Sports Psychology Flashcards
Model of group cohesion
P - Personal
E - Environment
L - Leadership
T - Team
Personal Factors
Relate to the individual characteristics of the group. Each player in the team is an individual and these individual differences can affect group cohesion.
A major personal factor – affecting task and social cohesion, individual motivation and individual differences.
Personal Factors - Motivation
Task motivation – associated with task cohesion and being involved on a successful team e.g. winning premiership.
Affiliation motivation – associated with social cohesion and a desire to be part of a group e.g. enjoy the club/friends
Self motivation – attempts to obtain personal satisfaction through improving personal performance e.g winning fairest + best
Environmental Factors
relate to the social and physical environment of the group.
* review contracts to have clauses about not professional expectations.
*Code of conduct
*Selection process
*Eligibility to represent eg if it is National –where they are from?
*Location
*provide social opportunities for players to learn acceptable social conduct.
*provide opportunities for team members to get to know each other through camp, which is useful in pre-season.
Leadership Factors + examples
The style of leadership and the relationships developed such as – the leaders and coaches’ behaviour.
Strategy examples
*Ensure that the coaching / leadership style is appropriate for all players
*Establish a leadership group within the team
*Distribute roles among team members
*Outline clear expectations to the players with consequences for those that don’t follow the ‘team rules’
Team Factors
Relates to the aim and experiences of the team together, such as creation of short and long-term goals for the team, team identity, desire for group success, member ability and roles, how long the team has been together.
Strategy examples
*Create shared / common team goals that the group want to achieve
*Explain rules for wearing team uniform and dress to-and-from games and training to increase team identity
*Develop social norms / expectations for the team
*Increase team stability so that all players feel valued
*Rewarding of team and individual efforts that contribute towards team success
Why does social loafing occur
*An individual athlete perceives other athletes to be working at a lower intensity which in turn gives them an excuse to put in less effort themselves.
*A belief that their efforts won’t make a difference to the team and little if any effect on the outcome and the desired outcome will still be reached.
*Avoiding hard work and assuming no one will notice in a large group – easier to hide in the pack
*Individuals feeling like their input is not essential to achieving the goal
What is the relationship between social loafing and group cohesion?
*Individual athletes are prone to social loafing if they feel that the team can still perform well without a maximum contribution from them.
*no form of personal evaluation e.g. a rowing crew.
*The individual athlete perceives the team will win even without every player performing at their best and consequently puts in less effort.
*Social loafing has a negative impact on individual and team and team performance.
*Individual effort towards the team performance increases where each player’s input is identifiable and consequently individual and team performance improves
Factors affecting group cohesion
*Personality clashes between team members
*Unclear / conflicting roles among team members
*Frequent changes to the group
*Disagreement on group objectives
*Lack of communication
Power struggle
Strategies to improve Group cohesion
- Create / Develop a team contract
* Written contracts which states group expectations, individual responsibilities, lines of communication within the team, methods of discipline. - Develop rules / code of conduct
* Establish rules of expected behaviour which will help the team achieve goals and objectives. - Create appropriate group sizes
Assigning too many members to an easy task / training drill encourages loafing. - Evaluate all members of a group individually
Members will be more productive if they know that their individual contribution will be evaluated.
How do you measure group cohesiveness in sporting teams
Sociograms
What is a sociogram
The players are asked to describe their interpersonal relationships within the group – who they like, who they don’t like and a sociogram is developed from the responses (similar to leadership sociogram but the focus of the questions changes). The coach can then use this information to try and improve cohesiveness within the team.
Who are the 2 players you like?
Which player do you find it hard to get on with?
self confidence
an individual’s belief that they will be successfully perform a desired activity
concentration
ability to perform a task, focusing on important techniques and cues, while blocking out negative distractions and influences
what is group cohesion
a model of personal, environmental, leadership and team factors that all contribute to group cohesion
how does the practice of mental skills improve physical skills
Strong mental toughness promotes:
- has the ability to focus and concentrate
- Rebound form failure
- Deal with pressure
- Persist against adversity
what are mental skill strategies
Mental skills strategied used pre during and post performance to manage stress motivation and concentrtion, self confidence and arousal levels
- SCAMS
What are mental skills
Mental skills required for improving performance and achieving the ideal performance state “the zone” are as follows
scams
describe physiological skill training (PST)
Programs are tailored to match the performaer but usually have 3 phases
1. Education- discussion and explanation
2. Acquisition phase- learning how to apply mental skills to performance
3. Practice phase- mental skills are practised till autonomous
