Lecture 7: Psychological skills 1 Flashcards
What is psychological skills training?
Systematic and consistent practice of mental or psychological skills for the purpose of enhancing performance, increasing enjoyment, or achieving greatest sports and physical activity self satisfaction
Basic psychological skills
Relaxation
Goal setting
Imagery
Self talk
Advanced psychological skills
Controlling anxiety
Optimising self-confidence
Motivation
Attention
problem-focused coping
- Efforts to alter or manage the problem that is causing the stress
- Information gathering
- Pre-competition/competition plans
- Goal setting
- Time management skills
- Increasing effort
- Self-talk
emotion-focused coping
- Regulating the emotional responses to the problem that cause stress
- Meditation
- Relaxation
- Wishful thinking
- Reappraisal
- Mental and behavioural withdrawal
coping
A process of constantly changing cognitive and behavioural efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands or conflicts appraisers taxing or exceeding one’s own resources
the Matching hypothesis of coping
When techniques should be used for maximum effectiveness
Anxiety technique should be matched to specific anxiety problem
- cognitive anxiety should use mental relaxation
- somatic anxiety should use physical relaxation
It is generally accepted that cognitive relaxation strategies should be applied to lower the cognitive elements of the athletes emotional response where is behavioural techniques can effectively lower somatic responses
Controlling anxiety in sport
- Understanding the pressure experience
- Constructive interpretation of signals
- Giving specific instructions
- Adhering to pre-performance routines
- Constructive thinking
- Simulated training
Aim of psychological skills training
- Increase performers’ self-awareness
- Improve performers’ ability to self-regulate
Conceptual frameworks
Behaviour modification
Cognitive
cognitive-behavioural
behaviour modification
classical conditioning
operant conditioning
stimulus control
cognitive
Challenging maladaptive cognitions is central
e.g. cognitive therapy
cognitive-behavioural
- cognitions (thoughts, beliefs)
AND behaviours (e.g. avoidance)
Basic concepts of the behavioural model
○ Learning defines as a relatively permanent change in behaviour that occurs as a result of experience
○ Focus of consultancy is on client’s ;earned experiences as reflected in current behaviours
○ Both normal and abnormal behaviours can be learned and unlearned
○ Classical conditioning
○ Operant conditioning
○ Sociocultural
Classical conditioning
- Unconditioned stimulus: an event or object that causes a reflexive or instinctive (unlearned) emotional or physiological response
- Unconditioned response: the reflexive or instinctive (unlearned) emotional or physiological response caused by the unconditioned stimulus
- Neutral stimulus presented
- Conditioned stimulus: an event or object that develops an association with the unconditioned stimulus
- Conditioned response: a learned emotional pr physiological response that is similar in appearance to the unconditioned response
Operant conditioning
- Deals with the modification of voluntary behaviour
- Behaviours are maintained by consequences unlike CC
- ‘an observable response changes in frequency or duration as the result of a consequence’
- Consequence = any outcome that occurs after the behaviour and influences future behaviours
- Basic process:
○ Reinforcement = results in behaviour proceeding it being strengthened
§ Can be positive or negative
§ Positive reinforcement = process of increasing the frequency or duration of a behaviour as a result of presenting a reinforcer
§ Negative reinforcement = the process of removing or avoiding a stimulus to increase behaviour
§ Negative reinforcement is not punishment
○ Punishment
○ Extinction
○ Scheduling
relaxation
○ The ability to control or interpret anxiety discriminates high-skilled from low-skilled
○ ‘relaxed concentration’ a feature of peak performance experiences
Relaxation exercises widely used by athletes, often in an unstructured manner (Jones and Hardy, 1990)
○ Muscle to mind § Breathing exercises □ Complete breath □ Sighing with exhalation □ Rhythmic breathing ○ Progressive relaxation exercises § Progressive relaxation § Active PR § Differential PR § Abbreviated PR § Passive PR § Quick body scan
- diaphragmatic breathing
implications: acclimatisation training
- The importance of practicing under anxiety ○ Competition/reward ○ Video cameras ○ Observers ○ Evaluation apprehension - Oudejans and Pijpers, 2009
self-talk
- Internal dialogue with yourself such as giving instructions, reinforcement or interpretation of feelings or perceptions (Hackfort and Schwenkmezger, 1993))
- Can be out loud or in your head
- Can be an asset in enhancing self worth by regulating arousal and anxiety and changing cognitions
- Guld, Eklund and Jackson (1992) Olympic wrestlers fostered positive expectancies and appropriate attention
- Gould, Finch and Jackson (1993) Figure skaters used as most common coping strategy
- Liability when negative as distracts from automatic performance
- Especially destructive when general labels are used e.g. choke and loser (Ellis, 1988)
- Does not ony affect performance but also wellbeing
- Seligman (1991) has described depression as nothing more than a disorder of conscious thought
- More self talk in competition than practice (Hardy, Hall and Hardy, 2004)
identifying self-talk
- Retrospection ○ Reflecting on situations ○ Recreating thoughts and feelings - Imagery ○ Relaxation and reliving past
Prerequisites for gaining confidence
Understand the interaction of thought and performance
Cultivate honest self awareness
Develop an optimistic explanatory style
Embrace a psychology of accidents
Honest self-awareness
- Athletes need to acknowledge what they are saying to themselves
- What are the circumstances when the self talk occurs
- What are the consequences of the self-talk
- ‘am I thinking in a way that will promote success?’
Optimistic explanatory style
Permanence - feelings about where the positive and negative events will repeat themselves
Pervasiveness - generalisations other contexts
Personalisation - extent to which they see themselves as the primary causal agent
Psychology of excellence
- Approach components to enhance patterns of constructive thinking, energy, optimism and enthusiasm:
- Go for your dreams
- Focus on your successes
- Be your own best friend, biggest fan and greatest coach
- Create your own reality
Controlling self talk
thought stoppage changing negative to positive countering reframing identifying irrational and distorted thinking ABC cognitive restructuring
Thought stoppage
- Awareness of unwanted thought and the use of a trigger to interrupt
- Can be self talk/action or both
- Will not work unless thoughts are recognised and there is a motivation to stop
- Requires time to monitor content and frequency
- Athletes will not always admit that negative thoughts are effecting performance
- Can increase thoughts when trying to supress them
- This in itself is a trigger
Negative to positive
Difficult to get rid of negative thoughts with it
Make the last thought self enhancing
countering
Will not achieve the desired behavioural outcomes if athlete still believes in negative thoughts
Build a case against the negative statements
Uses facts and reasons to refute underlying beliefs
Sometimes need a correct or incorrect and so focus should then be on whether they are helpful
reframing
The process of creating alternative frames of reference or views of the world
Helps athletes control internal dialogue in a self enhancing manner
Acknowledges what is happening but uses to the best advantage
More successful teams report they were able to reframe negative events in a positive light
Irrational and distorted thinking
Failure to reach goals because of the acceptance on endorsement of self-defeating and irrational beliefs
ABC cognitive restructuring
- Rational emotive behavioural therapy (Ellis and Dryden, 1987)
- Activating event
- Beliefs or interpretations
- Consequences (emotional and behavioural)
- Dispute
Affirmation statements
Statements that reflect positive attitudes or thoughts about oneself
About what you want phrased as if you already had it
Must be believable and vivid capturing feelings
Can be team slogans
