Along with the operationally defined concepts of dynamical systems theory comes a rich arsenal of mathematical methods and modeling tools that may be usefully employed in the study of complex sports behaviors. This entry highlights just a handful of those, which are all centered on the “problem” of dimensionality reduction. Before going into modeling, the
Ethnicity refers to shared cultural traditions and history of a group or population. The collection of people who share an ethnicity is often called an ethnic group. An ethnic group shares a common culture that is reflected in language or dialect, religion, customs, clothing, food, and music, literature, or art. Ethnic groups are often associated
Self-presentation, also referred to as impression motivation, is the process whereby individuals attempt to monitor and control how other people perceive them—that is, they attempt to portray a specific image (or impression) to others. In general, people try to present truthful images of themselves to others. However, in any specific situation, they may choose to
Social comparison is a process in which self-appraisals are formed and involves evaluating one’s skills, attributes, belongings, and so forth compared with those of others. Social Comparison Theory Social comparison theory, proposed by Leon Festinger in 1954, states that individuals have an innate drive to maintain stable and accurate appraisals of themselves and do so
This entry presents an overview of the psychosocial research conducted at both ends of the spectrum of sport engagement. First, we examine the psychosocial benefits of recreational youth sport involvement for adolescents with disabilities. The next section discusses the psychological challenges and mental preparation at the highest levels of sport involvement for athletes with disabilities:
The term self-compassion refers to a healthy self-attitude in which one acts in a compassionate way toward oneself, similar to having compassion for others. The term has its origins in Buddhist philosophy, but is a relatively new concept to Western psychology and research. Most self-compassion research to date has been in the general psychology literature,
Construals are the way in which individuals perceive, understand, and interpret their worlds. When these construals are focused on the perceptions of the self rather than the social environment, they are defined as self-construals. Distinct Self-Construals Self-construals have been distinguished as independent (also referred to as personal) and interdependent (also referred to as social). Independent self-construal
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