Therefore, it is important for athletes to be able to focus or refocus their attention on the athletic task, despite frequently changing circumstances. In this regard, centering is
In sport psychology, concentration refers to focusing on sensory or mental events coupled with mental effort. It therefore relates primarily to the selective attention dimension in which individuals are able to selectively process some sources of information while ignoring others. It has its roots in the oft-cited quote from William James’s 1890 book The Principles
The term adaptation has been integrated within the sport psychology literature, from as early as 1986. Initially mentioned in relation to elite athlete retirement, adaptation is a broad term associated with monumental change in the athlete’s life. People experience stress in their lives, and at certain times stress reaches a threshold, after which one must
Affirmation is the act of reflecting on core aspects of the self, such as important values, relationships, and personal characteristics like religion, music, or sports. Previous research shows that self-affirmation interventions can reduce psychological and physiological stress and defensiveness, while boosting personal responsibility and performance. Self-affirmation interventions and theory have promising applications in sports and
Aggression has a long history in both sport and nonsport contexts. There is some variation in the definitions of aggression employed by different people. However, it is commonly agreed that aggression is a verbal or physical behavior that is directed intentionally toward another individual and has the potential to cause psychological or physical harm. In
The impact of exercise and sport on our society is pervasive. They are relevant topics for study both because of their societal importance and because they exert a significant influence on physical and psychosocial development across the life span. This entry provides a brief history of exercise and sport psychology, examines the relationship between counseling
Self-efficacy is a construct introduced by Albert Bandura, arguably among the most eminent cognitive psychologists of the 20th century. Based on his clinical work (mostly dealing with helping people overcome their anxiety and phobias to such things as snakes), Bandura proposed a social cognitive theory (SCT) to explain and predict psychological changes achieved by different
Self-monitoring reflects the regulation of individuals’ expressive behavior, self-presentation, and nonverbal displays of affect in social situations. With a grounding in theories of self, Mark Snyder advanced the study of self-monitoring to heighten understanding of dispositional (i.e., stable) versus situational influences on behavior. Self-Monitoring Orientations At its core, the construct of self-monitoring is embedded in
In their seminal article, Barbara Fredrickson and Tomi-Ann Roberts posited that gender socialization and contextual experiences predispose individuals to internalize cultural standards shaping how meaning is ascribed to one’s body. Rooted in sociocultural approaches to the psychology of women, self-objectification is the tendency to introject an external observer’s perspective on one’s body, evaluating it in