Seminar 7 - Mental Toughness Flashcards
According to Jones et al. (2002, p.209), what is mental toughness?
“Having the natural or developed psychological edge that enables you to, generally, cope better than your opponents with the many demands (competition, training, lifestyle) that sport places on a performer and, specifically, be more consistent and better than your opponents in remaining determined, focused, confident, and in control under pressure.”
What are the 12 attributes of mental toughness? (Jones et al.; 2002)
Having an unshakable self-belief in your ability to achieve your competition goals
Having an unshakable self-belief that you possess unique qualities and abilities that make you better than your opponents
Having an insatiable desire and internalised motives to succeed
Bouncing back from performance set-backs as a result of increased determination to succeed
Thriving on the pressure of competition
Accepting that competition anxiety is inevitable and knowing that you can cope with it
Not being adversely affected by others’ good and bad performances
Remaining fully-focused in the face of personal life distractions
Switching a sport focus on and off as required
Remaining fully-focused on the task at hand in the face of competition-specific distractions
Pushing back the boundaries of physical and emotional pain, while still maintaining technique and effort under distress (in training and competition)
Regaining psychological control following unexpected, uncontrollable events (competition-specific)
Developing mental toughness
Bell, J. J., Hardy, L. , & Beattie, S. (2013) repeatedly exposed youth cricketers to punishment-conditioned stimuli in the training environment, and taught them coping strategies. What did they find?
The intervention group demonstrated significant improvements in mental toughness in comparison with the control group
When Mahoney, J. W., Ntoumanis, N., Gucciardi, D. F., Mallett, C. J., & Stebbings, J. (2016) influenced coaches’ autonomy-supportive behaviours,
Athletes did not perceive coaches to be displaying more autonomy-supportive behaviour, psychological needs satisfaction and MT scores did not increase, psychological needs thwarting perceptions did not decrease
Why might that be the case?
- In-line with current behaviours
- Relapse into old practices
- Lack of time (coach-athlete ratio)
- Misinterpretation of workshop content
- Dissonance between workshop content and performance context
According to Weinberg, R., Freysinger, V., & Mellano, K. (2016), how can coaches build mental toughness?
Coaches should be purposeful in their thoughts and actions
In how they think…
- About athlete
- Be challenging BUT be encouraging
- Foster autonomy
- See as individual
About self/staff
- Be multidimensional
- Educate
In what they do…
- Create adversity
- Teach mental skills
What are the current issues in mental toughness?
- Ambiguity regarding existing definitions, theory development, and measurement
- Is it distinct from other constructs?
According to Gucciardi (2017), what is the newer definition of mental toughness?
MT can be defined as a state-like psychological resource that is purposeful, flexible, and efficient in nature for the enactment and maintenance of goal-directed pursuits
What is the 4C model? Gucciardi, D. F. (2017)
Challenge
Commitment
Control
Confidence
- Initial theory on mental toughness based on hardiness theory as the conceptual underpinning of the model.
- 75% of the underlying model is hardiness theory, little information on the rationale for the underlying theoretical model.
- Statistical analyses failed to support the model of mental toughness.
What is the MTQ48?
The MTQ 48 (Clough et al., 2002) has been the most popular measure for many researchers interested in examining mental toughness over the past decade.
What is resilience and how does it differ from mental toughness?
- resilience refers to “the capacity of a dynamic system to adapt successfully to disturbances that threaten its function, viability, or development” (Masten, 2014, p. 10)
- Difference lies in
1) MT is confined to psychological resources of persons, while resilience can be applied across a range of systems;
2) Resilience is underpinned by protective factors that include not just the individual, but community and societal dimensions, while MT is solely concerned with individual resources;
3) resilience is reactive, while MT can be both reactive and proactive
What is grit and how does it differ from mental toughness?
- defined as the disposition to pursue long-term goals with “passion and perseverance” (Duckworth et al., 2007, pp. 1087-1088)
- Two key differences:
1) Grit is dispositional while MT is state-like;
2) Grit is concerned with a singular or superordinate goal, while MT can encompass multiple and potentially conflicting superordinate goals
