Self-Confidence Flashcards
Defining Self-Confidence
- Self-confidence is the belief that you can successfully perform a desired behavior
- More recent thinking views sport self-confidence as a social cognitive construct that can be more trait-like or more statelike, depending on the temporal frame of reference used.
Trait self-confidence
Is the degree of certainty individuals usually have about their ability to succeed.
State self-confidence
Is the belief of certainty that individuals have at a particular moment about their ability to succeed.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Expecting something to happen actually
helps cause it to happen.
Negative self-fulfilling prophecy
This is a psychological barrier whereby the expectation of failure leads to actual failure.
Vealey and Knight (2002): Confidence about one’s ability to:
◦ execute physical skills, ◦ use psychological skills, ◦ employ perceptual skills (e.g., make good decisions), ◦ be fit and highly trained, and ◦improve one’s skill (learn).
Hays, Maynard, Thomas, and Bawden (2007):
◦ Found additional types of self-confidence in elite athletes, such as belief in their ability to achieve (both winning and improved performance) as well as their belief in their superiority over the opposition.
◦ This underscores the notion of elite athletes having strong beliefs in their abilities and is consistent with the importance of self-belief as seen in the literature on mental toughness.
Robust Self-Confidence Characteristics
- Multidimensional
- Malleable
- Durable
- Developed
- Protective
- Strong set of beliefs
Benefits of SelfConfidence
•Arouses positive emotions •Facilitates concentration •Affects the setting and pursuit of challenging goals •Increases effort •Affects game strategies (play to win versus play to lose) •Affects psychological momentum •Affects performance
Optimal confidence
Involves being so convinced that you will achieve your goals that you strive hard to do so.
Lack of confidence (self-doubt)
Creates anxiety, breaks concentration, and
causes indecisiveness.
Overconfidence (false confidence)
causes you to prepare less than you need to in order to perform.
Skewed Inverted U ConfidencePerformance Relationship
People strive for an individual, optimal confidence level but sometimes become either overconfident or under-confident.
Each person has an optimal level of self-confidence, and performance problems can arise with either too little or too much confidence.
Key Components of the Model
of Sport Confidence
Factors influencing sport confidence: It is hypothesised that organisational culture as well as demographic and personality characteristics influence sport confidence.
Sources of sport confidence: Achievement, self-regulation, and social climate factors.
Constructs of sport confidence: Sport confidence varies on a continuum from more trait-like to more state-like, as opposed to either purely trait or state
selfconfidence.
Consequences of sport confidence: These consequences refer to athletes’ affect (A), behavior (B), and cognitions (C).
Self-expectations and performance:
The expectation of beating a tough opponent or successfully performing a difficult skill can produce exceptional performance as psychological barriers are overcome.
Coaches’ Expectations
and Athletes’ Performance: Stage 1
Coaches form expectations based on
◦ personal cues (e.g., gender, race, body size) and
◦ performance information (e.g., skill tests, practice behaviors).
Problems occur when inaccurate expectations (too high or too low) are formed.
Coaches’ Expectations
and Athletes’ Performance: Stage 2
Coaches’ expectations influence their behaviours regarding the
◦frequency and quality of coach–athlete interactions,
◦ quantity and quality of instruction, and
◦type and frequency of feedback.
Coaches’ Expectations
and Athletes’ Performance: Stage 3
Coaches’ behaviors affect athletes’ performance by
Causing low expectancy performers to perform more poorly because of less reinforcement, less playing time, less confidence, and attributions to low ability.
