Self-confidence and sources of confidence
Self-confidence is a highly important quality for an athlete to cultivate and maintain. It can be thought of as an athlete’s belief in their abilities or an individual’s belief in being able to successfully perform a desired behaviour. A desired behaviour in the context of sport and exercise might mean performing a tennis serve, scoring a penalty in soccer, or even recovering from an injury. Self-confidence is a factor all athletes refer to and many describe it as a critical part of their success. Subsequently increasing and sustaining self-confidence is a key focus of mental skills training.
Self-confidence is a fluid concept and sport psychologists refer to it as both a trait and a state. A trait is a relatively unchanging quality, whereas a state varies from situation to situation. Trait self-confidence can be thought of as how certain an athlete is about their ability to succeed in their sport. State self-confidence refers to how confident an athlete is about their ability to succeed at a given moment in time. An athlete could conceivably have a high level of trait self-confidence but experience lower state self-confidence depending on the circumstances. For example, did they make a mistake on the last point? Maybe they are feeling fatigued? State self-confidence can fluctuate before, during and after competition.
Along the same lines as state self-confidence, self-efficacy is an individual’s perception of their ability to perform a given task successfully, and a researcher named Albert Bandura developed an influential theory based on this concept. We can use Bandura’s self-efficacy theory to study how self-confidence affects sport performance. Self-efficacy, or confidence, comes from a range of sources of information and recent research has identified specific sources related to sport. These are outlined below using examples from sport and exercise settings:
Mastery: the development and improvement of skills e.g. kicking penalties in rugby; serving aces in tennis. Successful skill improvement will raise self-efficacy; however, repeated failure will lower self-efficacy.
Demonstration of ability: winning matches, beating opponents demonstrates the ability of the athlete to succeed. Like mastery, repeated success will increase self-efficacy whereas consistently losing will lower it.
Physical and mental preparation: maintaining a focus on goals and preparing to apply maximum effort e.g. an athlete knowing that they have mentally prepared for the event.
Physical self-presentation: an athlete’s satisfaction with their physical appearance.
Social support: receiving encouragement from coaches and teammates.
Coaches leadership: having trust in the coach, and belief in their abilities to lead and make good decisions.
Vicarious experience: observing how the successful performance of other athletes can reduce anxiety and enhance an athlete’s self-efficacy by convincing them that they too can execute a difficult skill.
Environmental comfort: a level of comfort in the competition environment e.g. a specific stadium or arena. The athlete feels comfortable and likes the environment where they will compete.
Situational favorableness: feeling that things are going right, getting breaks from the officials, and events in the game are going in the athlete’s favour.
What experiences do you have that relate to these sources of confidence? Use the Discussion board to share your experiences.
Anxiety
Participating in sport naturally brings with it feelings of excitement and nervousness. Individuals may tense up during competition at critical points or experience sensations like ’butterflies in the stomach‘ days before competing. Although such feelings are natural, they can affect performance in significant ways. Elite athletes may be able to manage such feelings more consistently than amateurs but even the very best have experienced problems with anxiety when it comes to sport. These feelings often originate from perceived pressure and can have devastating effects on performance. For example, at the 2011 Masters golfer Rory McIlroy threw away a four-stroke lead on his final round to finish with the worst final round score in the history of the event. His physical skills could not have diminished so drastically in such a short space of time so it is highly likely it was the mental aspect of his game that was so drastically affected. Managing the effects associated with pressure and nerves is another area where mental skills training can be very beneficial.
The feelings and sensations that are associated with nerves are not always negative. Sometimes those feelings are indicative of being excited and ready to compete. As sport psychologists, we need to make some distinctions to explain these differences.
The intermingling of heightened physiological sensations (e.g. increased heart rate, respiration, and sweating) and psychological activity that accompanies participation in sport is referred to as arousal. This is essentially the intensity aspect of motivation. Individuals experience arousal on a continuum ranging from low to high and it can originate from positive or negative sources. For example, scoring the winning goal in the World Cup Final could be highly arousing, but so could scoring an own goal in the same situation!
Anxiety is a negative emotional state related to arousal in that it has an element of heightened physiological sensation as well as incorporating a thought element, such as worry. Anxiety is fluid in that in can change according to the situation but it is also a part of an individual’s personality. These concepts can be distinguished as state and trait anxiety.
State anxiety is the changeable aspect of anxiety. It may be affected by mood and, in the context of sport, could change from moment to moment. A tennis player could experience a higher level of state anxiety prior to starting a match, possibly characterised by increased heart rate and sweaty palms. That level could decrease as they ease into the first game and score some easy points. It could then heighten again when they are serving for the first set. State anxiety is fluid but can be managed using mental skills training.
Trait anxiety is less changeable than state anxiety. It refers to an individual’s personality and his or her own unique disposition towards different circumstances that could be perceived as threatening. Threatening in this context does not mean physically dangerous but instead important in terms of the sport, such as a last-minute penalty kick in soccer. Trait anxiety varies from person to person, so two different individuals may experience very different levels of arousal in identical circumstances, such as a penalty shootout in soccer. People with higher levels of trait anxiety are likely to experience higher levels of state anxiety in threatening situations.
Have you ever experienced anxiety in sport? How did it affect you? If you feel comfortable doing so, share your experiences.
Motivation
Motivation is critical to success. Without sufficient motivation, athletes may struggle to dedicate themselves to training or overcome challenges. Outside of elite sport, people may need motivation to engage in regular exercise or adhere to a rehabilitation programme. Motivation varies from person to person and a number of factors can influence it, but what is motivation?Motivation can be defined as the direction and intensity of effort. Direction of effort refers to how an individual is attracted towards certain activities and/or situations, for example a child wanting to attend soccer training after school. Intensity of effort refers to the amount of effort an individual applies to a certain situation. Extending the previous example, a child may attend after school soccer training but not actually put in much effort when they are there. In another example, a recreational athlete looking to keep fit might only attend the gym twice a week, but could apply a great deal of effort and intensity to their workouts. As you can see, direction and intensity of effort are often closely related, but it is important to note that this is not always the case.
There are different types of motivation as well. Intrinsic motivation is an internal drive to succeed and do the best you can. It can be likened to ‘playing for the love of the game’. Extrinsic motivation comes from an external source and, in the context of sport, may take the form of rewards such as prize money, medals, and trophies. In recreational settings, it could take different forms such as treating yourself for attending the gym every day for a week.
It is generally believed that intrinsic motivation is of greater long-term benefit when it comes to sport and exercise. In this way, motivation to train or compete becomes almost self-sustaining as it comes from a desire to achieve competency and master a sport. Extrinsic rewards, however, can actually decrease intrinsic motivation. The expectation of receiving a reward for your hard work can diminish your inward desire to participate in an activity, and subsequently the time spent engaging in it. For example, professional athletes may sometimes lose sight of their original desire for playing a sport if they become too preoccupied with external rewards.
Identifying an appropriate source of motivation and maintaining that is, therefore, of critical importance to athletes at all levels. Thus, it is a key area of focus for the sport psychologist. Mental skills training can provide the tools and structure to help an athlete increase or sustain motivation in several ways. For example, goal setting can be used to structure a programme of challenging but realistic goals that demonstrate to an athlete their own increasing competency in a sport. Mental practice can also be useful in providing stimulating training even when physical practice is not possible due to injury. We will discuss how motivation can be facilitated with mental skills training in greater detail over the duration of this course.
What motivates you? Have you ever felt unmotivated in relation to sport?
What is mental practice?
Many athletes at all levels of expertise engage in some form of mental preparation before competing. This may involve visualising a perfectly executed skill (such as a tennis serve) or mentally rehearsing a crucial sequence of events (such as a F1 driver practicing a series of corners in their mind before a race). There are a number of terms associated with this type of activity, including mental rehearsal, visualisation, and imagery, and each of these refers to the recreation of an experience in the mind, a form of mental simulation.
Imagery and action observation are two popular methods of mental simulation in sport psychology. Whilst imagery refers purely to the mental simulation of an action being performed, action observation involves watching a performer execute an action. Both techniques have been shown to be highly effective and we will explore both of these in more detail this week. We will also refer to mental practice this week as a term for the formal performance of either of these types of mental simulation. We will also look at the science behind these forms of mental practice and examine what makes them such effective techniques. We will also investigate ways athletes may use these techniques to improve their own performance. As well athletes using mental practice as a way to rehearse skills prior to competition, they also use it as a method for staying sharp when they are injured or unable physically practice, or as a means of managing feelings of anxiety. Patients with medical conditions that affect movement can also be treated using imagery and action observation.
Have you ever used any form of mental practice? Have you done so deliberately or found yourself using it naturally? Did you find it to be helpful?