HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY IN SPORTS

Sorry this isn't related but it's just that I need to get it out of my system. I HATE BIEBER!! HE IS A SAD BOY WHO SINGS LIKE A GIRL AND BECAUSE OF SOMEONE I HEARD SOME OF HIS SAD SONGS JUST NOW. AND SHE WILL PAY.

Much better.

Well I've decided to look into human psychology in sports, because when playing sport I believe the mind works differently and becomes more competitive. And maybe if there are cheer squads or people encouraging a player, he or she may perform better. If this is the case I'll have to control this in someway.

Wikipedia defines sport pschology as "the study of a person's behavior in sport." It also states that "It is also a specialisation within the brain psychology that seeks to understand psychological/mental factors that affect performance in sports, physical activity, and exercise and apply these to enhance individual and team performance."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport_psychology

The above definition tallies with the definition I found on the site of the Australian Psychological Society: Sport psychology - "Sport psychology is the study of psychological and mental factors that influence, and are influenced by, participation in sport, exercise and physical activity, and the application of this knowledge to everyday settings."

"What is sport psychology?" http://www.psychology.org.au/community/specialist/sport/

There is one last site, and this one goes into a fair bit more detail.

There is a thing known to sport psychologists called the 4C's. These are known as concentration, confidence, control and commitment. These are the four points that are considered by sport psychologists as the main mental qualities that are important for successful performance in sports.

Concentration is the mental quality to focus on the task currently being completed. If an athlete lacks concentration then their athletic skils will not be effectively or efficiently applied to the sport. There are two different types of attention focus. Research has identified these as:

•Broad Narrow continuum - the athlete focuses on a large or small number of stimuli
•Internal External continuum - the athlete focuses on internal stimuli (feelings) or external stimuli (ball)

The demand for concentration varies with the sport:

•Sustained concentration - distance running, cycling, tennis, squash
•Short bursts of concentration - cricket, golf, shooting, athletic field events
•Intense concentration - sprinting events, bobsleigh, skiing

Common distractions are: anxiety, mistakes, fatigue, weather, public announcements, coach, manager, opponent, negative thoughts etc.

I think, for my experiment, the people will need short bursts of attention for trying to shoot a basket.

Confidence results from the comparison an athlete makes between the goal they are trying to achieve and their ability (in this case trying to get the ball into the basket). The athlete will have self-confidence if they believe they can achieve their goal.

When an athlete has self confidence they will tend to persevere even when things are not going very well, show enthusiasm, be positive in their approach and take their share of the responsibility in success and fail.

To improve their self confidence, an athlete can use mental imagery to:

•visualise previous good performance to remind them of the look and feel
•imagine various scenarios and how they will cope with them

I'll have to consider the confidence level of the people participating in the experiment, because those who are likely to feel less confident, especially performing in front of players who may appear better, might not perform as well as they could. Repeats of the experiment can help with keeping results accurate, as well as elminating possible factors that induce lower confidence levels.

Control here means emotional control. Identifying when an athlete feels a particular emotion and understanding the reason for the feelings is an important stage of helping an athlete gain control. An athlete's ability to maintain control of their emotions in the face of the opposition and remain positive is essential to successful performance. Two emotions that are often associated with poor performance are anxiety and anger.

• Anxiety comes in two forms - Physical (butterflies, sweating, nausea, needing the toilet)
• Mental (worry, negative thoughts, confusion, lack of concentration)

When an athlete becomes angry, the cause of the anger often becomes the focus of attention. This then leads to a lack of concentration on the task, performance deteriorates and confidence in ability is lost which fuels the anger.

I don't think the control will get too out of hand, as this isn't actually a proper sport against an opposition.

Commitment to numerous goals over many years greatly affects an athlete's sprts performance. In competition with these goals the athlete will have many aspects of daily life to manage. The many competing interests and commitments include work, studies, family/partner, friends, social life and other hobbies.

Within the athlete's sport, commitment can be undermined by:

•a perceived lack of progress or improvement
•not being sufficiently involved in developing the training program
•not understanding the objectives of the training program
•injury
•lack of enjoyment
•anxiety about performance - competition
•becoming bored
•coach athlete not working as a team
•lack of commitment by other athletes

Setting goals with the athlete will raise their feelings of value, give them joint ownership of the goals and therefore become more committed to achieving them.

Many people (coach, medical support team, manager, friends, etc) can contribute to an athlete's levels of commitment with appropriate levels of support and positive feedback, especially during times of injury, illness and poor performance.

Commitment will not be a big issue here. But I have to make sure that the people are trying as hard as possible and are commited to spending the time carrying out the experiment properly.

The 4C's, Concentration, Confidence, Control, Commitment http://www.brianmac.co.uk/psych.htm

I could actually use some of this information for when I go and play sport. Especially for soccer tomorrow. Handy.