Routledge International Handbook of Sport Psychology 9781138022423, 9781315777054

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R O U T L E D G E I N T E R NAT IO NA L HA N D B O O K O F S P O RT P SYC HO L O G Y Contemporary sport psychology is a rapidly developing and theoretically rich discipline, and a sophisticated and challenging profession. The Routledge International Handbook of Sport Psychology offers a comprehensive and authoritative guide to contemporary sport psychology in all its aspects. Written by a team of world-leading researchers and practitioners from five continents, including both established scholars and the best emerging talents, the book traces the contours of the discipline of sport psychology, introducing fundamental theory, discussing key issues in applied practice, and exploring the most important themes, topics and debates across the sport psychology curriculum. Uniquely, the book presents comparative studies of the history and contemporary practice of sport psychology in ten countries, including the US, UK, China, Japan, Brazil, Russia and Israel, helping the reader to understand the cultural and contextual factors that shape international practice in sport psychology. As well as covering in depth the core pillars of sport psychology, from motivation and cognition to group dynamics, the book also includes a full section on cultural sport psychology, a vital but under-explored sub-discipline that is having a profound influence on contemporary theory and practice. With 56 chapters and unparalleled range, depth and currency, the Routledge International Handbook of Sport Psychology is an essential addition to any library with a serious holding in sport psychology. Robert J. Schinke is the Canada Research Chair in Multicultural Sport and Physical Activity and a Professor of Sport Psychology in the School of Human Kinetics at Laurentian University, Canada. As a Canadian Sport Psychology Association registered practitioner, he has extensive experience working with national teams and professional athletes of North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. He has authored more than 100 refereed publications and co-edited 15 textbooks. Kerry R. McGannon is an Associate Professor in Sport and Exercise Psychology, Laurentian University, Canada. Her work ‘bridges’ psychology and cultural studies to understand physical activity participation via interpretive qualitative methodologies to study marginalized self-identities and critical interpretations of sport, exercise and health. She is co-editor of the books The Psychology of Subculture in Sport and Physical Activity and Community Based Research in Sport, Exercise and Health. Brett Smith is Professor of Physical Activity and Health within the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Birmingham, UK. He is Editorin-Chief of the award winning international journal Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, co-author of Qualitative Research Methods in Sport, Exercise & Health and co-editor of the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Qualitative Methods in Sport and Exercise.

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ROUTLEDGE INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF SPORT PSYCHOLOGY

Edited by Robert J. Schinke, Kerry R. McGannon and Brett Smith

First published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 R. Schinke, K. McGannon and B. Smith The right of R. Schinke, K. McGannon & B. Smith to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Routledge international handbook of sport psychology / edited by Robert J. Schinke, Kerry R. McGannon & Brett Smith. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Sports--Psychological aspects--Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Schinke, Robert J. GV706.4.R7 2016 796.01’9--dc23 2015028236 ISBN: 978-1-138-02242-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-77705-4 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by HWA Text and Data Management, London

CONTENTS

List of figures List of tables List of contributors

x xi xii

1 Opening the discussion Robert J. Schinke, Kerry R. McGannon and Brett Smith

1

PART I

International histories and contemporary perspective 2 Russia Tatiana V. Ryba and Natalia B. Stambulova

7 9

3 The United States Craig Wrisberg and Lars Dzikus

20

4 China Gangyan Si, Hin-Yue Li and Baoming Chen

36

5 Japan Shiro Nakagomi and Yuji Yamamoto

47

6 Brazil Franco Noce, Lenamar Fiorese Vieira and Varley Teoldo da Costa

56

7 Canada Natalie Durand-Bush and Kylie McNeill

65

v

Contents

8 Israel Ronnie Lidor

81

9 Spain Jaume Cruz Feliu and Alexandre Garcia-Mas

91

10 The United Kingdom Melissa Day

100

PART II

Athlete adjustment and transitions

109

11 Career transitions Paul Wylleman, Nathalie Rosier and Paul De Knop

111

12 Adaptation, stress and coping in sport Adam R. Nicholls

119

13 Athlete development Jean Côté and Karl Erickson

128

14 Developing moral character through sport: delivering on the promise Nicole D. Bolter and Maureen R. Weiss

138

15 The emergence of acculturation in the sport psychology landscape Robert J. Schinke and Sunghee Park

147

16 Athlete burnout Ken Hodge and Göran Kenttä

157

17 Sport injury Leslie Podlog

167

18 Understanding athlete disordered eating: critical gender comparisons Anthony Papathomas

176

19 Athlete maltreatment Ashley Stirling and Gretchen Kerr

184

20 Spirituality Noora J. Ronkainen and Mark S. Nesti

195

21 Sport-related concussion Anthony P. Kontos and R. J. Elbin

204

vi

Contents

PART III

Cultural sport psychology

217

22 Self-identity: our most beautiful and creative project Kitrina Douglas and David Carless

219

23 Whiteness in sport psychology Ted M. Butryn

228

24 Inclusion to exclusion: sport for LGBT athletes Vikki Krane

238

25 Now you see me, now you don’t: appreciating culture, race, ethnicity and other dimensions of athlete and consultant whole-person identities William D. Parham

248

26 Feminism in sport psychology Leslee A. Fisher and Leslie K. Larsen

260

27 Cultural studies in sport and exercise psychology Emily A. Roper

272

28 Athletes and motherhood Kerry R. McGannon and Rebecca Busanich

286

29 Disability sport: a partial overview and some thoughts about the future Brett Smith, Marie-Josée Perrier and Jeffrey J. Martin

296

30 Hazing in sport Jennifer J. Waldron

304

PART IV

Motivation and emotion

313

31 Self-regulation Nikos Ntoumanis and Jennifer Cumming

315

32 Online mood profiling and self-regulation of affective responses Andrew M. Lane and Peter C. Terry

324

33 Mood measurement and regulation in applied settings Jolly Roy and Garry Kuan

335

34 Goal orientation Dorothee Alfermann

346

vii

Contents

35 Imagery Krista Munroe-Chandler and Craig Hall 36 What is flow? Reconsideration of the state of optimal functioning beyond flow theory Masato Kawabata and Clifford J. Mallett 37 Team resilience Nick Galli

357

369 378

38 Parental support in youth sport: a case of optimizing the motivational climate Chris Harwood

387

PART V

Cognition

399

39 Personality and performance: beyond the Big 5 Ross Roberts and Tim Woodman

401

40 Mental representation and learning Thomas Schack and William Land

412

41 Expertise and mental practice Aidan Moran

421

42 Biofeedback in sport Boris Blumenstein and Ernest Tsung-Min Hung

429

43 Mental toughness: critical reflections and future considerations Daniel F. Gucciardi and Sheldon Hanton

439

44 Self-talk in sport: where are we now? James Hardy and Nikos Zourbanos

449

PART VI

Group dynamics

461

45 Team coordination David W. Eccles

463

46 Relational coaching in sport: its psychological underpinnings and practical effectiveness Sophia Jowett and Vaithehy Shanmugam

viii

471

Contents

47 Coach and athlete leadership in sport Todd M. Loughead and Gordon A. Bloom

485

48 Motivation gains in sport and exercise groups Brandon C. Irwin and Deborah L. Feltz

494

49 Social support in sport psychology Tim Rees

505

PART VII

Forecasts to the future

517

50 Athletes’ transitions in sport and life: positioning new research trends within the existing system of athlete career knowledge Natalia Stambulova

519

51 A broad perspective onto future practices of applied sport psychology Carole A. Oglesby

536

52 Team resiliency in sport: research to practice David Yukelson and Robert Weinberg

547

53 Overt–covert behaviors’ linkage: forecasting the future of sport psychology science Gershon Tenenbaum and Edson Filho

559

54 Forecasts to the future: group dynamics Mark A. Eys and Kevin S. Spink

572

55 Interdisciplinary connoisseurship in sport psychology research Andrew C. Sparkes and Brett Smith

581

Conclusion

589

56 Closing the loop Kerry R. McGannon, Brett Smith and Robert J. Schinke

591

Index

596

ix

F IG U R E S

5.1 7.1 11.1 13.1 19.1 31.1 32.1 32.2 32.3 32.4 33.1 33.2 33.3 35.1 38.1 40.1 40.2 40.3 43.1 46.1 46.2 50.1 53.1

Relationship between four of the major types of psychology physical education and sport Landscape of Canadian universities offering graduate programs in which one can specialize in sport psychology A developmental perspective on transitions faced by athletes The Personal Assets Framework for Sport Forms of maltreatment in sport Zimmerman’s (1986) model of self-regulated learning Landing page of the In The Mood website, with various context options Example mood profile and overall review Six distinct mood profiles identified via cluster analysis In The Mood strategies to regulate feelings of high anger and low vigor Mood cards with code Example of individual mood profile using mood cards Clay button method and assessment in applied context Applied model of imagery use Keegan et al.’s (2014) Meteorological Model of Motivational Atmosphere Mean group dendrograms of the practice group and the control group for the golf putt at pre-test Mean group dendrogram of practice group and control group following training Levels of action architecture and related training methods for mental and technical preparation A conceptual heuristic to organize key variables for the theoretical development of mental toughness Ingredients of effective and successful coaching Antecedents and consequences of the quality of the coach–athlete relationship Sketch positioning new research trends within existing system of athlete career knowledge Forecast for sport psychology based on information processing theory x

50 66 112 135 187 318 327 327 329 330 338 340 342 359 394 417 417 418 443 472 473 530 567

TA B L E S

5.1 6.1 7.1 10.1 19.1 31.1 32.1 32.2 32.3 33.1 34.1 35.1 35.2 40.1 46.1 51.1 51.2

Symposium themes of every annual meeting of the JSSP Historical milestones of sports psychology in Brazil Scholars in Canada with a PhD degree who have made a research contribution to sport psychology A comparison of two texts by UK authors Examples of abuse in sport Self-regulation phases and associated subprocesses Selected distinctions between emotions and moods “In the Mood” reports based on stereotypical mood profiles Prospective “press report” for an international field hockey player Selection of mood cards / percentage of athletes Summary of correlations between goal orientation (task, ego) and relevant variables The PETTLEP model of imagery Recommendations for imagery use Levels of motor action Ways to create a relational coaching environment Basic, brief definitions Situational analysis worksheet: sexual variance culture matrix

xi

51 58 67 104 188 318 325 328 331 339 350 360 365 413 481 543 544

C O N T R I BU T O R S

Dorothee Alfermann holds a doctorate in psychology from the University of Bonn. She was a Full Professor of Sport and Exercise Psychology at the University of Leipzig from 2009 to 2013 and was President of the German Society of Sport Science from 2004 to 2011. She served as Co-editor-in-chief of Psychology of Sport and Exercise from 2001 to 2005 and was Vice-President of the International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP). Her research interests are: career development and career termination of elite athletes; career development of young physicians with special emphasis on gender aspects; cross-cultural comparisons between Asian and German athletes in self-concept and motivation; effects of sport and exercise on cognitions and on mental health. Gordon A. Bloom is the director of the Sport Psychology Research Laboratory in the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education at McGill University. He gained his PhD in Sport Psychology from the University of Ottawa and has been working in the field for 20 years. He has developed an internationally-recognized coaching research programme that deals with aspects of knowledge, leadership and mentoring that are employed by coaches to help create a positive environment for excellence and participation in sport. Boris Blumenstein is an Associate Professor at the Givat Washington Academic College and the Director of the Department of Behavioral Sciences at the Ribstein Centre for Sport Medicine Sciences and Research, Wingate Institute, Netanya, Israel. He is author and co-author of over 100 refereed journal articles and book chapters, mainly in the area of sport psychology. He has published six books, given more than 80 scientific presentations at international and national conferences and workshops, and served as a sport psychology consultant for four Olympic Games. He is the past-President of the Israeli Society for Sport Psychology. Nicole D. Bolter is an Assistant Professor of Kinesiology at Boise State University. She obtained a PhD in Kinesiology from the University of Minnesota where she specialized in sport and exercise psychology. Nicole’s research focuses on understanding how participation in sport and physical activity can be a growth experience for children and adolescents. Drawing from the positive youth development framework, she has conducted recent studies xii

List of contributors

on effective coaching behaviours, character development, and evaluation of a physicalactivity based youth development programme, and published her work in journals such as Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology and Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport. Rebecca Busanich is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health and Human Performance and the Associate Director of the Center for Active Living and Healthy Communities at Plymouth State University (Plymouth, NH, USA). Busanich is a cultural sport and exercise psychology researcher who draws upon constructionist and critical feminist theories and qualitative methodologies (i.e., narrative inquiry, discourse analysis) to explore physical activity and eating behaviour, along with the body, food, and exercise relationship, in underrepresented populations. Ted M. Butryn completed his PhD in sport psychology and cultural studies at the University of Tennessee. Since arriving at SJSU in 2000, he has taught a variety of postgraduate courses (sport sociology, sport psychology, qualitative research methods), undergraduate courses (psychology of coaching, sport sociology), and general education (diversity, stress, and health, stress management) programmes. Within sport psychology, his main areas of research include coping in mixed martial arts, qualitative methodologies, and white racism and privilege in sport. He has published over 30 refereed journal articles and book chapters, and given over 50 national and international presentations. Along with SJSU colleague, Dr Matthew Masucci, he co-directs the department’s Qualitative Research Lab. David Carless is a Professor in Narrative Psychology at the Institute of Sport, Physical Activity and Leisure at Leeds Beckett University. His research – which draws on psychology, sociology, and the performing arts – uses storied forms of communication to understand and represent human experience. Through a variety of narrative, performative, and artsbased methods, his work explores how identity and mental health are developed, threatened or recovered in sport and physical activity contexts. His work has been disseminated internationally through keynote lectures, live performances, books and invited book chapters, and has been published in a number of interdisciplinary journals. Baoming Chen earned his Master degree in sport psychology from Wuhan Sport University, China. He has research interests in mental toughness, mindfulness, and mental skills. He has systematically worked with national level athletes in diving and golf, helping athletes prepare for important domestic and international competitions during 2011–2014. Currently, he is a sport psychology consultant at the Sino Sport Science and Training Institute. Jean Côté is a Professor and Director of the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queen’s University at Kingston (Canada). His research interests are in the areas of youth sport, coaching, sport expertise, and positive youth development. He is regularly invited to present his work to both sport governing organizations and academic conferences throughout the world. In 2009, he was the recipient of the fourth E. W. Barker Professorship in the Physical Education and Sport Science department at the National Institute of Education in Singapore. He received the Queen’s University Award for Excellence in Graduate Supervision in 2013. Jennifer Cumming is a Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology at the University of Birmingham (UK). As a competitive ice skater, she was first exposed to sport psychology training and developed an appreciation for the mental side of her sport. She received her xiii

List of contributors

PhD from the University of Western Ontario (Canada) in 2002, and now has over 70 peerreviewed publications in mental skills training and self-regulation in sport, exercise, and dance. She currently leads an extensively funded project evaluating the benefits of mental skills training for developing aspirations, resilience, and confidence in disadvantaged young people. Varley Teoldo da Costa is an Assistant Professor of Physical Education, Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy School at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), currently teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in sport psychology and soccer. He is a coordinator of Sport Psychology Laboratory at UFMG. He holds a PhD in sports sciences and sport psychology from UFMG, and a Master’s in sports sciences and sport psychology from UFMG. He initially graduated on physical education at UFMG. He is currently a member of the board of the Iberoamerican Society of Sport Psychology (SIPD), the South American Society of Sport Psychology (SOSUPE), and the Brazilian Association of Studies in Sport Psychology and Exercise (ABEPEEx). His research interests are sport psychology and soccer. Melissa Day is a Reader in Qualitative Sport Psychology at the University of Chichester, where she also co-ordinates the undergraduate BSc in sport and exercise psychology. Her research publications focus on the psychology of injury, trauma, and disability, alongside the application of qualitative methods. She has co-authored two books and is on the editorial board for the journal Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health. She is an accredited sport scientist (British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences) and a registered practitioner psychologist (Health and Care Professions Council). Paul De Knop, who holds a Master’s in sport sociology and sport management from the University of Leicester (UK), is a Professor in the Faculty of Physical Education of the Vrije Universiteit Brussels where teaches sport, leisure, and physical education from a sociopedagogical perspective. His research interests include youth and sport, sport and ethnic minorities, sport and tourism, sport management, quality in sport, and sport policy. His research relates to, amongst others, benchmarks of top-level sport success, elite studentathletes, competencies of sport managers, sport policy strategic plans, ethics, and qualitative aspects of youth sport. Kitrina Douglas played professional sport for 20 years. Hence, it is perhaps unsurprising that she has an ongoing research interest in many of the problematic areas associated with performing at the top level in sport. These include taboo issues, identity foreclosure, and mental health problems. Alongside her research in elite and professional sport Kitrina has used narrative approaches to explore physical activity, identity development, and mental health in a number of other populations including women over the age of 60, residents of inner-city council estates, walking groups, cardiac patients, dance groups, and more recently on the multi-activity Battle Back course with injured, sick, and wounded soldiers. Organizations for which she has conducted research and evaluation include the Department of Health, Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation, UK Sport, the Addiction Recovery Agency, the Royal British legion, the YHA, local authorities, and NHS trusts. Alongside her narrative and life history research Kitrina is among a small number of academics pioneering autoethnography, poetic, storytelling, songwriting, and performance methodologies as a way to explore how knowledge is created as well as a means of communicating this knowledge xiv

List of contributors

more effectively and to non-academic audiences. She is a founder member of the first Network for Performative Research in Sport and Exercise at the University of Hull and Liverpool John Moores University. Natalie Durand-Bush is an Associate Professor at the School of Human Kinetics at the University of Ottawa and an Adjunct Professor in the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences. Through her research, she aims to understand the self-regulatory processes and skills underlying the development of optimal performance and well-being in different contexts including sport, medicine, the performing arts, and academia. She also investigates selfregulation interventions designed to help individuals achieve performance excellence and cope with stress and burnout. She was Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies at the School of Human Kinetics from 2011–2014. She was also the Chair of the Canadian Sport Psychology Association and the Vice-President of the International Society of Sport Psychology from 2005–2009. Lars Dzikus is an Associate Professor of Sport Studies at the University of Tennessee with publications on a variety of themes pertaining to the cultural studies of sport, including globalization (e.g., the spread of American football to Europe), sport and religion (e.g., collegiate sport chaplains), and violence in sport (e.g., sexual abuse in youth sport). David W. Eccles is Professor of Sport at Durham University. His research concerns skill acquisition in individuals and teams in real-world domains, ranging from sport to medicine. David received his PhD in sport psychology from Bangor University in 2001, undertook post-doctorate training at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition from 2002 to 2003, and was Assistant and later Associate Professor of Psychology at Florida State University from 2003 to 2012. R. J. Elbin is an Assistant Professor at the University of Arkansas (UofA) and is Director of the UofA Office for Sport Concussion Research. He received his BA and MA degrees from the University of New Orleans and gained his doctorate in kinesiology at Michigan State University. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the UPMC Sports Medicine Concussion Program at the University of Pittsburgh. His research focuses on documenting factors that influence risk and recovery of concussion. He has more than 60 professional publications and 80 presentations in this area of study. Karl Erickson is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports, in the Department of Kinesiology at Michigan State University. In the broadest sense, his research interests explore the facilitation of positive youth development via participation in sport and physical-activity settings. His research focuses on athlete development and coaching in youth sport, and is primarily concerned with understanding youth sport as a context for personal development. Prior to joining MSU, Karl completed his undergraduate and graduate work at Queen’s University (Canada) and a postdoctoral fellowship at Tufts University (USA). Mark A. Eys is a Professor in the Departments of Kinesiology/Physical Education and Psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University, and a Canada Research Chair in Group Dynamics and Physical Activity. His current research interests include role acceptance in sport groups, the measurement and correlates of cohesion, and social influences in exercise. He has published his research in leading sport and exercise psychology journals and as a co-author of xv

List of contributors

the book Group Dynamics in Sport (2012; 4th edition). In 2001, he was awarded the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) Coach of the Year for his work with Western University’s women’s soccer programme. Jaume Cruz Feliu is Professor of Sport Psychology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Director of the Sport Psychology Interuniversity Master. He is Director of the Revista de Psicología del Deporte, since its founding in 1992. He has published more than 60 research articles. His main research interests are in the area of youth sport: motivation in sport, reasons for drop-out, fair play, and especially cognitive-behavioural interventions with coaches of young players, such as the Personalized Program for Counselling Coaches (PAPE). He has received the Ema Gueron Award from FEPSAC, in 2011, and the Distinguished International Scholar Award from AASP, in 2013. Deborah L. Feltz is University Distinguished Professor of Kinesiology at Michigan State University. She gained her PhD in kinesiology from Pennsylvania State University under the direction of Daniel M. Landers. She has devoted more than 34 years to researching the relationship between efficacy beliefs and physical activity, has written over 250 publications, and the book, Self-Efficacy and Sport. Her most recent scholarship has focused on group motivation gains in partnered exercise video games, which was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, and National Institutes of Health. She is a Fellow in the American Psychological Association and National Academy of Kinesiology. She has received numerous awards for her research, including the 2015 Distinguished Scholar Award from the North American Society for the Study of Sport and Physical Activity. Edson Filho is a Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology at the University of Central Lancashire. His research agenda revolves around peak performance experiences, team processes and social neuroscience in sports. He has published over 30 articles and book chapters on topics related to performance, sport and exercise psychology. He has also worked as a performance enhancement specialist for athletes and performing artists. He is a Certified Consultant of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology and a member of the Sport Psychology registry of the United States Olympic Committee. Leslee A. Fisher is an Associate Professor of Sport Psychology at the University of Tennessee. She holds a doctorate in sport psychology and two Master’s degrees (counsellor education and adult fitness). Her research focuses on cultural sport psychology. She has published over 60 academic and applied manuscripts in journals such as The Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, The Sport Psychologist, International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, International Journal of Sport Psychology, Women in Sport and Physical Activity, and Athletic Insight. She is also an Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP) Fellow, Certified Consultant, and former Secretary/Treasurer. Nick Galli is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Promotion and Education at the University of Utah, where he teaches courses on personal resiliency, stress management, eating disorders and body image, and behaviour change theories. He maintains two lines of research: (1) resilience and stress-related growth in athletes, and (2) body image and disordered eating in athletes, and has published his work in journals such as The Sport Psychologist and Psychology of Men and Masculinity. He is a certified consultant of the Association xvi

List of contributors

for Applied Sport Psychology, and in this capacity works with athletes on developing mental skills for enhanced performance. Alexandre Garcia-Mas is the Course Director of a postgraduate degree in sport psychology at Universidad Central (Santiago, Chile); the Secretary General of the International Society of Sport Psychology, and the Editor-in-Chief of the Revista de Psicología del Deporte. He is a Full Professor of Psychology, specializing in sport psychology, at the University of the Balearic Islands. His current research is focused on Bayesian analysis of cooperation and cohesion in sports teams; sleep and dream activity; coping strategies and well-being in young athletes. He is a long established applied psychologist in soccer (Spanish First Division) and sailing. Daniel F. Gucciardi is currently a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Physiotherapy and Exercise Science, Curtin University. His research interests are in applied psychology with a particular focus on personal and contextual factors related to high performance, health behaviours and well-being in contexts such as sport, education, and the workplace. Within this broad spectrum of research, he is currently involved in several projects that span topics such as doping in sport, mental toughness, life skills development, workplace well-being, and motivational factors in health behaviours (e.g., knee pain, cardiac rehabilitation) and teaching and learning contexts. You can follow his Twitter account (@DanielGucciardi) for news and information related to his research and areas of interest. Craig Hall is a Professor in the School of Kinesiology at Western University, Canada. His research primarily focuses on imagery use in sport, exercise, and athletic injury rehabilitation. He has also investigated other topics, including self-efficacy, self-talk, motivation, and observational learning. He is a co-author of Psychological Intervention in Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation. Family and squash take up most of his non-academic time. Sheldon Hanton is a Professor of Sport Psychology at Cardiff Metropolitan University where he is the Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research. He is the Editor-in-Chief of The Sport Psychologist and sits on the advisory board for The Journal of Sports Sciences and the editorial board for The Journal of Imagery Research in Sport and Physical Activity. Professor Hanton lists his interests as competition stress and anxiety, mental toughness, organizational psychology, sports injury, and reflective practice. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed journal articles, edited texts, book chapters, and refereed conference papers. He is a chartered psychologist with the British Psychological Society and registered with the Health and Care Professions Council. James Hardy is a Senior Lecturer at the Institute for the Psychology of Elite Performance at Bangor University, Wales. He carried out his graduate training at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, before returning to his native North Wales. His main research interests include psychological skills and group dynamics. He is an Associate Editor for The Journal of Applied Sport Psychology and an editorial board member of the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology. Chris Harwood is a Reader in Applied Sport Psychology at Loughborough University. He is a registered and chartered sport and exercise psychologist, and a BASES high performance sport-accredited sport and exercise scientist. His research interests focus on the psychosocial aspects of youth sport with a particular focus on the psychology of parenting and coaching. A former Vice-President of FEPSAC, he is currently the Chair xvii

List of contributors

of the Psychology Division for BASES and serves on several journal editorial boards. As a practitioner of sport psychology, he has worked extensively with the Lawn Tennis Association, the Football Association, and several professional football clubs. He holds fellowships of both AASP and BASES for his contributions to applied sport psychology and sport science. Ken Hodge is a Professor of Sport and Exercise Psychology at the School of Physical Education, Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Otago, New Zealand. His research focuses primarily on the psychosocial effects of participation in sport. In particular, he has investigated issues such as life skill development through sport, prosocial and antisocial behaviour in sport, self-determined motivation in sport, athlete engagement, and athlete burnout. He is a former Associate Editor of The Journal of Applied Sport Psychology and currently serves on the editorial boards for The Sport Psychologist, Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, Sport, Exercise and Performance Psychology, and Psychology of Sport and Exercise. In addition, he has worked in a number of sports as a Mental Skills Trainer. For example, he has worked for the NZ Academy of Sport, the NZ Rugby Union, and Netball NZ; as well as the NZ Olympic Committee providing Mental Skills Training for a number of different teams and individuals. Ernest Tsung-Min Hung is a Distinguished Professor at the Department of Physical Education, National Taiwan Normal University. His research interests are mainly in the area of sport and exercise cognitive neuroscience. He has published over 100 refereed papers in international and national journals. He has served as a sport psychology consultant in several Olympic and Asian Games. In addition, he has provided more than 400 lectures and workshops for coaches internationally and domestically; he is the treasurer for ISSP and the past-president of the Society for Sport and Exercise Psychology of Taiwan. Brandon C. Irwin is an Assistant Professor of Kinesiology in the Department of Kinesiology and the College of Human Ecology at Kansas State University. He obtained his PhD in Kinesiology from Michigan State University in 2012 where he studied motivation in exercise groups. His research now more broadly examines the interpersonal aspects of physical activity and the identification of evidence-based practices for impacting interpersonal processes for the promotion of physical activity across the lifespan. Sophia Jowett is a Reader in Psychology at Loughborough University. Central to her research work is understanding the role and significance of the coach–athlete relationship in competitive sport. She has published over 100 articles, chapters, and books. She is the developer of 3+1Cs theoretical model of two-person relationships and co-creator of the COMPASS system. Sophia has also developed an evidence-based relationship and communication tool, known as Tandem, for coaches, athletes, and practitioners to analyse, reflect, inform, and support the development of better sporting partnerships. She is a chartered psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. Göran Kenttä gained his doctorate in psychology at Stockholm University in 2001. He has a passion for building bridges between the domains of sport psychology research, education and applied work in elite sports. The majority of his research and publications has focused on elite-level athletes and the training process with a stress-recovery perspective. Over the years Göran has been involved with both the Swedish Olympic Committees and the Swedish xviii

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National Sport Federation (NGB), and several Olympic sports, in order to develop strategies for sport psychological support for the elite athletes and coaches. Göran currently holds a research position at the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences in Stockholm, and has been a director of the Coach Education Programme at the university; he is also the pastpresident of the Swedish Sport Psychological Association. In addition he currently holds a position at the Swedish Sport Federation as Head of Discipline in Sport Psychology. Gretchen Kerr is a Full Professor and Vice-dean in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Toronto. She has published and presented internationally in the areas of athlete welfare and the psychosocial health and participation of young people in sport. She serves as the Harassment Officer for Gymnastics Ontario and Gymnastics Canada and chairs the Ethics Committee for Gymnastics Ontario. She also serves on the editorial board of the Canadian Journal for Women in Coaching. The Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women in Sport and Physical Activity recently named her as one of the most influential women of the year, celebrating the impact she has had on advancing sport and physical activity for women and girls. Anthony P. Kontos is the Research Director for the UPMC Sports Medicine Concussion Programme and an Associate Professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh. His PhD and MS in kinesiology/sport psychology and MA/Internships in counselling psychology are from Michigan State University. His BA in psychology is from Adrian College. He has 108 professional publications and has made 172 presentations, and has received funding from the Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, US Special Operations Command, NFL-GE Head Health Challenge and NFL Charities. His research focuses on neurocognitive, neuromotor, and psychological effects of concussion. Masato Kawabata is an Assistant Professor of Exercise and Sport Psychology at the Department of Physical Education and Sports Science at Nanyang Technological University, and an Honorary Fellow in the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences at the University of Queensland where he completed his PhD. Masato has been interested in how physical activity affects physical and psychological well-being and human development. He is also interested in examining the effect of exercise or sport on cognitive functioning. His research outputs on motivational studies have been published in respectable international journals. He serves on the editorial board of The Sport Psychologist. Vikki Krane is a Professor of Teaching Excellence at the School of Human Movement, Sport, and Leisure Studies at Bowling Green State University. She also is an affiliated faculty member with the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality and American Culture Studies programmes. Her research focuses on gender, sexuality, and sport. She has been the Editor of The Sport Psychologist and the Women in Sport and Physical Activity Journal. She is a fellow of the National Academy of Kinesiology and the Association of Applied Sport Psychology. Garry Kuan is a Lecturer in the Sports Science Unit, School of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia. Currently, he is serving as the Treasurer of the Asian-South Pacific Association of Sport Psychology, a future leader of Asian Council of Exercise and Sport Science, and a certified music therapist. Previously, he taught sport psychology at Victoria University (three years), and worked as a sports psychologist (two years) with the Australia Institute of Sport (AIS). He received the A-CIPA Young Research Award at the twenty-seventh International xix

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Congress of Applied Psychology (2014), International Scholars Award at the ICSEMIS preOlympic conference (2012), and the Atsushi Fujita Research Student Scholarship (2011) at the sixth ASPASP conference. William Land received his Masters and PhD in Sport Psychology from Florida State University. Previously, he was on faculty at the University of Bielefeld, in Germany. Presently, he is a faculty member in the Department of Kinesiology, Health and Nutrition at the University of Texas at San Antonio, in the United States. His primary area of research is on choking under pressure, attentional focus, and anticipatory motor control. Additionally, he remains active in consulting and advising athletes concerning performance enhancement techniques. Andrew M. Lane is a Professor of Sport Psychology at the University of Wolverhampton. He is a fellow of the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES), and Chartered Sport and Exercise Scientist. He is Health Professional Council registered and a British Psychological Society chartered psychologist. He began lecturing at Brunel University before moving to the University of Wolverhampton in 2000. He has authored more than 200 peer refereed journal articles, edited three books, and is a regular contributor to the print, radio, and TV media. He has led high-profile research projects such as ‘Can you compete under pressure?’, a BBC Lab UK-led project fronted by former Olympian Michael Johnson. His applied work has involved a number of clients, including ranging from recreational to world championship level. He is a member of the UKactive Research Institute’s Scientific Advisory Board and has provided consultancy at the Centre for Health and Human Performance at 76 Harley Street, London. Leslie K. Larsen is a doctoral student and Graduate Teaching Associate in the Sport Psychology and Motor Behavior programme at the University of Tennessee. She holds a Master’s degree in Kinesiology with an emphasis in sport psychology from Georgia Southern University. She is also a former NCAA Division I assistant women’s basketball coach. Her research is grounded in cultural sport psychology with a focus on coaching. In addition, she is currently serving on the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP) Diversity Committee. Hin-Yue Li received his DPsy from Victoria University, Australia. He is a registered psychologist in Hong Kong and Australia. He is also a licensed sport psychology consultant in China. He is currently serving as a Senior Sport Psychology officer at Hong Kong Sports Institute and is President of the Hong Kong Society of Sport and Exercise Psychology. He has been providing applied sport psychology services to elite athletes from various sports and age groups. He has delivered on-field support to the Asian Games, World Championships, and Asian Championships. His research interests include mindfulness, cross-cultural psychology, and professional development. Ronnie Lidor is a Professor of Motor Behavior and is the Director of the Zinman College of Physical Education and Sport Sciences at the Wingate Institute (Israel). His main areas of research are cognitive and learning strategies, talent detection and early development in sport, and sport development. He has published over 100 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals, in addition to book chapters and proceedings chapters in English and Hebrew. A former basketball coach, he has provided psychological consultation to young and adult elite basketball players. He focuses mainly on attentional techniques used before the execution of free-throw shots. xx

List of contributors

Todd M. Loughead is a Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Windsor. His general research area pertains to group dynamics in sport and he investigates issues related to athlete leadership, cohesion, and team building. He publishes in preeminent sport and exercise psychology peer-reviewed journals, contributes to numerous edited texts, and presents his research findings to international, national, regional, and local audiences. He is a certified practitioner with the Canadian Sport Psychology Association and has extensive experience consulting with both able-bodied and athletes with a disability who compete at the national, intercollegiate, and professional levels. Clifford J. Mallett is an Associate Professor of Sport Psychology and Coaching, and Director of the Australian Centre for Sport, Physical and Health Education Research at the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences at the University of Queensland. He is Associate Editor for The International Sports Coaching Journal and previously The International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, and serves on the editorial board for The International Journal of Sport Science and Coaching. He is Co-chair (Research) for the International Council for Coaching Excellence (ICCE). He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters on sport and coach motivation, motivational climate, mental toughness, coach learning and development. Jeffrey J. Martin is a Full Professor at Wayne State University in Detroit Michigan. He has over 160 publications with a major focus on the psychosocial aspects of disability sport and exercise. He has also examined the psychological aspects of running, body image, and physical activity in underserved minority children. He is the Founding Editor of Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology, the official journal of Division 47 of the APA, and serves on four other editorial boards. As a Canadian citizen, he represented Canada at the 1985 and 1987 World Cup Marathons and is the proud father of Shay and Drew. Kerry R. McGannon is an Associate Professor in Sport and Exercise Psychology at Laurentian University, Ontario, Canada. Her work ‘bridges’ psychology and cultural studies to understand physical activity participation via interpretive qualitative methodologies to study marginalized self-identities and critical interpretations of sport, exercise, and health. Her scholarship includes empirical and theoretically-driven contributions in over 68 national and international presentations and over 65 publications in refereed journals and scholarly books. She is co-editor of the books The Psychology of Subculture in Sport and Physical Activity: Critical Perspectives and Community Based Research in Sport, Exercise and Health. She is Associate Editor of The Journal of Applied Sport Psychology and serves on three journal editorial boards: Psychology of Sport and Exercise, Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, and Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health. Kylie McNeill is a doctoral candidate in the School of Human Kinetics at the University of Ottawa. Her doctoral research, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities, focuses on coaches’ well-being and ill-being (i.e., stress and burnout), and the role of self-regulation in these outcomes. Aidan Moran is a Professor of Cognitive Psychology and Director of the Psychology Research Laboratory at University College Dublin, Ireland. A Fulbright Scholar, his research investigates mental/motor imagery, attention (eye-tracking), and the cognitive processes xxi

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underlying expertise in skilled performance. He has published extensively on these topics in high-impact international journals in psychology, neuroscience, medicine, and sport science. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology. His most recent book (co-authored with John Kremer) is Pure Sport: Practical Sport Psychology (2nd ed., Kremer and Moran, 2013). A former psychologist to the Irish Olympic Squad, he has advised many of Ireland’s leading professional athletes and teams. Krista Munroe-Chandler is a Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Windsor, Canada. Her research interests include imagery use in sport, exercise, and active play as well as youth sport development. She works with able-bodied athletes as well as athletes with a disability of all ages, levels, and sports, helping them achieve their personal performance goals. Shiro Nakagomi is a Professor in the Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Japan and the chairman of Japanese Society of Sport Psychology. He is a qualified clinical psychologist, sport counsellor, and mental training consultant in sport. He is also a visiting researcher at the Japan Institute of Sport Science Center, as well as the head of the Sport Psychology Section at the University of Tsukuba‘s Sports Clinic. His research interests are the relationship between body and mind, and personality development in athletes. He has published numerous articles and books based on his experience in providing psychological support for athletes. Mark S. Nesti is a specialist in applied sport psychology, especially in relation to professional sport including football. He has written on existential phenomenological psychology, counselling, identity, anxiety, spirituality, and peak performance in sport. He leads the MSc sport psychology programme at Liverpool John Moores University. He has worked in English Premier League football with players and staff at Everton, Chelsea, and a number of other clubs, and was formerly first team counselling sport psychologist at Bolton Wanderers 2003–2007, Newcastle United 2007–2008, and Hull City 2008–2009. The work involved helping players develop their psychological skills and qualities, and acting as an organizational psychologist to support the coaching and sports science staff. He was based at these clubs four to five days each week. His most recent books, published by Routledge, focus on applied psychology and Premiership football (2010), sport, ethics, and spirituality (2011), and elite European football academies (2014). Mark was Executive Director of the Centre for the study of Sport and Spirituality at York St John University, and is Research Leader at the John Paul II foundation for sport. A British Psychological Society chartered psychologist and Reader in Sport Psychology in the school of sport and exercise sciences at Liverpool John Moores University, he has been a BASES-accredited sport psychologist since 1990 and has worked with a range of sports at different levels of performance, from club to Olympic standard. Adam R. Nicholls is a Reader in Sports Coaching and Psychology, within the Department of Sport, Health, and Exercise Science, at the University of Hull. He has published over 50 articles in peer-reviewed journals on topics such as stress, emotions, appraisals, and coping, in addition to authoring two books and one edited book. His work has been funded by organizations such as the World Anti Doping Agency, the International Tennis Federation, and the Medical Research Council. He is a Health and Care Professions Council Registered Sport and Exercise Psychologist and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. xxii

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Franco Noce holds a first degree in Physical Education and a Master’s in Sport Science from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), and a PhD in Psychobiology at the Federal University of São Paulo. He is a Professor in Sport Sciences Postgraduate Programme at UFMG and was a Member of Managing Council of ISSP from 2013 to 2017. He has worked with high-level teams in several sports and prepared the Saudi Arabia Soccer Team during the 2008 World Cup in Germany. He was a member of the Brazilian Paralympic Committee for the Athens (2004) and the Beijing Paralympic Games (2008) and the Sada/Cruzeiro national volleyball league (2009–2010). Nikos Ntoumanis is a Research Professor of Psychology at Curtin University, in Perth, Australia. He obtained his PhD in Medical Sciences at the University of Exeter (UK) in 1999. His research examines personal and contextual factors that optimize motivation and promote performance, psychological well-being, and health-conducive behaviours in various physical activity settings. He is a Fellow of the UK’s Academy of Social Sciences and co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Psychology of Sport and Exercise. His research has received funding from research councils in the UK and Australia and has been published in various psychology (e.g., Perspectives on Psychological Science) and sports science (e.g., Sports Medicine) journals. Carole A. Oglesby has been a professor for more than 40 years. She gained a PhD in Kinesiology at Purdue University in 1969 and a PhD in Counselling at Temple University in 1999. She was a Department Chair at California State University, Northridge 2003–2009. Her scholarly career has been devoted to growth and development in two areas: women’s/ gender studies in sport and sport psychology. She was principal author/contributor for a UN-Division for the Advancement of Women monograph entitled Women, Gender Equality and Sport. She has published over 50 chapters, articles, essays, four books or monographs and is now co-editing a special issue of Sex Roles: Journal of Research focused on women and sport. Anthony Papathomas is a member of the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University in the UK. His work addresses clinical psychological issues across a variety of sport and exercise contexts. He has studied athlete eating disorders for a decade and has published research on this topic in a variety of international peer-reviewed journals. He typically adopts an interpretive approach to the study of eating disorders as a way to both challenge and complement traditional medical perspectives. William D. Parham is a Professor in the counselling programme, School of Education at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, where he also serves as Chair of the Department of Educational Support Services. The interplay between sport psychology, multicultural psychology/diversity, and health psychology represents the three areas of professional emphases with which he has been most associated. He is a licensed psychologist, board certified in counselling psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP), and Pastpresident of the Society of Counselling Psychology of the American Psychological Association where he is also a Fellow in Divisions 17, 45, and 47. He has been invited to consult with sports organizations, including the USOC, NFL, NBA, and MLB on matters related to sport performance, substance use/abuse, rookie transition, and mental health. He has also worked with performance artists in drama, theatre, and music. His emphasis on personal empowerment, discovering and cultivating innate talents, and looking for hidden opportunities in every situation represent trademark foci evidenced in his numerous presentations, lectures, and scholarship. xxiii

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Sunghee Park is a practitioner at the Performance Psychology Center in South Korea. She used to be a professional tennis player and participated in two Olympic Games (Atlanta and Sydney). She obtained her PhD from the University of Stirling in the UK and her research interest is athlete development and career transitions. Based on her athletic and academic careers she is a consultant to professional elite athletes and national team coaches in many different sports. She is a member of the board of directors of the Korean Society of Sport Psychology and member of an International Society of Sport and Exercise Psychology. Marie-Josée Perrier is a Research Associate at the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University in Canada. She works primarily in the field of sport and exercise psychology with a special focus on using theoretical and evidence-based strategies to promote sport and leisuretime physical activity for people with physical impairments. Her research interests include theoretical predictors of behaviour, identities and the self, community-based behaviour change interventions including messaging and peer mentorship, and narrative methods. Leslie Podlog is currently an Assistant Professor in Sport and Exercise Psychology at the University of Utah in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science. He has held faculty positions at Texas Tech University, Charles Sturt University (Australia), and the German Sport University, Cologne. He completed his doctoral studies in sport and exercise psychology at the University of Western Australia, in Perth Australia. His research focuses primarily on the psychology of injury recovery among athletes and high level performers. He has published 50 journal articles, 10 book chapters, and received numerous grants to support his research. Outside of work he enjoys spending time with his two children, hiking, and mountain biking. Tim Rees is Professor of Sport at Bournemouth University, UK. His primary research interest is the social psychology of performance, with a specific focus on social support, attributions, social identity, and stereotype threat. Supported by a research grant from UK Sport, he has also been engaged in understanding the identification and development of talent in the run-up to the 2016 Olympic Games and beyond. His work has additionally been funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council, the England and Wales Cricket Board, and the Rugby Football Union. He has published extensively in high-impact international journals on sport, sports medicine, physical activity, and social psychology. As a practitioner, he has worked within numerous sports, including equestrianism, high-board diving, ice skating, and motor racing. Ross Roberts is a Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology and Co-director of the Institute for the Psychology of Elite Performance (IPEP) at Bangor University. His research interests focus on personality and individual differences, with a particular interest in the role of personality (especially narcissism) in performance contexts. He has published in a wide range of leading personality, sport psychology, and neuroscience journals. He is also an editorial board member of The Sport Psychologist. He has received research funding from the Wellcome Trust, the Sports Council for Wales, and the Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Network. He is an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society (BPS), is a chartered sport and exercise psychologist with the BPS and is also accredited by the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences, and has worked with a number of high level squads and athletes. In his spare time Ross likes to enhance his addiction to running in the mountains of Snowdonia. xxiv

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Noora J. Ronkainen received her doctorate from Aarhus University, Denmark, and she works as a postdoctoral researcher at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. She has two Master’s degrees, one in theology from the University of Helsinki, and the other in sport sciences from the University of Jyväskylä. Her research has focused on spirituality, athletic career development and transitions, identity, and aging athletes. With personal experiences of living in six different countries, she is also interested in and has written about transnationalism and cultural transitions. Most often, her work has drawn from existential psychology and narrative inquiry. Emily A. Roper is an Associate Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at Sam Houston State University. Her scholarship is interdisciplinary, situated at the intersection of sport psychology, gender studies, and cultural studies. Her research centres on the ways gender shapes experiences, cultural meanings, and societal structures in sport and exercise contexts Nathalie Rosier holds Masters in clinical psychology and sport and exercise psychology from the KU Leuven. She is currently at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel working on her PhD on the junior-senior transition of elite athletes. In 2014 she obtained a grant from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for an international study on the junior-senior transition. Nathalie has given presentations at several international congresses. Finally, Nathalie has worked as a sport psychologist with talented players at the top sports school of the Flemish tennis federation. Jolly Roy is the Senior Psychologist and currently the Head of Sport Psychology centre at the National Sports Institute of Malaysia. He has served as a lecturer in sport psychology at ‘University Sains Malaysia’. Prior to this, he worked as a sport psychologist at the Sports Authority of India, lecturing on coaching courses and providing consultations to elite athletes. In Malaysia, he worked with the Olympic Archery team, U-23 football team. He was presented with the Young Scholar Development Award at the tenth World Congress of Sport Psychology in Greece. He is also the recipient of ‘Fellow of 2008’ awarded by the Sport Psychology Association of India, in December 2009. Tatiana V. Ryba is Docent of Cultural Sport and Exercise Psychology at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, and affiliated with KIHU – Research Institute for Olympic Sports. She received her doctoral degree with a double emphasis on applied sport psychology and cultural studies in 2005 from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The leitmotif of her work is the advancement of cultural epistemology in sport psychology. She has published widely in major international journals and co-edited two books – The Cultural Turn in Sport Psychology and Athletes’ Careers Across Cultures. She serves on the Managing Council of the International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP) and is also a Fellow for the Association of Applied Sport Psychology (AASP). Thomas Schack is a Professor of Neurocognition and Action at Bielefeld University (Germany). His main research interest concerns mental representation and mental imagery in sports, expertise, and the cognitive architecture of motor action. He is additionally interested in topics such as anxiety in sports, movement addiction, and new technologies in sports. He has published in the fields of sport psychology, rehabilitation, cognitive psychology and neuroscience and has received many excellence certificates for his research. As a consultant he worked with the German Junior Women’s Volleyball National Team and with Golf xxv

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Professionals. He became the head of the international graduate school within the Centre of Excellence ‘Cognitive Interaction Technology’ (CITEC) at Bielefeld University in 2008 (which has over 100 interdisciplinary PhD students). Since 2009 he had been a managing council member of the International Society of Sportpsychology (ISSP) and became a Vicepresident of the ISSP in 2013. Robert J. Schinke is the Canada Research Chair in Multicultural Sport and Physical Activity and a Professor of Sport Psychology at the School of Human Kinetics at Laurentian University, Canada. As a Canadian Sport Psychology Association registered practitioner, he has extensive experience working with national teams and professional athletes of North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. He has authored more than 100 refereed publications and co-edited 15 textbooks. His research is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Indigenous Health Research Development Programme, and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation. In addition, Robert serves as an Associate Editor for Psychology of Sport and Exercise, the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, and as a Section Editor for the International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, where he will become co-editor in January, 2016. Robert is also the current President of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology and serves as a member of the Managing Council for the International Society of Sport Psychology. He, his wife Erin, and their two sons, Harrison and Pierce, reside in Sudbury, Ontario. Vaithehy Shanmugam is a Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. He is also chartered psychologist validated by the British Psychological Society, having provided sport psychology consultancy to athletes of varying competition level and sport. Her area of research focuses on mental health within sport and exercise, examining the determinants and consequences of mental health problems among athletes, coaches, and exercisers. She has published a number of articles, chapters, and books dedicated to examining the role of significant interpersonal relationships within sport performance and psychological health. Gangyan Si is currently the President of International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP), Associate Professor at Hong Kong Institute of Education, and Full Professor at Wuhan Sports University, China. He was also an appointed expert in the China Sport Ministry for the 2004, 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games. Over the years, he has worked directly with a variety of Hong Kong teams and Chinese national teams providing sport psychology services for Olympic Games, Asian Games, and the World Championships. His current research interests include the applied sport psychology service, cultural sport psychology, and exercise psychology. Brett Smith is Professor of Physical Activity and Health within the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Birmingham. His research critically focuses on the promotion of well-being among disabled people through sport and exercise as medicine. Brett’s research has been published widely in leading journals, such as Social Science and Medicine, Health Psychology, and Health Psychology Review. In addition to over 100 publications, he has given over 150 invited talks to audiences in numerous countries, including to the Royal Society of Medicine. He is Editor-in-chief of the awardwinning international journal Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, an Associate Editor of Psychology of Sport and Exercise and also actively Sociology of Sport and Sport, Exercise xxvi

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and Performance Psychology. He is co-author of Qualitative Research Methods in Sport, Exercise and Health: From Process to Product, and of the forthcoming book The Routledge International Handbook of Qualitative Methods in Sport and Exercise. Andrew C. Sparkes is currently with the Research Institute for Sport, Physical Activity and Leisure at Leeds Beckett University in England. His research interests are inspired by a continuing fascination with the ways that people experience different forms of embodiment over time in a variety of contexts. To understand these experiences he draws on life history, ethnography, autoethnography, and narrative approaches. He is co-author of Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health: From Process to Product (2014. London: Routledge), coeditor of Advances in Biographical Methods: Creative Applications (2015. London: Routledge), and he is editor of the British Sociological Association Auto/Biography Yearbook. Kevin S. Spink is a Professor at the College of Kinesiology at the University of Saskatchewan specializing in group dynamics. The focus of much of his research has been the examination of the group’s influence on individual behaviour in both sport and exercise settings. Much of his research has focused on examining how group factors such as perceptions of cohesion, groupness, norms, and psychological climate positively influence various forms of individual behavior. In collaboration with Dr A. V. Carron, he developed the first theory-based teambuilding intervention to enhance group cohesion in exercise groups. Natalia Stambulova is a Professor in Sport and Exercise Psychology in School of Health and Welfare at Halmstad University, Sweden. She has worked in sports psychology for more than three decades as a teacher, researcher, and practitioner in the USSR and Russia and since 2001 in Sweden. Her research and about 200 publications relate mainly to the athletes’ careers with an emphasis on athletes’ career transitions and crises. Her particular specialization in applied work is assisting athletes and coaches to deal with various career/ lifestyle issues and especially with career transitions and crises. Ashley Stirling is currently a lecturer in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Toronto. She has conducted several research projects on high performance athletes’ experiences of maltreatment in sport and strategies for athlete protection. In 2007, she received the Thesis Award from the Association for the Advancement of Applied Sport Psychology (AASP), and in 2009, she was awarded the Young Investigator Award by the European College of Sport Science (ECSS) for her research on athlete emotional abuse. In 2012, she co-wrote a coach education module on creating positive and healthy sport experiences for the Coaching Association of Canada. She has presented at numerous international conferences and has several publications in the areas of athlete welfare and high performance sport participation. Gershon Tenenbaum is Benjamin S. Bloom Professor of Educational and Sport Psychology at Florida State University and Director of the sport psychology graduate programme. He is a graduate of Tel-Aviv University and the University of Chicago, a former director of the Ribstein Center for Research and Sport Medicine at the Wingate Institute in Israel, and coordinator of the graduate programme in sport psychology at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia. From 1997–2001 he was the President of the International Society of Sport Psychology, and from 1996–2008 Editor of the International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology. He has published extensively in psychology and sport psychology in areas of xxvii

List of contributors

expertise and decision-making, psychometrics, and coping with physical effort experiences. He has received several distinguished awards for his academic and scientific achievements, and is a member and fellow of several scientific and professional forums and societies. Peter C. Terry is Director of Research Training and Development and Professor of Psychology at the University of Southern Queensland. Internationally renowned for his research in the areas of mood responses, applications of music in sport and exercise, and psychometrics, he is author of over 200 publications, including five books, 24 book chapters, and 60 peerreviewed journal articles. He has been cited over 4,000 times in scientific literature and has an H-index of 33. Peter has delivered 14 keynote addresses at international conferences around the globe, and has given more than 30 invited presentations to organizations such as the Royal Society of Medicine, the Oxford Union, and the International Olympic Committee. His 2011 book, Inside Sport Psychology (with Karageorghis), is a bestseller in its class and his e-text, Secrets of Asian Sport Psychology, (released in August 2014) is the world’s first textbook on sport psychology published under a Creative Commons licence. He is Past-President of the AsianSouth Pacific Association of Sport Psychology (ASPASP) and a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society (APS), the Australian Sport Medicine Federation (ASMF), and the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES). As an applied practitioner over the past 30 years, he has provided psychological support to more than 1,000 international and professional performers, including a host of Olympic medallists. He has worked as a sport psychologist at nine Olympic Games and more than 100 other international events. He played sport at representative level in rugby, soccer and track and field, competed in the national bobsled championships, and ran a three-hour marathon. Lenamar Fiorese Vieira holds first degrees in physical education from the Maringa State University (1982), in psychology from UniCesumar (2010), and a Master’s (1993) and PhD in human movement science from the Federal University of Santa Maria (1999). He was a Visiting Scholar at Indiana University in 1997, a member of the Brazilian national handball team (1983–1987), and a member of the Brazilian Olympic Committee for the Sydney Olympic Games (2000). He is currently an Associate Professor at the Maringa State University. He holds a productivity research grant from CNPq and is psychologist of the Brazilian national rhythmic gymnastics team. His research focuses on the topics of motor development and sports psychology. Jennifer J. Waldron is a Professor in the School of Health, Physical Education, and Leisure Services at the University of Northern Iowa. Using mixed methodologies, the overarching theme of her scholarship is unhealthy behaviours in sport and physical activity, including the examination of hazing in sport through several theories of gender and power. She has written over 70 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, and national and international presentations. She is the recipient of multiple awards, including the AAHPERD Mabel Lee Award for Young Professionals, the Regents Award for Faculty Excellence, and College of Education Faculty Award for Scholarship. Robert Weinberg is a Professor of Kinesiology and Health at Miami University–Ohio. He has written numerous research articles, including more than 150 refereed articles in scholarly journals, as well as books, book chapters, and applied articles for coaches, athletes, and exercisers. His textbook (with co-author Dan Gould) entitled Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology is currently in its sixth edition and the most popular text in the world xxviii

List of contributors

in sport/exercise psychology. Weinberg was voted one of the top ten sport psychologists in North America by his peers. He is Past-president of NASPSPA and AASP and a Fellow in APA and AASP. In his leisure time, he enjoys playing tennis, travelling, and gardening. Maureen R. Weiss is a Professor of Kinesiology at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on the psychological, social, and physical development of children and adolescents through participation in sport and physical activity. Previously she was a faculty member at the University of Virginia and at the University of Oregon, where research and its applications were implemented in her Children’s Summer Sports Programme. She has published over 140 journal articles and book chapters and has been editor of four books on youth sport and physical activity. For her applied research on youth development through sport, she received the 2014 President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition Science Honora Award, presented to a research professional who has significantly contributed to the advancement and promotion of the science of physical activity. Tim Woodman is a Professor of Sport and Exercise Psychology and an accredited Psychologist with the British Psychological Society (BPS) and the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES). He is Director of Bangor University’s School of Sport, Heath, and Exercise Sciences and a Director of the Institute for the Psychology of Elite Performance. He has over 60 peer-reviewed publications in the top journals in the field of personality and social psychology and in the top journals of sport psychology, and the media frequently ask him for his expert opinion on stress, anxiety, personality, and risktaking. He has worked extensively with elite sports people from Great Britain. When he is not working, he is often found planning his next holiday in the great outdoors. Craig Wrisberg works at the Department of Kinesiology, Recreation, and Sport Studies at the University of Tennessee. He is an Emeritus Professor of Sport Psychology and Motor Behaviour, a Fellow of the National Academy of Kinesiology, and Past-president of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology. Paul Wylleman is a Professor in the Faculties of Physical Education and Physiotherapy and Psychology and Educational Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, teaching sport psychology, and career, performance, and lifestyle management for elite athletes. He has presented and published on athletic career management and sport psychology support services. He is head of the university department of Topsport and Study providing support to elite student-athletes. He coordinated ‘Career support services for Flemish elite sport federations’, is acting sport psychologist to the Flemish tennis federation, and high performance manager performance behaviour with the Netherlands Olympic Committee. Finally, he is currently President of the European Federation of Sport Psychology (FEPSAC). Yuji Yamamoto is a Professor at the Research Center of Health, Physical Fitness, and Sports, Nagoya University, Japan, and the secretary general of the Japanese Society of Sport Psychology. His research interests are motor control and learning, especially dynamics in sports. He focuses on human behaviours in sports, such as tennis, soccer, play-tag, and Kendo, and aims to determine the principles that rule our actions. It appears that following these simple principles, human beings make complex movements in sequence. He believes that complex movements generated by simple rules captivate people and impress them with the grace of the movements. xxix

List of contributors

David Yukelson is the Director of Sport Psychology services for the Penn State University Intercollegiate Athletic Department. In his twenty-eighth year at Penn State, he provides counselling and support to coaches and athletes in the areas of mental conditioning skills for managing peak performance under pressure, team chemistry and leadership development, thinking confidently and focusing properly. In addition, he helps student-athletes develop individualized strategies for managing stress and balancing multiple demands effectively. He is a Past-president, Fellow, and Certified Consultant in the Association of Applied Sport Psychology (AASP). He has published numerous articles in professional refereed journals, and is a frequently invited speaker at various national and international conferences. In his leisure time, he enjoys travelling, cycling, playing racquetball, golf, or simply relaxing at the beach. Nikos Zourbanos is an Assistant Professor at the University of Thessaly, School of Physical Education and Sport Sciences, in Greece. He received his MSc from the University of Wales, Bangor, and his PhD from the Democritus University of Thrace and Thessaly. He has published numerous articles and serves as a referee in established sport psychology journals. He is a member of international societies, President of the Hellenic Society of Sport Psychology, Editor of the Hellenic Journal of Sport Psychology, and Assistant Editor of the International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology. His research focuses on psychological techniques and motivation in sport and physical education.

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1 OPENING THE D I S C U S SIO N Robert J. Schinke, Kerry R. McGannon and Brett Smith

This book has been conceived as an unconventional source book with sections that balance what we believe to be emerging and established thematic areas. Our attempt at thematic inclusiveness is imperfect. However, adding onto the topic of academic connoisseurship, we do not propose to hold the monopoly on the landscape nor how it should be conceptualized. What the co-editors do propose is that this handbook is an invitation to inclusiveness of perspectives and topics where we dare the reader to look over the proposed thematic areas, and then to look beyond these to fertile grounds that have yet to be tilled. There is still much less known than unknown in this field – hence the situating of emerging topics at the front of the edition. We dare the reader, though also ourselves, to become the next wave of pioneers in a field that has a rich past and an equally bright future, so long as we look within and outside of conventions to find new ways to understand the field of sport psychology. Returning to the words ‘academic connoisseurship’, very little is known within our field of what these words signify as a term, and moreover, how to carry out scholarship that embraces the spirit if connoiseurship. Over the course of our collective careers, we have arrived at one important insight: no scholarly group reserves privilege over another when deliberating perspectives and approaches taken within the field. As Smith and Sparkes (2011) have recently articulated: we resist the impulse to state that one response is better than the others, or that one is the only way to respond . . . This is because prescribing this is the right or wrong way to respond . . . and offering the assurance of knowing what response a person should give . . . would risk monological finalization. (p. 48) Hence, the co-editors have sought out voices from among the scholarly community from many countries, with diverse identities, and an array of perspectives so as to further enrich discussions and understandings. All of these discussions are welcomed within this compilation, and each is special in its own right – hence no special section. Within this handbook, there are seven sections ordered in a particular manner in order to first centralize topics that would not typically be featured in fully developed sections, 1

Robert J. Schinke, Kerry R. McGannon and Brett Smith

followed by thematic areas that have been more fully discussed since the emergence of handbooks. The first three parts are boldly positioned as ‘the emerging’ themes, suggestive of new developments within the field. The themes we regard as emerging have included (1) international histories and contemporary perspective, (2) athlete adjustment and transitions, and (3) cultural sport psychology. Within previous handbooks one might find traces of content pertaining to our Parts I–III, IV–VI and VII. For example in the original International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP) Handbook of Research in Sport Psychology (Singer, Murphy, & Tennant, 1993), the introductory chapter framed sport psychology within a socio-historical context, taking into account western and eastern history of the domain – a brief reference to our first three sections. This early acknowledgement of history opened up a discussion about the origins of our field, but these were never truly taken up and discussed within subsequent handbooks. For example, though there was considerable overlap from the first ISSP Handbook edition to the second ISSP Handbook co-edited by Singer, Hausenblas, and Janelle (2000), history of sport psychology research and also discussions pertaining to diversity were conspicuously absent. The third edition to the ISSP Handbook, co-edited by Tenenbaum and Eklund (2007), provided a chapter that combined gender and cultural diversity and a second chapter relating to disability sport, both located in a section devoted to special topics. This practice of including emerging, or, special topics is essential within any handbook as these provide topics that tend to be marginalized or less studied within the field. On the other hand, the very notion of coupling research and topics under the term ‘special topics’ that are outside of the ‘mainstream’ within sport may have the unintended consequence of keeping such topics as exotic, especially when these are located at the very end of the volume. Dedicated sections to emerging themes serve to centralize these and offer something new to the reader in an in-depth way, given their comprehensiveness. We posit that these emerging topics will become part of the heart of the future. The next section of the book is focused onto ‘the established’ themes, and these include (4) motivation and emotion, (5) cognition, and (6) group dynamics. Parts IV to VI are devoted to content in areas that are highly established and supported by their own sections within earlier handbooks. Part VII, titled ‘forecasts to the future’, serves to close the book with eminent scholars, asked to look through their own crystal balls and forecast our future. Several of these renowned scholars have admitted that this was their first time devoting their pens so extensively toward a futuristic focus, speculating the hypothetical, with their own unique brands of enthusiasm. Spanning all the sections, the reader will find the inclusion of chapters revealing various ‘takes’ on topics by renowned authors from a diversity of countries. We believe that this approach extends what has already been done in earlier handbooks, through expanded international and previously unheralded representation. Some of these scholars might be more recognizable, but we did not to assume that authors recognizable in any region are necessarily as visible in another, especially in non-English speaking countries where sport psychology is vibrant. Moreover, recognition in emerging areas is more recent, and as such, even in developed countries, some scholars are purposefully being given a shout out through the inclusion of their perspectives. Hence, the goal in having contributors from the sport psychology community was not only to reveal just how expansive the domain is, but also to ensure that the perspectives captured reveal the many nooks and crannies of the domain’s physical geography. With these contributions, the reader is certain to find perspectives that are diverse, inclusive, rich, and stimulating.

2

Opening the discussion

The emerging topics To understand our future as a scholarly domain, we must understand our past (albeit only through a flavour of histories among many more that exist), and by that, we dare to suggest that the past is much richer and varied than students and scholars alike might believe. The skills and ways of knowing we now entertain have their origins dating back to historical moments from many places, such as during and after the Cold War periods. Some of these seeds were germinated in North America and Western Europe. Eastern Europe also has tremendously rich histories in sport psychology, that are arguably as pioneering as the histories born in the Western hemisphere. Consider the emergence of talent development scholarship and its origin in Russia, at a time when ideological supremacy was being exercised through Olympic results – hence the early focus on athlete talent development as central in this region over a more holistic approach. Then there is the Far East. Authors have teased at the importance of eastern philosophies in relation to research and practice, but the histories from these countries are less known outside of the regions where they began, and yet they are equally compelling, such as when considering a whole nation approach within the Chinese history chapter. We propose that the profession of sport psychology might have developed in geographic silos, with each silo knowing its own origins, but not always the breadth of histories outside its own vicinity. Parts I–III are dedicated to featured histories with respect to conceptualizing and doing sport psychology, by linking past history with current approaches. They open up, not only the book, but what we hope will become an enriching information exchange as scholars learn from one another’s rich histories, and from these, where current ideas might have originated. We have secured several histories in the current book, but we now dare to contemplate whether it is time for a book devoted exclusively to sport psychology histories from developed and developing countries, spanning continents, with parallel books also devoted to the same thematic focus, though targeting exercise and health. The histories we were able to secure include Russia, the United States, China, Japan, Brazil, Canada, Israel, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Parts IV–VI are focused onto athlete psychological adjustment and the various sorts of athlete processes related to transitions that are experienced over the span of a career. The topics captured within this section include athlete stress and coping, athlete development, character development, career transitions, athlete migration, burnout, injury, concussion, disordered eating, spirituality, and athlete abuse. Some of these topics have been discussed for several decades, and as such are traditional, such as athlete burnout. Some chapters are recent hot topics emerging in the field, such as concussion, and athlete abuse. What these writings hold in common is that they focus on the sorts of experiences an athlete might have, at very least to some degree over the course of a career. For example, though we are only now beginning to learn about the frequency that athletes are concussed, it is far more prevalent than earlier scholars and practitioners realized, beginning early in many athlete careers. Moreover, the consequences of being concussed can be pervasive after athletic careers have ended as former athletes journey through their lives. To our knowledge, this section provides the necessary breadth, better and worse, of what athletes encounter within sport contexts as they developmentally navigate sports careers. Part VII is devoted to a relatively new topic in sport psychology: cultural sport psychology (CSP). Before there was a genre of cultural sport psychology (CSP) research, the lack of inclusion of culture and/or cultural identities within sport psychology was challenged for many years. A further push for a more culturally inclusive and socially just sport psychology 3

Robert J. Schinke, Kerry R. McGannon and Brett Smith

has continued beyond these early writings, with scholars advocating culture’s rightful place within sport psychology within the CSP genre. Since its formal naming in 2005 we have seen rapid growth in this area of scholarship, with special issues and special sections featured in various journals, beginning with the International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology (Autumn, 2009) and culminating with a recent special section of Psychology of Sport and Exercise, released in March 2015. This is the first time that a substantive section in a sport psychology handbook was devoted to this emerging area. Part VII is composed of chapters about cultural identities and topics within sport culture that frame particular identities and sport practices including self-identity, whiteness, sexuality, race and ethnicity, feminism, cultural studies, athletes and motherhood, disability sport, and hazing. We are now at a time where cultural inclusiveness is pivotal to the domain and can no longer be ignored within sport psychology, including those who teach and practise, and within this section the attempt is made to centralize some of the most spoken about topic areas.

The established topics Part IV shifts focus onto topics central to motivation and emotion. Within this section of the book the reader finds well-developed subject matter, relating to self-determination theory, self-regulation, emotional regulation, mood states, goal orientation, imagery, flow, resilience, and motivational climate and parental support in youth sport. These topics arguably overlap one another and yet each focuses on a single aspect of a larger whole. Moreover, particularly in parts such as this one where themes are extensively written about, the reader will find that the authors have been asked to consider how to further expand their topics through untapped methodologies. Indeed, one finds beginning in this section, as perhaps the authors did, that each subject area can be confined by how it is examined. The challenge brought forth was for authors to look at their topic areas and consider what methodologies have been used and what might be learned through ones that have not been integrated often. Part V is focused onto cognition. Topics in this section include personality, mental representation and learning, expertise and mental practice, biofeedback, mental toughness and self-talk. These foci are also well-established topics within scholarship, and yet, after many years, there have been resurgences and advancements. Biofeedback and mental representation and learning are two such examples where studies ebbed for several years, and now these topics surface more frequently, with a third similar case now being made about personality. Mental toughness and self-talk have been terms that many practitioners have spoken about in relation to performance enhancement since the co-editors were students, and yet these earlier discussions were applied and rarely grounded in science, contrary to the current chapters, which are intellectually enriched. The expertise and mental practice chapter also sheds new light on a topic that has developed over more than 20 years in our field. The chapters in this section are exciting opportunities to explore the theme of cognition and how thinking affects training development and athlete performance. Part VI features topics housed within group dynamics. The writings found within this section include shared mental models, team resilience, the coach–athlete relationship, leadership, motivation gains in group contexts, and social support. When combing through this section, one finds mainstay topics, such as leadership and social support, with these topics brought up to date through the most recent discussions. We also sought to invite contributions where an established theme could be considered in a less conventional way. For example, one finds the emerging topic of shared mental models (SMM). A second topic less known within the literature is team resilience. For more than 10 years, scholars in our field 4

Opening the discussion

have explored resilience, the brainchild of attribution theory and explanatory scholarship. Though resilience is also examined elsewhere within this handbook, in this section the topic is applied to group settings, and a case is made about how mental toughness can be cultured within a group. Coach–athlete relations are also located into this section. Though a case can be made that this topic overlaps with leadership, the chapter author focuses on communication and how it can augment performance or fracture relationships within sport contexts. Together, all of these topics tell us something new about an advanced thematic area.

The future This book started with chapters devoted to sport psychology histories. In keeping with a book framed in relation to time, the closing, Part VII, serves as an opportunity for a few scholars to look into their crystal balls and forecast the future of the domain, with forecasts provided in relation to each of the earlier parts. The opening chapter in this section returns us to the theme of athlete transitions. The author, an eminent scholar in this area, revisits a breadth of models used to explain the various transitional processes that athletes experience over the course of their athletic journeys. Next, the reader finds a chapter undertaken through the lens of cultural sport psychology, or CSP. A scholar with more than 50 years’ involvement in sport and exercise psychology, a pioneer in relation to gender and cultural sport psychology, was asked to complete this section with her own musings into what the next 50 years of applied sport psychology might look like for our domain. Sport psychology is a relatively young field, and if growth over the next 50 years can follow the same steep upward trend that we have witnessed, then the future will open up opportunities for scholars and practitioners presently uncharted. Next, two scholars well versed in the area of athlete motivation return to the theme of team and group resilience. This topic is visited earlier in the compilation, and in this chapter, two renowned practitioners examine the concept and related Velcro concepts such as mental toughness and efficacy in order to explain how teams can merge, and then perform. A chapter is also devoted to cognitive science, with the senior author examining this re-emerging area’s possibilities. Given the resurgence of cognitive science in sport psychology, suggestions are made as to how one might carry this area forward through new topics and also methodological approaches that can enrich understanding. A look into the future also necessitates an examination of how group dynamics might evolve. Two well-established scholars look at aspects in this thematic area where there is plentiful scholarship, such as leadership to encourage further exploration through peer leadership. The authors also open up new areas for discovery, including followership and its relationship to team and peer performance. We purposefully lead into our concluding chapter and finish off the forecasts section with a chapter devoted to academic connoisseurship. Scholars are taught to be critical of their own work, and also the work of their colleagues. Academic connoisseurship is a very recent discussion in our domain, and to our knowledge, one not yet found within a sport psychology handbook. The chapter authors explore how sport psychologists might learn from one another by taking the position that no one person owns the proprietary right to truth and knowledge. There is no singular perspective that is truthful, and so this chapter serves to encourage openness of perspectives, daring each of us to explore multiple realities, and to look beyond our own interests, outlooks, and training, into the views and possibilities of colleagues. Far too often, scholars tend to close themselves off from vantages that challenge their own – at the expense of new friendships and intersections / mergers in topics and lenses. Fertility of this domain is reliant on dialogue, and we, like the chapter authors, propose openings in discussions in place of closings. 5

Robert J. Schinke, Kerry R. McGannon and Brett Smith

We conclude this opening chapter where we first began. The intention through the Routledge International Handbook of Sport Psychology is to feature a balance of thematic areas with some of these written about extensively, and some relatively recent. Where these chapters converge, is that all reveal vibrant and up-to-date discussions from well-read and knowledgeable scholars form the scholarly community. Each section is central to this handbook, and as such, we have chosen to feature these on a level footing, in place of special topics and special sections. In closing, we wish to thank the contributing authors for their willingness to engage in this project, so that together, we might offer the reader a comprehensive thematic landscape for the field, inclusive of diverse voices and perspectives.

References Singer, R. H., Hausenblas, H. A., & Janelle, C. M. (2000). Handbook of sport psychology (2nd ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons. Singer, R. N., Murphy, M., & Tennant, L. K. (1993). (Eds.) Handbook of research in sport psychology. New York: Macmillan. Smith, B., & Sparkes, A. C. (2011). Exploring multiple responses to a chaos narrative. Health (London), 15, 38–53. Tenenbaum, G., & Eklund, R. C. (2007). Handbook of sport psychology (3rd ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons.

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PART I

International histories and contemporary perspective

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2 RU S SIA Tatiana V. Ryba and Natalia B. Stambulova

In this chapter, we trace the historical development of sport psychology in Russia. Our focus is on highlighting discursive possibilities for the emergence of sport psychology and the important shifts, which shaped the way sport psychology has become ‘disciplined’. From this contextualist approach, the meanings of sport psychology are woven into the fabric of cultural and sociopolitical policies at a particular historical conjuncture and carry an inherent tension derived from the historical schema itself (Young, 2004). Although in the following section we outline the evolution of sport psychology as a scientific discipline, it is important to bear in mind that the neat sequence drawn on within the chapter has been lived and practiced by several generations both progressively and regressively, and often in uniquely hybrid ways. We purposefully did not attempt to instill logic in our chronological representation as neat homogenization of the intellectual tradition often fails to address dominant, residual and emergent cultural trends, as well as messy intersections between these categories of thought (Ryba, 2005). We also wanted to give readers a sense of the personal historiography rooted in everyday practices and social interactions by interspersing ‘objective’ historical narratives with the accounts of oral history, memories of events and people, and our own lived historical knowledge. Throughout this chapter, we alternate between linguistic signifiers, such as Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet, as appropriate in relation to the described sociocultural context of a particular historical era.

Forward to the past: the historical unfolding of sport psychology in Russia In this section, the following evolutionary tides will be briefly described and contextualized: (1) early foundations (1890s–1940s); (2) establishing the discipline (1950s–1960s); (3) the golden age of Soviet sport psychology (1970s–1980s); and (4) crisis and paradigmatic shift (beginning of the 1990s to the present day).

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Tatiana V. Ryba and Natalia B. Stambulova

Early foundations (1890s–1940s) At the turn of the twentieth century, a number of isolated theoretical and empirical studies on various psychological aspects of movement practices began to appear in the scientific and popular literature in Russia and also worldwide, indicating an emergent interest in sport psychology among diverse groups of scholars and practitioners (e.g., physical educators, psychologists, physicians, and social reformers). One of the earliest papers published in Russia was Piotr F. Lesgaft’s (1901) collection of descriptive essays dealing with the benefits of physical activity on the psychological development of children. In Imperial Russia, only an inner circle of the army and society’s elite had access to sport societies and clubs (Kukushkin, 1962). Therefore, Lesgaft’s socially progressive and scientifically inspired system of physical education did not receive the support of official circles. Another noteworthy paper was published by medical professor Vladimir F. Tchizh (1910), in which he broadened the then popular notion that the psychological aspects of sport participation were primarily aesthetic and pleasurable to one that included the consideration of performance-related mental states and issues of team dynamics. Because of the turbulent sociopolitical climate that led to World War I, resulting for Russia in the Socialist revolution of 1917 and Civil War, Tchizh’s article did not produce a significant impact on Russian sport psychology. Nevertheless, the newly established workers’ state released a previously marginalized system of physical education formulated earlier by Lesgaft, which in turn promoted a scientific approach to the study of physical culture and sport. In addition, Russia’s engagement in warfare shaped and fueled specific interests in physical fitness, including an emphasis on testing and measurement. Reflective of the traits necessary for military duty, various physical education tests were developed to measure physical efficiency and performance skills as well as psychological constructs such as volition, (Soviet) personality and leadership (Kukushkin, 1961, 1962). Two influential figures in Russian sport psychology, whose works we treat as discursive sites of origins of sport psychological knowledge and application, were Avksenty C. Puni (1898–1986) and Piotr A. Roudik (1893–1983). In 1925, Roudik founded the first sport psychology laboratory in the Soviet Union. In the following years, he and his team of researchers directed their focus on the conceptualization of the notions of will and the moral and volitional preparation of Soviet athletes (Roudik, 1962). Puni conducted his first study in 1927, examining the psycho-physiological effects of training in the sport of table tennis, and subsequently devoted most of his attention to the study of applications of psychology to sport. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the focus of most sport psychology research was on psychophysical interactions underlying motor behavior. This early exploratory and descriptive period of Russian sport psychology contributed to the development of basic psychological understandings of sporting practices and their effects on athletes. Puni and Roudik became leading sport psychologists in the Soviet Union and established their respective sport psychology programs at the Lesgaft Institute of Physical Culture in Leningrad (now known as the Lesgaft National State University of Physical Education, Sport and Health in St. Petersburg) and the State Central Institute of Physical Culture in Moscow (now the Russian State University of Physical Education, Sport, Youth, and Tourism). Although an identifiable sport psychology specialization emerged in the late 1950s, some sport psychology topics were incorporated in psychology courses for students in the mid1930s at both Central and Lesgaft Institutes of Physical Culture (Melnikov, 1992). During World War II sport scientific activities were curtailed. The focus on willpower and, more specifically, on the Soviet ‘will to victory’ forcefully re-emerged in the last years 10

Russia

of World War II as important psychological constructs due to the unparalleled heroism and self-sacrifice for the Soviet Motherland demonstrated by both soldiers and civilians. These ideologically colored concepts were linked to Sechenov’s (1952) volitional theory and fueled sport psychological research and practice in the following period.

Establishing the discipline (1950s–1960s) The use of psychology in sport was stimulated in the 1950s by Soviet participation in international top-level sport. The successful debut of the Soviet Olympic team in the Helsinki Olympics of 1952 was a critical and highly politicized event because before Helsinki, Soviet athletes were excluded from all international competitions including the Olympic Games. As a result, Cold War superpowers extended their ideological battles onto the sporting field in an effort to validate the superiority of their respective social systems by winning medals. Following the 1952 Olympics, the Soviet government made substantial investments in sport, coaching education, and sport sciences in order to establish a high international reputation of the Soviet sport. This mainly politically motivated shift towards performance enhancement of elite athletes was associated with an increased call for applied research and for the improved education of Soviet coaches. The 1950s landmark achievement of the Soviet sport psychology was the development of volitional theory and its active application in the volitional (also known as moralvolitional) preparation of athletes. In the 1950s and 1960s, sport psychologists focused on the psychological aspects of physical, technical, and tactical preparation in sport, the volitional and ideological preparation of athletes, and the psychological preparation for competitions (e.g., Puni, 1959; Roudik, 1945). Sport psychology as a recognizable discipline became visible in the late 1950s when psychology departments were organized within a number of institutes of physical culture across USSR (e.g., in Kiev, Tbilisi, Erevan, and Kaunas). Dispersing sport psychology from Moscow and Leningrad to the Soviet republics led to broadening sport psychology research lines and facilitated development of graduate programs to train a generation of sport psychology specialists. The Moscow and Leningrad schools of sport psychology, led by Roudik and Puni respectively, were firmly established as leading sport psychology research centers as well as specialization programs in the education of coaches, physical educators, and sport scientists. In 1952, Puni successfully defended his second doctoral thesis entitled “Sport Psychology,” which marked an official recognition of sport psychology as a separate discipline. Another important milestone was the publication of the first psychology textbook by Roudik (1958) that was written for students of physical culture and sport and included a section devoted to various sport psychology topics. The textbook was a key educational resource for disseminating sport psychology and was widely used in the Soviet Union. Among other first individuals who identified primarily with sport psychology and were active in research and/or training of young specialists were R. S. Abelskaya (1955), O. A. Chernikova (1954), G. M. Gagaeva (1969), N. A. Hudadov (1952), A. G. Raphalovich (1950), B. N. Smirnov (1968), and others. During this period, Roudik and Puni competed for the role of acknowledged leader in the field, but also collaborated with each other and many fellow colleagues to organize all-USSR meetings of sport psychologists. The First AllUSSR Meeting of Sport Psychologists was organized in Leningrad in 1956, followed by the Second and the Third Meeting in 1958 and 1960. These meetings marked the beginning of the All-USSR Sport Psychology Conferences. During the Soviet era, 11 All-USSR Sport Psychology Conferences took place with the last one held in Minsk in 1990. 11

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The Soviet system of sport psychology served as a model for socialist countries that began to develop education and training of sport psychologists in their own states. That was a period of increased research exchange among the socialist countries as evident by bilateral agreements between the USSR and countries of the Eastern bloc. Doctoral students from socialist countries made research and study visits to the psychology departments at the Central and Lesgaft Institutes of Physical Culture, while leading Soviet sport psychologists were invited to give guest lectures at Eastern European universities. To further stimulate the exchange of ideas among sport psychologists from socialist countries, sport psychology literature was translated and joint scientific meetings were held regularly. As an example, Psihologiya i Sovremennyi Sport [Psychology and Contemporary Sport] was one of an ongoing book series that published sport psychology research conducted in the USSR and other socialist countries (Roudik, Medvedev, & Rodionov, 1973).

The golden age of Soviet sport psychology (1970s–1980s) The primary aim of Soviet sport psychology was to create psychological models and training techniques aligned with performance enhancement of elite athletes and, therefore, had a more applied psychology foundation (e.g., Roudik, Puni, & Hudadov, 1968). Puni’s model “Psychological Preparation of Athletes for a Competition” developed in collaboration with his colleagues (e.g., Y. Y. Kiselev, Y. L. Hanin, N. P. Kazachenko, O. N. Mazurov, O. S. Nikitina, L. N. Radchenko, and others) was widely used in applied work with athletes and teams in the preparation for the 1976 and, especially, the 1980 Olympic Games in Montreal and Moscow respectively. A curious oral history account is that initially Puni insisted that “psychological preparation” should be restricted to what he later called “specific psychological preparation for a competition.” This was probably because Puni did not want to confuse psychological preparation with another concept he was discussing at that time, called “volitional preparation,” which referred more to the aspect of determination or will power. However, during the 1960s the term psychological preparation had become so common among athletes, coaches, and sport scientists that Puni was able to discuss it in terms of both specific preparation and general preparation, with volitional preparation being included in the latter category. The two conceptual models, that is volitional preparation as an integral part of general psychological preparation (Puni, 1973a) and psychological preparation for a competition (Puni, 1969, 1973b), exemplified the connection between science and practice, and were inextricably linked to the heyday of Soviet sporting achievements (for details, see Ryba, Stambulova, & Wrisberg, 2005, 2009; Stambulova, Stambulov, & Johnson, 2012; Stambulova, Wrisberg, & Ryba, 2006). The 1970s and 1980s were significant in elevating the psychology of sport to a position of greater prominence in Soviet sport as the “first wave” of applied sport psychologists in the Soviet Union extended their scientific work to provide a bridge between theory and practice by serving on national teams. Here we name just a few respected sport psychologists, who worked in the USSR national teams full-time or combined applied services with research or university teaching: A. V. Alekseev, A. D. Ganyushkin, L. D. Gissen, G. D. Gorbunov, G. B. Gorskaya, Y. L. Hanin, N. A. Hudadov, Y. Y. Kiselev, L. N. Radchenko, A. V. Rodionov, V. F. Sopov, and A. V. Stambulov. Because the main goal of psychological preparation was to develop and maintain an optimal state of psychological readiness, researchers and practitioners designed new methods of psychological diagnostics and regulation of mental states within specific sport contexts (e.g., Alekseev, 1978; Ganyushkin, 1980; Gissen, 1973; Gorbunov, 1986; Hanin, 1980; Il’in, Kiselev, & Safonov, 1989; Marischyk, Bludov, Plahtienko, 12

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& Serova, 1990; Medvedev, 1981; Rodionov, 1973, 1979, 1983, Tczen & Pahomov, 1985; Vyatkin, 1981). A number of possible interventions were emphasized, such as relaxation, focusing techniques, and positive self-suggestions that could be easily taught and used by athletes themselves for the purpose of regulating suboptimal pre-competition states. In fact, diagnoses and interventions of this nature represented the two main tasks of applied sport psychologists working with elite Soviet athletes and teams during that period. This was a period of passionate scientific debate centered on the role of the applied sport psychologist and the scope of psychological services that should be provided for athletic teams (e.g., Gorbunov, 1986; Zagainov, 1984). Although the aforementioned sport psychology practitioners developed their own approaches to the provision of sport psychology consultation grounded in their respective training experiences and applied work, two main approaches can be distinguished. The first approach was primarily conceptualized as applied psychological research. It underscored the sport psychologist’s role as that of a researcher embedded within a sports team. That is, the psychologist was expected to collect and analyze various psychological data within the team, which would provide bases for modifying coaching process and decision-making concerning individual athletes and the team as a dynamic collective (e.g., Hanin, 1980; Il’in et al., 1989). The second approach was conceptualized as a pedagogical or counseling process. It shifted the focus from research to complex organization of activities aimed at developing, advancing, and optimizing psychological functions of athletes under specific conditions of training and competition (e.g., Gorbunov, 1986; see also Kiselev, 2002). The team psychologist’s role, therefore, centered on intervention through individual and group work with athletes and their significant others (see Hanin, 1999; Stambulova, Johnson, & Stambulov, 2009). A hallmark feature of the applied sport psychology in the USSR was epitomized within so-called “complex scientific groups” (abbreviated to KNG in Russian) or “scientific support groups” created to work with Soviet national teams. The KNG consisted of head coaches of national teams for a certain sport and representatives from various sport sciences, such as physicians, physiologists, educational specialists, biochemists, and psychologists. The main objective of these groups was to assist athletes and coaches in improving the effectiveness of their training, especially for competitions at the elite level. The team psychologist’s tasks (usually one sport psychologist was assigned to each team) were to observe and study the influence of sport activity on athletes’ psychological states; formulate and create a psychological climate that increased the efficiency of athletes’ training; promote the development of athletes’ psychological skills and mental preparation for competitions; and assess the psychological and social status of interpersonal relations among team members in order to facilitate the formation of optimal group dynamics. The collaborative work within the scientific support groups dominated the psychological preparation of athletes at the highest international level throughout the 1970s and 1980s until the mid-1990s. Applied experiences acquired within the national teams, allowed sport psychologists to identify knowledge gaps and develop new research directions that complemented the performance-related topics, for example, team dynamics, communication, and leadership in sport (e.g., Hanin, 1980; Dzhamgarov & Rumyanceva, 1983; Kolomeicev, 1984), psychomotor functioning and decision-making (e.g., Belkin, 1983; Il’in, 1986; Surkov, 1982, 1984), athletes’ personality, inter-individual differences, and individual style of sport activity (e.g., Leevik, 1986; Il’in, 1988; Puni, 1980; Vyatkin, 1979). A bibliography of sport psychology literature (Lalayan, 1980) contained 2,585 references, and in the next edition (Lalayan, 1984) another 2,258 references were added. Although the persistent interest in performance enhancement remained, a more holistic interest towards athletes themselves 13

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– their lives and careers – was also emerging. The success of the Soviet athletes in Moscow Olympics (first place in the medals table) and the boycott of the next Olympic Games in Los Angeles by socialist countries offered an opportunity for conducting sociological and social psychological investigations of elite athletes’ careers. This early research, followed by dramatic changes in Russian society in the 1990s, initiated a conceptual shift in sport psychology from psychological control and intervention to psychological support of the athletic career (see Stambulova, 1999). The year 1987 became a turning point in the history of Soviet sport psychology, as the establishment of the USSR Federation of Sport Psychology was approved by its constituent plenum. Victor A. Plahtienko became its first president. Before this, sport psychologists could only join the Sport Psychology Section of the USSR Psychological Society and its regional groups. The 1980s were also characterized by increased cooperation between sport psychologists of socialist countries through sharing information during regular international meetings, joint books (e.g., Nekrasov, Hudadov, Pikkenkhain, & Frester, 1985), and coordinated policy to ensure representation of socialist sport psychologists in FEPSAC and ISSP Managing Councils (MC). Albert Rodionov, Gennadij Gorbunov, and Natalia Stambulova served on FEPSAC MC in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s respectively. Russia was also represented on ISSP MC by Peter Roudik, Nikolai Hudadov, Vladimir Melnikov, Semen Slobunov, and Natalia Stambulova. Melnikov served as vice-president of the ISSP in 1985–1989. At the end of the 1980s, a policy of reform initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev – known as perestroika – facilitated contacts between Soviet sport psychologists and their Western colleagues. A historical (first ever) exchange of sport psychology delegations between the USSR and the USA occurred in 1989. Approximately thirty American sport psychologists visited Moscow and Leningrad (with a joint conference in Moscow) and later the same year, about thirty Soviet sport psychologists visited the USA (with a joint conference in Colorado Springs) in return. In 1990, the Soviet sport psychology delegation participated in the Ambassador Program and Sport Psychology Conference at the Goodwill Games in Seattle. Both sides were eager to engage in an open dialogue and to learn about each other and sport psychology. Since that time, more Russian sport psychologists became involved internationally taking part in various international conferences, including FEPSAC and ISSP Congresses.

Crisis and paradigmatic shift (beginning of the 1990s to the present day) The late 1980s and the 1990s brought tremendous social, economic, and political changes in Russia and Eastern Europe, such as the disillusionment with the socialist and communist ideologies, the policy of ‘glasnost’ encouraging open discussion of economic and political realities, the more diverse and freer dissemination of information and news, and the collapse of the legitimacy of the ruling communist parties. These changes, which resulted in disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, have also been reflected in sport psychology. The newly formed Russian Federation of Sport Psychology (RFSP) replaced the USSR Federation with Anatoly Ganyushkin elected as its first president (1991–1995). Then as a result of the power struggle between the sport psychology leaders, RFSP was replaced by the RASPEP (the Russian Association of Sport and Physical Education Psychologists) headed first by Albert Rodionov, and later by Sergey Neverkovich. The substantial decline in state support was one of the main reasons for eliminating or outsourcing sport psychology labs, reducing research and pedagogical staff, and dismantling 14

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the centralized system of psychological support for athletes within the scientific groups (KNG). Many sport psychologists had to find ways of supplementing their income by taking part-time jobs in other fields or changing the professional focus to diverse areas of application, such as business or military. Some leading sport psychology researchers and practitioners left Russia for other countries in the West. For example, Leonid Gissen now lives in England, Yuri Hanin in Finland, Yuri Kiselev in Germany, Semen Slobunov in the USA, and Alexander Stambulov and Natalia Stambulova now reside in Sweden. Those sport psychologists who stayed in the field after the breakdown of the Soviet Union, made commendable efforts to maintain interpersonal relations and scientific communication among sport psychologists of the former USSR that kept sport psychology research collaborations alive in Russia and other Soviet republics, now independent states, such as Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Armenia (see also Straub, Ermolaeva, & Rodionov, 1995). As a consequence of the aforementioned changes in Russian society, there was a broadening of research lines in sport psychology, including interests in youth and nonelite athletes, psychology of coaching, as well as making interdisciplinary inroads into exercise and health psychology (e.g., Kantor & Ryzonkin, 1993; Rogaleva, 2004). A more holistic understanding of elite athletes’ careers, mentioned earlier, brought to the attention of Russian researchers and practitioners such issues as early sport specialization, the transition to elite and professional sport, coping with life as an elite athlete as well as preparing and managing retirement from sport (Hvatskaya, 1997; Gorskaya, Bosenko, Grin, & Khoroshun, 2009; Stambulova, 1994, 1999, 2000; Stambulova & Hvatskaya, 2013). Due to increased international cooperation some cross-cultural studies had been conducted comparing physical self-perceptions and physical activity in British and Russian schoolchildren (Hagger, Ashford, & Stambulova, 1998), physical self-perceptions in British, Hong Kong, and Russian adolescents (Hagger, Biddle, Chow, Stambulova, & Kavussanu, 2003), athletic identity in American, British, and Russian athletes (Hale, James, & Stambulova, 1999), and athletic retirement issues in German, Lithuanian, and Russian athletic samples (Alfermann, Stambulova, & Zemaityte, 2004). Through the 1990s, applied work with athletes continued but was less centralized than in the Soviet era. At the same time an opportunity to have sport psychology consulting as a private practice had appeared and helped to maintain services and traditions. Performance enhancement was still a central focus but it was also much more related to other aspects of athletes’ life and development throughout the athletic career (Gorbunov, 1996; Gorskaya, 1995; Kiselev, 2002; Stambulova, 1999; Stambulova et al., 2012). The Russian framework for career assistance was termed the system of psychological support for athletes’ careers (Stambulova, 1999) and aimed helping athletes to deal with challenges at different career stages. The relative stabilization of Russian society and the economy in the 2000s resulted in increased financial investments into sport, and winning the rights to host the Winter Olympic Games of 2014 in Sochi and other big sport events (e.g., the Football World Cup in 2018). After unimpressive performance at the Winter Olympic Games of 2010 in Vancouver, the Russian government mobilized resources to reclaim the country’s status and previous high international reputation in sports. The national program entitled “Support system for preparation of national Russian teams in winter sports for the XXII Olympic Games and XI Paralympic Games of 2014 in Sochi” (2010) had been published to provide optimal conditions for elite athletes including psychological and other types of expert support. The program was grounded in Soviet practices of scientific support for athletes, such as implementation of the “scientific support groups” of experts working with the national team athletes, and complemented by latest advances in infrastructure and technologies. 15

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Conclusions In this chapter, we contextualized the emergence and ensuing trajectories of the Russian sport psychological discourse, highlighting its intricate connections with the statesponsored system of physical culture and sport during the Soviet era. Initially, a wide-scale sporting movement in the USSR was intended to improve the health and overall wellbeing of Soviet people, particularly the youth, facilitate their harmonious physical and intellectual development, and draw them into the country’s social and political life (Riordan, 1977). Soviet leaders further attempted to use physical culture and sport to instill communist moral values and prepare young men and women for dedicated work, including, if necessary, the defense of the Socialist way of life. Eventually the focus of Soviet sport began to shift towards performance excellence and the cultivation of superior athletes, which elevated the status of applied sport psychology while simultaneously stimulating the search of new theoretical decisions and applied methods. By the mid-1970s, the era when “high athletic performance was synonymous with good health, has long […] passed” (Shneidman, 1979). The goal of sport was blurring and shifting – devoted less to the strengthening of citizens’ health and more to advancing the reputation of the Soviet social order. Sport scientists, including psychologists, were recruited to enhance athletic performance and assist athletes in coping with the demands of training and competitive pressure. It became possible to take full advantage of psychological support services for athletes due to the complex centralized sporting structure (e.g., talent identification and selection; the built-in incentives system; and the scientific basis underlying sport performance) and the working conditions of Soviet sport psychologists (e.g., prestigious and secure state employment; the relatively stable composition of national teams; and collaboration with other sport experts, including highly qualified coaches). During the transition period in the 1990s, the centralized system of sport psychology training and services went through severe restructuring and cutbacks so that the future of sport psychology in Russia has been uncertain. The preparation of national teams for Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014 paired with centralization of state power in Russian society were influential in resurrecting the best sport psychology practices of the Soviet era. Increased state investments in sport and sport sciences give us an optimistic basis for projecting the preservation of the rich sport psychology history and tradition in Russia. Ironically, the richness of Russia’s scientific knowledge base and its successful praxis-driven application also present challenges for Russia’s scientific integration into a global sport psychology community. Sport psychology research conducted in Russia remains invisible mainly due to differences in research and academic cultures, scientific writing traditions, as well as translation difficulties of often incommensurable epistemological paradigms. In that sense, Russian sport psychology is positioned “at the site where cultural horizons meet, where the demand for translation is acute and its promise of success, uncertain” (Butler, 1999, p. ix).

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Melnikov, V. M. (1992). Soviet sport psychology resume. In J. Salmela (Ed.), The world sport psychology sourcebook (pp. 119–121). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Nekrasov, V. P., Hudadov, N. A., Pikkenkhain, L., & Frester, P. (1985). Psihoregulyaciya v podgotovke sportsmenov [Psycho-regulation in athletes’ preparation]. Moscow: FiS. Puni, A. C. (1959). Ocherki psihologii sporta [Sport psychology essays]. Moscow: FiS. Puni, A. C. (1969). Psihologicheskaya podgotovka k sorevnovaniyu v sporte [Psychological preparation for a competition in sport]. Moscow: FiS. Puni, A. C. (1973a). Nekotorye voprosy teorii voli i volevaya podgotovka v sporte [Volitional preparation in sport: Theory and practice]. In P. A. Roudik, V. V. Medvedev, & A. V. Rodionov (Eds.), Psihologiya i sovremennyi sport [Psychology and contemporary sport] (pp. 144–162). Moscow: FiS. Puni, A. C. (1973b). Nekotorye psihologicheskie voprosy gotovnosti k sorevnovaniyam v sporte [Some psychological aspects of readiness for a competition in sport]. Leningrad: GDOIFK. Puni, A. C. (1980). Problema lichnosti v psihologii sporta [Personality issues in sport psychology]. Moscow: FiS. Raphalovich, A. G. (1950). O vozniknovenii i razvitii interesa k sportu [Beginning and development of sport interest]. In G. M. Krakovyak, S. D. Sinicin, N. I. Tavastshern, & N. N. Yakovlev (Eds.), Collection of LNIIFK research papers (pp. 21–30). Moscow: FiS. Riordan, J. (1977). Sport in Soviet society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rodionov, A. A. (1973). Psihodiagnostika sportivnyh sposobnostei [Psycho-diagnostics of sport abilities]. Moscow: FiS. Rodionov, A. A. (ed.). (1979). Psihologiya sporta vysshih dostizhenii [Psychology of high achievement sport]. Moscow: FiS. Rodionov, A. A. (1983). Vliyanie psihologicheskih faktorov na sportivnyi resultat [Influence of psychological factors on sport result]. Moscow: FiS. Rogaleva, L. (2004). Vliyanie sportivnoi deyatelnosti na lichnost yunogo sportsmena v zavisimosti ot ustanovok trenera [Sport participation and personality development of young athletes depending on coaches’ dispositions and philosophies]. Sportivnyi Psiholog, 1, 54–58. Roudik, P. A. (1945). Volya i ee vospitanie [Volition and its upbringing]. Moscow: GCOLIFK. Roudik, P. A. (1958). Psihologiya [Psychology]. Textbook for institutes of physical culture. Moscow: FiS. Roudik, P. A. (Ed.). (1962). Problemy psihologii sporta [Problems of Sport Psychology]. Moscow: FiS. Roudik, P. A., Medvedev, V. V., & Rodionov, A. V. (Eds.). (1973). Psihologiya i sovremennyi sport [Psychology and contemporary sport]. Moscow: FiS. Roudik, P. A., Puni, A. C., & Hudadov, N. A. (Eds.). (1968). Psihologicheskaya podgotovka sportsmenov razlichnyh vidov sporta k sorevnovaniyam. [Psychological preparation for competition in different sports]. Moscow: FiS. Ryba, T. V. (2005). Applied sport psychology: Unearthing and contextualizing a dual genealogy. (Doctoral Dissertation). Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee. Ryba, T. V., Stambulova, N. B., & Wrisberg, C. A. (2005). The Russian origins of sport psychology: A translation of an early work of A. C. Puni. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 17, 157–169. Ryba, T. V., Stambulova, N. B., & Wrisberg, C. A. (2009). Forward to the past: Puni’s model of volitional preparation in sport. International Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 7, 276–291. Sechenov, I. M. (1952). Izbrannye proizvedenija [Selected manuscripts]. Moscow AN SSSR. Shneidman, N. N. (1979). Soviet sport psychology in the 1970s and the superior athlete. In P. Klavora & J. V. Daniel (Eds.), Coach, athlete, and the sport psychologist (pp. 230–247). Toronto: University of Toronto. Smirnov, B. N. (1968). Volevaya podgotovka gimnastov [Volitional preparation of gymnasts]. Moscow: GCOLIFK. Stambulova, N. B. (1994). Developmental sports career investigations in Russia: A post-perestroika analysis. The Sport Psychologist, 8, 221–237. Stambulova, N. B. (1999). Psihologiya sportivnoi kar’ery [Psychology of athletic career]. St.-Petersburg: Career Promotion Center. Stambulova, N. B. (2000). Athletes’ crises: A developmental perspective. The International Journal of Sport Psychology, 31, 584–601. Stambulova, N. B., & Hvatskaya, E. E. (2013). Athletes’ careers in Russia: From 1980 Moscow to 2014 Sochi Olympics. In N. B. Stambulova & T. V. Ryba (Eds.), Athletes’ careers across cultures (pp. 160–172). New York: Routledge. Stambulova, N. B., Johnson, U., & Stambulov, A. V. (2009). Sport psychology consulting in Russia and Sweden. In R. J. Schinke & S. Hanrahan (Eds.), Cultural sport psychology: From theory to practice (pp. 125–140). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

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Stambulova, N. B., Stambulov, A. V., & Johnson, U. (2012). ‘Believe in yourself, channel energy, and play your trumps’: Olympic preparation in complex coordination sports. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 13, 679–686. Stambulova, N., Wrisberg, C., & Ryba, T. V. (2006). A tale of two traditions in applied sport psychology: The heyday of Soviet sport and wake-up call for North America. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 18, 173–184. Straub, W. F., Ermolaeva, M. V., & Rodionov, A. V. (1995). Profiles and professional perspectives: Ten leading former Soviet Union sport psychologists. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 7, 93–111. Surkov, E. N. (1982). Anticipaciya v sporte [Anticipation in sport]. Moscow: FiS. Surkov, E. N. (1984). Psihomotorika sportsmena [Athlete’s psychomotorics]. Moscow: FiS. Tchizh, V. F. (1910). Psihologija sporta [Sports psychology]. Practicheskaja Meditsina [Practicing Medicine], 40, 41 & 42, 1–25. Tczen, N. V., & Pahomov, Y. V. (1985). Psihotehnicheskie igry v sporte [Psycho-technical games in sport]. Moscow: FiS. Vyatkin, B. A. (1979). Rol’ temperamenta v sportivnoi deyatelnosti [Role of temperament in sport]. Moscow: FiS. Vyatkin, B. A. (1981). Upravlenie psihicheskim stressom v sportivnyh sorevnovaniyah [Managing psychological stress in sport competitions]. Moscow: FiS. Young, R. J. C. (2004). White mythologies: Writing history and the west (2nd ed.). London and New York: Routledge. Zagainov, R. M. (1984). Psiholog v komande [Psychologist in the team]. Moscow: FiS.

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T H E U N I T E D STAT E S Craig Wrisberg and Lars Dzikus

While most published accounts of the history of sport psychology1 in the United States (U.S.) trace the field’s inception to the 1890s, its formal emergence as a discipline is relatively recent, with the bulk of primary source literature dating to around the mid-1960s. The intent of the present chapter is to construct a critical and analytical history (Booth, 2005; Struna, 1996) of two issues that have shaped the development of the field, and in so doing provide important “back story” to previous work (Gill, 1995, 1997; Gould & Pick, 1995; Kornspan, 2012; Silva, 2001). Specifically, we examine the persistent tension that has existed between (a) proponents of academic and applied approaches to sport psychology, and (b) professionals trained in departments of kinesiology and psychology.

Origins of the discipline The academic roots of sport psychology originated almost exclusively in departments of physical education during the late 1950s and early 1960s (Wiggins, 1984). Prior to that time, curricula were focused on the preparation of teachers and coaches, with most coursework emphasizing pedagogical methods for teaching physical activities. This started to change in the late 1950s when a number of prominent individuals began advocating for specialized areas of study, including sport psychology (McCloy, 1958). Among the more vocal was Franklin Henry (1964), who argued that the discipline of physical education should be centered on the “study of man [sic] as an individual, engaging in the motor performances required in daily life, and in other motor performances yielding aesthetic values or serving as expressions of his [sic] physical and competitive nature” (p. 32). Henry also believed students should be adept at conducting basic research, “without any demonstration or requirement of practical application” (p. 32). His views, which were not well received by traditionalists, marked a turning point in the field; from then on physical education professionals would be primarily dedicated to either research or practice.2 By the late 1960s many research universities had developed graduate specializations in motor learning and sport psychology and research professors began shifting their allegiance from the more practitioner-oriented American Association of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation (AAHPER) to the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and 20

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Physical Activity (NASPSPA) (Kirkendall, 1975).3 From its inception in 1967, NASPSPA’s stated purpose has been “to encourage and promote the study of the relationship of various behavioral sciences to sport and physical activity through meetings, research, publications, and like means of cooperative endeavor” (Kirkendall, p. 1). Put simply, the organization’s primary intent has always been to emphasize scholarship rather than service or pedagogy (Kirkendall). However, tension between researchers and practitioners began to surface at the 1970 NASPSPA conference when several academicians offered a scathing indictment of Bruce Ogilvie and Thomas Tutko’s work on the personality of athletes (see Roberts, 1995). The resulting debate revealed a considerable philosophical divide between physical education professors and practicing psychologists. In the late 1970s, some with training in the discipline of physical education began to worry that the field was moving back in an applied direction. At the same time, sport psychology in the Soviet Union was attracting attention in the U.S. due in part to the successes of their athletes in Olympic competition. In an interview published in the NASPSPA Newsletter, the prominent Soviet sport psychologist Yuri Hanin (1978) stated his opinion that the most puzzling aspect of sport psychology in North America was “the failure of sport psychologists to help athletes and coaches in their practical work” (p. 3).4 In the first issue of the Journal of Sport Psychology, the field was defined as “the scientific study of behavior in a sport or sport-related context,” with only brief mention given to “a clinical dimension, where qualified clinicians diagnose and treat the psychological problems of athletes” (Landers, 1979, p. 2). At the same time, some psychologists argued that the field was “still in search of a definition” (Nideffer, DuFresne, Nesvig, & Selder, 1980, p. 174). Moreover, in anticipation of the possibility of forthcoming consulting opportunities, some scholars began discussing the necessary credentials of practitioners. For example, Harrison and Feltz (1979) warned of the possible conflicts that might arise between unlicensed sport psychologists and state licensing boards that considered the practice of any kind of psychology without a license to be a legal offense.

The growing emphasis on professional practice In 1979, NASPSPA established an ad hoc committee to examine the ethical practice of sport psychology, chaired by Robert Nideffer, a clinical psychologist. Despite concerns that the committee’s recommendations were clinically biased (“Update on ad hoc committees,” 1979), an Ethical Standards document (Nideffer, Feltz, Heyman, & Salmela, 1982a, 1982b) was passed at the annual conference a few years later (Roberts, 1982).5 While some NASPSPA members worried about the growing emphasis on professional practice issues, those who aspired to be consultants were invigorated by the United States Olympic Committee’s (USOC) decision to add sport psychology to its support services for athletes (U.S. Olympic Committee, 1983). More specifically, an advisory committee comprised of individuals trained in physical education and psychology had identified three possible categories of sport psychology services, determined the minimum credentials for practitioners in each category, and developed a registry of individuals who met those requirements (Nideffer, 1984).6 The categories of service consisted of “clinical” (i.e., assessment of psychopathological disorders), “educational” (i.e., performance enhancement assistance), and research (i.e., evaluation of service quality). Almost immediately, critics argued that the guidelines exacerbated “tensions between individuals with backgrounds in physical education departments and those with backgrounds in psychology” (Heyman, 1984, p. 131). In an attempt to defuse the situation, USOC committee chair, Kenneth Clarke (1984), stated that, “eligibility was assured for both 21

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those coming out of physical education and clinical psychology, or related fields” (p. 366). However, friction between professionals representing the two camps was already evident in the sport psychology literature. Some authors continued to emphasize the legalities of the psychologist label (Brown, 1982; Nideffer, Feltz, & Salmela, 1982), while others questioned whether licensing ensured competence (Gross, 1978; Koocher, 1979) or suggested that clinically and nonclinically trained practitioners merely operated in different ways (Heyman, 1982). Danish and Hale (1981) opposed licensing, arguing that “the prevailing remedial (i.e., clinical) intervention models presently in use in sport psychology are not in the best interests of either the individual athlete or for the development of sport psychology as a separate discipline” (p. 90). As an alternative they proposed an educational model based on a human development framework (see also Danish, Pettipas, & Hale, 1992). Subsequent rounds of discussion centered on the relative merits of educational (Boutcher & Rotella, 1987; LaRose, 1988; Petruzzello, Landers, Linder, & Robinson, 1987) and clinical (Davies & West, 1991) approaches to service provision (Vealey, 1988).

Science vs. practice debates The escalating tension between research- and practice-focused members of NASPSPA came to a head in the 1980s. Dishman (1983) observed that the legal and ethical ramifications of professional practice were commanding “a progressively large and conspicuous amount of the field’s attention” and that “in order to sanction applied services (the field) must possess an applied body of knowledge and a reliable technology” (p. 123). More pointedly, Newell and Wade (1983), professors of motor behavior, voiced their opinion that the NASPSPA organization was “currently at a crossroads ... in danger of losing its significance as a scientific society” (p. 6). More specifically, they worried that the counseling of athletes was beginning to dominate conference sessions and the critical mass of clinicians in the organization would soon have the votes to “turn the clock back so that professional interests surrounding sport are centerpiece” (pp. 6–7). In response to the growing concern over this issue, the executive board of NASPSPA charged an ad hoc committee of past presidents to explore the matter of professional service and offer their opinion as to whether or not the organization should expand its purpose to include applied activities. Though unanimity was not achieved, the committee recommended that NASPSPA add professional services, based on the observation that “sport psychology in the last few years has witnessed considerable development in what may be termed service activities – e.g., the dissemination of knowledge to coaches and athletes, counseling athletes, and providing clinical assistance for athletes who experience psychological problems” (Martens, Ryan, & Schmidt, 1983, p. 1).7 News of the recommendation prompted an impassioned and divided response among NASPSPA members, ranging from “I am opposed to expanding the society to ‘include professional activities’ in any way, shape, or form” (Keogh, 1984, p. 2) to “If NASPSPA does not assume this role, some other organizations will, resulting in a division of membership, leadership, and scholarly activities” (Harris, 1984, p. 5). The Spring newsletter contained a ballot, which members were instructed to fill out and mail back to the Secretary-Treasurer by September 1, 1984. However, the wording of the motion was altered by the executive board to read that, “NASPSPA will not [italics added] expand its function to include professional activities”; meaning that those who opposed the expansion of NASPSPA’s purpose were to vote for the motion. Moreover, in the same newsletter, Henry (1984) reminded members of Keogh’s earlier observation that NASPSPA had been “born out of difficulties in having professional and scholarly functions in one organization” (p. 11) and expressed the fervid 22

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hope that it would “remain true to its original and undiluted scholarly purpose, refusing to serve as handmaiden for applied professions such as education, health, sport psychology, and such others as may intrude” (p. 11). Landers (1984), a sport psychology professor, further echoed Henry’s sentiments, citing the earlier “misfortune” of the APA: If we are wise enough to learn from the experiences of other organizations, we would vividly see the adverse consequences of allowing a voting majority of nonresearchers to change the very nature of a scientific group. The formation of such splinter groups as Psychonomic Science Society and Society for Psychophysiological Research were largely a result of the “take over” of APA by practicing professional psychologists. (p. 12)8 During the business meeting at the 1984 conference, 30 minutes of discussion were devoted to the motion with strong arguments presented on both sides. The results of the subsequent mail-in vote were 49 in favor of the motion and 24 against (“Executive committee minutes,” 1985, p. 3), assuring that NASPSPA would stay true to its original purpose and not concern itself in any way with issues of professional practice.

The creation of AAASP and APA Division 47 Undeterred by the NASPSPA vote, a contingent headed by John Silva met in Gulf Park, Mississippi, to discuss the formation of a new society, the Association for the Advancement of Applied Sport Psychology (AAASP), “designed to promote research and examine professional issues in three areas of Applied Sport Psychology: Intervention, Health Psychology, and Social Psychology” (“AAASP,” 1985, p. 15).9 The president-elect, Ron Smith (1979), declared that, “our field will best be served by a scientist-practitioner model. The most tragic error we could make is to affirm explicitly or implicitly that science and application are two different domains of activity” (p. 3). In contrast, NASPSPA president, Mary Ann Roberton (1987), stated, “with the creation of AAASP to act as a vehicle for those with more clinical interests, NASPSPA is now freed to do what it has always done, only better: promote and share research” (p. 3).10 In an address given at the first AAASP conference in 1986, founding president Silva (1987) identified the following “crucial questions” facing the field: s s s s s

Who qualifies as a sport psychologist or sport psychology consultant? What defines quality graduate training? What competencies should one have? Should one be in a physical education or psychology department? Does one have to be a sport psychologist or can anyone practice?

Silva also contended that sport psychology must be an interdisciplinary specialization, that the “artificial division between research and practice” had to be removed (p. 13), that dogmatic approaches which promote elitist attitudes had to be avoided, that AAASP must be a competency-based organization, and that it was imperative for the field to advance. Earlier, Silva had informed members that (a) the organization would be launching an official journal, the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology (JASP); (b) he would be seeking an opportunity to speak at meetings of the governing body for collegiate athletics in the U.S., the National Collegiate 23

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Athletic Association (NCAA); and (c) he had charged a committee with the task of exploring a process for the credentialing of sport psychologists. Concurrent with the creation of AAASP in 1985, some psychologists were beginning to discuss the possibility of an emphasis on sport psychology within APA. According to Nideffer (1984) the latter organization had historically, shown very little interest in the area of sport. For many members, sport psychology represented at best a diversion from the real issues of pain and human suffering that a psychologist faces. So it might be viewed as a hobby, a time-out from more important clinical issues. Others saw sport psychology as a total waste of time and as demeaning to the profession. Their view was that clinicians were trained to help reduce the pain in the world, to help the oppressed, not to indulge the elite. (p. 39) Nevertheless, the persistent effort of a few eventually resulted in the official recognition of APA Division 47 (APA 47), Exercise and Sport Psychology in 1986 (Swoap, 1999). Comprised primarily of licensed practitioners and interested individuals from the field of exercise and sport science, APA 47 offered another forum for exchanging information about the practice of sport psychology. Before long, it became evident to some that the existence of NASPSPA and recent emergence of AAASP and APA 47 represented “a partial reflection of disagreement about the boundaries of sport psychology and its scientific, educational, and/or professional purposes” (Rejeski & Brawley, 1988, p. 236). Around the same time, the results of a survey of chairpersons of APA-approved clinical psychology programs (LeUnes & Hayward, 1990) revealed no major movement to absorb sport psychology into mainstream departments and a lingering skepticism regarding the validity of the discipline. In the first issue of JASP, Ogilvie (1989) acknowledged that, in his experience, the label “psychologist” seemed to diminish coaches’ perceptions of the credibility of sport psychology, echoing the words of Nideffer (1981), who had earlier warned that clinical training and licensure might inadvertently perpetuate the idea that sport psychologists are “shrinks” who deal only with crazy athletes. Encouraging evidence of an advancing field was the publication of the first edition of the Directory of Graduate Programs in Applied Sport Psychology (Sachs & Burke, 1986), with virtually all of the programs listed being housed in departments of physical education. The following year another a new journal, The Sport Psychologist (TSP), was launched and purported to be “a vehicle that bridges the gap between sport psychology research and practice” (Gould & Roberts, 1987, p. 2). In the inaugural issue the co-editors stated that, some individuals working in the field see academic and applied sport psychology as two competing forces – one proper, scholarly, and aloof from practice and the other practical, but nondisciplined and nonscholarly. Such a dualistic approach is inappropriate, for both academic and applied sport psychology have much to offer. Moreover, to have the greatest impact the practicing sport psychologist must be knowledgeable in both areas. (p. 2)11 In spite of this initiative, some researchers continued to worry over what they perceived to be an increasing emphasis on practice issues at the expense of research (e.g., Strean & Roberts, 1992). At the same time, those conducting studies on the effectiveness of sport psychology 24

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interventions in applied settings were beginning to hear criticism regarding the internal validity of their research (cf., Locke, 1991; Weinberg & Weigand, 1993). In response to such a charge, one group argued that previous scientific approaches had failed because investigators “jumped right into attempting to conduct empirical mostly laboratory-based studies” without first achieving an understanding of sport from the athletes’ perspective (Weinberg, Burton, Yukelson, & Weigand, 1993, p. 278). Such debates were reminiscent of the turmoil prompted a decade earlier by Martens (1979), who had voiced his disenchantment over the inability of conventional research approaches to capture the complexity of athlete behavior. At that time, Marten’s call for a shift of research focus to the sporting context generated considerable discussion (see Landers, 1983; Siedentop, 1980; Thomas, 1980).

Controversy over the qualifications of practitioners As the 1980s drew to a close, AAASP began to develop a process for certifying sport psychologists. From the beginning there were serious differences of opinion on the specifics of certification, largely between members trained in physical education and psychology (“AAASP executive board minutes,” 1989a). Considerable care was taken in choosing the most appropriate certification title, with the label “Certified Sport Psychologist” being rejected in favor of “Certified Consultant AAASP” for legality purposes.12 Gould stressed the importance of stating up front what certification would and would not mean (“AAASP executive board minutes,” 1989b). He worried that distrust between educational and clinical sport psychology specialists, the research-practice schism, unrealistic certification expectations, and a focus on territorial protection could be potential obstacles to the advancement of the field and the AAASP organization (Gould, 1990). His concerns were soon reinforced when clinical psychologist Frank Gardner (1991) took issue with Silva’s (1989) comments in an earlier paper dealing with the professionalization of sport psychology. Specifically, Gardner expressed concern over what he perceived to be a minimization of the role of the science of psychology in the development of applied sport psychology, the condescending tone toward licensed psychologists, and questioning of the competence of licensed psychologists to do sport psychology. The eventual acceptance of AAASP certification criteria (“AAASP passes,” 1990) did little to defuse tension over the qualifications necessary for providing sport psychology services for athletes. One opponent of certification (Anshel, 1992) argued that it was the only way (presumably unqualified) psychologists would be able to gain professional credibility in sport psychology. In contrast, several licensed practitioners (e.g., Zaichkowsky & Perna, 1992) endorsed the AAASP procedures and certification criteria. Still others, mostly trained in physical education, felt the whole issue was “much ado about nothing,” arguing that coaches could assist their athletes in managing the mental challenges of their sport by simply availing themselves of credible resources. Perhaps most notable of these was Rotella (1990) who, in a review of Martens’ (1987) book, Coaches Guide to Sport Psychology, stated, “If every coach in the country could read and apply the information in this book, it is possible that there would no longer be a need for sport psychologists to work with teams and coaches” (p. 78). Later, Anshel (1993) offered the more ominous view that the “worst case scenario” for certification was not that it would harm the profession but that practitioners and consumers would simply ignore it. The tension surrounding the issue of certification prompted Weinberg (1998) to call for a “more concerted effort within AAASP and among other organizations so that the field doesn’t become more fractionated” (p. 3). However, his appeal did little to alleviate the 25

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friction between licensed and non-licensed practitioners. In a point–counterpoint column in the AAASP Newsletter, Rotella (1992) declared, “There is no such thing as clinical sport psychology. There is sport psychology or, if preferred, educational sport psychology” (p. 9). In response, Andersen (1992) attempted to defuse the situation by calling for AAASP to be “united in its direction and not let models of turf and power fighting, present throughout the history of professional psychology and physical education, distract us from our exciting mission” (p. 9). In a similar vein, Taylor (1994, 1995) stated the opinion that cooperation and harmony between practitioners trained in psychology and sport science was largely a matter of remaining within the boundaries of ethical practice, irrespective of one’s educational background. Evidence of AAASP’s commitment to ethical practice was the addition of a new column in its newsletter, entitled “Considering Ethics,” beginning in the summer of 1993. AAASP president and clinical psychologist Andrew Meyers (1995) also declared that membership required a commitment to adhere to the AAASP ethics statement, which as noted earlier was based essentially on APA guidelines for psychologists. However, Giges (1995) cautioned, “When one discipline tells another what it may not do, an implicit hierarchy develops, which can breed resentment and create antagonism and distance” (p. 17). Regardless, the available evidence suggests that with respect to issues of ethics, certification, and the supervision of aspiring certified consultants (Andersen & Williams-Rice, 1996), AAASP’s decisions were largely based on the recommendations of psychology-trained members. Moreover, it is reasonable to presume that this trend will continue given the fact that over half of current members hold their highest academic degree in psychology (Williams & Krane, 2015). In the early 1990s, Silva (1992) issued the first of several calls for the accreditation of sport psychology graduate programs to assure the proper training of students interested in full-time consulting (Silva, Conroy, & Zizzi, 1999). However, not everyone concurred with the need for such an initiative. Hale and Danish (1999), citing an earlier post by Patrick on the SportPsy listserv,13 suggested that issues like certification, accreditation, and licensure depended on the existence of three factors: (a) a need within an appreciable segment of society, (b) evidence that the public can’t provide the service for itself, and (c) evidence of some cost due to inadequate service provision. In their view these factors were not only not evident but the field of sport psychology was not attracting the interest of the sporting public in the ways Silva had originally anticipated. In some cases there even appeared to be a resistance to the use of consultants among prospective clients. For example, the results of one study (Maniar, Curry, Sommers-Flannagan, & Walsh, 2001) revealed that NCAA Division I (D-I) student-athletes preferred to seek psychological assistance from their coaches somewhat more than from sport psychology professionals and considerably more than from counselors or clinical psychologists. Perhaps the most glaring examples of institutional resistance were the restrictions imposed by the NCAA on the involvement of sport psychology consultants with athletes and coaches at the D-I level (see Bemiller & Wrisberg, 2011, for a more detailed discussion).14 In his President-elect candidate statement, Danish (2000) posited that, AAASP has reached a turning point. Although our numbers grow, many of the new members are joining under false assumptions relative to career opportunities in the field. …There are not enough jobs for everyone who wants careers enhancing athletes’ performance. … The decision to expand our focus to other domains should be an easy one. (p. 13) 26

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Soon thereafter, a special issue of JASP was published entitled: “Moving beyond the psychology of athletic excellence” (Gould, 2002). The issue contained a number of papers addressing ways sport psychologists might assist individuals in non-sport performance domains and participants representing a wider variety of skill levels.

Attempts to reintegrate research and practice The 1990s also witnessed a call for greater emphasis on the integration of theory, research, and intervention/practice within AAASP (Carron, 1993), as well as a renewed commitment to the scientist-practitioner model (Williams, 1995). However, some expressed concern that research presentations by academics were becoming more prevalent at the annual conference while those given by applied practitioners were diminishing (Krane, 1997). Robin Vealey (2000), observed that, the current organizational structure of AAASP and the Executive Board represents a research society model which is incongruent with the efficient pursuit of the Association’s missions. … AAASP was formed to meet the needs of a developing profession [italics added] that includes not only knowledge development and dissemination (research activities), but also professional issues such as service delivery to society and the development and maintenance of rigorous professional standards for the competent and ethical practice of sport psychology. (p. 12) Regardless, the rift between researchers and practitioners continued to widen, with little apparent concern evidenced among the parties on either side. Moreover, Gould worried that researchers were “not getting valid information to people who can use it in a form they can understand. Researchers are focusing on issues and concerns that are sometimes different from what coaches, athletes, and exercisers experience” (as quoted in Giacobbi , 2003, p. 29). A number of AAASP presidents lamented the organization’s inability to expand career opportunities in sport psychology (Zaichowsky, 1998) and warned that professional infighting was distracting members from the larger problem of credibility with the sporting public.15 In her presidential address, Vealey (1999) emphasized the importance of achieving a greater level of interorganizational communication by suggesting that AAASP’s relationship with APA 47 become more explicitly defined. She warned that if the legitimate organizations “don’t consider alternative ideas for advancing the field, we will lose it to emerging fringe outfits who will convince the public that they have the goods to deliver sport psychology” (p. 16). 16 Evidence of such attrition surfaced in a subsequent paper (Ward, Sandstedt, Cox, & Beck, 2005), where the authors speculated, “There are currently psychologists working with athlete clients who have not received the specialized training necessary to develop their athlete-counseling competency” (p. 330). However, evidence also indicated that reputable individuals with advanced training in either sport science or psychology were providing consulting services for athletes without the AAASP CC credential, including Ron Thompson (clinical psychologist and consultant with the Indiana University Athletic Department) (Clarke, 2005), Joe Whitney (Ph.D. in Sport Psychology and Director of Mental Training with the University of Tennessee Athletic Department) (Hankes, 2005b), and Jim Bauman (counseling psychologist and full-time staff member with the USOC) (Roche, 2006). In 2003, the efforts of licensed psychologists working with athletes were impacted by the formal recognition of a proficiency in sport psychology within APA 47 (Hays, 2003). The 27

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intent of the proficiency was to encourage licensed practitioners to seek additional sportspecific knowledge necessary for more effective service provision. However, the proficiency appeared to have meaning “only as a descriptor of a particular sub-area of psychology” and no formal mechanism had been developed for evaluating the competence of licensed practitioners (Clarke, 2003, p. 21). Nevertheless, some in APA 47 began to emphasize the importance of evidence-based practice and vigilant attentiveness to academic contributions from the field of sport and exercise psychology (Carr, 2008). Moreover, the science committee of APA 47 increased its efforts to “actualize the scientist-practitioner model” and “assure that science will solidify its proper place as the foundation upon which the profession of sport psychology is built” (Aoyagi, 2011, p. 16). Yet, one practicing sport psychologist, Charlie Brown, acknowledged the ongoing challenge of cultural differences (between academicians and licensed practitioners) at an organizational level, stating that, “the culture of academia and the culture of a free market system are quite different” (as quoted in Shannon, 2009, p. 5). While it appears that both APA 47 and AASP17 have periodically endorsed the importance of a scientist-practitioner model for sport psychology professionals, to date neither has discovered a successful formula for actualizing the model on a consistent basis among its constituents. In his presidential address, McCann (2009) warned AASP members that the organization was at a critical juncture in its history. Key groups were beginning to feel that AASP didn’t work for them anymore. Some academics were choosing to go to conferences that focused precisely on their area of research while applied consultants were beginning to convene meetings dedicated exclusively to the practice of sport psychology. Equally alarming was the apparent fact that the field was not generating an evidence base for the work of practitioners. Put simply, it seemed that researchers and practitioners were drifting further apart at the expense of the future of sport psychology. In 2010, AASP launched the Journal of Sport Psychology in Action in an effort to encourage papers that would provide practitioners with research-based strategies. Subsequent to that event, the AASP Futures Committee (2010) recommended that the scientist-practitioner model become a regular conference theme. However, in spite of these efforts, the results of a 2011 AASP survey revealed that members were now “equally likely” to prefer the organization serve as a trade association and as a scientific network (Berger, 2011, p. 5). One interpretation of these results is that members valued both research and practice equally. Another interpretation is that approximately half of the members prefer a focus on research, while the other half prefer an emphasis on practice. During an invited keynote given at the 2010 AASP conference, founding president Silva (2011) cited the serious lack of advancement of the organization in three areas: proper training for practice, consensus on the necessary educational and training experiences, and impact in creating jobs for practitioners. He then proposed a uniform model of graduate training consisting of a master’s degree in sport psychology and a Ph.D. (and licensing) in either clinical or counseling psychology. During an earlier executive board meeting, McCann moved to create a committee to determine the feasibility of a unified training model for sport psychology, which he subsequently withdrew after a period of discussion (“Executive board minutes,” 2009).18 Currently, the two rival views regarding “appropriate” graduate education/training for aspiring practitioners differ primarily with respect to the issue of licensing (Portenga et al., 2011; Wrisberg, 2012). The major controversy continues to be whether competence in mental health counseling (i.e., licensure) is a necessary requirement for practitioners who wish to provide performance consulting with athletes or non-athletic populations. Currently only a handful of counseling and clinical psychology graduate programs possess a concentration in sport psychology and, as mentioned previously, AASP CC guidelines have never included a licensing requirement. Given the low admission rates 28

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and philosophical orientation of graduate programs in psychology departments, it might be unrealistic to assume that more than a handful of students interested in sport psychology would gain admission.

Some final thoughts Critical self-reflection appears to have been a periodic activity in the history of U.S. sport psychology over the past 30 years. However, the evidence examined in this chapter suggests that the field continues to struggle with an “identity crisis” (Dishman, 1983, p. 131) that has hampered its advancement. While it might be unreasonable to expect the question of identity to be settled once and for all, it would appear that a more frank and open discussion of ways to bridge the gap between research and practice and “mend fence” between licensed and non-licensed practitioners is necessary for the field to achieve the credibility it desires with the general sporting public (Heil, 2014). The NASPSPA organization continues to remain faithful to its sole focus on research with little apparent interest in professional practice issues, while AASP and APA 47 continue to pursue their respective research and practice functions in virtually parallel streams. In recent years, several initiatives have been undertaken to distinguish performance psychology from other aspects of the field of sport psychology. In 2007, AASP members approved a change in the name of one of its focus areas to Performance Psychology (AASP, 2007). In 2012, APA 47 proposed the creation of a new section on Performance Psychology, which would allow individuals from various disciplines and training to join that division without joining APA. Such initiatives could represent an important “paradigm shift” in the field of sport psychology. In a recent interview, Brown referred to the following statement made by past APA president Ron Fox: “If you want to make any progress you’ve got to let go of what you’ve been holding on to” (Peterson, Brown, McCann, & Murphy, 2012, p. 751). Brown then predicted that in the future, the field will let go of insisting that sport, exercise, and performance be melded together. Although commonalities exist related to physiology and activity, three areas with distinctly different applied goals will evolve. Sport psychology will focus on the developmental benefits of sport, such as character development, leadership, life skills, and team building. Exercise psychology will address issues of developing and maintaining a healthy and active lifestyle. Performance psychology will emerge as a field specializing in helping individuals achieve and sustain performance in pressure situations ... in any domain. There will always be a need for quality research, but in 2020, the areas of research will be directed by what will help applied practitioners be more effective. (pp. 751–752) Inspection of the current AASP website suggests little controversy and considerable resources for the general sporting public regarding the benefits described in Brown’s first two areas. However, it remains to be determined whether the persistent tensions that have lingered between researchers and practitioners and between licensed and non-licensed consultants over the issues of evidence-based practice and necessary credentials of one aspiring to provide it for performers in various domains will be alleviated in the coming years.

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Acknowledgments The authors thank Jeffrey Fairbrother, Burt Giges, Vikki Krane, Jill Thompson, and Jean Williams for facilitating our access to a number of important historical documents and newsletters cited in this chapter, and Leslee Fisher for providing helpful feedback on the initial draft.

Notes 1 In this chapter we do not address the history of exercise psychology, which is an area often associated with sport psychology. 2 See Park (1980) for a more detailed discussion of the rift between scholars and practitioners in the field of physical education during the 1960s and 1970s. 3 See Loy (1974) for a more precise account of the early history of NASPSPA. 4 In the same interview, Hanin (1978) proclaimed, “the success of the German Democratic Republic in Montreal (at the 1976 Olympic Games) can be explained by very serious and systematic application of sports science in the preparation of their athletes” (p. 1). 5 It should be noted that these standards were adapted from the document “Ethical Principles of Psychologists,” developed by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1981. 6 The committee agreed that a person with at least the “competence of a clinical sport psychologist should be available at the Olympic Training Center” (U.S. Olympic Committee, 1983, p. 7). Not surprisingly, therefore, the first full-time sport psychologist hired by the USOC, Shane Murphy, and all subsequent permanent staff have been licensed practitioners. However, in 1988, Murphy stated that while he was trained as a clinical sport psychologist, most of his work with Olympic athletes was educational, and expressed the opinion that “sport psychology should stay away from” licensure (as quoted in Vealey, 1988, p. 10). 7 One member of the committee, Richard Schmidt, whose research was in the area of motor learning, informed the chair, Rainer Martens, that he could not totally support the report. 8 Later Landers (1995) noted that the formative years of sport psychology (1950–1980) included criticism of the tools of several licensed practitioners (i.e., Suinn’s Visual-Motor Behavior Rehearsal technique and Nideffer’s Test of Attentional and Interpersonal Style) on the basis of inadequate scientific support. Ogilvie and Tutko’s (1966) work with athletes and coaches was criticized on both ethical and scientific grounds and, when the validity of their Athletic Motivation Inventory (AMI) was called into question by Martens, they filed a lawsuit against him for $6 million. Ogilvie later expressed regret over his experience with the AMI and the denunciation it had evoked from academics (Straub, 1986). 9 Perhaps not coincidentally, a similar membership split occurred in the summer of 1988 prior to the annual APA convention. In response to the perception that the APA was becoming dominated by psychologists in professional practice, a band of scientists announced the creation of a new organization, the American Psychological Society (APS), devoted to psychology as a discipline of science (The Scientist, 2014). Like NASPSPA, APS became the go-to organization for individuals primarily interested in research rather than issues of professional practice. 10 The number of professional members of NASPSPA who listed their occupation as “clinical/ counseling” psychology dwindled from 72 in Fall 1984 (“1984 NASPSPA membership,” 1984) to 38 in Fall 1985 (“NASPSPA membership report,” 1985) to 15 in 1991 (“1991 NASPSPA membership,” 1991). Soon thereafter, NASPSPA ceased publishing those statistics. Overlooked during the exit of NASPSPA members to AAASP was the fact that many of those who remained included nearly the entire contingent of scholars from the discipline that historically had been most closely aligned with sport psychology: motor learning. Particularly ironic about this “divorce” is the fact that most of the research conducted by the acknowledged father of sport psychology, Coleman Griffith, involved motor learning variables (Landers, 1995). Regardless, there appears to have been relatively little interaction between researchers in motor learning and practitioners in sport psychology since the inception of AAASP. 11 In February 2012, APA 47 began publication of the Journal of Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology, which is similar in format to that of TSP, but deals with a broader range of physical activity than that of sport alone.

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12 It should be noted that licensure has never been a requirement for AAASP certification, which continues to be the only officially sanctioned credential available in the United States for individuals interested in offering consulting services for sport and exercise participants. However, at its 2012 mid-winter meeting, APA 47 announced the intent to pursue the creation of a specialty in sport psychology within APA (“Minutes of the APA Division 47,” 2012), which could possibly lead to some form of credentialing. 13 This listserv is maintained at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA, USA, and is primarily designed to promote informal discussion of issues pertaining to the practice of sport psychology (“Becoming a Sport Psychologist,” n.d.). 14 While the NCAA continues to display little enthusiasm for sport psychology there appears to be some increase in the creation of full-time positions at the D-I level (see Portenga et al., 2011). However, the majority of athletic administrators continue to cite insufficient funds as a deterrent to hiring a fulltime consultant (Wrisberg, Withycombe, Simpson, Loberg, & Reed, 2012). Moreover, D-I programs with a history of funding for a full-time staff member differ with respect to the primary role/scope of the consultant’s duties (e.g., performance consulting at the University of Tennessee and life skills/ academic counseling at the University of Oklahoma) (Hankes, 2005a, 2005b). 15 Over 21 years after the founding of the organization, then president Burt Giges (2008) stated, “the first issue I want to address is the relationship between psychologists and sport scientists” (p. 1), which continued to show evidence of strain. 16 Interestingly, at that time an issue of the AAASP newsletter also included a brief article (Bowman, 1998) discussing the integration of clinical psychology and sport psychology, which seemingly downplayed the need for specialized training for consulting with athletes. Among other things the author encouraged licensed practitioners to just prepare a brochure, distribute it everywhere they went, and “get out there” and demonstrate their skills. 17 In 2006, members voted to change the name of the AAASP organization to the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP). 18 McCann (2009) also endorsed a standardized model of training and an inevitable move to licensing.

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4 C H I NA Gangyan Si, Hin-Yue Li and Baoming Chen

This chapter covers the development of sport psychology in mainland China since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. Chinese sport psychology, research and application, focuses on performance enhancement among top elite athletes (Yao & Xu, 2004), and in China, this is highly related to the socio-political background. The PRC government has stated that sport, in general, should serve the nation and its political condition. In this context elite sport should act as a showroom to display the political, economic, cultural, and technological power of one’s nation and ethnicity (Tian, 2002). Policy makers have established specific goals and tasks for both the ‘Olympic Glory Plan’ (General Administration of Sport in China, 2002, 2011) and the ‘National Games Gold Medal Strategy’ (e.g., General Administration of Sport in China, 2006). The former, in particular, outlined the proposed development of China elite sport for each ten-year period in order to achieve the national target at each of the Olympic Games. Elite sport has become a key area for Chinese sport science research, including sport psychology (Huang & Zou, 2001). Based on Zhang and Mao’s (2003) categorization, we shall illustrate the history of Chinese sport psychology in three stages: (1) learning, (2) development, and (3) research and application.

The learning stage (early 1950s to the mid-1960s) During the learning stage, Chinese sport psychology scholars conducted minimal research and mainly borrowed ideas and translated texts from the Soviet Union. In those days, the two countries had a close relationship, and scientific research in various disciplines, including psychology, was largely influenced by the Soviet Union’s culture and science. In 1957, J. H. Sun translated ‘Psychology’ written by Russian sport psychologist P. A. Roudik. B. Wang went on to translate ‘Issues in sport psychology’ by O. A. Chernikova, in 1958. In 1963, Ling translated ‘The training of athletic determination’ by P. A. Roudik and A. Puni. Several sport universities, including the Beijing Institute of Physical Education, the Wuhan Institute of Physical Education, and the Shanghai Institute of Physical Education also translated and edited Soviet sport psychology textbooks. All these texts were integrated into Chinese university level, sport psychology education and became the main references for 36

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the subject. In the early 1960s, sport psychology courses and programmes were increasingly organized within Chinese sport universities and institutes of physical education. Additionally, during the 1960s, apart from translation work, Chinese sport psychology scholars began to conduct academic research. For example, Xu (1964) published a paper entitled ‘A study on the relationship between upper-limb joint kinaesthetic sensitivity and physical training’. Qiu (1965) authored a research paper called ‘The effect of verbal instruction on athletic activity’; and Zhou (1965) published an article entitled ‘An investigation and analysis into the psychological influence on the performance of female vaulters’. Although scholars had not yet developed systematic or well-designed research projects, this kind of experience was gradually starting to accumulate. Unfortunately, the Cultural Revolution, a socio-political movement, took place in China from 1966 to 1976. During these ten years, all scientific research and development was forced to stop, which resulted in gridlock for all sport psychology teaching and research. Despite this setback, the foundations of Chinese sport psychology teaching and research had been preliminarily formed.

The development stage (early 1980s to the mid-1990s) After the Cultural Revolution, in fact since the early 1980s, psychology, as a discipline in China, saw a revival in teaching and research development (Liu, 1981), and sport psychology followed Chinese mainstream psychology in the renewal of its development. In teaching and education, physical education (or sport science) departments in universities, including institutes of physical education, began to offer sport psychology courses using Western sport psychology textbooks. In research, at this stage, two key sport psychology areas existed: (1) athletes’ psychological characteristics and talent identification, and (2) the exploration of how the ancient Chinese wisdom/philosophy is embedded in sport psychology. Further explanation of the historical background of this research trend follows. One particular historic event in Chinese sport was the membership status recognition of the PRC Olympic Committee by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in November 1979. The PRC had participated in the Winter and Summer Olympics in 1980 and 1984, respectively. In these games Chinese sport science, including sport psychology, mainly served the purpose of an ‘Olympic Glory Plan’ (Yang, 2002). Accordingly, athletes’ psychological characteristics and talent identification were the key research areas throughout the 1980s. From 1980 to 1982, the Wuhan Institute of Physical Education took up a key research project entitled ‘Elite athletes’ psychological characteristics’ from the Chinese National Sport Committee, which is now called the General Administration of Sport of China. This research produced one of the most systematic studies in Chinese sport psychology from that era (Qiu, 1985). Since then, Chinese talent identification research has increased. In addition, during the early 1980s, Chinese psychology scholars had begun to re-visit their ancient and contemporary thought, so as to restore and establish the indigenous psychology in Chinese culture. The leading figures in Chinese psychology, Pan and Gao (1983), advocated and organized a series of investigations into Chinese philosophy and culture, which received supportive feedback from the various branches of the mainstream psychology field. Systematic sport psychology analyses and reviews related to ancient Chinese philosophy and culture were also conducted (Chai, 1981; Liu, 1990).

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Psychological characteristics and talent identification During the 1980 and 1990s, due to the socio-political emphasis on elite sport and the related research direction in sport science, the Chinese sport psychology community placed considerable effort into the exploration of athletes’ psychological characteristics and talent identification (Zhang & Mao, 2003). Since the 1970s, due to the deteriorated relationship with Russia, Chinese sport psychologists sought guidance from the West in conducting talent identification research. They employed the paradigm that compared the performance of expert and novice athletes in various sports. The content of athletes’ psychological diagnoses and talent identification are multi-dimensional, and researchers wanted to explore elite athletes’ personality traits and cognitive intelligence to predict athletes’ future achievements. In the early 1980s, Chinese mainstream psychology started to introduce Western psychological measurement theories into China and researchers modified relevant personality and intelligence tests for domestic use (Zhang & Yu, 2012), for example Cattell’s 16 Personality Factors questionnaire (16 PF), Hathaway and McKinley’s Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), Eysenck’s Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM), and Wechsler’s Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). The rapid development of Chinese sport demanded talent identification theories and tools, so that newly gathered knowledge was able to be put into practice. This was the first time that China had applied Western psychological theories and measurements in Chinese sport practice. On the other hand, some Chinese scholars continued the traditional Russian theory, Pavlov’s theory of Higher Nervous Activity, and developed the Central Nervous System Activity Test (Wang & Zhang,1986), for the purpose of implementing talent identification among athletes. Personality. By administering Cattell’s 16 PF, Qiu and Bay (1986), found that elite male, short distance runners were more emotionally stable but more rigid in rules and regulation compared to university students of a similar age. Elite female, short distance runners were found to be more flexible when handling situations, less intelligent and more rigid in rules and regulation compared to university students. Zheng (1984) administered the MMPI to top female volleyball players and found that there were significantly more players with introverted characteristics than players with extroverted characteristics. Wang, Zhang, and Wang (1989) developed the 808 Central Nervous System Activity Test and conducted a large study (n = 3,267) with children, adolescent, and elite athletes. This study yielded findings related to the characteristics of central nervous system activity in these populations. Intelligence. Liu and Han (1989) conducted the Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM) with university students and found no significant difference between those majoring in physical education and other students. Pan and Liu (1990) went on to conduct the WAIS with badminton players and found that elite badminton players scored higher on the intelligence test. Zhang and Tao (1994) also administered the WAIS to 95 table tennis (the most popular sport in China) players across skill levels, and found them to be of average intelligence. The examples above outline some of the key studies and the assessment strategies that Chinese sport psychology researchers have conducted in talent identification. Although, a comprehensive picture of the psychological characteristics required for talent identification and a related psychometric assessment model is still to be developed, the emphasis on multidimensional parameters and the essential role played by psychology in talent identification and development are being seriously addressed by the Chinese national sport policy makers (Qiu et al., 2003; Si, Lee, & Lonsdale, 2010). It is understood that psychological characteristics 38

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and talent identification research requires further development in terms of theoretical frameworks and research design, such as, talent identification modeling, multi-variant and sport-specific assessment, and longitudinal designs (Qiu et al., 2003). Since the late 1990s, psychological characteristics and talent identification research has attracted less interest and received fewer resources. This is not entirely due to the limitations discussed above, although scholars have wanted to take a step forward and explore further ways to improve athletes’ psychological capability. Applied research pinpointing performance enhancement, such as mental skill training, have since begun to emerge (Qiu et al., 2003).

Ancient Chinese philosophy and sport psychology In modern society, psychology is always understood as a discipline derived from Western philosophy that has been developing since the 1800s. When this came to China from the Soviet Union and various Western countries, such as the US in the 1950s, psychology has developed and become accepted as a scientific discipline of the human mind and behaviour. In other words, the process history or academic dialogue of transferring ideas from philosophy and borrowing methodology from physiology to psychology, a separate discipline, as Wilhelm Wundt and William James had done, did not happen in China. Nevertheless, one can imagine the richness and wisdom in Chinese philosophy, which is not covered in modern psychology, must also be related to thinking styles, emotion, and behaviour as is found in Western philosophy. Sport psychology scholar Chai (1981, 1985, 1991) conducted several reviews exploring sport psychology elements in ancient philosophy texts. He found that ancient Chinese philosophers pondered the relationship between physical training and psychological functioning. The earliest notions of sport psychology appeared in ancient historical texts such as ‘The Book of Rites’ (written and edited before 200 BC), ‘Zhuangzi’ (written before 300 BC), ‘The Annals of Lu Buwei’ (written by Lu around 239 BC), and ‘The Dream Pool Essay’ (written by Shen before 1095 AD) (Zhang & Ding, 1994). He also discovered that many ancient texts mentioned ideas relating to sport psychology grouped into mental training, tactical psychology, and skill learning. Mental training. In the text ‘Xin Shu (Mental Strategy)’ (Su Xun, Northern Song Dynasty, 960–1127 AD), it was stated: ‘To be a great warrior, the first thing is to train one’s mind’ and ‘If one does not nurture his mind, he cannot continue to fight after winning one battle.’ Mind nurturing, or training, implied mental or willpower training (Chai, 1981), and the concept of blending mental training with physical training was a key feature in Chinese traditional military training. For instance, Chinese Qigong emphasizes: ‘the heart combines with the mind; the mind combines with qi (or life energy); qi combines with one’s force’. It advocates the combination of one’s mind, or cognition, with conscious behaviours during physical or military training activities (Chai, 1981). Tactical psychology. One of the most famous Chinese ancient books ‘Master Sun’s Art of War’ (Sun Wu, Eastern Zhou Dynasty, 770–221 BC) covers a considerable amount of tactical training (Liu, 1990). For example, ‘Precise knowledge of the self and precise knowledge of the threat leads to victory’, states the importance of information gathering. Furthermore, ‘Strike when your enemy is unprepared’ and ‘There is no constant condition or format for an army, just as there is no constant shape for water.’ Both statements stress flexibility and accurate tactic selection to disrupt an opponent’s plan. Chai (1983) explained that the Chinese ancient military strategists had always advocated ‘mind-management’ and ‘person-understanding’, and soldiers were good at gathering relevant information, analysing opponents’ personalities, and taking appropriate action with efficient timing. 39

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Skill learning. There was a story in the text ‘Mencius’ (Gong Sun Chou, Eastern Zhou Dynasty, 770–221 BC) about the learning of Chinese chess. Two persons learned chess from a master. One of them concentrated very hard and listened carefully to what the master said. The other one appeared to listen, but instead of listening with his full attention he daydreamed about a bird in the sky and how to catch it by using archery. These two people learned together, but the latter cannot be compared with the former in his knowledge of chess. This story indicates the importance of deliberate concentration in skill learning (Chai, 1991). Chai (1981) also reviewed many ancient Chinese texts and summarized those aspects that related to motor development psychology, health psychology, and competitive psychology. The text ‘Tian Lun (The theory of nature)’ (Xun Zi, Eastern Zhou Dynasty, 770–221 BC) stated: ‘Having proper and sufficient material to manage one’s life, and exercising properly, one will not get sick.’ It stated the importance of physical exercise for health. The above discussion illustrated that ancient Chinese philosophy has covered some contemporary sport psychology ideas. Chai’s works (1981, 1985, 1991) are akin to a comparison between the past and the present. When indigenous sport psychology research was established in China, around the year 2000, philosophy and tradition were brought to the surface, and underwent academic investigation, and put into practice. This will be discussed in a later section.

The research and application stage (the mid-1990s to the present day) Chinese sport psychology has made further progress in research and application over the past 20 years as demonstrated by the following three areas: (1) cognitive sport psychology research, (2) indigenous sport psychology, and (3) Olympic psychological services.

Cognitive sport psychology research Since the 1990s, cognitive psychology research has gradually become popular in Chinese mainstream psychology. Chinese researchers (Fu & Li, 2013) found that there was a gap in the sport area in which cognitive psychology findings could be implemented for theory development and application. At the same time, the Chinese government was strongly supportive of the bid for hosting the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and allocated considerable resources to applied sport science research. At the end of the last century, Chinese scholars began their cognitive sport psychology research with the purpose of contributing to athletes’ talent identification and performance enhancement. This research has become a valuable contribution to the development of Chinese applied sport psychology. From 2000 to 2006, Liang and his colleagues (e.g., Han, 2000; Liang & Han, 2002; Wang, 2002) conducted a series of studies that investigated sport-related thinking in a number of sports. They stated that, in a sport context, athletes’ thinking is quick, successive, and processing with motion execution. Such cognitive process in sport indicates elements of ‘intuitive thinking’ (Liang & Han, 2002), which will be discussed below. Liang (2007) investigated the pattern of sport-related thinking of professional and amateur baseball players. The independent variables in this 2 × 3 × 3, multi-factorial design included level of performance (professional vs. amateur), pitching time (40 ms before pitching, and 40 ms and 120 ms after pitching), and participants’ level of stress (low, medium and high). 40

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Participants were asked to judge whether a video clip demonstrated a good or a bad throw. The findings suggest that the participants’ thinking was unlikely to be a normal kind of logical thinking, but rather unique thinking. Liang named it intuitive thinking and considered it to be at the core of sport-related thought. Liang further stated that intuitive thinking is significantly correlated with skill level, but not with intelligence or educational level. Wang (2004) proposed ‘intuitive thinking’ to be a lower order theme of human intuition, which is accessed when a person has to solve a problem with limited time and resources. It is fast, spontaneous, and direct and differs according to sport-level. Liang and his colleagues have since conducted similar studies in handball, badminton, table tennis, and fencing. Liang (2007) concluded that sport-related thinking has four characteristics: (1) limited cognitive processing resources, (2) non-logical thinking during competition, (3) inability to process images, and (4) requires speedy decision-making. Furthermore, related research topics in this area, such as attentional blink in sport (Li, Liang, & Zhang, 2005), perception in sport (Yu, 2005), and sport decision-making (Wang, 2002) are gradually attracting more research interest under the influence of this cognitive research trend in China. Training for the enhancement of sport-related cognitive ability becomes a key question of elite sport psychology. Along with the development of cognitive and neuro-psychology, cognitive sport psychology will grow beyond the perspective of information processing and towards multi-dimensional research. For example, Fu and Li (2013) stated that Chinese scholars have started to investigate the simulation training paradigm through 3D and virtual reality settings. Integration of eye tracking, ERP, and fMRI data are other new areas to be developed (see also, Chi, 2012).

Indigenous sport psychology In recent years, Chinese sport psychologists have begun to develop their own theoretical models for service delivery. At present, there are two representative frameworks, the mental construction framework (Liu, 2001) and the adversity coping framework (Si, 2006). The mental construction framework. Liu (2001) proposed a conceptual framework involving three levels of mental construction. Mental and technical training forms the foundation, with positive thinking as its central idea, and a positive self-image weaving the other two parts together to form a holistic framework for mental construction. Liu designed a mental training program through which shooters could form their own behavioural frameworks (integration of mental, technical, tactical, and physical aspects) and enhance coping. Through this intervention and cognitive restructuring, their confidence and achievement motivation increased, and they were able to view situations with more positivism and realism. This mental construction framework was the first local mental training model developed by Chinese sport psychology consultants. It contains two main features: (1) it clearly puts forward that the objective of mental training is to facilitate athletes’ self-understanding and their ability to learn and develop, so it is a ‘mental construction’ which should be conducted by athletes. Athletes are likely to ask questions such as, ‘Who am I? What can I do? What do I want? How can I reach my goal?’ Through considering the answers to these questions, athletes would become more self-directed in competitions. This mental construction model is consistent with the Chinese philosophy ‘to teach one how to fish rather than just giving one a fish’; and (2) it was designed in accordance with and uses Chinese poetry and proverbs in combination with modern psychological concepts (e.g., self-image, cognitive reconstruction). This results in the athletes being more likely to accept and understand the intervention. 41

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The adversity coping framework. Compared to traditional psychology interventions that focus on changing or controlling mental states, the adversity coping framework emphasizes that the relationship between mental states and behaviour can vary depending on how successfully athletes are able to accept and co-exist with their adversities (Si et al., 2012). Si (2006) emphasized that peak performance is not about performing perfectly, but rather, coping with adversities effectively through accepting, and learning to co-exist with them. According to Si, adversity in competition should be viewed as normal, and athletes’ successful performances are closely related to their ability to cope with adverse situations. As one’s attitude towards adversity (i.e., events leading to negative mental states) is a key factor affecting performance, the adversity coping framework advocates training acceptance instead of training athletes to control or change mental states. The adversity coping framework (Si, 2006) aligns with the principles of Zen Buddhism, which states that suffering is natural and unavoidable. Like happiness and fortune, suffering is part of life; thus, life is a combination of imperfections. Translating this idea into sport, it is clear that adversity is natural and unavoidable. Adversity and successful experiences are part of athletes’ lives throughout their careers. Athletes are encouraged to accept and live with these things as they are. In Eastern Zen Buddhism, obsession is viewed as a concept, which leads to desires and cravings for related behaviours, and this obstructs one’s thinking and behaviour. Most people are self-centred, taking the concept of self very seriously. When an individual is self-obsessed, he may experience distorted cognitions and negative emotions (Xiong & Yu, 2010). To overcome obsession, Zen Buddhism advocates the acceptance of suffering and imperfection and the learning about and achievement of non-attachment (a release from mental fixation). When an individual is not self-obsessed, there is no greed, hatred, ignorance, or worry (Xiong & Yu, 2010). In the adversity coping framework, athletes are encouraged to learn non-attached thinking to overcome their obsessions (e.g., with an Olympic gold medal).

Olympic psychological services Sport psychology services for Chinese Olympians can be traced back to the 1980s (Ding, 2013). Yet, until recently, limited literature was available that examined how elite Chinese athletes’ sport psychology services had been received by both athletes and administrative officials. Additionally, an increased number of sport psychology consultants have been invited to join the Olympic preparation taskforce to serve various sports teams. In the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, initiated by the General Administration of Sport in China (China Ministry of Sports), the Chinese Society of Sport Psychology organized a sport psychology expert group, with all experts in the field being assigned to various Olympic teams (Zhang, 2009). While the application of sport psychology has been flourishing, related research supporting theoretical considerations is still developing. Since 2002, only a few local articles have been published in academic journals. These articles outlined practitioners’ self-reflective experiences or described service delivery content and processes (Ding, 2013; Ding et al., 2002; Liu, Li, Li, & Li, 2010; Zhang, 2009; Zhang et al., 2006). Among these local publications, many authors mentioned that their services were based on humanism and traditional psychological skill training, but none were influenced by the Chinese sport system or cultural characteristics. According to their years of applied experience and a review of previous literature, Si, Duan, Li, and Jiang (2011) proposed a model describing the current Chinese athletes’ psychological training, which covers the Olympic psychological services. The authors mentioned that current training is heavily influenced by two important sociocultural factors, namely, the Whole-Nation System and the Chinese cultural characteristics, as well as the interaction 42

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between them. The Whole-Nation System is a political and administrative mechanism founded by the PRC government, originally designed for the country’s collective interest, aiming to achieve excellent Olympic results, so as to enhance national pride (Liang, 2005). Through administrative means and planned financial input (Liang, 2006), the top-down Whole-Nation System directs the development of coaching and athletes. All professional services, including sport psychology delivery, functions under the same umbrella. In a nutshell, the Whole-Nation System allows the central government to direct sport development via administrative tools and planned resources allocation (Si et al., 2011). The significant contribution of this policy to the elite Chinese sport system throughout the past half century has been recognized by several Chinese researchers (Liang, 2005, 2006; Lu & Qin, 2009; Yang, Sun, Shu, & Wei, 2004). However, the link between the Whole-Nation System and Olympic psychological services has not been fully developed and there seems to be a lack of reflection and criticism of this system. International researchers have stated that sport psychology consultants should consider and integrate athletes’ cultural backgrounds with the psychology service (Friesen & Orlick, 2011; Furnham & Andrew, 1996). Compared to Western counterparts, Chinese people have their own cultural values, thinking styles, and behaviours (see Bond, 2010, for a review), and it is not surprising that Chinese sport psychology consultants have also incorporated these cultural elements into their service (e.g., holistic or dialectic thinking, collectivism, relationship, or guanxi). Recently, local Chinese researchers have begun to examine the blending of Chinese cultural elements and sport psychology services (Li, Li, & Liu, 2010; Si, 2006, 2008; Si et al., 2011; Zhang & Zhang, 2011). Although Chinese scholars have started to realize the influence of the sport system and culture on sport psychology services, systematic research examining Olympic sport psychology services is limited. To understand the influences of the sociocultural factors on Chinese Olympic psychology services, Si, Duan, Li, Zhang, and Su (2015) conducted a qualitative investigation of the role of the Whole-Nation System and the Chinese cultural characteristics in the context of the 2008 Beijing Olympics sport psychology service. In this study, the importance of providing a culturally suitable psychological service was further supported. The Chinese Olympic sport psychology service could be enhanced by recognizing the features of the Whole-Nation System such as resource centralization and top-down management, as well as the blending of these features with Chinese cultural characteristics into the psychological service, such as holistic thinking style, keeping face and interpersonal order. Furthermore, the findings of this study may serve as a window for the sport psychology researchers and practitioners around the world, to gain insight into the most recent developments in Chinese sport psychology, and can act as a catalyst for local researchers to conduct more in-depth research. In summary, more cultural studies on Chinese Olympic psychology services should be conducted in order to consolidate experience and build upon existing knowledge.

Future trends This chapter introduces the developmental process of sport psychology in China since the 1950s. The authors suggest that future development in Chinese sport psychology could go in three directions: (1) sport psychology research and practice framed within Chinese culture will be further developed. Increasing interest will arise in the exploration of indigenous concepts and theories of Chinese culture and philosophy and their integration into sport psychology. For example, ‘Dao and Shu (doctrine and method)’ (Zhang & Zhang, 2011), ‘Jing-jie (mental realm)’ (Si et al., 2012), ‘Mo-chi (tacit understanding) within the 43

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team’ (Liao & Shen, 2013), and ‘Self-introspections’ (Zhang, 2013). (2) Chinese sport psychology research will benefit from developments in cognitive neuro-psychology (Fu & Li, 2013). The advancement in EEG, ERP, and EEQG (quadrant electro-encephalography) is enabling the exploration of athletes’ cognitive processes, and it is believed that increasing numbers of Chinese scholars will become involved in this research (Fu & Li, 2013). (3) After the Beijing Olympics, health-related research has attracted more attention, though this is uncharted.

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5 JA PA N Shiro Nakagomi and Yuji Yamamoto

The emergence in Japan of the modern discipline of sport psychology, and its subsequent rise to the thriving field that it is today, took place in the full light of the twentieth century, and its story shall be told in detail here. However identifying the true origin of the inquiry into the psychological aspects affecting physical performance in Japan is not a simple task. Located firmly within the Oriental cultural-spiritual sphere, there has been a long and rich tradition in Japan of reflecting on and emphasizing the importance of such concepts as Kokoro (mind), Tamashi (soul) and Seishin (spirit). Since classical times, these terms have commonly appeared in treatises on the martial and performing arts (and in surviving oral traditions, as well). The psychological insights recorded in extant texts continue to bear relevance for sport psychologists today, and offer hints for dealing with the most contemporary issues, attesting to the important link between ancient traditions and our modern academic discipline. As an example of this, one of the present authors has special interest in what are known as the “Ten Ox-herding Pictures,” which in a series of illustrations represent the process of attaining enlightenment through the practice of Zen Buddhism. It has been found that this medieval work can help shed light on the process of mastering a sport, and on personality development/change in athletes, as well. Furthermore, these pictures make it possible for us to examine cases and carry out empirical research on psychological well-being from a new (yet ancient) point of view. However, despite this traditional East Asian milieu, when tracing the rise and development of the modern discipline of sport psychology in Japan, it is impossible to dissociate it from its roots and continued connection to Western academic trends. Exemplifying this connection is the case of Mitsuo Matsui, who worked for the Physical Education Research Institute created by the Japanese Ministry of Education in 1924 (and which would later, after several name changes, evolve into the School of Health and Physical Education, University of Tsukuba). After coming back from a period of study abroad in Germany, Matsui continued to carry out the same type of research in applied psychology that he had been introduced to in Europe, with a special focus on experimental psychology and body mechanics. He declared the raison d’être of sport psychology in Japan to be “Determining through methods of psychological investigation, the conditions under which human beings can achieve optimal physical performance” (Inomata, 2012, 24–26). 47

Shiro Nakagomi and Yuji Yamamoto

In Matsui’s wake, Japanese sport psychology continued to develop under the leadership of Iwao Matsuda and Atsushi Fujita, with growing research carried out on a domestic level, bolstered by continual international exchange. As an introduction to the history and special characteristics of sport psychology in Japan, we shall present an overview of the activities of the Japanese Society of Sport Psychology (JSSP), from its establishment to the present day.

The establishment of the JSSP and a history of its activities In Japan, a great deal of the scientific inquiry into movement, exercise and sport has been carried out in the context of physical education at school (and sport-related extra-curricular activities). The Japan Society of Physical Education, Health and Sport Sciences (JSPEHSS) was established in 1950, and became a major platform for presenting research findings, as well as for exchanging information and ideas. In 1961, as part of this larger organization, the Psychology of Physical Education Division was formed. Then, in 1973, an independent academic society was created – the Japanese Society of Sport Psychology (while up until that point the term Psychology of Physical Education had been in general use). In the same way, and following a similar course, other specialized academic societies were created within the wider field of physical education and sport: Sociology of Physical Education, Philosophy of Physical Education, Physiology of Physical Education and Management of Physical Education, among others. While in the present day these specialized fields are studied and taught in departments with such varied titles as Department of Sport Science, Department of Sports Health, and Department of Health-Sciences, in the past there had only been departments of “Physical Education.” At Japanese schools, besides the mandatory gym classes, extra-curricular sports club activities have long been very popular. As a natural consequence, these sport activities and the various events they involve became the focus of numerous research studies. In terms of psychology, such research themes as group cohesion, leadership, the teaching of motor skills, the relation between club-activity involvement and personality development and the psychological effect/reason of joining/leaving a club activity, were actively investigated (Matsuda, 1979). These studies varied in scope, method and quality, but what bound them all together was the fact that they were carried out from the perspective of education. The results of these studies became the foundation for what would later evolve into the field of sport psychology. It follows that many members of the Japanese Society of Sport Psychology are also (or had also been) members of the Psychology of Physical Education Division in JSPEHSS and there has always been an active exchange of opinion and ideas between members who focus on physical education-related psychology and those who are interested in the newer field of psychology of sport. In recent years, however, the two have been growing further and further apart, and the two fields are showing clearer differences and stronger individual characteristics. The existence of new research themes reveals not only the phenomenon of differentiation and integration (specialization and synthesis) within the wider area of sport science, but also the problem of both these applied sciences becoming distanced from the playing field. At the time of its establishment, the JSSP had less than 50 members. Now, 40 years on, the number of registered members has reached nearly 800. Most notable has been the increase in the number of graduate students specializing in sport psychology who are joining. The annual JSSP meetings themselves are now richly multi-faceted and involve oral presentations (20 lectures) and poster sessions (100 presentations), as well as, symposiums, round-table discussions and workshops. 48

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Let us take a brief look at the history of the JSSP. With the establishment of the International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP) in 1965, local societies were founded in several countries. Japanese delegates attended the first international meeting of the ISSP, and soon after (the above-mentioned) Iwao Matsuda received a letter from the ISSP chairman at the time, Dr. Ferruccio Antonelli, calling for the creation of a Japanese Society of Sport Psychology. Matsuda relayed this message to his colleague Fujita, who immediately summoned all relevant persons. It was decided that a preliminary meeting be held. Fujita’s office at Nihon University was used as the society’s first headquarters. The JSSP had become a functioning organization with Matsuda as its chairman (Fujita, 2003). Later, in 1985, at the sixth meeting of the ISSP, the chairman at the time, Dr. Robert Singer, recommended that Fujita works to establish a region-wide Asian Society of Sports Psychology. In the end, this society came to encompass several South Pacific nations, as well, and the Asian-South Pacific Association of Sport Psychology (ASPASP) was born. In 2014, the seventh ASPASP meeting was held in Tokyo, with 512 participants from 23 nations attending and featuring over 300 research presentations.

The differentiation (specialization) within psychology of physical education and sport psychology Human beings engage in exercise in a wide variety of contexts. Psychologically based research focusing on exercise activities is carried out under the banners of different specialized fields, depending on the context the exercise is carried out in and the specific research themes. There are four main types of physical education and sport-related psychology that have evolved in Japan: the psychology of human movement, the psychology of physical education, sport psychology, and the psychology of health and exercise (exercise psychology). The psychology of human movement focuses on the study of the psychological mechanisms involved in all human movement behavior. Research carried out in the context of education is in the realm of the psychology of physical education, and that carried out in the context of sport, falls within the sphere of sport psychology. Psychological studies focusing on exercise whose ultimate goal is the improvement of health fit into the field of the exercise psychology. Takashi Sugihara (2000) drew a chart showing the relationship between these four types of psychology. He explained how the psychology of human movement is the parent-field to the three siblings: the psychology of physical education, sport psychology and exercise psychology. Interestingly, the psychology of human movement which gave birth to physical education and sport psychology had, in fact, long been dependent on, even inseparable, from the true “mother-field” of general psychology, before breaking away and branching out into other fields which developed their own methods, discovered their own new research targets and eventually started achieving results which now have a significant impact on the “motherfield” of general psychology. More recently, there has been further subdivision within the domain of sport psychology. In connection with this, members of the JSSP have of their own accord organized numerous study meetings on such varied topics as: social psychology of sport, mental training and applied sport psychology, motor control and learning, clinical sport psychology, and motivation in sport. The majority of these events combine academic meetings with overnight stays at different locations. At these meetings, none of the time constraints imposed at the more formal meetings exist, and thus it is possible for discussions to focus on narrow specializations. More than the garnering of facts from academic journals or other texts, meeting face to face 49

Exercise psychology

Sport psychology

Psychology of physical education

Shiro Nakagomi and Yuji Yamamoto

Psychology of human movement

Figure 5.1 Relationship between four of the major types of psychology, physical education and sport

with colleagues in order to present research results and exchange information and views, helps increase motivation and leads to greater creativity and productivity. One such regular meeting is the Study Meeting on Clinical Sport Psychology. While “clinical” can be taken narrowly to mean “pathology,” “abnormal” or “problem behavior,” those attending this regular meeting take an approach which is more in tune with the meaning of the two Japanese characters that are used to represent the word “clinical” – “facing the bedside.” Researchers actively engage in the subjects’ inner world and conventional causal explanations are not put forth. Instead, case studies are examined from a holistic point of view, with special attention paid to the meanings of narratives and other forms of expression. Adopting such research paradigms, more important than the further subdivision of existing fields of sport psychology, there is a movement towards cross sectional disciplinary research involving such areas as coaching, sport medicine and sport education (Nakagomi, 2013). Another example is a regular gathering of those with a special interest in human motor control and learning: the Japanese Motor Learning Seminar. It was first held back in 1991, more than 20 years ago, and over that period of time, this stay-over seminar has been held once a year, and has been attended not only by those whose specialties fall under the umbrella of the “mother-discipline” of general psychology. Researchers from such varied backgrounds as biomechanics, neuroscience and physical therapy take part, as well. Numerous young scholars attend this and other similar seminars. The experience often results in articles published in academic journals both in Japan and abroad. From themes studied in the laboratory to studies carried out on the playing field, research using a dynamical system approach has been increasing and gaining international attention.

Shifts in symposium themes at JSSP meetings over the years In the following chart are listed all the main symposium themes of every annual meeting of the JSSP since the first one was held (JSSP ed., 2013). Though somewhat detailed, it reflects the changes in research interests in the field of sport psychology which have taken place in Japan over the past four decades. It follows that from an examination of this chart, the various shifts in focus and interest can be identified. At each symposium there are three or four presenters, who exchange ideas and opinions with the participants. The main theme of the first JSSP meeting was the question: “What kind of contributions can JSSP members make to the field of sport?” (first meeting, 1974). Various possibilities were discussed, and opinions exchanged. After that first meeting, for the next 12 years, almost 50

Table 5.1 Symposium themes of every annual meeting of the JSSP Years

Symposium themes

1

(1974)

How can sport psychologists contribute to sport?

2

(1975)

The common ground between competitive sport psychology and psychology

3

(1976)

The common ground between competitive sport psychology and psychology (2): psychological problems in various ball-games and strategies for dealing with them

4

(1977)

The common ground between competitive sport psychology and psychology (3): psychological conditioning for athletes and the role of coaches

5

(1978)

Popular sports and psychology

6

(1979)

Discussion of psychological aspects of sports (Symposium of ISSP)

7

(1980)

On problems of perception in sports

8

(1981)

Problems related to sport skill acquisition

9

(1982)

The common ground between competitive sport psychology and psychology (4): the role of coaches and managers in psychological conditioning for women athletes

10 (1983)

11 (1984)

The common ground between competitive sport psychology and psychology (5): diagnosis and training for competitive motivation in athletes (Tenth Anniversary Congress) The common ground between competitive sport psychology and psychology (6): searching for the psychological mechanism of consecutive victories and defeats

12 (1985)

The common ground between competitive sport psychology and psychology (7): in volleyball, gymnastics and archery

13 (1986)

The psychology of sports fans

14 (1987)

Mental management for athletes in competitive situations

15 (1988)

The future of sport psychology: research tasks and directions for the future

16 (1989)

Picking out young talent and the cultivation of athletes

17 (1990)

Sports for children

18 (1991)

Psychological conditionings for obtaining peak performance

19 (1992)

Women in sports

20 (1993)

The roles and research tasks of sport psychology (Twentieth Anniversary Congress)

21 (1994)

Sport and the eye

22 (1995)

On the problems of continued sport participation in an aging society

23 (1996)

Winter sports: psychological problems and scientific training methods

24 (1997)

Training methods and the possibility of psychological skill training in athletes

25 (1998)

Mental health problems in athletes: from the perspective of psychological support

26 (1999)

The search for a possible contribution of sport psychology to disabled children

Continued...

Shiro Nakagomi and Yuji Yamamoto

Table 5.1 continued Years

Symposium themes

27 (2000)

Ideas in sport psychology research

28 (2001)

Performance enhancement and gender

29 (2002)

Enhancing “Ikiruchikara” (life skills) in children through sport and exercise

30 (2003)

What happens on the field with each specialist giving support to athletes (Thirtieth Anniversary Congress) What we can learn from interactional phenomena in sport?

31 (2004) 32 (2005) 33 (2006)

The paradigm shift in sport and exercise psychology: searching for new efficiency and applicable fields The recent state of mental training

34 (2007)

Sport psychology in Japan: the road here and the path to the future

35 (2008)

Current international tendencies in sport psychology (International Symposium) How can neuroscience contribute to the development of sport psychology?

36 (2009)

The consciousness and sub-consciousness in sport psychology: implicit brain function, emotional behavior and sub-conscious processes in social psychology, and their relation to sport Fluctuation and stability in the individual and group

37 (2010) 38 (2011)

Tasks and future prospects: experiences of psychological support to the Olympic and Paralympic teams in Japan

39 (2012)

40 (2013)

Sport and the acquisition and transmission of traditional skills: the link between the beauty of movement and the acquisition of excellence, and the consciousness and unconsciousness Re-examining problems in coaching methods (Fortieth Anniversary Congress)

41 (2014)

Toward athletic coaching and instruction without corporal punishment or violence

every meeting dealt with “the common ground between competitive sport psychology and (general) psychology,” at which psychological problems specific to competitive sport were discussed. The topic of motor learning was the main theme for two consecutive years, right in the middle of that 12-year run, at the seventh and eighth meetings. The sixth (1979) and thirty-fifth (2008) meetings were international symposiums. In the following years (from the thirteenth meeting onward) the focus of the meetings moved away from competitive sport and turned toward such varied topics as sport education, sport and health, and sport and the disabled. At the thirtieth anniversary meeting, the theme “What happens on the field with each specialist giving support to athletes” showed the strong liaison that has arisen between sport psychology and athletes on the field, and also the need for awareness of and communication with trainers, coaches, and nutritionists. This led to further examination of “how sport psychology can be useful to athletes on the field” and to a debate struggling with this key issue. In recent years, sport psychologists at the Japan Institute of Sport Sciences Center (JISS) have been working to support world-class athletes competing at the Olympic and World 52

Japan

Championship levels. Reports of hearing the results of their experiences and efforts have been increasing. Not only have the needs of athletes become more clearly identified, but these sport psychologists have investigated more effective ways of giving support and meeting those needs. At the same time, the JSSP has had to deal with the problem of establishing a system of official “licensing” for psychological consultants working with athletes and coaches. Another important issue dealt with at an annual meeting is the problem of corporal punishment meted out by coaches and club-activity supervisors at school. A symposium was held on this topic focusing on creating better teaching and coaching methods and better relationships between players and coaches (forty-first meeting, 2014).

Establishing an official certification for sport mental training (SMT) consultant Interest in psychological support for competitive athletes has been increasing, and subsequently more people are working, or would like to work in this capacity. In order to guarantee the level of quality of support provided by mental trainers (SMT Consultant), and maintain ethical standards, the executive committee of the JSSP decided in 1998 to look into the creation of a system of certification for such work. Discussions were held and the situations in countries advanced in the field of sport psychology were examined. It was deemed that it would also be necessary to make sure that besides practical experience, mental trainers had a sufficient foundation in psychology. The JSSP established a “Certification Approval Committee” and in 2001 the qualification of “Sport Mental Training Consultant” was established. Members who want to be certified must meet several criteria, among them, attending special lectures. The JSSP has created a manual, “Textbook on Sport Mental Training” to supplement the lectures (2002). This text has been re-issued and updated (2005). At present, there are nearly 120 persons who have been certified. After certification, qualified mental trainers continue to attend regular “study meetings”. In order for these to be effective, six regional chapters have been created throughout Japan. Schedules and topics discussed are left to the discretion of the members of each group. And while in past years it could not be said that certification had opened up any career doors for those with higher degrees in sport psychology, some universities are now beginning to make certification a requirement for those working in the field. Another qualification available now in sport psychology in Japan is “Certified Sport Counselor,” as recognized since 2004 by the Japan Association of Clinical Studies for Body and Mind. In addition, there are those in Japan who help athletes improve their performance and competitiveness in the field through psychological skill training (mental training). There are also those who use counseling and psychotherapy based on behavior modification and personality development theory, as well as by the application of a broad range of counseling techniques. The sport psychologists at the Japan Institute of Sports Sciences, those who work with Japan’s National and Olympic Teams, work almost exclusively with the counseling and psychotherapy approaches for individual psychological support.

Creation of the Encyclopedia of Sport Psychology Since its establishment, the JSSP has commemorated each milestone anniversary of its birth with special events and publications. The most significant of these, the Encyclopedia of Sport Psychology (JSSP, 2008) was published for the thirty-fifth anniversary of the JSSP. With 53

Shiro Nakagomi and Yuji Yamamoto

remarkable advances made in the field of sport psychology both in Japan and abroad, this work was produced in order to systematically present in a single volume, the breadth and depth of the subject. Its publication can surely be seen as a rare accomplishment focusing on an individual specialization within the realm of sport and physical education. The encyclopedia is not merely a glossary of specialized terms. It is arranged into major chapters, and then medium-sized entries and smaller entries, and was intended to provide a full and systematic view of sport psychology today. Beside the introduction (Chapter 1), there are eight chapters: “Development of Sport Behavior” (Chapter 2), “Motor-learning in Sport” (Chapter 3), “Motivation in Sport” (Chapter 4), “Social Psychology in Sport” (Chapter 5), “Applied Psychology of Athletics” (Chapter 6), “Sport Mental Training” (Chapter 7), “Exercise Psychology” (Chapter 8) and “Clinical Sport Psychology” (Chapter 9). The editors of each of these individual chapters were specially selected from the JSSP. One hundred and twenty three writers took part in the project and the resulting volume is 688 pages long. The completion of this work was the culmination of a total group effort, and it can be seen as an expression of the full power of the JSSP of the time. It can be used by specialists in related fields to gain an understanding of the current state of sport psychology. However, with the rapid pace of growth and progress in the field it will be necessary to revise and expand the encyclopedia in the near future.

Towards the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games The Olympic and Paralympic Games stimulate the development of many fields within the sport sciences. More than half a century ago, in the years building up to October 1964, most of those who worked in the sport sciences in Japan were making efforts to contribute in some way to the National Team’s preparation for the Tokyo Games. In the domain of sport psychology, the main focus was on reducing “sport anxiety.” Reviewing a list of official reports published at the time, one finds that most of the actual psychological interventions for performance problems in athletes were carried out by clinical psychologists, while sport psychologists were mainly carrying out basic research (Psychology of Sport Science Committee Division, 1965). The basic and applied research that went into those early studies of “anxiety” now falls within the specialized provinces of “mental-training” and “psychological skill training,” and it can be seen that the study of “anxiety” in sport has a relatively long history in Japan. It is also significant that more than 50 years ago, the need for sport counselors specializing in sport psychology was stressed, because it was already recognized that elite athletes have their own particular forms of psychological problems. After the 1964 Games had ended, however, there was a great let up in the amount of effort made and energy expended on the support of athletes, and the same standards of research and practice could not be maintained. From the latter half of the 1970s through the early 1980s, the focus of research in sport psychology shifted to the clarification of psychological aptitude factors in athletes (Matsuda, et al., 1980–1983). The results of such studies were used to create psychological tests for athletes, and helped give rise to advances in the use of mental training. The efforts were only temporary, however, since focus shifted yet again, when mental training became popular and made great advances in Europe and the U.S. in the 1980s, Japan was able to pick up the cue right away. This resulted in the “mental management” (Matsuda et al., 1986–2002) (the special Japanese term for mental training) research of the mid-1980s along with its practical application through the early 2000s, which was carried out at the highest international standards. 54

Japan

As for its role in preparations for the Olympic Games, sport psychology has its place and identity within the larger realm of sport science, and the selection of Tokyo as the site of the 2020 Games will have a major impact on the JSSP. Interestingly, while in the years leading up to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, psychological support focused almost exclusively on competitive sport, contemporary notions of the Olympic Movement have led to a major shift in this regard. Now there are also “education,” “health”, “culture,” and “welfare” that must be given careful attention. In other words, we cannot merely target greater competitiveness in our athletes, but must strive towards the attainment of better physical and mental health, as well as better human understanding, in general, through sport. With this in mind, the short-term future of sport psychology in Japan looks very bright. Even before Tokyo’s selection as 2020’s host city, there had been a continuing increase in the number of students pursuing higher degrees in the field, and courses in sport psychology were being taught at more Japanese universities. There had also long been a strong interest among the general public in the psychological aspects of sport. With the Games coming to Japan, we can foresee over the next years even greater interest among seasoned professionals, young people thinking about a career, and the public at large. The challenge, however, will be in the long term. Specifically, maintaining momentum in the discipline after the Games are over, and avoiding a “let-down” similar to the one experienced after the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Besides our focus on the 2020 Games, we hope that our work in sport psychology here in Japan, both on the experimental and practical levels, continues to expand and evolve, and that the results we obtain help contribute to the field on an international level. It is also hoped that original methods of research based on traditional Oriental thought can be established and introduced to the wider world of sport psychology.

References Fujita, A. (2003). The thirty years’ history of JSSP: Until and from now. Japanese Journal of Sport Psychology, 30, 55–62. Inomata, K. (2012). About Prof. Iwao Matsuda who had led the physical education psychology in Japan. The Psychology of Physical Education Division in JSPEHSS (Ed.), Memorial magazine of the 50th anniversary of the Psychology of Physical Education Division (pp. 24–26). Japanese Society of Sport Psychology. (ed.) (2002). Textbook on sport mental training (1st Ed.). Tokyo: Taisyukansyoten. Japanese Society of Sport Psychology (ed.) (2005). Textbook on sport mental training (enlarged edition). Tokyo: Taisyukansyoten. Japanese Society of Sport Psychology. (ed.) (2008). Encyclopedia of sport psychology. Tokyo, Taisyukansyoten. Japanese Society of Sport Psychology. (ed.) (2013). Memorial magazine of JSSP for the 40th anniversary of the society. Matsuda, I. (1979). Psychology of physical education. Tokyo, Japan: Taishukansyoten. Matsuda, I., Inomata, K., Ueda, M., Kaga, H., Sugihara, T., Fujita, A. et al. (1986–2002). On the study of mental management for athletes. Research report on sports medicine and science of Japan Sports Association. Matsuda, I., Ishii, M., Inomata, K., Ochiai, M., Kaga, H., Sugihara, T. et al. (1980–1983). On the study of psychological aptitude in athletes. Research report on sports medicine and science of Japan Sports Association. Nakagomi, S. (2013). Clinical sport psychology: Mental support for athletes. Tokyo, Dowasyoin. Psychology of Sport Science Committee Division. (1965). Report on psychology division. Research report on sports science (pp. 481–522). Conference proceedings of the 1964 Olympic Congress. Tokyo, Japan. Sugihara, T. (2000). Preface. In T. Sugihara, K. Kudo, M. Funakoshi, and S. Nakagomi (eds.), World in sport psychology (pp. 3–5). Tokyo, Japan: Fukumurasyuppan.

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6 BRAZIL Franco Noce, Lenamar Fiorese Vieira and Varley Teoldo da Costa

In this chapter, we examine the history of sports psychology in Brazil based on publications in Brazilian scientific journals. This reflection will enable an analysis of the area as an interdisciplinary field and a detailed diagnosis of the historical process and performance of sports psychology in Brazil. Our goal is to clarify the attributes that are required to exercise the role of a professional sports psychologist. We conclude by exploring the challenges experienced by Brazilians and the current scientific situation.

Sports psychology as an interdisciplinary area Sports psychology is a sports science discipline and a subset of applied psychology (Samulski, 2009). According to Becker Jr. (2008), it can be defined as “a discipline that investigates the causes and effects of psychological occurrences that affect the human being before, during and after exercise or sports, whether of an educational, recreational, competitive or rehabilitative nature” (p. 26). Sports psychology has also been regarded as the scientific study of people and their behaviors in sports and physical activity and the application of this knowledge (Weinberg & Gould, 2008). In addition, sports psychology seeks to understand how participation in sports and physical activity affects a person’s psychological development, health and well-being (Samulski, 2009). Sports psychology in Brazil encompasses areas of knowledge, including sports science, anthropology, philosophy and sports sociology. Rubio (1999) considered that the subdivisions of this area do not always promote interdisciplinary study but coexist as a sum instead of a relationship. A review of the literature reveals that some theorists conceptually consider sports psychology to be an emerging field of psychology (Vieira, Vissoci, Oliveira, & Vieira, 2010), whereas other theorists consider it to be a subdiscipline of sports science (Gill, 1986). Despite its conceptual approach, this subdivision has implications for professional practice and these will be subsequently discussed in this chapter. Vieira et al. (2010) noted that these subdivisions provide essential definitions for understanding sports psychology as a professional field; they simultaneously involve the concepts of psychology, sports science and sports. Professional practice in any area of knowledge should be aligned with academic scientific production, especially in relatively new and emerging areas, such as sports psychology. 56

Brazil

This professional must adopt a culture grounded in elements that contribute to the understanding of the specific context of action. Thus, the sports psychologist should work in sporting practice with attention and scientific rigor so as not to convert it into a psychology that simplifies all sports phenomena. (Vieira et al., 2010, p. 392) In Brazil, this area is emerging from the point of view of professional practice and scientific production. When evaluating sports psychology as an interdisciplinary area, evaluating specific and increasing contributions from both areas of knowledge in the development of the practice of professional activities and scientific production, a person must understand the national and international historical contexts that contribute to the area’s development. We discuss the emergence of sports psychology in Brazil in the following section.

Historical process of sports psychology in Brazil João Carvalhaes first recorded work in the field of applied sports psychology in 1954, when he was hired by the Soccer Federation of São Paulo to conduct the selection, evaluation and training of referees due to his advanced knowledge in psychometrics (Hernandez, 2011). He also worked with the technical committee of the Brazilian national soccer team in 1958, when the team won its first world title in Sweden. Note that the start of João Carvalhaes, professional activities preceded regulation of the psychologist profession in Brazil, which only occurred in 1962, following decree no. 4119 of August 27, 1962 (Barreto & Ribeiro, 2006). Although psychology was initially applied to sports in Brazil in 1954, this area was already becoming solidified as an object of interest and study in other countries (Machado, 2009). For Rodrigues (2006), the end of the Second World War increased the visibility of Olympic sports, which continued to develop on a technical level despite being interrupted during conflict at a competitive level. The polarized post-war political landscape increased the need for countries to excel in various social sectors, including sports, which demanded the development of techniques and an interest in sports psychology as a way to increase performance. In addition to contextualizing psychology as a profession in the 1950s, we must contextualize sports as a whole in Brazil. Olympic sports in Brazil were grounded in amateurism during the 1950s. Soccer was an exception because it has been professionalized in Brazil and other countries since the 1920s. Rubio (2007) noted that “these were the expectations and reality of soccer that João Carvalhaes was facing in 1958. These were the conditions of Psychology and Sports in Brazil at the time. This thus marked the beginning of Brazilian Sports Psychology” (p. 2). In 1962, the psychologist Athayde Ribeiro da Silva developed work with the Brazilian national soccer team; his work contributed to the consolidation of sports psychology in Brazil (Rodrigues, 2006). In 1964, he published the first book in the area, Soccer and Psychology [Futebol e Psicologia]. In 1965, he participated in the first World Congress on Sports Psychology in Rome and published his second book, Sports psychology and preparation of the athlete [Psicologia esportiva e preparação do atleta], which expanded the application of psychology to other modalities beyond soccer. Over the years, the growth of psychology as a science and profession and the greater recognition of various sports in Brazil were primary factors in the developing interest in and study of sports psychology by other professionals. With an increasing number of 57

Table 6.1 Historical milestones of sports psychology in Brazil 1930/1940

Beginning of development of sports psychology in Brazil with graduate programs in the School of Physical Education, the army and the National School of Physical Education and Sports. Papers by the military, doctors and educators were published in scholarly journals.

1954

João Carvalhaes, who was a São Paulo Soccer Club psychologist, becomes the first psychologist to undertake work with the referees of the Soccer Federation of São Paulo.

1950/1960

International conventions were held between Brazilian and foreign universities, which created graduate programs in Brazil. The first psychology graduate program was launched in 1966, and the first physical education graduate program was launched in 1970.

1962

Athaide Ribeiro da Silva works with the Brazilian national soccer team.

1963

The physician Carlos Sanchez de Queirós, who was director and professor of the Institute of Sports Psychology in Rio de Janeiro (RJ) in the former University of Brazil currently Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), wrote several articles and lectured about sports psychology, which significantly contributed to its initial establishment.

1968

Publication of the pioneering book Introduction to the modern science of sports training [Introdução a moderna ciência do treinamento desportivo], with Lamartine DaCosta as Editor. The book included three approaches to the area of sports psychology: the theory of stress of Hans Selye as a starting point for modern sports training (Lamartine DaCosta); methods for including psychology in advanced sports training (Athayde Ribeiro da Silva) and the regulation of psychotropics in sports training (Lamartine DaCosta).

1973

R. Haddock Lobo wrote Sports psychology [Psicologia dos esportes].

1979

In Brazil, Manuel José Gomes Tubino publishes a pioneering study of the theme Scientific methodology for sports training [Metodologia científica do treinamento desportivo], with a chapter on sports psychology. This study motivated sports coaches to encompass theoretical notions of SP.

1981

Benno Becker, Jr. organizes the First Brazilian and Latin American Congress of Sports Psychology in Porto Alegre-RS, with the participation of 1,750 professionals and students from various fields of knowledge. This event created conditions for the definitive consolidation of sports psychology in Brazil.

1983

This year marked the foundation of the Sports Psychology Society of the State of Rio de Janeiro [Sociedade de Psicologia do Esporte do Estado do Rio de Janeiro] – SOPERJ by João Alberto Barreto. It was the first state entity to be legalized in Brazil and affiliated with SOBRAPE. In 1983, SOPERJ held an international conference in Rio de Janeiro, which was its home city.

1986

Foundation of the South American Society of Sports Psychology Sociedad [Sudamericana de Psicologia Del Deporte] in Comboriú, Santa Catarina. Its first president was Benno Becker, Jr. It included Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile and Uruguay.

1987–1989

During this period, Benno Becker, Jr. participated on the Board of the International Society of Sports Psychology – ISSP.

Brazil

1990s

In 1990, Luiz Scipião Ribeiro introduced psychophysiology in Brazil, and created’ a specialized laboratory at Gama Filho University [Universidade Gama Filho], RJ. In this period, several sports psychologists and physical trainers obtained graduate degrees in psychology in various regions of Brazil. In 1992, Dietmar Samulski published the book Sports psychology: theory and practical application [Psicologia do Esporte: teoria e aplicação prática], which was adopted in many universities as a reference. This book was revised three times prior to the death of its author.

2002

As its editor, Benno Becker, Jr. published Psychology applied to the sports coach [Psicologia aplicada ao treinador esportivo], which provided a working base for scholars and practitioners of sports psychology. The Brazilian College of Sports Psychology [Colégio Brasileiro de Psicologia Esportiva] – CBPE was founded.

2015

ABEPEEx Associação Brasileira de Estudos em Psicologia do Esporte e Exercício [Brazilian Association of Studies in Sports and Exercise Psychology] was founded, with Prof. Maria Regina Ferreira Brandão as president.

professionals who were engaged in sports psychology in the 1970s, the Brazilian Society of Sports Psychology (Sociedade Brasileira de Psicologia do Esporte – SOBRAPE) was established in 1979, with Benno Becker, Jr. as its first president (Vieira et al., 2010). In 1981, the First Brazilian Congress of Sports Psychology was held in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul (RS), with the participation of 1,700 professionals from across Latin America. This event was a key milestone in the development of exercise and sports psychology in Latin America because the contact between sports science professionals from various countries was the basis for planning future achievements. Brazilian state societies began to be formed along with others in several Latin American countries (Rodrigues, 2006). The period 1983–1987 did not achieve significant strides in the area and Brazilian Congresses did not convene in 1985 and 1987 (Rodrigues, 2006). The 1990s proved to be a more promising decade for sports psychology (Abdo, 2000; Franco, 2004). The 1980s were marked by a considerable increase in events, academic and scientific publications, books on various subjects, specialization courses in sports psychology and a significant increase in the number of professionals in this area. This latter point reflects the attempts by sports institutions toward cultural change by recognizing the differential of psychology in sports training as a whole. The media served an important role in the promotion of sports psychology by encouraging athletes and sports institutions to work with sports psychologists. On December 20, 2000, sports psychology became regulated as an area of psychological specialization, based on Resolution 014/00 and 02/01 of the Federal Council of Psychology (Conselho Federal de Psicologia – CFP 2000). In 2006, the Brazilian Association of Sports Psychology (Associação Brasileira de Psicologia do Esporte – ABRAPESP) was founded, based on the initiative of a group of professionals in psychology and physical education who were interested in discussing different perspectives in the area. Dr. Kátia Rubio served as president of the association (Vieira et al., 2010). We present a summary of the major milestones that have contributed to an increased consolidation of sports psychology as an area of knowledge in Table 6.1

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Franco Noce, Lenamar Fiorese Vieira and Varley Teoldo da Costa

Attributes and skills that are required to be a sports psychology professional According to Resolution 014/00 of the Federal Council of Psychology (CFP), which regulates specialization in sports psychology in Brazil, the title of specialist may be obtained by completing exams or a course accredited by the CFP. According to the CFP, the attributes that are required for the professional practice of sports psychologist are as follows: a To examine the psychological characteristics of athletes within their relevant activities via individual or group diagnosis. b To develop actions using psychological techniques to contribute to the personal fulfillment and performance improvement of athletes on an individual and group level and to promote the optimization of relations between athletes, technical staff and managers. c To conduct individual or group sports treatment that is aimed at psychological preparation in the performance of general physical activity. d To monitor, advise and observe athletes’ behaviors to investigate the psychological variables that affect performance in specific activities (training, tournaments and competitions). e To guide parents or guardians to facilitate the monitoring and development of athletes. f To conduct studies and research on an individual level or within a multidisciplinary team to develop the theoretical and practical knowledge of the behaviors of athletes, leaders and the public in the context of sports. g To prepare and participate in educational, recreational and physical rehabilitation programs and preventive or corrective studies that assess an individual’s well-being. h To contribute to the understanding and changes, if necessary, in the behaviors of teachers in the teaching-learning process and in the inter-intra personal relationships that develop in the sports environment. i To prepare and offer opinions on the psychological aspects of persons involved in sports when requested. j To refer an athlete to clinical care when they need psychological intervention that extends beyond sporting activities. k To teach sports psychology classes on psychology and physical education courses and provide opportunities for the necessary training of these professionals in the practice of sports activities and psychological aspects. The Federal and Regional Councils of Psychology (CFP-CRP) criteria for obtaining the title of specialist in sports psychology are similar to the American Psychological Association (APA) criteria. Although the criteria in Brazil resemble the criteria established by the APA with respect to the competencies that are required of and the demands made to the training of the sports psychology specialist, the APA also requires that only psychologists perform the role of sports psychologist and offer training in this area (Weinberg & Gould, 2008). The difference is the way that the APA guides specialization in sports psychology, which requires that the professional interested in obtaining proficiency in sports psychology should obtain a minimum of one doctorate in one of the primary areas of psychology. In Brazil, this criterion is not required as a prerequisite for the specialization courses (Rodrigues, 2006). However, the ISSP maintains that professional practice in sports psychology should not be restricted to psychologists and recognizes that it is a special field in which knowledge 60

Brazil

of both fields is required. For the ISSP, sports psychology may be considered a special area of the field of psychology and the field of sports and exercise, and the practitioner requires practical scientific knowledge in both areas. As a differentiated specialty, sports and exercise psychology requires the development of applications and theories that can reflect an increase in knowledge in the area of psychology and the area of sports and exercise (Rodrigues, 2006). This position is sensible because sports psychology originated in the physical education department and the discipline is included in the curriculum of most physical education courses, which does not apply to psychology courses in Brazil (Carvalho, 2008; Vieira et al., 2010). As previously discussed, the professional practice of sports psychology requires interdisciplinarity between the two areas because the specificity of its professional performance cannot be embraced by psychology (Machado, 2009).

Challenges of sports psychology in Brazil One of the greatest challenges of sports psychology in Brazil is the lack of knowledge about the work of professionals in this field, by institutions linked to sports practice and physical exercise or by students from both areas of knowledge, either by the technical teams or the athletes and physical activity practitioners. For Machado (2009), the ignorance in high-level sports regarding the work of these professionals or inadequate utilization of psychological preparation creates a large gap among professionals in the technical, tactical and physiological areas and persons responsible for the psychological area. We understand that the lack of disclosure of projects and research and the ignorance of sports psychology are sufficient reasons for an indifference or devaluation of the field in clubs or competitive teams. Sports and exercise psychology should be discussed at a cultural level in Brazil. Despite its low visibility compared with some countries, sports and exercise psychology has numerous possibilities for professional performance. However, the sports psychologist in Brazil is currently associated with sports practice that is focused on high-performance sports. Many authors argue that sports psychology in Brazil should expand its operations and objectives and not be limited to high-performance sports to achieve victory. According to Rubio (2007): It is common to associate Sports Psychology to a type of sports activity that has victory as its objective and television as its way of disseminating results. In this dynamic, the psychologist is seen as the professional who has the obligation to make the protagonist of the show, i.e., the athlete, achieve maximum performance. This approach has been criticized as high-performance sports is not the sports psychologist’s only role nor is the pursuit of first place his only goal. (p. 5) Another point discussed by Machado (2009) is the need to conceive sports psychology as an interdisciplinary area instead of debating its intradisciplinarity. This argument hinders the development of the area from a scientific and practical point of view. As previously discussed, sports psychology in Brazil originated from an interdisciplinary area and requires knowledge and contributions from the areas of psychology, physiology, neuroscience and sports science. One of the difficulties we encounter is the training of future professionals who will work in this area. In Brazil, the majority of psychology courses do not have disciplines that relate to sports and exercise psychology in their curriculum. Specialization in sports psychology is 61

Franco Noce, Lenamar Fiorese Vieira and Varley Teoldo da Costa

primarily based on graduate courses in physical education and sports science departments, which limits the knowledge and possible contributions of psychology in this area. In Machado’s (2009) words: From the point of view of a physical education professional, the Brazilian situation for the sports psychologist is very different from that experienced in the US, Europe or Asia, because of their own basic training. As long as the central axes of knowledge continue to exclude complementary disciplines, in Brazil, the difficulties tend to persist: physical educators avoid psychology classes, and psychologists avoid physical education classes. (p. 937)

Current scientific situation regarding sports and exercise psychology in Brazil Despite the difficulties and limitations of sports and exercise psychology in Brazil, its progress over the years is undeniable. Its promising path, which is constructed by dedicated, ethical and responsible professionals who tirelessly work for the development and dissemination of this area in Brazil, is equally undeniable. In the scientific academic field, according to data from the 2015 website of the National Scientific and Technological Development Council (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico – CNPq), 36 research groups are distributed among Brazil’s universities. Approximately 64 percent of the groups are concentrated in south and southeast Brazil, and approximately 75 percent of the groups belong to physical education departments (CNPq, 2015). A total of 42 areas of research were discovered (CNPq, 2015). The main areas and institutional linkages are as follows: biopsychophysiosocial aspects of exercise (Federal University of Paraíba – UFPB); psychological aspects of sports performance (Federal University of Sergipe – UFS); physical activity and health (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul – UFRGS); social foundations of the body-movement relationship (Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Ceará – IFCE); sports competition in the school context from the perspective of sports psychology (São Judas Tadeu University – USJT); human behavior in sports (UFS); diagnosis and control of psychological stress (Federal University of Minas Gerais – UFMG); gender, technology and sports psychology (São Paulo State University – UNESP); influences of the crowd, the media and new technologies in sports performance (UNESP); sports leadership and communication (UFMG); neuroscience and sports psychology (Federal University of Pernambuco – UFPE, and State University of Campinas – UNICAMP); Olympism, sports imagery and culture (São Paulo University – USP); sports pedagogy and psychology (UFRGS); psychophysiobiology of exercise and sports (Federal University of Paraná – UFPR); psychology, history and physical activity (Federal University of Maranhão – UFMA); clinical sports psychology (USP); sports psychology and humanism (Hermínio Ometto University Center – UNIARARAS); sports and exercise psychology (Regional University of Blumenau – FURB, Catholic University of Brasília/Federal District – UCB/DF, UNESP); sports social psychology (USP); psychosocial and behavioral aspects of human performance (State University of Maringá – UEM); psychology of team sports (Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul – UFMS) and sports psychology and its interfaces with illness (State University of Campinas – UNICAMP). A similar search performed on the CNPq website reveals that the sports psychologist’s field of activity and the scientific research possibilities are equally vast. The main certified 62

Brazil

research lines on the website examine several multidisciplinary phenomena that involve sports psychology in Brazil and addresses neuroscience, pedagogy, cognitive psychology, social psychology, physiology, psychometrics, health, and humanistic psychology. Vieira, Nascimento and Vieira (2013) also noted that the number of researchers remains limited despite the growth in graduate programs in Brazil, which have increased opportunities for the developments of specialized areas. Of the 159 graduate programs in physical education and psychology that were revealed by the search, only 14 graduate programs have research areas in sports and exercise psychology. Brazil can be considered an emerging area, requiring specialized professionals to this area of knowledge. In 2015, a new page in the history of sports psychology in Brazil began with the constitution of the ABEPEEx board. In 2016, the first congress of the new association will convene in the city of Belo Horizonte and will be attended by the Managing Council of the ISSP.

Conclusions Sports psychology in Brazil began in the 1930s and 1940s due to the specific demands of high-performance sports. From this point, the professions of psychology and physical education have been regulated, societies and associations have been created and undergraduate and graduate courses have included sports psychology in their respective curricula. Criticisms that associate sports psychology with performance sports are understandable because this developing area should address other manifestations (health, school, leisure and rehabilitation). However, research should consider that performance sports provide the majority of the contractual work and demand greater interest from professionals in this area of activity. Regarding professional practice, a greater involvement of professionals from psychology is evident; however, these professionals lack sports knowledge and require complementary training. Many physical education teachers have already pursued this complementary training in psychology. The professional field is becoming established, and the need for comprehensive training in this field of knowledge in psychology and physical education courses in a distinct and complementary manner is evident. The trends of Brazilian scientific production in the area and an analysis of former national congresses indicates an increase in studies with other social groups (not always athletes), which involve psychophysiology, neuropsychology/neuroscience and the use of computerized assessment in sports psychology. The following challenges for sports psychology should be highlighted: the need for transformation of the area toward a transdisciplinary approach; the need for recognition by coaches, athletes and officials of the importance of psychological variables in sports performance (ensuring that appropriate space is given to the development of psychological abilities); an increase in scientific output in international journals and participation in international scientific events; and the inclusion of sports psychology in psychology courses.

Acknowledgments This work had the support of the Pro-Rectorship of Research of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais and the Pós-Graduation Program in Sport Science.

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References Abdo, E. (2000). Psicologia do esporte no Brasil. In K. Rubio (Ed.), Encontros e desencontros: Descobrindo a psicologia do esporte. São Paulo: Casa do Psicólogo. Barreto, J. A., & Ribeiro, L. (2006). Psicologia do esporte – sobrape. In L. Da Costa (Ed.), Atlas do esporte no Brasil (pp. 675–677). Rio de Janeiro: Confef. Becker Jr., B. (2008). Manual de psicologia do esporte e exercício (Vol. 1). Porto Alegre: Nova Prova. Carvalho, C. A. (2008). Psicologia do esporte: Percurso e possibilidade de atuação. Ciências Humanas em Revista, 6, 1–10. Conselho Federal De Psicologia (CFP). (2000). Resolução CFP N.º 014/00 de 20 de dezembro de 2000. Retrieved from http://site.cfp.org.br/wpcontent/uploads/2006/01/resolucao2000_14.pdf Conselho Federal de Psicologia (CFP). (2008). Atribuições profissionais dos psicólogos no Brasil. Retrieved from http://site.cfp.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/atr_prof_psicologo.pdf Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq). (2015). Consulta parametrizada. Retrieved from http://dgp.cnpq.br/dgp/faces/consulta/consulta_parametrizada.jsf Franco, G. S. (2004). Preparando a vitória: Psicologia do esporte e psicodrama. São Paulo: Editora Agora. Gill, D. L. (1986). Psychological dynamics of sports. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Hernandez, J. A. (2011). João Carvalhaes, em psicólogo campeão do mundo de futebol. Estudos e Pesquisa em Psicologia, 11, 12–17. Retrieved from http://www.revispsi.uerj.br/ Machado, A. A. (2009). Formação acadêmica e intervenção profissional na perspectiva da psicologia do esporte. Motriz, 15, 935–943. Rodrigues, M. C. (2006). Psicologia do esporte: Discussões sobre o cenário brasileiro. (Tese de doutoramento), Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brasil. Rubio, K. (1999). Psicologia do esporte: Histórico e áreas de atuação e pesquisa. Psicologia Ciência e Profissão, 19, 60–69. Rubio, K. (2007). Da psicologia do esporte que temos à psicologia do esporte que queremos. Revista Brasileira de Psicologia do Esporte, 1, 1–13. Retrieved from http://pepsic.bvsalud.org/pdf/rbpe/v1n1/ v1n1a07.pdf Samulski, D. (2009). Psicologia do esporte: Conceitos e novas perspectivas. Barueri-SP: Editora Manole. Vieira, L., Nascimento Jr., J. R., & Vieira, J. L. (2013). O estado da arte da pesquisa em psicologia do esporte no Brasil. Revista de Psicología de Deporte, 22, 501–507. Recuperado de http://www.rpd-online. com/article/view/v22-n2-vieira-nascimento-vieira/964 Vieira, L., Vissoci, J. R., Oliveira L., & Vieira J. L. (2010). Psicologia do esporte: Uma área emergente da psicologia. Psicologia em Estudo, 15, 391–399. Recuperado de http://www.scielo.br/pdf/pe/v15n2/ a18v15n2 Weinberg, R., & Gould, D. (2008). Fundamentos da Psicologia aplicada ao exercício e ao esporte. Porto Alegre: Artmed.

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7 C A NA DA Natalie Durand-Bush and Kylie McNeill

Canada has been a hotbed for sport psychology research since the 1960s. This chapter will present the evolving sport psychology research landscape in Canada over the last 50 years. In particular, it will highlight prominent stages of development and researchers who have contributed to them, as well as areas having had an impact on the global field of sport psychology. The chapter will also address emerging scholarship, forecasts for the future, and final reflections from the authors. Several steps were undertaken to obtain the data for this chapter. First, previous reviews regarding the history of sport psychology in both North America (Silva, 2001; Stambulova, Wrisberg, & Ryba, 2006) and Canada (Crocker & Scott, 2007; Halliwell, 1989a; Salmela, 1981, 1992, 2001; Schinke & McGannon, 2014) were consulted. Second, in order to identify scholarship, the 97 universities comprising the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC, 2014) were reviewed to determine if graduate programs or undergraduate courses in sport psychology were offered. Where there were programs or courses offered, the profiles (e.g., biography, CV, publications, personal website) of faculty members were examined in order to identify those currently specializing in sport psychology and those possibly having published in this area. As researchers were pinpointed, a search using several databases (i.e., SPORTDiscus, Physical Education Index, Google Scholar, ProQuest Dissertations) was completed to identify if and what scholars had published in the area of sport psychology and also when they completed their PhD degree. Table 7.1, which will be addressed in subsequent sections, was created to summarize researchers who met the following criteria: (a) hold a PhD, (b) currently have a full-time academic position at a Canadian university or they had one at the time they retired, and (c) made a research contribution in one or more areas in the field of sport psychology. It is noteworthy that while many Canadian researchers have made important research contributions in the areas of exercise, physical activity, and health psychology, as well as physical education and pedagogy, only researchers who have made contributions in the area of sport psychology were included given the scope of this handbook. The vibrant scholarship in the area of sport psychology in Canada has arguably been the result of a proliferation of high quality graduate programs. Figure 7.1 presents a map of Canada with the universities across the country where one can currently complete a graduate degree in the area of sport psychology within a kinesiology, human kinetics, or physical 65

Saskatchewan

U Laval (MA, PhD n=2)

McGill U (MA, PhD, n=2)

Trois Rivières (MSc n=1)

U de Montréal (MA, PhD. n=1)

U de Sherbrooke (MSc, PhD n=1)

Quebec

New Brunswick U New Brunswick (MA, PhD n=1)

Nova Scotia

Prince Edward Island

Newfoundland and Labrador

Figure 7.1 Landscape of Canadian universities offering graduate programs in which one can specialize in sport psychology, with the number of professors specializing in sport psychology research as of November 2014. Programs with no “n” do not currently include professors specializing in sport psychology

Western U Wilfrid Laurier U U of Windsor (MA, PhD n=2) (MSc, PhD n=2) (MHK, PhD n=3)

Brock U (MSc, PhD n=1)

York U Queen’s U (MA, MSc, PhD (MA. MSc, PhD n=3) n=1)

McMaster U (MSC, PhD)

Laurentian U (MHK n=3)

Ontario

U of Ottawa (MA, MHK, PhD n=7)

U of Manitoba (MA, MSc, PhD n=1)

Manitoba

Nunavut

U of Toronto (MSc PhD, n=3)

U of Regina (MSc, PhD U of Calgary n=1 (MSc, PhD U of n=2) Saskatchewan (MSc, PhD n=4)

U of Alberta (MA, MSc, PhD n=3)

Alberta

Northwest Territories

Lakehead U (MSc)

U of Victoria (MA, MEd, MSc, PhD)

U of British Columbia (MA, MSc. MKin, PhD n=2)

British Columbia

Yukon

Table 7.1 Scholars in Canada with a PhD degree who are currently in or have retired from a full-time academic position at a Canadian university, and made a research contribution to one or more areas in the field of sport psychology Name

Date

University

Research area

1960s, n=3 Richard Alderman Albert Carron Dorcas Susan Butt

1964 1967 1967

Alberta Western British Columbia

Motivation; personality; coaching Cohesion; leadership; group dynamics Personality; motivation

1970s, n=10 Len Wankel John Salmela Terry Orlick Peter Klavora Dennis Hrycaiko Wayne Halliwell Craig Hall Cal Botterill Neil Widmeyer Ted Wall

1971 1972 1972 1974 1976 1976 1977 1977 1977 1978

Alberta Ottawa Ottawa Toronto Manitoba Montreal Western Winnipeg Waterloo McGill

Motivation; youth sport Coaching; expertise; psychological preparation Cooperative games; performance excellence Anxiety Coaching; mental training Motivation; sport psychology consulting Mental imagery; observational learning Goal-setting; emotions Aggression; cohesion Meta-cognitive processes; active living

1980s, n=11 Larry Brawley Janet Starkes Kevin Spink John Hogg Robert Vallerand Lise Gauvin Janice Deakin Pierre Trudel Peter Crocker

1980 1980 1980 1982 1982 1985 1987 1987 1988

Causal attributions; cohesion Expertise; deliberate practice; Masters athletes Cohesion; motivation Stress and coping Motivation; sportspersonship; passion Youth sport; mental preparation Expertise; deliberate practice; youth sport Coaching; positive youth development Stress and coping; perfectionism

Gretchen Kerr Luc Pelletier

1989 1989

Saskatchewan McMaster Saskatchewan Alberta McGill Montreal Western Ottawa British Columbia Toronto Ottawa

Stress; injuries Motivation

1990s, n=22 Frances Flint Wendy Rodgers Lynda Mainwaring Jean Côté Diane Ste-Marie Billy Strean Stéphane Perreault Phil Sullivan Michelle Fortier David Paskevich Diane Mack

1991 1992 1992 1993 1993 1993 1993 1994 1994 1995 1996

York Alberta Toronto Queen’s Ottawa Alberta Trois Rivières Brock Ottawa Calgary Brock

Injury Imagery; motivation Injury; concussions Expertise; coaching; positive youth development Observational learning; sport officials Youth sport Motivation Team dynamics; coaching efficacy Motivation Cohesion Cohesion; well-being; physical self-presentation

Continued...

Table 7.1 continued Name

Date

University

Research area

Kathleen MartinGinis Guylaine Demers Dave Scott Gordon Bloom Steven Bray Kim Dorsch John Dunn Krista MunroeChandler Penny Werthner Céline Blanchard Martin Roy

1996

McMaster

Imagery; anxiety

1996 1996 1997 1998 1998 1998 1999

Laval New Brunswick McGill McMaster Regina Alberta Windsor

Coaching; homophobia Psychological strategies; behavior modification Coaching; team-building; concussions Cohesion; home advantage Cohesion; officiating Emotions, perfectionism Imagery; youth sport

1999 1999 1999

Calgary Ottawa Sherbrooke

Coaching; retirement; bio/neurofeedback Motivation Coaching

2000s, n=31 Robert Schinke

2000

Laurentian

2000

Ottawa

2000 2001

Saskatchewan British Columbia Brock

Cultural sport psychology; Canadian Aboriginal athletes; acculturation Mental skills assessment; expertise; coaching; self-regulation Stress and coping; emotions; self-compassion Expertise; deliberate practice

Natalie DurandBush Kent Kowalski Nicola Hodges Kimberley Gammage Jill Tracey Mark Beauchamp Nick Holt Theresa Bianco Kerry McGannon Joe Baker Sharleen Hoar Todd Loughead Enrique Garcia Bengoechea Philip Wilson Diane Culver Mark Eys Patrick Gaudreau Amy Latimer Melanie Gregg Shaelyn Strachan Tanya Forneris Jessica FraserThomas

2001 2001 2002

Cohesion; imagery

2002 2002 2002 2003 2003 2003 2003

Wilfrid Laurier British Columbia Alberta Concordia Laurentian York Lethbridge Windsor McGill

Injury; emotions Role ambiguity; group dynamics Stress and coping; positive youth development Injury; social support Cultural sport psychology; self-identity Expertise; skill development Stress and coping Cohesion; leadership; team-building Youth sport; motivation

2003 2004 2004 2004 2004 2005 2005 2006

Brock Ottawa Laurier Ottawa Toronto Winnipeg Manitoba Ottawa

Motivation Coaching Group dynamics; role ambiguity Stress and coping; goal-attainment Athletic identity; physical disabilities Mental imagery Athletic identity Positive youth development

2006

York

Youth sport

Canada

Name

Date

University

Research area

Catherine Sabiston Christiane Trottier Brad Young Sean Horton Barbi Law Shaunna Burke Mark Bruner Leisha Strachan

2006 2006 2006 2007 2007 2007 2008 2008

Toronto Laval Ottawa Windsor Nipissing Western Nipissing Manitoba

Interpersonal context of sport Optimism; life skills Masters athletes; coaching; self-regulation Expertise; aging; sport participation Observational learning Team building; cohesion Group dynamics Positive youth development; youth sport

2010s n=8 Sylvie Parent Dany MacDonald

2008 2010

Violence; sexual abuse Youth sport; athletic development

2011

Laval Prince Edward Island Toronto

Stress and coping; emotions

2012 2012 2012 2013 2014

Cape Breton Ottawa Lethbridge Fraser Valley Saskatchewan

Coaching Positive youth development; life skills Group dynamics Coaching; youth sport Self-compassion; well-being

Katherine Tamminen Bettina Callary Martin Camiré Luc Martin Lauren Couture Leah Ferguson

Note. Scholars were categorized by year of completion of PhD degree across decades, followed by the university where they currently hold or have retired from their academic position (ex. Alberta = University of Alberta), and the research area(s) in sport psychology to which they contributed.

activity/education department, and the number of professors currently specializing in sport psychology in these departments. A graduate program (e.g., MA, MSc, MHK, MEd, PhD) was included if there was mention of a sport psychology, behavioral, and/or psychosocial stream on the university’s website. Professors were included in this figure if they specified research interests in areas pertaining to sport psychology on the university’s website and had published in these areas as well. Overall, 24 Canadian universities offer a Master’s program (i.e., MA, MSc, MKin and/or MEd) and 21 of them offer a PhD program in which one can specialize in sport psychology. This represents 25 percent and 22 percent of the 97 accredited public universities in Canada, respectively. This specialization is possible since a number of professors are active sport psychology researchers in these graduate programs through full-time university appointments in seven of the ten provinces. Currently, there are 46 professors who specialize in various areas of sport psychology in this country, with the most representation being in Ontario (n=25). The other 21 professors are dispersed throughout the following six provinces: Quebec (n=7), Alberta (n=5), Saskatchewan (n=5), British Columbia (n=2), Manitoba (n=1), and New Brunswick (n=1). Thus far, there are no graduate programs and thus no sport psychology professors contributing to them in the provinces of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador, nor in the three territories of Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon. However, there is now one sport psychology researcher working as a full-time university professor in Nova Scotia and another in Prince Edward Island so we could be seeing graduate programs in these provinces in the future. 69

Natalie Durand-Bush and Kylie McNeill

Origins and prominent stages of development of sport psychology in Canada The emergence and development of sport psychology in Canada is closely linked to that in the United States (Crocker & Scott, 2007). The discipline of sport psychology in both these countries has roots in the field of motor learning and behavior, which itself was born in physical education and kinesiology departments. This stands in contrast to the emergence of sport psychology in much of Europe, where many of the early pioneers were trained in psychology (Salmela, 1992). However, while the field was taking shape in the United States by the middle of the twentieth century with an increased focus on the psychological aspects of motor learning and performance (Silva, 2001), opportunities for pursuing doctoral degrees in the field were lacking in Canada. As such, many of the parents of Canadian sport psychology, such as Richard Alderman and Albert Carron, moved to the United States to study during these early years. Upon graduation, these first generation researchers returned to Canada to create vibrant research programs in the areas of motor learning and sport psychology (Salmela, 2001).

Motor learning and sport psychology are joined at the hip The beginnings of sport psychology in Canada can be traced back to the work of several graduates of Franklin Henry’s motor learning laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. Specifically, in 1954, Max Howell created the first Master’s degree in physical education in the Commonwealth at the University of British Columbia upon returning from the U.S. (University of British Columbia, 2014). Several years later, in 1961, he went on to establish the first doctoral program in physical education at the University of Alberta and became known for being a pioneer in the study of human kinetics and sport sciences. It was at that time that he hired another graduate of Henry’s laboratory, Robert Morford, to teach the first motor learning and sport psychology courses in Canada. In 1968, Morford was replaced by fellow Berkeley graduate, Richard Alderman, who, along with motor behavior expert, Robert Wilberg, further developed the doctoral program into what became known for producing the largest number of graduates in the field of sport psychology in Canada in the 1970s and 1980s (Halliwell, 1989a). As can be seen in Table 7.1, graduates from the doctoral program at this time included Len Wankel, Terry Orlick, John Salmela, Peter Klavora, Dennis Hrycaiko, Craig Hall, Cal Botterill, and Ted Wall. These scholars were among the first to start contributing to the sport psychology literature in Canada. Examples of foundational publications include Psychological Behaviour in Sport (Alderman, 1974), Every Kid Can Win (Orlick & Botterill, 1975), Psychology of Sport: The Behavior, Motivation, Personality and Performance of Athletes (Butt, 1976), and Social Psychology of Sport (Carron, 1980). Moreover, in 1976, the bilingual Canadian Journal of Applied Sport Sciences was founded (currently Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism), which became an important outlet for the publication of sport psychology research by Canadians. Another graduate of Franklin Henry and pioneer of Canadian sport psychology is Albert Carron, who returned from Berkeley to take an academic position, first at the University of Saskatchewan, and then at the University of Western Ontario in 1974. It was at this latter institution that Carron established a world-renowned research program in sport and exercise psychology (Crocker & Scott, 2007), beginning with his work on participation motivation and team cohesion (e.g., Ball & Carron, 1976) and coach-athlete interaction and compatibility (e.g., Carron & Chelladurai, 1978). This work would then pave the way for 70

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his subsequent collaborations with University of Waterloo researchers Neil Widmeyer and Lawrence Brawley (e.g., Carron, Widmeyer, & Brawley, 1985). In 1977, the national origins of the field were further solidified with the creation of the Canadian Society of Psychomotor Learning and Sport Psychology, better known by its French acronym SCAPPS (Salmela, 1992). The groundwork for the formation of an independent association was laid much earlier, however, when the first Canadian sport psychology meeting was held at the University of Alberta by members of the Psychomotor Learning and Sport Psychology Committee of the Canadian Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (CAHPERD, now Physical and Health Education Canada) in 1969. The proceedings from the annual CAHPERD and SCAPPS conferences made an important contribution to the field during the late 1970s and 1980s (Halliwell, 1989a). To this day, SCAPPS “continues to have a strong influence on the professional and academic development of sport psychology in Canada” (Crocker & Scott, 2007, p. 13). Given the close ties between Berkeley and many of the Canadian pioneers in sport psychology, it is perhaps not surprising that SCAPPS’ Young Scientist Award was named after Franklin Henry.

Sport psychology soars on its own Despite the historical association between motor learning and sport psychology, as exemplified in the creation of SCAPPS, the field of sport psychology began to distinguish itself from motor learning in the 1970s and 1980s (Crocker & Scott, 2007). This period was marked by the creation of new doctoral programs in Canada, such as at the University of Waterloo and the Université de Montréal (Salmela, 2001), where second generation academics (e.g., Wayne Halliwell, John Salmela, Neil Widmeyer) were hired into academic positions. As a result, this period of development was associated with a proliferation of research by this generation of scholars, many in collaboration with colleagues and/or students. Initially, topics included motivation (e.g., Vallerand, Gauvin, & Halliwell, 1986), causal attributions (e.g., Carron & Spink, 1980), aggression (e.g., Widmeyer & Birch, 1984), cooperative play and socialization (e.g., Orlick, 1981), and mental imagery (e.g., Hall, Buckolz, & Fishburne, 1989). Topics were then expanded to cover areas such as stress and coping (e.g., Crocker, Alderman, & Smith, 1988), expertise (e.g., Starkes, Deakin, Lindley, & Crisp, 1987), and coaching (e.g., Trudel, 1991). Additionally, while earlier periods of development in sport psychology in North America were characterized by a motor learning laboratory-based experimental research orientation, a trend which Silva (2001) attributes to physical education’s “strong desire to demonstrate to other disciplines the academic viability of this fledging field” (p. 826), research in the 1980s in Canada marked a shift towards more social field-based empirical investigations. Psychological measures were also developed to facilitate this research (e.g., Group Environment Questionnaire; Carron et al., 1985; Minor Sport Enjoyment Inventory; Wankel & Kreisel, 1985). Perhaps this shift in the field was spurred by Rainer Martens’s (1979) presentation at the 1978 SCAPPS conference, in which he challenged the ecological validity of laboratory studies and urged researchers to place more emphasis on the practical application of their work (Stambulova et al., 2006). Applied practice in sport psychology was concurrently becoming prevalent in Canada in the 1980s (Silva, 2001). In contrast to the United States, Canadian sport psychology consultants had forged relationships with other sport practitioners and governing bodies, like the Coaching Association of Canada, which helped pave the way for this applied work (Stambulova et al., 2006). The status of the field was considerably heightened in 1980 when 71

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the Sports Medicine Council of Canada voted that an individual with applied training in sport psychology could accompany the Olympic delegation (Salmela, 1992). Moreover, in 1981, Terry Orlick and John Partington hosted the Fifth World Sport Psychology Congress in Ottawa, which was “considered a landmark in the development of applied sport psychology in Canada” (Halliwell, 1989a, p. 37). Prime Minister Trudeau opened the conference, which was attended by 400 international delegates. It was also during this period that Orlick wrote some of the defining works in the field of sport psychology, including his 1980 book In Pursuit of Excellence, and his 1988 article with Partington entitled Mental Links to Excellence. This helped fuel more applied research in the field, with studies published on mental preparation (Botterill, 1982), stress management training (Crocker, 1989), and mental skills training for coaches (Hall & Rodgers, 1989). With the rise in profile of applied sport psychology research and practice in this period and beyond came the increased professionalization of the field (Silva, 2001). This trend was highlighted in the literature, as well as in articles on the delivery of sport psychology services (e.g., Halliwell, 1989b; Salmela, 1989). The role and boundaries of practice (e.g., Rejeski & Brawley, 1988) were equally addressed in publications during this period. To attend to issues relating to the regulation of the profession, Murray Smith, from the University of Alberta, created the Canadian Registry for Sport Behavioral Professionals in 1987 (Schinke & McGannon, 2014), several years before the creation of certification standards by the Association for the Advancement of Applied Sport Psychology in the United States (Silva, 2001). In 2006, the Canadian Sport Psychology Association (CSPA) was created by Natalie Durand-Bush and Penny Werthner from the University of Ottawa, as well as Tom Patrick, a sport psychology practitioner and administrator in the field at the time. New standards and types of membership (i.e., mental performance consultant and registered psychologist) replaced that of the Canadian Mental Training Registry established by Terry Orlick in 1994, which was a later version of Smith’s initial registry. Presently, many Canadian sport psychology researchers are professional members of the CSPA (CSPA, 2014), merging their applied practice and scholarly work, which highlights the research-practice orientation in the field (Schinke & McGannon, 2014).

Sport psychology is beating strong The last two and a half decades of sport psychology research in Canada have been marked by greater diversification and specialization (see Table 7.1). In addition to well established areas that were previously discussed such as cohesion, motivation, stress and coping, expertise, coaching, and imagery, additional research focal points emerged such as youth sport (e.g., Trudel, Lemyre, Werthner, & Camiré, 2007), injury (e.g., Bianco, 2001), cultural sport psychology (e.g., Schinke & Hanrahan, 2009), observational learning (e.g., Law & Ste-Marie, 2005), positive youth development (e.g., Fraser-Thomas, Côté, & Deakin, 2005), emotions (e.g., Graham, Kowalski, & Crocker, 2002), and mental skills assessment (e.g., DurandBush, Salmela, & Green-Demers, 2001). It was during this period that third generation researchers began to replace the early parents of the field who retired (e.g., Richard Alderman, Murray Smith). Furthermore, several new doctoral programs were established in the 1990s and 2000s. As a result, in comparison to the 1970s (n=10) and 1980s (n=11), a remarkable number of scholars who currently hold a full-time position at a Canadian university and made a contribution to the sport psychology literature obtained their PhD degree in the 1990s (n=22) and 2000s (n=31). However, it does not appear that this trend will continue in the 2010s as only eight PhD graduates having 72

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transitioned into a university position have focused their publications in sport psychology thus far in this decade. Perhaps this is due to the fact that several scholars in the 1990s and 2000s who began their academic career by orienting their research on sport psychology have migrated to physical activity / exercise / health psychology. As such, graduate students pursuing their doctoral studies under the supervision of these scholars in the 2000s and the 2010s were likely centering their work on the same topic areas. We agree with Silva (2001) and Crocker and Scott (2007) that this shift in research areas probably reflects a change in funding opportunities in North America during the last two decades. Nonetheless, this shift helped to fill an important gap in the literature and the community through knowledge transfer initiatives. Also, Figure 7.1 shows that there are still 46 university appointed scholars specializing in sport psychology in Canada, thus this concentration area is still beating strong. One reason that it is important to preserve a sport psychology specialization in Canada pertains to increased demands for sport psychology service provision to athletes and coaches, not just at the elite but also the grassroots level. With increased research showing the positive impact of life skills and positive youth development, sport consumers are progressively recognizing the benefits of psychoeducation and mental skills training at a young age. In fact, Canadian Sport for Life mandated a group of scholars and practitioners to provide evidencedbased principles and guidelines to develop mental skills and attributes based on the Long-Term Athlete Development Stages endorsed by the Coaching Association of Canada (MacNeill, Benz, Brown, Kabush, & van den Berg, 2013). These guidelines, in combination with other important sources (e.g., Côté, Lidor, & Hackfort, 2009) can serve as a guide for both practice and research concerned with optimizing mental fitness and mental health in sport. At the moment, the number of graduate programs concentrating on developing sound evidenced-based practitioners with a sport science orientation in Canada is limited. John Salmela and Terry Orlick implemented the first applied Master’s sport psychology program at the University of Ottawa in the 1990s with the collaboration of John Partington at Carleton University. To this day, this professional Master’s program is the only one in Canada in which students can complete a course-based program with an extensive supervised internship geared toward meeting the standards of the Canadian Sport Psychology Association. Another professional program is offered at the University of British Columbia. Similar to the one at the University of Ottawa, it is a course-based program comprising an internship but it is not as extensive as it is typically completed within one academic year. It offers different areas of study (i.e., Socio-Managerial, Natural/Physical Science, Behavioral Science, and Coaching Science) with the Coaching Science stream being the most popular one. This latter stream is extremely valuable as it is the only one in Canada in which students are prepared at the graduate level to meet the standards of the Coaching Association of Canada to be able to coach at different levels and in a variety of contexts.

Notable contributions to the global field of sport psychology Canada’s researchers have been recognized for significantly influencing the global field of sport psychology. As Table 7.1 shows, multiple topics have been addressed in the literature by numerous scholars occupying academic positions in Canada. It is important to highlight that several other Canadian researchers have made noteworthy contributions but were not included in the table since they left to work in other countries (e.g., Chelladurai) or did not pursue work in academia beyond their graduate studies. In particular, it can be argued that research in the following six areas has had a worldwide impact: (a) cohesion and group dynamics, (b) motivation, (c) stress, coping, and emotion, (d) expertise, (e) coaching, and (f) imagery. 73

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Cohesion and group dynamics A number of Canadian researchers including Albert Carron, Neil Widmeyer, Larry Brawley, Kevin Spink, Phil Sullivan, Diane Mack (Stevens), Gordon Bloom, Steven Bray, Kimberley Gammage, Todd Loughead, Mark Eys, Shaunna Burke, Luc Martin, Mark Beauchamp, David Paskevich, and Mark Bruner have published in the areas of cohesion, group dynamics, and team building across the five decades. Albert Carron has led the way by publishing several textbooks and hundreds of scientific articles, many of which were with colleagues and graduate students (e.g., Carron, Bray, & Eys, 2002; Eys, Loughead, Bray, & Carron, 2009). He is considered one of the modern parents of the field and not surprisingly, a SCAPPS lecture was named after him in 2004.

Motivation Motivation is another area in which Canadian scholars such as Richard Alderman, Dorcas Susan Butt, Len Wankel, Wayne Halliwell, Kevin Spink, Robert Vallerand, Luc Pelletier, Wendy Rodgers, Stéphane Perreault, Michelle Fortier, Céline Blanchard, Enrique Garcia Bengoechea, and Philip Wilson have collectively made their mark on the world of sport psychology since the 1960s. A notable contributor has been Robert Vallerand, and his empirical work pertaining to Self-Determination Theory and the Sport Motivation Scale, which he carried out with a number of colleagues and graduate students (e.g., Pelletier, Fortier, Vallerand, Tuson, Brière, & Blais, 1995; Perreault & Vallerand, 2007) has had a widereaching influence on research in this area. He has been recognized as a fellow by many organizations, including the International Association of Applied Psychology in 2010.

Stress, coping, and emotion Peter Klavora (anxiety), Cal Botterill, John Hogg, Peter Crocker, Gretchen Kerr, Kathleen Martin-Ginis (anxiety), John Dunn, Natalie Durand-Bush, Kent Kowalski, Jill Tracey, Nick Holt, Sharleen Hoar, Patrick Gaudreau, and Katherine Tamminen are among some of the Canadian researchers who together have made an international contribution to research on stress, coping, and emotion since the 1970s. In particular, Peter Crocker is considered a frontrunner on the world stage and continues to this day to publish in this area, often with other collaborators and graduate students (e.g., Hoar, Crocker, Holt, & Tamminen, 2010). Dedicated to student training and merit, he created the Peter Crocker Award in Psychology to recognize undergraduate students’ research related to behavioral factors in health. His recent work integrates concepts such as perfectionism, self-compassion, body image, and passion (e.g., Sutherland, Kowalski, Ferguson, Sabiston, Sedwick, & Crocker, 2014).

Expertise Expertise, talent identification and development, and performance excellence have comprised a popular area of research in sport psychology to which Canadian researchers have contributed internationally since the 1980s. Examples include John Salmela, Terry Orlick, Janet Starkes, Janice Deakin, Jean Côté, Gordon Bloom, Robert Schinke, Natalie Durand-Bush, Nicola Hodges, Nick Holt, Joe Baker, Bradley Young, Jessica Fraser-Thomas, and Sean Horton. Both John Salmela (e.g., Côté, Salmela, Trudel, & Baria, 1995; Durand-Bush & Salmela, 2002) and Janet Starkes (e.g., Hodges, Huys, & Starkes, 2007; Starkes & Ericsson, 2003) have spearheaded 74

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research in this area in Canada and mentored the next generations of specialists who continue to leave their mark today. In 2013, a special issue of the International Journal of Sport Psychology was devoted to Janet Starkes in recognition of her contributions.

Coaching Since the 1960s, coaching has been an area driven by Canadian researchers such as Richard Alderman, John Salmela, Dennis Hrycaiko, Pierre Trudel, Jean Côté, Phil Sullivan, Guylaine Demers, Gordon Bloom, Penny Werthner, Martin Roy, Robert Schinke, Natalie DurandBush, Diane Culver, Brad Young, Betting Callary, and Lauren Couture. Two prominent contributors in this area have been Jean Côté (e.g., Côté, 2002; Erickson, Côté, & FraserThomas, 2007) and Pierre Trudel (e.g., Trudel, Gilbert, & Werthner, 2010; Werthner & Trudel, 2006). Through their ongoing research on the development of knowledge of coaches in different contexts and at different levels, and through their published theoretical model (e.g., the Coaching Model, Côté, Salmela, Trudel, & Baria, 1995), they have shaped the research on coaching since the 1990s.

Imagery Last but certainly not least, imagery is a sixth research area in which Canadian researchers have left their legacy from an international perspective. Scholars include Craig Hall, Wendy Rodgers, Kathleen Martin-Ginis, Krista Munroe-Chandler, Kimberley Gammage, and Melanie Gregg. One of the most prominent leaders in this area has been Craig Hall (e.g., Gregg, C. Hall, McGowan, & Hall, 2011; C. R. Hall, Munroe-Chandler, Fishburne, & Hall, 2009). For over 30 years, his research on the role of imagery and the effectiveness of imagery interventions in various contexts has served as a durable canvas against which subsequent generations of scholars’ work has unfolded. He is the co-editor of the Journal of Imagery Research in Sport and Physical Activity, the first peer-reviewed journal devoted to research in this area.

Emerging scholarship and forecasts for the future In addition to the aforementioned prominent areas of research that have characterized the field of sport psychology, new areas have emerged during the last decade. One such area is positive youth development (PYD), spurred by the influential work of Fraser-Thomas and colleagues (2005), in which an applied framework guiding youth sport programming was put forth. Since then, researchers have examined athletes’ perceptions of development of life skills through sport (Camiré, Trudel, & Forneris, 2009), the role of coaches in fostering PYD (MacDonald, Côté, & Deakin, 2010), as well as PYD in the context of elite youth sport (Strachan, Côté, & Deakin, 2011). This emerging research area is underscored by the recent Position Stand by the International Society of Sport Psychology on Sport as a Social Mission (ISSP, 2015) and Holt’s (2008) leading book dedicated to positive youth development through sport. At the other end of the lifespan, another developing area of research is that of Masters athletes, with Canadian researchers contributing significantly to this unique population of sport participants through investigations on motivation and commitment (Young, 2011), relative age effect (Medic, Starkes, Weir, Young, & Grove, 2009), and coaching (Young, Callary, & Niedre, 2014). Given the aging population and the proven benefits of preserving an active lifestyle in later years, the significance of this area of research will only continue to rise in years to come. 75

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Cultural sport psychology represents another notable area of scholarship emerging within the field. Headed by Robert Schinke, initial research focused on adaptation and enculturation among Canadian Aboriginal athletes and immigrant athletes (e.g. Schinke, Michel, Gauthier, Pickard, Danielson, Peltier et al., 2006). Studies then progressed to address cultural competence, praxis, and reflexivity in the field of sport psychology, culminating in a seminal book entitled Cultural Sport Psychology (Schinke & Hanrahan, 2009) and special journal issues dedicated to the topic (e.g., International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, Fall 2009; Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, December 2011). Considering the development of the field of sport psychology, the aforementioned trends in emerging scholarship, and the latest publications from Canadian researchers, several forecasts for the future are put forth. First, we anticipate that there will be increased specialization in research topics such as concussions (e.g., Caron, Bloom, Johnston, & Sabiston, 2013), disability (e.g., Duarte & Culver, 2014), and mental health and well-being (e.g., Dubuc-Charbonneau & Durand-Bush, 2015) in sport. As highlighted by Crocker and Scott (2007), we anticipate that this specialization will also continue to extend to diverse populations like youth (e.g., Camiré, 2014), older adults (e.g., Dionigi, Fraser-Thomas, & Logan, 2012), student-athletes (e.g., Dunn, Dunn, & McDonald, 2012), Canadian Aboriginal athletes (e.g., Blodgett, Schinke, McGannon, Coholic, Enosse, Peltier et al., 2014), parents (e.g., Knight & Holt, 2014), and special populations (e.g., Perrier, Sweet, Strachan, & LatimerCheung, 2012). Moreover, given that the field has been branded by a strong research-practice orientation in this country, we project that Canadian scholars will further engage in applied, intervention-based research aimed at enhancing sport participation (e.g., Camiré & Trudel, 2013) and performance (e.g., Collins & Durand-Bush, 2014). Additionally, reviews (see Culver, Gilbert, & Sparkes, 2012; Culver, Gilbert, & Trudel, 2003) have shown an increase in the number of qualitative studies published in sport psychology journals over the past two decades. As such, we forecast that this trend will continue in Canada with more variation in research approaches used such as grounded theory (e.g., Tamminen & Holt, 2012), narrative inquiry (e.g., Callary, Werthner, & Trudel, 2012), ethnography (e.g., Holt, Scherer, & Koch, 2013), archival analysis (e.g., Schinke, Gauthier, Dubuc, & Crowder, 2007), and discourse analysis (e.g., McGannon & Smith, 2015). Furthermore, reflecting on the changing landscape of research funding in Canada, including the partnership between Sport Canada and the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) through the Sport Participation Research Initiative (SSHRC, 2014), we anticipate that there will be added emphasis placed on policy-relevant research in sport psychology, particularly research in line with the Canadian Sport Policy 2012 (Canadian Heritage, 2013). In a similar vein, we anticipate that the future of Canadian sport psychology will be shaped in part by the increasing importance placed on knowledge mobilization and the dissemination of research findings in ways that promote greater “intellectual, social and/or economic impact” (SSHRC, 2009, p. 4) for Canadians. Finally, given the prevalence and impact of the digital world and SSHRC’s future challenge area targeting emerging technologies, it can be expected that forthcoming sport psychology research will address the use and impact of technology on different psychosocial variables deemed important in sport.

Final reflections Canadian sport psychology researchers should be pleased with their contributions to the field since the 1960s. As iterated in this chapter and other sources, numerous leaders have paved the way for many generations of academics to flourish in this country. With the development 76

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of a critical mass of sport psychology researchers and practitioners across most provinces, the field is effervescent. However, it will be important to continue increasing research and knowledge mobilization efforts in sport psychology moving forward given the role that the collective has in generating new knowledge, educating the community, and facilitating participation and performance in a variety of sport contexts to achieve desired outcomes. By focusing on education and the provision of key life skills in positive and nurturing environments at all levels of development in sport, the existing and hopefully expanding critical mass will be in a position to help shape the future to ensure that all sport enthusiasts and members of their support team have the knowledge, skills, and tools to both succeed and manage adversity. With increased demands and pressures in an era of information overload, it is vital that we remain active and innovate in all areas of sport psychology research. Furthermore, it has never been more critical than now that we make time to engage in knowledge transfer initiatives to safeguard that the outcomes of research reach and positively impact the sport community not only in Canada but also the rest of the world.

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In this chapter I describe some of the developmental stages of sport psychology (SP) research in Israel throughout the last five decades, from the early 1970s until the second decade of the current millennium. I describe three stages of research development, and discuss some of the main research areas that have been investigated by SP researchers in Israel at each of these stages. I elaborate upon the shift that was made among SP researchers in Israel from concentrating solely on one area of inquiry – elite sport performance – toward focusing on a wider range of inquiries, among them skill acquisition, early talent development, motivation and physical activity, and sport for development (e.g., Bar-Eli & Tenenbaum, 1989a; Geron, 1978; Hutzler, 2003; Lidor & Blumenstein, 2011; Lidor & Mayan, 2005; Zach, Bar-Eli, Morris, & Moore, 2012). This shift occurred at about the mid-point of the second stage of SP research development. In addition, I briefly provide information on the two institutions where research in SP has been carried out: the Zinman College of Physical Education and Sport Sciences (cf. Zinman College) and the Wingate Institute for Physical Education and Sport (cf. the Wingate Institute). It is important to mention these two institutions, as they stand out among all the other colleges and universities in Israel as having promoted research in the area of SP. Unfortunately, no other higher-education institutions in Israel have promoted research in the area of SP.

Statement of the domain’s national origins Zinman College and the Wingate Institute played a central role in the establishment and development of SP research in Israel. Zinman College is considered to be the leading highereducation institution in Israel that offers undergraduate and graduate programs in the area of sport and exercise sciences (see Lidor, 2011, 2014). In fact, Zinman, which was founded in 1944 (four years prior to the establishment of the State of Israel), is the only college/university in Israel that focuses solely on the area of exercise and sport sciences. Indeed, there are four other colleges in Israel that offer studies in exercise and sport sciences: Kaye Academic College of Education in Beer-Sheva (in the south of Israel); Givat Washington – Academic College of Education (in the center); Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology, and Arts in Tel Aviv (in the center); and Katzrin Ohalo College – Academic College of Education, 81

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Science, and Sport, Qatzrin (in the north). However, Zinman College is the only institute in Israel that offers programs exclusively in the domains of physical education, physical activity, and sport. The above-mentioned four other colleges also offer programs in a variety of other disciplines, among them the arts, literature, mathematics, and sciences. Zinman College has the largest physical education teacher preparation program in the country, in terms of both the number of students enrolled and the number of staff members teaching in the program. Among the fields that are studied in the college’s undergraduate program are biomechanics, exercise physiology, motor learning, sociology of sport, sport history and philosophy, sport pedagogy, and SP. SP is also included in the college’s graduate program in sport and exercise sciences/physical education. The graduate program is composed of fields similar to those included in the undergraduate program; however all classes taught in this program are advanced and evidence-based. Zinman College is located on the campus of the Wingate Institute, Israel’s national center for sport, which was established in 1957. The Wingate Institute is the home of four sport bodies that provide services not only to athletes, but also to coaches and sport administrators: the Ribstein Center for Sport Medicine and Research (cf. the Ribstein Center), the Nat Holman School for Coaches, the Elite Sport Center, and the SportGifted Center. The objective of the Ribstein Center is to provide elite athletes in Israel with the medical, physiological, and psychological support required to achieve the highest level of proficiency in their given sport, as well as to promote research in exercise and sport sciences. The Nat Holman School for Coaches offers preparation programs for instructors and coaches in the physical activity/sport domain. In Israel, individuals who aim to becoming instructors or coaches for any type of physical activity/sport are required to have official certification from an authorized program that has been approved by the Sport Authority at the Ministry of Culture and Sport (see Ministry of Culture and Sport – Sport Authority, 2013). They must complete the specific requirements of the program, and only then are they certified as an “Instructor” or a “Coach”. The Elite Sport Center focuses on providing the optimal conditions – both financial and professional – for those elite Israeli athletes who have the potential to represent the country in major competitions and sport events, such as the Olympic Games. The Sport-Gifted Center develops training programs for young gifted athletes involved in ball games such as basketball and volleyball, and in individual sports such as judo and swimming. In addition to their various other activities, these four bodies also organize clinics and conferences on applied issues in SP for coaches and sport administrators (e.g., athlete-coach relationships, mental preparation, and working with the media). In summary, both Zinman College and the Wingate Institute have put great effort into (a) coordinating and conducting research in SP; (b) disseminating information related to cognitive, cultural, and social aspects of SP; (c) educating physical education teachers, instructors, and coaches in various issues related to SP (e.g., communicational/psychological skills, leadership, mental preparation for competitions/games, and team cohesion); and (d) supporting the academic and applied activities of the Israeli Society of Sociology and Psychology of Sport (ISSPS). One of the fruitful outcomes of the efforts made by the two institutions was that they jointly hosted the International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP) IX World Congress in 1997, “Innovations in Sport Psychology: Linking Theory and Practice” (see the two-volume Congress proceedings [Lidor & Bar-Eli, 1997a, 1997b], and an edited book composed of chapters based on the keynote addresses presented in the Congress [Lidor & Bar-Eli, 1999]). Unfortunately, no graduate degree programs focusing solely on SP are currently available in Israel. Instead, the field of SP is studied as part of the existing undergraduate 82

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and graduate programs in sport and exercise sciences/physical education offered by Zinman College, and occasionally classes in SP are offered by other colleges/universities in Israel. However, the inclusion of SP in the undergraduate and graduate programs at Zinman College, as well as the involvement of individuals from the Ribstein Center at the Wingate Institute working either as SP researchers or SP consultants, has resulted in the establishment of a laboratory and applied research on issues associated with SP. Most of the individuals involved in SP from both Zinman College and the Ribstein Center completed their doctoral studies in SP or related fields (e.g., motor learning) in North American universities and a few in European universities, and received their qualifications to teach and conduct research in SP. Therefore, the educational orientation of most of these individuals is mostly Western.

Landmark stages of research development and theoretical and research focus areas Three developmental stages of SP research in Israel are discerned as follows: (a) 1970–1980, (b) 1981–1995, and (c) 1996–present. During the first two stages of development, the Wingate Institute was the leading institution for promoting research in SP. However, in the third stage of development Zinman College took the lead. The theoretical and research areas are described according to the three stages of development.

Stage 1, 1970–1980: the beginnings and the establishment of research in SP The very beginning of SP in Israel goes back to the 1970s. In those years, it was believed that the study of psychological characteristics should complement fields such as biomechanics and exercise physiology. As a result, SP was integrated for the first time into the sportpedagogical studies at Zinman College, and this initiation can be perceived as the first step towards the establishment of SP in Israel (see Lidor & Bar-Eli, 2001). The first substantial development of research in SP in Israel also took place in the early 1970s, when two key sport psychologists joined the Wingate Institute: Gilad Weingarten and Ema Geron. Gilad Weingarten, who had just completed his doctoral studies in SP at the University of Minnesota (USA), was the first scholar in Israel to focus on psychologicalphysiological aspects of elite achievers in sport. His doctoral dissertation, entitled “Effects of cardiorespiratory conditioning increase upon mental performance under physiological stress and on personality variables,” is considered to be the first study that was conducted by an Israeli researcher on an issue related to SP (Weingarten, 1970). The second scholar, Ema Geron, already an established author and researcher in SP (see Tenenbaum, Lidor, & Bar-Eli, 2011), emigrated to Israel in 1973 from her native Bulgaria. Geron was founder and first president of the European Federation of Sport Psychology (FEPSAC), and in 1974 established the ISSPS and was elected its first president (see Lidor & Bar-Eli, 2001). She was also involved in activities endorsed by the ISSP in its early years of establishment (i.e., the mid-1960s), and due to this contribution in 1993 Geron received the ISSP Distinguished International Sport Psychologist Award. Both Weingarten and Geron established the foundations of SP in Israel and initiated the first research projects in this field. In addition, they “opened the door” for other researchers in the area of SP who would be joining the staff at the Wingate Institute during the following years, and were key figures in promoting research in SP in Israel. 83

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Theoretical and research focus areas. In its early years of development, SP was perceived as an academic/research domain associated solely with those involved in elite sport – athletes (elite performers and talented youth) and coaches. SP researchers had three main objectives at that time: first, to examine psychological attributes/characteristics (i.e., personality types) of high and low achievers in sport (e.g., style of attention, type of motivation, level of willingness to learn and practice, and level of willingness to cooperate with others) (e.g., Geron, 1973). An effort was made to investigate the personality of athletes through tests such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) (see, for example, Geron, Weingarten, Hietalahti, & Goldbourt, 1978). It should be noted that research on personality in sport was also of interest among SP researchers in Europe and North America during this period of time (e.g., Vanden Auweele, De Cuyper, Van Mele, & Rzewnicki, 1993). The second objective was to examine the effectiveness of psychological techniques that can be used by sport performers to effectively cope with psychological barriers they might face during competitions/games (e.g., coping with stress, reducing the anxiety level, and focusing attention under distracted conditions) (e.g., Geron, 1979). The third objective was to search for an effective strategy that can be used in early phases of talent development to assess the abilities and skills of children in order to select the most talented to participate in performance-enhancement sport programs (e.g., Geron, 1978). The SP researchers at the time assumed that the findings which emerged from their studies could be implemented by those professionals who worked with children and youth in sport – coaches, physical education teachers, and sport-policy makers. Coaches who worked with talented children in Israel at that time sought practical knowledge that could be used in developing training programs and selecting task-enhancement activities for their practice sessions. As a result, the SP researchers attempted to design applied research projects in order to help the coaches improve their planning processes.

Stage 2, 1981–1995: the development of high quality (laboratory and field) research in SP By the early and mid-1980s a number of SP researchers had joined the Ribstein Center (at that time the name of the center was the Ribstein Center for Research and Sport Medicine, stressing the importance of research in exercise and sport sciences in the center’s activities), among them Gershon Tenenbaum, Michael Bar-Eli, and Boris Blumenstein, who were very active, both nationally and internationally, in promoting and publishing research in SP. The emphasis in the center during these years was on research per se, and not on other aspects of SP such as teaching and provision of SP consultations to elite athletes. Various research projects were initiated during this stage, using carefully constructed research designs and updated methodologies. The data obtained from these research projects (mainly quantitative data) were reported in research articles published in leading peer-reviewed SP journals (see the next section on theoretical and research focus areas). Theoretical and research focus areas. In Stage 2, researchers began to adopt a more holistic definition of the field of SP, one that was subsequently defined by Weinberg and Gould in 2015. According to Weinberg and Gould (2015), sport and exercise psychology should be a field of study aimed at understanding and helping elite athletes, children and youth, the physically and mentally disabled, seniors, and average participants to achieve peak performance, personal satisfaction, and development through active participation in sport and exercise activities. In essence, sport and exercise psychology is the scientific study of people and their behavior when participating in sport and exercise activities. 84

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Indeed, at this stage, researchers maintained their interest in studying various aspects related to elite sport performance; however, other SP focus areas began to emerge. Initially researchers who examined aspects related to elite sport performance changed their focus from studying personality and psychological attributes of elite performers towards cognitive mechanisms of players in fast ball games (see, e.g., Tenenbaum & Bar-Eli, 1993). Among the studied mechanisms were attention, anticipation, problem solving, and decisionmaking. Presumably, this shift was influenced by the emergence of the cognitive psychology paradigm in psychology, which had taken place about a decade earlier (see, e.g., Chase & Simon, 1973). The SP researchers adopted the cognitive paradigm at that time in order to carefully examine what thought processes are used by athletes when they act in dynamic real-competition/game situations. They realized that the cognitive processes that take place in the athlete’s mind (e.g., anticipation, attention, memory) influence the way that he or she makes a decision in a given sport context. Another focus area associated with elite athletes was the athletes’ psychological performance crisis in competition (e.g., Bar-Eli & Tenenbaum, 1989a, 1989b). It was assumed by the researchers who studied crisis in competition that under extreme levels of arousal, an athlete may enter a “psychological performance crisis” – a state in which the ability to cope adequately with competitive requirements substantially deteriorates. Bar-Eli and Tenenbaum proposed a model that could be used to diagnose the development of an athlete’s psychological performance crisis in competitive settings. Based on this diagnosis, appropriate SP interventions can be used to assist athletes in overcoming their expected crisis in real-world sport settings. As indicated previously, the focus on areas other than competitive sport began to emerge. One of the new SP research focus areas dealt with motor skill acquisition. The emergence of the cognitive paradigm in psychology influenced SP researchers in Israel to not only study thought processes in elite athletes acting in dynamic sport environments, but also to investigate what thought processes are used by beginning learners who attempt to acquire motor/sport skills, as well as how coaches/instructors can help them to effectively organize their thoughts prior to, during, and after the execution of the learned skill. For example, the use of learning strategies in beginning learners who aimed at acquiring closed self-paced motor tasks (i.e., tasks that take place in a relatively stable and predictable environment, where the learner can activate a routine/strategy) was examined in a series of laboratory studies (Singer, Lidor, & Cauraugh, 1993, 1994). The objective of the researchers in these studies was to examine a number of psychological tools that can be used by beginning learners to enhance those aspects associated with “good learning,” such as focusing attention, memory, and visualization.

Stage 3, 1996–present: from research only on sport to research on sport, exercise, physical education, and physical activity Toward the beginning and middle of the 1990s, a number of key researchers who had worked at the Ribstein Center (e.g., Gershon Tenenbaum and Michael Bar-Eli) left to take positions in other academic institutions in Israel and abroad, and no new researchers who were devoting their activities solely to SP were recruited to replace them. Therefore, the research activity decreased in the center with respect to SP. Moreover, from the middle of the 1990s the policy of the Ribstein Center changed from focusing on research to focusing on providing medical and psychological support to elite athletes who trained at the Wingate Institute (see, for example, Lidor & Blumenstein, 2009). According to this 85

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new policy, an effort was made to provide SP consultations to elite athletes, particularly those individuals/teams that had the potential to participate in world caliber sport events such as the Olympic Games, World Championships, and European Championships (see, for example, Blumenstein, Lidor, & Tenenbaum, 2005). While the above-mentioned new policy was adopted at the Wingate Institute during this stage, a number of individuals were recruited by Zinman College to teach and conduct research in areas such as SP, motor learning, motor development, motor control, and the sociology of sport. The aim of the college at that time was to strengthen the research activity of its staff members, and therefore the college opened additional positions for new scholars. Subsequently, in the mid-1990s, Zinman College replaced the Wingate Institute as the leading SP research institute in Israel. In addition, the individuals who were involved in SP research at the college (e.g., Yeshayahu Hutzler, Ronnie Lidor, and Sima Zach, as well as Michael Bar-Eli who had joined the college) showed an interest not only in SP issues associated with sport, but also in those related to physical education, physical activity, and sport development. For example, due to the complex cultural-political climate that exists in Israel between the Jewish and Arab populations, the area of sport development began to attract the attention of the country’s SP researchers (see Lidor, 2013; Lidor & Blumenstein, 2011). In a number of sport activities, particularly soccer, players from the two populations – Jewish and Arab – practice together on a daily basis and spend time together on and off the pitch. Using the unique sporting situation where Jewish and Arab athletes interact together, the SP researchers have attempted to examine the potential contribution of the sport activity (e.g., soccer) to fostering relationships between individuals from the two conflicting cultures through a focus regarded as sport for development (I elaborate upon the emergence of the field of sport development in the following paragraphs). Theoretical and research focus areas. In development Stage 3, 1996–present, a continuation in the trend of focusing on one major area of research (i.e., sport) to researching various areas of study in the domain can be observed. It is true that in this stage research on issues associated solely with sport was still undertaken. For example, Blumenstein and colleagues (Blumenstein & Bar-Eli, 2005; Blumenstein, Bar-Eli, & Tenenbaum, 1997) studied the effectiveness of mental training incorporating biofeedback (a technological advance in the treatment of stress-related disorders) on achievement in sport. It was the objective of their inquiry to add physiological measures to the studies examining the effectiveness of psychological preparation in sport. They aimed at investigating the biological-physiological responses of the athlete in a situation where he or she performed a given sport psychology technique (e.g., imagery, relaxation, self-talk). They proposed a sport-relevant model that could be used by SP consultants to help their athletes become mentally prepared for an upcoming competitive event (Blumenstein et al., 1997). The model was composed of five steps: (a) introduction (learning various self-regulation techniques), (b) identification (identifying the most efficient biofeedback response modality), (c) simulation (biofeedback training with simulated competitive stress), (d) transformation (bringing mental preparation from the laboratory to the field), and (e) realization (obtaining optimal regulation in competition). However, in Stage 3, researchers in Israel began to focus on other SP areas. Research projects were initiated with non-athlete individuals who (a) aimed at improving their conditioning and fitness level, self-esteem, and well-being while being part of supervised physical activity programs, leisure and recreational programs, or physical education classes taught in schools (e.g., Marsh, Bar-Eli, Zach, & Richards, 2006; Zach et al., 2012), (b) were active in enrichment/rehabilitation programs aimed at improving the participants’ (e.g., individuals with special needs) physical, psychological, and social condition (e.g., Hutzler, 86

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2003; Hutzler & Bar-Eli, 2013), and (c) were part of physical activity/recreational sport programs aimed at fostering relationships between athletes from conflicting cultures (e.g., Jewish and Arab Israeli soccer players; Lidor & Blumenstein, 2011). These three research focus areas reflected the current leading developmental directions in SP research worldwide. For example, research issues associated with cultural sport psychology began to attract the attention of SP researchers around the globe (see, e.g., Schinke & Hanrahan, 2009), among them the issue of sport for development (see Schinke & Hanrahan, 2012; Schinke & Lidor, 2013). In Israel, due to its mixed-culture population (i.e., Jewish and Arab), issues related to sport development can be studied in natural settings. In addition to these three research focus areas, in the past few years two new lines of research have been initiated by SP researchers in Israel. The first aims at studying behavioral aspects of sport management, such as decision-making (e.g., Morgulev, Azar, Lidor, Sabag, & Bar-Eli, 2014). The assumption made by the sport management researchers in Israel was that professional sports offer a valid arena for studying human behavior, an assumption that had already been made by the SP researchers in Israel a number of decades ago (see Tenenbaum & Bar-Eli, 1993). The second line of research examines the relationships between gaze behavior and focusing attention strategies, such as internal and external focusing attention, in beginning learners (e.g., Ziv & Lidor, 2014). An attempt was made in this line of research to strengthen the link between attentional processes and gaze behavior. The above-mentioned research focus areas reflect the effort made by the SP researchers in Israel to build strong teams of researchers composed not only of those who work in Israel but also of other individuals who work in universities around the world, particularly SP researchers from Europe and North America. After approximately five decades of research in SP in Israel, the title of the field – sport psychology – has remained; however, the focus of research has been widened and now consists of psychological-sociological issues beyond those solely associated with elite sport.

Unique contributions to the global domain Throughout the three stages of SP research development in Israel, particularly in Stages 2 and 3, research on the above-mentioned investigated topics has been published in high-level scientific journals and books in North America and Europe. Among the leading SP journals where studies conducted by researchers from Israel have been published are Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology (e.g., Marsh et al., 2006), Psychology of Sport & Exercise (e.g., Bar-Eli, Avugos, & Raab, 2006), The Sport Psychologist (e.g., Blumenstein et al., 1997; Lidor & Mayan, 2005), and the International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology (e.g., Ziv & Lidor, 2014). Researchers in Israel have also published their works in leading SP texts, among them the Handbook of Research on Sport Psychology (Tenenbuam & Bar-Eli, 1993) and Handbook of Sport Psychology (Lidor, 2007). In addition, a number of SP research books have been edited by Israeli researchers, among them Sport Psychology: Linking Theory and Practice (Lidor & Bar-Eli, 1999), Brain and Body in Sport and Exercise: Biofeedback Applications in Performance Enhancement (Blumenstein, Bar-Eli, & Tenenbaum, 2002), Handbook of Research in Applied Sport and Exercise Psychology: International Perspectives (Hackfort, Duda, & Lidor, 2005), and Conditions of Children’s Talent Development in Sport (Côté & Lidor, 2013).

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Emerging scholarship and forecasts for the future As indicated above, SP is taught in Israel as part of the undergraduate and graduate programs in exercise and sport sciences offered mainly by one higher-education institute – Zinman College. Throughout the last five decades, researchers from all over the world have been invited to the college for the following reasons: (a) to teach undergraduate and graduate classes in SP, (b) to give lectures and conduct clinics on selected topics in SP to the SP researchers and graduate students of the college, and (c) to cooperate with the researchers in Israel in ongoing research projects. Scientific cooperation is continuously being carried out with widely recognized sport psychologists from all over the world. Leading researchers in SP from different countries have visited Zinman College over the years, and graduate students from Asia and Europe have spent time at Zinman working with the college’s researchers on a number of research projects. These students came to the college as part of their SP studies in their native colleges/universities. To strengthen the SP research activity in Israel, it is suggested that a graduate degree program (e.g., a Master’s program) in SP should be established by one of the colleges/ universities in the country. The establishment of such a program would enable students in Israel to study the scientific and practical foundations of SP, as well as provide them with the required background to continue to the next level in their studies – doctoral studies in SP. In order to establish a graduate program in SP in Israel, a combined effort should be made on behalf of individuals from different domains – the active SP researchers in Israel, the policy makers who are responsible for the development of graduate programs at the colleges/ universities in the country, and the certified psychologists who work in Israel and already provide psychological consultations to athletes, albeit without a formal education in SP. Unfortunately, neither those heading the psychology departments at the universities in Israel nor those who are responsible for the exercise and sport sciences programs at the colleges in Israel have found a way to develop a graduate degree program in SP. The establishment of such a program would enable those students who are interested in the field of SP to acquire updated evidence-based knowledge in various SP areas – cognitive, cultural, developmental, and social. In addition, these students would be able to acquire relevant knowledge in quantitative and qualitative SP methodologies, research design, and ethics. A graduate degree program in SP would enrich the professional preparation of those individuals who have the goal of being engaged in one of the following aspects of SP – consultation, research, and teaching.

Final reflections Although SP has established itself as one of the most prominent sport and exercise sciences in Israel, from both the research and applied perspectives, the number of active researchers in this field is relatively small. However, as can be seen from the section on the landmark stages of research development and theoretical and research focus areas of SP researchers in Israel, various issues in SP have indeed been investigated throughout the three stages of SP development. These areas represent almost all sub-areas of SP – cognitive, cultural, educational, social, and physiological. If more educated professionals become involved in SP research in the future, additional topics can be investigated in order to enrich the existing body of knowledge in SP. In addition, the topics currently being investigated in SP in Israel can be examined further, particularly topics that have the potential of contributing not only to elite athletes and sport teams, but also to the public at large. For example, qualitative data emerging from studies 88

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on sport development can increase our understanding of how physical activity, recreational sport, and youth sport programs can promote relations between individuals and teams from different cultures (e.g., Jewish and Arab), or how participation in sport can help immigrants from different continents/regions (e.g., Africa and Asia) become part of Israeli society. In order to support the argument that sport indeed has the potential to foster relationships among individuals and groups who live in the country, more SP research on issues related to sport development is needed.

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Lidor, R., & Bar-Eli, M. (Eds.). (1997a). Innovations in sport psychology: Linking theory and practice – Proceedings of the IX World Congress of Sport Psychology (Part I). Netanya, Israel: Wingate Institute. Lidor, R., & Bar-Eli, M. (Eds.). (1997b). Innovations in sport psychology: Linking theory and practice – Proceedings of the IX World Congress of Sport Psychology (Part II). Netanya, Israel: Wingate Institute. Lidor, R., & Bar-Eli, M. (Eds.). (1999). Sport psychology: Linking theory and practice. Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology. Lidor, R., & Bar-Eli, M. (2001). Israel. In R. Lidor, T. Morris, N. Bardaxoglou, & B. Becker (Eds.), The world sport psychology sourcebook (pp. 61–67). Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology. Lidor, R., & Blumenstein, B. (2009). From one Olympics to the next: A four-year psychological preparation program. In R. J. Schinke (Ed.), Contemporary sport psychology (pp. 71–87). Ontario: Nova. Lidor, R., & Blumenstein, G. (2011). Working with adolescent soccer and basketball players from conflicting cultures – a three-dimensional consultation approach. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 35, 229–245. Lidor, R., & Mayan, Z. (2005). Can beginning learners benefit from preperformance routines when serving in volleyball? The Sport Psychologist, 19, 343–363. Marsh, H., Bar-Eli, M., Zach, S., & Richards, G. (2006). Construct validation of Hebrew versions of three physical self-concept measures: An extended multitrait-multimethod analysis. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 28(3), 310–343. Ministry of Culture and Sport – Sport Authority (2013). The Sport Law. Retrieved from http://www. mcs.gov.il/Sport/Activities/Trainingofsportinstructors/Pages/publicInfo/SportLaw.aspx on 2.2.2015. Morgulev, I., Azar, O., Lidor, R., Sabag, E., & Bar-Eli, M. (2014). Deception and decision-making in professional basketball: Is it beneficial to flop? Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 102, 108–118. Schinke, R. J., & Hanrahan, S. J. (Eds.). (2009). Cultural sport psychology. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Schinke, R. J., & Hanrahan, S. J. (Eds.). (2012). Sport for development, peace, and social justice. Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology. Schinke, R. J., & Lidor, R. (Eds.). (2013). Case studies in sport development: Contemporary stories promoting health, peace, and social justice. Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology. Singer, R. N., Lidor, R., & Cauraugh, J. H. (1993). To be aware or not aware? What to think about while learning and performing a motor skill. The Sport Psychologist, 7, 19–30. Singer, R. N., Lidor, R., & Cauraugh, J. H. (1994). Focus of attention during motor skill performance. Journal of Sports Sciences, 12, 335–340. Tenenbaum, G., & Bar-Eli, M. (1993). Decision making in sport: A cognitive perspective. In R. N. Singer, M. Murphey, & L. K. Tennant (Eds.), Handbook of research on sport psychology (pp. 171–192). New York: Macmillan. Tenenbaum, G., Lidor, R., & Bar-Eli, M. (2011). Obituary – Ema Geron (1920–2011). International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2, 1–3. Vanden Auweele, Y., De Cuyper, B., Van Mele, V., & Rzewnicki, R. (1993). Elite performance and personality: From description and prediction to diagnosis and intervention. In R. N. Singer, M. Murphey, & L. K. Tennant (Eds.), Handbook of research on sport psychology (pp. 257–289). New York: Macmillan. Weinberg, R. S., & Gould, D. (2015). Foundations of sport and exercise psychology (6th Ed.). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Weingarten, G. (1970). Effects of cardiorespiratory conditioning increase upon mental performance under physiological stress and on personality variables (Doctoral dissertation, University of Minnesota, USA). Zach, S., Bar-Eli, M., Morris, T., & Moore, M. (2012). Measuring motivation for physical activity: An exploratory study of PALMS – The Physical Activity and Leisure Motivation Scale. Athletic Insight, 4, 141–155. Ziv, G., & Lidor, R. (2014). Focusing attention instructions, accuracy, and quiet eye in a self-paced task – an exploratory study. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology. Retrieved from http:// dx.doi.org/10.1080/1612197X.2014.946946

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Pioneers of sport psychology in Spain (1960–1979) Sport psychology did not receive international recognition as an independent discipline until the First World Congress of Sport Psychology held in Rome in 1965, despite pioneering efforts by individual scientists or scholars in several countries like Griffith in United States or Puni and Roudik in the former Soviet Union. Two important consequences of this congress were the foundation of the International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP) and the later appearance, in 1970, of the International Journal of Sport Psychology (Cruz, 1991, 2001). The idea of organizing sport psychology at an international level was planned in Spain, at a Congress of Sport Medicine held in Barcelona in 1963. This was due, as Salmela (1981) pointed out, to the close relationship between sport medicine and sport psychology in Spain. At this congress José María Cagigal, Ferruccio Antonelli and Michel Bouet discussed and shared their common interests in the psychological aspects of sport and emphasized the advantage of organizing an International Congress of Sport Psychology. Two years later, Antonelli organized the First World Congress of Sport Psychology and was elected President. The Spanish psychiatrist Josep Ferrer Hombravella, who had been a member of the Organizing Committee of the Congress, was elected General Secretary. The involvement of Spanish participants in making a success of the First World Congress of Sport Psychology and their role in the foundation of the ISSP, favored their proposal to organize the Third World Congress of Sport Psychology, which took place in Madrid, in 1973. However, these efforts at the international level had little impact in Spain for several reasons: a) the first group of university graduates in a Department of Psychology with a specialized curriculum in scientific psychology received their pre-doctoral degree that same year; b) in the whole country there was only one faculty of physical education; and, c) no organized work groups interested in applying psychology to sport existed (Cruz, 1994a). In Spain, due to the fact that the pre-doctoral degree in psychology (i.e., Licenciatura = 5 years) was not reestablished, after the Civil War, until 1968, it is not surprising that the first contributions to sport psychology should come from three professionals who worked in similar fields: José María Cagigal (1962, 1963, 1976) with a Ph.D. in physical education and a Licenciatura in philosophy and humanities, the psychiatrist Josep Ferrer Hombravella, 91

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and the educationalist Josep Roig Ibañez. Cagigal operationalized his ideas, notably by the creation of the National Institute of Physical Education (INEF) in Madrid. The program planning of this institute included an introductory psychology course. In Spain, as in Italy and France, the first empirical sport psychology studies were carried out in research centers of sport medicine. In the “Sport Medicine Center” at the Blume Residence of Barcelona, Roig Ibañez established the first sport psychology laboratory in Spain. The second director of this laboratory was Gloria Balagué. Here, sports abilities and skills were assessed by means of pencil and paper tests as well as a series of reaction time, perception, concentration and vigilance tests. The personality profiles of athletes were also assessed and the group dynamics of sport teams evaluated. Their findings and reports were published in the bulletin produced by the Center: Apuntes de Medicina Deportiva (Notes on Sport Medicine), created in 1964. In summary, in spite of the important work of Spanish pioneers in the initial stages of the establishment of sport psychology as a discipline, towards the end of the 1970s there were only two small groups of people working in sport psychology at the National Institutes of Physical Education INEFS in Madrid and Barcelona.

The development of Spanish sport psychology (1980–1992) In Spain, a general interest in sport psychology did not manifest itself until the mid-1980s when the Catalan Association of Sport Psychology (ACPE) was founded in 1983. This association organized the First National Congress of Psychology of Physical Activity and Sport (1986), in which the ISSP Executive Council also participated. This congress proposed the idea of a Spanish Federation of Associations of Psychology of Physical Activity and Sport, which was eventually created in the second National Congress held in Granada, in 1987. The same year a sport psychology section was created at the Madrid Territorial Office of the Professional Association of Psychologists (Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos, COP). In Spain, it is possible to detect a first phase in the evolution of sport psychology in which laboratory research on reaction time (Roca, 1983), perceptual motor learning and descriptive studies of the athlete’s personality were predominant. A second phase began around the mid-1980s, when Joan Riera (Riera, 1985) published his influential book Introducción a la Psicología del Deporte (Introduction to sport psychology), emphasizing the importance of all the participants in the sport context: athletes, coaches, referees, administrators and spectators, from an inter-behavioral point of view. The systematic efforts for collecting descriptive behavioral data in naturalistic settings in order to improve the psychological training of the athletes began at that time and have since increased progressively. Most psychological skills training programs were structured according to the specific demands and characteristics of a particular sport (see Cruz, 2002, for a review). The programs emphasize a personal development model from an inter-behavioral point of view (Cruz & Riera, 1991) instead of a narrow performance enhancement model. The techniques most commonly used with the aforementioned programs were imagery, relaxation, stress management training and goal setting. Towards the end of the 1980s and the starting of the 1990s, “new” research areas in sport psychology appeared. These included assessments and interventions with youth coaches (see Cruz, 1987, 1994b), the development of behavioral strategies for the realization of physical exercise programs, and explorations into the psychology of the injured athlete (Palmi, 1988), eating disorders in gymnasts and track and field female athletes (Pérez-Recio, Rodríguez, Esteve, Larraburu, Font & Pons,1992), and fair play in young soccer players (Cruz et al., 1991). The increase 92

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in the quantity and quality of research of sport psychology in Spain has been brought about by a series of factors. These include: 1 The recognition, in 1982, of physical education as a degree subject (see Salmela & Riera, 1992). 2 The introduction of sport psychology in the curriculum of some psychology faculties, as an optional course, the first one being the Faculty of Psychology of the Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona during the academic year of 1982–1983. 3 The creation of seven new INEF centers (with the direct result of stable jobs for sport psychologists). 4 The commencement, as of 1986, of doctoral programs in four of the INEF centers – with a significant number of courses in different aspects of motor learning and sport psychology. 5 The beginning of two Master’s degree programs in sport psychology at the Autonomous Universities of Madrid and Barcelona; and, 6 The inclusion of “Research in Sport” as one of the priority areas within the National Research Plan, in 1991, just before the Olympic Games in Barcelona 1992 (see Cruz, 1994a), and the existence of sport psychologists addressed to the assistance of top level athletes in the National Sports Council Consejo Superior de Deportes (CSD). The progress in the application of sport psychology in Spain has been more modest than that in the teaching and research fields. However, since 1985, sport psychologists have obtained contracts of employment in public institutions such as peak performance centers, for elite athletes, or municipal centers which promote the regular practice of sport for grassroots players in the community (see Cruz, 1994a, 2002). The expectations and needs created by the Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992, in Barcelona, and the 22 medals obtained by Spanish athletes enable us to foresee a slight increase in stable jobs and in the number of practitioners. In fact, 11 Spanish sport psychologists were delivering psychological services to Spanish Olympic athletes in the winter and summer games of 1992. In the second and third issues of the Revista de Psicología del Deporte (Journal of Sport Psychology), Spanish sport psychologists reviewed their own contribution, summarizing their own philosophy of service delivery, the range of services provided, how these services were organized, and what their effectiveness was. Moreover, Gloria Balagué, the second director of the Sport Laboratory in Barcelona, was one of the expert psychologists with the U.S. Track and Field Olympic team. Her professional prestige has been already reinforced at an international level, as a member of the Managing Council of ISSP, and a President of División 47: Exercise and Sport Psychology of the American Psychological Association, in 2011.

Consolidation of the field (1992 to the present) The 1990s have given way to the popularization of sport psychology in Spain in the fields of psychology and sport, setting the exchange of concepts and techniques in both directions; that is, while “exporting” from sport psychology their own contents to other applied psychologies, and especially to other sport sciences (Garcia-Mas & Cruz, 1996). From the point of view of psychology, there are numerous examples of connecting links from the sport sciences that have been integrated into sport psychology. There is an “exportation” of conceptual frameworks, such as competitive anxiety; sport cohesion; several 93

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intervention techniques such as visualization; or the psychological components that affect the educational side the participation of youth in sport (Dosil, 2002; Garcia- Mas, 1997; Sousa, Smith, & Cruz, 2008). In the opposite direction from sport science to psychology, we find performance indicators (Leo, Sánchez-Miguel, Sánchez-Oliva, Amado, & GarcíaCalvo, 2012); decision- making processes (especially from an ecological framework, Perales, Cárdenas, Piñar, Sánchez, & Courel, 2011); the concept of mental workload (Cárdenas, Conde-González, & Perales, 2015), and various psychological aspects of sport medicine, such as the psychology of sport injuries (Garcia-Mas , Pujals, Fuster-Parra, Núñez, & Rubio, 2014).

Growing in research and publications From 1985 to 2004, a total of 54 books in Spanish were published by Spanish authors, as well as five books written in English (Guillén, 2004). From that date until the present (i.e., in the last ten years), 49 books have been published in Spanish by Spanish authors, and ten books or chapters of books in English (MECD, 2014). Undoubtedly, the most significant increase occurred in the number of articles published in scientific journals of sport psychology (and also in journals addressed to sport sciences, to applied psychology or general psychology) by Spanish researchers in both Spanish and English languages. However, the publication of Spanish-developed research topics or methodologies in the mainstream journals (and their corresponding establishment into the paradigm) has not yet been achieved routinely. Likewise, the presence of Spanish scholars on the editorial boards of mainstream magazines is unusual, and the same can be said regarding the positions of editor or chief of staff. However, most Spanish academics act as external reviewers for these magazines regularly. This suggests that although the “standardization” of sport psychology’s knowledge of Spanish researchers has been achieved, the same has not happened with “political” positions, with few exceptions, such as a co-author of this chapter serving as the Secretary General for the International Society of Sport Psychology.

Sport psychology journals in Spanish The first journal of sport psychology written in Spanish was founded in 1992, for a broader Spanish-speaking readership internationally. The Revista de Psicología del Deporte (RPD) was co-edited by scholars from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the University of the Balearic Islands, under the auspices of the Spanish Federation of Sports Psychology (FEPD). Since its beginnings to the present, the RPD Director is Jaume Cruz Feliu and the Chief Editor is Alexandre Garcia-Mas. The associate editors and editorial board consist of more than 100 people (prioritizing exogamy) from universities, institutions and private centers throughout Spain and the Spanish-speaking world. In its recent format, the RPD has different sections, such as physical activity, health and sport; professional practice; and methodology; and all sections accept manuscripts in Spanish, Portuguese and English. In the consolidation, with the journal having secured its place as a leading resource for Spanish-speaking scholars and practitioners, the RPD has been increasing its impact on the community. Since 2010, RPD scored its first JCR-Thomson-Reuters Impact Factor, and it now is finding its place among the international sport psychology community. Today RPD has an impact factor of 0.957 in the field of applied psychology journals, and a Scimago Elsevier JCR IF of 0.38, placing it as the first Spanish sport sciences journal to achieve this status. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, a second scientific journal appeared targeting Spanish sport psychologists. The Cuadernos de Psicología del Deporte (CPD) first appeared in 94

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2001, published by the University of Murcia and the regional government of Murcia. Enrique J. Garcés de los Fayos was the first director. CPD has been published continuously until now. This journal shares the same principles as the RPD, including a scientific approach, a search for maximum visibility and impact, and an extensive editorial committee composed of an equally exogamous set of academics from across Spain, and most of Central and South America. Currently the director is Juan González from the University of Murcia. Most recently, the Revista Iberoamericana de Psicología de la Actividad Física y el Deporte (RIPAD) appeared in 2006 as the third successive Spanish scientific journal in the field of sport psychology, trying to promote further research done in South America. The RIPAD has been published by the Editorial Wanceulen, and its chief editor from its beginning until now is Dr. Félix Guillén García, from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

Stabilization of academic formation in sport psychology and its foreign impact The first two sport psychology master’s programs began at the Autonomous Universities of Madrid and Barcelona in 1990. The latter has always been connected with the network of the 12 universities that developed the European master’s degree in sport and exercise psychology, in 1996. There have also been attempts to consolidate postgraduate sport psychology in Central and South America by Spanish universities. José María Buceta directed the master’s in sport psychology at the National University of Distance Education (UNED) during the late 1990s, with this program having a significant impact on Spanish-speaking sport psychology. This graduate program was instrumental in the formation of various promotions of sport psychologists mainly in Mexico, which have had a significant impact on the institutionalization of sport psychology in Central America. After over ten years of collaboration between the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) in Spain and several universities in South America, a postgraduate joint degree in psychology of physical activity and sport started in 2012 between the UIB and the Central University (UCEN) of Santiago, Chile. Finally, the Iberoamerican Society of Sport Psychology (SIPD), chaired by Joaquín Dosil, initiated an on-line degree course in 2014, with a syllabus generated by the same SIPD, aimed primarily at psychologists who wish to be trained professionally in Central and South America, as it is conducted entirely in Spanish. An exception to the creation and establishment of postgraduate programs from the universities is the postgraduate course in psychology of physical activity and sport run by the Professional College of Psychologists of the Region of Valencia. This postgraduate course began in 2006, and its theoretical orientation and practices are focused on the professional application of the knowledge in the field. The director of this postgraduate course, since its inception, is Dr. Enrique Cantón Chirivella.

The division of physical education and sport at the Spanish College of Professional Psychologists: accreditation of professional sport psychologists The Division of Psychology of Physical Activity and Sport was created by the General Council of Official Colleges of Psychologists (COP) in 2010, and from its beginning until the present, its coordinator has been Dr. Enrique Cantón Chirivella of the University of Valencia. Its main objective is the constant improvement of knowledge and skills for both the 95

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student and the professional within this field, ensuring the quality of the services provided, acting also as an advisory body to the various governing bodies of the General Council of COPs in all matters relating to intervention. Currently the division did not propose a definitive system of accreditation for the Spanish professional sport psychologists, although they are working on a specific “white book” to be approved by the COP. There are two ways to obtain accreditation: a specialized postgraduate degree or doctorate in sport psychology, and professional proven experience in the field of physical activity and sport training.

Participation of Spanish sport psychologists in the international societies Since the days of Josep Ferrer Hombravella, who was a member of the first Managing Council of the ISSP from its beginning in 1965, and Josep Roig Ibañez, who was elected vice-President of FEPSAC in 1968, there has been little Spanish presence in international academic and professional societies. In fact, there were no new Spanish representatives on the Managing Council of FEPSAC until the election of Xavier Sánchez, the present General Secretary, in 2007. The second Spanish presence on the ISSP was Gloria Balagué, who at that time held a position at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and acted professionally with the US Track and Field Olympic team in Seoul (1998) and Barcelona (1992). Undoubtedly, during this early phase of sport psychology in Spain, she represented a Spanish presence not simplyconfined to Spanish sport psychology. Balagué continued as a member at large of the ISSP Managing Council until 1993. The following Spanish presence at the ISSP was Marisa Arumí, who was elected as member at large of the Managing Committee at the World Congress in Lisbon, in 1993. During her term, a Managing Committee Meeting took place in Spain. The meeting was organized by the University of the Balearic Islands in 1997. From the end of Arumí’s term, there was no Spanish representation in the Managing Council until the election of Alexandre Garcia-Mas during the ISSP World Congress in Marrakech in 2009. Currently, Alexandre Garcia-Mas holds the position of Secretary General of the ISSP, having been elected during the term of the Current ISSP President, Gangyan Si, in Beijing 2013. During the same conference, Seville was chosen to host the Fourteenth ISSP World Congress in 2017. At this moment, just one among all of the Spanish academics, Jaume Cruz Feliu, has received two international honors: the Ema Gueron Award of FEPSAC, in 2011, and the Distinguished Scholar Award from AASP, in 2013. Besides, the participation of Spanish researchers at international congresses, conferences and meetings has significantly increased their presentations, and the quality of the research. However, their presence as Keynote Speakers and Chairs of symposia at meetings of international and English-speaking societies remains almost nil, with Gloria Balagué, Isabel Balaguer, José María Buceta or Jaume Cruz Feliu, building up a few exceptions to this continued absence. The opposite is the case with the international congresses of Spanish or Portuguese-speaking sport psychology societies, where the presence of Spanish guest speakers has been the norm. Moreover, a special relationship exists between Spanish and Portuguese sport psychologists. Historically, the relations between Spain and Portugal in the academic field have always been weak, despite the geographical proximity. To change this dynamic, José María Buceta (from the National University of Distance Education, Madrid) and Sidónio Serpa (University 96

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of Lisbon) organized the First Spanish-Portuguese Congress that took place in Mérida (Spain) in 1996. Since then a Spanish-Portuguese congress has been organized every two years, in alternating countries, which has promoted permanent contacts among Spanish and Portuguese professional, academic and research sport psychologists. The existence of a Division of Physical Education and Sport in the General Council of Associations of Psychologists has allowed the establishment of international relations in the professional field. Thus, the COP currently has formal and continuing contacts with the European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations (EFPA), which created a Task Force (2013–1015) to work on the professional skills of sport psychologists. At the same time, the division is integrated into the American Federation of Psychology Associations (FIAP), which acts as an umbrella for the professional associations of the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries. In both cases, the coordinator of the division is Enrique Cantón Chirivella, who represents the Spanish COP. Very recently, the level of contacts between Portugal and Spain has been raised, setting up for the first time a direct and formal relationship with the Órdem dos Psicólogos Portugueses (the professional association for Portuguese psychologists), which resulted in the joint organization of the Second Congress of the Órdem in conjunction with the Ninth Latin American Congress of Psychology (organized by FIAP) in Lisbon in 2014, where a reasonably strong Spanish representation in both the professional and academic fields of sport psychology was anticipated. Finally, Joquin Dosil (University of Vigo), along with other Spanish and Portuguese sport psychologists, founded the Iberoamerican Society of Sport Psychology (SIPD) in 2003. This society sponsors an international conference every two years, and nowadays has significantly increased its number of partners, mostly in Central America, Spain, Portugal and Brazil. Recently, in 2012, the SIPD has created its official journal of sport psychology entitled Advances in Sport Psychology (currently headed by Luis Humberto Serrato of Colombia), and in 2014 started teaching an on-line postgraduate degree in psychology of physical activity and sport.

The road to the Seville 2017 ISSP World Congress During the 2013 ISSP World Congress in Beijing, the nomination of Seville to host the ISSP World Congress 2017 was approved by the Managing Council. The candidacy of Seville was supported by the Spanish Federation of Associations of Physical Activity and Sport Psychology, and the President of the Local Organizing Committee is Dr. José Carlos Jaenes of the Pablo de Olavide University in Seville. For Spain, the celebration of the ISSP World Congress at Seville in 2017 could mean the final consolidation of the field from the academic and research aspects, and may also contribute decisively to the necessary improvement of the international situation of the Spanish sport psychologists both professionally and institutionally. The relevance of the World Congress for Spanish sport psychology should be twofold: first, the consolidation of the scientific and academic presence of the two last generations of sport psychologists from Spanish-speaking countries, mainly from Spain; and second, the first significant opportunity in the past two decades for Spanish sport psychologists (both individuals and institutions) to get involved directly in the “political” side of worldwide sport psychology.

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Final thoughts The prospects are challenging, because the future of sport psychology in Spain will depend basically on: a) the training that future professionals will receive for their master’s degrees, and the preparation that coaches and technicians will receive in their federations; b) the lines of research which might be developed in the faculties of physical education and psychology in collaboration with the federations, state and territorial institutions of sport; c)the growing political presence of sport psychologists from Spain at international conferences and societies; d) the enhanced presence of Spanish academics on editorial boards of the mainstream journals, and the consolidation of Spanish-language sport psychology journals; e) the quality and success of practitioners in their new jobs in sports club and federations. All these are critical factors in the prestige of sport psychology in Spain.

References Cagigal, J. M. (1962). Psicopedagogía del deporte (Psychopedagogy of sport). Citius, Altius, Fortius, 4, 221–239. Cagigal, J. M. (1963). El fenómeno psicológico en el deporte (The psychological phenomenon in sports). Citius, Altius, Fortius, 5, 343–356. Cagigal, J. M. (1976). Deporte y agresión (Sport and aggression). Barcelona: Planeta. Cárdenas, D., Conde-González, J., & Perales, J. C. (2015). El papel de la carga mental en la planificación del entrenamiento deportivo (The role of the mental workload in the planning of the sportive practice). Revista de Psicología del Deporte, 24, 91–100. Cruz, J. (1987). Aportacions a la iniciació esportiva (Contributions to youth sports). Apunts. Educació Física, 9, 10–18. Cruz, J. (1991). Historia de la psicología del deporte (History of sport psychology). In J. Cruz, & J. Riera (Eds.), Psicología del deporte: Aplicaciones y perspectivas (pp.13–42). Barcelona: Martínez Roca. Cruz, J. (1994a). Sport psychology. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 43, 323–330. Cruz, J. (1994b). El asesoramiento psicológico a entrenadores: experiencia en baloncesto de iniciación. (Psychological counseling with youth basketball coaches). Apunts, Educació Física i Esports, 35, 5–14. Cruz, J. (2001). Psicología del deporte: Historia y propuestas de desarrollo (Sport psychology: History and future developments). In J. Cruz (Ed.), Psicología del deporte (pp. 15–41). Madrid: Síntesis. Cruz, J. (2002). Aplicaciones de la psicología del deporte en España (Sport psychology applications in Spain). In J. Dosil (Ed.), El psicólogo del deporte: asesoramiento e intervención (pp. 23–37). Madrid: Síntesis. Cruz, J., & Riera, J. (1991). Psicología del deporte: Valoración de las primeras definiciones y replanteamiento de la década de los ochenta (Sport psychology: assessment of the first definitions and developments in the eighties). In J. Cruz & J. Riera (Eds.), Psicología del deporte: aplicaciones y perspectivas (pp. 43–62). Barcelona: Martínez Roca. Cruz, J., Boixadós, M., Valiente, L., Ruiz, A., Arbona, P., Molons, Z., Call, J., Berbel, G., & Capdevila, Ll. (1991). Identificación de valores relevantes en jugadores jóvenes de fútbol (Identification of relevant values in young soccer players). Revista de Investigación y Documentación sobre las Ciencias de la Educación Física y del Deporte, 19, 81–99. Dosil, J. (Ed.). (2002). El psicólogo del deporte: Asesoramiento e intervención (The sport psychologist: Counseling and intervention). Madrid: Síntesis. Garcia-Mas, A. (1997). La psicología del deporte y sus relaciones con otras ciencias del deporte (Sport psychology and its relationship with other sport sciences). Revista de Psicología del Deporte, 11, 103–114. Garcia-Mas, A., & Cruz, J. (1996). Historia conceptual de la psicología de la actividad física y del deporte en España (Conceptual history of the physical activity and sport psychology in Spain). Revista de Historia de la Psicología, 17(3–4), 113–120. Garcia-Mas, A., Pujals, C., Fuster-Parra, P., Núñez, A., & Rubio, V. J. (2014). Determinación de las variables psicológicas y deportivas relevantes a las lesiones deportivas: Un análisis bayesiano (Determination of the psychological and sportive variables related to sports injuries: A Bayesian analysis). Revista de Psicología del Deporte, 23, 423–429. Guillén, F. (2004). Literature and authorships in sport psychology in countries of non-English language. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 35, 342–362.

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Leo, F., Sánchez-Miguel, P., Sánchez-Oliva, D., Amado, D., & García-Calvo, T. (2012). Análisis del clima motivacional como antecedente de la eficacia colectiva en futbolistas semiprofesionales (Analysis of motivational climate as the background to collective efficacy in semi-professional players). Revista de Psicología del Deporte, 21, 159–162. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, MECD (2014). International standard book number. Retrieved from www.mcu.es/webISBN/ Palmi, J. (1988). La psicologia davant l’atleta lesionat (Psychology and the injured athlete). Apunts d’Educació Física, 11–12, 65–69. Perales, J. C., Cárdenas, D., Piñar, M. I., Sánchez, G., & Courel, J. (2011). El efecto diferencial de la instrucción incidental e intencional en el aprendizaje de las condiciones para la decisión de tiro en baloncesto (Differential effect of incidental and intentional instruction in learning about decisonmaking conditions when shooting in basketball). Revista de Psicología del Deporte, 20, 729–745. Pérez-Recio, G., Rodríguez, F., Esteve, E., Larraburu, I., Font, J., & Pons, V. (1992). Prevalencia de trastornos en la conducta alimentaria en deportistas (Prevalence of eating disorders in athletes). Revista de Psicología del Deporte, 1, 5–16. Riera, J. (1985). Introducción a la psicología del deporte (Introduction to sport psychology). Barcelona: Martínez Roca. Roca, J. (1983). Temps de reacció i esport (Reaction time and sport). Barcelona: INEF. Salmela, J. H. (1981). The world sport psychology sourcebook. Ithaca, NY: Mouvement. Salmela, J. H., & Riera, J. (1992). Spain. In J. Salmela (Ed.), The world sport psychology sourcebook (2nd Ed., pp. 99–102). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Sousa, C., Smith, R. E., & Cruz, J. (2008). An individualized behavioral goal-setting program for coaches. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 2, 258–277.

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10 T H E U N I T E D K I N G D OM Melissa Day

This chapter aims to illustrate how sport psychology has grown in the United Kingdom, suggesting that while the journey has indeed been long, the road has also been complex to navigate. To accomplish this, the chapter starts by outlining the emergence of sport psychology in the UK and the organizations which have sculpted the discipline. From this, training routes within the UK are explored, considering the rise in the number of undergraduate sport psychology degrees in the UK. Next, the chapter outlines key theoretical developments and the ‘hot topics’ of the decades, highlighting the crucial role played by the UK in developing qualitative research. Finally, the chapter looks forward to the future of sport psychology in the UK and the potential hurdles that may need to be navigated.

The establishment of professional organizations The start of the journey placed sport psychology in the UK firmly within the sport sciences. This affiliation became formalised when in 1984 the British Association of Sport Sciences (BASS) was formed. Within this organization it was soon recognized that members generally fell into one of three disciplines within the sport sciences: biomechanics, physiology or psychology. These disciplines (alongside an open section for the scientific study of any aspect of sport involvement not naturally falling into the three disciplines) formed the constituent sections of the organization. The establishment of BASS provided an opportunity for members to reflect on the nature and content of sport science degrees in the UK. These early advances, which aimed to formalise the rigor and academic content of degrees in sport science, are still reflected in the current undergraduate degree endorsement scheme offered by the organization. Importantly for sport psychology in the UK, BASS provided structure and a training route for the sport sciences that included sport psychology. The emergence of BASS (later to become the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences: BASES) provided a structure and governance for sport sciences in the UK, and ensured that the developing discipline of sport psychology had a forum for discussion. Yet the milestones reached were slow in comparison to the USA and the Soviet Union. In 1988, the same year that the USA first took a sport psychologist to an Olympic Games (forming part of the athlete support team), the UK was taking its first steps towards implementing a register 100

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of sport psychologists. While UK researchers had become interested in the application of psychology to sport long before this time, most often these researchers were housed in physical education departments, without the organizational structure and guidance to move the profession forward. By 1992 only accredited members were eligible to be recommended as professional sport psychologists. The impact of this register was to provide a measure of quality assurance, allowing for the development of routes to become accredited. Numerous changes and developments have strengthened the accreditation system in the UK to practise sport psychology and, following this early allegiance to the sport sciences, BASES accreditation remains a respected route to becoming an accredited practitioner. BASES accreditation remains a rigorous process, requiring candidates to profile their own competencies, demonstrate their development, and engage in a period of supervised experience. These competencies include (among others) applied skills, communication, problem solving, understanding the delivery environment, and professional relationships and boundaries. In order to successfully complete this accreditation process 500 hours of supervised practice in the delivery of services, plus written reflections must be undertaken. More recent developments in the BASES accreditation system have also led to the inclusion of a High Performance Sport Accreditation (HPSA) providing a specialist route to BASES accreditation for those with a track record of providing successful support to high performance sport programmes. One of the key impacts that BASES has had on sport psychology in the UK has been the organization’s role in developing position statements and expert research statements to guide applied practice, pedagogy and research. Position stands published by BASES have provided clear guidance and information on a range of issues. For example, Pye, Hitchings, Doggart, Close, and Board (2013) provided recommendations for good practice in the provision of quality graduate sport science internships. In publishing these position stands, the organization has provided clear guidance on a number of (mostly pedagogy related) issues. In addition, BASES has also commissioned a number of expert statements. For sport psychology, these expert statements have included the use of music in exercise (Karageorghis, Terry, Lane, Bishop, & Priest, 2011), emotion regulation in sport (Lane, Beedie, Jones, Uphill, & Devonport, 2011), the psychological preparation for football penalty shootouts (Wilson, Wood, & Jordet, 2013), the use of mental imagery in sport, exercise and rehabilitation (MacIntyre, Moran, Collet, Guillot, Campbell, Matthews, Mahoney, & Lowher, 2013), and the effectiveness of vision training programmes (Smeeton, Page, Causer, Wilson, Gray, & Williams, 2013).

Recognition through the British Psychological Society Thus far the focus of this chapter has demonstrated the longstanding connection between sport psychology and the sport sciences, but there is a further partnership that has helped to carve the present-day face of sport psychology in the UK. In the same year that BASES implemented its register of sport psychologists, the British Psychological Society (BPS) established a sport and exercise psychology interest group. By 1993 a section of sport and exercise psychology had formed within the society, and by 2005 this section was established as a division. As Kremer and Moran (2008) describe: With a powerplay worthy of any professional ice hockey team, and with the prospect of statutory regulation looming ever larger, the BPS seized control and ownership of the only professional area within psychology where practitioners had in place a registration scheme that did not ipso facto include BPS membership. (p. 742) 101

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In order to qualify as a chartered psychologist practising in sport psychology an individual must first have a primary degree in psychology or a conversion course that is approved by the BPS. Thus for any aspiring sport psychologist in the UK wishing to pursue this route, it is essential to ensure that a course offers what is titled ‘Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership’ (GBC). The GBC ensures that the course has met the standard required from the BPS and, in particular, ensures that the course includes enough breadth and depth on the study of psychology. A course that offers GBC ensures that a number of core competencies are met, including among others the study of social psychology, individual differences, biological psychology, developmental psychology, and research methods and statistics. Thus unlike the BASES accreditation route, which focuses on the development of knowledge across a range of sport science disciplines, a course offering GBC will focus on a range of knowledge across the areas of psychology. Having obtained GBC (by graduating with a 2:2 degree or above) there are a number of steps that a trainee in the UK needs to follow in order to qualify as a chartered psychologist. First, an individual needs to complete a Society-accredited MSc in Sport and Exercise Psychology or have completed the Qualification in Sport and Exercise Psychology (Stage 1) examinations. Second, this individual needs to engage in two years of relevant supervised practice (Stage 2). In similarity to the BASES training route, this focuses on allowing the practitioner to develop across a number of competencies. Thus both training routes in the UK are focused on profiling the practitioner, tracking their development, and allowing them to develop competencies in a supervised environment. Lafferty and Eubank (2013) describe that progress as continually monitored and trainees can show their competence through the assessment of a practice diary, reflective log, case studies and research submission. In particular, this system allows trainees to focus on difficulties and learning points. As Eubank (2013) suggests, trainees are encouraged to consider those experiences in applied practice where difficulties have been faced. He notes that ‘case studies where everything isn’t “rosy in the garden” represent a good critical evaluation opportunity and are also a welcome feature of what constitutes a suitable submission’ (p. 12).

Two organizations: coherence or conflict? Given the two possible routes to professional practice, it may be sensible to question whether one particular pathway would be advantageous over the other. This is a question that has caused some controversy in the UK, particularly following the protection of the title ‘sport and exercise psychologist’. The BPS routeway allows individuals to register with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) following the completion of Stage 2, consequently allowing individuals the opportunity to use this title. BASES accreditation does not afford the same opportunity. While BASES accredited individuals may gain chartered status through the science council, they cannot join the register for the HCPC. Thus divisions have been drawn between the two routeways and debate on the impact of these changes has been lively. Following the protection of the title ‘sport and exercise psychologist’, all Performance Directors of National Governing Bodies of Sports funded by UK Sport were informed of the regulations surrounding the title. Yet many have continued to advertise job opportunities in the UK requiring either BPS chartered status or BASES accreditation, demonstrating their equal support for the BASES routeway. Nevertheless, despite the suggested equality of opportunities, many who have pursued the BASES routeway have voiced concerns regarding their future employability (e.g., Letton & Cropley, 2013). While each of the routeways will lead to accreditation with a professional body, the BASES routeway reflects the post-positivistic approach of the association. In particular, 102

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this approach can be seen in the dominance of quantitative work within the association’s Journal of Sports Sciences. The advantage of BASES accreditation is suggested by Maynard and Wolfson (2013) who proposed that those with BASES accreditation may be able to offer more interdisciplinary expertise gained from their undergraduate study of the sport sciences. Pursuing the BPS route has been suggested to be advantageous for those who are confident that their interest in sport lies within the discipline of psychology.

Progress in research Alongside the growth of professional training routes and accreditation, sport and exercise psychology in the UK has demonstrated considerable advances as a research discipline. Lavallee, Kremer, Moran, and Williams (2012) proposed that early research during the 1970s and 1980s provided sophisticated levels of expertise, but within narrowly defined domains. Early research drew heavily on existing psychological theories and models, exploring their application to sport. The use of attribution theory provides one such example, becoming a ‘hot topic’ of research interest during the 1980s, with significant contribution from UK author Stuart Biddle. Yet as Biddle (1994) highlighted, the frequency of publications featuring attributions as the main topic declined in the early 1990s. Despite this decline, in 1999 Biddle proposed that the file on attributions should be re-opened, particularly given that research has never fully exploited the potential approaches to attributional thinking. While research in this area has continued to decline in popularity, there remain a number of UK authors who have continued to champion the value of attributions (e.g., Coffee & Rees, 2009). As interest in attributions declined, achievement goal orientation became the flavour of the 1990s. Having originated as a popular topic in educational research, the parallels with sport became clear. Again, Stuart Biddle remained a prominent author alongside others such as Joan Duda and Christopher Spray. In addition, researchers focused on the application of anxiety theories to sporting performance. The 1990s brought with it a move away from approaches like Hull’s drive theory of motivation and Yerkes and Dodson’s inverted U hypothesis to a multidimensional approach that examined the antecedents of anxiety and self-confidence (e.g., Jones, Swain, & Cale, 1991) and the cusp catastrophe model of anxiety and performance (e.g., Hardy, 1990, 1996). The late 1980s and 1990s also saw an emergence of research on applied sport psychology. Authors such as Hardy and Parfitt (1994) demonstrated the application of psychological support to a national squad. Similarly Collins, Doherty, and Talbot (1993) demonstrated the advantages of using a multidisciplinary approach to performance enhancement. Finally, interest in athlete profiling was also prominent, with Terry (1995) exploring mood state profiling and Jones (1993) performance profiling. Lavallee et al. (2012) suggested that research developments into the twenty-first century have increased in their breadth and open-mindedness. One positive example of the wider breadth of research can be seen in the study of stress in sport. Early research on stress in the sporting context aimed to identify the sources of stress that may be faced by athletes, both in training and competition across a variety of sports. These sources of stress were first explored outside the UK by authors such as Scanlan, Stein, and Ravizza (1991) who demonstrated that this was a rich area for further research. In so doing, the floodgates for understanding stress in sport were opened and researchers in the UK soon followed this publication trend with a range of papers establishing the sources of stress across numerous sports. This early research often focused on stressors in specific sports and used an already well-established format. Yet as this research developed in the UK, authors began to broaden their focus, with 103

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later papers including perspectives such as stressors in sport from an elite athlete perspective (Hanton, Fletcher, & Coughlan, 2005), a coach perspective (Thelwell, Weston, Greenlees, & Hutchings, 2008), organizational stress (Woodman & Hardy, 2001), and stress during injury (Evans, Wadey, Hanton, & Mitchell, 2012). While the emergence of this research area initially provided a safe and well-established route to publication, more recent developments have demonstrated a far wider breadth of knowledge within this topic. The breadth is further shown by comparing key texts by UK authors. In 1990, Jones and Hardy’s Stress and Performance in Sport suggested that stress could be categorised into three broad areas: stress responses, stress management/regulation, and stress and performance. While this statement may still hold ‘true’, the progress within these areas has been considerable. Thatcher, Jones, and Lavallee’s (2012) text Coping and Emotion in Sport provides an interesting comparison (see Table 10.1 below). The comparison highlights both theoretical and intervention based advances. While Jones and Hardy focused on approaches, such as the catastrophe model, Thatcher et al. include more recent developments such as directional anxiety. Further, one of the most notable advances shown by comparing these two texts is in the development from more traditional sport psychology interventions (e.g., goal setting) to a wider range of interventions and approaches. While early research often focused on cognitive behavioural interventions, more recent research has shown a wider range of perspectives (e.g., humanistic) as well as considering a wider population (e.g., disabled athletes). While considerable advances have been shown, further progress could still be made. As Tod and Lavallee (2011) suggested, there remains an overemphasis on using psychological skills training (PST) (goal setting, imagery, relaxation) and an under-emphasis on process-orientated approaches. Where this PST approach has been used, there is often very little consideration of the cultural identities of prospective clients. As authors such as Schinke, Hanrahan, and Catina (2009) have emphasized, sport psychologists and coaches are increasingly working with athletes from a variety of cultural backgrounds. Research has often failed to recognize that psychological skills training is not transferable across all athletes, regions and cultures. While the emergence of some alternatives to PST have brought strength to the applied sport psychology domain, such as Nesti’s (2004) application of existential psychology to sport, overall progress has been slow. In addition to the development of theories, models and applied practice, researchers in the UK have demonstrated a strong influence in the use of qualitative methodologies. Led by a number of key researchers, including Andrew Sparkes and Brett Smith, advancements have been shown both in the breadth and quality of interpretive research. In their review of qualitative research published in three leading sport psychology journals from 2000 to 2009, Culver, Gilbert, and Sparkes (2012) reported Table 10.1 A comparison of two texts by UK authors Jones and Hardy (1990)

Thatcher, Jones and Lavallee (2012)

UÊ Multidimensional anxiety and performance (Parfitt, Jones, & Hardy) UÊ Catastrophe model (Hardy) UÊ Cognitive behavioural interventions (Mace) UÊ Performance routines (Boutcher) UÊ Goal setting (Beggs)

UÊ Directional anxiety (Wagstaff, Neil, Mellalieu & Hanton) UÊ Enhancing positive emotion (McCarthy) UÊ Humanistic approaches (Clarke) UÊ Coping and emotion in disability sport (Martin) UÊ Coping through social support (Rees & Freeman)

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a 68 per cent increase in qualitative studies in comparison to 1990 to 1999. While qualitative research has become more acceptable and researchers have become more empowered to use qualitative methods, there remains a reliance on the use of one-shot interviews. For example, in Neil, Mellalieu, and Hanton’s (2009) review of qualitative approaches to competitive stress and anxiety, 28 out of the 32 articles reviewed used some form of interview strategy. Thus some caution has been shown in using a variety of methodologies and methods. Yet moving forward, the support for qualitative research in the UK has been continually gathering pace. In 2009 the first edition of the journal Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health was published. Further, the UK has provided a forum for qualitative discussion, hosting the International Conference for Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise at Liverpool John Moores University (2004, 2005), Roehampton University (2009), Loughborough University (2014) and, next, the University of Chichester (2016).

Future of UK sport psychology In comparison to other countries, the UK now produces a high frequency of publications in sport psychology journals. Szabo (2014) examined the national scholastic affiliation of authors for a period of 11 years scrutinizing two journals, Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology (JSEP) and Psychology of Sport and Exercise (PSE). In doing this he examined the affiliation of all authors on the manuscript and of the first author. For PSE, UK sport psychologists had the greatest number of total and first authorships, followed by the USA, Canada, France and Australia. For JSEP, the UK ranked second for total authors and first authors behind the USA. The comparatively high number of publications may celebrate the amount of sport psychology research published by UK authors, yet also reflects the ‘publish or perish’ culture often present in UK academia. Research is frequently driven by the Research Excellence Framework (REF), a national research assessment exercise comprising peer review of research outputs and activity across disciplines. This exercise is designed to support the allocation of ‘quality research’ funding, assessing research across three components: originality, significance and rigor. Yet such a ranking system of UK institutions can promote tactical research, driven by institutional pressures rather than promoting a breadth of research topics and methodological creativity. Undoubtedly UK sport psychologists have made a significant impact on the development of the discipline. Yet as progress inevitably continues over the next decade, it remains imperative to recognize the complexities of the domain and broaden the scope of research. As undergraduate and postgraduate degrees and training routes continue to grow steadily it is essential that curriculum design also grows to recognize not only the increasing breadth of topics, but also a wider range of methodologies. Rarely are students encouraged to consider epistemology and ontology, nor are they exposed to a range of methodologies. As a consequence our reliance on quantitative methods or interview-based qualitative research is unsurprising. In order to foster creative research we must foster creative researchers. As Turner and Barker (2013) reflected, wider lessons can be learnt in the applied domain from Olympic successes. Yet such lessons can be applied to all domains, and consequently, as sport psychology continues to grow in the UK, it is essential that applied practitioners, researchers and educators reflect on past successes and use these to plan and inform the future.

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References Biddle, S. (1994). Motivation and participation in exercise and sport. In S. Serpa, J. Alves, & V. Pataco (Eds.), International perspectives on sport and exercise psychology (pp.103–126). Morgantown, VW: Fitness Information Technology. Biddle, S. J. H. (1999). Motivation and perceptions of control: Tracing its development and plotting its future in exercise and sport psychology. Journal of Sport Exercise Psychology, 21, 1–23. Coffee, P., & Rees, T. (2009). The main and interactive effects of immediate and reflective attributions upon subsequent self-efficacy. European Journal of Sport Science, 9, 41–52. Collins, D., Doherty, M., & Talbot, S. (1993). Performance enhancement in motocross: A case study of the sports science team in action. The Sport Psychologist, 7, 290–297. Culver, D., Gilvert, W., & Sparkes, A. C., (2012). Qualitative research in sport psychology journals: The next decade 2000–2009 and beyond. The Sport Psychologist, 26, 261–281. Eubank, M. (2013). Evidencing and assessing trainee competence on the qualification in sport and exercise psychology: The consultancy case study. Sport and Exercise Psychology Review, 9, 11–14. Evans, L., Wadey, R., Hanton, S., & Mitchell, I. (2012). Stressors experienced by injured athletes. Journal of Sports Sciences, 30, 917–927. Hanton, S., Fletcher, D., & Coughlan, G. (2005). Stress in elite sports performers: A comparative study of competitive and organizational stressors. Journal of Sports Sciences, 23, 1129–1141. Hardy, L. (1990). A catastrophe model of performance in sport. In G. Jones & L. Hardy (Eds.), Stress and performance in sport (pp. 81–106). Chichester: Wiley. Hardy, L. (1996). Testing the predictions of the cusp catastrophe model of anxiety and performance. The Sport Psychologist, 10, 140–156. Hardy, L., & Parfitt, G. (1994). The development of a model for the provision of psychological support to a national squad. The Sport Psychologist, 8, 126–142. Jones, G. (1993). The role of performance profiling in cognitive behavioural interventions in sport. The Sport Psychologist, 7, 160–172. Jones, G., & Hardy, L. (1990) Stress and performance in sport. Chichester: Wiley. Jones, G., Swain, A. B. J., & Cale, A. (1991). Gender differences in pre-competition temporal patterning and antecedents of anxiety and self-confidence. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 13, 1–15. Karageorghis, C., Terry, P., Lane, A. M., Bishop, D. T., & Priest, D. (2011) The BASES Expert Statement on the Use of Music in Exercise. The Sport and Exercise Scientist, 28, 18–19. Kremer, J., & Moran, A. (2008). Swifter, higher, stronger: The history of sport psychology. The Psychologist, 21, 740–742. Lafferty, M., & Eubank, M. (2013). Getting started and assessing trainee progression on the qualification in sport and exercise psychology. Sport and Exercise Psychology Review, 9, 5–10. Lane, A., Beedie, C., Jones, M., Uphill, M., & Devonport, T. (2011). The BASES expert statement on emotion regulation in sport. The Sport and Exercise Scientist, 29, 14–15. Lavallee, D., Kremer, J., Moran, A., & Williams, M. (2012). Sport psychology: Contemporary themes. London: Palgrave. Letton, F., & Cropley, B. (2013). The practicalities of working under the HCPC requirements. The Sport and Exercise Scientist, 37, 18–19. MacIntyre, T., Moran, A., Collet, C., Guillot, A., Campbell, M., Matthews, J., Mahoney, C., & Lowher, J. (2013). The BASES expert statement on the use of mental imagery in sport, exercise and rehabilitation contexts. The Sport and Exercise Scientist, 38, 10–11. Maynard, I., & Wolfson, S. (2013). Sport and exercise psychology – who is legally qualified to provide support? Guidance for current and potential sport and exercise psychologists. The Sport and Exercise Scientist, 38, 24–25. Neil, R., Mellalieu, S. D., & Hanton, S. (2009). The contribution of qualitative inquiry towards understanding competitive anxiety and competition stress. Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise, 1, 191–205. Nesti, M. (2004). Existential psychology and sport: Theory and application. Abingdon: Routledge. Pye, M., Hitchings, C., Doggart, L., Close, G., & Board, L. (2013). The BASES position stand on graduate internships. The Sport and Exercise Scientist, 36, 1–3. Scanlan, T. K, Stein, G. L., & Ravizza, K. (1991). An in-depth study of former elite figure skaters: III. Sources of stress. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 13, 103–120. Schinke, R. J., Hanrahan, S. J., & Catina, P. (2009). Introduction to cultural sport psychology. In R. J. Schinke & S. J. Hanrahan (Eds.), Cultural sport psychology (pp. 3–11). Leeds: Human Kinetics.

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Smeeton, N. J., Page, J., Causer, J., Wilson, M., Gray, R., & Williams, A. M. (2013) The BASES expert statement on the effectiveness of vision training programmes. The Sport and Exercise Scientist, 38, 12–13. Szabo, A. (2014). Sport and exercise psychology research and Olympic success: An analytical and correlational investigation. European Journal of Sport Science, 14, 273–278. Terry, P. (1995). The efficacy of mood state profiling with elite performers: A review and synthesis. The Sport Psychologist, 9, 309–324. Thatcher, J., Jones, M., & Lavallee, D. (2012). Coping and emotion in sport. Abingdon: Routledge. Thelwell, R., Weston, N., Greenlees, I., & Hutchings, N. (2008). Stressors in elite sport: A coach perspective. Journal of Sports Sciences, 26, 905–918. Tod, D., & Lavallee, D. (2011). Taming the wild west: Training and supervision in applied sport psychology. In D. Gilbourne & M. Andersen (Eds.), Critical essays in sport psychology (pp. 193–210). Leeds: Human Kinetics. Turner, M. J., & Barker, J. B. (2013). Resilience: Lessons from the 2012 Olympic Games. Reflective Practice, 14, 622–631. Wilson, M., Wood, G., & Jordet, G. (2013). The BASES expert statement on the psychological preparation for football penalty shootouts. The Sport and Exercise Scientist, 38, 8–9. Woodman, T., & Hardy, L. (2001). A case study of organizational stress in elite sport. Journal of Applied Sport and Exercise Psychology, 13, 207–238.

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PART II

Athlete adjustment and transitions

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11 C A R E E R T R A N SI T IO N S Paul Wylleman, Nathalie Rosier and Paul De Knop

The interest amongst sport psychologists for career transitions grew gradually during the past three decades. From initial publications on the occurrence of (sub-)clinical problems amongst former professional athletes, the current topic developed into the wellestablished sub-domain of sport psychology integrating developmental, holistic and cultural perspectives on the career development of talented, elite, Olympic and former elite athletes (e.g., Alfermann & Stambulova, 2007; Bruner, Munroe-Chandler, & Spink, 2008; Pummell, Harwood, & Lavallee, 2008; Wylleman, Lavallee, & Theeboom, 2004). Taking into account that all elite athletes will inevitably face the end of their athletic career, and that for some this may be a period of emotional turmoil impacting the retiree’s mental health (e.g., Wippert & Wippert, 2008), it should not be surprising that original research into career transitions literature focused on athletic retirement (e.g., Haerle, 1975; Mihovilovic, 1968). While conceptually this “end-of-career” transition was considered to be a singular event similar to retirement from the work force, or even to the process of dying (Lavallee, 2000), continued research provided a more detailed insight into the diversity of causes to retirement, as well as into the factors mediating the adjustment process to post-athletic life (e.g., Alfermann & Gross, 1997; Webb, Nasco, Riley, & Headrick, 1998). In fact it became clear that the athletic career termination should not only be considered as a transitional process consisting of different stages (pre-, during, and post-retirement), but that its effects did not always have to be negative, nor that the quality of this transitional process could not be influenced by athletes or their support system. Approaching this end-of-career transition as a process led to viewing a transitional challenge as a developmental conflict between what athletes are (or were) and what they want (or believe they ought) to be (Alfermann & Stambulova, 2007) and which leads to a process of changes in elite athletes’ emotions, cognitions, behaviors and relationships (Schlossberg, 1981). In this way, sport psychology research not only linked up with research outside of sport (e.g., the Model of Human Adaptation to Transition; Schlossberg, 1981) but also led to the development of sport-specific career transition explanatory models (e.g., Stambulova, 2003; Taylor & Ogilvie, 1998). For example, the Athletic Career Transition Model (Stambulova, 2003) considered a career transition as a process requiring athletes to use various coping strategies (e.g., planning, professional support) in order to deal with the demands of the 111

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transition. An effective fit between transition demands and the athletes’ coping resources and strategies would have a higher probability to result in a successful transition into the next stage, while ineffective coping (e.g., lack of resources, inappropriate coping strategies) could lead to a crisis-transition with possible negative consequences (e.g., neuroses, substance abuse). This model provided a framework to develop specific transition-related interventions including crisis-prevention and crisis-coping interventions which could assist athletes to make a successful transition (Stambulova & Wylleman, 2014). On the one hand, preventive or supportive coping relates to interventions aimed at enhancing athletes’ awareness about forthcoming/current transition demands and aiding timely development of all necessary resources for effective coping, and include, for example, career planning interventions, life development interventions/life skills training, lifestyle management interventions, identity development interventions or cultural adaptation interventions. On the other hand, crisis or negative-consequences-coping covers interventions enabling athletes to analyze their crisis or traumatic situations and to find the best available ways to cope and relate to, amongst others, crisis-coping educational interventions or clinical interventions. With a growing knowledge base on the transitional process also came the insight that transitions actually occurred at various points throughout and not only at the end of the athletic career (Cecić Erpić, Wylleman, & Zupančič, 2004; Wylleman, Alfermann, & Lavallee, 2004). Moreover, these transitions could be categorized in function of their degree of predictability: normative transitions that are generally predictable and are an anticipated way from one stage to another (e.g., junior-to-senior level, progressing from regional to national-level competitions), and non-normative transitions that did not occur in a set plan or schedule but which are generally unpredicted, unanticipated and involuntary (e.g., a season-ending injury, the loss of a personal coach, an unanticipated “cut” from the team). As knowledge of these (non-)normative athletic transitions sheds new light on how an athletic career could develop, it was further argued that transitions not only occurred in athletes’ athletic development, but also in other developmental contexts (Wylleman, Alfermann, & Lavallee, 2004). Building upon research with talented athletes, elite studentathletes and former elite athletes (e.g., Wylleman, 1999; Wylleman, De Knop, Menkehorst, Theeboom, & Annerel, 1993), the Developmental Model of Transitions faced by Athletes was AGE Athletic level

10 Initiation

Psychological level

Childhood

Psychosocial level

Parents Siblings Peers

Academic and vocational level

15

20

25

Development

Mastery

Adolescence

35 Discontinuation

(Young) Adulthood

Peers Coach Parents

Primary Secondary education education

30

Partner Coach – Teammates Elite student-athletes

Higher education

Family (Coach)

Vocational training Professional occupation

Note : A dotted line indicates that the age at which the transition occurs is an approximation.

Figure 11.1 A developmental perspective on transitions faced by athletes at athletic, psychological, psychosocial and academic-vocational levels (Wylleman & Lavallee, 2004)

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formulated (Wylleman & Lavallee, 2004). Using a “whole career/whole person approach” this model introduced a developmental or lifespan perspective (i.e. from young to former elite athlete) in combination with a holistic perspective (i.e. athletes’ psychological, psychosocial, academic and vocational development) reflecting normative transitions at different levels of development (see Figure 11.1). The athletic development (top layer) of the model includes the “initiation” stage, during which the young athlete is introduced into organized competitive sports, the “development” stage whereby the athlete is recognized as being athletically gifted and training and competition intensifies, the “mastery” stage in which the athlete participates at the highest competitive level, and the “discontinuation” stage describing the elite athlete’s transition out of competitive sports. While the second layer reflects major transitions and stages in athletes’ psychological development (including childhood, adolescence, and [young] adulthood), athletes’ psychosocial development is represented in the third layer indicating those individuals who are perceived by athletes as being (most) significant during that particular transition or stage (e.g., parents, coach, peers, life time partner). The final layer delineates those transitions and stages generally occurring at academic (primary education/ elementary school, secondary education/high school, higher education) and vocational level (may also start after secondary education, involving a full-/part-time occupation in the field of professional sports). By representing the concurrent, interactive and reciprocal nature of these normative transitions, this model reveals that normative transitions do not only coincide, but also influence athletes’ development and success at every level. A holistic lifespan perspective allowed sport psychologists to use this model in research (e.g., Bruner et al., 2008; Debois, Ledon, & Wylleman, 2014; Pummell et al., 2008; Reints, 2011; Rosier, in press; Tekavc, Wylleman, & Cecić Erpić, 2015; Wylleman, Reints, & Van Aken, 2012) as well as in the provision of athlete career support (e.g., Scotland, France, the Netherlands, Belgium) (e.g., Bouchetal Pellegri, Leseur, & Debois, 2006; Wylleman, Reints, & De Knop, 2013a) and in the development of the “European Union Guidelines on Dual Careers of Athletes” (2012). Research conducted during the past decades not only confirmed the relevance of career transitions (at the end as well as during the athletic career), but also established the reciprocal influence of transitions occurring concurrently and multi-layered. Taking into account that transitions can be said to be turning points “at which talent may be derailed or may flourish” (Dweck, 2009, p. xii), there is a strong need for sport psychologists to broaden their knowledge on the transitional challenges faced by athletes. In order to illustrate the use of a “whole career/whole person” perspective, the next section will describe in more detail the possible impact of one particular (within-career) transition that has been shown to have a strong impact on the development of talented athletes.

The junior-to-senior transition Transitioning from elite junior to elite senior level not only constitutes a normative transition at athletic level, but for most athletes coincides also with transitions at psychological (from adolescence to young adulthood) and academic level (from secondary to higher education) (cf. Figure 11.1). The need to cope with the accumulated effect of these concurrent transitional challenges may thus strongly relate to the relative small percentage of athletes successfully progressing and developing into elite senior category (i.e. between 17–33 percent in Australia, Belgium and Germany) (Australian Sport Commission, 2003; Bussmann & Alfermann, 1994; Vanden Auweele, De Martelaer, Rzewnicki, De Knop, & Wylleman, 2004). 113

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In their athletic development, novice senior athletes need to cope with more mature and experienced senior athletes (as teammates and as rivals) during more and higher-level competitions that, in comparison to junior level, are experienced as the “real competitions”. This may lead athletes not only to more intense and longer practice possibly leading to physical overload, overtraining, or an increase in the occurrence of injuries (e.g., Australian Sports Commission, 2003; Lorenzo, Borrás, Sánchez, Jiménez, & Sampedro, 2009; MacNamara & Collins, 2010; Orchard & Seward, 2002), but unfortunately also to greater rivalry, feelings of being overwhelmed, heightened levels of frustration, anxiety and stress, burnout (e.g., Bruner et al., 2008; Pummell et al., 2008; Rosier, in press; Schinke, 2014). In order to cope with these challenges, novice senior athletes will require a higher commitment including time and travel, which may impact their investment and development at other levels (e.g., social relationships, academic endeavors). At a psychological level, athletes perceive a greater need for independence, assuming responsibility and discipline as elite senior athlete (Rosier, in press). This is not only relevant at the athletic level (e.g., individualized pre-competition routines) but also in everyday life where they need to adopt the lifestyle of an elite athlete (e.g., healthy food intake, increased training load and competition schedule, good sleeping habits, time management) (e.g., Stambulova, Alfermann, Statler, & Côté, 2009). Being confronted with higher standards in training and competition may lead to changes of perceived competence, self-image, athletic identity and self-confidence thus impacting athletes’ feelings of enjoyment and motivation (e.g., Pummell et al., 2008; Stambulova, Franck, & Weibull, 2012). The effect of these changes may also be enhanced by athletes’ transition from adolescence to young adulthood. These concurrent transitional challenges may in fact lead novice senior athletes to feel “entrapped in” rather than be “attracted to” the senior ranks including a feeling of reduced accomplishment or eventually a precipitated discontinuation from elite sport (e.g., Cresswell & Eklund, 2007). At a psychosocial level athletes perceive, due to an increased investment in elite sportrelated activities, a need to increase their interactions with their coach, teammates and staff (Rosier, in press). Coaches will become more personally involved, while good relationships with their training partners or teammates will ensure high quality training. At the same time, due to moving away from home (e.g., into a professional football academy, own private accommodation, on-campus student housing, relocation across national borders) athletes will face the challenge of leaving family, friends, club and having to adapt to a new psychosocial environment. As parental involvement may thus change (e.g., Wylleman, De Knop, Verdet, & Cecić-Erpić, 2007), it does not automatically lead to a decrease in relationship quality with their daughter or son. In fact, the reduction in their daily interactions combined with the maturation of the (young) adult athletes may lead to improved parent–child relationships (Lefkowitz, 2005). Due to increased investment in their elite sport career, athletes (almost exclusively) may also see their friendships decrease or even deteriorate (Pummell et al., 2008; Rosier, in press). Transitioning into (young) adulthood may also lead to romantic relationships becoming a more prominent and possibly a permanent part of athletes’ lives (Wylleman & Lavallee, 2004). While this may have a supporting effect on athletes, it is also reported that the quality of the relationship may be negatively affected by the expectations (and pressure) senior athletes are placed under and/or place on themselves (e.g., Stambulova et al., 2012). Finally, as athletes enter senior level they are generally also faced with transitional challenges regarding their academic or vocational career. After transitioning out of secondary education many (if not most) athletes will decide to continue into higher education, and thus combine an academic with an elite athletic career (e.g., Wylleman, Reints, & De Knop, 114

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2013b). As “elite student-athletes” they will have to cope with challenges including a greater need for self-regulation, and a relative higher degree of freedom whether or not to attend academic activities (e.g., classes), as well as being able to cope with a change in their social environment (e.g., De Knop, Wylleman, Van Hoecke, & Bollaert, 1999). Those athletes choosing after secondary education to combine a vocational career with their elite athletic career face the challenge of (perceiving) a decrease in their focus on sport, and a lack of energy to be invested in their vocational development (Rosier, in press). Therefore, in this type of dual career, athletes need to be able to prioritize and plan within a working context ensuring them with flexibilities (e.g., time off from work for competitions, training camps abroad). Finally, athletes may also have the opportunity to become a full-time athlete when transitioning to senior level. These professional athletes face at senior level the challenge of more training sessions, an increased need to focus on competitions, the need for more time to recuperate, as well as more time becoming available for social activities (e.g., with family, friends) and leisure (Rosier, in press).

Recommendations and conclusions The domain of career transitions witnessed a strong development during the past three decades which was not only related to research but, perhaps more specifically, to its translation into sport-specific models that allowed for a detailed analysis of the transitional challenges athletes may face (e.g., the Developmental Model of Transitions faced by Athletes) and for the provision of transition support services (e.g., the Athletic Career Transition Model). Of course, there is still a need for continued research on the transitional challenges faced by athletes. First, research should also focus on non-normative transitions, that is, idiosyncratic transitions that are generally unpredicted, unanticipated, and involuntary in nature and that do not occur in a set plan or schedule (Schlossberg, 1981). From a holistic perspective, these may include an athletic injury, an emotional breakdown, a sudden loss of a significant other, or being nominated for a doctoral scholarship. Second, a need remains to look more closely into the diversity with which career transition models attend to sport-, gender-, athletic- or cultural-specific characteristics (e.g., Stambulova & Ryba, 2014) – or in fact to the concurrent occurrence of several of these identities – based upon methodologies designed to centralize inclusiveness. At the athletic level, for example, as transitioning from national to international level is a normative transition present in all sports, it will actually occur at different ages depending on the sport (e.g., female gymnastics versus male rowers). Or from a gender- or from a sexual-orientation perspective, the transitional challenges (and its effects) faced may be different for female elite athletes (e.g., Tekavc et al., 2015). Third, research should focus on other levels of development that may confront athletes with (non-) normative transitional challenges. For example, as at a financial level the cost for participating in elite sport (e.g., training camps abroad, training material, experts’ support) may not always be compensated by financial support (e.g., wage, bonuses, sponsoring, parental support), athletes’ financial status may become a challenge, slowing down, or even halting their athletic career (e.g., Reints, 2011), or force athletes to leave the ranks of the amateurs in order to “earn a living” as professional athletes (e.g., boxing). Reflecting on the example of the junior-to-senior transition, it becomes clear that from an applied perspective, sport psychology services can be focused on preparing athletes for, and coping with, transitional challenges. By using a developmental and holistic perspective, opportunities can be identified to prepare athletes for the different concurrent transitional challenges ahead. This could include context-related crisis-prevention interventions (e.g., 115

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education management, life skills training, career management) assisting athletes to mobilize resources to cope with upcoming challenges. However, as these interventions cannot always be tailor-made nor always be delivered “just-in-time” (Stambulova, 2012), a need exists for programs aimed at increasing athletes’ self-regulatory competences. Such programs should emphasize a lifespan perspective on coping with transitional challenges and thus provide for the developmental needs in athletes’ careers (North & Lavallee, 2004). As prevention may not be sufficient, some transitional challenges can result in developmental conflicts that affect athletes’ mental function and thus lead to a (psychological, interpersonal, social, financial) crisis or traumatic experience (Stambulova, 2010) and thus require crisis-coping interventions (e.g., counseling, therapy). While research among career assistance providers revealed that transition support is generally crisis-preventive in nature (Wylleman & Reints, 2014), experiential knowledge at the Olympic level (Wylleman, 2015; Wylleman, Harwood, Elbe, Reints, & de Caluwé, 2010) also confirmed a significant need for crisis interventions (e.g., anorexia, depression, relationship issues). Finally, as coaches and support staff also influence athletes’ ability to cope with transitional challenges, they should be (made) aware of the significance and impact of these multilevel transitions. This insight can be acquired by using generic models such as the Developmental Model of Transitions faced by Athletes and the Athletic Career Transition Model (Alfermann & Stambulova, 2007; Wylleman & Hendriks, 2015; Wylleman et al., 2013a). This approach can be supported by a “transition coach” assisting athletes in preparing for transitional challenges and thus enabling them to use their coping skills in an optimal way during as well as after each transition, thus increasing the possibility of continued development (and maximum effort and performance). In conclusion, it can be said that continued research as well as the provision of career transition support based upon a developmental and holistic perspective is required in order to maximize athletes’ progress throughout (as well as after) their athletic career.

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Debois, N., Ledon, A., & Wylleman, P. (2014). A lifespan perspective on the dual career of elite male athletes. Psychology of Sport and Exercise. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j. psychsport.2014.07.011 De Knop, P., Wylleman, P., Van Hoecke, J., & Bollaert, L. (1999). Sports management – A European approach to the management of the combination of academics and elite-level sport. In S. Bailey (Ed.), Perspectives – The interdisciplinary series of physical education and sport science. Vol. 1. School sport and competition (pp. 49–62). Oxford: Meyer & Meyer Sport. Dweck, C. S. (2009). Foreword. In F. D. Horowitz, R. F. Subotnik, & D. J. Matthews (Eds.), The development of giftedness and talent across the life span (pp. xi–xiv). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. EU guidelines on dual careers of athletes: Recommended policy actions in support of dual careers in high-performance sport (2012). Retrieved 2013-03-15 from http://ec.europa.eu/sport/ news/20130123-eu-guidelines-dualcareers_en.htm Haerle, R. K. (1975). Career patterns and career contingencies of professional baseball players: An occupational analysis. In D. W. Ball & J. W. Loy (Eds.), Sport and social order (pp. 461–519). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Lavallee, D. (2000). Theoretical perspectives on career transitions in sport. In D. Lavallee & P. Wylleman (Eds.), Career transitions in sport: International perspectives (pp. 1–27). Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology. Lefkowitz, E. (2005). “Things have gone better”: Developmental changes among emerging adults after the transition to university. Journal of Adolescent Research, 20, 40–63. Lorenzo, A., Borrás, P. J., Sánchez, J. M., Jiménez, S., & Sampedro, J. (2009). Career transition from junior to senior in basketball players. Revista de Psicologia del Deporte, 18, 309–312. MacNamara, Á., & Collins, D. (2010). The role of psychological characteristics in managing the transition to university. Psychology of Sport & Exercise, 11, 353–362. Mihovilovic, M. (1968). The status of former sportsmen. International Review of Sport Sociology, 3, 73–93. North, J., & Lavallee, D. (2004). An investigation of potential users of career transition services in the United Kingdom. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 5, 77–84. Orchard, J. W., & Seward, H. (2002). Epidemiology of injuries in the Australian Football League, seasons 1997–2000. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 36, 39–44. Pummell, B., Harwood, C., & Lavallee, D. (2008). Jumping to the next level: A qualitative examination of within-career transition in adolescent event riders. Psychology of port & Exercise, 9, 427–447. Reints, A. (2011). Development and validation of a model of career transition and the identification of variables of influence on ending the career among elite athletes. Doctoral dissertation. Brussels, Belgium: Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Rosier, N. (in press). Study into the factors contributing to the continued development of talented and elite youth athletes into elite senior level using a developmental and holistic perspective. Doctoral dissertation. Brussels, Belgium: Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Schinke, R. J. (2014). Adaptation. In R. Eklund & G. Tenenbaum (Eds.), Encyclopedia of sport and exercise psychology (pp. 10–11). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Schlossberg, N. K. (1981). A model for analyzing human adaptation to transition. The Counseling Psychologist, 9, 2–18. Stambulova, N. (2003). Symptoms of a crisis-transition: A grounded theory study. In N. Hassmen (Ed.), SIPF Yearbook 2003 (pp. 97–109). Örebro, Sweden: Örebro University Press. Stambulova, N. (2010). Counseling athletes in career transitions: The five-step career planning strategy. Journal of Sport Psychology in Action, 1, 95–105. Stambulova, N. (2012). Working with athletes in career transitions. In S. Hanton & S. Mellalieu (Eds.), Professional practice in sport psychology: A review (pp. 165–194). London, UK: Routledge. Stambulova, N., & Ryba, T. V. (2014). A critical review of career research and assistance through the cultural lens: Towards cultural praxis of athletes’ careers. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 7, 1–17. Stambulova, N., Alfermann, D., Statler, T., & Côté, J. (2009). ISSP position stand: Career development and transitions of athletes. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 7, 395–412. Stambulova, N., & Wylleman, P. (2014). Athletes’ career development and transitions. In A. Papaioannou & D. Hackfort (Eds.), Routledge companion to sport and exercise psychology. Global perspectives and fundamental concepts – international perspectives on key issues in sport and exercise psychology (pp. 605–620). London: Routledge.

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Stambulova, N., Franck, A., & Weibull, F. (2012). Assessment of the transition from junior-to-senior sports in Swedish athletes. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 10, 79–95. Taylor, J., & Ogilvie, B. C. (1998). Career transition among elite athletes: Is there life after sports? In J. M. Williams (Ed.), Applied sport psychology: Personal growth to peak performance (pp. 429–444). Mountain View, CA: Mayfield. Tekavc, J., Wylleman, P., & Cecić Erpić, S. (2015). Perceptions of dual career development among elite level swimmers and basketball players. Psychology of Sport & Exercise, 21, 27–41. http://dx.doi. org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2015.03.002 Van den Auweele, Y., De Martelaer, K., Rzewnicki, R., De Knop, P., & Wylleman, P. (2004). Parents and coaches: A help or harm? Affective outcomes for children in sport. In Y. Vanden Auweele (Ed.), Ethics in youth sport (pp. 179–193). Leuven, Belgium: Lannoocampus. Webb, W. M., Nasco, S. A., Riley, S., & Headrick, B. (1998). Athlete identity and reactions to retirement from sports. Journal of Sport Behavior, 21, 338–362. Wippert, P-M., & Wippert, J. (2008). Perceived stress and prevalence of traumatic stress symptoms following athletic career termination. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 2, 1–16. Wylleman, P. (1999). A career assistance program for elite and student-athletes, during the Workshop Career Transitions. Copenhagen, Denmark: Olympic Team Denmark, 8 December 1999. Wylleman, P. (2015). Perspectives on psychological interventions in elite and Olympic sport. During the 50th Anniversary ISSP International Seminar “A bridge from the past to the future”. Rome: ISSP – School of Sport-Coni, 20.04. Wylleman, P., & Hendriks, M. (2015). The organisation and provision of performance behaviour support to Dutch Olympic athletes. During the 2015 European Congress of Psychology. Milan: EFPA – University of Milano-Bicacco. Wylleman, P., & Lavallee D. (2004). A developmental perspective on transitions faced by athletes. In M. Weiss (Eds.), Developmental sport and exercise psychology: A lifespan perspective (pp. 507–527). Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology. Wylleman, P., & Reints, A. (2014). Career assistance programs. In R. Eklund & G. Tenenbaum (Eds.), Encyclopedia of sport and exercise psychology (pp. 106–109). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Wylleman, P., Alfermann, D., & Lavallee, D. (2004). Career transitions in perspective. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 5, 7–20. Wylleman, P., De Knop, P., Menkehorst, H., Theeboom, M., & Annerel, J. (1993). “Career termination and social integration among elite athletes”. In S. Serpa, J. Alves, V. Ferreira, & A. Paula-Brito (Eds.), Proceedings of the eighth world congress of sport psychology, Lisbon: International Society of Sport Psychology (pp. 902–906). Lisbon, Portugal: Universidade Técnica de Lisboa. Wylleman, P., De Knop, P., Verdet, M. C., & Cecic-Erpic, S. (2007). Parenting and career transitions of elite athletes. In S. Jowett & D. Lavallee (Eds.), Social psychology in sport (pp. 233–248). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Wylleman, P., Harwood, C. G., Elbe, A.-M., Reints, A., & de Caluwé, D. (2010). A perspective on education and professional development in applied sport psychology. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 10, 435–446. Wylleman, P., Lavallee, D., & Theeboom, M. (2004). Successful athletic careers. In C. Spielberger (Ed.), Encyclopedia of applied psychology. Vol. 3 (pp. 511–517). New York: Elsevier. Wylleman, P., Reints, A., & De Knop, P. (2013a). Athletes’ careers in Belgium. A holistic perspective to understand and alleviate challenges occurring throughout the athletic and post-athletic career. In N. Stambulova & T. Ryba (Eds.), Athletes’ careers across cultures (pp. 31–42). New York: Routledge. Wylleman, P., Reints, A., & De Knop, P. (2013b). A developmental and holistic perspective on athletic career development. In P. Sotiaradou & V. De Bosscher (Eds.), Managing high performance sport (pp. 159–182). New York: Routledge. Wylleman, P., Reints, A., & Van Aken, S. (2012). Athletes’ perceptions of multilevel changes related to competing at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 13, 687–692.

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12 A DA P TAT IO N , S T R E S S A N D C O P I N G I N SP O RT Adam R. Nicholls

Adaptation, which was mentioned within the domain of stress and coping research by Lazarus (1991), refers to the way in which people change according to the world that they live in. Within the context of stress, adaptation can be defined as the way a person reacts to and copes with stresses that change across the lifespan. Lazarus argued that it is not possible to examine constructs such as stress and coping without viewing how people adapt in their lives. As such, it was argued that understanding and considering human thought is crucial. This argument shaped Lazarus’ relational approach to measuring stress and coping. In this chapter, I outline the relational approach to stress and coping, which is the dominant theoretical framework in the sport literature (Nicholls, Perry, & Calmeiro, 2014). I also consider sport specific research in regards to stressors, appraisals, qualitative coping research, and quantitative research. The chapter is concluded with ideas regarding how the field of stress and coping can be advanced.

The relational approach to stress and coping According to Lazarus (1999), defining stress has been a very contentious issue within the psychology literature for many years. Aldwin (2007) defined stress as “the quality of experience, produced through a person-environment transaction, that, through either over-arousal or under-arousal results in psychological or physiological distress” (Aldwin, p. 24). Stressors refer to the life events that “generate stress in those exposed to them” (Lazarus, 1991, p. 126). The relational approach to stress combines both the stimuli and responses to a situation. Initially, researchers focused on life events that caused distressed reactions, referred to as a stimulus approach (Lazarus, 1999). Researchers also examined how people responded to different demands, known as the response approach. Lazarus argued that the stimulus approaches do not allow researchers to assess how the person is affected by stress and the response approaches do not illustrate what has caused stress. Lazarus argued that separating these approaches makes little sense. As such, the relational approach to stress considers the person and how he or she reacts to stress and the environment that he or she is in. Lazarus referred to this as the person-environment relationship, in the sense it involves a comparison of the weight of the environment to harm, threaten, or challenge the person compared to the psychological demands of the person to manage such harm, threat, or 119

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challenges. Indeed, a person makes an evaluation of the situation he or she is in and the consequences of this situation for their personal goals and goal intentions, which is known as primary appraisal. According to Lazarus (1999), encounters can be appraised as being: (a) irrelevant and therefore having no implication for well-being, (b) benign-positive and therefore enhancing well-being, or (c) stressful, which refers to when a situation might cause harm. If a situation has been appraised as being stressful the individual will appraise either a harm/loss (e.g., damage that has already occurred), threat (e.g., concerns about losses in the future), or challenge (e.g., when a person focuses on the gains that might arise from a stressful situation). Individuals will also evaluate what they can do to manage stressful encounters and the possible outcome of different coping options, which is known as secondary appraisal (Lazarus, 1999). Secondary appraisal is not coping per se, but an evaluation of the coping options available. Coping has been defined as “constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person” (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984, p. 141). Lazarus and Folkman classified coping within either the problem- or emotion-focused dimension. Problem-focused coping refers to strategies to manage or alter the problem that is causing stress. Alternatively, emotion-focused coping involves all coping strategies that regulate emotional responses to stress. Compas, Connor-Smith, Compas, Wadsworth, Harding Thomsen, and Saltzman (2001) provided another classification of coping, and classified coping strategies within three higher-order dimensions. These are known as: (a) task-oriented, (b) distraction-oriented, (c) and disengagement-oriented dimensions of coping. Task-oriented coping refers to strategies in which the athlete engages in order to change or master elements of the stressful situation (Gaudreau & Blondin, 2004). Distraction-oriented coping strategies direct the attention of the athlete to unrelated aspects of what they are doing. Disengagement-oriented coping relate to athletes ceasing in their attempts to attain personal goals. Both problem- and emotionfocused, and task-, distraction- and disengagement-oriented coping classifications are used widely in the sport psychology literature.

Stressors in sport Initially, researchers from the sport psychology literature were engaged in attempts to examine the stressors encountered by athletes. With a sample of U.S. Olympic wrestlers, Gould, Eklund, and Jackson (1993) reported that these athletes experienced a vast number of stressors via interviews. There were similar findings among professional Australian Rules football players (Noblet & Gifford, 2002) and professional rugby league players (Anshel, 2001). These scholars reported that the stressors encountered related to errors, opponents, referees, and experiencing pain. More recent research, utilizing longitudinal diary designs, revealed that although athletes may experience a variety of stressors, a small number of stressors occurred much more frequently. Nicholls, Holt, Polman, and James (2005), who used a daily diary methodology over a 31-day period, among a sample of 11 Welsh international adolescent golfers, found that four stressors (physical errors, mental errors, opponents playing well, and the weather conditions) comprised over 75 percent of all stressors reported across the 31 days of the study. Furthermore, the players reported more stressors during the times that coincided with the most important competition. The finding that few stressors are experienced frequently by athletes has been reported by other scholars. Nicholls, Holt, Polman, and Bloomfield (2006), for example, reported that the most frequently cited stressors in their sample of professional rugby union players were 120

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injuries, mental errors, and physical errors, which accounted for 44 percent of all stressors reported. Furthermore, Nicholls, Jones, Polman, and Borkoles (2009) found physical errors, mental errors, and injuries accounted for 70 percent of all reported stressors. The results of the longitudinal studies infer that athletes will experience a small number of stressors that recur over time.

Appraisal in sport Uphill and Jones (2007) explored how different appraisals generated diverse emotional responses among 12 international athletes. These authors found that different appraisals generated a range of both positively (e.g., happiness, pride, and joy) and negatively toned (e.g., anger, anxiety, and guilt) emotions among these athletes. However, the authors did not report the type of primary appraisal. That is, Uphill and Jones did not state whether the appraisals in their study were harm, threat, challenge, or benefit. Once such study that examined whether stressors were appraised as being harm/loss, threatening, or a challenge was by Didymus and Fletcher (2012). These authors found that the same stressors could be appraised as a threat, harm/loss, or a challenge in different situations. Most of the organizational stressors were reported as a threat, but the same stressors could be appraised differently across different scenarios. Thatcher and Day (2008) qualitatively explored the underlying properties of stress appraisals, originally proposed by Lazarus and Folkman (1984), among a sample of trampolinists. The underlying properties of stress appraisals include novelty (i.e., situations that have not been experienced before), predictability (i.e., expectancies no longer met), event uncertainty (i.e., whether a particular even will occur), imminence (i.e., anticipation before event occurs), duration (i.e., length of event), temporal uncertainty (i.e., when the event will occur), ambiguity (i.e., when information in the event needed for an appraisal is unclear), and timing of events in relation to life-cycle (i.e., events occurring at same time as other stressful events). Thatcher and Day provided support for these appraisals and also identified two additional situational properties of appraisals, self and other comparison (i.e., performing better than opponent) and inadequate preparation (i.e., not preparing correctly). According to Lazarus (1999), appraisals are thought to shape the emotional responses of athletes. Nicholls, Levy, Jones, Rengamani, and Polman (2011) examined the emotions generated after appraisals of loss1 and gain.2 Eleven professional rugby union players were interviewed regarding stressful encounters that had been appraised as losses and encounters that had been appraised as gains. Interestingly, encounters that were appraised by the players as losses were more likely to generate unpleasant emotions (e.g., anxiety or anger), whereas gain appraisals were more likely to generate pleasant emotions (e.g., happiness and hope). In addition to appraisals being related to psychological well-being through generating different emotions (e.g., Nicholls et al., 2011), other research has found that appraisals are related to performance. Moore, Vine, Wilson, and Freeman (2012) examined the relationship between threat and challenge appraisals with performance. Similar to Nicholls et al., challenge appraisals were associated with more pleasant emotions. Individuals in the challenge group also performed more successfully than those in the threat group on a putting performance task. From an applied perspective, teaching athletes to appraise stressful events as challenging has the potential to generate pleasant emotions and maximize sport performance.

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Coping in sport The number of coping papers in the sport psychology literature has increased significantly over recent years. A systematic review by Nicholls and Polman (2007) revealed that between 1988 and 2004 there were 64 papers published on coping among athletes. A search on SportDiscus in December 2013 revealed that from January 2005 to December 2013 there were 130 papers published on coping, which utilized qualitative and quantitative methods. With regards to qualitative coping research, scholars attempted to explore the experiences of how athletes coped with stress.

Qualitative research One of the first papers to qualitatively explore coping was by Gould, Eklund and Jackson (1993) who interviewed U.S. wrestlers regarding their experiences of coping during the 1988 Olympic Games. They found that the wrestlers used a variety of coping strategies that were classified as thought control (e.g., blocking distractions), task focus strategies (e.g., concentrating on goals), behavioral based strategies (e.g., following routine), and emotional control strategies (e.g., visualization). This was an important study in the sport literature, because the authors examined a construct that had tended only to be explored in mainstream psychology literature. As such, it paved the way for qualitative research in the sport psychology literature, although it was several years before the influx of qualitative coping research began. Scholars from the sport psychology literature, who conduct qualitative research, have tended to describe how athletes in different sports cope with stress. For example, Holt and Hogg (2002) explored how female soccer players coped with stress during preparations for the 1999 World Cup finals. The soccer players used a variety of coping strategies such reappraisal (e.g., changing how a situation is evaluated, such as “it is not the end of the world if I lose today, I have many more competitions”), seeking support from friends and family, and blocking negative thoughts. Another study that examined coping was by Park (2000), who interviewed 180 Korean athletes regarding their experiences of coping during sport. Park classified coping within seven dimensions: substance abuse, prayer, social support, hobbies, relaxation, training, and strategies in training. Giacobbi, Foore and Weinberg (2004) interviewed recreational golfers regarding their experiences of coping and classified coping as emotion-focused coping, avoidance coping, golf course strategies, off course efforts, relaxation techniques, and cognitive coping. These studies have been particularly important for allowing researchers to understand how athletes cope with stress. However, research findings indicate that there are many commonalities regarding how athletes who participate in different sports cope. In order to progress the literature, researchers then started to examine the effectiveness of coping using qualitative methodologies. The purpose of coping is to alleviate stress, so when coping is effective stress will be low, but when coping is ineffective stress levels will be high (Lazarus, 1999). Nicholls, Holt, Polman and James (2005) interviewed 18 Irish international adolescent golfers regarding their coping effectiveness experiences in competitive golf. These authors found that effective coping experiences were associated with control, and in particular cognitive, behavioral, and emotional control. Each element of control was linked to particular strategies. The golfers appeared to obtain cognitive control by engaging in strategies such as blocking negative thoughts and positive self-talk. Behavioral control was achieved by engaging in a pre-shot routine, and emotional control was realized through strategies such as breathing exercises and seeking oncourse support from a caddie. Conversely, ineffective coping experiences were associated with 122

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the golfers being unable to exert any control. Coping strategies that were deemed ineffective included the golfers trying too hard, making routine changes, dwelling on negative thoughts and speeding up their play. There were also instances in which players did not attempt to cope. In a follow up to this study, Nicholls (2007) longitudinally assessed coping effectiveness among a sample of five Scottish international adolescent golfers to ascertain whether the effectiveness of coping strategies fluctuated. The paper by Nicholls et al. (2005) inferred that certain coping strategies are effective, whereas other strategies were ineffective. However, Lazarus (1999) suggested that there is no such thing as an effective or ineffective coping strategy. The most accurate way to assess fluctuations in coping effectiveness is to assess it longitudinally. Interestingly, Nicholls found that a coping strategy could be both effective and ineffective for the same player on different days, when coping with same stressor, and even within the same competition. For example, blocking negative thoughts was reported as being both an effective and ineffective coping strategy for managing opponent stressors. Holt, Berg and Tamminen (2007) reported that players coped more effectively when the coping strategies they used were the same as those that they anticipated using. The older and more experienced players reported that they coped more effectively than the younger and inexperienced players. As such, it appears that the effectiveness of coping may fluctuate, and one factor that might influence this is whether an athlete copes the same way he or she anticipated. Maximizing coping effectiveness appears to be crucial to performance. Nieuwenhuys, Vos, Pijpstra and Bakker (2011) reported that in athletes’ good competitions, the ratio of successful coping strategies was higher, in comparison to bad competitions. Coping was also perceived to be more effective in the athletes’ good competitions. Researchers have also explored coping qualitatively in different circumstances that athletes encounter. Carson and Polman (2010) interviewed professional rugby players regarding their use of coping when injured. The rugby players reported using coping strategies such as physical preparation, psychological preparation, and seeking social support before returning to competition after an anterior cruciate ligament injury. After returning to competition they used a variety of problem-focused, social support, and managing fears coping strategies. In a somewhat related study, Levy, Polman, Nicholls, and Marchant (2009) found that in order for athletes to cope with the stressors associated with being on a pre-scribed rehabilitation program, they coped in combination and used strategies such as seeking advice and wishful thinking. Finn and McKenna (2010) interviewed coaches regarding their perceptions of the factors that determine whether an athlete will make the transition from academy to first team. The coaches believed that meaning-focused coping (e.g., coping after an unfavorable outcome to generate positive emotions, maintain coping efforts, or re-evaluate initial appraisals) was an important strategy in helping athletes make the transition from an academy to a first team. It could be inferred from these studies that under different circumstances, different coping strategies will be more effective than others. This supports Lazarus’ (1999) contention that coping is situation specific. Qualitative research techniques have also been used to examine how athletes of different ages in an F.A. Premier League Academy cope (Reeves, Nicholls, & Mckenna, 2009). The middle adolescents (15–18 years) seemed to have a greater coping repertoire than the early adolescents. (12–14 years). These differences in coping might have been due to learning experiences. Tamminen and Holt (2012) reported that learning how to cope was reflected in the athletes’ experiences, through trial and error, reflective practice, and the outcomes of coping. The development and therefore adaptation of coping was enhanced when the athletes reflected on the situations they had been in. It appeared that both parents and coaches influenced adaptations in coping. 123

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Quantitative research Similar to the evolvement in qualitative research, scholars conducting quantitative research have moved beyond reporting how athletes who participate in different sports cope. Nicholls, Polman, Levy, Taylor, and Cobley (2007), for example, explored gender, sport type, and skill level differences in coping. These authors found differences in relation to gender, sport type, and skill level differences among the 749 athletes. Lazarus (1999) argued that coping is a process that changes across different situations and even within the same situation. To this end, some researchers have explored how coping responses change across different competitions. Crocker and Isaak (1997) examined coping during training and competitions among a sample of 25 regional level swimmers, reporting that the swimmers changed how they coped in competitions, but not in training. Louvet, Gaudreau, Menaut, Genty, and Deneuve (2007) examined coping across different soccer matches among a sample of 107 players. Interestingly, mean-level effects suggested that the athletes did not change how they coped. However, the low-to-moderate rank-order stability revealed that some athletes did change how they coped across different competitions. The majority of athletes did not change how they coped, but there are subgroups who did change how they coped. In a study with 329 referees, Louvet, Gaudreau, Menaut, Genty, and Deneuve (2009) reported that coping changed for some of the referees across the season, but for others coping remained stable. This finding therefore provides some support for both process and trait conceptualizations of coping. Most did not alter in their use of problemfocused coping. There were two subgroups, however, that increased or decreased their use of this strategy. Nicolas and Jebrane (2009) examined how coping changed across a sixmonth study with a sample of 34 athletes. Coping strategies appeared to change across the six-month study. However, defense mechanisms were consistent throughout the study and across time. Overall, how coping is measured influences the conclusions that researchers come to. However, it appears that there are fluctuations in coping, although for the majority of athletes coping remains stable if researchers measure low-to-medium rank-order stability as opposed to mean-level effects. Nevertheless, those who change the way they cope provide evidence of adapting to stressful encounters. In addition to researchers assessing how coping may change across competitions, and therefore adaptation, scholars have also assessed the influence of maturation on coping. Compas et al. (2001) theorized that coping is influenced by biological, emotional, cognitive, and social maturity. In order to test this hypothesis, Nicholls, Polman, Morley, and Taylor (2009) examined the relationship between coping and biological maturity among 527 adolescent athletes. There were pubertal status group and chronological age differences in coping and coping effectiveness. Male athletes reported that mental imagery, relaxation, logical analysis, and venting emotions corresponded to what they did to cope more than females. In a follow up study, Nicholls, Perry, Jones, Morley, and Carson (2013) examined the relationship between coping and cognitive-social maturity. In total, 245 adolescent athletes completed measures of coping, coping effectiveness, and cognitive-social maturity. The results indicated that coping was associated with cognitive maturity. In particular, conscientiousness was related positively to task-oriented coping, but negatively with disengagement-oriented coping.

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Moving the field forward Participating in sport can be stressful and athletes can appraise situations differently. It appears that some athletes may even appraise the same stressors differently too (Nicholls & Levy, 2015). Coping is an adaptation strategy that enables athletes to manage stressors throughout their life. Research has illustrated how people adapt to stress, with Nicholls and colleagues (Nicholls et al., 2009, 2013) inferring that athletes of different maturity levels reporting different coping strategies. In order for the literature to progress, researchers could continue examining factors that are related to coping and coping effectiveness. Exploring factors such as maturation and how athletes cope in different contexts, such as when they are injured or trying to progress from academy to first teams could make important contributions to the literature. Understanding more about the factors that influence coping will enable researchers to develop more effective interventions. Furthermore, utilizing different methodologies to assess coping may facilitate a deeper understanding of this construct. For example, the dominant methodology in the qualitative coping literature is interviews. There are many other methods that could be used such as think aloud protocols, audio diaries, and auto ethnographies. The quantitative research in coping features mainly questionnaires. Given that coping is mainly a cognitive structure, an element of self-report is necessary, researchers could use other markers to support coping data such as biological markers (i.e., cortisol, blood pressure, or heart-rate).

Notes 1 Harm/loss and threat appraisals can be collectively referred to as loss appraisals. Harm/loss relates to damage that has already occurred, whereas threat refers to future damage. 2 Challenge and benefit appraisals can be referred to as gain appraisals, with challenge referring to anticipated gains and benefit relating to gains that have already occurred.

References Aldwin, C. M. (2007). Stress, coping and development: An integrative perspective (2nd Ed.). New York: Guilford Press. Anshel, M. H. (2001). Qualitative validation of a model for coping with acute stress in sport. Journal of Sport Behavior, 24, 223–246. Carson, F., & Polman, R. C. J. (2010). The facilitative nature of avoidance coping within sports injury rehabilitation. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 20, 235–240. Compas, B. E., Connor-Smith, J. K., Saltzman, H., Harding Thomsen, A., & Wadsworth, M. E. (2001). Coping with stress during childhood and adolescence: Problems, progress, and potential in theory and research. Psychological Bulletin, 12, 87–127. Crocker, P. R. E., & Isaak, K. (1997). Coping during competitions and training sessions: Are youth swimmers consistent? International Journal of Sport Psychology, 28, 355–369. Didymus, F. F., & Fletcher, D. (2012). Getting to the heart of the matter: A diary study of swimmers’ appraisals of organisational stressors. Journal of Sports Sciences, 20, 1–12. Finn, J., & McKenna, J. (2010). Coping with academy-to-first-team transitions in elite English male team sports: The coaches’ perspective. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 5, 257–279. Gaudreau, P., & Blondin, J-P. (2004). Different athletes cope differently during sport competition: A cluster analysis of coping. Personality and Individual Differences, 36, 1865–1877. Giacobbi, P. R., Foore, B., & Weinberg, R. S. (2004). Broken clubs and expletives: The sources of stress and coping responses of skilled and moderately skilled golfers. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 16, 166 –182. doi: 10.1080/10413200490437688 Gould, D., Eklund, R. C., & Jackson, S. A. (1993). Coping strategies used by US Olympic Wrestlers. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 64, 83–93.

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Holt, N. L., & Hogg, J. M. (2002). Perceptions of stress and coping during preparations for the 1999 women’s soccer world cup finals. The Sport Psychologist, 16, 251–271. Holt, N. L., Berg, K-J., & Tamminen, K. A. (2007). Tales of the unexpected: Coping among female collegiate volleyball players. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 78, 117–132. Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Emotion and adaptation. New York: Oxford University Press. Lazarus, R. S. (1999). Stress and emotion: A new synthesis. New York: Springer. Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal and coping. New York: Springer. Levy, A. R., Polman, R. C. J., Nicholls, A. R., & Marchant, D. C. (2009). Sport injury rehabilitation adherence: Perspectives of recreational athletes. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 7, 212–229. Louvet, B., Gaudreau, P., Menaut, A., Genty, J., & Deneuve, P. (2007). Longitudinal patterns of stability and change in coping across three competitions: A latent class growth analysis. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 29, 100–117. Retrieved from http://www.journals.humankinetics.com/jsep Louvet, B., Gaudreau, P., Menaut, A., Genty, J., & Deneuve, P. (2009). Revisiting the changing and stable properties of coping utilization using latent class growth analysis: A longitudinal investigation with soccer referees. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 10, 124–135. Moore, L. J., Vine, S. J., Wilson, M. R., & Freeman, P. (2012). The effect of challenge and threat states on performance: An examination of potential mechanisms. Psychophysiology, 49, 1417–1425. Noblet, A. J., & Gifford, S. M. (2002). The sources of stress experienced by professional Australian footballers. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 14, 1–13. Nicholls, A. R. (2007). A longitudinal phenomenological analysis of coping effectiveness among Scottish international adolescent golfers. European Journal of Sport Science, 7, 169–178. Nicholls, A. R., & Levy, A. R. (2015). The road to London 2012: The lived stressor, emotion, and coping experiences of gymnasts preparing for and competing at the World Championships. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology. doi: 10.1080/1612197X.2015.1020664 Nicholls, A. R., & Polman, R. C. J. (2007). Coping in sport: a systematic review. Journal of Sports Sciences, 25, 11–31. Nicholls, A. R., Holt, N. L., Polman, R. C. J., & Bloomfield, J. (2006). Stressors, coping, and coping effectiveness among professional rugby union players. The Sport Psychologist, 20, 314–329. Retrieved from http://www.journals.humankinetics.com/tsp Nicholls, A. R., Holt, N. L., Polman, R. J. C., & James, D. W. G. (2005). Stress and coping among international adolescent golfers. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 17, 333–340. Nicholls, A. R., Jones, C. R., Polman, R. C. J., & Borkoles, E. (2009). Stressors, coping, and emotion among professional rugby union players during training and matches. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 19, 113–120. Nicholls, A. R., Levy, A. R., Jones, L., Rengamani, M., & Polman, R. C. J. (2011). An exploration of the two-factor schematization of relational meaning and emotions among professional rugby union players. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 9, 78–91. Nicholls, A. R., Perry, J. P., & Calmeiro, L. (2014). Pre-competitive achievement goals, appraisal, emotions, and coping in sport: A structural equation model. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 36, 433–445. Nicholls, A. R., Perry, J. L., Jones, L., Morley, D., & Carson, F. (2013). Dispositional coping, coping effectiveness, and cognitive-social maturity among adolescent athletes. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 35, 229–238. Retrieved from http://www.journals.humankinetics.com/jsep Nicholls, A. R., Polman, R. C. J., Levy, A. R., Taylor, J. A., & Cobley, S. P. (2007). Stressors, coping, and coping effectiveness: Gender, sport type, and skill differences. Journal of Sports Sciences, 25, 1521– 1530. Nicholls, A. R., Polman, R. C. J., Morley, D., & Taylor, N. (2009). Coping and coping effectiveness in relation to a competitive sport event: Pubertal status, chronological age, and gender among adolescent athletes. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 31, 299–317. Retrieved from http://www. journals.humankinetics.com/jsep Nicolas, M., & Jebrane, A. (2009). Consistence of coping strategies and defense mechanisms during training sessions and sport competitions. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 40, 229–249. Retrieved from: http://www.ijsp-online.com/ Nieuwenhuys, A., Vos, L., Pijpstra, S., & Bakker, F. C. (2011). Meta experiences and coping effectiveness in sport. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 12, 135–143. Park, J.-K. (2000). Coping strategies used by Korean national athletes. The Sport Psychologist, 14, 63–80.

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Reeves, C. W., Nicholls, A. R., & McKenna, J. (2009). Stressors and coping strategies among early and middle adolescent premier league academy soccer players: Differences according to age. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 21, 31–48. Tamminen, K. A., & Holt, N. L. (2012). Adolescent athletes’ learning about coping and the roles of parents and coaches. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 13, 69–79. Thatcher, J., & Day, M. C. (2008). Re-appraising stress appraisals: The underlying properties of stress in sport. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 9, 318–336. Uphill, M. A., & Jones, M. V. (2007). The antecedents of emotions in elite athletes. Research Quarterly for Sport and Exercise, 78, 79–89.

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13 AT H L E T E D EV E L O P M E N T Jean Côté and Karl Erickson

If we are to design successful sport programs that promote athletes’ development we must agree first on what constitutes “development” in sport and then consider the integrative temporal and relational variables that lead to successful development. The first section of this chapter will offer a conceptualization of the outcomes that should result from successful development in sport and through sport, along with the personal assets that are likely to lead to these positive outcomes. The second section will discuss the importance of three process-related variables that have consistently been associated with positive development in sport: activities, relationships, and settings. The third section of the chapter will link the outcomes of sport to the processes of development that should be integrated into successful sport programs for youth. The Personal Assets Framework for Sport will finally be presented as an integrative theoretical and practical structure to provide directions that maximize development in sport for all participants.

Outcomes and personal assets Côté and Hancock (2014) recently suggested that the long-term outcomes of performance, participation, and personal development (3 Ps) are all important aspects of youth sport involvement. From a human development perspective, the outcomes of performance (i.e., sport expertise), participation (i.e., continued participation in sport and a physically active lifestyle), and personal development (i.e., psychosocial and emotional) that can result from sport involvement constitute three objectives that can positively and significantly impact the life of children, youth, and adults. To contribute to the 3 Ps, youth sport programs must focus on the immediate personal assets of youth and the processes through which they are developed, and avoid prioritizing any one of the Ps at the cost of the others (e.g., performance over participation and personal development) – especially during childhood. We argue that youth sport programs can best facilitate the 3 Ps’ outcomes in the longer-term by focusing on the assets (and related processes) that comprise quality youth sport experiences in the immediate time frame. In other words, long-term positive developmental change is dependent on the micro time-scale processes of asset-building daily experience. It appears that sport programs that focus on the 128

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personal assets of youth may increase the scope of developmental benefits associated with youth sport involvement, while also limiting potential costs of being involved in relatively poorer developmental context (Côté, Vierimaa, & Turnnidge, in press; Larson, 2000). Addressing these personal assets, theoretical frameworks such as Lerner’s 5 Cs (e.g., competence, confidence, connection, compassion, and character) model have been used in sport research to examine youth development through sport (Holt, 2008). In reviewing the extant sport and PYD literature, Côté, Bruner, Strachan, Erickson, and Fraser-Thomas (2010) proposed an adaptation of the 5 Cs specifically for studying development in the sport context. This revised framework integrates caring and compassion with character due to the similarity and overlap among these constructs within the sport literature, resulting in a 4 Cs framework – Competence (i.e., sport-specific skill), Confidence (i.e., perceptions of self-worth and efficacy in sport), Connection (i.e., positive bonds with people and institutions), and Character (i.e., moral/ethical development and empathic understanding). Further reviews reveal that, for sport programs and coaching approaches that prioritize the 4 Cs, the ultimate outcomes of performance, participation, and personal development (3 Ps) are more likely to emerge from sport involvement (Côté & Gilbert, 2009; Vierimaa, Erickson, Côté, & Gilbert, 2012).

The interactive elements of development in sport The section above suggests that sport programs and coaches’ intervention tone and patterns of behaviors that focus on youth competence, confidence, connection, and character are more likely to achieve the long-term outcomes of performance, participation, and personal development through sport. It becomes, therefore, important to identify the elements of the sport experience throughout development that are more likely to lead to the growth of personal assets (i.e., 4 Cs) and the achievement of a broad scope of positive outcomes through sport (i.e., 3 Ps). Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system theory (1977, 1999) suggests a system approach to development that is consistent with models of athletes’ development in sport (e.g., Abbott & Collins, 2004; Côté, 1999; Stambulova, 1994; Wylleman & Lavallee, 2004) and the vast amount of youth development research in sport (see Fraser-Thomas, Côté, & Deakin, 2005; Holt, 2008; Holt & Neely, 2011). This system approach to development in sport highlights the changing elements of the personal (e.g., engagement in a practice), social (e.g., interaction with a coach), and physical setting (e.g., field, arena) features of different activities in sport. When a child’s overall development and well-being is considered, many personal and environmental factors interact to affect sport involvement. In this nested system, the activities of youth in sport become the developmental environment that integrates specific social relationships and physical features of the setting. The Developmental Model of Sport Participation (DMSP; Côté, 1999; Côté & Abernethy, 2012) is one example of a nested system that describes the process of development through sport and the achievement of various outcomes. The DMSP emerged from retrospective interviews with athletes and is centered around the activities of play and practice as the catalysts for human development. In the DMSP, the main mechanism of individual-environment interaction is the changing structure of play and practice throughout development. By focusing on the personal, social, and physical setting features of different activities (e.g., play, practice, sampling, specialization) across development, the DMSP suggests that the positive outcomes of sport result from the personal engagement, social relationships, and settings that comprise a play or practice activity in sport (Côté, Strachan, & Fraser-Thomas, 2008). 129

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When combining the features of the DMSP, previous youth sport research, and ecological system theory, we can suggest a set of key elements that should be combined to design and deliver quality youth sport programs that positively impact overall development. These three elements are: (1) personal engagement in activities, (2) quality relationships, and (3) appropriate settings.

Personal engagement in activities Côté, Erickson, and Abernethy (2013) suggested that the developmental activities of youth in sport can be categorized along two continuums; first, the social structure of the activity (adult-led to youth-led) and second, the personal value the activity provides to the participants (extrinsic to intrinsic). When combined, these two continuums form a matrix in which the different activities of youth sport can be located and distinct learning contexts emerge. Accordingly, the prototype activities of deliberate practice, play practice, spontaneous practice, and deliberate play results from quadrants formed by the intersection of these two axes. When a specific prototype (or closely related) activity is promoted in children’s sport, it creates a unique developmental context (Côté & Abernethy, 2012; Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993; Griffin & Butler, 2005; Launder, 2001). For example, an activity such as deliberate practice – prescribed or led by an adult to improve children’s specific skills (i.e., extrinsic value) – creates a “rational” developmental context because of the systematic and outcome-oriented nature of this activity. Adults can also create a more “emotional” developmental context by focusing on the intrinsic nature of a sport activity such as practice play or teaching games for understanding designed to be fun and enjoyable. On the other hand, youth-led activities can be divided into two general developmental contexts. Deliberate play activities (e.g., backyard soccer with friends) produce a “creative” developmental context by removing most of the external constraints imposed by adults and by establishing a context that minimizes the outcome of performance. Finally, when children engage in spontaneous practice (i.e., self-directed skill acquisition), they immerse themselves in an “informal” developmental context that maintains the low external pressure of minimal adult input but is directed towards specific skill development. The social and environmental milieus created by the developmental contexts in which deliberate play, spontaneous practice, play practice, and deliberate practice take place are qualitatively different, as are the resultant learning and motivational outcomes. Each facilitates unique interactions between the developing youth and his/her physical and social environment, thus differentiating the nature of the proximal processes driving the growth of personal assets within each developmental context. Therefore, a diversity of sport activities during childhood allows young athletes to experience a range of opportunities and then select (or be selected to) a specific path during adolescence, entering either the recreational years or the specializing years of the DMSP. Supporting this notion, empirical evidence from the general youth development literature (e.g., Fredericks & Eccles, 2006; Rose-Krasnor, Busseri, Willoughby, & Chalmers, 2006) suggests that a breadth of experiences in early development is an indicator of continued involvement in more intense activities later in life and of successful development. However, in order to fully understand the contribution of exposure to diverse sport activities during development, continued research on the specific developmental opportunities and proximal processes afforded by these diverse activity types and how they integrate into an overall developmental effect is still needed. 130

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Quality relationships Integrated within the different activities of sport, athlete development is also critically shaped by the interpersonal relationships formed within sport environments (e.g., peers, coaches, parents, etc.). In fact, the study of youth development more generally has highlighted the central role of interpersonal relationships as key drivers of individual development (Lerner, 2004). Among the varied interpersonal relationships occurring in youth sport contexts, coach–athlete relationships are perhaps the most amenable to intervention at the program level. Of particular interest with respect to athlete development are the qualities of coach– athlete relationships that best promote positive developmental assets (i.e., the Cs) and thus the more distal 3 Ps outcomes. Indeed, Côté and Gilbert (2009) proposed a definition of coaching effectiveness that is explicitly grounded on the degree to which coaches are able to facilitate positive change in their athletes as defined by the Cs. Working from a variety of theoretical perspectives, many researchers have examined what makes some coach–athlete relationships more effective in this regard than others. While certainly not an exhaustive list, a number of specific elements of coach–athlete relationships have thus been linked to the Cs or similar developmental outcomes for athletes. Beginning in the 1970s with the pioneering work of Smith, Smoll, and colleagues (e.g., Curtis, Smith, & Smoll, 1979; Smith, Zane, Smoll, & Coppel, 1983), much research has focused on the actual interactive behaviors of effective youth sport coaches. The combined results of this line of work (see review by Erickson & Gilbert, 2013) highlight the critical role of sufficient and appropriate instruction, high levels of supportive behavior (e.g., positive reinforcement, encouragement, etc.), and low levels of punishment or punitive-oriented behaviors in promoting a range of positive athlete outcomes. More recent work has begun to suggest that higher-order qualities of coach–athlete behavioral interactions, in addition to their specific content, may also influence the developmental experience of young athletes. For example, consistent and predictable interaction patterns, tailored to individual athletes, that are appropriately linked to the situation in which they are expressed (e.g., game score; Smith, Shoda, Cumming, & Smoll, 2009) and include a high degree of interactivity between athlete and coach (i.e., mutual input) have been linked to indicators of PYD and positive outcomes (Erickson, Côté, Hollenstein, & Deakin, 2011; Turnnidge, Côté, Hollenstein, & Deakin, 2014). Another substantial body of research has examined coaches’ social influence on youth athlete development from a motivational perspective. This work has been primarily informed by two general theories of motivation: self-determination theory (SDT: Deci & Ryan, 2002) and achievement goal theory (AGT: Nicholls, 1984). Within SDT-based youth sport research, the degree to which coaches encourage the autonomy and volitional control of their athletes is theorized as a prime determinant of athletes’ self-regulated or intrinsic motivation for sport. This autonomy-supportive coaching, as manifested through a variety of strategies such as offering choice, providing rationale for coach decisions, or acknowledging athletes’ feelings and perspectives (Mageau & Vallerand, 2003) has been associated with a range of positive psychosocial outcomes for developing athletes (Ntoumanis, 2012). Similarly, AGT posits that the motivational climate of any sport setting (mastery- or ego-oriented) is heavily influenced by the evaluative feedback provided by coaches; with learning-, improvement- and effort-focused feedback creating a more mastery-oriented climate. In contrast, comparative and competitive outcome-focused feedback creates a more ego-oriented climate. More mastery-oriented coach-created motivational climates have been consistently linked with more positive athlete outcomes in youth sport (Roberts, 2012). 131

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In addition to the behavioral and motivational approaches noted above, a number of researchers working within the PYD paradigm have examined effective youth sport coaching with a more inductive qualitative approach (e.g., Camiré, Forneris, Trudel, & Bernard, 2011; Flett, Gould, Griffes, & Lauer, 2013; Gould, Collins, Lauer, & Chung, 2007). This body of work highlights the positive influence of coaches who actively foster close, caring, and supportive personal relationships with their athletes and who integrate these personal and relational elements into their performance development strategies. Indeed, the views of developing athletes and effective youth sport coaches jointly prioritize the importance of coach–athlete relationship quality, a finding reinforced by similarly informed quantitative studies (e.g., Gould & Carson, 2010). While these findings may initially seem like a disparate collection of unrelated “thingsto-do” for coaches, we might think of them with respect to what they have in common, under a unified framework. The notion of transformational leadership may provide just such an integrative framework (Bass, 1997). In essence, transformational leaders (coaches in this case) view their relationships with athletes as real human relationships, rather than simply ongoing transactions to produce specific behaviors. The goal of these relationships, from a transformational perspective, is to facilitate athletes’ personal growth and flourishing, and to help athletes learn to take responsibility for and maximize their own development; a view that epitomizes a developmental approach in sport. Transformational leadership is typically conceptualized using four interacting elements: intellectual stimulation, idealized influence, inspirational motivation, and individualized consideration. While addressing different features of the coach–athlete relationship, all four are thought to interact to contribute to the overall transformational effect. Reflecting on the qualities of effective coach–athlete relationships reviewed earlier, one might be able to roughly group most of the tangible implications from across the different theoretical and research approaches under these four elements of transformational leadership. Early work in youth sport using a transformational leadership conceptualization of effective coaching (Charbonneau, Barling, & Kelloway, 2001; Vella, Oades, & Crowe, 2013a, 2013b) supports this convergence, providing evidence that transformational coaching is linked to similar positive developmental outcomes, compared to the varied qualities of effective coach–athlete relationships highlighted above. Researchers might look to extend this preliminary work and examine the utility of the transformational leadership framework as a parsimonious conceptualization of the relational processes of positive athlete development.

Appropriate settings Bronfenbrenner’s (1999) ecological theory and Barker’s (1968) behavior setting theory offer the theoretical ground that highlights the importance of the physical environment as one element of the interactive system that influences an individual’s overall development. Although the physical setting in which sport activities are taking place is closely associated with the type of relationships that will be displayed in that setting, it is still important to distinguish the unique impact of these two independent elements. Therefore, we will discuss “appropriate settings” as the physical environment in which sport is taking place independent of the “quality relationships” or the “personal engagement in activities” discussed in the previous sections. In other words, the “appropriate settings” element of our developing model focus on the physical dimensions of the environment that is similar to Barker’s specific set of time, place, and objects or Bronfenbrenner’s macrosystem (in which the developing individuals and his/her actions are embedded). 132

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In sport research, Carlson (1988) used Bronfenbrenner’s ecological approach to conduct an innovative study of elite tennis players in Sweden. Accordingly, Carlson highlighted the importance of the interaction between athletes and their place of development as an important determinant of talent development and participation in sport. Following this study, researchers have continued to examine the dynamic of larger sport systems such as successful university sport programs (e.g., Vallée & Bloom, 2005) and sporting clubs (e.g., Henriksen, Stambulova, & Roessler, 2010a, 2010b, 2011). These studies highlight several features of ecological settings that contribute to athletes’ performances and participation including, among others, the importance of proximal role models, training that allows for diversification, and positive coach–athletes relationships. While sporting structures such as sport clubs and universities have an integral role in athletic talent development, they describe “closed environments” specifically designed for the development of athletes. A line of studies has examined the features of larger systems such as communities and cities that are consistently associated with athletes’ performance, participation, and personal development in sport (e.g., Balish & Côté, 2014; Côté, MacDonald, Baker, & Abernethy, 2006; MacDonald, Cheung, Côté, & Abernethy, 2009; Turnnidge, Hancock, & Côté, 2013). In terms of long-term performance, studies that examine the birthplace of professional athletes in various countries and in different sports (e.g., basketball, baseball, ice hockey) show a strong tendency for elite level athletes to be born in smaller cities than in big urban centers (for a review see MacDonald & Baker, 2013). Although the optimal city size for development differs, at times, across sports and countries (Baker, Schorer, Cobley, Schimmer, & Wattie, 2009), the birthplace effect has a significant influence on how athletes will first be exposed to sports and can ultimately limit or benefit sport performance. In terms of long-term participation, a recent study of over 145,000 young Canadian ice hockey players over a period of seven years showed an association between place of development and long-term commitment to a sport (Turnnidge et al., 2014). This study suggested that the participation rate of young players in smaller cities is significantly higher than expected, whereas participation rate in larger cities is significantly lower than expected. In a follow-up study, Imtiaz, Hancock, Vierimaa, and Côté (2014) examined the dropout rate of 15,565 Canadian youth ice hockey players over a period of seven years. Overall, participation counts were negatively correlated with city size, meaning players from larger cities were more likely to drop out , whereas players from smaller cities were more likely to remain engaged. These findings linking participation rates and city size suggest that sport programs in smaller cities are more conducive towards promoting prolonged participation in sport. Finally, Fraser-Thomas, Côté, and MacDonald (2010) explored the relationships between city size and personal development in a sample of swimmers. Their findings indicated that swimmers who were part of clubs in smaller cities (less than 500,000) scored significantly higher on indicators of personal development such as commitment to learning, positive identity, empowerment, and support, than swimmers who trained in cities with larger populations (greater than 500,000). These findings suggest that city size may not only influence performance and participation but also personal development. Athletes in smaller cities appear to gain more positive assets from participating in sport than athletes in bigger cities. These findings show that small communities and cities appear to contain a set of unique features related to the physical environment that are conducive to athletes’ optimal development in sport. It is likely that the physical setting of smaller communities has an immediate and positive influence on youth sport participants’ level of competence, 133

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confidence, connection, and character that eventually leads to long-term positive outcomes. For example, smaller communities provide children with more space for unorganized physical activity behaviors such as cycling, running, skating, and playing sports with peers (Balish & Côté, 2014; Kyttä, 2002). Balish and Côté (2014) recently showed that the intimate nature of a smaller community facilitates access to sport facilities and promotes engagement from youth and their families. Furthermore, the proximity of school, playing fields, and gymnasiums promote a network of connections between people (i.e., coaches, teachers, parents). These connections, in turn, enable the transmission of common positive social norms (i.e., character) between different activities (e.g., school, sport, and family). Under such circumstances, young athletes appear to be more likely to develop competence and confidence in their ability and acquire the necessary motivation for sustained involvement in sport. Smaller sport settings that are centered around individuals’ personal assets (competence, confidence, connection, and character) appear to successfully lead to the integrated long-term positive outcomes of sport involvement. While the reviewed research provides convincing evidence of the significant differential effects of settings, such as small vs. large communities, on athlete development, the challenge moving forward will be to appropriately adapt and implement these lessons learned across all diverse settings (i.e., programs and communities) to optimize the developmental opportunities of all athletes.

A personal assets framework for sport The consideration of personal factors (i.e., personal engagement in activities), interpersonal factors (i.e., quality relationships), and physical contexts (i.e., appropriate settings) is necessary to fully understand the processes through which development in sport and through sport occurs (Côté et al., in press). The integration and interaction of these three dynamic elements help us to understand the process in sport by which changes in the individual’s personal assets take place (e.g., confidence, competence, connection, and character) and, eventually, influence the long-term outcomes of sport in terms of participation, performance, and personal development. Figure 13.1 outlines the components of the Personal Assets Framework for Sport that creates conditions over time for positive experiences and optimal development in sport. Derived from ecological systems approaches that highlight the integration of individuals and their environments (e.g., Barker, 1968; Bronfenbrenner, 1999) the framework in Figure 13.1 suggests that three conditions are necessary for fostering optimal development in sport. First, the dynamic elements of personal engagement in activities, quality relationships, and appropriate settings constitute an integrative system that propels youth towards positive experiences in sport. Second, there should be an alignment between the dynamic elements (activities, relationships, and settings) and the personal assets of competence, confidence, connection, and character (4 Cs) so that the 3 Ps (participation, performance, and personal development) evolve from this process. Third, overemphasis on one outcome at the expense of the other two – such as when performance is emphasized over participation and personal development – during childhood, sport will diminish the short- and long-term contribution that sport involvement can make to the total development of a person; thus a balanced and integrated approach is necessary.

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Figure 13.1 The Personal Assets Framework for Sport

Conclusion We have examined research in youth sport through an integrated developmental and ecological lens within this chapter. The proposed Personal Assets Framework for Sport serves to highlight the multiple features that should be combined to design and deliver youth sport programs that promote Performance, Participation, and Personal development. While continued research is needed, this chapter showed that these three objectives are not mutually exclusive during childhood and that effectively designed sport programs can contribute to overall healthy youth development. In light of the role that sport can have on youth development across domains, it becomes imperative that the ongoing youth sport and positive youth development research better inform each other on the best available means to promote enhanced life for all youth.

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14 D EV E L O P I N G M O R A L C HA R AC T E R T H R OU G H SP O RT Delivering on the promise Nicole D. Bolter and Maureen R. Weiss1 For decades, parents, coaches, and popular media have contended that sport builds character. This idea is often stated as fact, suggesting that experiences in and lessons learned through involvement in sport guarantee that youth grow and develop as good citizens, not only good performers. Others have been skeptical of sport’s ability to build character, citing evidence of rule-breaking and antisocial behaviors at youth through professional levels. Even back in 1930, renowned educator C. H. McCloy remarked, “physical educators have for years claimed to be builders of character ... the evidence has not been impressive” (p. 41). McCloy deliberately used the word “claim” to highlight that character may change for the better or worse as a result of participating in sport. McCloy was not surprised that positive character results had not emerged in the research when, “… the methods used were not specifically designed to secure changes in character” (p. 41). McCloy’s astute observation still holds today – how is character to be built if deliberate strategies are not implemented? Rather than asking whether or not sport builds character, we instead suggest that sport holds promise for building character. When parents enroll their children in sport programs, they hope their children will learn sport skills as well as positive values. Parents may feel promised that sport will lend physical and psychosocial benefits, so that their children not only become better athletes but also better people. In this chapter we consider three questions: (a) Is sport delivering on its promise to build character? (b) If so, what empirical evidence exists to support this claim? (c) If not, how can we maximize the probability that sport delivers on its promise to build character among youth participants?

Defining character in sport settings According to Damon (1990), children encounter a variety of moral dilemmas in their social world and already have a sense of morality by the time they begin participating in sport. Thus sport does not build character per se, but rather builds upon a child’s existing character. Distinguishing moral character from social character. Turiel (2002) identified two overarching types of character – social character includes virtues such as work ethic, perseverance, and loyalty, whereas moral character is exemplified by virtues such as fairness, responsibility, and respect. Moral traits differ from those of social character because they reflect care and 138

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concern for others, rather than a focus on satisfying social norms. In sport, individuals show moral character when they act in a way that respects the psychological and physical safety of others. Rudd (2005) asked: Which ‘character’ should sport develop? He suggested that coaches and parents are more likely to promote social rather than moral character. Social character, such as hard work and perseverance, directly helps athletes improve skills and performance, whereas moral character, such as honesty and fairness, is not directly associated with achievement and thus may be less of a priority. If this is true, sport is delivering on only half its promise to build character. It is essential that moral character is purposefully targeted and intentionally taught so youth receive the full benefits of sport participation in becoming caring and compassionate citizens. Moral character in sport. Moral character in sport is defined broadly and inclusively (Weiss et al., 2008). In addition to character virtues, scholars are interested in moral reasoning, or underlying thought processes individuals use when faced with a moral dilemma. Youth may use reasoning that reflects self-interest (e.g., “I won’t injure others to avoid being punished”) or concern for others (e.g., “I don’t want to defend in a way that might seriously hurt my opponent”). Researchers are also interested in how thoughts translate to moral actions – youth can demonstrate prosocial (e.g., helping others) and antisocial behaviors (e.g., intending to harm) toward teammates and opponents (Bolter & Weiss, 2012). Thus, moral character includes traits, thoughts, and behaviors that affect the psychological (e.g., self-worth) and physical (e.g., injury) well-being of others. Moral development refers to how character virtues, thoughts, and behaviors change over time as a result of cognitive maturity and social experiences (Solomon, 2004). The key is to identify how sport contexts facilitate moral growth, whereby youth think about others’ wellbeing and engage in prosocial rather than antisocial behaviors. Sport is not a unique social context in challenging youths’ understanding of and response to moral dilemmas (Damon, 1990). However, unlike dilemmas faced in school and home settings, competition and winning are ever-present and valued in sport. These circumstances challenge participants to weigh priority on personal achievement, such as winning, with a priority on others’ wellbeing. In this way, sport is a context that provides opportunities to test and modify moral character (Weiss & Bolter, 2012).

Theoretical approaches to character development through sport The question of how to deliver on the promise of moral character through sport necessitates an understanding of theoretical approaches. We summarize three frameworks that address moral functioning in sport: social learning theory, structural-developmental theory, and positive youth development (see Weiss & Smith, 2002; Weiss et al., 2008, 2012, for a comprehensive discussion of theories). According to social learning theory, moral development is defined as behaviors that conform to social norms and conventions, such as rules and regulations guiding sport. Children learn appropriate behaviors through observation of and reinforcement by significant adults and peers. The basis for intervention is positive role modeling (e.g., pointing out others who exemplify moral character), social reinforcement of desirable behaviors (e.g., praising helping behaviors), and penalizing displays of inappropriate behaviors (e.g., benching a player for engaging in harmful fouls). In line with structural-developmental theories, morality is defined as moral reasoning that reflects concern for the physical and psychological welfare of self and others and is 139

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shaped through social interactions in response to moral dilemmas (Weiss et al., 2008). Structural-developmental theorists identify stages or phases of moral reasoning that include giving preference to one’s own needs, giving preference to others’ needs, and recognizing all individuals’ needs (including self). The basis for intervention is referred to as “dilemma, dialogue, and balance,” whereby individuals develop moral character by experiencing moral dilemmas, discussing multiple perspectives on the dilemma, and creating moral balances or resolving conflicts in a mutually beneficial way. The positive youth development framework proposes that character development occurs as a result of participating in structured activities that promote moral, social, and behavioral competencies (Weiss et al., 2012). The basis for intervention in sport is creating opportunities for learning moral competencies and positive values by including (a) an intentional curriculum for teaching physical and life skills concurrently, (b) coach training to effectively deliver the curriculum within a mastery and caring climate, and (c) activities that are optimally challenging and developmentally appropriate.

Individual differences related to moral character Moral development theories include individual differences and social-contextual factors that contribute to variations in attitudes and behaviors (Weiss & Bolter, 2012). We review empirical research on key personal factors, followed by robust social and environmental factors, associated with moral development in sport. Value and goal orientations. Early research centered on value orientations toward sport, including a play orientation that prioritizes fairness, skill, and winning, and a professional orientation, which prioritizes winning, skill, and fairness (Weiss & Smith, 2002). Interest in value orientations evolved into studies of achievement goal orientations as correlates of moral attitudes and behaviors (Weiss et al., 2008). Individuals who primarily conceptualize success as outperforming others (high in ego orientation) are more likely to approve of and engage in unsportsmanlike behavior because their quest to demonstrate superior ability may lead them to use any means to reach their goal. Emphasis on favorable social comparison may heighten susceptibility to high ego orientation and, consequently, lead to lower moral judgment and greater aggressive behavior. Social goal orientations (defining success in terms of social relationships) and moral beliefs and behaviors are also linked (e.g., Sage & Kavussanu, 2007; Stuntz & Weiss, 2003). When athletes define success in terms of acceptance by teammates or praise from coaches, this may positively or negatively affect moral character depending on the team norms condoned. Moral emotions. Emotions play a central role in individuals’ moral judgments and behavior. Haidt (2003) defined moral emotions as those elicited in response to the interests or welfare of others and are based on immediate intuitions rather than lengthy, reasoning processes. Emotional responses are quick and reactive and may be particularly important in sport given the intense, highly interactive, and constantly changing environment. Often athletes do not have time to think through their actions and may be required to make split-second decisions based on their emotions (Kavussanu et al., 2013). Such reactions may translate to either sportsmanlike or aggressive behaviors. Empathy reflects an important moral emotion in sport. According to Hoffman (2000), individuals feel empathy when they experience the same emotions as another person, regardless of their own situation. When individuals experience empathic feelings, they are motivated to engage in prosocial behaviors, such as helping others, and to avoid antisocial actions (Eisenberg, 2000). Some studies have empirically supported this linkage in sport 140

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contexts (Gano-Overway et al., 2009; Stanger et al., 2012). Gano-Overway et al. found that youth sport campers who reported their environment as caring and supportive were more confident in their ability to recognize others’ needs for emotional support and indicated they engaged in more helping behaviors. Anger is another emotion relevant to moral functioning in sport, defined as “a syndrome of relatively specific feelings, cognitions, and physiological reactions linked associatively with an urge to injure some target” (Berkowitz, 1989, p. 108). Anger can be a precursor to aggressive behaviors by heightening a person’s awareness and feelings of frustration. Many sport situations are perceived as unfair (e.g., poor call by referee) and lead to angry responses. Aggressive behaviors in sport are predicted by one’s anger rumination (Maxwell, 2004) – athletes who become easily angered and have little emotional control may be more likely to engage in aggressive, retaliatory behaviors (Kavussanu et al., 2013). Despite the important link between emotions and moral character, little research has delved into this relationship and should be a focus of future inquiry. Moral identity. Moral identity reflects the extent to which moral beliefs define a person’s self-concept (Damon, 2004). For youth to behave in moral ways, they must find it personally meaningful and shift their thinking from, “People should be honest” to “I want to be an honest person” (Damon, p. 22). Individuals with a strong moral identity see compassion and concern for others as not only what they do but also part of who they are. They are more likely to behave in prosocial ways toward others because they define themselves as a moral person. Studies support the relationship between moral identity and moral character (Ebbeck & Gibbons, 2003; Kavussanu et al., 2012). Ebbeck and Gibbons found a significant relationship between youths’ moral functioning and self-concept – those who reported higher (lower) moral reasoning and greater (less) prosocial behavior identified themselves as higher (lower) in behavioral conduct. Moral identity influences judgments and actions when faced with moral dilemmas in sport and would benefit from more in-depth study.

Social-contextual factors related to moral character Social-contextual variables represent processes and mechanisms whereby moral cognitions and behaviors can be modified. Positive aspects of social-contextual factors maximize the probability that sport can deliver on the promise to build character. Observational learning. Observational learning is a potent means of modifying moral beliefs and actions (Weiss et al., 2008). Youth learn desirable and undesirable behaviors in sport by watching how parents, coaches, and teammates react to situational events. In Smith’s (1978) classic studies of adolescent ice hockey players, aggressive tactics were learned through identification with peer and professional athlete models that engaged in more assaultive behaviors. In light of the power of modeling to deliver on the promise of moral character, Damon (1990) proposed that opportunities be provided for youth to learn from “moral mentors” or exemplars of moral excellence (e.g., speaking up against discrimination). Damon contended that moral mentors inspire children to develop greater moral sensitivity and engage in more prosocial behaviors. Accentuating moral mentors in sport is important for helping youth become aware of and identify with those who demonstrate exemplary behaviors. Examples of moral mentors in sport might include Jackie Robinson and Billie Jean King, whereas Lance Armstrong and Alex Rodriguez are antitheses of good role models. Unfortunately, stories of professional athletes “behaving badly” are more easily found in the media, while examples of good moral character (e.g., giving back to the community) are less prominent. Thus, youths’ 141

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perceptions of professional athletes as role models can have positive or negative effects on moral character, depending on examples readily available. Social approval/disapproval. Approval or disapproval of antisocial behaviors by significant adults and peers is a consistent source of influence on participants’ moral beliefs and actions (Weiss et al., 2008). In Smith’s (1979) studies, male adolescent ice hockey players’ perceptions that fathers, coaches, and teammates endorsed the use of aggressive tactics were related to their own unsportsmanlike attitudes and behaviors. Other studies show a strong link between perceived social approval of aggressive actions and moral cognitions and behaviors in males and females in a variety of team sports (e.g., Stuntz & Weiss, 2015; Weiss et al., 2015). Acceptance of injurious actions by coaches, parents, and teammates is a detractor from delivering on the promise of building character and, conversely, important others’ disapproval is an effective mechanism for reducing athletes’ antisocial behaviors. Team norms/moral atmosphere. Social approval of antisocial actions in sport has also been studied through assessment of the moral atmosphere (Weiss et al., 2012). A central feature of the moral atmosphere is the team norms for appropriate behavior that are adopted over time and reflect the “culture” of a particular sport. Studies have consistently shown that when players perceive that the coach and/or a majority of teammates would engage in unsportsmanlike behaviors, they are more likely to approve of and intend to engage in those behaviors (e.g., Chow et al., 2009; Stephens & Kavanagh, 2003). The converse is also true – athletes who perceive that teammates would refrain from aggressive tactics are likely to disapprove of and not partake in such actions. Thus team norms that devalue care and concern for others are contrary to promoting moral character, yet team norms that reflect empathy and compassion for others are examples of how sport can deliver on the promise of building character. Coaching behaviors. Research on social approval and moral atmosphere indicates that coaches are crucial to fostering moral character, but lack of a moral-specific measure of coaching behaviors has prevented a clear understanding of how coaches might impact prosocial and antisocial behaviors. Bolter and Weiss (2012, 2013) addressed this gap by validating a measure of coaching behaviors focused on sportsmanship outcomes. To provide initial validity for the Sportsmanship Coaching Behavior Scale (SCBS), Bolter and Weiss (2012) conducted (a) an extensive literature review of coaching behaviors and moral development, (b) focus groups with adolescent athletes to assess their perspectives of coaches’ behaviors, (c) an expert panel review of proposed coaching behaviors and items, and (d) a pilot stdy with adolescent athletes. Bolter and Weiss (2013) provided additional validity for the SCBS and explored relationships between perceived coaching behaviors and adolescent athletes’ sportsmanship outcomes. Factor analyses revealed six coaching behaviors: Expects Good Sportsmanship, Reinforces Good Sportsmanship, Punishes Poor Sportsmanship, Teaches Good Sportsmanship, Models Good Sportsmanship, and Prioritizes Winning Over Good Sportsmanship. For the overall sample, modeling, reinforcing, teaching, and prioritizing winning were related to athletes’ prosocial and antisocial behaviors. Gender moderated the coaching behavior-moral character relationship – reinforcing good sportsmanship and prioritizing winning over good sportsmanship emerged as important for predicting boys’, whereas teaching and modeling good sportsmanship were predictors of girls’, prosocial and antisocial behaviors. Thus, coaches can behave in ways that promote good sportsmanship, such as positive role modeling and reinforcing prosocial behaviors, or behave in ways that encourage poor sportsmanship, such as prioritizing winning over showing concern for others’ well-being. The SCBS offers a valid and reliable tool for future studies assessing coaching behaviors and athletes’ sportsmanship. 142

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Interventions for promoting moral character through sport Taking a social psychology perspective, we move from reviewing empirical research that shows both sides of the coin – sport can promote or discourage moral character – to highlighting how sport can be structured to deliver on the promise of building character. Intervention studies in the past 30 years have used theory-driven strategies aimed at improving moral attitudes and behaviors. Studies can be categorized as: (a) short-term experimental studies, (b) program intervention studies, and (c) evaluation studies of physical activity positive youth development (PA-PYD) programs. Short-term experimental studies in the 1980s. Several studies successfully employed social learning and/or structural-developmental principles to guide interventions for improving youths’ moral reasoning and prosocial behaviors (e.g., Bredemeier et al., 1986; Romance et al., 1986). Romance et al. implemented an eight-week intervention with fifth-grade children in school physical education (PE). Students in the experimental group were exposed to moral dilemmas, discussed dilemmas in a group setting, and created moral balances that considered the rights and responsibilities of all students. The experimental group improved in moral reasoning from pre- to post-intervention and was higher at post-test than controls, showing that meaningful change can be achieved in an eight-week unit using deliberate teaching strategies. These studies demonstrated the promise of sport to enhance moral character and laid the groundwork for other interventions by identifying effective curricular activities and teaching behaviors. Program intervention studies in the 1990s. Fair Play for Kids (1990) was conceived with the goal of promoting fair play attitudes and behaviors: (a) respect the rules, (b) respect the officials and accept their decisions, (c) respect your opponent, (d) give everybody an equal chance to participate, and (e) maintain self-control at all times. In the first evaluation of Fair Play for Kids, Gibbons et al. (1995) assigned grade 4–6 classrooms to three groups: (a) control, (b) PE only (curriculum conducted in PE only), and (c) all classes (curriculum conducted in PE and other subjects). After seven months, children in both experimental groups recorded higher post-test scores on all moral variables than controls. Gibbons and Ebbeck (1997) extended their study by assessing variables at pre-, mid- (four months), and post-intervention (seven months) and comparing social learning (modeling, reinforcement) and structural-developmental (dialogue and problem solving) approaches. Both experimental groups compared favorably to controls on moral cognitions and behaviors within four months, adding support for the effectiveness of curricular activities and teaching strategies of Fair Play for Kids. Hellison (1995) developed Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility (TPSR), a program designed to develop personal and interpersonal skills that reflect social and moral character. TPSR identifies five levels of responsibility: (a) respect for the rights and feelings of others (e.g., self-control), (b) effort and teamwork (e.g., cooperation), (c) self-direction (e.g., resisting peer pressure), (d) helping and leadership (e.g., sensitivity to others’ needs), and (e) outside the gym (e.g., generalizing skills to other contexts). Teaching strategies and activities include awareness talks, direct instruction, individual decision-making, group evaluation meetings, and reflection time. TPSR has been successfully implemented in a variety of settings (e.g., school PE, after-school sport, inner city recreation) with youth from diverse backgrounds, and has shown effectiveness in promoting self and social responsibility (e.g., Walsh, 2008; Wright & Burton, 2008). Effectiveness is linked to the intentional curriculum and teaching strategies that accentuate interpersonal awareness and concern (i.e., moral character). Evaluation studies of PA-PYD programs in the 2000s. Several PA-PYD programs focus on promoting moral, social, psychological, and physical competencies. Most programs 143

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communicate “evidence” of effectiveness in positively affecting youth outcomes through testimonials, but rigorous efforts have recently been employed to provide scientific evidence (Weiss & Wiese-Bjornstal, 2009). The mission of The First Tee (www.thefirsttee.org), a golfbased PA-PYD program, is, “to impact the lives of young people by providing educational programs that build character, instill life-enhancing values, and promote healthy outcomes through the game of golf.” Targeted life skills (e.g., interpersonal, self-management) and developmental outcomes (e.g., respect, responsibility) reflect aspects of moral and social character. Weiss and colleagues conducted a longitudinal study providing evidence that The First Tee is effective in achieving its goals (Weiss, 2008; Weiss, Bolter, & Kipp, 2014, 2015; Weiss, Stuntz, et al., 2013). In Year 1, they interviewed 11–17-year-old participants about knowledge and transfer of life skills learned in the program – meeting and greeting, showing respect to others, and managing emotions. Over 90 percent provided convincing examples of successfully transferring skills learned in golf to school, family, and peer domains. This evidence was corroborated through interviews with parents and coaches. In Year 2, survey responses showed that participants in The First Tee compared favorably to youth in other organized activities (e.g., sports, band) on managing emotions, resolving conflicts, appreciating diversity, and seeking help from others, as well as attributes of honesty, responsibility, and integrity. Longitudinal analysis from Year 1 to Year 3 revealed that transfer of life skills improved (meeting and greeting, appreciating diversity, getting help from others) or remained stable (goal setting, helping others). Girls on the Run (www.girlsontherun.org) is a running-based PA-PYD program whose mission, vision, and core values target enhancing girls’ moral, social, psychological, and physical competencies to navigate life experiences. The intentional curriculum includes lessons that explicitly aim to help girls improve physical and psychosocial competence, develop strength of character, respond to others and oneself with care and compassion, create positive connections with peers and adults, and make a meaningful contribution to their community. To date, studies demonstrate preliminary evidence of participants’ improvements in personal attributes such as self-esteem and social character such as commitment to physical activity (e.g., Pettee Gabriel et al., 2011). Efforts are underway for evaluating the effectiveness of Girls on the Run in creating positive change in moral character such as caring behaviors, empathy toward others, and contributing to one’s community.

Concluding remarks At the beginning of this chapter we posed three questions: (a) is sport delivering on its promise to build character? (b) If so, what empirical evidence exists to support this claim? (c) If not, how can we maximize the probability that sport delivers on its promise to build character among youth participants? So, has sport delivered on the promise of building character? The empirical evidence is mixed, showing that character may change for the better or worse as a result of participating in sport. Unsportsmanlike models, social approval for antisocial actions, and coaching behaviors that prioritize winning over good sportsmanship are contradictory to delivering on the promise of moral character. By contrast, positive sources and mechanisms of influence, such as moral mentors, significant others’ disapproval of aggression, and coaches who explicitly teach, expect, and reinforce good sportsmanship, provide optimism for how and why sport is a unique context that can deliver on the promise. Along with exemplar interventions (Fair Play for Kids, TPSR) and community programs (The First Tee, Girls on the Run), we believe future researchers and practitioners are informed on how to facilitate moral growth that will help us achieve more convincing evidence for the tacit belief that “sport builds character.” 144

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Note 1 Both authors contributed equally to the chapter and consider its authorship as joint.

References Berkowitz, L. (1989). Frustration-aggression hypothesis: Examination and reformulation. Psychological Bulletin, 106, 59–73. Bolter, N. D., & Weiss, M. R. (2012). Coaching for character: Development of the Sportsmanship Coaching Behaviors Scale (SCBS). Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology, 1, 73–90. Bolter, N. D., & Weiss, M. R. (2013). Coaching behaviors and adolescent athletes’ sportspersonship outcomes: Further validation of the Sportsmanship Coaching Behaviors Scale (SCBS). Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology, 2, 32–47. Bredemeier, B. J., Weiss, M. R., Shields, D. L., & Shewchuk, R. M. (1986). Promoting moral growth in a summer sport camp: The implementation of theoretically grounded instructional strategies. Journal of Moral Education, 15, 212–220. Chow, G. M., Murray, K. E., & Feltz, D. L. (2009). Individual, team, and coach predictors of players’ likelihood to aggress in youth soccer. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 31, 425–443. Damon, W. (1990). The moral child. New York: Free Press. Damon, W. (2004). What is positive youth development? Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 591, 13–24. Ebbeck, V., & Gibbons, S. L. (2003). Explaining the self-conception of perceived conduct using indicators of moral functioning in physical education. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 74, 284–291. Eisenberg, N. (2000). Emotion, regulation, and moral development. Annual Review of Psychology, 51, 665–697. Fair Play for Kids (1990). Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Commission for Fair Play. Gano-Overway, L. A., Newton, M., Magyar, T. M., Fry, M. D., Kim, M., & Guivernau, M. R. (2009). Influence of caring youth sport contexts on efficacy-related beliefs and social behaviors. Developmental Psychology, 45, 329–340. Gibbons, S. L., & Ebbeck, V. (1997). The effect of different teaching strategies on the moral development of physical education students. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 17, 85–98. Gibbons, S. L., Ebbeck, V., & Weiss, M. R. (1995). Fair Play for Kids: Effects on the moral development of children in physical education. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 66, 247–255. Haidt, J. (2003). The moral emotions. In R. J. Davidson, K. R. Scherer, & H. H. Goldsmith (Eds.), Handbook of affective sciences (pp. 852–870). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hellison, D. (1995). Teaching responsibility through physical activity. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Hoffman, M. L. (2000). Empathy and moral development: Implications for caring and justice. New York: Cambridge University Press. Kavussanu, M., Stanger, N., & Boardley, I. D. (2013). The Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior in Sport Scale: Further evidence for construct validity and reliability. Journal of Sport Sciences, 31, 1208–1221. Kavussanu, M., Willoughby, A., & Ring, C. (2012). Moral identity and emotion in athletes. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 34, 695–714. Maxwell, J. P. (2004). Anger rumination: An antecedent of athlete aggression? Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 5, 279–289. McCloy, C. H. (1930). Character building through physical education. Research Quarterly, 1, 41–59. Pettee Gabriel, K. K., DeBate, R. D., High, R. R., & Racine, E. F. (2011). Girls on the run: A quasiexperimental evaluation of a developmentally focused youth sport program. Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 8, S285–S294. Romance, T. J., Weiss, M. R., & Bockoven, J. (1986). A program to promote moral development through elementary school physical education. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 5, 126–136. Rudd, A. (2005). Which “character” should sport develop? Physical Educator, 62, 205–211. Sage, L., & Kavussanu, M. (2007). Multiple goal orientations as predictors of moral behavior in youth soccer. The Sport Psychologist, 21, 417–437. Smith, M. D. (1978). Social learning of violence in minor hockey. In F. L. Smoll & R. E. Smith (Eds.), Psychological perspectives in youth sports (pp. 91–106). Washington, DC: Hemisphere.

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Smith, M. D. (1979). Towards an explanation of hockey violence: A reference other approach. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 4, 105–124. Solomon, G. B. (2004). A lifespan view of moral development in physical activity. In M. R. Weiss (Ed.), Developmental sport and exercise psychology: A lifespan perspective (pp. 453–474). Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology. Stanger, N., Kavussanu, M., & Ring, C. (2012). Put yourself in their boots: Effects of empathy on emotion and aggression. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 34, 208–222. Stephens, D. E., & Kavanagh, B. (2003). Aggression in Canadian youth ice hockey: The role of moral atmosphere. International Sports Journal, 7, 109–119. Stuntz, C. P., & Weiss, M. R. (2003). The influence of social goal orientations and peers on unsportsmanlike play. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 74, 421–435. Stuntz, C. P., & Weiss, M. R. (2015). Social orientations, perceived social approval, and adolescents’ beliefs about unsportspersonlike play. Journal of Sport Behavior, 38, 79–96. Turiel, E. (2002). The culture of morality: Social development, context, and conflict. New York: Cambridge University Press. Walsh, D. (2008). Helping youth in underserved communities envision possible futures: An extension of the Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility model. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 79, 209–221. Weiss, M. R. (2008). “Field of dreams:” Sport as a context for youth development. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 79, 434–449. Weiss, M. R., & Bolter, N. D. (2012). Moral and motor development. In V. G. Payne & L. D. Isaacs (Eds.), Human motor development: A lifespan approach (8th ed., pp. 88–111). New York: McGraw-Hill. Weiss, M. R., & Smith, A. L. (2002). Moral development in sport and physical activity: Theory, research, and intervention. In T. S. Horn (Ed.), Advances in sport psychology (2nd ed., pp. 243–280). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Weiss, M. R., Bolter, N. D., & Kipp, L. E. (2014). Assessing impact of physical-activity-based youth development programs: Validation of the Life Skills Transfer Survey (LSTS). Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 85, 263–278. Weiss, M. R., Bolter, N. D., & Kipp, L. E. (2015). Evaluation of a physical activity-based positive youth development program: Group comparisons and longitudinal trends. Manuscript submitted for publication. Weiss, M. R., Kipp, L. E., & Bolter, N. D. (2012). Training for life: Optimizing positive youth development through sport and physical activity. In S. M. Murphy (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of sport and performance psychology (pp. 448–475). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weiss, M. R., Kipp, L. E., & Goodman, D. (2015). Unsportsmanlike play in youth ice hockey: Gender and age differences in attitudes and perceived social approval. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 46, 1–17. Weiss, M. R., Smith, A. L., & Stuntz, C. P. (2008). Moral development in sport and physical activity: Theory, research, and intervention. In T. S. Horn (Ed.), Advances in sport psychology (3rd ed., pp. 187–210). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Weiss, M. R., Stuntz, C. P., Bhalla, J. A., Bolter, N. D., & Price, M. S. (2013). “More than a game”: impact of The First Tee life skills programme on positive youth development: Project introduction and Year 1 findings. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise, and Health, 5, 214–244. Weiss, M. R., & Wiese-Bjornstal, D. M. (2009). Promoting positive youth development through physical activity. President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, 10(3), 1–8. Wright, P. M., & Burton, S. (2008). Implementation and outcomes of a responsibility-based physical activity program integrated into an intact high school physical education class. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 27, 138–154.

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15 THE EMERGENCE OF ACCULTURATION IN THE SPORT PSYCHOLOGY LANDSCAPE Robert J. Schinke and Sunghee Park This chapter begins with a story of failed acculturation about a professional boxer who relocated from out of continent in order to pursue a career in professional boxing. The athlete departed his home country a national celebrity, having won several Olympic medals – he was (and continues to be) a national treasure in his home country. Upon contractual signing, he and his family arrived in Canada, he with the aforementioned identity of being recognized and beloved. In Canada, this athlete began to train alongside peers from several additional countries, including Canadians. The boxers all launched their professional careers at the same time and began this next stage of their professional advancement as athletes. The Canadian boxers tended to draw large audiences and significant fanfare, and this athlete, in contrast, was required to travel and serve as an opponent to hometown heroes from the United States. With an undefeated record, the athlete eventually challenged and won a world title in his home country to a packed audience. Thereafter, he returned to Canada and was unable to draw an audience, even as a world champion. Consequently, the athlete became secondary as a revenue stream to lesser local athletes from Canada, some with blemished records, all without equivalent accomplishments. The coach and management team became less interested in the athlete due to his inability to sell seats in local fight events. The athlete, in turn, felt unimportant, despite his clear ability and accolades. Feeling disenfranchised, the athlete socialized only in the local cultural community from his home country within the host country and he never felt connected with the country and the local French Canadian culture. The athlete retired prematurely and returned to his home country and accepted a prestigious position by his national government. What we find above is one of several examples the authors can bring forth from our own applied experiences regarding isolated athletes ending sport careers prematurely due to acculturative stress and insufficient resources to augment adaptation. Within our own scholarship, additional examples have also been provided in relation to Indigenous athletes relocating to a mainstream cultural community, only to return home (see Blodgett, Schinke, McGannon, & Coholic, in press; Schinke, Michel et al., 2006).

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Introduction Sport psychologists have come to realize that athletes and coaches move fluidly outside of cultural communities and across national borders in order to advance their sport careers (Stambulova & Ryba, 2014). When these sport participants come into contact with teammates, coaches, sport administrators, and the broader communities in which they reside, it is typically expected that they adjust their cultural practices to fit within their new locations (Kontos, 2009). This process of moving from one cultural community to a second cultural community has been referred to by psychologists, sociologists, sport sociologists, and most recently by sport psychologists, as “acculturation” (see Berry, 1997). Though little has been written about this salient topic area, in reality, more amateur and professional athletes and coaches experience acculturation as a normative stressor within a typical sport career than ever before (Stambulova & Ryba, 2014). Despite the growing frequency of acculturating sport participants, little is known within the theoretical, research, and applied realms of how to understand and then augment the acculturation processes as they are encountered (Schinke & McGannon, 2014). The intention through acculturation is to create shared understanding and cultural inclusiveness, and yet these are often ideals, not realities (Schinke, McGannon, Battochio, & Wells, 2013). Within this chapter, the authors focus on acculturation, spur forward this discussion within sport psychology, and encourage a deeper understanding of this process to enhance performance and holistic development.

Context setting Nearly 20 years ago, the first author of this chapter began working in the realm of elite amateur and professional boxing. As part of his service provision, he was tasked working with athletes and coaches from a breadth of cultural backgrounds. Inside the Canadian context of elite boxing, both the national boxing teams and professional boxing management groups were (and continue to be) comprised of sport participants from a wide number of countries, including Haiti, Jamaica, Nigeria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Romania, Poland, Chechnya, Ghana, Mexico, Russia, Poland, and India (Schinke, 2007). These coaches and athletes arrive in Canada and find themselves adjusting to several unfamiliar aspects to them, such as group norms during training; a national sport system with unique expectations and practices; modes of communication that seem to be more or less formal than accustomed to; and unfamiliar social practices outside of the sport context, including dress, food, sexual behavior, and alcohol consumption (Schinke, Yukelson, Bartolacci, Battochio, & Johnstone, 2011; see also Yukelson, 2010). Learning about, and then navigating these foreign practices, is layered onto result driven expectations as these people seek to perform successfully at the elite level and advance in their sport careers (Kontos, 2009). Indeed, acculturative stress, the stress that underpins the complexities associated with the aforementioned psychological adjustment processes, is not easy to navigate, and yet it appears unavoidable, even when one seeks exclusively to assimilate and give oneself over to the dominant cultural practices of the host context (Kontos & Breland-Noble, 2002). The reader might ponder how prevalent relocating coaches and athletes are within the global sport world? In Canada, there are a high proportion of immigrant athletes found within the Canadian Olympic contingent spanning 20 years (Schinke et al., 2011). Added to this trend in the same country are the transnational athletes who move from a home country in order to pursue educational opportunities at universities (see Yukelson, 2010) and employment opportunities within the professional sport realm, such as within a National 148

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Hockey League, Major League Baseball, and professional soccer team, or to become part of a boxing management group (Battochio, Schinke, McGannon, Tenenbaum, Yukelson, & Crowder, 2013). These participants are “transnational” and not “immigrant” because of the fluid nature of their relocation, given that they move to cities and countries at will to advance a career (Ryba, 2013). Extending the prevalence of acculturation beyond Canada and the United States, the reality is that sport participants have been found to move to North American (Kontos, 2009; Schinke et al., 2011), European (Magee & Sugden, 2002; Meisterjahn & Wrisberg, 2013), the Middle East (Lidor & Blumenstein, 2009), and to Asia and Oceanic locations (Tanaka, 2014) from out of country to pursue opportunities in cricket, baseball, ice-hockey, boxing, and rugby (see aforementioned references by continent). These people experience acculturative stress, with little known from the vantage of sport psychology regarding how to become supportive of the relocated members and also those they come into contact with (Schinke & McGannon, 2014).

Acculturation’s theoretical underpinnings Much of what we have come to know about acculturation has been derived from scholars in psychology. John Berry is perhaps the most recognizable of the acculturation scholars. Berry (1997) has proposed that acculturation is about “what happens to individuals who have developed in one cultural context when they attempt to re-establish their lives in another one” (p. 5). At a practical level, sport participants who relocate are expected to decipher what of their previous behaviors do, or no longer, apply to their current living and working contexts (Blodgett et al., in press). Through this process, Berry proposed that it is incumbent upon the relocated person to develop a repertoire of behaviors better suited to the current context, or risk not belonging. Deciphering what behavioral norms are relevant and useful within the host cultural community adds an additional layer of complexity to one’s conditions, beyond the demands most every person encounters each day. When the relocated person engages in this complex process, there are four paths that the newcomer chooses from: assimilation, integration, marginalization, and separation (Berry, 1997). Assimilation refers to aspects in the relocated member’s behaviors that match with the cultural values and norms of the host context, such as a preference toward a style of music, dress, and language. Integration refers to engagement with one’s heritage culture and the host culture. Practices from one’s origins remain while one also develops competencies suited to the host culture. Marginalization refers to distancing from the home and host cultural practices, resulting in a format of self-imposed exile. Separation reveals a more moderate format of marginalization with more retention of the heritage culture (Berry et al.). When considering these four acculturation paths, it has been proposed by Berry that the most psychologically adaptive format is one where the relocated member engages in integration, with this format manifesting in the highest degree of psychological well-being and optimal adjustment. In contrast, marginalization is least adaptive, with the remaining two alternatives situated between adaptive and mal-adaptive. Within sport psychology, the limited writing framed in acculturation reflect non-critical approaches in order to understand transnational (Battochio et al., 2013; Meisterjahn & Wrisberg, 2013; Yukelson, 2010), immigrant (Schinke, McGannon, Battochio, & Wells, 2013), and cultural minority athletes (Campbell & Sonn, 2009; Schinke, Michel, Gauthier, Danielson, Peltier, Enosse et al., 2006), as well as sport performers undergoing acute cultural adaptation during a short visit out of country (Ryba, Haapanen, Mosek, & Ng, 2012). These writings unpack athlete acculturation as a process with resolution, and the act of assimilation 149

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at one end of the continuum and separation – enculturation nearing its polar opposite (Schinke & McGannon, 2014). What these writings offer the reader is an opening into what is a mostly uncharted discussion regarding what are the described experiences of relocated sport participants and, following, how these members might be supported in a meaningful way. To the negative, we propose that acculturation is an ongoing transition (see also Stambulova, 2013). Each unfamiliar circumstance initiates a specific acculturation process, housed within a broader ongoing process. As such, it seems counterintuitive to suggest that acculturation is linear and viewed in relation to a finite amount of time. Furthermore, this process has also been criticized as overly simplified through methodological choices and universalized across cultural groups, such as with approaches that focus on people from a given nationality or ethnic group (Chirkov, 2009a). Some, including Chirkov have begun to posit: “Is there culture in cross-cultural research?” (p. 87). From these questions, the intent within psychology, though also sport psychology (Schinke & McGannon, 2014), is to seek out the richness of acculturation experiences / stories, and from this initial stage of discovery, embark on practices that are meaningful and relevant to those acculturating, and also the people they work, play, and live alongside.

Acculturation as a transition Movements from a home country to host country for elite athletes has been increasing and it can be considered as a part of sport career transitions; in most cases, athletes move from one place to another seeking either an athletic career or dual careers of sport and education (Stambulova & Ryba, 2014). Therefore, the degree of acculturation stress and athletes’ abilities to cope with their new cultural and social context could be influential factors for their performance enhancement and life quality. In this section, to understand those immigrant and (or) transitional athletes’ experiences, we will discuss a definition of transition and influential factors for healthy transitions based on existing literature and previous research findings.

Acculturation as a transitional process Researchers in sport psychology have been interested in athletes’ career transitions for the past three decades, and most studies have focused on athletes’ retirement and within career transitions, such as termination of sporting careers, changes in competition levels, teams, and coaches (Stambulova, Alfermann, Statler, & Côté, 2009). However, immigrant and (or) transitional athletes’ acculturation process has not been examined much in athletes’ career transition studies (Stambulova & Ryba, 2014). Recently, a few researchers, such as Schinke et al. (2013) and Battochio, Schinke, McGannon, Tenenbaum, Yukelson, and Crowder (2013) have examined acculturation in sport based on immigrant athletes’ perspectives. Based on the work of Kontos (2009) and Kontos and Breland-Noble (2002), Schinke et al. (2013) highlighted that acculturation should be considered as a process of change in cultural practices which are closely related to our daily lives, including eating habits, dress patterns, and the use of language. This argument matches with Schlossberg’s (1981) definition of transition because immigrant and (or) transitional athletes also experience changes in their self-identity, inter-personal relationships, and they might have to adjust their own behavior from their home culture to new cultural norms, which is based on the host nation as part of the acculturation process. In addition, the changes are not necessarily positive or negative but sometimes those transitions accompany both positive changes and stressful events. Since 150

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athletes’ acculturation is considered as a process which is similar to many other areas of individuals’ transition, the phenomenon could be explained based on Schlossberg’s model of human adaptation to transition. The model of human adaptation to transition (Schlossberg, 1981) has been employed to understand various transitions in social psychology, as well as career transitions in sport (Park & Lavallee, 2014). The model provides three influential factors that help people prepare for their transitions, including the perceptions of the particular transition, characteristics of pre-transition and post-transition environments, and the individual’s characteristics. Individuals’ perceptions of particular transitions in acculturation in sport can be explained as transitional athletes’ perceptions of the characteristics of their life changes. For example, if athletes perceived their acculturation as a positive change, perceived a locus of control for their decision, and the process of moving occurred gradually for them to have enough time to prepare their moving, then those athletes might experience less stress and difficulties during the acculturation process than athletes who perceived their transition as negative and had to move suddenly without sufficient time for preparation. The characteristics of pre-transition and post-transition environments refer to various kinds of external support that transitional athletes can receive during the acculturation process. As Schinke et al. (2013) revealed from immigrant athletes and their coaches, if those athletes had strong social support networks during the transition process and received emotional, informational, tangible support from family members, close others, and coaches, then those athletes might cope with acculturation stress better than who do not have similar support (see also Schinke et al., 2006). In addition, organizational support has also been discussed as one of the important support resources for athletes’ transitions in terms of its influence in national team selections, training environment, and even financial support (Park, Lavallee, & Tod, 2013). The characteristics of the individual indicate individual differences, which is a very critical part of psychological perspectives to explain transitional athletes’ acculturation and adjustment processes. Individuals’ demographical differences, such as age, sex, and financial status and developmental characteristics, including previous life experiences and psychosocial competences tend to influence a degree of stress and level of transition difficulties during the adjustment process (Park et al., 2013). For example, athletes who have lived in their home nations might already have developed their self-identity based on their social context and cultural norms, but when they move to the host nation, they have to reformat their self-identity as immigrant and (or) transitional athletes. In this case, if someone used to have strong social roles and function in the home nation or previous society, such as the boxer’s example earlier in this chapter (audiences’ attention in home country, being treated as a national treasure), then it becomes difficult to adjust to acculturation in the host nation because of feelings of loss and difficulties in reformatting self-identity. In contrast, if some people already have previous experience living abroad or adjusting to other cultural and social contexts, then this previous experience might help dealing with other acculturation processes. To summarize, as similar to many other transitions in our life span, immigrant and (or) transitional athletes’ acculturation is not a one time or a singular event, but a fluid process which takes time for individuals to adjust or accept their new environment, including cultural, behavioral, and social changes. The processes could be stressful for individuals; however, as previous findings have indicated (e.g., Schinke et al., 2013), those adjustment processes could be less stressful and less difficult if sufficient support is provided to those athletes. In addition, the degree of stress and difficulty during the acculturation process 151

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could be different between individuals, hence, sport psychology practitioners should consider individual differences and provide tailored support for each athlete. For example, it might be helpful if practitioners have rich information regarding their clients’ home culture and current support networks. Also, it could be effective to provide peer-to-peer support through group sessions among athletes who come from the same cultural background or are experiencing similar difficulties, because it might help them to exchange experiences and solutions to problems.

Acculturation research in sport psychology Despite acculturation being a transitional process, much of what has been written in this area is derived from the emerging scholarship in cultural sport psychology. Schinke and colleagues (2006) would appear to have written among the earliest formal scholars to engage in acculturation research. In a manuscript published in The Sport Psychologist, as part of a project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the authors considered the psychological adaptation of Canadian Aboriginal elite athletes, upon relocation from an Aboriginal reserve to larger urban centers. From semi-structured interviews with 23 participants, the authors sought to examine the participants’ acculturation experiences and why certain participants were better able to adjust to unfamiliar cultural practices within their daily life and also within their sport contexts. The project reflected a post-positivist epistemological stance and the authors represented the participants’ words as “their reality.” Though this approach runs counter to some of what is presently being considered by critical acculturation scholars such as Chirkov (2009a, 2009b), a few unique lessons were gleaned. One insight pertained to the overarching themes of personal adaptation and adaptation on the part of teammates and coaches. Understanding adaptation through a holistic exploration into self and context permitted the researchers to consider why it is that athletes steer at times toward Berry’s (1997) four acculturation paths. Second, considering adaptation of the environment opened up explorations to where the onus within the acculturation process should be – on the relocated member in isolation or as a collaborative process where people seek integration through an exchange of training and living customs. More recently, Blodgett and colleagues (in press) expanded the aforementioned project and explored Canadian Aboriginal elite athlete acculturation exclusively with athletes relocated from Aboriginal reserves. The focus within the project was to examine how Canadian Aboriginal reserves experience acculturation. The project was framed as a locally derived decolonizing methodology, a different epistemology than the earlier work, and a particular emphasis on the scholarship serving to empower the participants (Schinke, Smith, & McGannon, 2013). The data collection strategy was composed of a mandala – a circular drawing used to explain the journey of the participants from the point of relocation through their acculturation journey. From the drawing, the participant led the researchers through stories about the acculturation journey. With this format of methodology, one immediately finds a shift in research approach, away from reduction, to more expansive and richly described acculturation stories, as Chirkov (2009a) suggested. The emergent themes pertained to navigating culture shock and managing disconnection from home. Culture shock is a topic that carries through much of the acculturation scholarship, whereby the newcomer athlete must learn unfamiliar cultural practices, such as how to relate with teammates and coaches, learn a new training system that might be more or less structured / formal than accustomed to, and belong within a housing context, with a family, where living conditions, such as behavioral expectations are foreign to the athlete. These compounded challenges, set alongside loneliness for family and friends, results 152

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in the athletes becoming overwhelmed. Disconnection from home is a unique theme that reveals the “cultural” within acculturation (see Chirkov, 2009a). Canadian Aboriginal athletes relocated from reserves often move from highly collective living conditions that centralize the importance of family, friends, and community at the center, and the athlete belonging to this social web (Schinke, Michel et al., 2006). When the athletes relocate from a collective culture, to sport and living conditions that are highly individualistic, challenges ensue. Though acclimation to individualism is possible, the authors also found that these athletes experienced a severing of ties with their community of origin. Collective communities believe that community goals are primary and personal goals ought to be positioned as secondary. Hence, athletic pursuits resulted in the participants living in two worlds: regarded as selfish by the home community and exotic in the host community, living with only a tenuous foothold in each community. To summarize, Blodgett and colleagues exemplify an acculturation approach that critical scholars would support: one where the methodology is flexible, inductive, centralizing of the participants, and encouraging of complexities, richness, and alternate understandings (see Chirkov, 2009b). Expanding the discussion of critical acculturation, Schinke and colleagues have examined the relocation experiences of high-performance amateur and professional athletes (Schinke et al., 2013) and coaches (Schinke, McGannon, Yukelson, & Cummings, 2015) in two separate projects. Both projects also utilized qualitative methods, the former using focus groups, the latter employing semi-structured interviews. These projects are in some manners regressive given their blend of induction and deduction through the methods of data collection. However, what these projects offer the reader is a glimpse into the fluidity of acculturation. Critical acculturation scholars propose that acculturation is ongoing, as opposed to linear and finite. Schinke and colleagues’ writings illustrate this fluidity, as participants in the project articulated their acculturation experiences as ever changing – between resolution and turmoil. When athletes and coaches are satisfied with their current living and training conditions, they tend to search out the positive values from the host culture and regard it as better than conditions from their home country. Conversely, when newcomers are dissatisfied with their current conditions, they measure current inadequacies in relation to better conditions and circumstances from their home country. Adding texture to this fluid process, these same scholars found that the most adaptive format of acculturating is one where the relocated members and teammates (coaches included) engage in shared processes. Inversely, when sport contexts require single-handed acculturation from immigrant athletes, it is in these moments where such athletes run the risk of maladaptive behaviors, such as conflict, self-imposed separation, or de-selection.

The dark side of acculturation Acculturation is a highly challenging process, not only for the relocated participant, but also for those she / he lives and trains alongside. It would be unrealistic not to acknowledge some of the dark, problematic aspects of acculturation. Acculturation is a process, with its outcome often romanticized. Each opportunity for people to come together and learn about one another’s customs is tantalizing. People might become richer for the experience, and yet we propose that this richness is often an ideal (see Schinke & McGannon, 2014). Within our exposure to high-performance sport, people often choose not to engage in shared acculturation. Many sport teams regard this process as unnecessary for them (Schinke, McGannon, Battochio, & Wells, 2013). Why ought an entire team to engage in acculturation when they are not the people undergoing culture shock? The result of singular acculturation 153

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approaches is relocated athletes being asked to undertake significant learning and change in isolation, perhaps with some support, though likely without (Schinke et al., 2013). As Schinke and colleagues have found, relocated sport participants might have a lot to offer their sport contexts, and yet their offerings fall on deaf ears. Walking further down this path of placing the onus on one individual, the relocated members find that their identities, especially aspects relating to their cultural heritage, have no place within the current sport context. This format of exclusion leaves the relocated feeling lost and marginalized (Blodgett et al., 2013; Schinke, Michel et al., 2006). The after effect is that performers are expected to perform while the daily processes that lead to these results are largely overlooked. Though we espouse the importance of understanding acculturation’s complexities, and for the broader sport context to engage in acculturative work, we anticipate that most sport contexts, especially in high-performance sport, will likely not foster adaptive acculturation strategies.

Conclusions Within this chapter we discussed the emerging topic area of acculturation in sport psychology. Though there is limited scholarship directly focused on acculturation in sport psychology (Schinke & McGannon, 2014), this omission does not reflect the realities of most sport contexts from developmental through high-performance sport. Athletes and coaches are progressively transnational (Meisterjahn & Wrisberg, 2013; Stambulova & Ryba, 2014). Sport psychology researchers and practitioners can learn from these relocated members, support their performance, and also their holistic development (Ryba, 2013). We propose that acculturation scholarship can offer many benefits to the reader and to the client. Among these are a better understanding of how to develop culturally inclusive sport environments, and approaches to research and practice that centralize lesser known views regarding what it is like to undergo acculturation within various sport contexts, and relating to these, broader national sport systems (Schinke, McGannon, Battochio, & Wells, 2013). With the various arguments in favor of acculturation scholarship, it is worthwhile to consider alternative and critical approaches. From critical approaches, scholars are able to undertake projects with emerging qualitative approaches to examine the fluidities and complexities of acculturation (Schinke et al., 2013). The tendency has been to simplify acculturation within, and also outside of sport, and yet reductionism tends to reveal de-contextual and overly simplified representations (Ryba, Haapanen, Mosek, & Ng, 2012; Schinke & McGannon, 2014). We advocate for as much complexity as is necessary to learn the unique aspects of acculturation at each local level, with sport participants, as they seek to develop in (and through) sport. The richness gained from understanding acculturation from a holistic perspective is not easily undertaken. Within applied sport contexts, the role of the sport psychology consultant is to support and, in some instances, engineer training contexts where athletes and coaches discuss their cultural practices. Opening up this format of dialogue encourages a safe place for the acculturating immigrant athlete to reveal parts of her / himself that might otherwise be silenced. In addition, these disclosures permit teammates to learn more about the relocated athlete and, therefore, how to meet this person part way in the acculturation process through the possible integration of diverse cultural practices in what might otherwise become (or remain) a mono-cultural training context. Concurrently, these dialogues might reveal that people who are in fact regarded as cultural mainstream athletes might also be undergoing acculturation as a result of one or several social locations that are part of the athlete’s cultural identity being discouraged. The objective is to exchange ideas and practices, and by doing so, creating an open and inclusive training context where people can express themselves on and off the field of play. 154

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16 AT H L E T E BU R N OU T Ken Hodge and Göran Kenttä

I didn’t really want to play – no desire to play whatsoever, I didn’t want to turn up. [I would be] sitting there going ‘What am I doing here?’ … I started thinking about other things I could be doing, thinking about [travelling] overseas. … I found I was getting quite tired in games. I was … physically knackered [i.e., exhausted]. I’d turn up to play and be knackered in the warm up … Your mental attitude … it can cause a lot of lethargy and tiredness. (Anton Oliver, Elite Professional Rugby Player; Hodge, Lonsdale, & Oliver, 2009, p. 88) The quote above illustrates that for some athletes sport is a less than fulfilling experience as they struggle to find the desire and energy to continue their participation. Athlete burnout is a maladaptive psychological outcome sometimes associated with sport participation (Gould, 1996; Smith, 1986). The estimated prevalence of burnout among athletes ranges from 1 to 9 per cent (Eklund & Cresswell, 2007; Gould & Dieffenbach, 2002; Gustafsson, Kenttä, Hassmén, & Lundqvist, 2007). While these estimates must be interpreted with caution, it has been hypothesized that burnout prevalence is on the rise due to increasing training loads and mounting pressure in elite sport (Gould & Dieffenbach, 2002; Gustafsson, Kenttä, & Hassmén, 2011). Consequently, preventing, or at least minimising, the occurrence of burnout has been viewed as an important issue in the sport psychology literature (Goodger, Gorely, Lavallee, & Harwood, 2007; Gustafsson et al., 2011). Researchers interested in athlete burnout have examined adolescent (Coakley, 1992; Dubuc, Schinke, Eys, Battochio, & Zaichkowsky, 2010; Gould, Tuffey, Udry, & Loehr, 1996, 1997; Gould, Udry, Tuffey, & Loehr, 1996; Gustafsson, Kenttä, Hassmén, & Lundqvist, 2007; Harris & Watson, 2011; Smith, Gustafsson, & Hassmén, 2010), young adult (DeFreese & Smith, 2013b; Gould & Whitely, 2009; Lonsdale, Hodge, & Rose, 2008, 2009; Vealey, Armstrong, Comar, & Greenleaf, 1998), and elite athlete populations (Cresswell & Eklund, 2005a, 2005b, 2007; Gustafsson, Hassmén, Kenttä, & Johansson, 2008; Gustafsson, Kenttä, Hassmén, Lundqvist, & Durand-Bush, 2007; Lemyre, Hall, & Roberts, 2008; Lemyre, Roberts, & Stray-Gundersen, 2007; Lemyre, Treasure, & Roberts, 2006; Lonsdale & Hodge, 2011). In this chapter we define and explain the concept of athlete burnout, while also outlining the key antecedents, correlates, and consequences of burnout. In particular we discuss 157

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important burnout antecedents – motivation and perfectionism – as well as potential preventive factors – athlete engagement, hope, optimism, and passion. Finally, we address the related matter of overtraining syndrome and the overlap with burnout. In doing so we offer suggestions for future research focused on an integrated model of athlete burnout.

Athlete burnout: definitions and differentiations Athlete burnout is a maladaptive psychological syndrome (Dale & Weinberg, 1990; Smith, 1986); more precisely athlete burnout is defined as a syndrome characterized by: (i) emotional and physical exhaustion; (ii) sport devaluation; and (iii) a reduced sense of performance accomplishment in sport (Raedeke, 1997; Raedeke & Smith, 2001, 2009). This symptom-based definition allows for cases in which athletes are suffering from burnout symptoms, but have not discontinued their sport participation; plus burnout is argued to be a more complex phenomenon than simply a response to chronic stress (cf. Smith, 1986). This definition was adapted from the work burnout literature (e.g., Maslach & Jackson, 1984; Maslach & Leiter, 1997), and it provides a means by which potential antecedents (e.g., stress, motivation, perfectionism) and consequences of burnout (e.g., illness, injury, or dropout) can be examined (e.g., Cresswell & Eklund, 2005b, 2005c; Raedeke, Lunney, & Venables, 2002). In particular, over the past 15 years researchers have focused on investigating possible antecedents of athlete burnout (see Goodger et al., 2007; Gustafsson et al., 2011 for reviews). Numerous empirical studies have examined antecedents such as perceived stress (Raedeke & Smith, 2004; Smith, 1986), training load (Gustafsson, Kenttä, Hassmén, & Lundqvist, 2007; Gustafsson, Kenttä, Hassmén, Lundqvist & Durand-Bush, 2007), parental pressure (Harlick & McKenzie, 2000), commitment (Raedeke, 1997; Schmidt & Stein, 1991), perfectionism (Appleton, Hall, & Hill, 2009; Gould, Udry et al., 1996), and motivation (Cresswell & Eklund, 2005a, 2005b, 2005c; Lemyre et al., 2006, 2007, 2008; Lonsdale & Hodge, 2011; Lonsdale et al., 2008, 2009).

Motivational antecedents of athlete burnout There is mounting evidence that an athlete’s motives for participation in his/her sport are associated with the level of burnout that he or she experiences. Self-determination theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 2000a, 2000b; Ryan & Deci, 2002) has been advocated as a promising theoretical lens to examine the motivational antecedents of athlete burnout (Hodge, Lonsdale, & Ng, 2008; Lemyre et al., 2006; Perreault, Gaudreau, Lapointe, & Lacroix, 2007). The SDT construct of autonomous motivation has shown a consistently negative relationship with burnout (e.g., Cresswell & Eklund, 2005a, 2005b, 2005c; DeFreese & Smith, 2013b, 2014; Holmberg & Sheridan, 2013; Jowett, Hill, Hall, & Curran, 2013; Lemyre et al., 2006, 2007; Lonsdale et al., 2009); in contrast controlled motivation has been positively associated with athlete burnout (Cresswell & Eklund, 2005c; Holmberg & Sheridan, 2013; Jowett et al., 2013; Lonsdale & Hodge, 2011; Lonsdale et al., 2009). These results support SDT-based hypotheses; furthermore, in their basic needs theory, a sub-theory of SDT, Deci and Ryan (2000a) proposed that humans have three basic psychological needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness. When these needs are satisfied, humans are expected to experience optimal wellbeing (e.g., autonomous motivation, subjective vitality, engagement). Conversely, needs thwarting is thought to lead to pathology and ill-being (e.g., burnout; Perreault et al., 2007). It has been hypothesized that the ‘frustration’ or thwarting of basic psychological needs represents the motivational basis for athlete burnout (Hodge et al., 2008; Perreault et al., 158

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2007). Nevertheless, while need satisfaction has been shown to have a consistently negative relationship with athlete burnout (e.g., Curran, Appleton, Hill, & Hall, 2013; Hodge et al., 2008; Perreault et al., 2007), researchers have yet to directly examine need thwarting with respect to athlete burnout.

Perfectionism and athlete burnout Perfectionism has been identified by a number of researchers as a key factor that may predispose athletes to dysfunctional achievement striving and subsequent burnout (Appleton et al., 2009; Gould, Udry et al., 1996; Gustafsson et al., 2008; Hill & Appleton, 2011; Hill, Hall, Appleton, & Kozub, 2008; Hill, Hall, & Appleton, 2010; Jowett et al., 2013; Lemyre et al., 2008). Perfectionism has been broadly defined as striving for exceedingly high standards accompanied by harsh self-criticism (Frost, Marten, Lahart, & Rosenblate, 1990). Certain dimensions of perfectionism appear to place athletes at greater risk of burnout. Hewitt and Flett (1991) argued that perfectionism has both intrapersonal and interpersonal qualities. Self-oriented perfectionism is an intrapersonal dimension characterized by an internal drive for exceedingly high personal standards and a tendency to criticize oneself harshly. Socially prescribed perfectionism is an interpersonal dimension characterized by perceptions that others hold unrealistically high standards for oneself, and withhold approval based on attempts to obtain external standards (Hewitt & Flett, 1991). Socially prescribed perfectionism has been positively associated with athlete burnout (Appleton et al., 2009; Hill et al., 2008; Hill, Hall, Appleton, & Murray, 2010), whereas selforiented perfectionism has demonstrated a negative association (Appleton et al., 2009; Hill et al., 2008), no association (Hill et al., 2010), and a positive indirect association (Hill et al., 2008) with athlete burnout. From a SDT perspective, the association between perfectionistic concerns and motivational regulations (i.e., lower autonomous motivation and higher controlled motivation) offers an explanation of their possible relationships with athlete burnout. More specifically, perfectionistic concerns include sub-dimensions that are theoretically closely related to controlled motivation. Jowett et al. (2013) found that perfectionistic concerns had a positive direct and indirect (via controlled motivation) relationship with athlete burnout.

Athlete engagement and athlete burnout Over the past 20 years, psychologists have argued strongly for a more positive and strengthbased focus within psychology (e.g., Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), and more recently within sport psychology as well (Gordon & Gucciardi, 2011; Gould, 2002). In line with positive psychology principles, organizational psychologists (e.g., Schaufeli & Salanova, 2007) have suggested that engagement is the conceptual opposite of work burnout. Moreover, it has been advocated that the promotion of engagement with one’s work is the best method to prevent burnout (Gonzalez-Roma, Schaufeli, Bakker, & Lloret, 2006; Schaufeli & Salanova, 2007). This proposition follows from the positive psychology principle that health includes the presence of wellness (not just the absence of illness or disease); however, researchers have only just begun to explore the applicability of the engagement concept to sport. Athlete engagement refers to generalised positive affect and cognitions about one’s sport as a whole (Lonsdale, Hodge, & Jackson, 2007; Lonsdale, Hodge, & Raedeke, 2007), and has been defined as a persistent, positive, cognitive-affective experience in sport that is characterized by confidence, dedication, enthusiasm, and vigor (Lonsdale, Hodge, & Jackson, 2007). 159

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Gaining knowledge about the antecedents and consequences of athlete engagement should lead to practical implications regarding possible benefits from enhanced athlete engagement (e.g., decreased burnout; increased enjoyment and flow). To date, only a handful of investigations have examined athlete engagement. Two studies provided preliminary evidence regarding the existence of athlete engagement (Lonsdale, Hodge, & Jackson, 2007; Lonsdale, Hodge, & Raedeke, 2007), and subsequent research has revealed a strong inverse relationship between athlete engagement and athlete burnout (Lonsdale, Hodge, & Jackson, 2007; DeFreese & Smith, 2013a), as well as potential antecedents (e.g., SDT basic needs) and consequences (e.g., flow) of athlete engagement (Hodge, Lonsdale, & Jackson, 2009). Hodge and colleagues (2009) found that need satisfaction predicted athlete engagement; and need satisfaction and athlete engagement predicted dispositional flow for elite athletes.

Hope, optimism, passion, and athlete burnout Also in line with positive psychology principles, researchers have begun to investigate the relations between other positive psychology variables (i.e., hope, optimism, passion) and athlete burnout. Recent research has discovered significant negative relations between dispositional hope and athlete burnout (Gustafsson, Hassmén, & Podlog, 2010; Gustafsson, Skoog, Podlog, Lundqvist, & Wagnsson, 2013), while both Gustafsson and Skoog (2012) and DeFreese and Smith (2014) reported a negative relationship between dispositional optimism and athlete burnout. Finally, Curran, Appleton, Hill, and Hall (2011, 2013) found negative relations between harmonious passion and athlete burnout. Clearly further research is needed, but these three positive psychology constructs, along with athlete engagement, appear to offer considerable promise as potential protective antecedents of athlete burnout.

Overtraining, recovery and monitoring There is considerable overlap between the constructs of burnout and overtraining syndrome (OTS). Both syndromes depict exhaustion and performance frustrations; however, they are operationalized differently. As previously noted, a sense of reduced performance accomplishment is one of the three core dimensions of the burnout syndrome. This burnout dimension is typically assessed by self-report questionnaire (i.e., the Athlete Burnout Questionnaire: Raedeke & Smith, 2009); in comparison a sport-specific objective decrease in athlete performance/accomplishment signifies the presence of overtraining syndrome (Meeusen, Duclos, Foster, Fry, Gleeson, Nieman, Raglin, Rietjens, Steinacker, & Urhausen, 2013). More importantly, underperformance is regarded as the hallmark of OTS together with a mood disturbance. If an athlete manages to recover from a state of underperformance within a two-week period this phenomenon is typically regarded as indicating a state of ‘overreaching’ (Meeusen et al., 2013). There is a fine line amongst optimal training, socalled functional overreaching (also labeled positive and short term overtraining), and excessive training, so-called non-functional overreaching (also labeled negative overtraining), which results in OTS. Whereas recovery from functional overreaching can be completed relatively quickly, it often takes months to fully recover from an episode of OTS. To avoid misunderstandings regarding terminology, ‘overtraining’ is used as a verb, a process of intensified training with possible outcomes of short-term overreaching (functional OR); excessive overreaching (non-functional OR); or the Overtraining Syndrome (OTS). It is important to conceptually distinguish between the process of overtraining and the maladaptive consequence (i.e., overtraining syndrome; OTS). In addition, by using ‘syndrome’ in OTS 160

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terminology the multifactorial aetiology of this phenomenon is emphasized (Kellmann, 2002; Meeusen et al., 2013). More specifically, several causal factors such as training and non-training factors, recovery, and individual capacity are acknowledged in the research literature as potential antecedents/causes of OTS (Kenttä & Hassmén, 1998; Raglin & Wilson, 2000). While researchers have undertaken considerable examinations of OTS, as yet there is no single diagnostic tool to identify an athlete suffering from OTS or to differentiate OTS from burnout. Therefore, the solution is to systematically exclude/eliminate all other possible influences on changes in performance and mood state. Ultimately, when no other explanation is found, overtraining syndrome is diagnosed (Kenttä & Hassmén, 1998). As a consequence, the diagnosis of OTS can often only be made retrospectively. It has been suggested that monitoring training load and recovery may prevent OTS (Kellmann & Kallus, 2001; Kenttä & Hassmén, 1998; Kenttä, Hassmén, & Raglin, 2006; Lundqvist & Kenttä, 2010). The state of recovery plays a vital role in evaluating the consequences of heavy training as being either adaptive or maladaptive. More specifically, monitoring recovery will guide decisions during the training process based on how the recovery state is perceived by the athletes. Recovery in this context is defined as a holistic process (i.e., representing a psychosociophysiological perspective) with the objective to eliminate all levels of fatigue and to regain vitality (Lundqvist & Kenttä, 2010). Moreover, recovery can be enhanced by carefully monitoring various generative and unwinding recovery activities such as, sleep and rest, nutrition and fluids, relaxation and emotional support, and more active recovery, for example yoga, qi-gong, and mindful walking in nature (Kenttä & Hassmén, 2002; Venter, 2014). Despite the obvious overlap between OTS and burnout, each construct has been primarily researched and described separately from each other. Sport medicine and physiologicallydriven research has focused on the process of overtraining that potentially may result in the overtraining syndrome. This divide becomes obvious when reading the last major consensus statement regarding overtraining syndrome jointly published by the European College of Sport Science and the American College of Sports Medicine in 2013. Out of 149 references no single study was devoted to athlete burnout (Meeusen et al., 2013). In contrast, the discipline of sport psychology has primarily focused research efforts on burnout across different populations. One of the more extensive reviews published by Goodger and colleagues in 2007 included a total of 58 published studies. When examining the list of references, only eight citations out of the 58 addressed overtraining/excessive training (Gould & Dieffenbach, 2002; Jurimäe, Mäestu, Purge, Jurimäe, & Soot, 2002; Kellmann, Altenburg, Lormes, & Steinacker, 2001; Kellmann & Gunther, 2000; Kellmann & Kallus, 2001; Kenttä & Hassmén, 1998; Kenttä, Hassmén, & Raglin, 2006; Silva, 1990). The modest number of OTS citations indicates that while some scholars in sport psychology have acknowledged the overlap and interdependency between burnout and OTS, in general both areas of research have progressed separately.

Future research – an integrated model Athlete burnout is a complex syndrome with a growing scientific knowledge base. However, several overlapping and to some extent competing theoretical models have been proposed in research. In an attempt to advance the field of athlete burnout, Gustafsson and colleagues presented an integrated model that may guide future research (Gustafsson, Kenttä, & Hassmén, 2011). Their model included (i) frequently reported antecedents (e.g., excessive training, lack of recovery, stressful social relations), (ii) early signs (e.g., mood 161

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disturbance, performance frustrations, dysfunctional behaviors), (iii) consequences (e.g., long-term performance impairment, partial or complete withdrawal, impaired immune function), and (iv) factors related to personality, coping, and the psychosocial environment (e.g., perfectionism, low autonomy, motivational climate). Researchers should continue to strive to more comprehensively examine the aetiology underlying athlete burnout – possibly by adding biopsychosocial vulnerability models from clinical psychology (e.g., Barlow, 2004). Employing qualitative approaches would be another means to further examine the aetiology underlying athlete burnout. To date, qualitative methods have only enjoyed limited use regarding athlete burnout (see Dubuc et al., 2010; Gustafsson et al., 2007, 2008 for examples); consequently one could argue that increased use of inductive qualitative analysis would allow for a richer and more nuanced examination of the potential antecedents, correlates, and consequences of burnout. Moreover, such an approach might also lend itself to (a) ‘bridging the gap’ between burnout and OTS, and (b) assisting with the identification and establishment of more precise diagnostic criteria for both burnout and OTS. For example, the researchers who developed the Athlete Burnout Questionnaire explicitly warned researchers and practitioners that their instrument was not intended to diagnose athlete burnout, rather it was developed to assess varying levels of burnout across the three dimensions (Raedeke & Smith, 2009). Future research needs to target such diagnostic criteria as a priority. Finally, we believe that another important step for future research would be to deliberately and systematically integrate research in the domains of burnout and overtraining. In doing so researchers will need to develop a consensus statement regarding definition, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of both constructs. Such a consensus statement would facilitate future research as well as applied efforts.

Conclusions Athlete burnout and OTS are typically regarded as exclusively negative experiences, yet they can serve as opportunities for personal growth and enhanced resilience. In our roles as practitioners we have observed some ‘positive’ consequences from episodes of burnout and OTS; but this topic is rarely discussed in research. First, the timing of such an experience may lend itself to a potentially positive outcome; for example if an athlete’s performance impairment occurs during the pinnacle event for their season, then (while still a harsh lesson) the athlete has an immediate off-season period to use productively as both a physical and mental ‘break’ from the stress and strain of committed sports training and competing. That is they have the opportunity to use the ‘down-time’ to recover both physically and mentally, and to potentially turn the episode into a positive learning experience with enhanced resilience against future negative experiences. Athletes may grasp the opportunity to reflect, learn, and re-adjust, and then re-enter their sport with a modified orientation (e.g., autonomous motivation; increased self-awareness) or to adaptively transition onward to something else they are more passionate about. In other words, every cloud has its silver lining. Second, it is evident from our experience that suffering from negative experiences such as OTS, burnout, injuries, and episodes of depression, increases the likelihood (i.e., vulnerability) for such experiences to occur again. Athletes suffering from negative experiences such as these are at an increased risk of experiencing further such episodes; consequently athletes and support staff must carefully monitor those athletes with a history of these experiences (e.g., OTS, burnout) in order to prevent new episodes. A positive outcome of monitoring athletes in this manner can be an increased awareness (by both athletes and support staff) and an increased knowledge about stress and recovery that can be beneficial in the short 162

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term and in the long term with respect to life-after-sport. Nevertheless, such an increased awareness is often a fine balance between an athlete being afraid and anxious about ‘hitting the wall’ again (almost health anxiety) or feeling more competent and confident to interpret their body signals and recovery status. Finally, a long-term episode of athlete burnout may lead to the athlete identifying different goals and values in their sport, and/or trying to find meaning in other life domains.

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Raedeke, T. D., Lunney, K., & Venables, K. (2002). Understanding athlete burnout: Coach perspectives. Journal of Sport Behavior, 25, 181–206. Raglin, J. S., & Wilson, G. S. (2000). Overtraining in athletes. In Y. Hanin (Ed.), Emotions in sport (pp. 191–207). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2002). Overview of self-determination theory: An organismic dialectical perspective. In E. L. Deci & R. Ryan (Eds.), Handbook of self-determination research (pp. 3–33). Rochester, NY: The University of Rochester Press. Schaufeli, W. B., & Salanova, M. (2007). Work engagement: An emerging psychological concept and its implications for organizations. In S. W. Gilliland, D. D. Steiner, & D. P. Skarlicki (Eds.), Research in social issues in management (Volume 5): Managing social and ethical issues in organizations (pp. 135–177). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishers. Schmidt, G. W., & Stein, G. L. (1991). Sport commitment: A model integrating enjoyment, dropout, and burnout. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 13, 254–265. Seligman, M. E. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. C. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist, 55, 5–14. Silva, J. M. (1990). An analysis of the training stress syndrome in competitive athletics. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 2, 5–20. Smith, A. L., Gustafsson, H., & Hassmén, P. (2010). Peer motivational climate and burnout perceptions of adolescent athletes. Psychology of Sport & Exercise, 11, 453–460. Smith, R. E. (1986). Toward a cognitive-affective model of athletic burnout. Journal of Sport Psychology, 8, 36–50. Vealey, R. S., Armstrong, L., Comar, W., & Greenleaf, C. (1998). Influence of perceived coaching behaviors on burnout and competitive anxiety in female college athletes. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 10, 297–318. Venter, R. E. (2014). Perceptions of team athletes on the importance of recovery modalities. European Journal of Sport Science, 1, 69–76.

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Given sport psychology’s traditional focus on the development of performance enhancement principles, it is no surprise that injury − one of the greatest impediments to athletic performance − has become a topic of substantial investigation. In this chapter, I examine four broad questions that have guided the bulk of empirical inquiry: (1) Are there psychological factors that increase the likelihood of injury occurrence? (2) How do athletes respond to sport injury? (3) Are there psychosocial interventions that influence athletes’ injury rehabilitation? and (4) What are the psychosocial challenges associated with a return to competition following injury recovery? Contemporary research on head injury and concussion, spinal cord injury, and injury and career transitions is also highlighted. Future research directions and a summary conclusion are offered.

Psychological factors and injury occurrence In an attempt to identify salient psychological risk factors for injury, several conceptual models have been developed. The most influential and well tested of these models is Williams and Andersen’s (1998) Stress-Injury Model. Williams and Andersen (1998) posited that injury susceptibility may be influenced by the extent to which an athlete experiences a stress response in a potentially stressful athletic situation. The stress response, the core of the model, represents a bidirectional relationship between an individual’s cognitive appraisal of a potentially stressful athletic situation and the attentional and physiological aspects of stress. Debilitating attentional (distraction, peripheral narrowing) and physiological changes (muscle tension, fatigue, reduced timing and coordination) are proposed to occur when an athlete appraises an athletic situation as threatening (Williams & Andersen, 1998). Three broad categories of variables − personality traits (e.g., trait anxiety, perfectionism), history of stressors (e.g., major life-event stress, daily hassles, previous injury history), and coping resources (e.g., psychological skill use, social support) − are also suggested to influence the strength of the stress response and the subsequent likelihood of injury (Williams & Andersen, 1998). Personality. With regard to personality variables, a wide range of traits such as competitive anxiety, trait anxiety, Type A behaviors, and stress susceptibility have been linked to increased injury vulnerability in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies (Brewer, 2007; Johnson & 167

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Ivarsson, 2011). Athletes who report negative mood states (e.g., anger) or overall mood disturbances (e.g., tension, depression) are also more likely to incur an injury or to sustain more severe injuries (Appaneal & Habif, 2013). Appaneal and Habif (2013) found that across 45 studies examining personality and injury outcomes, approximately 69 percent reported at least some significant relationship. These findings suggest that personality variables, including mood states, may be implicated in injury occurrence. History of stressors. Consistent support exists for the contention that individuals who have experienced major life-event stress (dramatic life events and severely taxing situations), chronic daily hassles (relatively minor day-to-day stresses and pleasures), or a previous injury are vulnerable to injury occurrence. In several experimental and longitudinal studies, investigators demonstrated a relationship between negative major life-event stress and injury (e.g., Ivarsson, Johnson, & Podlog, 2013; Rogers & Landers, 2005). Recently investigators have also examined the role of chronic stressors in injury onset as well as the mediating role of chronic daily hassles in the relationship between major life-event stress and injury (Ivarsson et al., 2013). For example, Ivarsson et al. (2013) found that negative major lifeevent stress (e.g., death of a close family member or spouse, divorce, dismissal from work, change in residence) was positively associated with greater levels of daily hassles which in turn predicted injury frequency among a sample of Swedish Premiere League soccer players. Coping. In terms of coping and injury vulnerability, adaptive coping strategies such as the ability to control arousal and to think clearly under stress, are negatively associated with injury (Rogers & Landers, 2005). Conversely, Smith, Smoll, and Ptacek (1990) found that athletes who were low in both social support and coping skills exhibited a significant stressinjury relationship. Furthermore, soccer players who exhibit ineffective coping strategies such as self-blame have been demonstrated to be at risk for injury occurrence (Ivarsson & Johnson, 2010). The reasons why poor coping strategies were related to increased risk of injury were not examined in the Ivarsson and Johnson study. It seems likely, however, that maladaptive coping skills such as self-blame might be linked with attentional disruptions such as thinking about past mistakes, which could in turn lead to injury vulnerability. Stress response mechanism. Few investigators have examined direct links between the stress response mechanism (i.e., stress appraisals and subsequent attentional/physiological changes) and injury. Those that have, suggest support for the proposed relationships between particular moderator variables (i.e., life-event stress [LES] and social support), peripheral narrowing, and subsequent injury. Williams, Tonymon, and Andersen (1991) found that athletes that had experienced a high level of major life-event stress exhibited a narrowing of their peripheral vision during a laboratory stress task (performing a Stroop Color-Word Test accompanied by distracting noise) compared to athletes that had experienced lower levels of major life-event stress. Along these lines, Andersen and Williams (1999) found that for athletes with low levels of social support and high LES, change in peripheral vision during a laboratory stressor accounted for nearly 30 percent of the variance in injury frequency over the course of an athletic season. Finally, Rogers and Landers (2005) found that peripheral narrowing mediated the relationship between major stressors (i.e., negative life-event stress) and injury occurrence. These findings support the suggestion that under stressful conditions, athletes may experience a narrowing of their peripheral vision which inhibits their ability to process environmental cues (e.g., a linebacker attacking the quarterback from a blindside) and which increase their risk of injury. Given the above evidence, it would seem there are psychological factors (personality traits, history of stressors, deficient coping skills, and attentional disruptions) which increase the likelihood of injury occurrence.

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Psychological responses to sport injury Sport psychology researchers have examined athletes’ cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses to injury. It has been suggested that an understanding of such responses is important for facilitating adaptive forms of coping, enhancing key rehabilitation behaviors such as adherence, and because cognitive and emotional responses may affect physiological healing processes (Brewer, 2007). Two main approaches – grief and loss stage theories and cognitive appraisals models – have been adopted. The underlining assumption of grief-loss models is that injury represents a loss of some aspect of the self; while the stage element suggests that psychological responses follow a predictable pattern (Heil & Podlog, 2012). Several stage models have been applied to sport injury, all of which have evolved from the seminal work On Death and Dying by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross (1969). She hypothesized that individuals moved through a series of stages during the progression of terminal illness: disbelief, denial, and isolation; anger; bargaining; depression; and finally acceptance and resignation. Robert Rotella (1982) was among the first sport psychologists to adopt this model, suggesting that athletes may experience a similar emotional response to injury. Although stage theories played an influential role in thinking about athletic injury, they have been deemed largely inadequate for capturing the complexity and range of athletes’ psychological response to injury. Conversely, substantial support has accumulated for cognitive appraisal models in general, and the Wiese-Bjornstal, Smith, Shaffer, and Morrey (1998) integrated model of psychological response to the sport injury and rehabilitation process in particular (Heil & Podlog, 2012). In the model, cognitive and affective factors are posited to influence behavioral responses (e.g., adherence, behavioral coping, social support seeking behaviors), which in turn impact physical and psychosocial recovery outcomes (e.g., clinical function, post-injury performance, well-being). Furthermore, a wide array of personal (e.g., injury history, level of competition, personality traits) and situational factors (e.g., timing of injury, social support levels) are suggested to influence athletes’ injury appraisals. Finally, the sociocultural context in which injury occurs is posited to have implications for athletes’ psychological responses to injury (Wiese-Bjornstal et al., 1998). In support of the model, a range of post-injury cognitions have been identified including: perceptions of reduced self-esteem (Granquist & Brewer, 2013), appraisals of injury benefits (e.g., opportunity to develop non-sport interests, viewing injury as a test of character, and enhanced appreciation for sport; Podlog & Eklund, 2006; Wadey, Evans, Evans, & Mitchell, 2011), and time differences in sport self-confidence over the course of rehabilitation (Quinn & Fallon, 1999). A variety of emotional reactions to injury, including those identified in the Kübler-Ross stage model, have been described. For example, feelings of loss, denial, frustration, anger, and depression have been indicated by athletes across a wide range of sports (e.g., rugby league, basketball, Australian Football, soccer) and competitive levels (e.g., state, national, professional, NCAA III; Mankad & Gordon, 2010; Brewer, 2007). Positive emotions such as happiness, relief, and excitement have also been reported following the attainment of rehabilitation goals and the anticipation of a return to sport (Podlog & Eklund, 2010). Finally, it appears that cognitive and emotional responses are influenced by a wide array of personal and situational factors including but not limited to: athletic identity, previous injury experience, injury severity, injury type, current injury status, life stress, social support satisfaction, and timing of the injury (e.g., Alzate Saez de Heredia, Ramirez & Lazaro, 2004; Brewer, 2007). With regard to behavioral responses, rehabilitation adherence has received the greatest amount of research attention. Adherence has been defined as “the extent to which an individual 169

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completes behaviors as part of a treatment regimen designed to facilitate recovery from injury” (Granquist & Brewer, 2013, p. 42). Research examining adherence correlates is not surprising given that adherence is thought to be fundamental to achieving effective functional/clinical (e.g., muscular strength, endurance, proprioception), and return-to-play outcomes (e.g., confidence in skill execution, performance levels, re-injury occurrence; Granquist & Brewer, 2013). Personal factors positively linked to adherence include: pain tolerance, self-motivation, perceived injury severity, self-efficacy in completing the rehabilitation program, and selfesteem (Brewer, 2007). Active coping responses such as use of positive self-talk (Scherzer et al., 2001), imagery (Milne, Hall & Forwell, 2005), goal-setting (Evans & Hardy, 2002), and seeking out additional information about injury (Brewer, 2007) are also associated with adherence. Conversely, mood disturbance (Alzate Saez de Heredia et al., 2004) and re-injury anxiety (Walker, Thatcher & Lavallee, 2010) are negatively associated with adherence. In addition, situational factors primarily related to perception of treatment also predict adherence. These include a belief in treatment efficacy (Taylor & May, 1996), information and education about the value of rehabilitation (Granquist & Brewer, 2013), value of rehabilitation to the athlete (Taylor & May, 1996), and hours a week of sport involvement (Johnston & Carroll, 2000). Research examining relationships between adherence and clinical outcomes (e.g., range of motion, strength, joint laxity, pain, endurance) has also been conducted. Adherence has been positively associated with clinical outcomes (e.g. proprioception, range of motion, muscular endurance) in a number of investigations (e.g., Alzate Saez de Heredia et al., 2004). However, non-significant (Feller, Webster, Taylor, Payne & Pizzari, 2004) and negative relationships (Feller et al., 2004) have also been found. Further research substantiating the link between adherence and clinical outcomes will lend greater credence to the importance of adherence behaviors. Taking into account the research described in this section, it is apparent that athletes may respond to injury with a range of negative and positively valenced cognitions, emotions, and behavioral responses.

Psychosocial interventions influencing athletes’ rehabilitation From the discussion above, it is evident that athletes must contend with a multitude of challenges during the injury recovery process. Fortunately, a variety of psychological and social interventions have proven effective in addressing such demands. In terms of psychological interventions, researchers have demonstrated the efficacy of a variety of strategies, including: goal-setting, imagery and relaxation, and stress inoculation in enhancing the rate, adherence to, or outcomes of sport injury rehabilitation (Heil & Podlog, 2012). Similarly, the use of self-directed cognitive coping strategies such as accepting injury, focusing on getting better, and positive self-talk predict favorable outcomes (Gould, Udry, Bridges, & Beck, 1997; Quinn & Fallon, 1999). Finally, there is preliminary evidence that psychological factors may expedite the recovery process through neurohormonal changes (noradrenaline, dopamine; Maddisson, Prapavessis, Clatworthy et al., 2012). With regard to social-based interventions, maximizing social support provision and optimizing patient-practitioner interactions may be essential in facilitating athletes’ injury rehabilitation. The importance of social support in mitigating difficult life challenges − including sport injury − has been demonstrated across a variety of life domains (ArvinenBarrow & Pack, 2013). Consistent evidence supports the benefit of various social support types for reducing athlete distress (Clement & Shannon, 2011), facilitating rehabilitation motivation and adherence (Podlog & Dionigi, 2010), and enhancing athlete perceptions of treatment efficacy and rehabilitation self-efficacy (Bone & Fry, 2006). Unfortunately, 170

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inadequate levels of social support have also been documented (Johnston & Caroll, 2000), particularly among coaches and teammates (Clement & Shannon, 2011). Coaches may believe that they are responsible for optimizing the performance of healthy athletes rather than addressing the psychological needs of injured performers. Further research examining this contention is warranted. Another crucial social factor influencing athletes’ rehabilitation is the quality of the patient– practitioner relationship. In particular, interactions between the athlete and athletic trainer/ sport physiotherapist have been found to be essential in influencing athletes’ psychological state, the quality of their rehabilitation experiences, and eventual treatment outcomes (Granquist & Brewer, 2013). By developing a positive rapport with athletes, listening to athlete concerns, providing a rationale for rehabilitation exercises, and communicating using simple non-technical terminology, the sport medicine professional can create an environment that will facilitate rehabilitation adherence and likely enhance treatment outcomes (Granquist & Brewer, 2013). Sport psychologists may also play a pivotal role in alleviating injured athlete concerns, facilitating pain management, and providing injured athletes with coping skills for directing their energy and facilitating treatment adherence (Heil, 2012). To summarize, it is apparent that there appear to be various psychosocial interventions (e.g., goal-setting, social support) that positively influence athletes’ injury rehabilitation.

Psychosocial factors influencing the return to competition following injury Improvements in rehabilitation techniques and surgical interventions have helped expedite recovery processes. Unfortunately, a shortening of athletes’ physical recovery has not always coincided with athlete perceptions of psychological readiness to return to competitive sport (Glazer, 2009; Podlog & Eklund, 2006; Walker et al., 2010). In conducting qualitative, cross-sectional and experimental studies on the return to sport after injury, Robert Eklund and I have found that a return to competition may engender feelings of excitement and anticipation, while simultaneously eliciting feelings of apprehension and uncertainty (e.g., Podlog & Eklund, 2010). In particular, athletes have reported heightened performance anxiety, anxieties over re-injury, diminished physical self-efficacy, concerns about performing at pre-injury levels, and coercive or subtle pressures to return from coaches, teammates, and family members (Gould et al., 1997; Kvist, Ek, Sporrstedt, & Good, 2005). Social and cultural factors (e.g., media, sporting subcultures) may also influence athletes to return to sport, in some instances, before they are ready (Caron, Bloom, Johnston, & Sabiston, 2013). Given the multitude of challenges faced by returning athletes, a number of investigators have examined constructs associated with psychological readiness to return to sport. Two instruments, the Psychological Readiness to Return to Sport Scale (I-PPRS; Glazer, 2009) and the Re-Injury Anxiety Inventory (RIAI; Walker et al., 2010) have been developed to assess athletes’ psychological mind set during the re-entry period. While the I-PPRS scale represents an important advance in terms of measurement and assessment of psychological readiness to return, no guiding theoretical constructs informed its development, nor were athletes’ perspectives taken into account when developing the scale items. Further research is needed to examine the components of psychological readiness to return, the factors that cultivate its occurrence, and the psychological and behavioral outcomes of readiness following athletes’ return to training and competition. As indicated, the RIAI also provides researchers and practitioners with greater insight into athletes’ states of mind upon their return to competition. The measure consists of 28 171

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items and two factors: anxieties regarding rehabilitation (RIA-R: 15 items; e.g., “I am worried about becoming re-injured during rehabilitation”) and anxieties regarding re-injury at return to play (RIA-RE: 13 items; e.g., “I am worried about becoming re-injured during re-entry into competition”). Despite the contention that re-injury anxiety may lead to maladaptive consequences upon the return to sport from injury, more research is needed to support the claim. Given the aforementioned research, it seems there are numerous psychosocial challenges (e.g., re-injury anxiety, performance concerns, social and cultural pressures to expedite the return to competition) associated with a return to competition following injury recovery.

Contemporary topics in the psychology of sport injury In recent years, several topics − head injury and concussion, spinal cord injury, and injury and career transitions − have gained greater prominence in the psychology of sport injury literature. Each topic is briefly highlighted below. Head injury and concussion. A rich body of epidemiological, sports medicine, and neuropsychological research exists on concussion. In recognition of sport psychologists’ recent interest in the topic, editors of the Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology (2012) dedicated a 2012 special issue to the topic. Such interest appears to have coincided with the recognition that sport psychology professionals may play an important role in concussion assessment and the delivery of psychological services (Chertok & Martin, 2013). For example, Anthony Kontos, a leading sport psychology researcher on concussion has suggested the importance of educating athletes and helping them deal with post-concussion issues such as the pressure to return to play and fear of re-injury (Kontos, Collins, & Russo, 2004). Moreover, sport psychology professionals are ideally positioned to help athletes deal with the psychological sequelae of concussion, which can include anger, rage, fear, confusion, and isolation (Chertok & Martin, 2013; Kontos et al., 2004). In more severe cases, these symptoms may persist for weeks, months, or even years (Chertok & Martin, 2013). Inquiry beyond the role of sport psychologists in concussion management and resolution has included various topics, such as the importance of educating coaches, athletes, and parents regarding concussion prevention, recognition, and response (Covassin, Elbin, & Sarmiento, 2012) and the sociocultural context in which concussion occurs (McGannon, Cunningham, & Schinke, 2013). Evidence suggests that in many sporting subcultures (e.g., ice-hockey) concussion implications are euphemized and minimized as athletes are encouraged to be tough and play through pain and injury (Caron et al., 2013).

Spinal cord injury Research on traumatic sport injury has extended beyond head injury and concussion to include spinal cord injury (SCI). Two investigators at the forefront of SCI research, Brett Smith and Andrew Sparkes, have eloquently documented the experiences of SCI athletes. Using narrative analysis and ethnographic creative non-fiction, the researchers have lucidly brought to life the rehabilitation experiences of SCI individuals as well as their challenges in reintegrating into their communities (e.g., Sparkes & Smith, 2011; Smith, 2013; Smith, Papathomas, Martin Ginis, & Latimer-Cheung, 2013). Also highlighted are the complexities of coming to terms with new circumstances, constructing restorative and/or alternate visions of the future, and challenging oppressive social structures. Despite the realities of wrestling with permanent disablement, some SCI athletes have described the achievement of posttraumatic growth and new ways of being (Smith, 2013). 172

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Injury and career transitions Natalia Stambulova, a preeminent scholar on career transitions, has suggested that the injury event can be conceived of as a transition from one embodied experience to another − an active, “healthy” body to an impaired one; a “rehabilitated” body to one re-initiating competitive activity; or an incapacitated body to one forced into retirement (N. Stambulova, personnel communication, July 24, 2013). Injury may represent a non-normative (i.e., unpredictable) transition (Stambulova, Alfermann, Statler, & Côté, 2009). Such transitions can be harder to cope with given their unexpected nature and the fact that the athlete had little control or autonomy over the situation (see McManus & Smith, 2008, for a review). In the case of acute injury, the transition out of sport may be characterized by a reduction in the gradualness of the adaptation process, the non-accomplishment of sports-related goals, and a lack of preparation for a new life direction (Mcmanus & Smith, 2008). Premature retirement from sport-related injury may therefore be associated with psychosocial difficulties such as a lack of positive identity and self-respect, feelings of anger, anxiety, and depression, and substance abuse (Johnson & Ivarsson, 2011; Wiese-Bjornstal et al., 1998).

Future research directions Research on the psychology of sport injury has proliferated. Given the magnitude of the injury problem, further research examining psychosocial predictors of acute and chronic injury is warranted. Also, limited research has highlighted factors (e.g., physical activity) and processes involved in attaining positive growth, adaptation, and change following injury, suggesting the need for further inquiry in this area (Day, 2013). Other fruitful possibilities include: psychophysiological studies examining the mechanisms by which psychological interventions facilitate clinical rehabilitation outcomes; prospective investigations examining the implications of psychological readiness (or re-injury anxiety) on post-injury performance; and concussion management and treatment decisions within particular sport subcultures. There is also a paucity of research examining athletes’ retirement decision-making processes (Park, Lavallee, & Tod, 2013), the sociocultural influences which constrain decision-making around retirement (Cosh, Crabb, & Lecouteur, 2013), and the processes associated with adaptive injury transitions.

Conclusion In this chapter I have reviewed research examining the psychological precursors of injury, injury responses, psychosocial interventions influencing injury rehabilitation, and issues associated with the return to sport following injury. Contemporary research on head injury and concussion, spinal cord injury, and injury and career transitions was also highlighted. Despite the proliferation of psychology of sport injury research, numerous avenues for further work remain.

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18 U N D E R STA N D I N G AT H L E T E D I S O R D E R E D E AT I N G Critical gender comparisons Anthony Papathomas Disordered eating can be considered an umbrella term that describes a range of disturbed eating attitudes and behaviors, from unhealthy dieting to clinical conditions such as anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) (Shisslak, Crago, & Estes, 1995). Although numerous idiosyncratic variants of disordered eating exist, most are underpinned by a negative body image, an overwhelming fear of weight gain and an obsessive preoccupation with food (APA, 2013). Sport represents a cultural domain that many scholars argue precipitates disordered eating among athletes (Atkinson, 2011). Pressures to lose weight for performance gains, particularly in sports where weight and/or aesthetics are considered central to success, can lead to a variety of unhealthy eating practices. For some athletes, the consequences can be devastating and include extreme self-starvation (Papathomas & Lavallee, 2012b), depression (Papathomas & Lavallee, 2014) and identity loss (Papathomas & Lavallee, 2010). This severe impact on athlete health, both physical and mental, has ensured disordered eating is now a priority topic within sport and exercise psychology. Yet despite a burgeoning number of academic papers in the area, a lack of methodological sophistication has ensured that there remains much that is unknown (Papathomas & Petrie, 2014). One issue of uncertainty concerns the effect of gender on the clinical and experiential manifestations of disordered eating in sport. Within this chapter the meaning of the term gender is partially separated from the term sex. For some time, scholars have argued that although sex is a stable, biological characteristic, gender is a socially constructed phenomenon (see Butler, 1999; Lorber, 1994). The sex-gender distinction is important as it protects against the “biology-is-destiny” formulation (see Butler, 1999) which dangerously implies that females are predetermined to experience disordered eating. That is to say that females, purely on account of being females, and outside of any sociocultural influences, are more likely to develop eating disorders than males. Such a perspective can be seen to absolve parents, coaches, teachers and a host of other social players, of their own role in precipitating troubled eating behaviors in women. In line with this position, the male-female comparisons that follow acknowledge that these two gender types, although powerfully and often inextricably linked to sex, are a product of culture not biology. Gender comparisons are notoriously difficult due to a research base predominately focused on female athletes – the population considered more “at-risk” and therefore more 176

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likely to deliver significant results (see Papathomas & Lavallee, 2012a). Although it is widely accepted that male athletes do experience disordered eating; the phenomenon is sparsely studied relative to female expressions of the illness. Documenting potential gender-specific etiological, symptomatological and experiential comparisons is an important endeavor as it facilitates more sensitive approaches to treatment and prevention. For example, knowing that a specific risk-factor is relevant to males and not females allows for more carefully tailored intervention efforts. In this chapter I begin by critically unpacking female–male disordered eating prevalence estimates. Following this unpacking, the impact of gender on developmental and experiential features of disordered eating is reviewed. Concluding comments will address the ways scholars should look to enhance knowledge of disordered eating gender differences.

The female disease? The overwhelming consensus is that female athletes are much more susceptible to disordered eating development than male athletes (Fortes, Kakeshita, Almeida, Gomes, & Ferreira, 2014; Martinsen, Bratland-Sanda, Eriksson, & Sundgot-Borgen, 2010; Martinsen & Sundgot-Borgen, 2013). This mirrors the situation in the general population where new eating disorder diagnoses can be up to ten times greater in females than males (Micali, Hagberg, Petersen, & Treasure, 2013). So universally accepted is this gender bias that there is a taken for granted assumption that an eating disorder is ultimately a “female disease” (see Busanich & McGannon, 2010). It is problematic when “female vulnerability” is read as a product of biology over culture, as it insinuates that there is little anyone can do to prevent females getting eating disorders – it is the way they are wired. This falls in line with a modern-day penchant for overplaying the role of genetics in eating-disorder development, despite reviews pointing to inconclusive findings (e.g. Scherag, Hebebrand, & Hinney, 2010). Framing eating disorders as genetic conditions a person is simply born into can increase feelings of stigmatization as well as hinder recovery through the promotion of self-fulfilling prophecies and genetic-based excuses (Easter, 2012). Furthermore, as I now discuss, the evidence typically points towards more sociocultural determinants of increased female disordered eating than genetic ones. One particularly pervasive argument for why more females experience disordered eating is that Western cultures promote an unrealistically thin ideal of female beauty. The process is described as such: “exposure to the thin ideal; internalization of the ideal; and experience of a discrepancy between self and ideal, which in turn leads to body dissatisfaction, dietary restraint, and restriction” (Striegel-Moore & Bulik, 2007, p. 184). The term internalization is pertinent as it is the adoption of the ideal into an individual’s belief system, as opposed to the mere presence of the ideal, which can lead to disordered eating. From an athlete standpoint, broad sociocultural pressures to be thin work additively with pressures specific to the sporting environment (Thompson & Sherman, 2010). Consequently, female athletes are at particularly high risk of disordered eating as they are exposed to broad culturally specified beauty ideologies and pressure to be thin for sporting success. As a sub-culture, the world of sport is rife with weight pressures, some of which are specific to female competitors. For example, females are often required to wear unnecessarily revealing competition attire compared to males from the same sport (Thompson & Sherman, 2009). Beach volleyball illustrates this gender discrepancy well, given men wear shorts with a vest and women wear merely a bikini. A further factor concerns aesthetic sports, such as figure skating and rhythmic gymnastics, where the unspoken influence of 177

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physical appearance on judging criteria can encourage unhealthy weight concerns and food restriction (Krentz & Warschburger, 2013). As females are traditionally heavily represented in such aesthetic sports (Koivula, 2001), they are more exposed to these worrisome cultural conventions. Female athletes report that teammates and coaches are the social players most instrumental in upholding and communicating these culturally informed weight pressures (Reel, SooHoo, Petrie, Greenleaf, & Carter, 2010). In some instances, aesthetic sports in particular, the boundaries between sporting pressures and Western beauty ideals can become blurred. To illustrate, in a study by Kerr, Berman, and de Souza (2006), a female gymnast commented that “I thought every part of me was fat and ugly” (p. 37). Although the notion of ugliness should be separate and irrelevant to participation in sports, for female athletes it often is not due to the social and cultural construction of what a female, and specifically a female athlete, is and should be (Busanich, McGannon, & Schinke, 2012).

Male athlete eating disorders: peering into the closet Although it would be erroneous to argue against the idea that more females experience disordered eating than males, it is important to be cognizant of the growing presence of disordered eating in men (Petrie, Galli, Greenleaf, Reel, & Carter, 2014). Certainly, the received wisdom that disordered eating is fundamentally a female phenomenon does not hold up under scrutiny. It is widely accepted that men are reluctant to disclose disordered eating issues due to a fear of the stigma associated with a “female disease” (Busanich, McGannon, & Schinke, 2014; Strother, Lemberg, Stanford, & Turberville, 2012). For male athletes living within the emasculated culture of competitive sport, this stigma, along with the corresponding reluctance to disclose, may be accentuated (Papathomas, 2014). Concealing the existence of disordered eating issues may feel like the only option for many men. From an applied perspective, this concealment means far fewer men seek appropriate treatment for eating disorders (Busanich et al., in press; Hackler, Vogel, & Wade, 2010). From a research perspective, this means that estimates regarding the prevalence of eating disorders in male athletes will most likely be serious underestimates (Baum, 2006). Given this backdrop of stigma and non-disclosure, fueled by social constructions of disordered eating as a female preserve, the limited number of male athlete prevalence studies that exist must be interpreted with caution. One such study found that from a sample of 199 male collegiate athletes drawn from a variety of sports, less than 20 percent were considered symptomatic – sub-clinical disordered eating – and only two individuals presented with a clinical eating disorder (Petrie, Greenleaf, Carter, & Reel, 2007). In a follow-up, Petrie and colleagues again assessed disordered eating prevalence in North American male collegiate athletes (Petrie, Greenleaf, Reel, & Carter, 2008). On this occasion, none of a sample of 203 presented with a clinical eating disorder. The number of male athletes reporting subclinical disordered eating stood at a little under 20 percent, mirroring the results of the previous study. The authors emphasize that these rates are likely underestimates. It was also acknowledged that the sports from which male athletes were drawn from were not those sports typically associated with disordered eating (e.g., in the latter study, over half the sample competed in American Football). Research specifically targeting males involved in lean or aesthetic sports might paint a rather more troubling picture. Such a study was carried out in cycling, a lean sport where low weight is considered instrumental to success (Riebl, Subudhi, Broker, Schenck, & Berning, 2007). A total of 61 competitive male cyclists were compared to 63 male non-cyclists on a range of disordered eating and nutritional indices. The cyclists scored significantly higher than controls on the EAT-26 (Eating Attitudes Test) 178

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with 12 cyclists scoring more than 20 points – the cutoff value whereby a professional eating disorder diagnostic assessment is recommended. Finally, 8 percent of the cyclist group disclosed a clinical eating disorder; a huge increment on the 1 percent or less reported in the two studies by Petrie and colleagues. We may never know the true prevalence of male athlete disordered eating and perhaps it is time to accept that a best estimate is good enough. Papathomas and Lavallee (2012a) have questioned the utility of a sport psychology literature-base dominated by prevalence studies, which are essentially descriptive and give little clue as to the nature of disordered eating development. They also argue that: “each time researchers dispel atypical cases as the ‘insignificant few’ they inadvertently turn their backs on the lives of real people with real experiences” (p. 389). Males are traditionally portrayed as the insignificant few in relation to females, which is why they are so often “neglected, dishonoured, overlooked, excluded and ignored” (Botha, 2010, p. 3). Sport psychology researchers, rather than be concerned as to whether more or fewer male athletes exhibit disordered eating, should accept that some do and that the responsibility remains to understand how and why.

Are men from Mars and women from Venus? Does female disordered eating equate to the same phenomenon as male disordered eating? Although several scholars have argued that disordered eating manifests similarly across gender, others maintain the opposite, and the evidence-base is simply too small for any confident conclusions to be made (Darcy, 2011). Within the following subsections, I discuss the ways in which the existing body of literature has tried to make sense of how gender affects etiology, symptomatology and personal experience.

Gender and disordered eating risk-factors Is the route to disordered eating development the same for both males and females? Within sport, Petrie and Greenleaf (2007) argue that their etiological model for the development of disordered eating in sport is applicable to male athletes but only as a “starting point.” Specifically, it is stated that “because the disordered eating experiences of male and female athletes may differ ... factors that increase the risk of developing or maintaining an eating disorder may vary across these two groups” (p. 362). Substantiating this claim, Petrie and colleagues found that risk-factors commonly associated with female athlete disordered eating did not apply to a sample of male athletes (Petrie et al. 2007). In a later study, muscle building behaviors, as opposed to primary psychosocial predictors such as dietary restraint and body dissatisfaction, were associated with bulimic symptomatology in male collegiate athletes (Petrie, Galli, Greenleaf, Reel, & Carter, 2014). The suggestion in both studies is that the pathogenesis of athlete disordered eating may be subtly, perhaps even markedly, different for males and females. Underlining the uncertainty that shrouds this topic, several scholars have reported that male and female disordered eating development is in fact more similar than it is different. There is evidence that an overarching cultural preference for thinness as a mark of beauty has growing relevance for men (Tod, Edwards, & Hall, 2013). Even men who subscribe to the notion of a muscular male ideal, as opposed to a thin ideal, are not immune to dietary pressures. Although a cultural emphasis on muscular masculinity has traditionally been conceptualized as protecting men from disordered eating (Striegel-Moore, Silberstein, & Rodin, 1986), this argument is problematized by the fact the drive for muscularity is 179

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rarely as simple as just “bulking up.” Men typically crave greater muscular definition, as opposed to purely increased size, and will embark on unhealthily stringent diets to reach the low body fat levels needed to achieve this (Galli & Reel, 2009). The goal is to look “ripped” as much as it is to look “big” and therefore preoccupations with weight gain can mirror those experienced by females; albeit each gender is motivated by a different end point. Complicating the issue further, men perceive a narrow waist combined with a broad chest (a low waist–chest ratio) as attractive to others (Coy, Green, & Price, 2014). Again, large muscle size is important, but it is married with a desire to be thin elsewhere in the body. Cultivating such a highly prescribed body shape demands a detailed knowledge of training and nutrition and it is easy to see how men who pursue this goal can develop a preoccupation with food and weight and eventual disordered eating (Rodgers, Ganchou, Franko, & Chabrol, 2012; Griffiths, Murray, & Touyz, 2012).

Gender and disordered eating clinical features Moving from etiology to symptomatology, a clinical case comparison found no significant differences in dieting severity, bingeing frequency, binge-purge episodes, laxative abuse or excessive exercise, between males and females (Bramon-Bosch, Troop, & Treasure, 2000). In contrast, the same sample revealed males displayed significantly more co-morbid anxiety and depressive disorders, with twice as many males (50 percent) than females admitting to at least one suicide attempt. Men also reported significantly fewer friendships and poorer social adjustment. Although the clinical features of an eating disorder are mostly equivalent across gender,1 the impact symptoms have for broader mental health may differ. Men’s lack of social support networks, a probable consequence of a powerful reluctance to disclose, may have a detrimental effect on coping capacity, which in turn may lead to other mental health issues. Within sport, the research addressing clinical features as a function of gender is much sparser. The entire research base within sport psychology is based largely on generic college athlete samples, with very few studies focusing in on athletes with a diagnosed clinical eating disorder. These questionnaire-based studies sensitize towards the prevalence of itemized attitudes and behaviors, without ever truly honing in on the phenomenon of interest: athletes with disordered eating. Interestingly, many of the measurement tools used in this type of research were devised using female, not male, populations. Some scholars have argued that this nullifies the validity of such measures to truly test the clinical manifestations of disordered eating in men. It may be that male disordered eating is defined by the female experience, perhaps further explaining the reduced prevalence in men.

Gender and making sense of disordered eating Qualitative methodologies can provide a unique perspective on disordered eating that is inaccessible via quantitative methodologies. It has been argued that interpretive studies hold the potential to push boundaries in terms of the ways that athlete eating disorders are conceptualized (Papathomas & Petrie, 2014). This type of research seeks to understand how athletes attempt to make sense of their disordered eating experiences through a process of social construction. These constructions duly impact on how disordered eating is lived through. For example, constructing disordered eating as a necessary form of athletic sacrifice has led an athlete to experience a sense of achievement in their restricted eating behaviors and a resultant decreased commitment to eating (see Papathomas & Lavallee, 2014). Affording a positive interpretation effectively acts as a maintenance factor for destructive 180

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eating habits. The power for personal interpretations of experience to shape recovery routes cannot be underestimated. Yet with qualitative research traditionally marginalized in favor of medical approaches, systematic study of the meaning-making process is a scarcity in athlete disordered eating research. Moreover, how men and women differ in regard to meaningmaking is a particular unknown. In a unique study, Busanich, McGannon, & Schinke (2014) directly compared a male and a female distance runner’s experiences of disordered eating through narrative analysis. The authors described a number of important nuances in terms of how disordered eating is personally interpreted across gender. As personal meanings are always shaped through sociocultural auspices, it was argued that gender differences in experience are a product of the dominant gendered discourses surrounding disordered eating; namely that is a female affliction. Consequently, for the male participant, disordered eating was accompanied by shame, embarrassment and a perceived loss of masculinity. Cultural understandings of gender and disordered eating therefore impact experience at the personal level; men suffer increased anxiety and stress at the prospect of living with something feminine. These anxiety inducing effects may be accentuated within overtly athletic cultures where the notion of femininity is deemed derogatory and can be the basis for locker-room insults and putdowns. For the female participant, in contrast, disordered eating was discussed in a matter-of-fact way and understood as a normalized experience. As such, the experience proved far less emotionally disturbing than it did for the male athlete. Further comparisons of male and female disordered eating narratives are necessary to build on these early insights.

Conclusion Gender differences in disordered eating are poorly understood. Conflicting findings typify aetiological, symptomatological and experiential lines of inquiry. What is certain is that an insufficient number of studies address male athlete disordered eating and even fewer studies make direct male–female comparisons. This gender disparity is a consequence of a pervasive and uncritical belief that disordered eating is predominantly a female issue and that it should be studied as such. Knowledge claims pertaining to similarities and/or differences across the sexes must therefore be interpreted with great caution as there simply is not enough data to substantiate these claims. In uncertainty comes opportunity, and disordered eating gender comparisons present an important niche topic for researchers. Do risk-factors differ across gender? Do male athletes demonstrate unique clinical features to female athletes? Do male and female athletes construct the disordered eating experience differently? En route to answering these important questions, several methodological developments are required. First, there must be an increased presence of male athletes in disordered eating research, as both an independent focus of study and in direct comparison to female athletes. Restoring some parity to the overwhelming bias towards female samples is an obvious first step towards understanding disordered eating across gender. Second, more athletes with self-reported or clinically diagnosed disordered eating experiences should be the focus of research studies rather than generic college athlete samples merely deemed “at-risk.” Such focused recruitment will allow for comparisons relating to clinical features and reduces the extent to which the disordered eating in sport knowledge-base centers on athletes who do not actually present with disordered eating. Third, where risk-factor studies are concerned, male-specific measures should be considered. Presuming tools validated on female samples will transfer to male samples might seriously confound results. Fourth, scholars should guard against gender comparisons becoming gender generalizations. For example, comparing male 181

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disordered eating with female disordered eating should not prevent the identification of differences within gender groups. It is important that research does not unwittingly, or uncritically, reproduce the gendered stereotypes that are often called upon for simplicity rather than authenticity. Methodologies that sensitize towards the sociocultural context of disordered eating, as opposed to the medical overemphasis of biological vulnerability, will be more readily attuned to the idiosyncratic features of each and every life over artificial categorizations by gender.

Note 1 The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-V, APA, 2013) withdrew “amenorrhea” as an eating disorder diagnosis criterion as it was not relevant to males.

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19 AT H L E T E M A LT R E AT M E N T Ashley Stirling and Gretchen Kerr

The study of athlete maltreatment emerged in the 1990s, in response to several high-profile cases of athlete abuse and heightened public concern for athlete welfare (Brackenridge, 2001). In 1993, British Olympic swim coach Paul Hickson was charged, and later convicted, of 15 sexual offences against former teenage swimmers in his care (Donegan, 1995). Around the same time, national hockey league player, Sheldon Kennedy, accused celebrated Canadian coach Graham James of over 300 accounts of sexual molestation, of which James pleaded guilty and was convicted and sentenced to three and a half years in prison (Robinson, 1998). Several other athletes including national hockey league player, Theoren Fluery, subsequently came forward as victims of James’ sexual abuse (Fleury & McLelland Day, 2009). At the time of these revelations, there was little public attention or research on the issue of athlete abuse and harassment in sport, a paucity of sport policies and procedures to prevent or manage such concerns, and only minimal recognition amongst national and international sport organizations of the potential for athlete harm at the hands of the coach (Brackenridge, 2001). And yet, as Brackenridge (2001, p. 15) wrote, “In the history of every social movement there is a moment when its core issue comes to public prominence.” One may posit that the cases of sexual abuse that emerged in the 1990s represented such a moment. First, in response to these high-profile cases, sport organizations across several nations scrambled to develop coaches’ codes of conduct, complaint procedures, and abuse-prevention educational programs (Donnelly, Kerr, Heron, & DiCarlo, 2014). Additionally, the flood gates opened for the reporting of alleged incidents of sexual, physical and emotional harm of athletes by their coaches in youth, high school, and collegiate sport settings around the world (British Broadcasting Corporation, 2004; Busbee, 2013; Die Welt, 2012; DV TV 1, 2000). And finally, scholarly attention was drawn to experiences of athlete maltreatment, and the study of harm within the coach-athlete relationship has since grown as an international field of study. Although the high-profile athlete abuse cases of the 1990s may have heightened public and scholarly attention on athlete welfare at the time, the impact of educational, research, and policy-related initiatives to reduce harm to athletes that emerged in the subsequent 25 years remains unclear. For example, a former coach with the Canadian national junior ski team, Bertrand Charest, was charged in March 2015 with more than 50 alleged sexual 184

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assaults of 11 young females between the ages of 12 and 19 years (Rakobowchuk, 2015). In 2014, Swimming Australia launched an investigation of head coach Michael Palfrey in response to claims of sexual abuse alleged by two former female athletes (Halloran, 2014). It was reported recently in Tokyo, that a Japanese high school student hanged himself after enduring repeated beatings from his basketball coach (Armstrong, 2013). Following the 2012 Olympic Games in London, a teenage boy was arrested for using social media to send “abusive” messages to Olympic synchronized diver Tom Daley (CBC News, 2012). Also, in 2012, Mike Rice from Rutgers University was suspended, and subsequently fired, for “physically and verbally assaulting his own players during team practices” (Terbush, 2013). While it is possible that the advancements initiated in the 1990s have facilitated the reporting of these recent international cases of athlete maltreatment, it is also possible that little or no progress has been made with respect to preventing such harmful experiences. This chapter will begin with a historical look at concerns about the health and development of athletes in competitive sport. Then, the focus will shift to athlete maltreatment, with conceptual clarity provided with respect to relational and non-relational maltreatment, as well as sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, and neglect. Existing research on relational maltreatment in sport will then be reviewed. The final section will address challenges and recommendations for moving the field of relational athlete maltreatment and protection forward including, theoretical, methodological, ethical, and applied considerations.

Historical concerns of athlete welfare Although the study of athlete maltreatment is relatively new, concerns about athlete welfare, such as an overly-competitive climate of youth sport, violence and injury occurrences, inappropriate coaching, and human rights violations have deeper historical roots. For example, concerns about the overemphasis on winning outcomes in sport and its effects on athlete enjoyment, skill development, and retention, date back to the 1970s (e.g., Orlick & Botterill, 1975). The competitiveness of sport has also been criticized for consequences it may have on an athlete’s psychological well-being including performance and evaluationrelated stress (Martens, 1978), the sentimental value central to contemporary constructions of childhood (Cook & Cole, 2001), and the vulnerability of child athletes to “abuse” in the name of improved performance, including harsh criticisms from parents or coaches and excessive time spent training that threaten the holistic development of young sport participants (Donnelly, 1993). Also, dating back to the 1970s, are writings of the increasing acceptance of violence and aggression in sport (Smith, 1975), with a particular focus on head and spinal injuries in contact sports such as hockey, calling for rule changes and equipment modifications (Reynan & Clancy, 1994; Tator & Edmonds, 1984). Concern for the prevalence of overuse injuries such as tendonitis and stress fractures have also been expressed (David, 2005). Researchers questioned the physiological, psychological, and social readiness of child athletes for early specialization and elitist development (Weiss & Gould, 1986), and the legality of such practice (Donnelly, 1997). Other problems in sport that endanger athlete welfare such as the use of performance-enhancing drugs, dietary and retirement problems, and vulnerability to inappropriate behaviours in the coach-athlete relationship such as unwanted rub-downs or sexual advances have long been raised (David, 2005; Donnelly, 1993). In 1948, the United Nations (UN) proclaimed the Universal Declaration, including a segment on human rights in sport. However, it wasn’t until the 1980s when the human rights for athletes were expanded, including the right to be free from sexual harassment. 185

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This elaboration was made in 1983 by the Court of Arbitration for Sport – a partnership of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the National Olympic Committees, and the International Sport Federations. In 1989, the United Nations (UN) declared the International Convention on the Rights of the Child stating the rights of children are to be protected including protection from all forms of abuse, neglect, violence, and sexual exploitation in child populated domains (Articles 19 and 34) (Kidd & Donnelly, 2000). Other writings relating to concerns for athlete welfare include previous research on the power of the coach over the athlete by virtue of his or her age, expertise, and experience (Tomlinson & Yorganci, 1997), concerns about the use of authoritarian coaching practices (Palframan, 1994), and promotion of positive athlete development and child-centered models of coaching (Orlick & Botterill, 1975).

Athlete maltreatment “Athlete maltreatment” is the umbrella term used to encompass all forms of harm and all types of relationships in which harm may occur in sport. “Violence in sport” has been used as a synonym for “athlete maltreatment” and while the former is arguably broader, it is consistent with the terminology used in UNICEF’s initiatives for the protection of children from violence in sport (Brackenridge, Fasting, Kirby, & Leahy, 2010). This chapter focuses specifically on athlete maltreatment, however it should be emphasized that any person or stakeholder in sport may experience maltreatment. “Coaches, parents, administrators, officials, and athletes all represent both potential victims and perpetrators of maltreatment” (Stirling, 2009, p. 1091).

Relational and non-relational maltreatment In both public and academic domains, the terms of athlete abuse, harassment, and bullying are often used interchangeably, misused, or generally referred to with phrases such as “exploitation,” “ill-treatment,” or “coaching transgressions.” Based upon a child maltreatment framework adopted previously in the parent–child literature, forms of maltreatment in sport are categorized into relational and non-relational maltreatment, depending on the nature of the relationship in which the maltreatment occurs (see Figure 19.1). More specifically, relational and non-relational maltreatment differ according to the degree to which the athlete depends on the person enacting the maltreatment for his or her sense of safety, trust, and fulfillment of needs (Crooks & Wolfe, 2007). “The difference between these constructs [relational and non-relational maltreatment] is not based on the intensity of the behaviour or the severity of the harm experienced, but the nature of the relationship between the coach and the athlete” (Stirling & Kerr, 2015, p. 145). Relational maltreatment occurs when there is a critical relationship between the coach and athlete such that the athlete is dependent upon the coach for safety and satisfaction of needs whereas non-relational maltreatment is not characterized by this critical relationship (Stirling, 2009). This distinction is made as there is a presumption that depending on the type of relationship in which the harm occurs, there may be different methods for prevention, intervention, and treatment required. These assertions, however, require further investigation. The remainder of this chapter will address relational maltreatment specifically.

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Maltreatment in sport

Assault

Child labour

Institutional maltreatment

Corruption/exploitation

Bullying

Harassment

Non-relational maltreatment

Neglect

Physical abuse

Emotional abuse

Sexual abuse

Relational maltreatment

Figure 19.1 Forms of maltreatment in sport. Reproduced from A. E. Stirling, ‘Definition and constituents of maltreatment in sport: establishing a conceptual framework for research practitioners, British Journal of Sports Medicine, 43(14), 1091-1099, 2009,’ with permission from BMJ Publishing Group Ltd

Forms of relational maltreatment: sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect Abuse is defined as a pattern of physical, sexual, or emotional ill-treatment by a person in a caregiver capacity (e.g., parent, coach) resulting in actual or potential harm to the athlete (Stirling, 2009). Key definitional components include the pattern of behaviour, the critical/ caregiving relationship, and the potential for harm. The constructs of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse are distinguished by the harm experienced – noting that a particular behaviour may result in more than one form of harm. Neglect is then distinguished from the abuses as it refers to acts of omission that result in actual or potential harm. Again, depending on the potential harm experienced, “neglect” may be more specifically referred to as physical neglect, emotional neglect, social neglect, and educational neglect, and so on. Specific examples of athlete physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect are provided in Table 19.1.

Current state of research on athlete maltreatment Sexual abuse As stated previously, in response to a series of high-profile media cases in the 1990s, researchers focused on the sexual abuse and harassment of athletes by their coaches with findings that 14 to 57 percent of collegiate and high performance athletes reportedly experienced sexual harassing behaviours in the form of sexual jokes, gestures, or propositions (Fejgin & Hanegby, 2001; Kirby & Greaves, 1996; MacGregor, 1998; Volkwein, Schnell, Sherwood, & Livezey, 1997). Regarding the sexual “abuse” of athletes within the coach-athlete relationship, several 187

Ashley Stirling and Gretchen Kerr Table 19.1 Examples of abuse in sport Form of abuse

Example

Physical abuse

UÊ Punching, beating, kicking, biting, shoving, striking, shaking, throwing, choking, slapping UÊ Hitting an athlete with sporting equipment UÊ Requiring an athlete to remain motionless in a seated or plank position for a period of time UÊ beyond reasonable training demands UÊ Forcing an athlete to kneel on a harmful surface UÊ Isolating an athlete in a confined space UÊ Denying access to needed water, food, or sleep UÊ Forced physical exertion beyond the physical capabilities of the athlete (e.g., forcing an athlete to train until he/she vomits or loses consciousness) UÊ Sexual relations with an athlete UÊ Inappropriate sexual contact (e.g., groping of an athlete’s breasts or buttocks) UÊ Exchange of reward in sport for sexual favours UÊ Sexually oriented comments, jokes, or gestures UÊ Sexual propositions UÊ Exposing an athlete to pornographic material UÊ Demeaning comment UÊ Acts of humiliation UÊ Intimidating or threatening acts of aggression with no athlete contact (e.g., throwing equipment against a wall) UÊ Intentional denial of attention and/or support UÊ Chronic expulsion from training or competition UÊ Not providing adequate recovery time or treatment for a sport injury UÊ Not providing adequate counseling for an athlete exhibiting signs of psychological distress UÊ Disregard for the nutritional well-being of the athlete UÊ Inadequate supervision of an athlete UÊ Failure to ensure the safety of athletic equipment UÊ Disregarding the use of performance-enhancing drugs UÊ Disregard for educational requirements and well-being UÊ Not recognizing the social needs of the athlete UÊ Failure to intervene when made aware of maladaptive behaviour

Sexual abuse

Emotional abuse

Neglect

Reproduced with permission from A. E. Stirling, E. J. Bridges, L. Cruz, & M. L. Mountjoy (2011) Canadian Academy of Sport & Exercise Medicine position paper: abuse, harassment, and bullying in sport, Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, 21(5): 385–391.

prevalence studies have been conducted around the world with figures in the range of 2 percent to 42 percent (Kirby & Greaves, 1996; Fasting, Brackenridge, & Sungot-Borgen, 2003; Leahy, Pretty, & Tenenbaum, 2002; Toftegaard Neilson, 2001), depending upon how “sexual abuse” was defined and assessed. Within the sport environment, the risk for sexual abuse increases with the age (Fasting et al., 2003), athletic maturation of the athlete (Brackenridge & Kirby, 1997), parental trust (Brackenridge, 1998), and the winning-centered culture of sport (Brackenridge, 2003). Although female athletes appear more likely to be victims of sexual abuse by coaches (Leahy, Pretty, & Tenenbaum, 2002), the recent work by Hartill (2009) suggests that the relatively lower rates in males may be a result of male athletes being under-studied. 188

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Further qualitative research has been conducted reporting women’s experiences of sexual abuse in sport (Brackenridge, 1997), and a predator versus pedophiliac profile was proposed outlining a cycle of offending, including motivation to sexually abuse (e.g., sexual arousal, emotional need), overcoming internal inhibitors (e.g., social skills), overcoming external inhibitors (i.e., high position/status), victim selection, overcoming specific barriers (e.g., isolation, grooming), actual abuse, and continuing victimization (Cense & Brackenridge, 2001). Researchers have also described three different types of grooming that occur in sport: physical grooming (e.g., inappropriate contact), psychological grooming (e.g., establishing trust and rapport), and grooming of the social environment (e.g., unquestioned power of the coach in the wider community) (Brackenridge & Fasting, 2005).

Emotional abuse Preliminary prevalence data on emotionally harmful coaching behaviours were collected alongside the data on sexual harassing behaviours in the 1990s with 18 to 47 percent of athletes surveyed reporting experiences of verbal ill-treatment (Gravely & Cochran, 1995; Kirby & Greaves, 1996; MacGregor, 1998). The experience of emotional harm from a coach is experienced in both public and private settings and by both male and female athletes (Stirling & Kerr, 2008); there is an increase in frequency at higher competition levels and is reportedly more prevalent in individual versus team sports (Alexander, Stafford, & Lewis, 2011). Athletes’ harmful experiences of emotional abuse from their coaches reportedly occur in the forms of verbal comments such as yelling, physical behaviours such as throwing objects to intimidate, and the denial of attention and support (Gervis & Dunn, 2004; Stirling & Kerr, 2008, 2013). Further, Gervis (2009) found that residual effects of emotionally abusive coaching practices were endured as long as ten years post-experience. Identified factors of vulnerability to emotional abuse in the coach-athlete relationship include the normalization of emotionally abusive coaching behaviours as an accepted method for athlete development (Stirling & Kerr, 2007), the power of the coach (Stirling & Kerr, 2009), parental compliance (Kerr & Stirling, 2012), and a lack of intervention by other authority figures in sport (Stirling & Kerr, 2010). A coach may use emotionally abusive coaching practices for either expressive (e.g., loss of emotional control) or instrumental (e.g., developmental technique) purposes, and may not be aware of the harmful effects of his or her behaviour, or alternative coaching strategies for athlete development (Stirling, 2013). The initiation and maintenance of emotional abuse within the coach-athlete relationship has been linked to ambitions and philosophies of athlete development including the stages of introduction (i.e., investment and relationship building), initial emotionally abusive experience, repeated emotionally abusive experiences, continuation of emotional abuse across different relationships, and end of abuse. As a part of this research, an ecological transactional model of vulnerability to emotional abuse in the coach-athlete relationship has been proposed highlighting the influence of the wider sport culture on the occurrence of such harmful experiences (Stirling & Kerr, 2014).

Physical abuse Compared to the other abuses, physical abuse has historically been the most visible and easily identifiable form of abuse (Matthews, 2004). Considering this, as well as the physical and often public nature of sport, it’s surprising that research on the physical abuse of athletes is limited. Preliminary findings suggest that 3 to 25 percent of athletes experience physical ill189

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treatment from their coach (Gravely & Cochran, 1995; Kirby & Greaves, 1996; MacGregor 1998). Examples of physical harm reported by young athletes include excessive training, playing through pain, and physical aggression and violence by coaches as a means of control or punishment (Alexander, Stafford, & Lewis, 2011). We posit that the physical abuse of athletes has been under-recognized and under-studied because it tends to be normalized in the sport context although this supposition needs to be explored empirically.

Neglect To-date, no studies have been conducted on athletes’ experiences of neglect or negligent ill-treatment in the coach-athlete relationship. One can only speculate as to why this gap in research exists. The coach-athlete relationship has only recently been recognized as having the potential to be a critical caregiving relationship in which an athlete depends on the coach for his/her fulfillment of needs. As such, the recognition that a coach may be responsible for the physical, emotional, social, and educational needs of an athlete is still growing, along with concern for a coach’s neglect of attending to an athlete’s breadth of developmental needs. It may also be the case that acts of commission such as hitting or yelling behaviours characteristic of physical and emotional abuse, respectively, are more likely to be observable, than are behaviours of omission such as the neglect of educational needs. Furthermore, the field of athlete maltreatment itself is an emerging field of inquiry. As our understanding of maltreatment in sport expands, so too should the research on specific athlete maltreatments such as negligent ill-treatment.

Advancing the field of athlete maltreatment Theoretical considerations Advancements in research, education, advocacy, and policy development related to athlete maltreatment are inhibited by a lack of conceptual clarity. The concepts of abuse, bullying, harassment, maltreatment, and violence are frequently ill-defined and/or are erroneously used interchangeably. Only with clear, theoretically informed, and empirically grounded definitions will assessments of athlete maltreatment, the acquisition of robust prevalence and incidence data, and development of preventative measures, be possible. Referring to the general field of child maltreatment, Feerick and Snow (2006, p. 3) stated, “One of the major problems in child maltreatment research has been the lack of consistent, clear, reliable, and valid definitions and classifications of abusive and neglectful experiences.” Further, without clearly defined constructs, it becomes difficult for researchers and practitioners to distinguish between coaching practices that may be deemed as poor or inappropriate versus those that constitute maltreatment. Educational programs focused on abuse prevention have proliferated internationally over the past 25 years and yet systematic and empirical evaluations regarding effectiveness and efficacy of such programs are notably absent (Hartill & Lang, 2015; Kerr, Stirling, & MacPherson, 2014). Without such evaluations, we are unable to make claims about advancements with respect to the prevention of athlete maltreatment.

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Methodological considerations Our understanding of athlete maltreatment would be further enhanced by the use of more diverse and methodologically sound research approaches. Prevalence, descriptive, correlational, and comparative studies could be strengthened through the development and use of validated measurement tools, with consideration for sampling limitations and inclusion of appropriate controls. Extending the qualitative research conducted to date using grounded theory and semi-structured interviews, the use of different qualitative approaches such as narrative, phenomenological, and case study research might further our understanding of the richness of this topic and the stigmatization around disclosure.

Ethical considerations To advance the field, researchers need to address the unique ethical considerations associated with the study of athlete maltreatment. For example, researchers are, in some cases, obligated to report incidences and/or suspicions of athlete maltreatment and thus need to be aware of the jurisdictional requirements to fulfill this obligation. Further, to comply with the requirements for informed consent, potential research participants must be made aware of the researcher’s potential duty to report maltreatment, and yet, this full disclosure may deter participation, or lead to a selection bias. On the other hand, it is also possible that assurances of anonymity and confidentiality provided to research participants – even if limited – may in fact create an environment that is conducive for athletes to disclose experiences of maltreatment. In addition, it is impossible to articulate in a consent form all of the possible consequences associated with disclosing and reporting maltreatment; there may be unanticipated consequences for the athlete, the athlete’s family, the coach, sport organization, and teammates. To advance the field of athlete maltreatment, researchers must navigate these challenges and be well-informed of their legal and moral obligations.

Applied considerations More effective knowledge transfer is needed to disseminate research findings about harmful coaching practices to practitioners such as coaches, sport administrators, and policy-makers. Further, as many existing abuse-prevention programs focus on behaviours to avoid or “what not to do,” practitioners may benefit from a shift in emphases to developmentally appropriate and growth-enhancing coaching methods. As others have argued (David, 2005; Hartill & Lang, 2015), only when athletes’ rights and needs are embedded in and drive the development and delivery of sport, will maltreatment be addressed effectively.

Conclusions Issues of relational athlete maltreatment have become the focus of research primarily as a result of high-profile media cases internationally. To date, the vast majority of this research has focused on athletes’ experiences of sexual abuse at the hands of their coaches, including factors of vulnerability and the grooming process. More recently, research on emotionally abusive coaching practices has emerged with indications that this is the most commonly reported form of relational maltreatment experienced by athletes. Curiously, research on physical abuse and neglect is notably absent. 191

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Advancement of research, education, advocacy, and policy regarding athlete maltreatment is hindered by a lack of conceptual clarity. Only with clear definitions and classifications will the assessment of athletes’ experiences of maltreatment and the acquisition of robust prevalence and incidence data become possible. Further, although numerous abuseprevention programs have been developed internationally, advancements in athlete protection are inhibited without empirical evaluations of such interventions. Future research on athlete maltreatment should use more diverse and methodologically sound research approaches, taking into account the unique ethical considerations of this field of study. Applied practice and research in the field of sport psychology would benefit from consideration of the contextual influences, especially social structures and relations of power, that contribute to the acceptance of some harmful coaching practices and the curious paucity of empirical attention on the topic of athlete maltreatment. Finally, it is recommended that the most effective way to prevent athlete maltreatment is to shift emphases from the protection of athletes and prevention of maltreatment to the prioritization of athletes’ rights (David, 2005; Hartill & Lang, 2015; Kerr & Stirling, 2008). In this way, the rights and developmental needs of athletes become the driving force for coaching practices and the design and delivery of sport programs.

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Robinson, L. (1998). Crossing the line: Sexual harassment and abuse in Canada’s national sport. Toronto, ON: McClelland and Stewart Inc. Smith, M. D. (1975). The legitimation of violence: Hockey players’ perceptions of their reference group’s sanctions for assault. Canadian Review of Sociology & Anthropology, 12, 72–80. Stirling, A. E. (2009). Definition and constituents of maltreatment in sport: Establishing a conceptual framework for research practitioners. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 43, 1091–1099. Stirling, A. E. (2013). Understanding the use of emotionally abusive coaching practices. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 8, 625–639. Stirling, A. E., & Kerr, G. A. (2007). Elite female swimmers’ experiences of emotional abuse across time. Journal of Emotional Abuse, 7(4), 89–113. Stirling, A. E., & Kerr, G. A. (2008). Defining and categorizing emotional abuse in sport. European Journal of Sport Science, 8, 173–181. Stirling, A. E., & Kerr, G. A. (2009). Abused athletes’ perceptions of the coach-athlete relationship. Sport in Society, 12, 227–239. Stirling, A. E., & Kerr, G. A. (2010). Sport psychology consultants as agents of child protection. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 22, 305–319. Stirling, A. E., & Kerr, G. A. (2013). The perceived effects of elite athletes’ experiences of emotional abuse in the coach-athlete relationship. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 11(1), 87–100. Stirling, A. E., & Kerr, G. A. (2014). Initiating and sustaining emotional abuse in the coach-athlete relationship: An ecological transactional model of vulnerability. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 23, 116–125. Stirling, A. E., & Kerr, G. (2015). Safeguarding athletes from emotional abuse. In M. Lang & M. Hartill (Eds.), Safeguarding, child protection and abuse in sport: International perspectives in research, policy and practice (pp. 143–152). London: Routledge. Tator, C. H., & Edmonds, V. E. (1984). National survey of spinal injuries in hockey players. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 130, 875–880. Terbush, J. (2013). Rutgers coach’s abuse of players caught on video. The Week. Online. Available HTTP: http://theweek.com/article/index/242211/watch-rutgers-coachs-abuse-of-players-caughton-video (accessed 24 May 2013). Tofetgaard Neilson, J. (2001). The forbidden zone: Intimacy, sexual relations and misconduct in the relationship between coaches and athletes. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 36, 165–182. Tomlinson, A., & Yorganci, I. (1997). Male coach/female athlete relations: Gender and power relations in competitive sport. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 21, 134–155. Volkwein, K., Schnell, F., Sherwood, D., & Livezey, A. (1997). Sexual harassment in sport: Perceptions and experiences of American female student-athletes. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 23, 283–295. Weiss, M., & Gould, D. (1986). The 1984 Olympic Scientific Congress proceedings volume 10: Sport for children and youth. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

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Until recently, there have been few sport psychology publications that have focused on spirituality. The lack of engagement with this area of human experience in sport psychology is partly connected to the history of the discipline: sport psychology only emerged as a distinct field in the 1960s when positivism was the dominant philosophy of science in psychology (Ryba & Wright, 2005). Aligning itself with the dominant paradigm of the time, sport psychology was little affected by the views of the founding fathers of psychology including William James and G. Stanley Hall, who perceived no need to separate the spiritual from psychological study (Pargament, 2011). In contrast, spirituality fits poorly with positivist conceptions of psychology; traditional assumptions associated with spirituality including transcendence, holism and subjectivity of the experience are antithetical to modernist psychological theory based on the philosophical assumptions of materialism, universalism and atomism (Slife, Hope, & Nebeker, 1999). Indeed, sometimes it has been held that spirituality cannot or should not be studied scientifically (Miller & Thoresen, 2003). However, these views have been challenged, especially in the last decade, and spirituality has become a visible research area within health sciences (Chiu, Emblen, Van Hofwegen, Sawatzky, & Meyerhoff, 2004), occupational psychology and management (Lips-Wiersma, 2002), education (Webster, 2004) and leisure studies (Humberstone, 2011). Historically, sport psychology has been embedded within a predominantly positivist outlook and has focused on (modernist) performance enhancement discourses (Ryba & Wright, 2005). However, in the last decade sport psychology has become increasingly open to different theoretical perspectives (e.g., cultural, humanistic, feminist and narrative), research objectives (e.g., understanding the impact of culture and issues related to gender, ethnicity and sexuality) and the use of qualitative research methods (e.g., interviews, observations, participant writing, textual analysis). This shift in paradigm has allowed researchers to focus on exploring the experience and meaning of sport involvement rather than isolating factors that enhance performance, and marginalized topics and issues related to cultural identity have become more visible (Schinke & McGannon, 2015). The first review paper on spirituality in a sport psychology journal appeared in 2005 (Watson & Nesti, 2005). A decade later, the citation index of this article revealed that there are at least 50 book chapters, dissertations, articles or books on the topic, which indicates how much the interest in the topic has grown. 195

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However, spirituality is still predominantly discussed from a theoretical level and peerreviewed research articles on the topic remain scarce. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an introduction to the theoretical and methodological issues in researching spirituality, and offer an overview of the existing research in sport psychology. The empirical studies will be discussed through a consideration of four central themes that we have identified in our own and others’ research: spirituality as transcendental experience; spirituality as orientation to life; spirituality, struggle and adversity, and relational spirituality. To illustrate each theme, data will also be presented that emerged from our own recent studies in the area: a life story study with Finnish endurance athletes (Ronkainen, Ryba, & Nesti, 2013) and a reflective writing study with mature athletes residing in the United Kingdom and in Finland (Ronkainen, Tikkanen, Littlewood, & Nesti, 2014).

Theoretical and methodological considerations Theorizing and defining spirituality is a major challenge for researchers. The lack of an established definition is due to the fact that the meanings associated with this construct have changed considerably in the last 40 years: whilst spirituality used to refer to religiousness, in contemporary discourse spirituality is most often understood as a broader phenomenon encompassing the experiential, personal and the reflective dimensions of human existence (Pargament, 2011). Sometimes religion and spirituality have been presented as polar opposites where the former refers to institutional and doctrinal concerns and the latter to individual and experiential aspects. Yet, Hill and Pargament (2003) have argued that this presents a false dichotomy since all religious traditions address personal experience, and most people probably draw from religious language in interpreting their “spiritual” experiences. Several researchers have focused on delineating the essential components associated with spirituality. A review of health science literature on spirituality reveals that typically four central themes have been identified: existential reality, transcendence, connectedness, and power, force or energy (Chiu et al., 2004). Despite this, some researchers have concluded that since the concept is culturally articulated and under considerable change, it is not possible to talk about “universal” or “generic” spirituality (la Cour & Hvidt, 2010). Indeed, it is important to be aware that the majority of academic work on the topic is of North American origin and is located in Western (Christian) language practices. Therefore, the concepts and ideas might not reflect the spiritualities of traditional indigenous communities, for example (Hornborg, 2012; Schinke et al., 2007). In our own studies, we have found that Finnish athletes most often understand spirituality as something closely akin to the Christian religion. As religion is in Nordic countries considered a private issue, athletes may not readily discuss these themes until trust and rapport with the researcher has been established (Ronkainen & Ryba, 2012; Ronkainen et al., 2014). In contrast, the second author’s experience of carrying out research and working with athletes from non-European countries is that they are often far more prepared to discuss their religious and spiritual beliefs with the sport psychologist (Nesti, 2011). In our own research, we have drawn from existential psychological conceptions of spirituality. In contrast to modernist psychological theories, existential psychology is explicit about its underpinnings in Continental European philosophy and theology (Hoffman, 2012). The existential approach is arguably diverse in its leanings towards different philosophers, some of whom were deeply religious and others very critical of religion. However, existential psychologists are united in the fundamental assumption that, since the basic dimension of the human condition is our capacity for self-awareness, we are directed towards searching for meaning, values and identity. And, whatever our answer to these fundamental questions is, 196

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it will have central importance on our lives. Many existential psychologists relate spirituality to this quest for sustainable sources of meaning and value and argue that spirituality exists (albeit sometimes dormant) in all persons (Helminiak, 2008; Webster, 2004). For example, van Deurzen (2005) suggested that the spiritual dimension involves the person’s broader perspective on life and includes different layers of beliefs, values, purposes and aspirations. Moreover, existential psychologists would argue that spirituality is necessarily relational and involves the search for belonging in the world and connection with others, oneself and transcendence (Webster, 2004). Existential philosophers have argued that most people are not aware of their spirituality in daily life (e.g., Kierkegaard, 1980); we may require a moment of disruption or a “boundary situation,” such as serious illness or death of a loved one, to become acutely aware of ourselves and our fundamental situation in the world. In terms of researching spirituality, several scholars in different fields have voiced concerns about assessing spirituality with quantitative instruments and operationalizing it with reductionist and utilitarian attitudes (e.g., Case & Gosling, 2010; Slife et al., 1999). In management studies, it has been observed that whilst the interest in workplace spirituality has been “driven by the limitations of positivistic thought and by the need to develop alternative visions that challenge the ‘dehumanized representations’” (Bell & Taylor, 2003, p. 336), much of contemporary research has ignored this philosophical and methodological incompatibility and reduced spirituality to a variable that has been measured and quantified in association with other variables such as job performance or career satisfaction. From an ethical perspective, Case and Gosling (2010) observed that “the endeavour to reduce spirituality to a set of hypotheses, measures and statistical relationships risks trivializing the subject and, indeed, offending the sensibilities of those whose beliefs and values are being scrutinized” (p. 32). In sport psychology, spirituality has sometimes been represented as a coping method or an anxiety management technique – yet, this does not relate well to empirical findings about how many athletes understand the meaning of spiritual and religious belief in their lives! Existential psychology relies on qualitative research methodology and focuses on understanding the meanings that people assign to their experiences, which makes it a more suitable approach for studying spirituality. Moreover, the basic assumptions of qualitative research including contextuality and cultural articulation of human experience, are vitally important for studying such an elusive and personal concept as spirituality.

Spirituality in sport psychology Spirituality as transcendental experience The majority of sport science research into spirituality has focused on sensory or “transcendental moments” in movement which have been associated with more established sport psychology concepts including flow, peak experience and runners’ high. One of the earliest works in this tradition is Murphy and White’s (1995) book addressing the zone in sport. The zone refers to the emotional state that can accompany our best performances. This optimal state has been likened to a spiritual experience and shares much in common with Csikszentmihalyi’s (1975) concept of flow, and Gallwey’s (1977) inner game theory. These accounts have drawn mainly from humanistic and positive psychology and describe sporting experiences as extremely pleasurable states which leave the person with feelings of fulfillment and well-being. Moreover, sporting experiences associated with spirituality have been most often discussed in the context of “alternative” sports practiced in nature, such as mountain climbing, surfing and snowboarding (Thorpe & Rinehart, 2010). 197

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Our recent research in Finland and in the UK suggests that most mature athletes are aware of a changed “mode of being” in their sporting experiences, but the articulation of this experience as simply “different” or “spiritual” depends on their broader worldview (Ronkainen et al., 2013, 2014). Our research participants were mature athletes (aged 25–62) who were known to be articulate and willing to reflect in rich detail on their experiences; religious affiliations were not criteria for participant selection (these included Lutheran, Anglican and Catholic Christianity, Buddhism and none). As Mika (pseudonym), an elite distance runner who did not identify with any spiritual tradition illustrates: An outsider might think that running is just boring. But when you get into it, it is a rich world. Sometimes running is like flying, the beauty of running, lightness … It is the world’s best thing. And then there is the pain that is part of the sport, sometimes it is really miserable. There are so many emotions in it. (Mika, 28) An existentialist (late Heideggerian) reading of these experiences may suggest that in these moments there can be experiences that present a different kind of “revealing” where the instrumental logic governing competitive sport recedes from the way of a more primordial experience of being (Heidegger, 1977). This experience, as the runner suggested, may involve enjoyment but also intense experiences of pain and struggle (which is indeed in line with most spiritual and religious traditions). However, due to theoretical commitments to humanistic and positive psychology, much of the literature on sensory moments in movement only accounts for highly pleasurable experiences. Existential psychology can provide us with more dimensionality to our understanding of spirituality in sport since it emphasizes that both positive and negative experiences contribute to our spirituality.

Spirituality as orientation to life For those who commit to a spiritual perspective in their lives, it is a constantly present framework of meaning that guides everyday actions. As Hill and Pargament (2003) suggested, “religion and spirituality are ways of life to be sought, experienced, fostered, and sustained consistently” (p. 68). This implies that many spiritual and religious athletes interpret their daily experiences in sport through their beliefs (e.g., Morães & Salmela, 2009; Schinke et al., 2007) and these are also important for them in team relationships as well as in making career decisions. In a Finnish athlete’s words: The universal moral laws that Jesus taught, they’re really important for me. Treat others as you hope them to treat you, forgive others … For example, in our [sport] federation, the person who got me fired, I’ve forgiven him and I can still talk to him. My family still finds it difficult. (Pauli, 36) In reflecting on his sport psychology work in professional football in the English Premier league, Nesti (2011) suggested that, “some players describe how their religious and spiritual beliefs are a living form of guidance in their whole lives, helping them to stay true to their values, especially in those difficult moments encountered in the volatile world of elite professional sport” (p. 294). In the counseling situation, it is essential that (possibly nonreligious) sport psychologists respect these kinds of expression and 198

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consider how their interventions and ways of working fit with the client’s worldview (Sarkar, Hill, & Parker, 2015). In addition, the spiritual worldview may not only concern values and team relationships, but also lived, embodied experiences of the sport practice itself. This was highlighted by a tennis player who participated in our reflective writing study (Ronkainen et al., 2014): My philosophy is one of a continual surrender into life, a continual development of trust in the moment, of letting go and letting my most authentic self come through and give its gifts to the world … Sport has been a primary vehicle in my life to develop this philosophy and to practice it … I interpret my experiences in sport through the lens of spirituality. (James, 34) In line with this reflection, some of the participants mentioned that they are less concerned about losing, since this can still be a valuable learning experience. Several athletes with these kinds of reflections talked about a certain feeling of peace and trust, because they knew that their sense of self worth is not tied to their athletic performances.

Spirituality, struggle and adversity It has been suggested that many, if not most, people who face adversity such as ill health, divorce, accident or mental health problems turn to spiritual and religious sources of meaning (Pargament, 2011). Unsurprisingly, this has been reported also in the context of sport, where studies have shown that athletes rely on their spirituality to overcome struggles and anxiety associated with performance, injury or personal problems (Egli, 2013; Nesti, 2011; Ronkainen et al., 2014; Vernacchia, McGuire, Reardon, & Templin, 2000). It has also been found that spiritual practices such as prayer or rituals become increasingly important for religious athletes in the face of important competitions (Czech & Bullet, 2007; Morães & Salmela, 2009). Moreover, our recent study suggested that for some athletes the challenges encountered in sport may be a primary reason for a search for understanding one’s experiences on a deeper level (Ronkainen et al., 2014). In one participant’s words, In my sport I have encountered my finitude. […] At some point your body and mind just cannot push further. But, due to these experiences, I found spiritual life. I was looking for, and found those things that are infinite and truly valuable. (Jukka, 26) Various moments in sport can be understood as existential boundary situations, where athletes are confronted with threats to identity (Nesti & Littlewood, 2011). Indeed, these are inevitable “setbacks” in sport including poor performance, injury and deselection which make it impossible to hold on to personal narratives of permanent athletic success. We have moreover seen that many mature athletes are acutely aware of aging and fragility of the sporting body, which in turn can lead them to search for different meanings in their sport practices (Ronkainen et al., 2013). An existential boundary situation, when confronted with a proper level of support, may become a positive experience leading to new insights and spiritual growth (Nesti & Littlewood, 2011).

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Relational spirituality Human relationships are central to most spiritual traditions. In institutional religions, this is often explicated by a variation of the Golden Rule: you should treat others as you’d like others to treat yourself (Pargament, 2011). In existential thinking, it is held that fellow human beings should never be treated in an instrumental way (Buber, 1970). The imperative for caring for others has been sometimes presented as conflicting with the ethos of (elite) sport, and in sport sociology, it has been found that some Christian athletes experience a value conflict between their faith and sport (Stevenson, 1997). Our research participants have also mentioned this potential conflict; yet, we’ve heard several exemplars of how sport participation can be used to benefit others in different ways. For example, several athletes have talked about coaching as a way of helping others pursuing the same journey, and importantly, to provide young athletes with better experiences due to their own, different approach to sport. A former tennis professional with a spiritual perspective on sport reflected on his coaching practices: My love is not only for the game itself but for everything else it can teach you. This has meant that I’ve wanted to use this experience and knowledge to help others as a coach. I feel as excited or maybe even more about this than I did about my own playing. (James, 34) Reflecting on their applied practice, Ravizza (2002) and Nesti (2004) have claimed that their one-to-one sessions with sport performers frequently resemble existential encounters. These have been described as involving an intense level of engagement, where something like empathy is viewed as being more dependent on the depth and quality of personal communication rather than a set of skills. Drawing on the work of Buber (1970) and his concept of I-thou, an existential approach to counseling in sport is related to spiritual ideas, most clearly through its insistence on describing the human being as a person. Most definitions describe a person as being a synthesis of mind, body and spirit. This holistic perspective has been well received in some branches of counseling and psychotherapy, although it has been slower to emerge in sport psychology practice.

Reflections on applied practice Spirituality and religion continue to form a major source of meaning for people across the globe, but unfortunately (Western) counseling and sport psychologists are rarely prepared to address these issues. In the United States, only 18 percent of graduate programs in counseling psychology offer a course on religion and spirituality, despite the fact that over 90 percent of the population report belief in a personal God, suggesting that the educational programs do not prepare the graduating psychologists sufficiently to adopt a truly holistic approach in their work (Pargament, 2011). Similarly, in an American study looking at sport psychologists’ encounters with spirituality in their work, all nine participants reflected that spirituality was never discussed in their sport psychology training and it was considered a taboo subject (Egli, 2013). However, these consultants’ clients had brought up spirituality in their encounter with the sport psychologist, something which has been reported by a number of experienced sport psychologists (e.g., Balague, 1999; Gamble, Hill, & Parker, 2013; Nesti, 2011; Ravizza, 2002). These applied reflections suggest that sport psychologists are very likely to work with athletes 200

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who hold religious and spiritual beliefs, especially if they work with multicultural clubs and teams. This may mean that applied sport psychologists will overlook the importance of these beliefs in their work with athletes, and therefore not fully meet the needs of their clients. Therefore, Sarkar et al. (2015) recently outlined ethical considerations for sport psychology practitioners working with religious and spiritual athletes. They recommend that sport psychologists consider ethical principles of respect, responsibility, integrity, competence and concern, and call for reflexivity about interrogating their own identities and limits of their professional competencies. In the United Kingdom, athletes’ spiritual and religious beliefs are recognized in most professional sports teams, and these often have a part time chaplain in their staff (Gamble et al., 2013). Sport psychologists may refer athletes to chaplains for pastoral and spiritual care, and according to Nesti (2010), the applied sport psychologist and the chaplain may support and complement each other’s work in a variety of ways. In summary, despite these new developments in research and applied work, there still appears to be much to be done to convince sport psychology researchers and practitioners that athletes’ spiritual and religious concerns should be included in the discipline.

Conclusions As spirituality is becoming a more accepted research area, “psychologists may find that religion and spirituality are of a different stripe to other psychological and social constructs” (Hill & Pargament, 2003, p. 71). Similarly, Nesti (2007) has argued that spirituality and related concepts including love, suffering, courage and sacrifice cannot be captured by established sport psychology concepts including motivation, self-esteem and self-efficacy. Our findings illustrate that, for some athletes, spirituality can be a central framework of meaning which allows them to find a different perspective on both success and enjoyment as well as adversity in sport. In our research, we moreover concluded that spirituality can have an impact on career decisions and career satisfaction in sport. That is, those athletes who assigned spiritual meaning to their sport were likely to continue their careers longer. On the other hand, there were also those athletes who could not align their core values with the culture of their sport and who felt they should disengage from their sport to feel true to themselves. These examples highlight the importance of acknowledging spirituality as a central aspect of some athletes’ identities both in research and in applied sport psychology contexts. We anticipate that, as sport psychology is becoming more sensitive to personal meaning and cultural identity (Schinke & McGannon, 2015) and studies from non-Western countries are becoming more visible, spirituality probably emerges more often as a central theme in participants’ narratives. Finally, it is important to emphasize that in becoming more open to the concept of spirituality and religious belief does not mean sport psychologists need to declare themselves as spiritual or religious individuals. Instead, researchers and practitioners do need to strive to become more reflexive about their own secular/spiritual/religious identities and how their beliefs and values shape the encounter in research and in applied contexts (McGannon & Smith, 2015; Sarkar et al., 2015; Schinke, McGannon, Parham, & Lane, 2012). Through reflexivity, they may also become more sensitive to their clients’ and research participants’ cultural identities (see Schinke & McGannon, 2015) and aware that for some in sport, as elsewhere, spirituality and religion may play a very significant role in how they see themselves and how they behave. This philosophy has the additional advantage of being consistent with those approaches to research and applied practice that emphasize the centrality of athletes’ experience, and the importance of capturing their lived world. 201

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21 SP O RT- R E L AT E D C O N C U S SIO N Anthony P. Kontos and R. J. Elbin

Sport-related concussion (SRC) and its effects have become one of the most prominent issues in sport during the last decade. These injuries affect everyone from youth sport athletes to collegiate and professional athletes and “weekend warriors.” The World Health Organization estimates that the worldwide prevalence rate for concussions (all causes) is 6/1000 people (WHO, 2006). Concussions affect athletes representing many sports, but are most common in collision (rugby, American football, ice hockey), contact (soccer [football], basketball), combative (boxing, wrestling), and speed/aerial sports (skiing, snowboarding, motor racing). It is estimated that between 48–200 concussions per 100,000 people occur in Australia, Europe, and the United States combined; with up to 3.6 million SRCs occurring each year in the United States alone (Langlois, Rutland, & Brown, 2006). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have intimated that SRCs among youth have reached “epidemic” status. Sport-related concussions occur when a direct or indirect force acts on the brain, resulting in a metabolic cascade that creates an energy imbalance in the brain (Giza & Hovda, 2001). Following an SRC, athletes experience diverse symptoms including headache, dizziness, and nausea; as well as cognitive, vestibular, oculomotor, and psychological impairments (McCrory et al., 2013). The assessment and management of SRC has moved away from grading scales toward improved diagnostic methods, individual case management recommendations, and the utilization of computerized neurocognitive test batteries to improve the management of this injury (Aubry et al., 2002; McCrory et al., 2005). We have come a long way from the days of smelling salts and the “how many fingers am I holding up?” clinical evaluation. However, the field of SRC continues to evolve with each new research finding and clinical advancement. Part of that evolution is a growing role for the sport psychology professional (SPP) as part of the concussion team. Traditionally, SRC has been conceptualized within a homogenous framework, wherein approaches to assessment and management were similar across injuries. However, this approach does not reflect the varied and individualized symptoms and impairments that often accompany this injury. More recently, researchers have begun to conceptualize SRC using a heterogeneous approach that encompasses individual risk factors, a comprehensive approach to assessment, specific clinical trajectories (or profiles), and targeted treatments and therapies (see Collins, Kontos, Reynolds, Murawski, & Fu, 2014). This comprehensive, heterogeneous 204

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approach to concussion involves an interdisciplinary team of medical and mental health professionals including SPPs. As such, this approach provides opportunities for SPPs to contribute to both clinical and research endeavors related to SRC. Specifically, SPPs can be an integral part of the interdisciplinary concussion team by providing educational activities, behavioral assessments, and therapeutic interventions. From a research perspective, SPPs can provide a relevant theoretical framework (e.g., Stress-Injury Model [Williams & Andersen, 1998]; Integrated Model of Response to Injury in Sport [Weise-Bjornstal, Smith, Schaffer, & Morrey, 1998]) from which to study SRC and its effects on athletes, and emphasize the oftenoverlooked psychological sequelae (e.g., mood/anxiety, stress, coping) that accompany SRC. The current chapter begins with a discussion of the key concepts related to SRC including the biomechanics of the injury, common signs and symptoms, impairments, assessment, and the issue of safe return to play. The next section examines the psychosocial context in which SRCs occur. This section is followed by a review of the SPP’s role in SRC. The chapter concludes with a brief overview of the approaches to treatment and rehabilitation following SRC.

Sport-related concussion primer Definition of concussion The inconsistent presentation of SRC has resulted in a lack of consensus on the definition of this injury. The American Medical Association (AMA) (Harmon et al., 2013), American Academy of Neurology (AAN) (Giza et al., 2013), and the Concussion in Sport Group (CISG) (McCrory et al., 2013) have all proposed similar definitions of SRC. The AAN focuses on the role of mental status following trauma and indicates that concussions may or may not involve a loss of consciousness (LOC). The AMA denotes that SRCs represent the lower end of the of the brain injury severity spectrum. In addition to the AAN and AMA definitions, the CISG offers a more comprehensive definition that addresses the pathophysiological processes that follow a biomechanical trauma to the brain. The CISG statement includes five common features of SRC that incorporate clinical, pathological, and biomechanical constructs including: 1) SRC can be caused by direct impacts to the head, face, neck, or elsewhere on the body with an “impulsive” force transmitted toward the head; 2) SRC typically results in the rapid onset of short-lived impairment of neurological function that resolves spontaneously; 3) SRC may result in neuropathological changes, but the acute clinical symptoms largely reflect a functional disturbance rather than structural injury; 4) SRC results in a graded set of clinical syndromes that may or may not involve LOC; and 5) SRC is typically associated with grossly normal structural neuroimaging studies. (Aubry et al., 2002, p. 7)

Pathophysiology of SRC The pathophysiological events that occur in the brain following SRC represent a “metabolic energy crisis,” wherein the demand for energy in the brain is greater than the supply during a period of high vulnerability. The pathophysiology of SRC is characterized by a temporary neuronal dysfunction resulting from ionic shifts, altered cerebral metabolism (Maugans, Farley, Altaye, Leach, & Cecil, 2012), impaired connectivity among brain regions, 205

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and/or changes in neural transmission. Giza and Hovda (2001) described these events as a “neurometabolic cascade” that results from the mechanical stretching of the axon, neuronal membrane disruption, and the opening of potassium (K+) channels. As a result of this process an abnormal accumulation of extracellular calcium (Ca2+) and intracellular K+ leads to an ionic imbalance in the brain. Due to diminished cerebral blood flow (CBF) and a decreased supply of glucose the brain enters into an energy crisis. This process can persist up to five to ten days following injury (Yoshino, Hovda, Kawamata, Katayama, & Becker, 1991).

Biomechanics of SRC A SRC can be the result of direct (e.g., collision) or indirect (e.g., whiplash) forces acting on the brain. These forces comprise linear and/or rotational accelerations. Linear forces that accelerate or decelerate the skull in a straight line compress and stretch axons in the brain resulting in a diffuse axonal injury (DAI). These types of forces occur when an athlete is struck by a ball or object or collides with another player head-on. Rotational forces accelerate or decelerate the skull around the midline axis of the body and cause cortical shearing and stretching injuries to the brain. Rotational forces commonly occur from a side or lateral impact such as a hook punch in boxing or a “glancing blow” from an opponent or object. Although the cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) that cradles the brain inside the skull offers some protection during minimal head movement, more forceful momentum will cause the CSF to displace resulting in the brain abruptly contacting the skull (Bailes & Cantu, 2001). This brain-skull contact results in axonal shearing and compression of cortical tissue. This contact between the brain and skull may be classified as coup and/or contre-coup. Coup injuries occur on the part of the brain directly beneath the skull at the point of impact, whereas contre-coup injuries typically occur opposite to the site of impact; though they can also occur elsewhere in the brain (Bayly et al., 2005).

Signs and symptoms of SRC Concussed athletes present with a variety of signs and symptoms that may occur on-field or be reported or detected days after the injury. On-field signs and symptoms include headache, dizziness, confusion, amnesia (retrograde or anterograde), LOC, fatigue, vomiting, numbness/tingling, and/or light/noise sensitivity. Athletes may also demonstrate overt dazed and/or vacant facial expression; confusion and/or failure to remember sport responsibilities or assignments; disorientation to the game situation (e.g., score); inappropriate emotional reaction (e.g., laughing, crying); display of incoordination or clumsiness; delayed response to questions; and/or changes in typical behavior or personality (Aubry et al., 2002; Collins & Hawn, 2002; Kontos, Collins, & Russo, 2004; Lovell & Collins, 1998). Researchers have indicated that symptom profiles represent a more global cognitive, fatigue, migraine factor during the first week post-injury (Kontos et al., 2012). In contrast, symptoms tend to cluster into more distinct cognitive, sleep, physical, and emotional categories following the first week of injury (Pardini et al., 2004). This information is particularly useful to understanding the temporal changes in concussion and its effects on athletes – both physically and psychologically – during the recovery process.

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Impairment following SRC Self-reported SRC symptoms provide valuable, yet subjective evidence of injury. In addition to symptoms, athletes may also experience neurocognitive, vestibular (including balance), and oculomotor impairments following an SRC. Assessments of these impairments, when used in combination with symptom reports, provide a more comprehensive approach to quantifying the effects of this injury. Neurocognitive impairment. The neurocognitive effects of SRC are well documented in the literature (e.g., see Kontos, Braithwaite, Dakan, & Elbin, 2014). Neurocognitive testing has been suggested to reveal a more complete picture of the cognitive sequelae that might be missed by only assessing symptoms and post-injury behaviors (Kontos et al., 2004). The neurocognitive domains most susceptible to change in the days following SRC include attention and concentration, cognitive processing speed/efficiency, learning and memory, working memory, executive function, and verbal fluency (Guskiewicz et al., 2004). Vestibular and oculomotor impairment. Vestibular (Hoffer, Gotshall, Moore, Balough, & Wester, 2004) impairment, which occurs in approximately half of athletes with SRC (Kontos et al., 2012), is a consequence of the injured brain’s inability to process, integrate, and coordinate vestibular information (Kontos & Ortega, 2011). Vestibular symptoms (e.g., dizziness, imbalance, nausea) have been linked to worse outcomes in patients with SRC. Lau and colleagues (Lau, Kontos, Collins, Mucha, & Lovell, 2011) reported that dizziness at the time of injury was associated with a greater than six-fold increase in risk for a protracted (i.e., >21 days) recovery. Oculomotor impairment following SRC includes accommodative deficiencies, convergence insufficiency, diplopia, fixation defects, nystagmus, phoria, as well as defective gaze stability and saccadic and pursuit eye movements (Capó-Aponte et al., 2012). Nearly 30 percent of athletes report visual problems following SRC (Kontos et al., 2012), and these impairments may present as concentration difficulties, symptom provocation in busy environments (e.g., crowded hallways, grocery stores), headaches, reading difficulties, trouble focusing and paying attention, and visual confusion (Ciuffreda, Ludlam, & Thiagarajan, 2011). Functionally, these symptoms and impairments often translate into reduced academic and work performance. In a new clinical model of concussion care, researchers have suggested that vestibular and oculomotor impairment may constitute unique injury trajectories requiring specific, targeted therapies and treatments (Collins et al., 2014).

Psychological issues associated with SRC Following SRC, athletes may experience mood changes including depression or anxiety. Although clinical levels of depression are low (i.e., 6 percent), athletes do experience an increase in reported depression symptoms following SRC (Kontos et al., 2012). Athletes report related symptoms following SRC such as irritability (Freemen, Barth, Broshek, & Plehn, 2005). It is difficult to disentangle mood-related symptoms from those related to a concussion as there is considerable overlap between the two. As such, the treatment of mood changes following SRC is likely delayed until the later stages of injury after other symptoms have resolved. Given that SRC has been described as the “invisible injury” (Bloom, Horton, McCrory, & Johnston, 2004) with limited overt symptoms it is not surprising that some athletes may become anxious following SRC. This anxiety may be related to an injured athlete becoming hypervigilant or ruminating on their symptoms. This outcome may be exacerbated due to the use of prescribed rest from normal activities, which may socially 207

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isolate the injured athlete. However, there is limited empirical evidence of the role of anxiety following SRC. Athletes with high levels of identification with a sport or being an athlete may experience emotional upheaval and concomitant difficulties coping with injury and time away from sport. This is especially true for athletes whose recovery time from SRC is longer than anticipated or for athletes who may lose their status in their sport as a result of their injury (Mainwaring et al., 2004). It is important to note that responses to SRC may be different from those experienced by athletes following orthopedic injuries as noted by Kontos and colleagues (2013). Specifically, following SRC athletes use lower levels of coping than following an orthopedic injury. This finding, together with findings from Hutchinson and colleagues (2010) that suggest athletes experience emotional effects even in the first week following SRC, may indicate a mismatch between the emotional response of concussion and the coping responses from concussed athletes. When recovery from SRC persists beyond the three-to-four-week time frame, during which most (80–90 percent) of SRC resolve, emotional, and psychosocial factors may play an even greater role in the athlete’s concussion experience (Siverberg & Iverson, 2011).

Assessment of SRC Concussion is often referred to as a “functional” injury – meaning that the clinical evidence for SRC consists of observed symptoms and impairment. Concussions involve subtle, primarily metabolic changes in the brain that are not typically evident in standard neuroimaging techniques such as CT scans and MRI (Mendez, Hurley, Lassonde, & Taber, 2005). Consequently, SRC has been assessed using a variety of behavioral assessments. Initially, concussion grading scales (i.e., mild, moderate, severe) – similar to those used for musculoskeletal injuries – that relied predominately on LOC and PTA, and used a “cookiecutter” approach, were used to assess SRC. These approaches have been replaced with a more comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach involving a clinical interview (e.g., health and injury history with current symptom assessment), combined with more objective measures of neurocognitive, vestibular, postural, and oculomotor impairment. More recently, researchers have advocated for psychological testing as part of a comprehensive assessment following SRC to address athletes experiencing anxiety/mood-related clinical trajectories (Collins et al., 2014). It is important to note that some athletes may lack insight about SRC symptoms due to a lack of awareness of this injury. They also may minimize or not report their symptoms to sports medicine professionals in hopes to hide their injury and expedite their return to play (RTP: Lovell & Collins, 2002). Consequently, objective assessments of neurocognitive, vestibular, postural, and oculomotor function often provide evidence of injury in spite of an athlete’s asymptomatic status (e.g., Van Kampen, Lovell, Pardini, Collins, & Fu, 2006).

Recovery from SRC Approximately 80 percent of athletes with SRC recover within seven to ten days, with the remaining 20 percent of athletes with SRC requiring longer recovery periods lasting as long as a year in some cases (McCrory et al., 2009). Researchers have defined the phases of recovery as: 1) acute, within seven days following injury or less, 2) sub-acute, eight to 89 days following injury, and 3) chronic, more than 90 days post-injury (Krainin, Forsten, Kotwal, Lutz, & Guskiewicz, 2011). Recently, researchers have begun to focus on risk factors that influence symptoms and impairment during the acute and sub-acute phases of SRC 208

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(e.g., Kontos et al., 2013). They have also examined which risk factors place athletes at risk for chronic SRC (e.g., Lau et al., 2011). Ultimately, the findings from this research will help inform better and earlier intervention and management strategies to mitigate the effects of SRC and reduce recovery times.

Risk factors for poor outcomes following SRC Primary factors that influence an athlete’s risk for SRC include sport/type, age/level of competition, female gender, and history of SRC. American football, men’s and women’s lacrosse, men’s and women’s ice hockey, women’s soccer, and cheerleading are associated with the highest risk for SRC (Covassin, Swanik, & Sachs, 2003a; Gessel, Fields, Collins, Dick, & Comstock, 2007; Hootman, Dick, & Agel, 2007; Shields & Smith, 2009), and SRC injury rates for high school athletes are slightly higher than college estimates. Athletes with a prior SRC are three times more likely to sustain a subsequent SRC compared to those with no history (Guskiewicz et al., 2003). Researchers also report that athletes with one, two, and three or more previous SRCs were 1.5, 2.8, and 3.4 times more likely to sustain a subsequent SRC, respectively (Guskiewicz et al., 2003), suggesting a dose-response relationship between SRC history and future risk of SRC. Sports medicine professionals should be aware of the primary risk factors in their athletes as this information can help identify athletes who may be at an increased risk for SRC and warrant additional preventative efforts (e.g., baseline testing, behavior modification, conservative management). Several secondary risk factors including age, history of SRC, female gender, and onfield and acute symptom presentations are reported to influence SRC recovery outcomes. Specifically, younger athletes (e.g., high school) (Field, Collins, Lovell, & Maroon, 2003; Covassin, Elbin, Parker, Harris, & Kontos, 2012), those with a history of SRC (Covassin, Swanik, & Sachs, 2003b), and females (Covassin, Schatz, & Swanik, 2007) experience longer recovery times. Emerging variables, including on-field dizziness and post-traumatic migraine symptom presentation (e.g., headache, nausea, light and/or noise sensitivity) are associated with an increased risk of prolonged recovery (Kontos et al. 2013; Lau et al. 2011).

Recommended return to play (RTP) protocol An athlete returning to play following SRC is recommended to follow a stepwise exertional protocol that is composed of stages of activity that increase intensity and gradually incorporate full contact (i.e., tackling, heading a soccer ball). These stages are based on the possibility of symptoms returning from progressive physical and sport-specific exertion (Guskiewicz et al., 2004). The recommended RTP progression should include the following steps: 1) No activity, complete rest until asymptomatic, 2) Light aerobic exercise such as walking or stationary cycling, no resistance training, 3) Sport-specific exercise and progressive addition of resistance training, 4) Non-contact training drills, 5) Full contact training after medical clearance, and 6) Game play (Aubry et al., 2002; McCrory et al., 2005). If SRCrelated symptoms return during the RTP protocol, the athlete should revert to the previous asymptomatic stage and resume the progression after 24 hours (Aubry et al., 2002). These guidelines allow for a more individualized approach when returning an athlete back to competition from SRC.

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Psychosocial context of SRC An often-overlooked factor affecting an athlete’s SRC experience is the psychosocial context in which the identification of the injury, clinical care, recovery process, and RTP decision process occur. The 2014 World Cup in Brazil will be remembered for its many goals, late comebacks, star players, and enthusiastic support from fans around the world. However, it will also be remembered for several SRCs and the subsequent mismanagement of these injuries that occurred in full view of millions of fans and television viewers. Before discussing these incidents, it is important to briefly discuss the overarching framework in which these events occurred. International soccer’s governing body, the Federation Interationale de Football Association (FIFA), currently allows three substitutions during each match. Once a player is substituted they cannot return to the field in the same match, and once the three substitutions are used no additional substitutions are allowed, even for injuries. Consequently, in soccer games that are played under FIFA regulations, injured players are often returned to the field to continue to play. With this framework as a backdrop, during the World Cup Final between Germany and Argentina, German midfielder Christopher Kramer collided with a player from Argentina after which he spun around and collapsed on the field. Play was stopped about two minutes later, and he was removed from the field for a cursory evaluation of what was an obvious SRC with overt evidence of dizziness and balance problems. Not surprisingly, Kramer was returned to the field, only to collapse on the field 15 minutes later. Similar scenarios played out earlier in the tournament for Argentina’s defender Javier Mascherano, and for Uruguay’s Álvaro Pereira, who returned to the field in spite of objections from the team’s medical staff. The preceding examples highlight several key issues that permeate the culture in which SRC occurs as alluded to by McGannon, Cunningham, and Schinke (2013). The notion of a “culture of risk” in sport is apparent in Pereira’s decision to override his team’s medical staff and return to the field in order to help his team to win the match above all else (Safai, 2003). This “sport ethic” reinforces the “play through pain” and “win at all costs” mentality that is typical of professional sports and reinforced by coaches and teammates (Messner, 2007). In the case of Kramer, it is unlikely that he would have been returned to play had his SRC occurred during a less important match. However, Kramer was injured in the World Cup Final, the most important soccer match in which he or his teammates and coaches will ever be involved. There may also be internal pressure to return to play, especially following an injury that is typically characterized by no overt evidence of injury and has been described by researchers as “invisible” (Bloom et al., 2004). Other contextual issues are also reflected in the above examples. A lack of awareness and education about SRC including identification, assessment, management, and potential consequences of risk behaviors may also influence SRCs and how they are handled (Kontos et al., 2004). Additionally, the effect of institutional policies affecting SRC, such as the FIFA substitution rule discussed previously, may also affect SRC and its associated outcomes. In fact, some have argued that if FIFA simply created a temporary substitution rule to allow for proper evaluation following a suspected SRC or other injury, that the examples above would all but vanish from the game. However, such a change represents a dramatic shift and “softening” from the current culture of masculine values that pervade contact sports (Anderson & Kian, 2012). Athletes who might feign injuries to gain a competitive advantage could exploit this type of policy. In conclusion, it is important to keep in mind the psychosocial context in which concussions occur in sport and how that context may influence outcomes related to SRC.

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The SPP’s role in SRC The SPP is in a unique position to contribute to an effective team-based approach to the prevention, assessment, and management of athletes with SRC (Coppel & Breiger, 2011; Webbe, 2011). One of the most important contributions of the SPP is in the area of awareness and education. Current educational approaches to SRC are often one size fits all, top-down approaches that do not focus on the individual athlete per se. A more effective approach that SPPs can employ might revolve around partnering with individual athletes or small groups/teams to “discuss” SRC rather than “educate” athletes. The SPP is also in a position to encourage and foster change within the current cultural context in which SRC occurs. Specifically, the SPP can work with administrators, coaches, parents, and athletes to foster a culture that is focused on the wellbeing and health of athletes above all else (Coppel & Breiger, 2011; Mainwaring, Hutchison, Comper, & Richards, 2012). A good example of this kind of cultural change involves the coaching staff and organization of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who attempted to change the culture of leading with the helmet/ head when tackling to help prevent concussions in its players. To this end, Steelers’ head coach Mike Tomlin, in conjunction with experts in concussion from the UPMC Sports Medicine Concussion Program in Pittsburgh, developed a cultural change slogan, “Don’t hit the head, don’t use the head.” The slogan has served as the focal point for a change in attitudes and behaviors toward proper tackling technique that permeated into practices, meetings, and press conferences, and crossed over into the cultures of local area youth and high school football teams. Another area in which SPPs can contribute is in the growing area of behavioral risk reduction. Recently, Kevin Guskiewicz and colleagues at the University of North Carolina have developed a video analysis-based intervention to reduce risky behaviors on the field among football players. The SPP can work with athletes to better understand and change their behaviors related to concussion risk. From a post-injury perspective, the SPP who is trained in clinical or counseling psychology can help identify and assist athletes with the psychological sequelae that often accompany SRC. Finally, the SPP can help athletes who are medically disqualified or retired from sport due to SRC with the transition process to life after sport. Specifically, the SPP can assist in the adjustment to the loss of athletic identity, coping with emotions and frustrations, developing social support outside of sport, and refocusing of the athlete’s energy and purpose beyond sport (Stambulova, Alfermann, Statler, & Côté, 2009).

Approaches to treatment and rehabilitation When it comes to SRC, the best approach involves a team of interdisciplinary, medical, and mental health professionals with specialized training in the injury. These professionals can work together and communicate with parents, coaches, and school/academic personnel to enhance the concussed athlete’s recovery and adherence to the treatment and rehabilitation plan. Treatments for SRC range from more global approaches in the earlier phases of the injury such as physical and cognitive rest, to more targeted interventions such as vestibular therapy, as the clinical manifestations of the injury become more distinct.

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Cognitive and physical rest and the role of academic accommodations Physical and cognitive rest is the recommended management strategy in the acute period following concussion (Collins et al., 2014; McCrory et al., 2013). The presence of a global symptom cluster in the acute period following SRC (Kontos et al., 2012) further supports the notion that physical and cognitive rest is a beneficial strategy at this time. Researchers have linked post-SRC cognitive activity to prolonged recovery (Brown et al., 2014), and several studies focused on identifying the efficacy of prescribed cognitive and physical rest on SRC outcomes (Moser, Glatts, & Schatz, 2012; Thomas, Apps, Hoffman, & Hammeke, 2013; Gibson et al., 2013). However, researchers report that there is little benefit of strict activity restriction over five days, compared to one to two days of activity restriction (Thomas et al., 2013), and prescribed rest is reported to be associated with longer duration of concussion symptoms (Gibson, Nigrovic, O’Brien, & Meehan, 2013). This finding suggests that rest should be employed in the acute post-injury time period, but that athletes should be returned to physical and cognitive activity (without symptom provocation) as soon as possible. In contrast, other researchers documented decreased concussion symptoms in a sub-acute and chronic sample following one week of rest, even when implemented weeks to months following concussion (Moser et al., 2012). Following the acute injury period, academic accommodations, including rest periods during the day, leave from sports or gymnastics, avoidance of physical exertion, and decreased environmental distractions, may assist in returning the concussed athlete to school (McGrath, 2010).

Targeted therapies and rehabilitation As we learn more about the clinical trajectories associated with SRC, therapies and rehabilitation strategies are becoming more targeted to specific impairment and symptoms (Collins et al., 2014). For example, an athlete with vestibular impairment following SRC including dizziness, vertigo, and imbalance may require specific vestibular rehabilitation to recover. Vestibular therapies include eye–head coordination; sitting, standing static, and standing dynamic balance; and ambulation exercises (Alsalaheen et al., 2013). Alternately, an athlete may experience oculomotor impairment following SRC such as convergence insufficiency, blurry vision, and difficulty reading and may require some form of oculomotor or vision therapy. Oculomotor and vision therapies include versional (e.g., fixation, saccades, pursuits), vergence (e.g., fusion, sustained vergence), and accommodative and visual attention (e.g., scanning, gaze) exercises. The key to the effectiveness of these therapies is in matching the therapy with the specific symptoms and underlying impairment.

Conclusion Sport-related concussion is a significant health concern for athletes of all levels and ages. The field of SRC has experienced tremendous growth and advances during the past decade. Emerging, heterogeneous approaches to SRC encompass individual risk factors, comprehensive approaches to assessment, clinical trajectories, and targeted treatments and therapies. All SRCs occur within the context of sport culture. Consequently, athletes are faced with a myriad of challenges related to the culture of risk taking, competitive pressure to return to play, and the sport ethic mentality of “no pain, no gain” associated with their injury. An SRC is characterized by individualized symptoms and impairments including cognitive, vestibular, and oculomotor. Psychological issues often accompany SRC, and warrant more 212

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attention from clinicians and researchers alike. The SPP is an excellent position to contribute to the concussion team via educational, behavioral, psychological, and other services.

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McCrory, P., Meeuwisse, W., Johnston, K., Dvorak, J., Aubry, M., Molloy, M., & Cantu, R. (2009). Consensus statement on concussion in sport: the 3rd International Conference on Concussion in Sport held in Zurich, November 2008. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 43 Suppl 1, i76–90. McCrory, P., Meeuwisse, W. H., Aubry, M., Cantu, B., Dvorak, J., Echemendia, R. J., & Turner, M. (2013). Consensus statement on concussion in sport: the 4th International Conference on Concussion in Sport held in Zurich, November 2012. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 47, 250–258. McGannon, K. R., Cunningham, S. M., & Schinke, R. J. (2013). Understanding concussion in sociocultural context: A media analysis of a National Hockey League star’s concussion. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 14, 891–899. McGrath, N. (2010). Supporting the student-athlete’s return to the classroom after a sport-related concussion. Journal of Athletic Training, 45, 492–498. Mendez, C. V., Hurley, R. A., Lassonde, M., Zhang, L., & Taber, K. H. (2005). Mild traumatic brain injury: Neuroimaging of sports-related concussion. Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 17(3), 297–303. doi: 10.1176/appi.neuropsych.17.3.297 Messner, M. A. (2007). Out of play: Critical essays on gender and sport. New York: State University of New York Press. Moser, R. S., Glatts, C., & Schatz, P. (2012). Efficacy of immediate and delayed cognitive and physical rest for treatment of sports-related concussion. Journal of Pediatrics, 161, 922–926. Pardini, J., Stump, J., Lovell, M. R., Collins, M. W., Moritz, K., & Fu, F. (2004). The Post Concussion Symptom Scale (PCSS): A factor analysis [abstract]. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 38, 661–662. Safai, P. (2003). Healing the body in the “culture of risk”: Examining the negotiationof treatment between sport medicine clinicians and injured athletes in Canadian intercollegiate sport. Sociology of Sport Journal, 20, 127–146. Shields, B. J., & Smith, G. A. (2009). Cheerleading-related injuries in the United States: A prospective surveillance study. Journal of Athletic Training, 44, 567–577. Siverberg, N., & Iverson, G. (2011). Etiology of the post-concussion syndrome: Physiogenesis and psychogenesis revisited. NeuroRehabilitation, 29, 317–329. Stambulova, N., Alfermann, D., Statler, T., & Côté, J. (2009). ISSP position stand: Career development and transitions of athletes. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 7, 395–412. Thomas, D. G., Apps, J. N., Hoffmann, R., & Hammeke, T. A. (2013). Randomized controlled trial of strict rest following acute concussion. Paper presented at the 2013 American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference, Orlando, FL. Van Kampen, D., Lovell, M. R., Pardini, J., Collins, M. W., & Fu, F. (2006). The “value added” of neurocognitive testing after sports-related concussion. American Journal of Sports Medicine, 34, 1630– 1635. Webbe, F. (2011) The handbook of sport neuropsychology. New York: Springer. Wiese-Bjornstal, D. M, Smith, A. M., Shaffer, S. M., & Morrey, M. A. (1998). An integrated model of response to sport injury: Psychological and sociological dynamics. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 10, 46–69. Williams, J., & Andersen, M. (1998). Psychosocial antecedents of sport injury: Review and critique of the stress and injury model. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 10, 5–25. World Health Organization (2006) Neurological disorders: Public health challenges. Geneva: WHO. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/mental_health/neurology/neurodiso/en/index.html (accessed June 2014). Yoshino, A., Hovda, D., Kawamata, T., Katayama, Y., & Becker, D. (1991). Dynamic changes in local cerebral glucose utilization following cerebral concussion in rats: Evidence of a hyper-and subsequent hypometabolic state. Brain Research, 561, 106–119.

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PART III

Cultural sport psychology

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22 SE L F- I D E N T I T Y Our most beautiful and creative project Kitrina Douglas and David Carless

Why ‘who we claim to be’ matters ‘Stop! Who goes there?’ the sentry shouts pointing his gun. ‘Don’t shoot – it’s me!’ comes the worried reply. ‘I surprised myself,’ the girl whispers to her friends over coffee. ‘That’s not like you,’ the coach says to athlete after she misses her training. ‘I can’t possibly wear that,’ he said looking at the colour of the tie, ‘it’s just not me.’ ‘Are you sure this is your ID?’ the barman asked the sixteen-year-old who’d asked for a pint of John Smith’s Best. ‘Is that miss, missss or mrs?’ asks the receptionist. The woman checking in doesn’t want to be limited or defined by any of these terms, luckily she has an alternative up her sleeve. ‘Actually,’ she says, ‘it’s Dr.’ In contemporary society, we are continually being asked to give an account of who we claim to be. The process begins before birth, as others anticipate and shape what they hope we will become, through family traditions and heritage (Lindemann, 2009; MacIntyre, 1984). These ‘facts’ about who we are have historically led some people to be deprived of opportunities, experience persecution, abuse, and oppression. If there is any doubt of the importance of studying self-identity in sport psychology, consider the case of the female athlete who was threatened with expulsion from her sport. The reason? A certain combination of chromosomes disallowed her from claiming her female self-identity and competing in an event she had spent years training for. Consider another example, the response of the media after a male Olympic swimmer and a United States National Football League footballer each openly claimed a gay self-identity. Their ‘coming out’ stories led some of the world’s media to assert these men had been ‘deceiving us’ about who they ‘really’ were. It is not surprising, when gay athletes face homophobia and stigma, that they remain silent about who they feel they are. Yet what are the consequences? 219

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In what ways might it harm an athlete, or any other person, when he or she feels pressure to stay silent about their identity? While these are not the only issues relevant to the study of self-identity within sport psychology, they provide a starting point as to why this area of study might be important. In the limited amount of space here we provide one story about the emergence of ‘self-identity’ in contemporary sport and exercise psychology research, consider some of the theoretical conceptualisations, and point toward one area for future research. In doing so we recognise we are amplifying some strands of thought about this topic over others but make provision of resources for further, more extensive reading.

Tracing ourselves and our identities The first theory aimed at explaining self-identity is often ascribed to philosopher and psychologist William James, who laid out processes underlying a theory of ‘self ’ in Psychology: The Briefer Course (1892). Others trace earlier works such as philosopher and mathematician Descartes and then to Locke, Hume, and Berkeley. A landmark on the trail of self-identity is Cooley’s ‘looking-glass self ’ (see Cooley, 1902): a view a person has of his or her self develops from interpersonal interactions and the perceptions of others. Later, Mead theorised in his work Mind, Self, and Society (1934) that what is distinctive about ‘being human’ is the way we give meaning to things (events, objects, relationships, actions, and so on) and the capacity for the person ‘to respond reflexively to themselves, treating themselves as objects kin to any object in their experience’ (Stryker, 2008, p. 17), leading to a theory of Symbolic Interactionism. A ‘problem’ with Mead’s framework, which was also reflected in the psychological assumptions of his era, was that the internal self was conceptualised as singular, undifferentiated, and (ideally) coherent (Smith, 2005). Accepting the foundational premise that ‘society shapes self ’, Stryker developed Structural Symbolic Interactionism and then Identity Theory, where: the core of an identity is the categorization of the self as an occupant of a role, and the incorporation, into the self, of the meanings and expectations associated with that role and its performance. (Stets & Burke, 2000, p. 225) This view opened up the potential for a person to display different types of selves in their different roles and also led to the hypothesis that there is a self that supersedes the self. To reduce the confusion between what these selves ‘do’ and ‘are’, the notion of identity was introduced. Stets and Burke (2000) theorise that the identity formation process begins with self-categorisation through identification with pre-existing social categories in which individuals realise and internalise the roles that are expected of them. Identity is therefore a ‘set of meanings applied to the self in a social role or situation’ (Burke, 1991, p. 837). Within this conceptualisation, a person’s self-image, or self-schemata, is composed of a number of relatively stable dimensions, which are influenced by social and environmental factors (Markus, 1977) and are hierarchical in terms of salience. Self-schemata organised past experiences are used to recognise and interpret relevant stimuli in the social environment (Markus, Smith, & Moreland, 1985), and are defined as: 220

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cognitive generalization about the self, derived from past experience, that organizes and guides the processing of self-related information contained in the individual’s social experiences. (Markus, 1977, p. 64) Thus, self-identity is based on a complex, highly elaborate system of mental representations and organisations accrued over time within specific domains. Domains of self-evaluation identified include academic, social, emotional, and physical self (Brettschneider & Heim, 1997). During childhood and adolescence, these processes become increasingly more complex and differentiated leading an individual’s self-knowledge to include values, motives, expectations, assumptions, ideology, characteristics, personality traits, relationships, depicted traits, values, and beliefs (Waterman, 1985).

Terminology, tensions, and sport psychology research Sport psychologists theorising about self-identity face a number of challenges. First, there is a lack of consensus about terminology, and a proliferation of ‘self ’ prefixed terms, with both selfidentity and self-concept addressing the question of ‘who we are’. This issue is exacerbated by the terms ‘self ’, ‘sense of self ’, ‘self-identity’, ‘ego identity’, ‘personal identity’, and ‘identity’ all being used in the literature, often interchangeably, and with no clear distinction between them (Biderman, Daniels-Zide, Reyes, & Marks, 2006; Coetzer, 2008). Second, cognitive psychology and social cognitive approaches conceptualise self-identity as a process or mechanism within the mind, which directs behaviour. By applying an accurate instrument an individual’s self-identity can reliably be measured, assessed, and therefore predicted and controlled. For social constructionists, this view is problematic (Gergen, 1973, 2011) given ‘principals of human behaviour may have little predictive value across time, and their very acknowledgement can render them impotent as tools of social control’ (Gergen, 1973, p. 317). As opposed to prediction and control, Gergen suggested psychological theories can be a sensitising tool illuminating factors that potentially influence behaviour and their importance at particular moments in time. Third, and related to the previous point, there has been a lack of attention to the cultural dimensions of self-identity. Using elite sport as an example, research has consistently shown an exclusive athletic identity can be problematic following career transition, injury, or deselection (Blinde & Stratta, 1992; Brewer, Van Raalte, & Linder, 1993; Carless & Douglas, 2009; Douglas & Carless, 2009, 2015; Kerr & Dacyshyn, 2000). Yet practitioners have only had limited success in expanding the identity repertoires of athletes. McGannon and Spence (2010) implied that one reason for this is that, by solely addressing mechanisms within the mind, psychologists are failing to respond to the cultural and/or indigenous dimensions of athletes’ self-identity (Schinke & McGannon, 2014; Schinke, Michel, Gauthier, Pickard, Danielson, Peltier, Pheasant, Enosse, and Peltier, 2006). Lastly, Smith (2010) has highlighted how some sport and exercise psychologists have lost confidence in traditional approaches, and have begun to explore alternative theoretical frameworks (see also Douglas & Carless, 2015). It is to such alternatives we now turn.

Social constructionism, discourse, and narrative Within the constructionist dialogues we find that it is not the individual mind in which knowledge, reason, emotion, and morality reside, but in relationships (Gergen, 2011, p. 109). 221

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Postmodernism, along with ideological critiques of the ‘taken for granted’ realities of the dominant paradigm from feminism, cultural studies, and queer theory (Callero, 2003), have brought into sharp focus the socio-political dimensions of scholarly endeavours. We are now more aware of the way linguistic convention governs claims to knowledge. For the constructionist, self-identity is a social construction, as are the social processes within which ‘the conception of the self ’ is embedded (Gergen, 2011). Among theoretical approaches that develop constructionist thinking are narrative inquiry (Holstein & Gubrium, 2000; McAdams, 1993; McLeod, 1997) and discursive psychology (Potter & Wetherell, 1987; Potter & Edwards, 2001). These are discussed below.

Narrative inquiry Narrative inquiry is regarded as both a research method (a set of strategies, techniques, and approaches) and a way of theorising psychological and social phenomena. Following McLeod (1997), Frank (1995, 2000, 2010), Lindemann (2001, 2009), and Crossley (2000), we understand the process of creating and telling stories of one’s life to be a primary way through which meaning is created and communicated, and a necessary part of developing and maintaining a coherent identity and sense of self over time. It is ‘through narrative [that] we define who we are, who we were and where we may be in the future’ (Lindemann, 2001, p. 67). Narrative inquiry therefore provides one route to explore lived experiences in storied form (detailing what happened, where, when, to whom, and what were the consequences). Although stories prioritise personal experience, because any individual’s story is shaped by the dominant narrative/s within an individual’s culture (McLeod, 1997), they also reveal much about the individual’s social and cultural context. Thus, narrative inquiry provides a bridge between psychological and sociological understandings (Crossley, 2000; McLeod, 1997) by revealing how psychological processes unfold under the constraints of sociocultural structures (e.g., Carless & Douglas, 2013a, 2013b; McGannon & Smith, 2015). From this perspective, culturally available narratives can be understood as ‘resources’ that enable individuals to construct particular personal stories, self-identities, and lives. At the same time, the absence of narrative resources within a sociocultural context is likely to limit or constrain developmental possibilities. Sexual identity among men in sport, for example, is one area where these processes are clearly apparent (see Carless & Douglas, 2015). Even though a young man in sport might be aware of his attraction to other men, the scarcity of gay or bisexual men in sport, and – critically – their stories, makes the creation of a gay or bisexual identity difficult or impossible (Carless, 2010a, 2012). Recently emerging stories of gay men within high profile sport (e.g., Gareth Thomas, Tom Daley, Michael Sam, Jason Collins) may be understood as providing publicly available narrative resources that help same-sex attracted males in sport create and share a gay or bisexual identity. Narrative inquiry challenges reductionist and mechanistic portrayals of human beings by providing holistic and emotionally rich perspectives. Using narrative forms to represent research allows participants’ embodied presence and emotional richness to be preserved, and this has been shown to be useful in engaging diverse audiences (e.g., Douglas, 2013; Douglas & Carless, 2014). Further, taking seriously the personal stories people share – and may feel unable to share – provokes us (the research and scholarly community) to reconsider the limitations of our horizon of interest and to expand our understanding about the many ways of being human. For more than a decade, researchers within sport and exercise have been drawn to narrative inquiry (e.g., Carless & Douglas, 2009; Douglas & Carless, 2006; Gilbourne, 2002; 222

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Jowett & Frost, 2007; Leahy & Harrigan, 2006; McGannon & Schinke, 2013; Partington, Partington, Fishwick, & Allin, 2005; Smith & Sparkes, 2002; Owton, in press; Toner, Nelson, Potrac, Gilbourne, & Marshall, 2012). This body of work offers potentially unique insights into the cultural and personal processes of identity negotiation. The use of narrative in elite and professional sports, for example, has made it possible to identify a dominant narrative (the performance narrative) as well as alternative (discovery and relational) types of narrative (Douglas & Carless, 2015). Applying these narrative frameworks in other elite sports research has made it possible to explore how dominant narratives influence, for example, disordered eating (Busanich, McGannon, & Schinke, 2014; Papathomas & Lavallee, 2014) and have additional consequences for the individual in terms of mental health, as athletes are called to live, resist, or play the part of athlete (see Douglas & Carless, 2015).

Discursive psychology Discursive psychology regards subjective realities as being constructed through discourse, and discourse as giving interaction sense and coherence (see Potter & Edwards, 2001; Potter & Wiggins, 2007). Of interest to discursive psychologists is the organisation of social life and what people actually ‘do’ in their everyday settings through intimate, personal, psychological phenomenon, including embodied feelings, thoughts, actions, and interactions. It is an actionoriented theoretical lens conceptualised in terms of the practical, technical, and interpersonal duties people perform in the process of ‘living life’ and engaging in various cultural domains. Discursive psychology is constructed and constructive, that is, made up of linguistic building blocks (talk and texts) as part of social and relational practices. Given discourse is seen as the primary medium for social action, to separate talk and action (as discursive psychologists suggest mainstream theories often do) is to introduce a false dichotomy and neglect the ways talk achieves things in itself. The interest in discursive psychology has been fuelled by McGannon & Mauws (2000), leading to a variety of issues being researched which include: exercise and depression (Faulkner & Finlay, 2002); athletes’ accounts of success; failure and being in ‘the zone’ in competition (Locke, 2004, 2008); women’s physical activity and self (McGannon & Spence, 2010); media representations and career transitions of elite athletes (Cosh, LeCouteur, Crabb, & Kettler, 2013); motherhood and physical activity (McGannon & Schinke, 2013), and soccer team structures (Zucchermaglio & Alby, 2012). In discussing cultural sport psychology, McGannon and Smith (2015) identify three points of convergence between narrative inquiry and discursive psychology. First, both take self-identity to be socially and culturally constructed. Second, both see identities as fluid and malleable given people move between different cultural contexts and, third, both support and encourage researcher reflexivity. In contrast, a point of divergence is the way discursive psychology is grounded in two very distinct approaches, the first is conversation analysis which these authors describe as a ‘fine grained analytic approach to action oriented talk’ (p. 7), and critical discourse analysis, which allows ‘for centralizing culture by linking selfidentity talk and the implications to cultural discourses’ (p. 7), thus heightening awareness of social justice, power imbalances and marginalisation.

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Future directions: embracing embodiment We are never more absent than when fully present and immersed. We are never more present than when we embody our work, and bare our reflections through the body. (Douglas, 2012, p. 525) Reflecting on how the self and identity have been theorised, developed, and presented above has sensitised us not only to the power and complexity of language and terminology, but also to the way textual representations have historically been privileged. While this situation enables us to chart and reference the emergence of a self-identity in empirical research, it also alerts us to what is now more obviously missing: the body. Theorising self-identity through autoethnographic accounts has been for us a step along an important path (e.g., Carless, 2010a, b, 2012; Douglas, 2009, 2012, 2014a). Far more challenging than the textual theorising we engage in when we write about our selves and others, is the practice of embodying those self-identities through a public performance of a play, song, story, or poem. Among the lessons we have learned from over a decade of performing our research (e.g., Carless & Douglas, 2015; Douglas, 2013, 2014a, b; Douglas & Carless, 2006, 2008, 2014) is that embodying research through performance is extremely powerful and humbling. It seems too daunting for many academics and students to attempt, fearing public exposure will damage their self-identity, esteem, and possibly career prospects – and of course it may. Performative approaches seldom find space on the sport science curriculum, require different skills that are difficult to refine, complex to reference, and unlikely to gain an individual recognition or promotion. Across the Tamar (Douglas & Carless, 2006) provides a case in point. Research into the impact of this performance (Carless & Douglas, 2010) documents how it generated powerful new understandings of the self-identities of older women. Yet the performance has never been referenced within the literature on women’s physical activity and ageing – the insights it offers have been excluded or silenced. Despite these challenges, if, as Kenneth Gergen (1973) suggested, social science theory can be a sensitising tool, the kinds of theorising possible through embodied performance offer a potent yet accessible way to generate and disseminate understandings of complex and diverse self-identities.

Conclusion Self-identity is central to many aspects of human functioning. Mental health and wellbeing, motivation, confidence, self-worth and self-esteem, morality and hope are all intertwined in complex ways with who we take ourselves to be. So, too, is identity fundamental to the three strands of the self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000) that has become fashionable in sport and exercise psychology. For example, identity allows us both to establish relatedness to others but also to recognise that, no matter where we may find ourselves, we are not necessarily what is around us. Without a sense of identity, and hence a sense of which activities or tasks matter to us, competence is meaningless. Even autonomy is never truly our own as it is powerfully shaped by our developing self-identity, which is co-constructed and negotiated with and through others: ‘Who I am, morally speaking, is in some measure, a matter of who others say I am, and this has direct bearing on how freely I am able to exercise my moral agency’ (Lindemann, 2001, p. 34). Very many of the most significant 224

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aspects of psychological, cultural, and social life are wrapped up with identity. They shape and are themselves shaped through the artful project – in which we are all, knowingly or not, engaged – of creating and maintaining a personal identity. It is perhaps in recognition of the complexity yet fundamental importance of self-identity that the artist Grayson Perry (in his television series Who Are You?) calls identity our most beautiful and creative project.

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23 W H I T E N E S S I N SP O RT P SYC HO L O G Y Ted M. Butryn

Since the early 2000s, a small but growing contingent of sport psychology scholars have begun to develop an alternative to more mainstream issues within the field, such as an engagement with issues such as identity politics, including the importance of racialized identities (Butryn, 2002, 2009), reflexive and critical approaches to research methodologies (e.g., McGannon & Johnson, 2009; McGannon & Metz, 2010; Schinke, McGannon, Parham, & Lane, 2012), the incorporation of praxis-based work (e.g., Fisher, Roper, & Butryn, 2009; Ryba & Schinke, 2009; Ryba & Wright, 2005), and more generally, a serious and direct examination of how power is negotiated within sport psychology, from researcher-participant interactions to interactions between sport psychology consultants, athletes, coaches, and administrative officials. This multifaceted body of work belongs to what has now come to be called cultural sport psychology (CSP) and in some ways it parallels a similar movement within the sociology of sport known as Physical Cultural Studies, which also seeks to address issues that have, arguably, not been given adequate attention in the mainstream of that field (Butryn, LaVoi, Kauer, Semerjian, & Waldron, 2014). This “cultural turn” in sport psychology has involved an increased attention to issues of race and ethnic identities in the field and their implications for practice. Of course, this paradigmatic shift had its roots much earlier, as Duda and Allison noted the lack of racial and cultural diversity in the research back in 1990 (Duda & Allison, 1990). In addition to special issues of the journal Athletic Insight that focused on culturally relevant sport psychology service provision (Schinke, Michel, Danielson, Gauthier, & Pickard, 2005), two anthologies, The Cultural Turn in Sport Psychology (Ryba, Schinke, & Tenenbaum, 2009), and Cultural Sport Psychology (Schinke & Hanrahan, 2008), furthered Duda and Allison’s original call for a new direction for the field, and an attempt to foreground issues such as race in research and application. The cultural turn is also related to the more general infusion of critical race theory into academia. Critical race theory involves a praxis-based attempt to study and transform the relationship among racial identity, racism, and power. Thus, researchers should not simply increase the diversity of their participants, but actually use research to identify, critique, and dismantle racist structures in sport and society. In this chapter, I start by defining whiteness, and tracing its evolution in the academic literature on race. Next, I provide a brief overview of the literature on whiteness and sport, 228

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and then move specifically to the relevant work on whiteness within the sport psychology literature. In the final section, I draw several key conclusions regarding the state of whiteness studies in sport psychology, and provide suggestions for further work on confronting whiteness and making sense of what racial identities mean for the field moving forward.

Whiteness studies: from the “invisible knapsack” to the emergence of a claimed identity Over the past decade, the interdisciplinary scholarship on whiteness studies has grown significantly. As opposed to the problematic practice of examining the experiences of minority groups, or the “racial other,” from a supposedly “neutral,” color-blind perspective, whiteness studies “reverses the traditional focus of research on race relations by concentrating attention on the socially constructed nature of white identity and the impact of whiteness on intergroup relations” (Doane, 2003, p. 3). In short, whiteness turns a critical eye towards the social and cultural meanings of white racial identity, and recognizes the need to understand whiteness as an “organizing principle in social and cultural relations” (Lipsitz, 1998, p. 1). While the academic work on whiteness did not garner much attention within academia until the 1990s, numerous African-American authors, including W. E. B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, and Ralph Ellison, were critically examining the meaning of whiteness decades earlier (Roediger, 1998). Doane (2003) noted that even the term “white privilege,” a staple of virtually all whiteness studies literature in the 1990s through the present, was used much earlier in the twentieth century by DuBois. So, one key aspect of whiteness studies involves the process by which the transparency of white identity, and the privileges associated with whiteness, are made apparent and tangible, and thus more available for critique (Dyer, 1997; Roediger, 2002). One of the first and more impactful works dealing with whiteness was a now-classic piece by Peggy McIntosh (1988). In her article that dealt with the complex intersection of white privileges and male privileges, McIntosh argued that one means of making whiteness visible was to begin to unload what she called the “invisible knapsack of white privilege” (p. 2). McIntosh stated that whites (and white men in particular) carry a cargo of unexamined, unearned privileges across many social spheres simply because they are considered “white.” One exercise in unpacking white privileges, for McIntosh, was to openly acknowledge and confront them by literally writing them down, thus making them more “real.” This active engagement with white privilege can be an effective method by which to begin to recognize, denounce, and ultimately eliminate privileges that would otherwise continue to not only benefit whites, but also oppress people of color. In the decade following McIntosh’s work, scholars started to explore the related ideas of the “crisis of whiteness” and the rise of a backlash of whiteness. According to Graham (1997), among others, the collective worldview of whites, especially white men, had been disrupted by the slow realization that their status as the norm against which the “other” is compared was beginning to be challenged. As Giroux noted, As Whiteness came under scrutiny by various social groups – such as Black and Latina feminists, radical multiculturalists, critical race theorists, and others-as an oppressive, invisible center against which all else is measured, many Whites began to identify with the “new racism” epitomized by right-wing conservatives. (p. 2) 229

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hooks (1998) noted that other whites took a different approach, and effectively retreated with a mindset of uncritical and overly defensive white guilt. Both of these conservative strategies, backlash and guilt, ultimately reify whiteness and further solidify the entrenched nature of white privilege and racial inequality. Finally, regarding the work on white privilege, as has already been alluded to, privileges associated with white racial identity and larger systems of white supremacy are always and already woven into the existing power dynamics of other lines of identity, including gender, social class, and sexual orientation, in particular. One of the challenges for any work on whiteness moving forward is to address, theoretically and methodologically, the complex interactions between multiple social and cultural identities (Blodgett, Schinke, McGannon, & Fisher, 2014) One recent trend in the academic literature on whiteness may be the act of stepping back, so to speak, and assessing the state of the entire endeavor altogether. Perhaps the most important future project is to begin by understanding how whiteness studies has continued to be a progressive force in racial relations while simultaneously, and ironically, working to re-center white hegemony in and out of academia (Doane, 2003). In addition, most of the early work on whiteness was focused on the United States and, more generally, Western contexts. Thus, and of particular importance in an increasingly globalized sporting culture, research in whiteness studies has expanded to examine the meanings of whiteness as it exists in non-Western cultures, as well as how whiteness relates to the racial discourse in places where traditional “black-white” paradigms for understanding race are no longer as relevant. Overall, it is difficult to make too many generalizations from the literature, because what whiteness studies “looked like” in the late 1990s is not what it looks like today. For example, while scholars still examine the invisibility of whiteness and the lack of awareness of racial identity among whites, others have argued that many whites have had little choice but to begin to see themselves as having racial identities. Doane (2003) supports this point, and argues that one should not overstate or overestimate the level of white racial unconsciousness, because white racial identity has, historically and currently, been claimed openly when conservative whites have been challenged by progressive racial social changes. I would add that within the often conservative institution of sport, including the academic and applied worlds of sport psychology, not surprisingly, any growing self-awareness is not characterized by the sort of progressive racial thinking that would be necessary to accomplish progressive social change.

Whiteness and sport studies scholarship: cautious moves forward As Blodgett and colleagues (2014) stated, “The processes and effects of whiteness extend into sport and the way it is experienced by both white and non-white people, and are a major area of study for sport sociologists” (p. 7). As a major socializing force and global tableau upon which issues related to race are often played out, sport has much to do with racial formation, racial ideology, and whiteness. Indeed, within the last decade the academic work on race and processes of racialization, and practices of racism, have prompted scholars to address, among other things, the place of whiteness in sport (King, Leonard, & Kusz, 2007). In the mid-2000s, two special editions of sport sociology journals devoted to whiteness and sport (Sociology of Sport Journal, 2005, no. 3) and white power and sport (Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 2007, no. 1) were published, both of which included articles that leveled critiques at some of the sport studies work on whiteness and white racism conducted in sport sociology, in particular. King (2005), for example, discussed several issues related to the research that he viewed not as progressive, but as potentially antithetical to the stated aims of the research. 230

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He questioned whether whiteness studies work would really alter any lives, or account for individuals’ racialized daily lives, outside the ivory tower, and expressed doubts about the ability of the individual unpacking of privileges as a means of enabling any real redistribution of power on a micro or macro level. Finally, he raised the question of whether or not whiteness studies can actually contribute to, and reassert, the privileges it seeks to disrupt. As the previous sections of this chapter demonstrate, some of King’s concerns were absolutely valid, and there is, unfortunately, not much evidence that the whiteness studies work conducted in sport studies or sport psychology has led to significant changes in the levels of awareness of whiteness and its associated privileges outside of the university setting. Later, I will offer several suggestions for bridging the gap between research and the lived experiences of the various stakeholders in sport psychology as it relates to the work on whiteness. Another critique of the scholarship on whiteness is that, as Crosset (2007) argued, some of the work allows the theoretical framework to drive the analysis, and thus “whiteness research risks reifying whiteness” (p. 175). Crosset (2007) also stated that in order to understand racism in sport, it was “imperative to examine the practices of those involved in the creation and consumption of sport that inform the racial projects that operate in and around sport” (p. 174). As Butryn (2010) noted, little is known about the role that sport managers, coaches, owners, players, and fans have in perpetuating the normative status of whiteness, and perhaps even resisting efforts to do so. Despite these criticisms, numerous scholars in sport studies have worked to expose issues related to whiteness in several sporting spheres and subcultural spaces (e.g., Douglas, 2005; Kusz, 2003; Fletcher, 2014; Fusco, 2005; Newman & Giardina, 2008; Walton & Butryn, 2006). The sport studies scholarship on whiteness and white supremacist practices in sport have not centered on simply identifying white privileges, but on the ways that racial inequality and racism are reproduced and experienced in what Bonilla-Silva (2003) calls the “new racism” (p. 272). Bonilla-Silva argues that while overt forms of racism are certainly less common in the US than they were in the past, new strategies have emerged for maintaining the power of whiteness, and more generally, racial inequality and racism. For example, on one hand, the notion of color-blindness still has support, and yet the past decades have also been characterized by increased claims of “reverse racism” and even racist language by whites who may feel threatened by increasingly multicultural national landscapes through new immigration patterns and subsequent changes in demographics. At the same time, BonillaSilva also suggests that there has been a rise in what he calls “safe minorities” who are largely silent on issues of race. The degree to which minority athletes endorse such a position is questionable. However, recent social media activity by numerous professional athletes (e.g., Lebron James) specifically aimed at calling out what they perceive as racism, whether in the form of racist language used by sports team owners or the continuing mistreatment of black youths by law enforcement, provides some evidence that perhaps more athletes of color are willing to openly talk about issues of race. Some work has also begun to study how whiteness affects the experiences of the racial “other” through marginalization and discrimination. Burden, Harrison Jr., and Hodge (2005) examined the perceptions and experiences of African-American faculty in predominately white kinesiology departments. One of the themes in their findings related to the marginalization of faculty of color as scholars in the form of perceived biases against “Black” scholarly work. Importantly, while Butryn (2009) and Butryn and colleagues (2014) noted that there was no resistance at all to Butryn’s critical work on whiteness, the scholars in Burden, Harrison Jr., and Hodge’s study did receive critical feedback on the participants’ focus on “African-American issues” in their research. 231

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Whiteness and sport psychology: an ongoing project Before examining whiteness in sport psychology, it is important to note that the incorporation of whiteness studies research has also occurred in other sub-disciplinary spaces within mainstream psychology, most often under the larger movement towards a critical approach to racial identity (Salter, Phia, & Adams, 2013). As Salter and colleagues (2013) noted, as recently as the fifth edition of the APA manual, the lack of inclusion of how authors should describe participants of various “white” ethnicities illustrates that “the idea that race and ethnicity apply only to certain ‘others’ who acquire racialized subjectivity primarily by virtue of deviation from a raceless White American of European norm” (p. 781). The authors then describe several tenets of what they term “critical race psychology,” but one in particular is most relevant to this chapter, namely the notion of white identity as possessive investment. They note how some scholars have been opposed to integrating identity politics into “neutral” research, which essentially “elevates whiteness to the status of human standard, against which responses of racialized others constitute deviations that require explanation” (p. 787). They then argue that white identity and its assorted baggage “is a profitable possession that brings benefits to the bearer,” and that the white-washed attempts at color-blind institutional, educational endeavors inevitably leads to the reproduction of “certain cultural-psychological forms rather than others” (p. 787). There is an irony here, since some whites actively profit in many ways by emphasizing a color-blind, human-centric narrative that erases the entirety of issues related to white power and privileges. A growing number of scholars have begun to sketch out what a more critically informed sport psychology might look like (Blodgett, Schinke, McGannon, & Fisher, 2014; Blodgett, et al., 2010; Fisher, Roper, & Butryn, 2009; Ryba, Schinke, & Tenenbaum, 2010; Ryba & Wright, 2005, 2010; Schinke & McGannon, 2015), and although there are differences in theoretical approach, they all address the issue of race, and other lines of social identity, in their work. For sport psychology professionals interested in a move towards a more progressive field, it will be important to continue addressing how whiteness relates to sport, in general, and sport psychology specifically. Unfortunately, for decades, sport psychology authors did a poor job of accounting for culture or social identity in the research (Duda & Allison, 1990; Peters & Williams, 2009; Ram, Starek, & Johnson, 2004). This “void in the literature” (Gill & Kamphoff, 2009, p. 61) was present from the very beginning of the most important journals in the field, dating back to the late 1970s. Importantly, content analyses of the leading academic journals, as well as AASP programs, revealed that not only was there little consideration of race and ethnic identity from 1979 through 2000, but that the approximately 4 percent to 20 percent that did mention race and ethnicity did not treat them “in a substantial or conceptual way, let alone with critical analyses” (p. 61). Now, since the early 2000s, more scholars have centralized racial and ethnic identities and cultural meanings of athletes in their work. Indeed, CSP scholars have begun to take a global perspective in their attempt to bring a degree of cultural competency to the sport psychology literature, and openly discuss power issues between minority groups and the dominant group. The work on whiteness in sport psychology had its origins in a few articles dealing with race that were published throughout the 1990s (e.g., Anshel, 1990; Duda & Allison; Oglesby, 1993), and one notable doctoral dissertation on white female athletics administrators and race (Veri, 1998). However, while several scholars, such as Carole Oglesby, Vikki Krane, and others, had long fought for the inclusion of issues of “diversity” in the field, 232

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Butryn’s 1999 conference presentation entitled, “Deconstructing white privilege in sport psychology consulting” was one of the first instances of sport psychology scholars making use of the then still emerging whiteness studies literature. In 2002, the journal The Sport Psychologist published a pair of articles, one of which outlined issues related to white consultants working with diverse racial and ethnic populations (Kontos & Breland-Noble, 2002), and another that used an interesting methodological approach to examine whiteness in sport psychology from the perspectives of a white graduate student researcher, a white PhD supervisor, and an African-American sport psychology student (Butryn, 2002). Following a brief introduction to the main trajectories of the whiteness studies literature, including a discussion of McIntosh’s work on white privilege, Butryn (2002) discussed how “Andrew,” the sport psychology PhD and mentor, came to understand whiteness and his own white racial identity over the course of his life. One important finding related to Andrew’s interview was his belief that most kinesiology-related programs did not (and I would argue still do not) put much emphasis on critical approaches to race in sport, let alone prompt students and professionals to confront unacknowledged privileges associated with one’s race. Andrew’s comments illustrated how viewing human movement, where race and ethnicity are mere variables, can lead to potentially problematic notions of athletic performance as being somehow devoid of cultural influence. As he framed it, the subdisciplines of kinesiology “operated out of a science-type model. We didn’t talk about issues of race and gender. It was more a matter of the human performer.” Butryn (2002) ended the paper with a preliminary list of what he and his co-participants viewed as some of the unacknowledged privileges in the field. While this “unpacking” of the collective knapsack of privileges did not reveal any earth shattering subject matter, the process, as McIntosh (1988) had suggested, was a first step in putting privileges such as, “if I need to take up an issue with a head coach or administrator, I will usually be meeting with someone of my own race” in the academic discourse of sport psychology. One important development that occurred after the publishing of Butryn’s (2002) study was that two textbooks included brief sections on white privilege (Cox, 2007; Williams & Krane, 2015), an indicator that the field was open to including critical work that would ultimately be taught to students. Butryn (2009) also attempted to develop autoethnographic vignettes to reflexively illustrate moments of tension related to whiteness and white privilege in his own academic career. Using a series of highly personal accounts from his athletic and academic life, Butryn attempted to demonstrate several things. First, the latent meanings of whiteness often begin at an early age, in his case through an experience he had while playing youth football with racially diverse teammates and coaching staff. In a section entitled “Fastest White Boy,” Butryn recounted how, after a number of wind sprints during which he finished just behind the fastest player on the team, who happened to be African American, one of his coaches, also an African American, told him, “You’re pretty fast for a white boy! Keep it up!” (p. 331). Butryn noted that this was the first time he ever remembered being referred to in racial terms, and that he would later learn how his whiteness carried with it different expectations and assumptions in different contexts. In addition, Butryn’s autonarrative exercise showed how whiteness operates in the various spaces within and around sport psychology, including teaching settings and conferences, and the power of whiteness to centralize or marginalize certain perspectives. In one vignette, Butryn also showed that it can be tough to confront whiteness and white privilege within a system where these phenomena hold some degree of power, and where doing traditional sport psychology work is still the norm. As he explained: 233

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“I don’t want to be known as the ‘cultural studies’ or ‘race theory’ guy,” I’ve thought, many, many times. “I want to be respected by the ‘young guns’ of the field for my sport psychology research, not the diversity stuff.” (p. 337) While Butryn’s work stands as some of the most concerted attempts at bringing the whiteness studies literature into sport psychology, it important to note that scholars from critical pedagogy, for example, have more closely examined white male college students, the ways that they come to understand and, in some cases, confront racism and white privilege, while continuing to reflect on the meaning(s) of their own white racial identities (Cabrera, 2012). In addition, Blodgett, Schinke, McGannon, and Fisher (2014) correctly noted that other scholars have drawn attention to the multiple meanings of whiteness in sport psychology via numerous works that focused on the notion of cultural inclusivity (e.g., Ryba & Schinke, 2009). Thus, the larger body of work by CSP scholars (e.g., McGannon & Johnson, 2009; Ryba & Wright, 2005; Schinke, McGannon, Parham, & Lane, 2012) on reflexivity is a crucial component to any attempt at properly, and effectively, addressing whiteness in sport psychology.

Conclusions and suggested future research In reviewing the literature on whiteness and sport psychology, it is clear that the research is so underdeveloped that any number of suggestions for future scholarship and activism in this area would be plausible. However, a few general directions, as well as a couple of focused areas seem most appropriate. First, and most importantly, the field of sport psychology is decades behind mainstream psychology in meaningfully addressing the salience of racial and ethnic identity. With respect to whiteness scholarship, specifically, given the explosion of work within other areas such as sport sociology and sport management that has tried to make sense of whiteness, and confront racial oppression on numerous fronts, sport psychology should also begin to address what whiteness means, and what its implications are. To not do so at this point in time, given that it would seem ridiculous to claim that racial identity plays no role in sporting cultures, would be misguided. Indeed, McGannon and Schinke asserted that, “culture can no longer be ignored in sport psychology” (p. 3). On an organizational level, the field and its international organizations should work to understand how whiteness operates within the field, and focus on strategies to confront white privilege and promote social justice. One model for confronting whiteness at this level was developed by Al Ariss, Ozbiligin, Tatli, and April (2014), who proposed a theoretical and methodological framework for “tackling” whiteness in organizational and management studies. The authors suggested studying whiteness on what they call the “micro-individual, meso-organizational, and macro contextual” levels (p. 364). Within sport psychology, research on the micro-individual level is needed on how whiteness is subjectively experienced by individuals. This work might further Butryn’s (2009) attempt to critically confront white privilege and identity, and also identify times when white sport psychology professionals may be complicit in the maintenance of the largely white power structure within sport. In addition, scholars should investigate the meanings of whiteness for minority players, coaches, administrators, and sport psychology practitioners to determine the effects of the centeredness and unacknowledged status of whiteness on the lives and professional careers of individuals. Second, Al Ariss and colleagues’ idea of meso-organizational work, which involves how social spaces like the workplace play a role in the (re)production of whiteness, 234

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can also be applied to sport psychology. For instance, as Butryn, LaVoi, Kauer, Semerjian, and Waldron (2014) recently pointed out, graduate students and young, untenured scholars in university departments who might want to do critical work on racial or gender identities may or may not have the full support of their mentors and colleagues. Thus, future researchers might more closely examine the cultures of sport psychology programs, the kinesiology, psychology, or other departments that house them, and determine how whiteness manifests itself. Finally, in relation to the authors’ suggestion to confront whiteness at the macro contextual level, which refers to larger, institutional spaces, I suggest that the first place to start is with the gatekeepers of the knowledge base in the field of sport psychology, namely the international organizations and the growing number of academic journals that disseminate the knowledge after filtering it through a presumably “neutral” review process. It is not possible to know whether the reason for the lack of racial and ethnic diversity in the journals and conferences is the sole fault of scholars, or whether the power structure and the organizational hierarchy of the field itself somehow plays a role. In conclusion, upon reflecting on his work on whiteness studies and sport psychology, Butryn (2010) suggested that if research on the intersection(s) of sport psychology and whiteness studies prompts researchers to begin to insert racial identities into their work not simply as variables, but as meaningful social constructs that are infused with issues of power and cultural meaning, then there may be an opportunity to open up new frontiers and research agendas that have been almost untouched, let alone fully explored. At this historical moment, when the complexities of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, (dis)ability, age, and other lines of social identity are increasingly present in academic and public discourses, conducting research that reveals the multiple and shifting meanings of whiteness in sport psychology may bring us closer to the progressive version of sport psychology many CSP scholars have envisioned.

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Peters, H. J., & Williams, J. M. (2009). Rationale for developing a cultural sport psychology. In R. J. Schinke & S. J. Hanrahan (Eds.), Cultural sport psychology (pp. 13–21). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Ram, N., Starek, J., & Johnson, J. (2004). Race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation: Still a void in sport and exercise psychology. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 26, 250–268. Roediger, D. (Ed.) (1998). Black on white: Black writers on what it means to be white. New York: Schocken Books. Roediger, D. (2002). Colored white: Transcending the racial past. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Ryba, T. V., & Schinke, R. J. (2009). Methodology as a ritualized Eurocentrism: Introduction to the Special Issue. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 7, 263–274. Ryba, T. V., & Wright, H. K. (2005). From mental game to cultural praxis: A cultural studies model’s implications for the future of sport psychology. Quest 57, 192–212. Ryba, T. V., & Wright, H. K. (2010). Sport psychology and the cultural turn: Noted toward cultural praxis. In T. V. Ryba, R. J. Schinke, & G. Tenenbaum (Eds.), The cultural turn in sport psychology (pp. 3–27). Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology. Ryba, T. V., Schinke, R. J., & Tenenbaum, G. (2009). The cultural turn in sport and exercise psychology. Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology. Ryba, T. V., Schinke, R. J., & Tenenbaum, G. (Eds.). (2010). The cultural turn in sport psychology. Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology. Salter, P., & Adams, G. (2013). Toward a critical race psychology. Social and Personality Compass, 7, 781– 793. Schinke, R. J., & Hanrahan, S. J. (2008). Cultural sport psychology. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Schinke, R. J., & McGannon, K. R. (2015). Cultural sport psychology and intersecting identities: An introduction in the special section. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 17, 45–47. Schinke, R. J., McGannon, K. R., Parham, W. D., & Lane, A. (2012). Toward cultural praxis: Strategies for self-reflexive sport psychology practice. Quest, 64, 34–46. Schinke, R. J., Michel, G., Danielson, R., Gauthier, A., & Pickard, P. (2005). Introduction to cultural sport psychology: Special edition. Athletic Insight. Retrieved from http://www.athleticinsight.com/ Vol7Iss3/IntroPDF.pdf Veri, M. J. (1998). Race discourse among white women in intercollegiate athletics. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Walton, T. A., & Butryn, T. M. (2006). Policing the race: United States men’s distance running and the crisis of whiteness. Sociology of Sport Journal, 23, 1–28. Williams, J. M., & Krane, V. (2015). Applied sport psychology: Personal growth to peak performance (7th ed.). Mt. View, CA: McGraw-Hill.

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24 I N C LU SIO N T O E XC LU SIO N Sport for LGBT athletes Vikki Krane

Sport is entering a new era of inclusion and acceptance. Previously dominated by stereotypes and norms surrounding masculinity and femininity, prejudice and discrimination towards non-conforming athletes had prevailed. That is, not long ago sport consistently was described as inhospitable to lesbian, gay male, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people (e.g., Griffin, 1998; Messner, 2002). Yet, as more athletes reveal their gender identity, sexual orientation, and LGBT identities, they are being supported by teammates, coaches, and fans. In fact, US President Obama has championed high profile gay male athletes who have come out publicly. Sport LGBT advocacy and ally programs, such as Athlete Ally and You Can Play, have become popular and have the backing of Olympic and professional athletes across sports. This is a whole different landscape from what has occurred in the past. We are seeing a major shift in attitudes toward LGBT sportspeople as well as an increase in sport environments in which athletes can compete without fear, bias, and discrimination. It is important to recognize, however, efforts to reduce prejudice and greater acceptance of LGBT individuals in sport are not universal; we are in the midst of this change and contemporary sport climates range from complete inclusion to open hostility. In this chapter, I will discuss contemporary research about varied sport climates for LGBT athletes. More specifically, I will address sport participants’ attitudes about LGBT athletes, sport ally programs, and characteristics of inclusive sport environments. Additionally, I will explore the role of social expectations surrounding sex and gender in sustaining hostile sport climates for LGBT athletes and the impact of these negative climates on athletes.

Inclusive sport Since 2011, there has been an international push to work toward eradicating bias and discrimination against LGBT athletes. Although research suggests that male athletes hold more negative attitudes towards LGBTs in sport compared to female athletes (Oswalt & Vargas, 2013; Roper & Halloran, 2007; Southall, Nagel, Anderson, Polite, & Southall, 2009), men’s professional sport leagues have taken the lead in this effort. For example, in 2014, in Australia, leaders from the Australian Rugby Union, Australian Football League, Cricket Australia, National Rugby League, and Football Federation of Australia joined together and agreed to 238

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support the Anti-homophobia & Inclusion Framework aimed to eliminate LGBT discrimination in sport (http://binghamcup.com/about/anti-homophobia-and-inclusion-framework). In the UK, the Football Association has endorsed Football v Homophobia (FvH) which has taken the position: “We want football to take a clear stand against homophobia so that everyone can enjoy the beautiful game and so that football leads the way in removing discrimination and prejudice based on gender identity and sexual orientation” (http://www.footballvhomophobia.com). Rugby League in the UK endorsed and published Guidance for Rugby League Clubs Challenging Anti-Gay (homophobic) Abuse and Behaviour. In the US, the National Hockey League partnered with You Can Play, an advocacy program “dedicated to ensuring equality, respect and safety for all athletes, without regard to sexual orientation” (www.youcanplayproject.org). Athlete Ally, also based in the US, is “focused on ending homophobia and transphobia in sports by educating allies in the athletic community and empowering them to take a stand” (http://www. athleteally.org). Their message is about “respect, inclusion and equality.” Major League Soccer (US) and Canadian Women’s Hockey League also are partners with You Can Play. In their report, LGBT Inclusion in Sport (Englefield, 2012), the Council of Europe described similar anti-LGBT discrimination programs in Norway, the Netherlands, Slovenia, France, Germany, Spain, and Croatia. And these are just some examples. Attitudes towards LGBT athletes. That so many ally programs have emerged and gained endorsements from countless high profile athletes sends a strong message about the changing attitudes toward LGBTs in sport. Current research also supports that attitudes toward LGBT athletes are generally positive today. For example, Eric Anderson (2011) compared findings from his three decades of research on gay men in sport in the UK and US showing men’s sport settings have become more inclusive and much less discriminatory toward gay males. A survey of 391 US university club sport participants revealed that the majority of athletes had largely positive attitudes towards lesbians and gay males (Anderson & Mowatt, 2013). Similarly, US collegiate coaches (Oswalt & Vargas, 2013), male athletes in US colleges (Southall, Anderson, Nagel, Polite, & Southall, 2011), and UK academy-level association football players (Magrath, Anderson, & Roberts, 2015) all expressed accepting attitudes towards LGBs in sport. Across these studies, many athletes reported having openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual teammates, which suggests that the LGB athletes feel supported on their teams and do not feel the need to conceal their sexuality. While sport participants are becoming more open-minded toward LGBT athletes, a common concern, especially in professional sport, is how fans will react to openly LGBT athletes. A 2005 survey by the US magazine Sports Illustrated found 86 percent of respondents “agreed that it is O.K. for male athletes to participate in sports, even if they are openly gay” (Wertheim, 2005). At the same time, 68 percent of these respondents believed that being openly gay would hurt an athlete’s career. Similarly, in 2010, Jason Akermanis, an Australian Rules Football League player, wrote a newspaper editorial in which he warned gay rugby players, “If they are thinking of telling the world, my advice would be forget it.” This column was in response to rumors that two former players were going to come out publicly as gay male rugby players. Yet, public support seems more favorable than often is expected. An online survey of 3,500 football fans in the UK revealed that although they noted anti-gay banter is common, 93 percent of participants expressed an opposition to anti-LGBT discrimination (Cashmore & Cleland, 2012). In today’s sport climates, there are mixed messages about acceptance of professional LGBT participants. Coming out in sport. While there still are few openly LGBT elite athletes, what we are seeing, however, is greater numbers of openly LGBT athletes in other competitive levels of sport (e.g., on recreational, club, college, or school teams). We know that athletes will 239

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assess the sport climate before acknowledging their LGBT identities to teammates. When they perceive sport settings to be accepting, athletes will ascertain it is safe to come out to teammates (Fink, Burton, Farrell, & Parker, 2012; Stoelting, 2011). An important cue that a team environment is accepting of LGBT athletes is the presence of other openly LGBT athletes (Fink et al., 2012; Ravel & Rail, 2008; Sierra, 2013). Athletes also will assess the attitudes of their teammates, and when they are considered open-minded the athletes are more likely to come out. In fact, having just one supportive person in the sport setting (e.g., teammate, coach, or administrator) increased athletes’ comfort in coming out to teammates (Fink et al., 2012; Gough, 2007). Further, when the broader social environment which surrounds the team is liberal and inclusive, this too helps promote perceptions of an inclusive team environment (Stoelting, 2011). While coming out in sport may be perceived as a political action, athletes have revealed a more personal approach to their decision making: they wanted to be honest to themselves and their teammates (Fink et al., 2012; Stoelting, 2011). Although often tentative and worried about the potential negative effects of coming out, gay male (Adams & Anderson, 2012; Sierra, 2013) and lesbian (Fink et al., 2012) athletes revealing their sexuality typically received very supportive reactions from teammates. Further, when athletes do come out to teammates, the whole team benefits. Kauer and Krane (2006) found that having openly lesbian and bisexual athletes on U.S. college women’s teams created opportunities for learning and discussion among heterosexual and LB athletes. As athletes interacted with openly LB teammates, their team climates became more accepting and all athletes were more likely to speak out against and challenge antiLGBT discrimination. Similarly, Mennesson and Clement (2003) showed that when athletes openly discussed their sexuality within French women’s professional football (soccer) teams, team members became more comfortable with each other. Subsequent studies (Fink et al., 2012; Stoelting, 2011) also showed that coming out led LGB athletes to develop deeper relationships with their teammates, which further enhanced the inclusive team climate. Interestingly, when male and female high profile athletes come out publicly, there are notable differences in the process and reaction. For example, Ian Thorpe (Australian Olympic swimmer), Michael Sams (US national football league), Jason Collins (US national basketball league), Robbie Rogers (Leeds United/Major League Soccer), and Orlando Cruz (Puerto Rican professional boxer) all made announcements in the popular press when they came out publicly. After doing so, they received a high level of media coverage and public support from other high profile athletes and social media. Contrary, athletes such as Megan Rapinoe (US national soccer team), Brittney Griner (US WNBA), Anja Pärson (Swedish skier), Jessica Aguilar (mixed martial arts), and Seimone Augustus (WNBA) tended to come out casually in the course of an interview, rather than making an announcement or press release, and without the media fanfare. Why the differences? One plausible explanation is that there still are very few openly gay males in professional men’s sport. Lesbian athletes have been visible since the early 1980s when US tennis stars Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova had their sexual orientation revealed publicly. While not overwhelming in numbers, that there were some openly lesbian athletes perhaps made future coming out stories to be considered less newsworthy. Also consider that women’s sport receives very little overall media coverage compared to men’s sport (Cooky, Messner, & Hextrum, 2013), and when sportswomen are shown in the media, their attractiveness and sexuality typically is emphasized (Bernstein & Kian, 2013) in a manner seemingly aimed at a heterosexual audience. Another reason for the discrepancy in media and fan reaction to gay male and lesbian athletes coming out may be the differing stereotypes and social discourse surrounding men’s and women’s sport. Kauer and Krane (2013) highlighted how hegemonic masculinity 240

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framed social expectations regarding sex and gender in sport. Sex refers to the anatomical, physiological, chromosomal, and hormonal make-up of the body (Krane & Symons, 2014) and is used to separate females and males in sport. Gender is socially and culturally constructed and denotes behaviors and attitudes signifying femininity and masculinity (Krane & Symons, 2014). Much of the literature on LGBT athletes actually is focused on LGB athletes and sexual orientation, which is one’s sexual and emotional attraction and membership in a community with other people who share this orientation (APA, 2008). More recently have we seen research specifically about transgender athletes, which addresses gender identity rather than sexual identity. Gender identity is an individual’s internal sense of being male, female, transgender, or something else, while sexual identity refers to a sense of identity based on emotional and sexual attractions (Krane & Symons, 2014). Transgender people have a gender identity that differs from the gender assigned at birth and/or their physical sex. Some transgender athletes will have complete sex reassignment surgery to provide consistency between their bodies and gender identity. Other transgender athletes may adjust aspects of their appearance, but not make changes to their physicality, to gain this consistency. Still others may be gender non-conforming in which they are not concerned that they appear consistent with gendered social expectations.

Anti-LGBT attitudes Much discrimination and bias against LGBT people is grounded in social expectations about sex and gender. Prejudice often emerges when people appear or act counter to hegemonic masculine and feminine norms. Hegemonic masculinity refers to a privileged and socially supported set of attitudes, behaviors, and values considered ideal for males (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005). That is, the ideal masculine male is brave, aggressive, competitive, independent, and strong. Historically, the males who came closest to enacting this ideal were the most privileged and revered, and often were highly successful athletes and team leaders. “Since the social assumption was that such masculine men could not be gay, this morphed into the strongly held belief that gay men did not exist within the masculine culture of sport for boys and men” (Kauer & Krane, 2013, p. 58). While sportsmen were expected to be masculine, sportswomen were held to standards of femininity (Kauer & Krane, 2013). The most privileged form of femininity, or hegemonic femininity, includes being graceful, gentle, compassionate, caring, and emotional (Choi, 2000; Krane, 2001). Female athletes who were strong, muscular, and competitive often were considered masculine and stereotyped as lesbian (Griffin, 1998). As Kauer and Krane posited, social expectations embracing hegemonic masculinity and femininity laid the foundation for homonegative sport climates. Homonegativism refers to bigotry, hostility, negative stereotypes, and discrimination towards LGB people (Krane, 1997). When this prejudice and hostility specifically is aimed at transgender people, it is referred to as transnegativism (Krane & Symons, 2014). Often, females perceived as too masculine and males perceived as not masculine enough were considered lesbian/gay and disparaged in sport. All early research about sport climates for LGBT participants exposed the blatantly hostile environment towards LGBTs in sport (e.g., Baks & Malecek, 2004; Griffin, 1998; Hekma, 1998; Krane, 1997). When sport settings were not overtly homonegative or transnegative, heterosexism or heteronormativity prevailed. As Krane and Symons (2014) explained, “heterosexism specifically refers to discriminatory attitudes that disregard people who are not heterosexual,” whereas “heteronormativity reflects an ever-present cultural bias in favour of heterosexuality and the omission of other forms of sexuality” (p. 25). Homonegativism, 241

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transnegativism, heterosexism, and heteronormativity create an atmosphere in which LGBT athletes feel compelled to conceal their sexual orientation or gender identity for fear of negative treatment. Consciously concealing a LGBT identity creates a number of challenges and struggles for LGBT athletes. Attempting to hide one’s sexual or gender identity within a team environment necessitates creativity and deception, and leads to much stress. Athletes may pretend that romantic partners are merely friends, avoid or change pronouns in conversation, evade discussion of how they spend their time outside of sport, or lie about their activities and whereabouts (Griffin, 1998; Krane, 1997). Any of these concealing strategies will cause one to be guarded with and distant from teammates. A review by Krane, Surface, and Alexander (2005) revealed that when athletes perceive it is necessary to conceal their sexual identity, they may also experience feelings of isolation or frustration, or feel emotionally drained. Closeted athletes may become depressed, have low self-esteem, or self-medicate with alcohol or drugs. The elevated stress associated with concealing one’s sexual identity also can suppress the immune system, increasing susceptibility to injury or illness. Ultimately, these mental, physical, and social consequences can interfere with athletic performance (Krane et al., 2005). Research also shows that transgender athletes may encounter many of the same issues as LGB athletes. Yet there are distinct challenges facing them as well. Most competitive sport settings have separate teams or leagues based on sex. Because social stereotypes and expectations are that males are bigger, stronger, and faster than females, it is believed that it is only fair to separate males and females in athletics. Transgender athletes, however, complicate this seemingly simple strategy. As such, transgender athletes often have to fight for their ability to participate in the league/team consistent with their gender identity. Competitors, coaches, parents, and fans may believe, incorrectly, that a transgender athlete has an unfair advantage (such as a transgender male, who has not made any changes to his body, competing on a female team) (Lucas-Carr & Krane, 2011). This and other misperceptions often fuel transnegativism which can lead to compromised mental and emotional states. Even still, transgender athletes are coming out, increasing understanding about them and their visibility in sport. When athletes do come out in sport, it queers the environment or helps to normalize diverse sexualities. Queering sport “is the process of destabilizing heteronormativity while recognizing the existence of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) identities in sport” (Krane, Waldron, Kauer, & Semerjian, 2010, p. 153). The term queer often is used to denote a political act of intentionally subverting heteronormativity, resisting the privileging of heterosexuality, and changing dominant practices to become more diverse and inclusive (Eng, 2006). Ravel and Rail (2007) showed how Canadian Francophone sportswomen resisted heteronormativity and created spaces in which gaie identities were normalized. That is, it became expected, or normal, that gaie athletes participated alongside heterosexual athletes. “Normalization involves redefining a stigma with the hopes of the stigma losing its strength and potential” (Stoelting, 2011, p. 1198). The lesbian athletes interviewed by Stoelting expressed that if they did not disclose their sexual identities, it may imply to their teammates that they were ashamed of being lesbian. Coming out allowed the athletes to converse normally about their attractions, dating, and partners similar to all other teammates (Kauer & Krane, 2006; Stoelting, 2011). These inclusive, queered, sport climates no longer are anomalies.

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Exclusive sport Much of the previous research presented has examined the climate of a single team or specifically involved openly LGBT athletes. Because athletes tend to come out after assessing that their sport setting will be supportive, these studies tend to reveal one type of sporting atmosphere. This information is important and supports that there are inclusive sport settings and positive things happening in sport for LGBT athletes. However, there also are studies that have uncovered disconcerting attitudes and climates towards LGBT athletes. Even in the previously discussed studies showing largely positive attitudes towards LGBT athletes, they also reveal a “sizeable minority” hold less open-minded views (Anderson & Mowatt, 2013). For example, Southall et al. (2011) found 6 percent of the male U.S. college athletes in their sample admitted they would “harass” a gay or bisexual teammate. Studies of sport climates that included athletes who vary in how open they are about their sexual or gender identities consistently reveal prejudice and bias towards LGBT sport participants. In a national sample of 8,584 LGBT students in US secondary schools, over 25 percent reported they had been harassed or assaulted because of their sexual orientation or gender expression while participating in a school sport (GLSEN, 2013). Several Australian studies (Fletcher, Smith, & Dyson, 2010; ACT Government, 2014; Symons, Sbaraglia, Hillier, & Mitchell, 2010) have revealed that homonegativism in sport still is common, homonegativism has negative effects on the participants, verbal harassment based on sexual orientation is widespread, and many LGBT participants conceal their sexuality from teammates. The Inclusive Sport Survey (ACT Government, 2014), with 292 participants from the Australian Capital Territory region, found that 40 percent of LGBT respondents have felt unsafe in sport. Similarly, in the Come Out to Play study (Symons et al., 2010), with a sample of 307 LGBT participants from Victoria, one quarter of males and about half as many females said they did not play some sports to avoid prejudice due to their sexuality. A study sponsored by SportScotland (Smith, Cuthbertson, & Gale, 2012) had similar findings. Of the 1,722 participants, almost 80 percent felt there is a problem with homonegativism in sport and 62 percent personally experienced or witnessed discrimination against LGBTs in sport. A similar study conducted by Sport Wales (Sport Wales & Stonewall Cymru, 2012) found that “homophobic banter” was common and that many of the LGB respondents acknowledged negative personal experiences in sport due to their sexual orientation. Sport Wales also revealed gay men, more than other respondents, reported that they have had negative experiences in sport. These studies present a consistent pattern, across countries, of homonegativism and transnegativism in sport, showing that this is still a deepseated problem in need of attention. Important to point out, is that thus far all the research discussed is from Western countries. In general, we know little about the climate of sport for LGBTs in other parts of the world. While there is limited sport research about other cultures, at least in the English language, we know that life in general is difficult for sexual minorities (e.g., LGB intimate relationships are illegal) in countries that are socially conservative or that have conservative religious governments such as in the Middle East (e.g., Whitaker, 2010) and Africa (Epprecht, 2014). Though, some sport research is emerging from Asia. Iida and her colleagues (2010) surveyed 274 LGBT sport participants in Japan and found that offensive comments and ridicule based on sexuality or gender identity were common. More specifically, one quarter of the sexual minority respondents have been ridiculed and 6 percent reported experiencing violence in sport because of their sexuality or gender expression. Shang and Gill (2011, 2012) found that sexual minority athletes in Taiwan described sport environments as hostile towards them; negative attitudes, anti-gay comments, and even violence were common. 243

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Dong (2014) explained that the re-emergence of a social emphasis on Confucian ideals in China has led to a decline in elite female sport participation as athleticism clashes with traditional femininity. As previously noted, a strong emphasis on traditional or hegemonic ideals of femininity often foster homonegativism. It is this same concern for appropriate gender performances that seems to undergird homonegativism and transnegativism in Western sport. As stated in the SportScotland report, “Much of the prejudice and negativity around LGBT issues in sport can be traced back to the application of gender stereotypes and perceptions of masculinity and femininity” (Smith et al., 2012, p. 10). Often homonegatisim and transnegativism are aimed at gender nonconformity. That is, males perceived as feminine or females perceived as masculine are stereotyped gay or lesbian, respectively. Gender nonconforming transgender athletes obviously do not fit common gender expectations and also become targets of harassment. As Symons et al., stated, “Generally, transgression from these norms around gender and sexuality is punished in sport, and particularly in team sport” (p. 7).

Conclusion: creating inclusive sport climates Relative to other areas within sport psychology, little research on LGBTs in sport has been conducted. While this chapter highlights what is known, there are many gaps to be filled in our literature. Overwhelmingly, the research conducted has been completed in Western cultures and little is known about the experiences of LGBT athletes in other cultures. There also is more research on lesbians in sport compared to gay men (Brackenridge, Alldred, Jarvis, Maddock,s & Rivers, 2008). Areas especially in need of future research include inquiry focused on bisexual and transgender athletes. Researchers also could do better at recognizing other identities that intersect with sexuality, such as race, social class, religion, and nationality (Kauer & Krane, 2012). Understanding minority experiences and prejudice in sport is complex and multifaceted. Sport scholars are challenged to integrate the complexity of the broad sociocultural factors affecting sport climates and LGBT experiences into future research. Based on what we do know, there are many advantages of having inclusive sport climates for LGBT athletes. Doing so provides opportunities for all people to participate in sport, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity. Given the strong emphasis on fair play in sport, it seems logical that sport provide fair opportunities to everyone. Kauer and Krane (2010) emphasized the concept of inclusive excellence, in which embracing diversity and “challenging normative assumptions about gender and sexual orientation” (p. 414) will promote excellence. Sport psychologists can have a lead role in helping teams achieve inclusive excellence. A good starting point is to help athletes create team norms around excellence that encourage acceptance and inclusion. This may include having a zero-tolerance policy for prejudicial language regarding sex, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Instead, respectful and open conversation regarding sexual orientation and gender identity can become customary. Making simple changes in language can have a large impact on perceived inclusiveness. For example, rather than referring to the girlfriends of members of a men’s team, talk about partners or the people they are dating. Avoiding the assumption that everyone on a team is heterosexual opens the door for athletes to feel comfortable being themselves. Further, sport psychologists can mentor team leaders to be inclusive and compassionate which can empower them to become role models. Athletes can be encouraged to join an advocacy group and model acceptance for their peers. As norms of inclusion and acceptance are fostered, open dialogue can occur. Athletes then will have opportunities to learn from teammates different from themselves. As they gain a better understanding of what it means 244

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to be a gay male, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender person, greater compassion and trust can be developed, which likely will impact team cohesion positively. Finally, sport psychologists can point out that LGBT athletes very likely have faced adversity and obstacles. Still, these athletes persevered and have developed into dedicated athletes; it is this mental and emotional fortitude that should be valued in sport. Being inclusive and supporting LGBT athletes will make sport a better place for all involved.

References ACT Government (2014) Inclusive sport survey: The sport experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people in the Australian Capital Territory. Retrieved from http://youcanplay. com.au/resources/Inclusive_Sport_Survey.pdf Adams, A., & Anderson, E. A. (2012). Exploring the relationship between homosexuality and sport among the teammates of a small, Midwestern Catholic college soccer team. Sport, Education and Society, 17, 347–363. Akermanis, J. (2010, May 20). Stay in the closet, Jason Akermanis tells homosexuals. Herald Sun. Retrieved from http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/stay-in-the-closet-jason-akermanis-tellshomosexuals/story-e6frf9ix-1225868871934 American Psychological Association (2008). Answers to your questions: For better understanding of sexual orientation and homosexuality. Washington DC. Retrieved from www.apa.org/topics/sorientation.pdf Anderson, A. R., & Mowatt, R. A. (2013). Heterosexism in campus recreational club sports: An exploratory investigation into attitudes toward gay men and lesbians. Recreational Sports Journal, 37, 106–122. Anderson, E. (2011). Updating the outcome: Gay athletes, straight teams, and coming out at the end of the decade. Gender & Society, 25, 250–268. Baks, B., & Malecek, S. (2004). Synopsis on homophobia and discrimination on sexual orientation in sport. Retrieved from European Gay and Lesbian Sport Foundation web site: http://www.gaysport.info/ eglsf/publications/EGLSF_synopsis_on_homophobia_2003pr.pdf Bernstein, A., & Kian, E. M. (2013). Gender and sexualities in sport media. In P. M. Pedersen (Ed.), Routledge handbook of sport communication (pp. 319–327). New York: Routledge. Brackenridge, C., Alldred, P., Jarvis, A., Maddocks, K., & Rivers, I. (2008). A review of sexual orientation in sport. SportScotland Research Report No. 114. Retrieved from www.sportscotland.org.uk/ ChannelNavigation/Resources/TopicNavigation/Collections/Research/A+literature+review+of+ sexual+orientation+in+sport.htm Cashmore, E., & Cleland, J. (2012). Fans, homophobia and masculinities in association football: Evidence of a more inclusive environment. British Journal of Sociology, 63, 370–387. Choi, P. Y. L. (2000). Femininity and the physically active woman. London: Routledge. Connell, R. W., & Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005). Hegemonic masculinity: Rethinking the concept. Gender and Society, 19, 829–859. Cooky, C., Messner, M. A., & Hextrum, R. (2013). Women play sports, but not on TV: A longitudinal study of televised news. Communication & Sport, 1, 203–231. Dong, J. (2014). The “long march” of women and sport in mainland China: Revolution, resistance, and resilience. In J. Hargreaves & E. Anderson (Eds.), Routledge handbook of sport, gender, and sexuality (pp. 87–96). London: Routledge. Eng, H. (2006). We are moving up like a hard-on!”: Doing sex/uality in sport. Nordic Journal of Women’s Studies, 14, 12–26. Englefield, L. (2012). LGBT inclusion in sport. Council of Europe. Retrieved from https://www.facebook. com/coelgbtproject Epprecht, M. (2014). Perspective: Africa’s new political homophobia. Current History, 113(763), 203– 204. Fink, J. S., Burton, L. J., Farrell, A. O., & Parker, H. M. (2012). Playing it out: Female intercollegiate athletes’ experiences in revealing their sexual identities. Journal for the Study of Sports and Athletes in Education, 6, 83–106. Fletcher, G., Smith, L., & Dyson, S. (2010). Fair go, sport! Promoting sexual and gender diversity in hockey: A literature review. Victoria, Australia: Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission.

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GLSEN (2013). The experiences of LGBT students in school athletics (Research Brief). New York: GLSEN. Retrieved from http://glsen.org/LGBTathletes Gough, B. (2007). Coming out in the heterosexist world of sport: A qualitative analysis of web postings by gay athletes. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Psychotherapy, 11, 153–174. Griffin, P. (1998). Strong women, deep closets: Lesbians and homophobia in sport. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Hekma, G. (1998). “As long as they don’t make an issue of it…”: Gay men and lesbians in organized sports in the Netherlands. Journal of Homosexuality, 36, 1–23. Iida, T., Kazama, T., Raita, K., Yoshikawa, Y., Fujiyama, S., Fujiwaya, N., Matsuda, K., Sano, N., & Itani, S. (2010). A study concerning the sense of exclusion and freedom that sexual minority people experience in sport in Japan. Unpublished report. Kauer, K. J., & Krane, V. (2006). “Scary dykes” and “feminine queens”: Stereotypes and female collegiate athletes. Women in Sport and Physical Activity Journal, 15(1), 42–52. Kauer, K. J., & Krane, V. (2010). Inclusive excellence: Embracing diverse sexual and gender identities in sport. In S. J. Hanrahan & M. B. Andersen (Eds.) Routledge handbook of applied sport psychology: A comprehensive guide for students and practitioners (pp. 764–779). New York: Routledge. Kauer, K. J., & Krane, V. (2012). Heteronormative landscapes: Exploring sexuality through tales of elite women athletes. Psychology of Women Section Review, 14(2), 10–19. Kauer, K. J., & Krane, V. (2013). Sexual identity and sport. In E. Roper (Ed.), Gender relations in sport (pp. 53–72). Boston, MA: Sense Publishing. Krane, V. (1997). Homonegativism experienced by lesbian collegiate athletes. Women in Sport and Physical Activity Journal, 6, 141–163. Krane, V. (2001). We can be athletic and feminine, but do we want to? Challenging hegemonic femininity in women’s sport. Quest, 53, 115–133. Krane, V., & Symons, C. (2014). Gender and sexual orientation in sport. In A. Papaioannou & D. Hackfort (Editors-in-Chief), Fundamental concepts in sport and exercise psychology (pp. 119–135). Abingdon: Taylor & Francis. Krane, V., Surface, H., & Alexander, L. (2005). Health implications of heterosexism and homonegativism for girls and women in sport. In L. Ransdall & L. Petlichkoff (Eds.), Ensuring the health of active and athletic girls and women (pp. 327–346). Reston, VA: National Association for Girls and Women in Sport. Krane, V., Waldron, J. J., Kauer, K. J., & Semerjian, T. (2010). Queering sport psychology. In T. Ryba, R. Schinke, & G. Tennenbaum (Eds.), The cultural turn in sport and exercise psychology (pp. 153–180). Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology. Lucas-Carr, C. B., & Krane, V. (2011). What is the T in LGBT? Supporting transgender athletes via sport psychology. The Sport Psychologist, 4, 532–548. Magrath, R., Anderson, E., & Roberts, S. (2015). On the door-step of equality: Attitudes toward gay athletes among academy-level footballers. International Review of the Sociology of Sport, 50, 804–821. Mennesson, C. C., & Clement, J. P. (2003). Homosociability and homosexuality: The case of soccer played by women. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 38, 311–330. Messner, M. A. (2002). Taking the field: Women, men, and sports. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Oswalt, S. B., & Vargas, T. M. (2013). How safe is the playing field? Collegiate coaches’ attitudes towards gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals. Sport in Society, 16, 120–132. Ravel, B., & Rail, G. (2007). On the limits of “gaie” spaces: Discursive constructions of women’s sport in Quebec. Sociology of Sport Journal, 24, 402–420. Ravel, B., & Rail, G. (2008). From straight to gaie? Quebec sportswomen’s discursive constructions of sexuality and destabilization of the linear coming out process. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 32, 1, 4–23. Roper, E. A., & Halloran, E. (2007). Attitudes toward gay men and lesbians among heterosexual male and female student-athletes. Sex Roles, 57, 919–928. Shang, Y-T., & Gill, D. L. (2011). Lesbian and non-lesbian athletes’ perception of sport climate in Taiwan. Paper presented at the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport Conference, Minneapolis, MN. Shang, Y-T., & Gill, D. L. (2012). Athletes’ perceptions of the sport climate for athletes with nonconventional gender expressions and sexual orientations in Taiwan. Journal for the Study of Sports and Athletes in Education, 6, 67–82. Sierra, D. (2013). Singled out: A narrative exploration into sexuality, sport, and masculinity. (Master’s thesis). Bowling Green State University. Retrieved from https://etd.ohiolink.edu/.

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Smith, M., Cuthbertson, S., & Gale, N. (2012). Out for sport: Tackling homophobia and transphobia in sport. Edinburgh: Equality Network Scotland. Scotland. Southall, R. M., Anderson, E. D., Nagel, M. S., Polite, F. G., & Southall, C. (2011). An investigation of ethnicity as a variable related to US male college athletes’ sexual-orientation behaviours and attitudes. Ethnic & Racial Studies, 34, 293–313. Southall, R. M., Nagel, M. S., Anderson, E., Polite, F. G., & Southall, C. (2009). An investigation of male college athletes’ attitudes toward sexual orientation. Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics, 6, 62–77. Sport Wales & Stonewall Cymru (2012). Lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people in sport: Understanding LGB sports participation in Wales. Retrieved from http://www.sportwales.org.uk/research--policy/ research-themes/lesbian,-gay-and-bisexual-participation-in-sport.aspx Stoelting, S. (2011). Disclosure as an interaction: Why lesbian athletes disclose their sexual identities in intercollegiate sport. Journal of Homosexuality, 58, 1187–1210. Symons, C., Sbaraglia, M., Hillier, L., & Mitchell, A. (2010). Come out to play: The sports experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Australia. Retrieved from www.vu.edu.au/sites/ default/files/Come%20Out%20To%20Play%20May%202010.pdf Wertheim, L. J. (2005, April 18). Gays in sports: A poll. Sports Illustrated. Retrieved from http:// sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1110762/1/index.htm Whitaker, B. (2010). The paradox of visibility: Gay in the Middle East. Current History, 109(731), 401– 402.

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25 N OW YO U SE E M E , N OW YOU D O N ’ T Appreciating culture, race, ethnicity and other dimensions of athlete and consultant whole-person identities William D. Parham Implied explicitly or implicitly in every professional relationship between an athlete and a sport psychology researcher, practitioner and consultant is a belief that each participant desires to feel comfortable and trusting with the person(s) with whom they are about to develop a working relationship (McGannon & Johnson, 2009; Schinke, McGannon, Parham & Lane, 2012). Developing relational comfort and trust and thus increased interpersonal symmetry results partly from shared agreements between participating parties regarding short and longer range goals, identified strategies for achieving hoped-for outcomes and mutual satisfaction with recorded progress. Successful development of professional relationships fuels forward movement and willingness to navigate inevitable challenges. In a very real sense the actual topics, concerns and issues that prompted the needs for professional consultation (e.g., performance enhancement, personal counseling) and that subsequently serve as the foci of attention and intervention are secondary to the personal and relational variables that take center stage and serve as the hub around which all relationship transactions spin. The importance of developing and maintaining strong interpersonal relationships in professional counseling and consultation endeavors cannot be overstated (Gelso & Samstag, 2008; Hall, Ferreira, Maher, Latimer & Ferreira, 2010; Hersong, Hoglend, Monsen & Havik, 2001; Horvath & Symonds, 1991). Given this premise it seems worthwhile, then, to extract variables, both environmental and intra-personal, that shape the development of the whole person and serve as contextual templates for interpersonal communications that are expressed throughout the duration of the relationship. Asserted herein are several propositions beginning with environmental (macro-level) and working down to ways in which individuals process and make sense of the myriad stimuli to which they have been exposed (micro-level). Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory (Bronfenbrenner, 2005) represents the cornerstone upon which the forthcoming assertions will rest. Arguably, Bronfenbrenner’s seminal contribution is represented in his Ecological Systems Theory (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994; Bronfenbrenner, 1979), later labeled as Bio-Ecological Theory (Bronfenbrenner, 2005), intended primarily, at that time, to expand academic conversations about the degree to which environmental and social forces influence child development. His theory posits five intersecting and interacting systems that shape how individuals think, feel and behave. The systems he presents for 248

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consideration include: micro-, meso-, exo-, macro- and chrono-systems. Micro-systems illuminate systems closest to the developing child such as personal biology, family, peers, schools and neighborhoods. Meso-systemic influences surface as a result of the interaction between two micro-systems such as family and neighborhoods or peers and schools. The exo-system includes systems (e.g. work, healthcare, etc.) that influence individuals even when individuals may not have a current role in that system. For example, work experiences that importantly influence parental attitudes and dispositions will likely also influence children at home who have no direct interface or interaction with their parent’s work environments. The largest system, macro-system, pulls in the socio-cultural-political systems including variables such as social class, ethnicity, race, cultural traditions, values and customs. Bronfenbrenner’s final system, chrono-system, was his attempt to address ways in which cumulative environmental and social influences (e.g., individual, family, community, schools, religious, media, political, legal, economic, healthcare, etc.) impact human development across time.

Contextual parameters Using Bronfenbrenner’s model as a springboard for discussion, presented herein are several premises the readership is invited to consider. The first premise, context is everything, captures the essence of Bronfenbrenner’s model and lays the cornerstone for forthcoming assertions. It is important to note that the operative word in this first premise is “everything.” Expressions such as “context is sometimes true,” context is most of the time true,” “context is usually true” are omitted with deliberate intent to herald a now widely accepted proclamation that individuals do not operate in isolation. This observation is important for two reasons. First, models of counseling and consultation still taught today are rooted in Eurocentric formulations that target the training and development of the professional as an “individual” whose academic and experiential experiences positions them to work with “individual” clients. Second, Eurocentric training programs pay little to no attention to cultural formulations thus robbing trainees opportunities to gain perspectives. Individuals are unique, endowed innately with capacities, knowledge, talents and potential. Full expression of innate potential, talents and capacities, however, is fostered and nurtured by social and environmental forces into which individuals are born and to which individuals can only respond. Thus, understanding and appreciating individual responses or relational interactions between, for example, a whole-person athlete and whole-person sport psychology consultant demands insertion of the proclamation, “It depends!” How individuals think, feel or behave or how two or more parties interact interpersonally depends on the multiple current and historic environmental and social contexts that have influenced who they have become, how they see their place in the world and how and to what degree they chose to co-construct and co-participate in their relationship (McGannon & Spence, 2010). The second premise offered for consideration asserts that whole-person context must include variables such as culture, race, ethnicity, social economic status, gender, sexual identity, disability and other dimensions of personal identity. Related, failure to factor these variables into every sport psychology intervention spawns at least two consequences. First, it positions the professional to insult athletes from cultural and ethnic backgrounds seeking consultation by not recognizing and honoring their “wholeness” as persons and performers. Second, this less than full perspective surfaces an incomplete profile of the athlete seeking services and, thus, compromises at least four areas. These four compromised areas include accurate: (a) assessment of the presenting problem, (b) consideration of possible interventions, 249

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(c) implementation of interventions that best address the presenting concern(s) and (d) evaluation of the impact of chosen interventions. Culture, at its core, encompasses central, organizing, clarifying and unifying designs for living, ways of interpreting reality and instruments for negotiating life’s challenges. Referred to in many cultural communities as “the original instructions” (Kelly, 2014; Nelson, 2008; Triandes, 2000; Walters, Mohammed, Evans-Campbell, Beltran, Chae & Duran, 2011), culture contains sets of tools for decoding life’s mysteries and deconstructing how within and across group knowledge, language, rituals, philosophies, mythologies, literature, science, written and oral expressions are learned, expressed and transmitted across time. Key “original instruction” beliefs expressed in many cultural communities, for example, embrace group vs. individual focus; cooperation vs. competition; harmony with the universe and its resources vs. control of the universe and its resources; and time, as past and present lived experiences vs. strict adherence to future time orientation and metric and metered movements. Identification and exploration of the differences between Eurocentric beliefs and values and the beliefs and values of other cultural communities can be found in the scholarship of several authors (Lum, 2011; Ivey, D’Andrea, Ivey & Simek, 2002; Sue, 2004, 2006; Sue & Sue, 2013). Suffice it to say that the founding of America ushered in from-the-beginning impositions of very different and dismantling sets of Eurocentric philosophies, practices and principles onto indigenous and other cultural communities resulting in destructive, harmful, life-altering and traumatic clashes. A detailed recounting of the atrocities experienced of various cultural groups since the dawn of America is beyond the scope of this chapter. The readership is encouraged to investigate the abundant scholarship (Alexander, 2012; Duran, 2006; Guthrie, 1997; Hilliard, Williams & Damali, 2012; Hilliard, 1998; James, 2014; Nobles, 2006; Van Sertima, 2003) that uncovers America’s dark past. That being said, asserted for consideration in this narrative is the belief that both the aforementioned historically-imposed philosophies, practices and principles as well as the resultant emotional fallout of these harmful and traumatic historical clashes within cultural communities have been generationally transmitted and can be seen in present day professional relationships between athletes and sport psychology professionals. This transmission can be seen in modern day approaches in at least two ways. First, sport psychology professionals are trained today using the same Eurocentric models that existed decades earlier. Though emerging new theories since the 1950s of counseling and related interventions were additive to existing theories of human development, there was focused attention and emphasis on mental health from a perspective of pathology. Health and wellness formulations emerged on the scene only relatively recently (Edlin & Golanty, 2014). Importantly, cultural, ethnic, racial and other personal identities were irregularly and not always accurately factored in conversations of human development. The aforementioned transition also can be seen in the performance-based as well as intra-personal and interpersonal struggles exhibited by athletes from cultural and ethnic communities in their expressions of anxiety, depression, anger, self-doubt, self-blame, compromised self-image, emotional upheaval, unsettledness and need-to-prove-personal-worth mentalities. Current legally-sanctioned institutionalized policies, procedures and processes that rest on cornerstone beliefs in White privilege (McIntosh, 1989) systems of advantage based on race (Anderson & Collins, 2007; Aronwitz, 2003; Jones, 1997; McNamee & Miller, 2009) and racial superiority (Ioanide, 2015; Jung, 2015) help till and garden the soil of many emotional challenges experienced by traditionally marginalized cultural communities. Arguably, White privilege is infused into the fabric of American society. It encompasses benefits that 250

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are automatically accrued to Euro-Americans solely on the basis of the color of their skin. Further, Euro-Americans cannot give up the privilege or give it away. White privilege is bestowed prenatally and it is a benefit on which Euro-Americans can count in their day-today lives (McIntosh, 1989). Lastly, White privilege represents a pad from which discussion of the American system of oppression and exclusion can be launched. To state it clearly and directly, in America, systems of oppression and exclusion rooted in institutionalized “ism”-ideological philosophies and practices such as racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism and ageism represent contextual parameters of the macro-system that exist and critically impact how individuals and cultural communities come to terms with who they are, how they function and their beliefs about the degree to which they are accepted by or can be integrated into White America. These “ism”-based ideologies fuel systems of marked disadvantage, compromised benefits and lack of power for marginalized communities. Further, these structural systems are designed and constructed to create and maintain inequalities across economic, educational, political, legal, and healthcare domains (Adams & Bloomfield, 2000; Alexander, 2012; Anderson & Collins, 2007; Anderson & Middleton, 2011; Arnet, 2009; Aronwitz, 2003; Chin, 2009; Duran, 2006; Han, 2015; Ioanide, 2015; Jones, 1997; Jung, 2015; Ponterotto, Utsey & Pedersen, 2006; Ridley, 2005; Roth, 2012; Sue, 2004; Sue & Sue, 2013). Related, these socially sanctioned systems of inequity result in fostering “have-and-have-not” communities where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle-class struggles both with working to avoid slipping to lower class status while simultaneously working to climb the ladder to higher social and economic standing (Ehrenreich, 2008; Shipler, 2005; Tirado, 2014). Arguably, America has not failed at leveling the playing field. It has succeeded at maintaining a playing field designed intentionally to be not level. Systems of marked disadvantage, oppression and socially-sanctioned inequities exist throughout the world so America does not stand alone in this regard. Returning to the notion of the whole person, ethnicity refers to a socially-defined categorization of people based on affiliations rooted in culture, ancestry, symbolic systems of expression (e.g., rituals), food, dress, spiritual practices, physical appearance and genetic origins. There is a lack of consensus about race. Some scholars such as Ernst (2002) have argued that race represents a biologically defined phenomenon according to certain genetic markers. Other scholars (Keita, Kittles, Royal, Bonney, Ferbert-Harris, Dunston & Rotimi, 2004; Smedley & Smedley, 2005) assert that race represents socially constructed concepts put into place to characterize and classify phenotypically differentiated groups, thus setting the stage for creating stereotypes, biases, prejudices and believed-to-be-true social realities of groups of people. Simply stated, socioeconomic status represents an individual’s, group’s or community’s position or standing in society based on wealth (Anderson & Collins, 2007; Aronwitz, 2003; Ehrenreich, 2008; McNamee & Miller, 2009; Shipler, 2005; Tirado, 2014). Sexual identity (Croteau, Lark, Lidderdale & Chung, 2005; Dillon, Worthington, & Moradi, 2011; Garnets & Kimmel, 2003; Krane, 1996; Rosario, Schumshaw, Hunter & Brown, 2006) has to do with an individual’s personal experience of their own gender and their felt acceptance of their male, female or “third gender” status (Sell, 2001; Trumbach, 1998). Gender variant sexual identities (e.g. transgender, intersex, etc.) add levels of complexity to lived experiences of gender especially given the extant homophobic, hostile and hateful environment (Crouteau, Lark, Lidderdale & Chung, 2005) within which all gender-based behaviors are defined and expressed. Disabilities (e.g., cognitive, mental, emotional, physical, sensory or developmental), defined as inherited, congenital, acquired impairment limitations or participation restrictions, represent complex socially-influenced experiences that profoundly impact how persons with 251

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visible or invisible disabilities, ranging from mild, moderate, severe or profound, respond to environmental realities (Fleischer & Zames, 2011; Longmore & Umansky, 2001). The final premise asserted herein invites sport psychology professional communities from here forward to frame athlete-based conversations, research, service and consultations using “intersectionality” as a must-be-included phenomenon relative to understanding and appreciating whole-person identities. After all, are there any athletes who do not have claim to multiple identities (Schinke & McGannon, 2015)? American athletic communities, irrespective of level (e.g., club, high school, collegiate, professional, Olympian), comprising domestic and immigrant populations, represent a mosaic of cultures, gender, age, social class, religion and spiritual practices, sexual orientation and disabilities. Related, the heterogeneity of each of the aforementioned sub-identity categories illuminates the richness and copiousness of across community as well as within community differences.

Adding perspectives Imbedded in cultural sport psychology scholarship (Blodgett, Schinke, McGannon & Fisher, in press; Butryn, 2002; Kontos & Breland-Noble, 2002; Fisher, Butryn & Roper, 2005; Gill, 2007; Gill & Kamphoff, 2009; Kontos, 2009; Parham, 2005, 2011; Roper, Fisher & Wrisberg, 2005; Roper, 2001; Ryba, 2009; Schinke, Hanrahan & Catina, 2009) are invitations for sport psychology researchers, practitioners and consultants to develop multicultural competencies relative to acquiring skills, knowledge and awareness of within and across group cultural dynamics (McGannon, Schinke & Busanich, 2014; Schinke, Blodgett, McGannon & Parham, 2014). An additional request asserted herein invites understanding, appreciation and embrace of cultural humility as an achievable companion goal. Tervalon and Murray-Garcia (1998) defined cultural humility as a process of development that includes: (a) a life-long commitment to self-evaluation and self-critique, (b) a desire to fix power imbalances and (c) aspiring to develop partnerships with people or groups who advocate for others. Hook, Davis, Owen, Worthington and Utsey (2013) have added that cultural humility represents an “ability to maintain an interpersonal stance that is otheroriented in relation to aspects of cultural identity that are most important to the person” (p. 2). In short, cultural humility invites sport psychology researchers, practitioners and consultants to think more of thee and less of me (Parham, 2011) by specifically, (a) acknowledging what they do not know relative to big picture cultural, social, environmental and political contexts that frame the places and spaces their clients occupy and (b) surrendering to the processes of discovering, understanding and appreciating client lived realities which may be outside of the lived experiences of the sport psychology professional. Lived realities represent individualized ways people experience the world around them and respond to life’s challenges and demands using their specific talents, expertise and genius. Adopting “lived reality” formulations relative to responding to client experiences positions sport psychology researchers, practitioners and consultants to: (a) resist sole adherence to ethnic, racial or other group classification of persons with whom they are working and (b) tailor interventions that achieve maximum client benefit. Related, sport psychology researchers, practitioners and consultants are invited to consider adopting the following mantra as a self-talk tool for remaining other-oriented and focused: When I listen to my clients long enough they will tell me what is wrong with them. When I listen to my clients just a little longer, they will tell me what I can do to make them feel better. So how can sport psychology researchers, practitioners and consultants respond concretely to opening themselves up to new ways of learning, understanding and 252

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appreciating athletes and sport organizations to whom they render services? Walters, Mohammed, Evans-Campbell, Beltran, Chae and Duran (2011) have provided clues when they remind us that culture is in place to enhance who individuals are, not change individuals into who they are not. In order for sport psychology researchers, practitioners and consultants to enhance the essence and options of persons on whose behalf they are rendering services they, first, need to commit to learning about the culture from which the athlete comes and by which the athlete continues to be nourished (Blodgett et al., in press; McGannon et al., 2014). Related, they need to understand and appreciate the myriad historic and current family, community, social and larger environmental factors that continue to shape who their client has become. Equally important, sport psychology researchers, practitioners and consultants would do well to understand and appreciate the athlete’s lived experience of the culture that has influenced quite significantly how they think, feel and behave relative to charting their life’s course. Important, even critical information can be gleaned from listening to the athlete tell their story (McGannon & Smith, 2015). Athlete motivations, decision-making styles, fears, reservations, real or perceived stumbling blocks, short-range and longer-term goals, emotional strengths, resilience, and areas of personal challenge represent a mere sampling of available data that ultimately can sharpen the focus of the interventions researchers, practitioners and consultants chose to employ in response to client requests for services. Concretely, how can sport psychology researchers, practitioners and consultants achieve an other-oriented and respectfully probative style of inquiry and thus learn, understand and appreciate other cultural communities? Historically, many cultural communities relied on communicating and transmitting information through the use of “stories” defined as verbal or written recitations of a series of accurate or fictitious circumstances and events goal-directed to amusing, entertaining, educating, informing or persuading listeners or readers to do something with the material they are consuming (McGannon & Smith, 2015; Smith, 2010). Whether used in its ancestral context with roots in antiquity or its contemporary context wherein ethnic-, gender-, age-, social class-, sexual identity-, religious affiliation- and disability-referenced populations are viewed as being under a wider cultural umbrella, culture contains stories of individuals and individuals with stories. Stories illuminate a contextual profile of the whole person and add perspectives to the ways in which the complex sets of historical and contemporary interacting social and environmental contexts have influenced who athletes from cultural and ethnic backgrounds have become. Hidden within each person are unique features, qualities, capabilities, skills, potential, instincts, predilections and vulnerabilities waiting to be discovered. Sport psychology researchers, practitioners and consultants are encouraged strongly to set the stage both for their clients to tell their stories and for their readiness to listen, learn and laud the legacy they are about to hear (McGannon & Smith, 2015). Stated in another way, sport psychology professionals are invited to consider that bodies tell both stories and histories (Walters, Mohammed, Evans-Campbell, Beltran, Chae & Duran, 2011). Sport psychology professionals are also invited to master the art of listening. The key to mastering how to listen respectfully is hidden in the rearranging of the six letters used to spell the word. Rearranging or scrambling the letters used to spell L I S T E N results in discovering that the key to mastering how to listen is discovering how to intentionally and consistently practice the art of being S I L E N T. Silence positions sport psychology professionals working with athletes from ethnic and racial backgrounds to excite their sensory systems (e.g., visual, auditory, olfactory, kinesthetic) for maximum absorbency of 253

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client expressions of content, and affect whether using commonly accepted verbal and nonverbal messaging and messages or nuanced styles and symbolic ways of communicating. Sport psychology professionals also may want to supplement their sport psychology academic and experiential training by also implementing (vs. just consider establishing) a program of study centered on learning about three areas: (a) the “original instructions” that serve as cornerstones of the cultural groups of which their culturally diverse clients are a part, (b) the making of America, paying particular attention to the zeitgeist that characterized the American 1950s to the present and (c) the development and expansion of economically and politically powerful countries other than the United States within the twentieth century. The works of Grills, 2004; Grills & Ajei, 2002; Guthrie, 1997; Hilliard, 1998; Hilliard et al., 2012; James, 2014; Kelly, 2014; Nelson, 2008; Nobles, 2006; Van Sertima, 2003; Walters, Mohammed, Evans-Campbell, Beltran, Chae, & Duran, 2011 are recommended as places to begin learning about the “original instructions.” The scholarship of Howard Zinn (2009), James Baldwin (2011, 1985, 1963), Ronald Takaki (2008, 1990) and Cornel West (1994, 1993), represent good places to start relative to the study of America. Kissinger (2014), Huntington (2011) and Kennedy (1987) represent examples of the studies relative to the global arena. Pursuing these three lines of inquiry illuminates the operative and ongoing philosophical, political and cultural clashes mentioned earlier in this chapter and readies sport psychology researchers, practitioners and consultants to better appreciate environmental realities within which domestic and international American ethnic and other traditionally marginalized citizens live. Clearly, these recommendations represent decisions and behaviors that stretch sport psychology professionals beyond their zones of comfort and convenience. This call to think and behave differently invites breaks in professional routines and the establishment of new habits. For example, these recommended areas of study, including the suggested short list of notable scholars and some of their foundational scholarship, not anchored in psychology or sport psychology, represent deviations from readings and continuing education activities of which sport psychology professionals routinely take advantage. Arguably, sport psychology professionals pursuing these areas of inquiry might feel like they would be off-track and not in line with the true scope and real work of sport psychology. Equally arguable, however, is that sport psychology professionals pursuing these lines of scholarship are actually finally on-track and now readied to travel further down the road of learning, understanding and appreciating persons whose cultural and ethnic roots and current systemic realities are different from their own. Forming new habits is do-able (Wood & Neal, 2007; Lally, van Jaasveld, Potts & Wardle, 2010).

Concluding remarks Given the foregoing declaration, two ultimate questions surface. How invested are sport psychology professionals in changing heretofore established habits of thinking and behaving relative to working with traditionally marginalized multicultural communities to new ways of infusing fresh understanding and appreciation for cultural persons and the environments that influence how they navigate through the maze of life’s ups and downs? A companion question offered for consideration asks, how invested are sport psychology professionals in changing heretofore established habits of honest self-reflection? The posed questions are personal and answers remain to be seen. That being said, really seeing and appreciating whole-person athletes from cultural and ethnic backgrounds as well as whole-person sport psychology professionals is do-able (Schinke et al., 2012). Seeing 254

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both parties differently includes choosing to really see and embrace their respective cultural upbringings, current realities that frame how they see the world and their place in it, and their overt visible as well as less clearly visible ways of thinking, feeling, sensing and behaving. Desires of sport psychology professionals to see whole-person athletes from cultural and ethnic backgrounds as well as themselves demands of sport psychology professionals both personal decisions to move forward with a new program of study as well as integration and implementation of individual, group or organizational accountability. Simply stated, accountability is answering to and being held responsible for the expectation to honor a promise. The importance of developing accountability cannot be overstated. Mechanisms for holding sport psychology professionals accountable for developing, sharpening and maintaining their insights, sensitivities and reverence for cultural and ethnic communities can come in at least two forms. First, it can come in the form of granting initial certification or re-certification as sport psychology professionals contingent upon required and demonstrated completion of continuing education courses where learning, understanding and appreciating culture, race, ethnicity and other identities under the multicultural umbrella are infused in the learning outcomes. Another example might come in the form of including in the “Guidelines to Authors” section of peer-reviewed journals or in “Call for Papers” announcements statements that unequivocally affirm that subsequent publication of submitted works is influenced by the author’s embrace of and advocacy for culture, race, ethnicity and other identities under the multicultural umbrella. When accountability indices are introduced into programs of change, several potential outcomes emerge. New approaches to learning, understanding and appreciating the complexity of the mosaic composition of athletes from varied and rich cultural backgrounds will congeal. Enhanced and demonstrated sensitivity regarding multicultural diversity, broadly defined, will manifest in the relationships between sport psychology professionals and the wholeperson athletes they serve. Related, athletes receiving services would potentially feel more heard and respected relative to their lived experiences as persons and as performers. Sport psychology researchers, practitioners and consultants also will be positioned to feel like they are maximizing their contribution to the athletes with whom they are working, if only in that they feel they have made stronger emotional connections. Closing this narrative prompts reflection on two premises expressed in the form of invitations to consider. The opened invitation reads: The best place to hide … is in plain sight. The second best place to hide is between the ears! These assertions are shared within the context of author-guided university classroom conversations about a range of regional, national and global challenges all of which are anchored in some element of collusion. A thread that ties the alluded to social challenges together is represented in the larger contextual assertion that one rarely sees what is right in front of them. The invitation to sport psychology researchers, practitioners and consultants is now being sent to this readership. It asks sport psychology professionals to cease colluding with the expression of old thought and behavioral habits that block them from really seeing athletes with varied cultural, ethnic, racial and other identities as whole persons. It also asks sport psychology professionals to see themselves in equally enriched ways as a result of changing their old habits and adopting new ones. Expectations are high for a positive respondez s’ll vous plait (RSVP) from all who receive this invitation knowing there is room for everyone who decides to participate. Moreover, from that room comes more space than ever imagined.

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26 F E M I N I SM I N SP O RT P SYC HO L O G Y Leslee A. Fisher and Leslie K. Larsen

What is “feminism” and “feminist theory?” What, if any, is the resistance to using feminism and feminist theory in sport, and, in particular, in the discipline of sport psychology? Which researchers have used feminism and feminist theory to explore sport psychological issues? And, where do we go from here? In this chapter, we first define feminism and feminist theory. Next, we discuss how feminism and feminist theories of sport have been resisted against for the last 150 years. Further, we follow with a description of the ways that feminist theories of sport have been taken up by sport psychology researchers. We conclude with future directions for sport psychology researchers.

Definitions: what is “feminism” and “feminist theory” in sport? Any attempt to define feminism both within and outside of sport psychology presents a great challenge. This is partly because there are different types of feminism, different waves of feminism, and different political issues focused upon for each type and wave. For example, as Gill (2001) suggested, there is “no single feminist perspective shared by all of those who accept the label” (p. 364). Despite there being no single definition that neatly sums up feminism or gives us a step-by-step “how-to” guide for doing feminism, there are some characteristics that the majority of those advocating for feminism might agree with. These characteristics include (a) the assumption that sexism (as well as other “isms” – e.g. racism and disablism) leads to oppression; and (b) the belief that people who advocate for feminism must take action to end this oppression (Birrell, 2000). In addition to these characteristics, Hall (1996) among others in sport sociology and cultural studies suggested that the political must become personal if change is going to occur within any domain that contains sexism. As Costa and Guthrie (1994) wrote: “feminists seek to understand and eliminate the oppression of women through theoretical development and practices directed toward social change” (p. 235). Two additional ideas are central to our understanding of feminism: (a) sexism and sexist exploitation are part of multifaceted systems of oppression and privilege, which also include racism, heterosexism, and so on; and (b) we can resist and poke holes in these interlocking systems (Heldke & O’Connor, 2004). For example, using this “oppression” model of discrimination (Heldke & O’Connor, 2004), hooks (2004) described “advocating for feminism” 260

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versus calling one’s self a “feminist.” Rather than thinking about being a “feminist” as if it were a certain type of identity or lifestyle, hooks (2004) posited that all forms of oppression must be resisted because they are interlocking systems that work to disadvantage some people at the expense of others (Heldke & O’Connor, 2004). This type of “oppression” model of sexism allows researchers to focus on sexism as a part of other interlocking discriminatory systems, moving from the greatest level of generality of oppression to the most specific, applying the model along certain axes within sport (e.g., sexism, racism, heterosexism, etc.), using broad or narrow theoretical frameworks, and redressing sexist harm in their work (Heldke & O’Connor, 2004). In fact, most researchers who engage in feminism and feminist theory in sport psychology are making the ethical and moral claim of redressing sexism, “discrimination against people because of their sex” (APA, 2014) and the concurrent belief that “one sex (usually the male) is naturally superior to the other and should dominate most important areas of political, economic, and social life” (Hirsch, Kett, & Trefil, 2002, p. 444) in their work (Fisher, 2014; Fisher & Anders, 2010; Gill & Kamphoff, 2009; Krane, 2015; Krane, Waldron, Kauer, & Semerjian, 2010; McGannon & Busanich, 2010). These authors also posit that it is a myth to believe that sexism in sport is only about and related to women. In order to improve sexist systems and overcome oppression caused by sexism and sexist exploitation, those who advocate for feminism in sport have experienced different paths or waves (Gillis, Howie, & Munford, 2007) based on historical time periods in addition to what they believe is the best political theory to use to dismantle sexist oppression. These distinctive paths have created the multitude of feminist perspectives and feminisms seen within feminist discourse related to sport (Scraton & Flintoff, 2002). In order to adequately define the different feminisms and feminist theories that have impacted sport, these waves, political theories, and the backlash against them are discussed together next. However, it is important to remember that there are no clear cut-off points or definitive shifts from one wave to the next; instead, each preceding wave contributes to the next as new ideas and ways of thinking emerge (Caudwell, 2011).

First wave sport feminism Those advocating for feminism in the first wave (roughly the period from the mid- to late1800s until the First World War) were primarily concerned with gaining equal rights for women in political and economic settings (Cudd & Andreasen, 2005). Liberal feminists argued that women were just as capable as men to vote and to work, and should, therefore, be given equal opportunities in those realms. It is important to note that most early first wave feminism advocates were not trying to change the system; on the contrary, they simply wanted the chance to be a part of it. As a result, women were granted suffrage, property rights, greater access to education, and the opportunity to engage in certain physical activities (Cudd & Andreasen, 2005). As more opportunities became available to women, new challenges arose and a new way of thinking, in addition to liberal feminism, was necessary. Backlash to first wave sport feminism: “Bicycle face.” It is relatively easy to forget that before the turn of the previous century, any kind of sport or physical activity for women was seen by many as “an instrument of feminism” (Stromberg, 2014, p. 1). For example, in both the U.S. and Europe during the 1890s, bicycles were increasingly giving women a greater sense of mobility and a call for different clothes (and undergarments) which would allow them to engage more fully in any type of physical activity; there were also many in the suffragette movement who were calling for these changes. As described by Stromberg (2014), in 1896, a popular magazine called Munsey’s suggested that the bicycle even had different meanings for men versus women: 261

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the bicycle in the beginning was merely a new toy, another machine added to the long list of devices they [men] knew in their work and play. To women, it was a steed upon which they rode into a new world. (p. 1) A backlash from male doctors (and many others) ensued, where arguments were put forth about the ways that cycling was not suitable for women because it was “overly taxing.” In addition, doctors proclaimed that it would lead to “bicycle face” in women – lasting facial damage caused when one rode or drove any kind of vehicle – as well as “exhaustion, insomnia, heart palpitations, headaches, and depression” (p. 1). There were also 41 rules published for female cyclists in 1895, including “Don’t refuse assistance up a hill” and “Don’t emulate your brother’s attitude if he rides parallel toward the ground” (p. 2). Stromberg noted further that by the end of the 1890s, Chicago doctor Sarah Hackett Stevenson put the issue to rest in The Phrenological Journal, writing, “As soon as a rider becomes proficient, can gauge her muscular strength, and acquires perfect confidence in her ability to balance herself and in her power of locomotion, this look passes away” (p. 3).

Second wave sport feminism The second wave of those advocating for feminism (roughly the period after the Second World War to 1992) (Spencer, 2007) has been characterized by a strong focus on liberal feminism followed by a shift toward radical feminism. For example, in the United States, liberal feminists succeeded in securing the passage of Title IX (in 1972) and the Equal Rights Amendment, which led to a drastic increase in opportunities for girls and women to participate in sport (Acosta & Carpenter, 2012; Birrell, 2000). However, radical feminists believed that simply creating equal opportunities for women was no longer enough; what was necessary was a complete overhaul of the systems currently in place that continually reproduced sexist oppression (Cudd & Andreasen, 2005). Once such systems were dismantled, feminists could then create another system based on women’s experiences and ways of knowing (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986). In fact, some radical feminists worked to form completely separate spaces for women to participate in sport outside of the control of men (Birrell, 2000). Since sport has been constructed as a masculine domain, the exclusion of women as athletes, coaches, and leaders had often gone unnoticed until the second wave (Oglesby, 2001). The contributions of feminist sport psychology researchers had also often been overlooked until this period (e.g., Gill et al.’s 2001 special issue of The Sport Psychologist; see also Krane & Whaley, 2010). In addition to having a limited presence in journals and textbooks as authors and contributors, women were also excluded from being participants within sport studies being conducted prior to the second wave of sport feminism (Oglesby, 2001). However, while important, Hall (1996) argued that the solution to the marginalization of women in sport and sport psychology did not simply exist in increasing the number of women participating in, conducting, and reviewing research while holding positions of power. Rather, Hall (1996) called for a systematic change to occur, where the underlying cause for the oppression of women and other minorities was addressed and confronted. To be sure, research can either be a part of the continual reconstruction of an oppressive system, or it can be a tool for political action (Roper, 2001). As noted by Fisher (2014), also during this second wave, Oglesby (1990) was one of the first to rail against compulsory heterosexuality, classism, racism, heterosexism, patriarchal institutions such as sport, and the social reproduction of gender inequality for material 262

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gain. In fact, Oglesby serves as the mentor and grandmentor to many current feminist sport psychology researchers. Oglesby suggested that sport was filled with “androgen poisoning” because it did not concomitantly celebrate the feminine. As summarized in Fisher (2014), Oglesby (1990) wrote: Where is the celebration of the feminine in feminism? Where is the call for males to not only set aside the hegemonic masculine, but to expand, elaborate, accentuate the expressive elements of personality? To demand such a stance is not without a firm basis in feminist theory and scholarship. …what about the promise that the traditional feminine holds for all? (p. 242) In keeping with radical feminist attempts to create a “sport-for-women,” Oglesby (1978, 1988, 1990) posited a “singularly female cultural form … possessing the same integrating forces that Bernard has demonstrated are the core of human culture (Holland & Oglesby, 1979)” (Oglesby, 1990, p. 242) (see also Fisher, 2014). Further, she envisioned a “transformed” sport, where: The parallel recognition of both the contributions of sport-for-women and men’s traditional sport forms a basis for transformed sport, a new cultural form that might serve as a vehicle for self-expression as well as an instrument of socialization for the new beings I hope will one day walk this planet. (Oglesby, 1990, p. 242) Oglesby’s (1990) vision of “sport-for-women” included what she called the “feminine sport force” (e.g., passivity, subordination, cooperation, dependency, being chaotic, nonviolence, and nurturance; see p. 243) woven into Native American principles (Oglesby, 1988; see also Fisher, 2014). Most importantly to sport feminists, Oglesby (1990) believed that, to date, what had been “massively undervalued” (p. 243) as primary social functions in sport were the principles of integration, solidarity, and community. Oglesby (1990) also knew that many in sport psychology research were afraid to do feminist work. As she wrote: We feminists speak, and have long been speaking, about massive social conversion, and perhaps the urgency and importance of our politics have at times pushed speakers and listeners too far into polarities and camps. Are you feminist or not? Are you liberal or radical? As a Black woman, are you more oppressed as a Black or as Woman? Human and humane processing proceeds best, I believe, from a balanced inquiry: analysis/synthesis, dialogue/contemplation, experiencing polarities/ abstracting universals. (pp. 243–244) Not deterred, Oglesby’s (1990) biggest hope for feminist sport scholarship was that we could begin to have a common ground and language that wove together inclusiveness and synthesis into our work. At the same time that feminist theorists were working in other countries, Oglesby trained doctoral students in the United States (e.g., Bredemeier, 2001) who trained other doctoral students (e.g., Fisher, 2014), and so on, who now work in various parts of the world (e.g., Chroni, Grigoriou, Hatzigeorgiadis, & Theodorakis, 2011). 263

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For example, during the years characterized as the end of the second wave and the beginning of the third wave, Bredemeier and her students began to investigate the uses of feminist theory in sport psychology research (e.g., Bredemeier, 1992; Bredemeier et al., 1991; Fisher, 1993, 1997; Fisher & Bredemeier, 2000; Getty, 1996; Solomon, 1993; Stephens, 1993). These researchers were interested in exploring the variety of ways that female athletes chose to self-identify their values, beliefs, and moral stances. They undertook investigations related to examining female physical activity participants’ ways of knowing (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986) in sport and physical activity contexts (Bredemeier et al., 1991), the ways young girls conceptualized sport gender stratification (Solomon, 1993), goal orientation and its relation to sport participation, sociomoral reasoning, social interdependence, and perceived sport competence (Getty, 1996), “appropriate” sportspersonship behavior and their relation to “moral atmosphere” and legitimacy judgments in sport (Stephens, 1993), and professional female bodybuilders’ moral identities when deciding if they would take anabolic steroids (Fisher, 1993, 1997; Fisher & Bredemeier, 2000). These studies during the late 1980s and early 1990s expanded sport psychology’s previous understandings and (mis)conceptions about what being a “female athlete” means, denouncing narrow sport gender stereotypes related to cultural prescriptions, arrangements, and regulations (Bredemeier, 1992; Fisher, 1993; Lott, 1985). Backlash to second wave sport feminism: myths about feminists. There were many myths about second wave feminists, which were perpetuated by the dominant social order to maintain patriarchy that still abound today. These included that they are “aggressive”; “lesbian”; “manly”; “not feminine”; “don’t want to wear make-up”; “hate men”, “have no sense of humor” as well as “are obsessed by gender” and all feminists are “ugly” (Hughes, Cardiel, & Cardiel, 2014, p. 1). In addition, there were many conservative political groups around the world who used myths about feminism to dismantle work that those who advocated for feminism had carried out (Hughes, Cardiel, & Cardiel, 2014). Another major critique of second wave feminism was that it primarily centered on the concerns of middle-class white women, failing to represent women of color or take into account class differences or disability (Cudd & Andreasen, 2005). This lack of diversity led to the start of third wave feminism.

Third wave sport feminism Third wave feminism is said to have begun in 1992 when Rebecca Walker (daughter of the famous U.S. writer Alice Walker) used the term in an article in Ms. magazine (Whelehan, 2007). As Whelehan (2007) suggested, once Walker’s 1995 anthology To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism and Findlen’s 1995 Listen Up: Voices from the Next Generation were published, they directed the contour of a new feminism to come. As Whelehan wrote, coming from outside the academy: Walker’s anthology gave voice to those outside – in many cases outside the ethnic, sexual and sociological mainstream – talking about what feminism means to them today and how it informs even the most mundane aspects of their identities. The essays in Walker’s volume are in many ways a celebration of individuality, a confirmation that there is no single way to ‘be’ a feminist in deliberate opposition to her view of the legacy of the second wave containing ‘a host of … ingrained social definitions of what it means to be a feminist’. (Walker, 1995, as cited in Whelehan, p. xvii) 264

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Related to third wave sport feminism, Birrell (2000) suggested that with this wave, the focus “must shift from woman to women to reflect the vast experiential diversity of women’s lives” (p. 65). In 2001, The Sport Psychologist published a special issue on feminism in sport psychology. This issue included some but not all of the best-known feminist researchers in the field at the time (e.g., Diane Gill, Carole Oglesby, Ruth Hall, Vikki Krane, Brenda Light Bredemeier, and Diane Whaley) and also introduced the field to several young feminist scholars (i.e., Christy Greenleaf, Karen Collins, Tamar Semerjian, Jennifer Waldron, and Emily Roper). More recently, Reifsteck (2014) argued the field of kinesiology should use a critical feminist perspective more often in their research. Also, Fisher (2014) called for us to use a critical feminist perspective in our visions for the future of Division I sport in a special issue of Sex Roles guest-edited by Carole Oglesby and Ruth Hall. These authors urge us to use a critical perspective to examine the power relations between genders within sport as well as sport psychology, and also to challenge existing systems of oppression (Reifsteck, 2014) through listening to the voices of the marginalized. Though third wave feminist sport research can lead to positive change and help researchers discover ways to create a more open and safer space for girls and women as well as boys and men to participate in sport (and is widely used within sport sociology), it has failed to become a strong presence within sport psychology (Reifsteck, 2014). While explanations for this lack of presence are not entirely clear, Greenleaf and Collins (2001) suggested that they can be partially explained by researchers’ fears of being associated with the negative stereotypes connected to feminism. Another explanation by Smith and Sparkes (2010) seems even more plausible; these authors suggest that sport psychology researchers have been taught to heavily use a post-positivistic epistemological stance in their work. As they wrote: At the core of post-positivist thinking is the belief that there is a real world ‘out there’ independent of our interest in or knowledge of it and that we can gain access to that world and know it as it really is through method. That is, because methods properly applied are believed to be neutral/objective, they can be used to establish contact with an external reality beyond ourselves. (p. 88) Further, Smith and Sparkes put forth two implications of this position: one implication of this, which many sport and exercise psychologists have taken up, is the idea that methods can give researchers direct access to reality in a way that will allow them to claim reality can be accurately or objectively depicted. Another implication is that method is a marker of quality research. In other words, if methods can get at the reality and truth, then in principle methods can sort out good research from bad research. Accordingly, sport and exercise psychology has in many respects become a methodically driven inquiry. (p. 88) Many feminist sport psychology researchers engaged with feminism from a post-positivist epistemology, use, for example, feminist standpoint or social identity theory, rooted in qualitative methods to understand what is being studied (Hall, 1996). Others, however, are beginning to use a more critical, interpretive post-structural analysis. Centered on the belief that masculine and feminine binaries should be discounted (e.g. male/female, competitive/ cooperative, violent/passive, etc.), Hall (2005) wrote: “Post-structuralism focuses on the 265

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‘analysis of social organization, social meanings, power, and individualized consciousness’ (Weedon, 1987, p. 21) constructed through language or other forms of representation” (p. 69). Further, Hall suggested that “the theoretical and methodological strategies of analysis influenced by post-structuralist thought require us to focus our attention on the construction of narratives and the contesting of meanings” (p. 69). In addition, as one of the editors of this book rightly pointed out, post-structuralism also argues for an examination of the institutional practices (and institutions themselves) that continue to reproduce certain systems of meanings, oppressions, and discourses. In this way, the “taken-for-granted” cannot only be identified, but potentially changed in order to address social justice and oppression issues. Scholars such as McGannon and colleagues (Busanich & McGannon, 2010; McGannon & Schinke, 2013; McGannon & Spence, 2010, 2012) have used feminist and feminist poststructuralist perspectives to explore women’s embodied physical activity and mothering experiences. For example, Busanich and McGannon (2010) drew upon cultural studies and discursive frameworks as well as argued for a reconceptualization of disordered eating away from a “female” issue located in women’s biology. Bringing a discursive psychological perspective and using discourse analysis has also been fruitful for identifying how women create and experience their physical selves (McGannon & Spence, 2010), how the news media (re)presents women’s exercise (McGannon & Spence, 2012), and how women negotiate their constructed identity as mothers and in physical activity (McGannon & Schinke, 2013). In addition, Waldron (2015) framed hazing in sport by highlighting the role that daily language and discourse play in the construction of the self, while Kavoura, Ryba, and Chroni (2015) have examined how Greek judokas formulate their sporting experiences. All of these studies deconstruct the discourse that surrounds taken-for-granted notions about women’s physical activity experience as “unnatural” and call for a change in the dominant discourse; these studies also serve as a site of resistance by challenging conceptualizations of women’s bodies and exercise behaviors as “female deficits,” instead arguing for a reconceptualization of women’s experiences as situated within powerful discourses. These types of studies highlight the multiplicity of female athlete identities, smashing the gender binary where ideas like being strong and feminine at the same time were once seen as an impossibility. At the same time, these studies allow for the analysis of how speech and ideology shape gender performance. In addition to post-structuralist feminism, queer theory also has a presence within this wave. Queer theorists in the fields of sport psychology as well as physical education (e.g., Krane, 2015; Krane, Waldron, Kauer, & Semerjian, 2010; Sykes & McPhail, 2007) use as a foundation both feminist theory and gay/lesbian theories; they do not accept the notion that gender is part of a “core self ” or that sexual identities are biologically constructed. As Krane et al. (2010) wrote, “Simply by using the term queer in our title, we have begun the process of queering sport psychology, which is the process of destabilizing heteronormativity while recognizing the existence of LGBT identities in sport” (p. 153). In conclusion, it appears that the weight of feminist responsibility is falling on the shoulders of a small number of (mostly female) researchers. As another of the editors of this book pointed out, perhaps this is because: (a) sport psychology is dominated by post-positivist thinking that, in turn, means gender becomes a natural variable rather than being viewed as a construction; (b) “men” occupy positions of power within academia, including on editorial boards; (c) many sport psychology researchers do not read outside the discipline; (d) there is an interest in simply advancing one’s career and not on social justice by many academics; and (e) supervisors of PhD students rarely discuss anything outside tried and trusted cognitive models, which fail to grapple with gender and the lived experience of gender (Smith, 2015). 266

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While some queer and cultural sport psychology researchers are beginning to tackle issues related to socio-cultural difference, cultural praxis, ethical issues in sport psychology training, athlete and consultant intersectional identities, power, sport for development and peace programs, and the individually diverse athlete (e.g., Fisher, Roper, & Butryn, 2009; Krane, 2015; Krane et al., 2010; Ryba, Schinke, & Tenenbaum, 2010; Schinke & Hanrahan, 2009; Schinke, McGannon, Parham, & Lane, 2012), very few (e.g., Blodgett et al., 2010, 2011; Blodgett, Schinke, McGannon, & Fisher, in press; Fisher, 2014; Kavoura, Ryba, & Chroni (2015) have made the direct and necessary theoretical link between their current cultural sport psychology work and previous feminist sport psychology work. For example, Fisher (2014) suggested that “feminist theory and praxis could play a major role in the re-visioning of sport as a caring enterprise that creates performance excellence through transformational coaching, care/moral connection education, reflective practice, and praxis/research” (p. 7). Third wave feminist sport research – like cultural sport psychology research (e.g., Blodgett, Schinke, McGannon, & Fisher, in press; Ryba & Wright, 2010) – is praxis-oriented, focused around social justice issues, and should lead to social change (Hall, 1996). Such research can provide a critical perspective on the power relations between genders within sport and sport psychology, and can also challenge these existing systems (Reifsteck, 2014). Feminist sport psychology researchers and practitioners work to call attention to the oppression and marginalization of women in sport by looking at these experiences through a women-centered lens. Though feminist research is women-centered, it is not just about women. Instead, it is about empowering women, helping improve social relations between genders, and being willing to confront and dismantle all forms of social injustice in sport (Roper, 2001). Backlash to third wave sport feminism: loss of coalition? One critique in every wave of feminist movement, including the third wave, has been critics’ use of “loaded words” (Christina, 1997) against feminist researchers (e.g., “feminazi” by Limbaugh in 1992 and even “feminist” itself by Renegar & Sowards in 2003). However, another critique of third wave feminism is that it emphasizes difference, thereby minimizing many shared experiences that women have based on gender (Scraton & Flintoff, 2002). As Heldke and O’Connor (2004) pointed out, the nature of oppression is complicated; sexism, racism, disablism, and heterosexism, for example, are enormous, multifaceted systems of oppression that work together “in such a way as to leave our interests at odds with one another” (p. 562). Further, such systems must be dismantled through coalition between different (and often opposing) groups that share a desire for social justice for all. Coalitions are important and “offer radical potential because they disrupt the ‘divide and conquer’ approach that pits one form of oppression against another” (Heldke & O’Connor, 2004, p. 562). Coalitions are difficult to form and even more difficult to maintain. Our hope, however, is that researchers from different social locations will come together to work toward the ending of oppression in sport.

Conclusions and future directions For many, advocating for feminism feels like a “threat” and a risk to the elite sporting world as it has been constructed. Sport constituents, including sport psychology professionals, have to be taught to see its value and relevance. Unfortunately, many do not see the connection between feminism and high-performance sport. Because of this, many professionals have also failed to consider the potential significance of this relationship in their work. To our way of thinking, we need to return to and broaden our practice-based feminism (e.g., praxis) while at the same time engaging in feminist research. We need to return to 267

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“living” and “doing” as well as “thinking” and “theorizing” sport feminism, advocating for sport feminism as an action-based political commitment. The next generation reinventing feminism is moving from “patriarchy” to “intersectionality,” from “protest march” and “consciousness-raising” to “ online organizing,” and in rooting themselves in making one person’s day more socially just but then also going after the broken systems they find themselves a part of (Martin, 2010). We believe, too, that our feminist commitment requires us to return to/reclaim/revision sport as a place for compassion (e.g., Dungee & Whitaker, 2008; Ehrmann, 2011; Oglesby, 1990) and reflexive cultural sport psychology research (see McGannon & Johnson, 2009; McGannon & Smith, in 2015) and practice (Sarkar, Hill, & Parker, 2015; Schinke et al., 2012) (including how a certain way of “being an athlete” is constructed and then taken for granted through our use of language) (Kavoura, Ryba, & Chroni, 2015; Krane, 2015; McGannon & Busanich, 2010; McGannon & Mauws, 2002; Waldron, 2015). As Oglesby (1990) envisioned, perhaps we can continue to move toward a more “parallel recognition” of the ways in which both men’s “traditional” sport and sport-for-women can form the basis of a new transformed, more compassionate sport through these more critical approaches to sport psychology research and practice. As one of our editors summarized, we need to promote sport feminist journals as well as different ways of working which include a focus on social responsibility and compassion versus reproducing more of the same (masculine) models. Promoting feminism and feminist outlets for our work can not only benefit women but also men, as well as improve sport performance.

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27 C U LT U R A L S T U D I E S I N SP O RT A N D E X E R C I SE P SYC HO L O G Y Emily A. Roper

Within this chapter, I will introduce cultural studies, beginning with a brief history of its origins and key concepts (e.g., power, privilege and praxis). The use of cultural studies to study sport, and more specifically its use in sport and exercise psychology are the focus of this chapter. An overview of the scholarly work in sport and exercise psychology that has explicitly used cultural studies or feminist cultural studies will be addressed, as well as work that incorporates discussion of power, privilege and social justice as they relate to sport and exercise psychology. Considered to be at the “heart” of cultural sport psychology (Ryba & Wright, 2005), sport psychology as cultural praxis is discussed as a way in which to push the discipline of sport and exercise psychology out of its traditional framework and advocate for a more culturally inclusive and socially just discipline (McGannon & Smith, 2015).

What is cultural studies? It is commonly suggested that cultural studies was introduced in 1964 by British academics at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at the University of Birmingham. Some, however, challenge the standard account regarding the history of cultural studies, arguing that there are multiple origins (Wright, 1998). Cultural studies borrows from and appropriates theories and methodologies from a multitude of disciplines including literary studies, sociology, anthropology, history, gender and sexuality studies, economics, philosophy, African American studies and communication studies (to name only a few) (Nelson, Treichler, & Grossberg, 1992). It has been said that cultural studies pulls from “whatever fields are necessary to produce the knowledge required for a particular project” (Nelson, Treichler, & Grossberg, 1992, p. 2). Reluctant to become its own discipline, cultural studies is often described as not only interdisciplinary, but also anti-disciplinary; cultural studies is thought to be where various disciplines intersect. It is, however, important to those who take up a cultural studies project that their work is distinct from other intellectual and critical practices. As Stuart Hall (1996) suggested, “it does matter whether cultural studies is this or that. It can’t be just any old thing” and as Lawrence Grossberg (1997) stated, “not everything is cultural studies … the field is not entirely open” (p. 344). For those in cultural studies, one significant aspect that makes their work distinct is that something is at stake; 272

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there is a commitment to political and social action. Hence, Barker (2012) suggested that “cultural studies is a body of theory generated by thinkers who regard the production of theoretical knowledge as a political practice” (p. 5). With no distinct methodology, cultural studies can “best be seen as a bricolage” (Nelson et al., p. 2), drawing from a variety of methods including content analysis, interviewing, survey research and/or textual analysis to garner insight and knowledge. While approaches may be diverse, it must be recognized that the researchers drawing upon these methods seek to become reflexive and engaged. Being reflexive has implications for how marginalized cultures and individuals are studied and written about (McGannon & Johnson, 2009). Self-reflexivity, a form of introspection, is considered to be a process whereby a researcher explores her/ his personal identities, biases, values and assumptions and how they are constructed within and through the research process (McGannon & Johnson, 2009; McGannon & Metz, 2010; McGannon & Smith, 2015; Ryba & Schinke, 2009). According to Schinke, McGannon, Parham, and Lane (2012), reflexivity draws attention to power issues in the research process by raising questions such as “how do my identity and social position bring me to ask particular questions and interpret phenomena in particular ways?” and “How do my own identity, self-related views, values, and social position privilege some choices in the research process over others?” (p. 37) Such questions shape the research process in cultural, social and political ways (Schinke et al., 2012), encouraging researchers to become more aware of how their social identities and biases influence research participants as well as their own assumptions and biases. Furthermore, as McGannon and Smith (2015) note, much of the discussion surrounding reflexivity in cultural sport psychology focuses on the self-identity of the researcher. McGannon and Smith (2015) advocate for additional forms of reflexivity that examine how researchers are located within complex power relations within the research context. In cultural studies, “culture” emphasizes everyday life. According to Raymond Williams (1963), “a culture is not only a body of intellectual and imaginative work, it is also and essentially a whole way of life” (p. 311). Cultural studies scholars challenge the narrow conceptions of culture by placing no greater emphasis on high/elite or low/popular culture. As Steinberg (2012) explained, “individuals who attend symphonies, read the ‘great books,’ enjoy the ballet, are steeped in elite culture” (p. 182) and are often considered “cultured.” Low culture refers to the artifacts that are cultivated within a local or regional society (Steinberg, 2012). Within cultural studies it is suggested that the boundary between elite/ high culture and popular/low culture is blurring (Steinberg, 2012). Cultural studies examines many cultural forms (e.g., film, television, literature, art, video games) and cultural practices (e.g., cell phone use, social justice movements, shopping) which have often been ignored, and deemed less serious by academic scholars. Among the early scholars at the CCCS, the few writings that integrated discussion of sport focused on hooliganism and the sport media, as well as alternative sport forms including skateboarding, kung-fu, squash and pool (Hargreaves & McDonald, 2000). Today, a wide variety of sport studies scholars are engaging the primary tenets and practices of cultural studies to broaden our understanding of contemporary sport culture, as well as decentralizing conceptions of selfidentity and conceptualizing identity as part of cultural narratives and discourses (Andrews, 2002; McGannon & Smith, 2015). 273

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Key concepts Most cultural studies projects focus on the interrelated issues of (a) power, (b) privilege, and (c) praxis. Power. The aim of cultural studies is to examine cultural practices and their relation to power. Within cultural studies, power is regarded as the coercive force which subordinates one set of people to another; it pervades every level of social relationships. The purpose of theory and research within cultural studies is to give power and voice to marginalized and underrepresented people (Nelson, Treicher, & Grossberg, 1992). According to French philosopher, Michel Foucault (1991, 1998), power is not a thing but a relation that operates at the most micro levels of social relations; it is dispersed and pervasive. While certainly constraining, power is also enabling. “Power is everywhere” and “comes from everywhere” and is therefore neither an agency or structure; it is a complex strategic situation in a particular society (Foucault, 1998, p. 63). Privilege. Peggy McIntosh’s (1988) seminal article, “White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack,” focused on unearned advantage and conferred dominance related to white privilege. As McIntosh (1988) suggests, Privilege exists when one group has something of value that is denied to others simply because of the groups they belong to, rather than because of anything they’ve done or failed to do. Access to privilege doesn’t determine one’s outcomes, but it is definitely an asset that makes it more likely that whatever talent, ability, and aspirations a person with privilege has will result in something positive for them. (p. 3) One significant aspect of privilege is that those who experience it do not have to think about it, while those who experience oppression and inequality must encounter it regularly. More recently, scholars have argued that privilege is part of an interrelated system that also includes oppression and resistance (Heldke & O’Connor, 2004). According to Heldke and O’Connor (2004), (a) oppression is defined as the systematic and unfair marginalization of some members of a society, (b) privilege is the opposite of oppression in that if some members of a group are marginalized, then other members are given an unfair advantage, and (c) oppression and privilege can be resisted against (Fisher, Butryn, & Roper, 2003). Praxis. An integral component of cultural studies is praxis, or theoretically informed practice. Within cultural studies, engaging in practice means action for social or political change. Praxis is rooted in a commitment to creating change through social activism; it involves moving from the production of academic knowledge to social change and justice (Ryba, 2009; Ryba & Wright, 2005). For scholars whose focus is on power, social injustice and oppression, it is critical that a movement or action to end or resist that oppression is incorporated into one’s work (Wright, 2003). According to Schinke et al. (2012), the goal of cultural praxis is to blend theory, lived culture, and social action with a “self-reflexive sensibility” to raise awareness as to how one’s own values, biases, social position, and self-identity categories impact participants within the research and/or consulting realms. (p. 35) 274

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Praxis-oriented research challenges social inequalities by empowering and engaging marginalized participants, working with and supporting their voice and experiences throughout the entire research process (Blodgett, Schinke, McGannon, & Fisher, 2014). As Lather (1988) suggested, research should be conducted with participants rather than on them.

Cultural studies and the study of sport Despite its prominent place in popular culture, sport was neglected within mainstream cultural studies for many years. As Tolvhed (2013) stated, “it is still common for sport not to be mentioned at all in overviews, introductions or ‘readers’ [in cultural studies]” (p. 279). This neglect is associated with attitudes and perceptions surrounding sport and its value as an arena worthy of serious scholarly attention. As Tolvhed suggested, “the elements of competitiveness and physical contact seem to have downgraded sport, as a sphere of cultural leisure activities as well as a research field” (p. 279). Others have claimed that sport is ignored due to its emphasis on competition, aggression, strict gender binaries, conservative attitudes and the working class (Shogan, 1999). It is for these reasons that cultural studies scholars should be especially concerned about sport as it has been shown to be an extremely powerful political force in shaping our societies and cultural identities. Consequently, the majority of research that has employed cultural studies to study sport has been carried out within the fields of sport studies in general and sport sociology in particular (Andrews, 2002; Hargreaves & McDonald, 2000). In the 1970s and 1980s, sport sociologists began using cultural studies to study sport (Gruneau, 1999). According to Hargreaves and McDonald (2000), cultural studies of sport aims to (a) consider the relationship between power and culture, (b) demonstrate how a specific sport form has been “consolidated, maintained, or reproduced within the context of society” (p. 54), and (c) highlight the role of sport as a site of popular struggle. Over the years, an increasing number of sport sociologists have employed a cultural studies perspective to study an array of subjects. As Andrews (2002) stated, “cultural studies represents an expanding niche within the sociology of sport community; the number of people professing, in print and conference presentations, to do cultural studies of sport is seemingly on an inexorable rise” (p. 110). With the proliferation of sport scholars taking up cultural studies, as Andrews (2002) warned, it is important that cultural studies is not “reduced to a caricatured and banal intellectual practice” (p. 111). Feminist cultural studies and sport. Feminist cultural studies emerged in the late 1970s when feminism confronted cultural studies; feminist cultural studies is one trajectory among several including indigenous studies and queer studies. In 1978, a group of women challenged the male, middle-class bias embedded in much of the early work emerging from the CCCS (Sardar & Van Loon, 1998). Merging feminist theory and cultural studies, the focus of feminist cultural studies is to draw attention to women’s cultural experiences and use this knowledge to generate new theories of culture that value and incorporate women’s voices and experiences. Feminist cultural studies is focused on how gender is produced within society and how culture influences our beliefs about gender. This line of scholarship also challenges hegemonic, gendered values and practices by questioning common cultural expectations about gender (Tolvhed, 2013). The study of gender is immensely important within sport culture. As Tolvhed (2013) stated, Since competitions are divided into men’s and women’s events in a way that assume a strict gender binary, there are few other arenas in which so much work is put into 275

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affirming that each body fits firmly into a male and female category. Hence, ideas on sexual difference, masculinity and femininity are constantly reproduced here. (p. 274) Several sport researchers have used feminist cultural studies to study women’s lived experiences and to better understand the cultural conditions in which they exist (Krane, Choi, Baird, Aimar, & Kauer, 2004; Krane, Waldron, Michalenok, & Stiles-Shipley, 2001; Roper, Fisher, & Wrisberg, 2005). As Krane (2001) suggested, “understanding the larger cultural expectations and pressures is prerequisite to understanding females’ sport and exercise experiences” (p. 407).

Cultural studies and sport psychology: a historical overview The use of a cultural studies perspective within the field of sport psychology is a fairly recent undertaking. Sport psychology has been described as “reticent to actively confront the salience of such issues as power, social injustice and privilege” (Fisher, Butryn, & Roper, 2003, pp. 391–392). In 1999, sport sociologists, Ingham, Blissmer and Wells-Davidson, critiqued applied sport psychology in particular, asserting that sport psychology practitioners have failed to acknowledge the power dynamics at play in sport by focusing their attention on sending athletes back out onto the field after applying a “band-aid approach” (Fisher et al., 2005) that also tends to be “color-blind” or culture-blind (Gill & Ryba, 2014). As Ingham and colleagues (1999) charged, “the work of many applied sport psychologists unwittingly sustains the systems of oppression and exploitation, and focuses on normalizing the individual’s responses to such systems as if adjustment and accommodation are the only solution to distress” (pp. 240–241). Their critique, while many argue was warranted, remained unchallenged for several years. In 2003, Fisher, Butryn and Roper initiated discussion of the ways in which sport and exercise psychology researchers, practitioners and educators can use cultural studies to enhance their work with students, athletes, coaches, parents, administrators and exercisers. In agreement with Ingham et al.’s (1999) critique of applied sport psychology, Fisher et al. (2003) suggested that by focusing exclusively on performance enhancement, many sport psychology practitioners fail to critically examine the inherent power dynamics at play within sport; especially at the highest levels of competition. Fisher et al. (2003) acknowledged the valuable and important challenges raised by Ingham and colleagues, and urged professionals in sport and exercise psychology to begin to more seriously reflect upon how power, privilege and social justice influence their research and work with sport and exercise participants. Fisher et al. suggested that cultural studies encourages the critical examination of the sociocultural and political environments in which athletes exist. For example, Fisher et al. encouraged sport psychology practitioners to consider: (a) issues surrounding cost of and access to sport and exercise psychology services, (b) their familiarity with and preparedness to confront the gender-biased and homonegative behaviors embedded in the hyper-masculine structure of many sports, (c) who they answered to if they were paid and/or supported by coaches, athletic departments or owners, and (d) how their multiple and intersecting identities influenced who they worked with and how they were perceived by athletes and/or exercisers. In a follow-up article, Fisher, Butryn and Roper (2005) employed cultural studies to critique the dominant forms of knowledge embedded within academic sport and exercise psychology. Examination of introductory sport and exercise psychology texts revealed a clear distinction in what the field defines as primary and marginal constructs, that is, what are the 276

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most important and valuable concepts and theories within sport and exercise psychology. Constructs such as motivation, group dynamics, psychological skills training, anxiety and personality are considered our primary forms of knowledge, while consideration of older, younger, differently abled, as well as attention to race, gender, sexual orientation or other cross-cultural concerns, are relegated to a marginal status. Those constructs considered less significant, or marginal, tend to receive only minimal attention, typically a sole chapter in an introductory text devoted to “special” populations (Fisher et al., 2005, 2009b). As Hall (2001) stated, “one only needs to look at the sport psychology and feminist sport psychology literature to confirm that feminism and race are only gingerly embraced as a necessary and important variable within sport psychology” (p. 395). Fisher et al. (2005) also urged professionals in the field to consider how the origins of sport and exercise psychology and its founders have been historicized. Much of our written history of the field focuses on founders that were male, Caucasian, from the United States, and had a behavioral or experimental psychology background, with little attention to the role women, people of color and those outside the United States played in the field’s history and development (Krane & Whaley, 2010). More recently, however, a number of feminist researchers in sport and exercise psychology have examined the influential roles women have played in academic (Gill, 1995; Krane & Whaley, 2010; Oglesby, 2001; Roper, Fisher, & Wrisberg, 2005) and applied sport and exercise psychology (Gill, 1995; Roper, 2008) and how they overcame or coped with challenges or barriers (Roper, 2008; Roper et al., 2005; Whaley & Krane, 2013). It is important to note that this book includes an entire section of more than ten chapters with female and male authors from various national histories, recognizing the importance and value different cultural backgrounds, attitudes and experiences bring to the field of sport psychology. Within the last 10 years, a growing number of edited books (Ryba, Schinke, & Tenenbaum, 2010; Schinke, 2009; Schinke & Hanrahan, 2009; Schinke & McGannon, 2015; Stambulova & Ryba, 2013), special journal issues (Ryba & Schinke, 2009; Schinke, Michel, Danielson, Gauthier, & Pickard, 2005; Schinke & McGannon, 2015; Schinke & Moore, 2011), position papers (Fisher, Butryn, & Roper, 2005; Fisher, Roper, & Butryn, 2009a; 2009b; Ryba & Wright, 2005) and empirical research (Blodgett et al., 2010, 2014; Busanich, McGannon, & Schinke, 2014; McGannon, Cunningham, & Schinke, 2013; McGannon, Curtin, Schinke, & Schweinbenz, 2012; McGannon, Hoffman, Metz, & Schinke, 2012) specifically devoted to cultural studies and cultural sport psychology have been published. Three special journal issues in sport psychology have been dedicated to cultural sport psychology. Specifically, Athletic Insight highlighted the importance of culturally relevant practice (Schinke, Michel, Danielson, Gauthier, & Pickard, 2005), the International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology included articles using decolonizing methodologies to address issues of power and sociocultural difference, and the Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology explored issues of competency and cultural awareness in clinical and counseling sport psychology. More recently, Schinke and McGannon (2015) edited a special section of Psychology of Sport and Exercise devoted to intersecting identities. Cultural Sport Psychology (Schinke & Hanrahan, 2009) was the first book devoted in its entirety to cultural sport psychology, a newly budding area in sport and exercise psychology which critiques the “mainstream” tenets of sport psychology, specifically with regard to how certain identities are marginalized within sport and exercise contexts. Within this book, several approaches to studying and understanding culture were introduced including a cultural studies perspective (Fisher et al., 2009a). Also in 2010 The Cultural Turn in Sport Psychology (Ryba, Schinke, & Tenenbaum, 2010) was published, which devoted significant attention to cultural sport psychology in general, 277

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and the cultural studies approach to sport and exercise psychology more specifically. More recently, Athletes’ Careers Across Cultures (2013), edited by Stambulova and Ryba, included essays employing a sociocultural lens to examine the development of athletes’ careers across national boundaries. The Psychology of Sub-Culture in Sport and Physical Activity (2014), edited by Schinke and McGannon, examines sociocultural issues that influence inclusion and exclusion to sport participation, critiques of the medical model within the sport culture, and the use of reflexivity within sport psychology research and practice. Within sport psychology, feminist researchers were among some of the first to initiate dialogue pertaining to the future direction of sport psychology (Bredemeier, Carlton, Hills, & Oglesby, 1999; Bredemeier, Desertrain, Fisher, Getty, Slocum, Stephens, & Warren, 1991; Oglesby, 1978). Their work not only examined gender and social differences; it challenged traditional sport psychology by pushing for more interdisciplinary work, critical epistemologies and methodologies. Feminist cultural studies has informed a number of studies in sport and exercise psychology. In a special issue of The Sport Psychologist devoted to feminist sport psychology, edited by Diane Gill, Krane (2001) and Roper (2001) each discussed the ways in which feminist cultural studies influenced their research and applied work. Krane (2001) described how feminist standpoint theory, queer theory and feminist cultural studies are brought together to guide her research examining lesbian and bisexual women’s experiences in sport and women’s bodily experiences. Roper (2001) used a feminist cultural studies perspective to challenge what she referred to as “the male constructed, exclusionary, applied [sport psychology] domain” (p. 446). Both researchers emphasized the use of a feminist cultural studies perspective as a way in which to not only explore women’s lived experiences in sport and exercise, but also understand the cultural conditions that they confront. In 2001, Krane, Waldron, Michalenok and Stiles-Shipley employed a feminist cultural studies perspective to examine the relationship among body image, eating and exercise among female exercisers and athletes. By using a feminist cultural studies perspective, the researchers focused on body image not as an “individual problem” as has been the focus of much of the research in sport and exercise psychology, but rather the ways in which body image concerns, exercise and eating are culturally bound. The findings revealed that the female athletes and exercisers’ bodily experiences revolved around cultural expectations of female bodies. Several paradoxes emerged from the focus group interview data. While the athletes and exercisers agreed that “model skinny” was unrealistic, they still expressed a desire to have a body that fit cultural expectations of femininity. The desire was to have a body that was toned, but not muscular, creating a vague cultural line that they did not want to cross. An especially unique finding was the emergence of two distinct body images for the athletes – an athletic female body image and a culturally female body image. Within non-sport social situations there was a desire among the athletes for their body to adhere to cultural expectations pertaining to females’ bodies, whereas within the sport setting, there was a desire for a strong, muscular body. In 2004, Krane, Choi, Baird, Aimar and Kauer expanded upon Krane et al.’s (2004) earlier work by extending our understanding of female athletes’ perceptions of their bodies in sport and society. Krane et al. (2004) explored how female athletes negotiate and reconcile the social expectations surrounding femininity with athleticism. Grounded in feminist cultural studies, Krane et al. (2004) found that, consistent with previous research (Krane et al., 2001), being feminine was contrasted to being athletic. While proud of their muscular, strong bodies within the sporting context, when engaged in everyday “normal” activities (e.g., shopping, dining), female athletes were aware of their bodies being different from the cultural standard 278

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of femininity. For example, female athletes described having trouble finding clothing that fit their muscular bodies and being cognizant that they would eat larger portions than their nonathlete female friends. The findings from both studies (Krane et al., 2001, 2004) illustrate the complexity of living in a paradox and highlight the potential for negative behaviors including poor body image, disordered eating and low self-esteem to develop. Much of the research devoted to women’s experiences and place in the history and development of sport and exercise psychology has employed a cultural studies (Roper, Fisher, & Wrisberg, 2005) or feminist cultural studies perspective (Krane & Whaley, 2010; Whaley & Krane, 2013) to challenge the written history of sport and exercise psychology and acknowledge the voices and contributions of those who have not been recognized. Roper, Fisher and Wrisberg (2005) used a cultural studies lens to critically analyze the extent to which the co-participants, professional women working in academic sport and exercise psychology, were aware of and would verbalize the amount and types of oppression women face in the sport psychology workplace. In 2010, Krane and Whaley employed a feminist cultural studies perspective to examine the roles women have played in sport and exercise psychology, examining eight women who significantly influenced the development of the field. As a follow-up, Whaley and Krane (2013) examined the challenges these women confronted on their respective university campuses, departments and within the discipline, and how they overcame or coped with these frustrations or barriers (Whaley & Krane, 2013). Roper’s (2002, 2008) work devoted to a potential gender bias in applied sport psychology challenged the under-representation and oppression women face working in the applied domain. In her qualitative examination of eight professional women working in applied sport psychology, Roper (2008) found numerous circumstances in which being female hindered women’s opportunities and experiences working in – or gaining access to – the applied context. For instance, some of the female consultants would purposefully downplay their gender (e.g., not wear make-up, wear less feminine attire) in order to be accepted within some male-dominated sport settings, and several discussed becoming desensitized to sexist behaviors and/or comments that were pervasive within the sport culture. Furthermore, some of the female consultants discussed the inherent privilege male consultants carry within the sport environment and the necessity for a female consultant to be exceedingly competent in order to obtain applied opportunities, especially with male athletes and men’s teams. Expanding our understanding of the body, food, and exercise among athletes, McGannon and colleagues used cultural studies and social constructionism to study the body, food and exercise relationship in male and female distance runners (Busanich, McGannon, & Schinke, 2014). Using a narrative approach that encouraged the participants to generate detailed accounts of their experiences through unstructured conversation, Busanich et al. (2014) identified two opposing running narratives: just do it and just do it better. The majority of the participants relied exclusively on one of the narratives to explain their experiences with running. The just do it narrative focused on running for health and fitness benefits while the just do it better narrative focused on running with the goal of performance improvement or to demonstrate superiority over others. The narrative that a participant subscribed to was related to the likelihood that she/he would engage in healthy and unhealthy eating and exercising practices. The findings from this study provide greater understanding of the complex meanings surrounding food, disordered eating, and exercise, suggesting that eating and exercise behaviors are socially and culturally informed. Also in 2012, McGannon, Curtin, Schinke and Schweinbenz examined the media representations of one elite female athlete’s (Paula Radcliffe, marathoner) identities within the context of motherhood and sport. Grounded in cultural sport psychology, a textual analysis of two issues of Runner’s 279

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World devoted to Paula Radcliffe was conducted. The findings expand our understanding of the sociocultural construction of an athletic mother identity, the contentious issue of how female athlete identities in relation to pregnancy and motherhood are mediated, and the psychological and behavioral implications of these meanings. In addition to the research that has explicitly used a cultural studies or feminist cultural studies perspective, a growing number of researchers have incorporated discussion of power, privilege and social justice as they relate to sport and exercise psychology. In 2002, Butryn provided a critical examination of whiteness and white privilege in the field of sport psychology. In his article, Butryn urged professionals in sport and exercise psychology to examine their own cultural influences in relation to who they are, arguing that reflexive practice is critical when practitioners come from the dominant culture (e.g., white, male, heterosexual, able-bodied) as they often overlook that they themselves are culturally situated and carry a number of privileges and biases that affect how they relate with athletes. In 2009, Butryn revisited the issue of whiteness in sport psychology, critiquing his earlier work by sharing several reflexive autoethnographic vignettes that illustrate moments of tension in his own negotiation of issues related to whiteness and privilege. Butryn (2009) concluded with the following recommendation: I invite and challenge readers to begin by excavating their unearned privileges, whether they be related to whiteness, gender, or both. Then, the individual work must be connected with how race operates in the numerous spaces of sport psychology. Our journals, our organizations, our athletic departments … if we are serious about confronting whiteness, we must ask our collective consciousness serious questions about how whiteness might relate to the field. (p. 339)

Sport psychology as cultural praxis In 2005, Ryba and Wright argued for the development of a “sport psychology as cultural praxis” discourse that would push the discipline of sport and exercise psychology out of its traditional framework. Considered to be at the heart of cultural sport psychology, sport psychology as cultural praxis pushes our singular “scientific” discipline to become one that draws on and crosses a number of disciplines … it is focused on sociocultural difference and social justice, blends theoretical and practice work together in praxis and favors forms of progressive qualitative research. (Ryba & Wright, 2005, pp. 15–16) Sport psychology as cultural praxis takes into consideration the athlete as an embodied subject of multiple identifications (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, ability status), a member of various social and cultural groups and part of a sport culture immersed in a sociocultural and historical context (McGannon & Smith, 2015). Through cultural studies praxis, researchers and practitioners in sport psychology aim to consider the cultural identities of others as well as their own with the goal being to facilitate a more contextualized understanding of marginalized identities (Blodgett, et al., 2014; McGannon & Smith, 2015; Ryba, 2009).

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Mainstream researchers working with people from marginalized culture are often challenged with cultural differences, suspicion, and opposition to research (Smith, 1999). Through the dominance of Westernized research paradigms, academics have oppressed and misrepresented Indigenous peoples rather than involving them, research outcomes have not been used to benefit the communities from which they were derived, and the ownership of Indigenous knowledge has not been credited to Indigenous peoples. (Blodgett et al., 2014, p. 57) For those who pursue research that aligns with cultural praxis, much of the discussions concerning cultural praxis have remained primarily at the theoretical level, with little discussion devoted to which methodologies align with the tenets of cultural praxis (McGannon & Smith, 2015). While rare, there are examples of critical forms of cultural sport psychology research that align with the tenets of cultural praxis (Blodget et al., 2011; Butryn, 2009). An example of cultural studies as praxis is a series of studies conducted by a research collaboration among researchers at Laurentian University and Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve in northern Ontario, Canada (Blodgett, Schinke, Smith, Pelter, & Pheasant, 2011; Schinke et al., 2009). For six years, a group of mainstream academics and Aboriginal community members were engaged in cultural sport psychology research (Blodgett et al., 2014; Schinke et al., 2009). The relationship between the mainstream academics and indigenous peoples provided the opportunity to examine and integrate indigenous methodologies and cultural praxis approaches. Using community-based participatory research (PAR), a research approach that emphasizes community members’ experiences and views, Blodgett et al. (2010, 2011) and examined Aboriginal community members’ reflections of engaging in research with mainstream academics. The goal of their work was to examine community members’ views engaging in research with mainstream academics, encourage mainstream researchers to adopt culturally reflexive practices that are meaningful, and to resist traditional monocultural approaches. Cultural sport psychology research pushes for openness to methodological variation grounded in various epistemologies (e.g., social constructionism, post-positivism) (McGannon & Smith, 2015; Ryba & Schinke, 2009). Recently, McGannon and Smith (2015) examined two qualitative methodologies that hold potential for advancing our understanding of culture within sport psychology: narrative inquiry (Smith & Sparkes, 2009) and discursive psychology (McGannon & Mauws, 2000), both of which align with cultural praxis. These methodologies have this potential in light of their alignment with what is at the “heart” of CSP: cultural praxis (Schinke, McGannon, Parham, & Lane, 2012).

Sport media research Researchers are also beginning to conduct sport media research within sport psychology that draws upon cultural studies to explore sociocultural construction of identity (McGannon, Cunningham, Schinke, 2013; McGannon, Hoffman, Metz, & Schinke, 2012). Using a cultural studies perspective, newspaper representations of a derogatory comment made by Sean Avery, an NHL star, about his former girlfriend (and current girlfriend of an opposing team’s defenseman) were analyzed using ethnographic content analysis (McGannon, Hoffman, Metz, & Schinke, 2012). A hockey moral code discourse emerged in two paradoxical ways: (a) a hockey moral code as truth which guides hockey player conduct on 281

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and off the ice, and (b) a hockey moral code that is exposed as an illusion and hypocrisy. A hockey moral code as truth suggests that punishment of Avery was justifiable as he breached the morals and ethics of the game (e.g., poor sportsmanship). However, Avery’s behavior was also portrayed as a hypocrisy discourse in that he was unfairly criticized for behaving in a manner typically accepted within the hockey culture (e.g., subordination of women). Such findings are important for sport psychology practitioners in particular as they stress the importance of not only understanding the sport sub-culture, but also how their athletes are portrayed through the media. In 2013, McGannon, Cunningham and Schinke (2013) examined the meaning and implications for how sport concussion is understood and constructed through a sport celebrity’s concussion. An ethnographic content analysis of mediation of National Hockey League (NHL) star player Sidney Crosby’s concussion was conducted on North American news data. Content analysis of 68 articles revealed that Crosby’s concussion and its associated meanings were constructed within a central narrative: a culture of risk and its impact on athletes. Multiple meanings of concussion emerged: (a) Crosby’s concussion as a cautionary tale, (b) Crosby’s concussion as a political platform, and (c) concussion as ambiguous. The implications of the findings for sport psychology professionals are addressed. One key finding absent from the news media was discussion of the psychological issues associated with concussion, a particularly troubling finding considering that research has repeatedly identified psychological and social consequences associated with concussion.

Future directions for the cultural studies perspective to sport and exercise psychology The intersection of cultural studies and sport psychology opens up new possibilities for the field by placing emphasis on issues such as identity, equity and social justice which have historically been ignored within traditional sport and exercise psychology. While cultural sport psychology is a rapidly growing area within sport psychology, and the cultural studies model is one approach employed to study culture, there is a need to expand from the small circle of academics employing a cultural studies (or feminist cultural studies) perspective to embed such content within the dominant discourse of sport and exercise psychology. In doing so, sport psychology may evolve from “an individual focused, quantitative, ‘apolitical’ single discipline into a multiple identification focused, difference sensitive, qualitative friendly and social justice based interdisciplinary praxis” (Ryba & Wright, 2005, p. 192). As Andrews (2002) warned, however, sport psychology researchers using cultural studies must be careful not to reduce complex conceptions into simple catch words and concepts; not all work dedicated to sport culture constitutes cultural studies. Just as Andrews (2002) encouraged those “doing cultural studies” in sport sociology to preserve the integrity of cultural studies by reconsidering the specifications of cultural studies, a similar argument could be made to those in sport psychology. Furthermore, the criticism and critical questions waged at applied sport psychology 15 years ago (Ingham et al., 1999) need to be seriously acknowledged and addressed by sport psychology professionals. The largely uncritical infrastructure of applied sport psychology has not changed substantially since discussion of bridging sport psychology and cultural studies emerged (Fisher et al., 2003, 2005). As Fisher et al. (2009a) questioned, are we a sport psychology that fails to critically examine its embedded politics and unacknowledged contributions to potentially exploitative relationships and damaging long-term health concerns? 282

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As a core tenet of cultural studies, it has been argued that praxis, or the link between theory and practice, needs to have a prominent place in the future of sport psychology (Bredemeier, 2001; McGannon & Smith, 2015; Ryba, 2009). In bridging academic and applied work, theory and practice, sport psychology will become better equipped to expose and question power relations and challenge assumed dominant systems and structures.

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28 AT H L E T E S A N D M O T H E R HO O D Kerry R. McGannon and Rebecca Busanich

Pregnancy and motherhood have been highlighted as reasons why female athletes may end their sport careers or fail to reach their full potential in sport (Palmer & Leberman, 2009; Pedersen, 2001). While the reasons for the foregoing are complex, research on elite athlete mothers has shown that negotiating time for high level training and competing may leave little time for motherhood, which is often positioned as something to be delayed until sport retirement (Appleby & Fisher, 2009; Freeman, 2008). Medical narratives that position intense exercise and/or sport training during pregnancy and beyond as incompatible or dangerous, may also keep women from high level training and athletic pursuits (Jette, 2006, 2011; Kardel, 2005; Nash, 2011; Vertinsky, 1998). Despite the above barriers for athletes negotiating motherhood and sport, media portrayals of elite athlete mothers show that the presence of them in sport is growing (McGannon, Curtin, Schinke & Schweinbenz, 2012). Our recent data collection of news media narratives spanning the 2012 Olympic year revealed 190 articles in the North American press on 59 different athlete mothers. These women competed in the 2012 Olympics (e.g., US cyclist Kristin Armstrong), were past Olympians who did not make the 2012 team (e.g., US swimmer Amanda Beard), or had successfully negotiated a sport career and motherhood but retired (e.g., former US Olympian, softball player Jennie Finch) (McGannon, Gonsalves, Schinke & Busanich, 2015). Athlete mothers who medaled during the 2014 Winter Olympics were also some of the most highly publicized athletes of the games (e.g., Canada’s four-time gold medalist hockey player Hayley Wickenheiser, US skeleton athlete and silver medalist Noelle Pikus-Pace). Since the Olympic games in 2012 and 2014, elite athlete mothers have continued to make headlines for athletic accomplishments on the global stage (e.g., ten months after having her second child, British athlete Jo Pavey won the bronze medal in the 5,000m at the Commonwealth Games and gold in the 10,0000m race at the 2014 European Championships) and for pursuing the goal of competing in the 2016 Rio Olympics after giving birth (e.g., British heptathlete and 2012 Olympic gold medalist Jessica Ennis-Hill, who gave birth to her first child on July 17, 2014). Finally, countless elite athlete mothers now share their stories within various social media forms (e.g., US marathon runner Kara Goucher highlights her family and athletic accomplishments to 74,300 followers on Twitter and 43,100 followers on Instagram). 286

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Beyond exemplifying increased prominence of elite athlete mothers in sport, the above examples show a growing interest in these women’s stories, with such stories shattering the myth that motherhood and sport are incompatible and that women cannot accomplish sport goals due to reproductive concerns (Jette, 2011; Vertinsky, 1994). Recent critical analyses of media portrayals of elite athlete mothers and the psychological, social and cultural implications within sport psychology (McGannon et al., 2015) coupled with qualitative research in sport psychology exploring experiences of elite athlete mothers (e.g., Appleby & Fisher, 2009), reveals that the negotiation of motherhood and athletics is not straightforward. While more will be said about this research shortly, for now it can be noted that the cultural narratives that circulate for athlete mothers to construct their identities can be both facilitative and constraining for sport training and careers, which may lead to guilt and distress in some instances and identity dimensionality and life satisfaction in others (Freeman, 2008; McGannon et al., 2015). There is clearly a complicated interplay of social and cultural narratives concerning athletics and motherhood influencing the social construction of athlete mother identities and psychological experiences (McGannon et al., 2012). Despite their growing presence in sport, athlete mothers still have minimal presence within sport psychology research, though the research is growing. Our aim with this chapter is to outline research on athlete mothers and discuss what such research affords sport psychology. To accomplish this aim, we first outline the notions of gender ideology and an ethic of care and discuss their role in prevailing cultural ideals surrounding motherhood to contextualize research on athlete mothers. Next, we outline the empirical landscape concerning elite athlete mothers and then the research that has focused on recreational athlete mothers. We conclude with some final thoughts given the literature gaps on athlete mothers.

Gender ideology and an ethic of care: contextualizing athletes and motherhood The term “ideology” refers to expected behaviors based on cultural values and norms, which are often nuanced (i.e., taken for granted or assumed as “true”) in light of their link to social policies and appeals to biology and science. Gender ideologies are concerned with the specific attitudes and behaviors related to appropriate roles, rights and responsibilities of women and men in society. A traditional gender ideology pertaining to motherhood is that women’s “true” calling is to have children and care for them in light of their “natural” suitability (Weedon, 1997). Men are viewed as fulfilling gender roles and their “true” calling by being providers and working outside the home, leaving domestic duties to women (Dixon & Wetherell, 2004). These childcare and domestic practices for mothers and fathers are partly reinforced as natural and taken for granted “facts” through institutional practices (e.g., unpaid or lower pay for domestic labor, maternity leave offered only for women or less time offered for paternity leave for men, media constructions that reinforce gendered roles) (Douglas & Michaels, 2004; Johnston & Swanson, 2003). However, culture rather than biology “tells” us what it means to be a mother, what behaviors and attitudes are appropriate for mothers, and how motherhood shapes identity (Bailey, 2001; Douglas & Michaels, 2004; Petrassi, 2012). Although it is established that domestic duties and childcare can be shared to enhance physical activity opportunities for both partners (Hamilton & White, 2010), traditional gender ideologies prevail to structure women’s motherhood practices in ways that constrain exercise (McGannon & Schinke, 2013; Miller & Brown, 2005) and sport (Batey & Owton, 2014; Bond & Batey, 2005). Within the context of athlete mothers, research has shown that these women have difficulty negotiating motherhood and athletics due to the foregoing gender ideology which 287

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is linked to an ethic of care (Appleby & Fisher, 2009; McGannon et al., 2015). An ethic of care was originally proposed as an integral component of women’s moral development (see Gilligan, 1982) and is a cultural expectation that women sacrifice their own needs to take care of others (O’Brien, Lloyd & Ringuet-Riot, 2014). Intertwined with an ethic of care is a good mother ideal, linking motherhood identity to the behavioral practices of selfless sacrificing and the experience of joy and fulfillment when doing so (Choi, Baker, Henshaw & Tree, 2005). An ethic of care and good mother ideal further reinforce traditional gender ideologies that naturalize women as “best” suited to childcare and domestic duties in light of their biology (Johnston & Swanson, 2003). As such, women’s behavioral practices “should” – and often do – center around caring for children first and foremost, despite the good mother ideal being exposed as a myth (Douglas & Michaels, 2004). Additionally, when behavioral practices of “good mothering” do not take precedence (e.g., women take time for leisure or work pursuits) women may be positioned as selfish or bad mothers for engaging in leisure or work pursuits, and experience an associated guilt and distress (Batey & Owton, 2014; Choi et al., 2005; McGannon & Schinke, 2013; O’Brien, et al., 2014). Women negotiating motherhood and a sport career may be particularly vulnerable to experiencing guilt in relation to an ethic of care and good mother ideals, as they devote a great deal of time to training and sport-related travel in their “jobs” as athletes, which keeps them away from their children for lengths of time whilst they travel to attend training camps and competitions (Freeman, 2008; Pedersen, 2001). Moreover, because elite athletes adhere to high performance standards (Douglas & Carless, 2009), working athlete mothers may experience added pressure to buy into the cultural expectation that women “do it all” perfectly (i.e., motherhood and athletics), which could lead to psychological distress due to striving for this unrealistic ideal or failing to meet that expectation (Choi et al., 2005; McGannon et al., 2015).

Research on elite athlete mothers A handful of qualitative studies within sport sociology, sport management and sport psychology have provided insight into elite athlete mothers’ experiences in relation to how various aspects of gender ideology and an ethic of care function for these women in sport. We outline these areas of research and what they offer in terms of understanding the psychological, social and cultural implications concerning athletes and motherhood.

Sport sociology and sport management research The research in sport sociology and sport management has explored women’s negotiation between athlete and mother identity roles within the context of a sport career, revealing that participation in athletics is experienced in a variety of ways depending on individual, social and cultural resources at one’s disposal. Taking this literature into account in sport psychology is important, as it shows researchers that crossing disciplinary boundaries enhances understanding of psychological topics (e.g., athletes, motherhood and the psychological implications) within socio-cultural context (Smith & McGannon, in press). Within the sociological realm, Pedersen (2001) was one of the first researchers to empirically explore elite female athletes as a “social phenomenon,” interviewing 12 Danish athletes combining an elite sports career with motherhood, and in some cases an additional job outside of sport (eight of the 12 athletes). Participants in this study were all mothers before achieving high performance sport goals which challenged the taken-for-granted gender ideology that mothers 288

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cannot compete physically and psychologically on the global sport stage. Athlete mothers were able to successfully negotiate constraints that reinforce traditional gender ideologies as “truth” (e.g., childcare, time to train) through individual strategies (e.g., adapting training to focus on quality, framing sport as a positive career choice), and drawing on various forms of support (e.g., informal social networks, organizational). These women resisted traditional gender ideologies regarding motherhood by retaining their athletic identities via positioning a sport career as an opportunity to demonstrate personal excellence and allow for social capital/status outside of motherhood. In contrast to Pedersen’s (2001) research, a recent study by Martínez-Pascual, AlvarezHarris, Fernández-de-las-Peñas and Palacios-Ceña (2014) that interviewed elite Spanish athletes negotiating motherhood and an athletic career, found that these sportswomen had difficulty (re)negotiating and resisting traditional gender ideologies and cultural ideals concerning motherhood. These women experienced conflict between being a mother vs. being a sportswoman (i.e., the two identities were viewed as mutually exclusive). By drawing upon a limited view of motherhood that positions women as primarily responsible for children’s well-being, the women used sport as a way to maintain an athletic identity. However, the women constantly feared a loss of this identity, which resulted in them looking for “their space” in the sport realm in order to have a break from the demands of the good mother role. This situation continued to polarize athlete vs. mother roles, resulting in the women experiencing guilt via the internalization of traditional gender ideologies and good mother ideals when taking time to train and pursue sport career goals. Elite athlete mothers in this study reconciled this identity conflict and resulting guilt by justifying that their participation and happiness in sport made them better mothers, which resulted in these women maintaining cultural myths surrounding good mother ideals (e.g., “happy mom equals happy family,” p. 275). In Palmer and Leberman’s (2009) study published within the sport management literature, the elite New Zealand athlete mothers interviewed in their study viewed time spent with family as needing to be of “quality” in light of their new roles as mothers. Similar to the study above, women avoided guilt by (re)positioning sport participation as a way to maintain both athlete and mother identities. In turn, traditional gender ideologies and an ethic of care were upheld by repositioning sport training and an athletic career as positively impacting family life and the attainment of long-term good mother ideals. Motherhood was also viewed as a way for these athletes to create additional motivation to train hard and maximize their sporting involvement, otherwise the women noted that the pursuit of athletic goals over family time would not be worth it. These elite sportswomen also viewed motherhood as making them stronger, more resistant and adaptable to life’s challenges – both in and out of sport – ultimately rendering them as more capable of facing the challenges and sacrifices required in elite sport. In order to be both a mother and an elite athlete, many women compartmentalized these roles (i.e., viewed them as separate), while other participants merged or integrated the time and space they operated in (e.g., sport and family spheres) by bringing their child/ren to training sessions and/or integrating training into family life. In order to accomplish this “melding” of athlete and motherhood identity however, it was the women that made concessions in order to plan and negotiate support from others. Such support was not readily available nor offered to these women unless they were proactive.

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Sport psychology research The sport psychology literature that has explored elite athlete mothers aligns with the findings in the above studies, but with a greater emphasis on the psychological experiences and implications of these for athlete well-being and sport performance. In the first published study within sport psychology on athlete mothers, elite runners with young children were interviewed, revealing a complex negotiation of motherhood, athletics and psychological implications (Appleby & Fisher, 2009). Thematic analysis revealed elite distance runners experienced an integration of their identities through the renegotiation of socio-cultural stereotypes concerning motherhood as they related to traditional gender ideologies vs. competitive athletics. Those who accepted such stereotypes steeped in these ideologies concerning motherhood adopted a good mother identity involving selfless care (i.e., an ethic of care), which led to psychological distress. Some athletes resisted the good mother ideal by viewing sport not only as a job/career, but as a source of pleasure and better mental health. This repositioning of the meaning of motherhood and athletics resulted in the women doing more sport training and experiencing less psychological distress. This perspective on sport as pleasurable and healthy is a novel narrative that holds potential for resisting gender ideologies and cultural ideals concerning athletics and motherhood, which can create psychological distress and constrain sport performance and participation. An unpublished dissertation in sport psychology where Freeman (2008) interviewed eight elite North American athletes with at least one child under six who competed in the 2004 Summer Olympics and the 2006 Winter Olympics, also showed complex negotiations concerning motherhood and athletics. Similar to Pedersen (2001) and the research above, this study found the integration of athlete mother identities was linked to benefits for elite athletes. Specific to sport psychology, these benefits included enhanced mental training and focus. However, the athletes experienced psychological distress when traveling without family or when they negotiated motherhood and athletic training demands. Athletes also noted that despite having training support, support for their roles as mothers was often lacking, creating further psychological distress. Again, in line with what sport sociology and sport management research found, support from others was key to reducing women’s distress when training, though such support was often lacking within the women’s lives, team or organization. A recent study by Debois, Ledon, Argiolas, and Rosnet (2012), was an in-depth case study of an elite fencer from France who was interviewed about her sport experiences and athletic career transitions. While this case study was not about motherhood per se, discussions with the athlete included her experiences of having a child and how that impacted her sport training and various aspects/points of her athletic career. The athlete’s decision to have her first child was in part the result of needing a break after failing to meet Olympic performance goals, with starting a family positioned by the athlete as adding dimensionality to her identity and life perspective noted in previous research in sport sociology (e.g., Pedersen, 2001) and sport psychology (e.g., Appleby & Fisher, 2009). The newly gained dimensionality of identity afforded the athlete some perspective when returning to competition, particularly when the athlete did not achieve high performance goals. Although this athlete integrated aspects of motherhood and family into her athletic career and domain, this study also revealed that the athlete still experienced distress related to performance and not meeting high performance goals. This finding is something that is not often discussed within the athlete and motherhood literature, and it reveals that some elite athletes still negotiate difficult performance pressures despite adding dimensionality to their identities through becoming mothers. 290

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Another avenue of inquiry into elite athlete mother identities in sport psychology has been the study of media representations of elite athlete mothers to learn more about athlete mothers and the psychological implications in a socio-cultural context. This line of inquiry is influenced by sport studies scholarship, which has established the media as a powerful source of cultural representation and circulation of meaning concerning athletes’ identities (e.g., Birrell & McDonald, 2000; Heywood & Dworkin, 2003), often impacting how athletes view themselves as they navigate identity constructions and perceptions (Kane, LaVoi & Fink, 2013; Krane, Ross, Miller, Rowse, Ganoe, Andrzejczyk & Lucas, 2010). Although media narratives concerning athlete mothers have received minimal attention in sport studies and sport psychology, there are two recent examples that have emerged out of sport psychology. The first media study was by McGannon et al. (2012) on the media coverage of British marathon runner Paula Radcliffe’s two pregnancies in the March 2008 and October 2010 issues of Runner’s World magazine. Paula’s mother and athlete identities were explored as socio-cultural creations shaped by narratives (i.e., the Runners World stories), with psychological implications (McGannon & Spence, 2010). Through textual analysis of stories and images, Paula’s identities were shown to be constructed within a “redemption narrative,” which portrayed her as complete once she became a mother (e.g., enhanced physical training, mental focus, redemption of athletic failures). The redemption narrative had fluid meanings (i.e., meanings that would take shape and then shift to another form) depending on how the two identities emerged within the stories: “athlete and mother as one,” which reinforced athlete identity, mental toughness and performance accomplishments; or “primarily a mother; athlete as secondary,” which downplayed athletic accomplishments in favor of good mother ideals. The Runners World narratives were narrow in their depiction of the realities of being an elite athlete mother, reproducing gender ideologies concerning an ethic of care and good mother ideals, carrying psychological implications such as guilt due to identity conflict. The second media study in sport psychology recently explored North American news media narratives of ten high profile elite athlete mothers that represented Team USA in the 2012 Summer Olympics within the context of identity meanings and the social psychological implications (McGannon et al., 2015). Similar to the Paula Radcliffe study, this study was also grounded in a conceptualization of motherhood and athletic identities as the product of individual, social and cultural narratives. Qualitative media analysis allowed for the identification of two nuanced identities – athlete and mother in conflict and athlete and mother as superwoman – which were constructed within a larger narrative of motherhood and athletics as a transformative journey. The transformative journey narrative was shown to draw upon biological notions and gender ideologies that position motherhood as women’s true calling, as well as feminist notions of empowerment that encourage women to have fulfillment in both athletic and family spheres. Two contrasting identities constructed with the transformative journey narrative had multiple implications for athlete mothers. When portrayed as polarized, athlete vs. mother identities had associated meanings that downplayed an athletic career, forcing women to choose between an athletic career and good mother ideals. An athlete and mother as superwoman identity was a way for women to reconcile a conflicted identity and distress, (re)producing the cultural myth that women “can have it all” but also opening up narratives of resistance. Such resistance could be accomplished due to the superwoman identity being associated with identity dimensionality and strategies to balance athlete mother identities, which were associated with mental focus when training and competing in sport on the global stage.

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Research on recreational athlete mothers Although the present chapter is focused on elite athlete mothers, a small body of literature has explored athlete mothers in recreational sport. Given that the literature shows that women’s physical activity participation decreases once becoming mothers, exploring recreational athlete mothers’ sport participation is a fruitful avenue of research for sport psychology. The studies that follow have all qualitatively explored athlete mothers’ identities within the context of cultural norms concerning motherhood and sport. Two of these studies come from the leisure and cultural studies literature on snowboarding mothers (Spowart, Hughson & Shaw, 2008) and mothers who surf (Spowart, Burrows & Shaw, 2010). Spowart et al.’s work is unique as the discourses of both snowboarding and surfing tend to represent freedom, hedonism and irresponsibility in contrast to meanings associated with traditional gender ideologies and good mother ideals. Using a feminist poststructuralist approach to investigate taken-for-granted truths and power issues surrounding motherhood and sport, Spowart et al., (2008) interviewed five New Zealand snowboarding mothers, revealing that through snowboarding, these women resisted good mother ideals that constrain women’s identities and behavioral practices as mothers. Such resistance was possible through literally “exercising” agency via snowboarding, along with support from partners and family, which resulted in the women’s happiness in both family and sporting spheres. Similarly Spowart et al. (2010) also interviewed six surfing mothers in New Zealand to explore the discourses drawn upon to construct their athlete mother identities and the implications. As with the snowboarding study, it was found that surfing served as a way to gain agency and both resist and reconfigure traditional expectations and status quo concerning what is “acceptable” concerning motherhood and sport. The women in both of these studies were also shown to be fully aware of good mother ideals and wanted to live up to them, yet snowboarding and surfing allowed them some freedom to express themselves as individuals, demonstrate athletic freedom, and escape the pressures of traditional motherhood. The final two studies on recreational athlete mothers are from sport psychology, with both drawing upon more traditional forms of theorizing against the cultural backdrop of an ethic of care and good mother ideals within their analyses. The first of these studies explored recreational runners and the implications for running mothers’ self-esteem and exerciser schemata (i.e., whether or not one views one’s self as an exerciser and internalizes this view) (Bond & Batey, 2005). Sixteen mother runners who had participated in races of at least 10 kilometer distances were interviewed in depth. Findings showed that while these women’s self-related views (e.g., self-esteem, physical self, exercise self-schemata) were strengthened through running, as noted with some of the research findings on elite athletes, the majority of these women had trouble negotiating time for their running due to family responsibilities and/or prevailing guilt linked to an ethic of care. Other mother runners were able to position their running and recreational race training as a “time out” from motherhood and family responsibilities, allowing space for self-exploration and the expansion of self-identity into the athletic realm. As in Spowart et al.’s research, all of the women were keenly aware of an ethic of care and how it governed their lives and identities, yet they subordinated their own needs when it came to running and competing, to the needs of others (e.g., partner, children) first and foremost. Finally, Batey and Owton (2014) qualitatively explored the experiences of seven mothers involved in team sports (i.e., three netball, two basketball, two hockey) exploring how the team environment might meet their psychological needs. The results were partly analyzed using Self-Determination Theory (SDT), revealing that despite many of the 292

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women discussing their self-determined right and desire to play sport, they could not feel completely self-determined due to the negotiation of multiple identities (e.g., athlete, good wife, good mother, career woman). This is somewhat in contrast to what research with elite athlete mothers has shown, whereby identity dimensionality is gained by some athletes once they become mothers (e.g., McGannon et al., 2012; Pedersen, 2001). Similar to what some research has found concerning elite athlete mothers (e.g., Martínez-Pascual et al., 2014; Palmer & Leberman, 2009) these recreational team sport mothers experienced a compromised autonomy in order to play team sport, in light of their mother identities being constructed primarily within an ethic of care and good mother ideals. While the mothers in this study have their psychological needs met through playing sport, as with many elite athlete mothers negotiating athletics, these women have to plan and schedule sport around their mother and wife duties in order to engage in sport in light of gender ideologies and good mother ideals that prevail.

Conclusions Despite a handful of studies within sport on athletes and motherhood, the study of athlete mother identities is a relatively recent, though growing, topic of interest in sport psychology. Given these women’s presence within elite athletics and sport, and the potential of recreational sport to open up possibilities for enhancing women’s physical activity participation, the topic of athlete mother identities is a wide-open, fruitful area for further exploration. Based on the research findings to date, we propose several avenues that researchers may consider as “entry points” toward developing this line of inquiry further. Since many elite athletes who become mothers go through multiple career and life transitions (e.g., coming back to a thriving career soon after having a child, retiring to have a family and then transitioning back to an athletic career, or having a child when transitioning into retirement), the research could benefit from making more forceful links with the career transition literature using a cultural lens (see Stambulova & Ryba, 2014). As the studies on athlete mothers in sport psychology also clearly show that the negotiation of athletics and motherhood is steeped in cultural narratives, future studies need to employ research methodologies (e.g., narrative analysis, discourse analysis) that “capture” such cultural complexity (see McGannon & Smith, 2015). The research on elite athlete mothers in sport sociology and sport management as well as the research on recreational athlete mothers in cultural studies of sport underscores this last point, reminding us that crossing boundaries into other disciplines further enhances understanding of the complex sociocultural context. Interviewing social agents (e.g., coaches, teammates, partners) within an athlete mother’s life would also shed light on the nature of social support within the context motherhood and sport, since the role of support for athlete mothers remains underexplored and poorly understood. Finally, the research on both elite and recreational athlete mothers has focused on White, middle-upper socioeconomic class, able bodied and heterosexual women partnered and/or married to men, privileging certain identities in sport psychology, and upholding gendered ideologies and feminine ideals for women in sport. Future research on athlete mothers needs to include marginalized identities (e.g., lesbian athlete mothers, athlete mothers with a disability, athlete mothers of different races and ethnicities) who may lack social capital and/ or the discursive resources necessary to (re)negotiate their identities as mothers in relation to sport and career goals. Additionally, to further understand the socio-cultural construction of gender and power relations, future research needs to include athlete fathers and explore 293

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how they negotiate fatherhood and athlete identities within the context of sport training and/ or a sport career. Men in both recreational and elite sport have been completely left out of the fatherhood/parenthood discourse in sport research. By including athlete fathers’ voices alongside athlete mothers’ voices, gendered norms surrounding parenthood in sport will be further understood for both men and women.

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McGannon, K. R., & Smith, B. (2015). Centralizing culture in cultural sport psychology research: The potential of narrative inquiry and discursive psychology. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 17, 79–87. McGannon, K. R., & Spence, J. C. (2010). Speaking of the self and physical activity participation: What discursive psychology can tell us about an old problem. Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise, 2, 17–38. McGannon, K. R., Curtin, K., Schinke, R. J., & Schweinbenz, A. N. (2012). (De)Constructing Paula Radcliffe: Exploring media representations of elite athletes, pregnancy and motherhood through cultural sport psychology. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 13, 820–829. McGannon, K.R., Gonsalves, C.A., Schinke, R. J., & Busanich, R. (2015). Negotiating motherhood and athletic identity: A qualitative analysis of Olympic athlete mother representations in media narratives. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 20, 51–59. Miller, Y. D., & Brown, W. J. (2005). Determinants of active leisure for women with young children: An ethic of care prevails. Leisure Sciences, 27, 405–420. Nash, M. (2011). “You don’t train for a marathon sitting on the couch”: Performances of pregnancy “fitness” and “good” motherhood in Melbourne, Australia. Women’s Studies International Forum, 34, 50–65. O’Brien, W., Lloyd, K., & Ringuet-Riot, C. (2014). Mothers governing family health: From an “ethic of care” to a “burden of care”. Women’s Studies International Forum, 47, 317–325. Palmer, F. R., & Leberman, S. I. (2009). Elite athletes as mothers: Managing multiple sport identities. Sport Management Review, 12, 241–254. Pedersen, I. K. (2001). Athletic career: “Elite sports mothers” as a social phenomenon. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 36, 259–274. Petrassi, D. (2012). “For me, the children come first”: A discursive psychological analysis of how mothers construct fathers’ roles in childrearing and childcare. Feminism & Psychology, 22, 518–527. Smith, B., & McGannon, K. R. (in press). Sociology and psychology in sport studies: Crossing boundaries. In R. Giulianotti (Ed.), Routledge handbook of the sociology of sport. London: Routledge. Spowart, L., Burrows, L., & Shaw, S. (2010). I just eat, sleep and dream of surfing: When surfing meets motherhood. Sport in Society, 13, 1186–1203. Spowart, L., Hughson, J., & Shaw, S. (2008) Snowboarding mums carve out fresh tracks: Resisting traditional motherhood discourse? Annals of Leisure Research, 11, 187–204. Stambulova, N. B., & Ryba, T. V. (2014). A critical review of career research and assistance through the cultural lens: Towards cultural praxis of athletes’ careers. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 7, 1–17. Vertinsky, P. A. (1994). The eternally wounded woman: Women, doctors and exercise in the late nineteenth century. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Weedon, C. (1997). Feminist practice and poststructuralist theory (2nd Ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.

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29 D I S A B I L I T Y SP O RT A partial overview and some thoughts about the future Brett Smith, Marie-Josée Perrier and Jeffrey J. Martin

Despite the high international prevalence of impairment, the increasing popularity of disability sport events (e.g., Paralympics), disabled people being largely inactive, and organizations such as the Applied Association of Sport Psychology (AASP) and the International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP) aiming to promote diversity and social responsibility in research, until recently, people with a disability have largely been neglected within sport psychology. In this chapter, we offer a partial review of disability sport research. Some thoughts about research directions scholars might travel in the future are also offered.

Playing sport: some reasons, benefits, and barriers One broad reason disabled people have listed for sport participation is tied to the health and wellbeing benefits associated with participation (e.g., Groff, Lundberg, & Zabriskie, 2009). Researchers have also highlighted that, in comparison to disabled people who do not participate in sport, disabled athletes, regardless of competitive level, report greater quality of life (e.g., Groff et al., 2009). Furthermore, those who participate in sport after acquiring an impairment have less mood disturbance, anxiety, depression, and greater life satisfaction than non-participants (e.g., Tasiemski & Brewer, 2011). Moreover, sport can be pleasurable and help develop competence, self-confidence, and physical self-perceptions and self-esteem (Smith & Sparkes, 2012). Sport may too develop cognitive coping strategies and resilience (Machida, Irwin, & Feltz, 2013). Another potential benefit of sport participation is tied to the opportunities for social connection and community integration (e.g., McVeigh, Hitzig, & Craven, 2009). Researchers have supported the importance of peers and various types of social support for facilitating and supporting sustained sport participation (e.g., Swanson, Colwell, & Zhao, 2008; Wu & Williams, 2001). For example, the quality of sport friendships is a significant predictor of sport commitment as well as greater positive affect (Martin, 2006; Shapiro & Martin, 2010). Further, sport participation can mitigate, and even reduce, the negative stereotypes and stigma that often comes with having an impaired body within many cultures that devalue disability and construct disabled people as invalid (Kittson, Gainforth, Edwards, Bolkowy, & Latimer-Cheung, 2013). Sport can also reduce stigma by increasing athletes’ perceived 296

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physical competence and perceived physical appearance as well as challenging the lowered expectations that society constructs about what one can do when disabled (Lundberg, Taniguchi, McCormick, & Tibbs, 2011; Taub, Blinde, & Greer, 1999). However, reducing stigma and challenging low expectations does very little to combat disablism, that is, the social oppression disabled people face daily. Despite the various benefits linked to sport, few disabled people participate in sport (e.g., Martin Ginis et al., 2010) and, in comparison to non-disabled people, engage less in sporting activities (e.g., Sport England, 2015). Barriers such as time, motivation, the outdoor climate, fear, limited peer support, negative societal attitudes, and lack of information about sporting opportunities and where these sports are organized can prevent disabled people from engaging in sport (Phoenix, Griffin, & Smith, 2015; see Williams, Smith, & Papathomas, 2014, for broader physical activity barriers). Physical health issues, secondary complications (e.g., pressure sores or autonomic dysreflexia), fatigue and lack of energy, as well as barriers in the structural environment (e.g., equipment, transportation, cost, inaccessible housing) limit sport participation (Jaarsma, Dijkstra, Geertzen, & Dekker, 2014; Smith & Caddick, 2015).

Sport psychology and applied connections in disability sport contexts In addition to research on the benefits of sport, and what can facilitate and limit participation, there is work focusing on elite disabled athletes which has implications for applied sport psychology. For example, Campbell and Jones (2002) noted that for athletes with a disability it was important to consider various domains of competition stress (e.g., pre-event, on court concerns), relationships (e.g., group interaction, negative coaching), and organizational aspects of competing (e.g., demands and costs). Further, research by Pensgaard et al. (1999) found no differences between Olympic and Paralympic athletes with respect to stress and anxiety management, except that Olympic athletes used more redefinition and growth strategies than Paralympic athletes. Moreover, Perreault and Vallerand (2007) found that among Paralympic athletes the most common coping strategies was acceptance, an emotional focused strategy, and two problem-focused coping strategies, active coping and planning. More recently, Martin (2012) reviewed the extant literature on elite athletes to better understand how Paralympians might mentally prepare for the Paralympic Games. He highlighted numerous psychological challenges Paralympians might need to prepare for, including: heightened public and media attention; travel; sleeping in the Paralympic village; limited psychological support and access to psychological services; classification; and drug testing. In light of such challenges, Martin noted the usefulness of not just coping strategies to alleviate stress and anxiety, but also strategies to promote confidence, positive self-talk, and optimal emotions. Consequently, Martin and Malone (2013) explored mental skills use among elite, disabled athletes, including coping skills (e.g., goal setting), imagery use, as well as self-talk, and their association with athlete engagement in the sport. Their participants used all of the mental skills, though imagery and self-talk were more frequently listed. Furthermore, athletes that used more mental skills were more engaged in sport than those who used fewer skills. Although research on Paralympians and mental preparation is in its infancy, it could be tempting to simply transport and apply current strategies to disabled athletes. However, as Martin (2012) cautions, disabled athletes often have very different experiences and challenges compared to able-bodied athletes. Furthermore, Hanrahan (2015) suggests that modifications are potentially needed when teaching psychological skills to athletes with impairments. For example, she notes that the tension phase of progressive muscular relaxation might be 297

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problematic for individuals with cerebral palsy, and progressive muscular relaxation scripts might need to be modified to account for missing or inactive limbs. Thus impairment should be factored in when doing body awareness or imagery exercises. Hanrahan (2015) further suggests that when working within disability sport/parasport, communication may need to be adapted. For instance, quality visual communication (e.g., PowerPoint) is needed when working with people with visual impairments, and expertise in auditory communication (e.g., vivid descriptions, audio recordings) is needed when working with people with hearing impairments.

Future directions Much space is dedicated to future directions in this chapter given that disability sport is still in its nascence. For example, quantitative sport psychology research has relied heavily on cross-sectional designs or simplistic measures lacking psychometric integrity. To develop the literature, researchers should include more longitudinal and experimental designs. To better appreciate “why,” “where,” and “how” questions, unpacking meaning and context in the process, researchers should draw on qualitative methods. This includes going beyond a “one-shot” interview by drawing on such methods as longitudinal interviewing, visual methods, social media (e.g. Twitter), digital storytelling, and naturalistic data (Sparkes & Smith, 2014). Furthermore, theory grounded intervention and knowledge translation strategies to promote sport are needed. For example, there is a paucity of research that has applied traditional behavior change theories to understand possible strategies for sport promotion. A rare exception is the work of Martin (2006, 2008) who examined key constructs from Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1986) and their association with sport enjoyment and sport commitment. This research found that greater sport commitment, enjoyment, and affect were positively correlated with self-efficacy and social support. Another possible theoretical avenue is the Health Action Process Approach (HAPA; Schwarzer, Lippke, & Luszczynska, 2011). Though there is scant research on the HAPA in disability sport, an exception can be found in work by Perrier, Sweet, Strachan, and LatimerCheung (2012) who tested the HAPA model in sport. They found that task self-efficacy (e.g., confidence in sport skills) and outcome expectancies (e.g., health benefits) in adults with acquired disabilities were predictive of stronger intentions to participate in sport. Stronger intentions, in conjunction with creating plans and strong maintenance self-efficacy (e.g., the confidence to overcome barriers), were predictive of greater sport participation. Moreover, Perrier, Shirazipour, and Latimer-Cheung (2015) found differences on HAPA constructs between “non-intenders,” those with no intentions to try sport; “intenders,” those who want to participate in sport but are not; and “actors,” those currently participating in sport. Thus, sport promotion activities for non-intenders might first address perceived negative outcomes of sport. To support intenders, messages, interventions, and knowledge translation practices that enhance multiple types of self-efficacy are, given the limited research, tentatively recommended. Cognitive based theories are useful but human beings cannot be reduced to cognitive process. This is especially so given the limits of cognitivism and the rising critiques of cognitive theories that highlight how ultimately behavior change “problems,” “solutions” and so forth in each theory is traced to the individual mind and neglects the socio-cultural and relational dimensions of life, even when the word “social” or “relationship” is inserted into theories (Gergen, 2009). Thus, discursive psychology and narrative theory are two 298

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viable avenues for future research. In recent years, some researchers in sport psychology have begun to utilize these methodologies and the methods aligned with each (e.g., McGannon & Spence, 2012; Perrier, Smith, & Latimer-Cheung, 2013, 2015). Joining with colleagues in other fields in psychology (e.g., health psychology) that have long promoted and used discursive psychology and narrative theory, scholars therefore might begin to harness the power of discursive psychology and narrative theory by applying these approaches to disability sport, behavior change, knowledge translation, and other topics of interest (e.g., McGannon & Smith, 2015; Smith, Tomasone, Latimer-Cheung, & Martin Ginis, 2015). In relation to elite disability sport, there is a lack of literature that explores the specific developmental pathways to elite sport and how athletes progress from recreational to competitive to elite level sport. A rare example is the work of Kämpfe and colleagues who documented the developmental trajectory of achievement motivation from sport initiation to sport mastery among elite German athletes with disabilities (Kämpfe, Höner, & Willimczik, 2014). Research is also needed on talent identification and high quality coaching that is couched in an ethics of care. Work thus far produced has been on, for example, perceptions of autonomy support from coaches (Banack, Sabiston, & Bloom, 2011), the role of coaches in both the personal and athletic development of athletes (Tawse, Bloom, Sabiston, & Reid, 2012), the learning experiences of coaches (McMaster, Culver, & Werthner, 2012), and coach– thlete interactions (Turnnidge, Cote, Hollenstein, & Deakin, 2014). A rare intervention coaching study imbedded in Self-Determination Theory illustrated how Paralympic athletes training under coaches who provided autonomy support maintained their motivation and engagement (Cheon, Reeve, Lee, & Lee, 2015). In contrast, athletes who worked with coaches lacking the autonomy supportive intervention experienced reduced motivation and engagement. Furthermore, Cheon et al. (2015) noted that athletes with autonomy supportive coaches won substantially more medals than control group athletes. Like most work on sport and disability in psychology, none of this work has connected with critical disability studies and this needs reversing. In addition to sport coaching and disability, more high quality applied research that examines mental training skills is needed. As exemplified in research by Day (2013), critical work needs to expand too into positive psychology, examining such matters as how posttraumatic growth in Paralympic athletes can be promoted. Because Paralympic athletes are now often professional and/or have very different challenges, experiences, and expectations than in previous years, research is needed on the transition processes including retirement. Moreover, more work is needed on athletic identity that goes beyond comparing the extent to which disabled athletes define themselves as athletes, compared to athletes without disabilities (e.g., Tasiemski & Brewer, 2011) as well as work that has examined intentions to participate in sport (Perrier et al., 2012), competitive status (Tasiemski, Kennedy, Gardner, & Blaikley, 2004), and psychosocial adjustment (Groff et al., 2009; Tasiemski & Brewer, 2011). For example, research is needed that examines where “disability” is located within an athletic identity hierarchy identity and the implications of this for challenging disablism (i.e., social oppression). For example, do Paralympic athletes strongly define themselves as an “athlete only,” an “athlete with a disability,” a “disabled athlete,” and/or “supercrip,” and what are the implications of such identity constructions for contesting disablism (Martin, in press)? In relation to disability, for us (see also Martin, 2013; Smith & Perrier, 2014; Smith & Bundon, in press) empirical and theoretical work on topics like athletic identity, coaching, sports promotion, talent identification, motivation, physical activity and health, needs to connect with critical disability studies. Crossing borders into such fields is not easy or 299

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straightforward. But, connecting work in critical disability studies with sport psychology would ensure it is up-to-date and well-informed about contemporary debates on disability, and help advance knowledge and further develop socially responsible research that can make a difference to the lives of disabled people. For example, work in sport psychology sometimes adopts, either knowingly or unknowingly, a medical model understanding of disability. In this model, disability is defined as any lack of ability resulting from impairment to perform an activity within the range considered normal for a person. However, as scholars in critical disability studies have long stressed (Goodley, 2013; Thomas, 2010), a medical model is problematic and dangerous. It locates the “problem” of disability squarely within the body of the individual and ignores disability as a social construction. It also depicts disability as inevitably a personal physical tragedy and a psychological trauma that should be overcome. Thus, it paints an overly negative picture of disability. In light of such problems, alternative understandings of disability have been proposed that have crucial implications for doing research and what can be claimed as a result. The social model is a popular model in disability studies. In the model, disability is “caused” by the social barriers (structural and attitudinal) that people with impairments (e.g., physical, sensory, and intellectual) come up against in every arena. Whilst under the umbrella of the social model important achievements have been made, this model of disability has been subject to numerous criticisms. For example, it has been criticized for ignoring disabled people’s lived experiences. In so doing, people’s “private” accounts are artificially separated from “public” issues, and the variety of lived experiences of impairment overlooked. The social model has been heavily critiqued for excluding the body. Such problems have led scholars to develop more complex ways of understanding and researching disability that are often located within critical disability studies (Goodley, 2013; Smith & Bundon, in press). These ways include crip theory, posthumanism, narrative inquiry, and Foucauldian grounded work. The social relational model is another forward thinking way to understand disability. The social relational model, as described by Thomas (2010), addresses the problems with the social model and the discontent with the individualist tradition in which the individual mind and bounded/autonomous self is considered the fundamental atom of human life by foregrounding disability as a social relationship between people. Disability is understood as a form of social oppression involving the social imposition of restrictions of activity on people with impairments as well as the socially engendered undermining of their psychological and subjective wellbeing (Thomas, 2010). Despite the social relational model being conceptually progressive and having a socially emancipatory focus, sport psychologists have largely failed to connect with it. Rare examples can be found in Martin (2013), Smith (2013), Smith and Perrier (2014), and Smith and Bundon (in press).

Conclusion This chapter has provided a flavour of research on disability sport. We hope that it has developed understandings of disability in ways that go beyond a commitment to using just traditional sport psychology theories, ideas, and approaches. If sport disability research is to progress, researchers need to explicitly engage with work outside of sport psychology, such as in critical disability studies. Disability sport psychology work is at an exciting juncture. We believe that, with boundary crossings, the field can contribute important knowledge and in unique ways challenge disablism.

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Pensgaard, A. M., Roberts, G. C., & Ursin, H. (1999). Motivational factors and coping strategies of Norwegian paralympic and Olympic winter sport athletes. Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly, 16, 238–250. Perreault, S., & Vallarand, R. J. (2007). A test of self-determination theory with wheelchair basketball players with and without disability. Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly, 24, 305–316. Perrier, M. J., Shirazipour, C. H., & Latimer-Cheung, A. E. (2015). Sport participation among individuals with acquired physical disabilities: Group differences on demographic, disability, and health action process approach constructs. Disability & Health, 8, 216–222. Perrier, M. J., Smith, B., & Latimer-Cheung, A. E. (2013). Narrative environments and the capacity of disability narratives to motivate leisure-time physical activity among individuals with spinal cord injury. Disability & Rehabilitation, 35, 2089–2097. Perrier, M. J., Smith, B., & Latimer-Cheung, A. E. (2015). Stories that move? Peer athlete mentors’ responses to mentee disability and sport narratives. Psychology of Sport & Exercise, 18, 60–67. Perrier, M. J., Sweet, S. N., Strachan, S. M., & Latimer-Cheung, A. E. (2012). I act, therefore I am: Athletic identity and the health action process approach predict sport participation among individuals with acquired physical disabilities. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 13, 713–720. Phoenix, C., Griffin, M., & Smith, B. (2015). Physical activity among older people with sight loss: A qualitative research study to inform policy and practice. Public Health 129, 124–130. Schwarzer, R., Lippke, S., & Luszczynska, A. (2011). Mechanisms of health behavior change in persons with chronic illness or disability: The Health Action Process Approach (HAPA). Rehabilitation Psychology, 56, 161–170. Shapiro, D. R., & Martin, J. J. (2010). Athletic identity, affect, and peer relations in youth athletes with physical disabilities. Disability and Health Journal, 3, 79–85. Sport England (2015, July 20th). Active people survey. Retrieved from https://www.sportengland.org/ourwork/disability/ Smith, B. (2013). Disability, sport and men’s narratives of health: A qualitative study. Health Psychology, 32, 110–119. Smith, B., & Bundon, A. (in press). Disability models: Explaining and understanding disability sport. In I. Brittain (Ed.), Palgrave handbook of Paralympic studies. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Smith, B., & Caddick, N. (2015). The impact of living in a care home on the health and wellbeing of spinal cord injured people. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 12, 4185–4202. Smith, B., & Perrier, M. J. (2014). Disability, sport, and impaired bodies: A critical approach. In R. J. Schinke & K. R. McGannon (Eds.), The psychology of sub-culture in sport and physical activity: Critical perspectives (pp. 95–106). London: Routledge. Smith, B., & Sparkes, A. C. (2012). Disability, sport and physical activity. A critical review. In N. Watson, A. Roulstone, & C. Thomas (Eds.), Routledge handbook of disability studies (pp. 336–347). London: Routledge. Smith, B., Tomasone, J. R., Latimer-Cheung, A. E., & Martin Ginis, K. A. (2015). Narrative as a knowledge translation tool for facilitating impact: Translating physical activity knowledge to disabled people and health professionals. Health Psychology, 34, 303–313. Sparkes, A. C., & Smith, B. (2014). Qualitative research methods in sport, exercise and health: From process to product. London: Routledge. Swanson, S. R., Colwell, T., & Zhao, Y. (2008). Motives for participation and importance of social support for athletes with physical disabilities. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 2, 317–336. Tasiemski, T., & Brewer, B. W. (2011). Athletic identity, sport participation, and psychological adjustment in people with spinal cord injury. Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly, 28, 233–250. Tasiemski, T., Kennedy, P., Gardner, B. P., & Blaikley, R. A. (2004). Athletic identity and sports participation in people with spinal cord injury. Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly, 21, 364–378. Taub, D. E., Blinde, E. M., & Greer, K. R. (1999). Stigma management through participation in sport and physical activity: Experiences of male college students with physical disabilities. Human Relations, 52, 1469–1484. Tawse, H., Bloom, G. A., Sabiston, C. M., & Reid, G. (2012). The role of coaches of wheelchair rugby in the development of athletes with a spinal cord injury. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 4, 206–225. Thomas, C. (2010). Medical sociology and disability theory. In G. Scambler & S. Scambler (Eds.), New directions in the sociology of chronic and disabling conditions: Assaults on the lifeworld (pp. 37–56). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

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30 HA Z I N G I N SP O RT Jennifer J. Waldron

Rites of passages have historically served to initiate individuals into a new phase of their lives, such as transitioning from childhood to adulthood. Some of these rites or initiation rituals were, and are, degrading, humiliating, and even brutal. These rites of passage have evolved in modern sport, and in the United States and Canada are termed hazing; however, similar phenomena exist across the world. Words used to describe hazing in other countries include bizutage in French, mopokaste in Finnish, novatada in Spanish, ragging in India, and praxe in Portuguese (Dias & Sá, 2014). The purpose of this chapter is to examine hazing practices in sport from both established and novel theoretical approaches, as well as to examine the prevention of hazing and suggest future areas to expand this research. Hazing, defined as “any activity expected of someone joining a group that humiliates, degrades, abuses or endangers, regardless of the person’s willingness to participate” (Hoover, 1999, p. 8), continues to be a problem in sport. Unlike other environments, such as the military, fraternities, or sororities, hazed athletes are already members of the team, selected by the coach at try-outs (Crow & Macintosh, 2009). When rookies experience hazing on a sport team, they have already demonstrated that they are qualified to participate on the team but endure hazing to be an accepted member of the team. Hazing also tends to be unidirectional, temporary, and coercive (Cimino, 2011). That is, veterans (i.e., older members of the team) haze the rookies (i.e., new members of the team) and the hazing only occurs for a short period of time. In turn, although rookies do have a choice to be hazed, their choice is limited and hazing is often forced onto them. Unfortunately, hazing practices are common in the sport environment. National data sets from the United States report that approximately 75 percent of collegiate studentathletes (Allan & Madden, 2013; Hoover, 1999) and approximately 50 percent of high school students experience hazing (Hoover & Pollard, 2000; Madden & Allan, 2008). Similar levels have been found in Canadian collegiate athletes from a variety of sports, with 86.3 percent maintaining they were hazed as a rookie on their collegiate team (Hamilton, Scott, O’Sullivan, & LaChapelle, 2013). Although percentages do not exist, it has been reported that hazing ceremonies are common within Athletic Unions in the United Kingdom (Groves, Griggs, & Leflay, 2012). Anecdotal reports of hazing in other countries occur; however, actual percentages of athletes experiencing hazing around the world are limited. 304

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Many people characterize hazing acts on a spectrum ranging from less to more severe based on the amount of pain inflicted (Allan & Madden, 2013; Campo, Poulos, & Sipple, 2005; Waldron & Kowalski, 2009). Under this spectrum, less painful acts include incidents such as shaving heads, singing in public, and remaining silent for a period of time. On the other end of the spectrum are violent and abusive acts of severe pain, such as binge drinking, physical beatings, and rape or sodomy. The middle of the hazing spectrum contains a span of hazing behaviors that include being urinated on in the locker room, drinking games, being transported to and left in desolate locations without transportation, and mimicking sexual acts. Regardless of the amount of pain associated with a hazing act, hazing often harms the rookie. Interviewed athletes have reported psychological effects (e.g., intimidation, loss of self-esteem, isolation) and physical effects (e.g., bruising, pain due to beatings, dehydration), as well as dropping out of sport due to hazing (Waldron & Kowalski, 2009; Waldron, Lynn, & Krane, 2011). Using the hazing spectrum, then, can be problematic because all hazing acts contain pain and discomfort for those hazed, even those considered to be benign acts. Moreover, it is often the hazing acts that are perceived to cause little pain (e.g., singing in public) that are ignored and silence the participants who are experiencing the pain. Because of the high number of athletes experiencing hazing and the dangerous outcomes of hazing, a number of conceptual explanations for what athletes engage in hazing have been forwarded.

Conceptual explanations to hazing Three conceptual explanations to understanding athletes engaged in hazing include showing one’s commitment to the team, increasing group solidarity or team cohesion, and expressing dominance and hierarchy (Cimino, 2011; Groves et al., 2012) and they are often used simultaneously in the research literature (see Bryshun, 1997; Campo, Poulos, & Sipple, 2005; Waldron & Kowalski, 2009; Waldron, Lynn, & Krane, 2011). First, the phenomenon of hazing occurs on sport teams because it is a mechanism for athletes to display their commitment to the team. Sport is a bounded social organization where athletes are monitored by teammates, coaches, and others in order to adhere to specific behaviors (Atkinson & Young, 2008). Through such monitoring, all athletes are pressured and/or compelled to exhibit and display the approved values, beliefs, and behaviors. One way that athletes are tested and required to show the approved values and behaviors of team membership is through hazing, a form of social control (Holman, 2004; Waldron & Kowalski, 2009). When rookies successfully endure hazing, it is believed they will remain dedicated to their teammates during intense and extreme situations. Hazing, then, is a process for veterans to display their dominance on the team by forcing rookies to demonstrate their willingness to take one for the team and for rookies to, willingly, show their commitment and devotion to the team. Researchers from a variety of fields, including sport psychology, anthropology, and student affairs, have argued that one of the main purposes of hazing in sport is that it increases team cohesion or solidarity (Allan & Madden, 2013; Bryshun, 1997; Cimino, 2011; Groves et al., 2012; Waldron & Kowalski, 2009; Waldron et al., 2011). With hazing, athletes have to find ways to resolve the conflicting beliefs between wanting to be accepted by team members and experiencing humiliating and degrading activities in order to gain that acceptance. Thus, individuals who experience intense hazing often resolve the conflict by increasing their affiliation and attractiveness to the group (Aronson & Mills, 1959; Keating et al., 2005). Past researchers have provided evidence that athletes believe that shared suffering of pain and degradation resulted in deeper relationships and a more cohesive team (e.g., Allan & Madden, 2013; Bryshun, 1997; Waldron & Kowalski, 2009). Although athletes often view hazing as an 305

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adaptive act that creates team cohesion and team unity, there is some evidence to the contrary. One study showed that experiencing hazing had a negative impact on team cohesion (Van Raalte, Cornelius, Linder, & Brewer, 2007) and athletes have also shared stories of feeling isolated, alone, and separated from the rest of the team due to hazing (Waldron & Kowalski, 2009). Additionally, Stuart (2013) found that increased team cohesion and solidarity is an illusion based on fear for both the veteran member doing the hazing and the rookie who is being hazed. Yet, athletes and other stakeholders continue to perpetuate the notion that hazing increases team cohesion because of the social and cultural norms in sport that justify the humiliating, degrading actions that are experienced through hazing. Hazing has also been explained as a mechanism of displaying hierarchical power relationships and dominance whereby veterans of the team possess all of the power and the rookies possess little to no power (Bryshun, 1997; Cimino, 2011; Holman, 2004; Stuart, 2013; Waldron & Kowalski, 2009). Interviewed athletes have reported that hazing keeps the chain of command intact and ensures that rookies are not above the veteran members (Waldron & Kowalski, 2009). With this approach, hazing is coercive and rookies are forced to participate because they understand that avoiding hazing will lead to social rejection and isolation, as well as more severe hazing. Yet, because they are part of the institution of sport, many rookies welcome and are grateful for the hazing experience because they become true team members and know that when they become veterans, they will possess the power and dominance over the rookies (Holman, 2004; Waldron & Kowalski, 2009; Waldron et al., 2011). However, within the broader norms of sport, power only appears to be functioning in a hierarchal manner. Although it appears that veterans have all of the power, veteran members are also subject to webs of power among teammates, coaches, and administrators within the sport-hazing complex.

Novel theoretical approaches to hazing Commitment to the team, solidarity and cohesion, hierarchy and dominance, are broad conceptual explanations of hazing and have been used to provide needed insight into hazing practices. Yet, there are a number of shortcomings of these conceptual explanations. First, it is difficult to test empirically conceptual explanations of hazing because the conceptual explanations are so broad and complex: much of the current data to support the explanations are anecdotal or descriptive (Cimino, 2011). Second, the conceptual explanations are not theories. Although conceptual explanations have been useful, they do not critically explore the complexity of hazing. Developing and using theories can aid in critically understanding and explaining how and why hazing occurs, resolving contradictions (e.g., hazing is humiliating, degrading, and painful, but never harms teammates), and making predictions for which sport teams or which athletes may be more susceptible to hazing. In order to address these shortcomings, two novel, theoretical approaches are being applied to hazing – an evolutionary psychology approach (Balish, Eys, & Schulte-Hostedde, 2013; Cimino, 2011, 2013) as well as a post-structuralist approach (Waldron, 2014).

Evolutionary psychology approach In order to experimentally test hazing motivation, Cimino (2011, 2013) has used concepts from evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology focuses on how natural selection has molded the brain and mind of humans over time. That is, “the human brain is an evolved organ consisting of adaptations that evolved to solve specific adaptive problems in the ancestral 306

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past” (Balish et al., 2013, p. 415). One specific adaptive problem that our ancestors had to solve was potential threats to group cooperation. Although cooperation, through forming coalitions, provides many benefits to individuals, coalitions are potentially threatened by free-riders or social loafing (Balish et al., 2013; Cimino, 2011, 2013). Individuals may join a coalition and instantaneously receive benefits of group membership without showing dedication to improvement of the coalition. Of particular concern, is that without having to provide any costs (i.e., demonstrate any commitment) to the group, newcomers can receive immediate, automatic benefits such as improved status and prominence (Cimino, 2011, 2013). Therefore, for cooperation to evolve, it was necessary to solve the problem of free-riders (Balish et al., 2013; Cimino, 2011). A primary way that this problem was solved, evolutionarily speaking, was via initiation rituals. As an initiation ritual, hazing has evolved as a motivational system to solve the problem of free-riding (Cimino, 2011, 2013). Hazing allows newcomers to display honest signals of their commitment to the group and thus display their willingness to pay a cost for the automatic benefit (e.g., status and reputation) of group membership (Balish et al., 2013). Honest signals, such as physical beatings and humiliation, are costly and cannot be easily faked. Therefore, hazing has advanced as an initiation ritual where newcomers or rookies are required to display honest signals of commitment to the group in order to reduce or prevent exploitation of the automatic benefits. Based on evolutionary psychology, then, those groups which are most cooperative (e.g., athletic teams) will be more likely to impart greater severity of hazing on the rookies (Balish et al., 2013; Cimino, 2011, 2013). Cimino (2011, 2013) conducted a series of experiments to examine the evolved motivational systems linked to hazing. In order to determine if hazing was a way to reduce newcomers’ ability to free ride on group entry, participants were randomly assigned to imagine themselves as part of a strong cooperative group with strong automatic benefits or a weak cooperative group. With both a college-aged sample and a representative sample of adults in the United States, Cimino (2011, 2013) found that those who imagined themselves as part of a strong cooperative group desired more severe hazing of newcomers than those in the weak cooperative group. Additionally, the greater desire for severe hazing was related to greater coerciveness of the hazing practices. Given the evidence supporting predictions of evolutionary psychology (Cimino, 2011, 2013), similar relationships may be found with athletes; however, because of the lack of empirical research, Balish and colleagues (2013) have made a call that an evolutionary psychology approach needs to be applied to hazing in the sport realm.

Post-structuralist approach A second novel approach to hazing is the use of post-structuralism (Waldron, 2014). This approach has three central tenets (McGannon & Busanich, 2010; McGannon & Mauws, 2000, 2002). First, one’s identity is created and established by use of language and discourse (McGannon & Mauws, 2002). Discourses are statements and resources we use to construct the meaning and understanding of a phenomenon, such as athlete or hazing (McGannon & Busanich, 2010). Second, within discourses are conditions of possibility, or ways of thinking, feeling, and speaking that influence behavior (McGannon & Mauws, 2002; Weedon, 1997). While some discourses provide a range of conditions of possibility, other discourses, such as the discourse of athletes being tough and committed, are more rigid and inflexible. Negotiating the conditions of possibility via the discourses at their disposal, individuals are able to change their identities with fluidity and exhibit contradictions in behaviors and beliefs. Third, 307

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post-structuralist theorists argue that power is dynamic, reciprocal, relational, and maintained through discourse and language (McGannon & Busanich, 2010; McGannon & Spence, 2010). The view of power as relational and reciprocal differs from other perspectives that view power as hierarchical or top down. Power within a post-structuralist perspective is located everywhere, not just in a person or an institution, and it functions in a capillary-like manner. Because power is relational, veterans, rookies, and auxiliary members structure the hazing experience by using and reproducing the discourse of athletes as tough and committed and the discourse of hazing: hazing would not exist if all members did not participate in the discourses, and with that, the associated behavioral practices that such discourses confer (Waldron, 2014). From a post-structuralist perspective, then, language and discourse construct the meanings of what it means to be an athlete and hazing, which then becomes the taken-for-granted knowledge that shapes the self. Moreover, as athletes have different ways to think and speak about hazing at their disposal depending on the discourses, their understanding of, and behavior towards, hazing is often contradictory and fluid. Using the above ideas, Waldron (2014) recently put forward a post-structuralist view of hazing, arguing that the choices of athletes regarding hazing are due to the internalization of the dominant discourse and language which “constructs” athletes as tough, as well as the contradictory discourses of hazing as harmless fun, and hazing as violence. Institutions and individuals consistently draw upon “athletes as tough and committed” and in turn say that “real” athletes play through pain or will do anything to win. Therefore, the dominant discourse of “athletes as tough and committed” becomes taken for granted of what it means to be a real athlete (Waldron, 2014). When drawing upon the discourse of being a tough and committed athlete, rookies in turn may “correctly” understand that they are responsible for experiencing and engaging in hazing behaviors. Moreover in drawing upon this discourse to construct their identities as rookie athletes, they further reinforce their commitment to sport and to the team by engaging in such behavioral practices. Rookies thus have a choice to engage in hazing, but the choice is somewhat limited in light of the discourse and the associated behavioral practices. The two major discourses, hazing as harmless fun and hazing as violence, lead to contradictions in hazing experiences (Waldron, 2014). These two discourses include fairly consistent beliefs and behaviors that athletes and spectators hold about hazing such as hazing is harmless fun and playful joking, while also holding the belief that hazing is risky, harmful, aggressive, and potentially violent. However, different athletes use different discourses at different times. For example, some athletes may believe the hazing acts of drinking games to be harmless fun, while other athletes may construct drinking games to be violent. Additionally, depending on circumstances, an athlete, who typically constructs drinking games to be harmless fun, might believe the drinking games to be violent on a particular night because of the quantity of alcohol the rookies are expected to consume. Hazing acts, then, become a site of contradiction and fluidity within an athlete and among athletes and result in inconsistent and conflicting language, beliefs, and behaviors (Waldron, 2014).

Hazing prevention Given the percentages of athletes engaging in hazing as well as the emotional, psychological, and physical harm it can cause, prevention techniques to hazing need to be implemented. Although many programs and institutions share a hazing is not tolerated message to athletes, this message is often not sustained over time nor is it enhanced through other strategies (Allan & Madden, 2013). Although anti-hazing policies may legally protect institutions, many, including 308

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coaches and athletes, do not believe that anti-hazing policies are sufficient to reduce incidents of hazing (Johnson & Donnelly, 2004). Even if they are effective, in the United States, only 39 percent of collegiate students were provided a written copy of the anti-hazing policy (Allan & Madden, 2013). And, even fewer students (i.e., 15 percent) of students attended a hazing prevention workshop presented by adults (Allan & Madden, 2013). When considering ways to prevent hazing, it is critical to remember that initiation rituals evolved over time to solve the problem of free-loaders (Balish et al., 2013; Cimino, 2011, 2013). Given this adaptive function, we should consider how the interaction between the psychological mechanism of initiation rituals and the environment (e.g., sport) produces hazing behaviors (Balish et al., 2013). Understanding that initiation rituals likely stem from evolutionary psychology, but in the modern day have turned into hazing practices, can remind us that initiation rituals will likely not disappear from our sport contexts. Therefore, it is important to find ways to minimize the negative aspects and maximize the positive aspects of initiation rituals. One strategy is to change and replace hazing with positive rituals on athletic teams that unite the team in a welcoming and affirming manner. Interviewed athletes and coaches, who participated in a weekend camp that included a number of orientation activities such as ropes courses, reported the weekend resulted in increased team cohesion as well as valuing of teammates due to working together to be successful with a challenging task (Johnson, 2009). Beyond ropes and challenge courses, other positive rituals include community service projects, relay scavenger hunts, sharing meals, and outdoor recreation activities (Johnson & Donnelly, 2004). To be successful, hazing prevention and intervention strategies need to start with institutional support, be implemented by the coaches and team leaders, and supported by all (Johnson, 2009; Johnson & Donnelly, 2004; Waldron, 2012). Indeed, social agents within the sport context have a key role in changing hazing acts because, similar to the athletes, these social agents reproduce and communicate the discourse of the athlete as tough and committed as well as the discourse of hazing. Coaches and administrators have to become aware, and help their athletes become aware of how their language use about being an athlete and hazing contribute to hazing experiences. Having conversations, in order to open the discourse, is a critical first step in hazing prevention. Using interactive discussions, coaches and administrators could start a conversation focusing on the taken-for-granted notions of hazing and being an athlete, as well as empowering athletes to take action when hazing does occur because power is created via a web of relationships (Waldron, 2014).

Future research In this chapter, an overview of current knowledge about hazing within sport was provided. Numerous challenges exist to conducting research on hazing in sport. Administrators, coaches, and athletes are often weary of participation. Administrators and coaches may not be willing to provide approval for participant recruitment because of (a) concern that participation could reveal a major hazing problem on a team that would lead to a publicity nightmare and/or require the institution to confront the issue or (b) the belief that hazing was not happening on their team. Athletes may not want to participate in the study because of (a) refusing to break the code of silence of hazing or (b) their hazing experiences may defy institutional policies and/or may be illegal. Potential techniques to overcome these challenges include finding key stakeholders to support the study, reminding people that results from individual athletes and individual teams will not be calculated or shared, and offering to conduct team cohesion or hazing prevention workshops. 309

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In spite of these challenges, it is critical that researchers continue to further understand hazing in sport. First, our knowledge is primarily based on hazing within the United States and Canada. As Groves and colleagues (2012) noted, care needs to be used when drawing cross-cultural conclusions. That is, athletes from different cultures and in different countries may experience different types of hazing practices and the mechanisms of hazing may differ as well. Second, empirical research, using the innovative theoretical approaches of evolutionary psychology and post-structuralism, needs to be conducted. From an evolutionary psychology approach for example, researchers could examine whether sport teams requiring strong cooperation or sport teams with greater automatic benefits engage in more severe hazing practices (Balish et al., 2013). From a post-structuralist perspective, researchers could use critical discourse analysis (Busanich, McGannon, & Schinke, 2013) to expand understanding of how coaches, athletes, and athletic stakeholders establish, maintain, and perhaps change hazing practices based on their language use. Additionally, an examination of how the social construction of sport and gender manifests itself if hazing experiences should occur, and may counter the assumption that female athletes do not haze each other. Third, researchers need to examine the efficacy of different types of hazing prevention strategies. By increasing our knowledge about hazing in sport through new avenues of research such as these, we can work to make sport a more positive, affirming, and prideful experience for all involved.

References Allan, E. J., & Madden, M. (2013). The nature and extent of college student hazing. In J. C. Srabstein & J. Merrick (Eds.), Bullying: A public health concern (pp. 103–117). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers. Aronson, E., & Mills, J. (1959). The effect of severity of initiation on liking for a group. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59, 177–181. Atkinson, M., & Young, K. (2008). Deviance and social control in sport. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Balish, S. M., Eys, M. A., & Schulte-Hostedde, A. (2013). Evolutionary sport and exercise psychology: Integrating proximate and ultimate explanations. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 14, 413–422. Bryshun, J. (1997). Hazing in sport: An exploratory study of veteran/rookie relations. University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta. Retrieved from http://dspace.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/1880/26954/1/24577Bryshun.pdf Busanich, R., McGannon, K. R., & Schinke, R. J. (2013). Comparing elite male and female distance runners’ experiences of disordered eating through narrative analysis. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 15, 705–715. Campo, S., Poulos, G., & Sipple, J. W. (2005). Prevalence and profiling: Hazing among college students and points of intervention. American Journal of Health Behavior, 29, 137–149. Cimino, A. (2011). The evolution of hazing: Motivational mechanisms and the abuse of newcomers. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 11, 241–267. Cimino, A. (2013). Predictors of hazing motivation in a representative sample of the United States. Evolution and Human Behavior, 34, 446–452. Crow, R. B., & Macintosh, E. W. (2009). Conceptualizing a meaningful definition of hazing in sport. European Sport Management Quarterly, 9, 433–451. Dias, D., & Sá, M. J. (2014). Transition to higher education: The role of initiation practices. Educational Research, 56, 1–12. Groves, M., Griggs, G., & Leflay, K. (2012). Hazing and initiation ceremonies in university sport: Setting the scene for further research in the United Kingdom. Sport in Society, 15, 117–131. Hamilton, R., Scott, D., O’Sullivan, L., & LaChapelle, D. (2013). An examination of the rookie hazing experiences of university athletes in Canada. Canadian Journal for Social Research, 3, 35–61. Holman, M. (2004). A search for theoretical understanding of hazing practices in athletics. In J. Johnson & M. Holman (Eds.), Making the team: Inside the world of sport initiations and hazing (pp. 50–60). Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press. Hoover, N. C. (1999). National survey: Initation rites and athletics for NCAA sports teams. Retrieved from http://www.alfred.edu/news/html/hazing_study.html

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Hoover, N. C., & Pollard, N. J. (2000). Initiation rites in American high schools: A national survey. Retrieved from http://www.alfred.edu/news/html/hazing_study.html Johnson, J. (2009). From the sidelines: The role of the coach in affecting team unity and cohesion in place of hazing traditions. Journal of Coaching Education, 2, 1–28. Johnson, J. (2011). Through the liminal: A comparative analysis of communitas and rites of passages in sport hazing and initiations. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 36, 199–227. Johnson, J., & Donnelly, P. (2004). In their own words: Athletic administrators, coaches, and athletes at two universities discuss hazing policy intiatives. In J. Johnson & M. Holman (Eds.), Making the team: Inside the world of sport initiations and hazing (pp. 132–154). Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press. Keating, C. F., Pomerantz, J., Pommer, S. D., Ritt, S. J. H., Miller, L. M., & McCormick, J. (2005). Going to college and unpacking hazing: A functional approach to decrypting initiation practices among undergraduates. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 9, 104–126. Madden, M., & Allan, E. J. (2008). Hazing in view: High school students at risk. Retrieved from http:// www.hazingstudy.org/publications/hs_hazing_summary.pdf McGannon, K. R., & Busanich, R. (2010). Rethinking subjectivity in sport and exercise psychology: A feminist post-structuralist perspective on women’s embodied physical activity. In T. V. Ryba, R. J. Schinke, & G. Tenenbaum (Eds.), The cultural turn in sport psychology (pp. 203–230). Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology. McGannon, K. R., & Mauws, M. K. (2000). Discursive psychology: An alternative approach for studying adherence to exercise and physical activity. Quest, 52, 148–165. McGannon, K. R., & Mauws, M. K. (2002). Exploring the exercise adherence problem: An integration of ethnomethodological and poststructuralist perspectives. Sociology of Sport Journal, 19, 67–89. McGannon, K. R., & Spence, J. C. (2010). Speaking of the self and understanding physical activity participation: What discursive psychology can tell us about an old problem. Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise, 2, 17–38. Stuart, S. P. (2013). Warriors, machismo, and jockstraps: Sexually exploitative athletic hazing and Title IX in the public school locker room. New England Law Review, 35, 374–420. Van Raalte, J. L., Cornelius, A. E., Linder, D. E., & Brewer, B. W. (2007). The relationship between hazing and team cohesion. Journal of Sport Behavior, 30, 491–507. Waldron, J. J. (2012). A social norms approach to hazing prevention workshops. Journal of Sport Psychology in Action, 3, 12–20. Waldron, J. J. (2014). A post-structuralist approach to hazing in sport. In K. R. McGannon & R. J. Schinke (Eds.), The psychology of sub-culture in sport and physical activity: A critical approach (pp. 31–47). New York: Psychology Press. Waldron, J. J., & Kowalski, C. L. (2009). Crossing the line: Rites of passage, team aspects, and ambiguity of hazing. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 80, 291–302. Waldron, J. J., Lynn, Q., & Krane, V. (2011). Duct tape, icy hot & paddles: Narratives of initiation onto US male sport teams. Sport, Education and Society, 16, 111–125. Weedon, C. (1997). Feminist practice and poststructuralist theory (2nd Ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.

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PART IV

Motivation and emotion

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31 SE L F- R E G U L AT IO N Nikos Ntoumanis and Jennifer Cumming

Self-regulation is any effort undertaken by individuals to alter their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours in the pursuit of desired goals, values, and ideals (Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, 1994). It is a deliberate and effortful process that involves making choices, planning actions to reach these standards, and regulating the execution of these actions. Self-regulation involves a set of skills that enable individuals to take initiative, direct their efforts, sustain or improve persistence and determination, as well as focus attention as needed (Zimmerman, 1986). In this chapter we overview the key ingredients and models of self-regulation and we provide examples of how self-regulation can facilitate our understanding of goal strivings in sport.

Why is self-regulation relevant to sport? Within sport, self-regulation is fundamental to successful learning and performance, and enables athletes to realise their potential in sport as well as other life domains. According to different theories and models of self-regulation (e.g., Bandura, 1991; Baumeister, Vohs, & Tice, 2007; Zimmerman, 1986), those who are most proficient in self-regulating are self-directed in pursuit of their ideal standards while at the same time they make sacrifices and ignore impulses that might impede this achievement. They use self-knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses, combined with self-beliefs and adaptive motivational processes, to be active participants in their own development. They are also flexible in how they self-regulate, and adapt strategies to meet ever changing demands in their environment (Baumeister et al., 2007; Zimmerman, 2002). Having well-developed skills to manage thoughts, feelings, and behaviours encourages athletes to be proactive in recognising and maximising opportunities for their development. It is therefore not surprising that higher level athletes are better at self-regulating than lower level counterparts (e.g., Cleary & Zimmerman, 2001; Jonker, Elferink-Gemser, & Visscher, 2011; Kitsantas & Zimmerman, 2002). The benefits of self-regulation may also be more indirect by improving the quality of athletes’ sporting experience by enhancing their physical and mental well-being (Duda, Cumming, & Balaguer, 2005). Taking a more holistic view, it is also likely that self-regulatory skills developed via sport participation may benefit other areas of life including academics (Jonker et al., 2011) and future employment opportunities (Zimmerman, 2002). 315

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Key ingredients of self-regulation To be effective in self-regulation, two related cognitive processes are involved: metacognition and self-control. Metacognition is broadly defined as thinking about thinking (Flavell, 1979). Athletes who are high in metacognition will have the self-knowledge to regulate their own thinking, including engaging in self-monitoring and self-reflection activities (Zimmerman, 1986). These strategies enable them to identify the qualities needed to be successful in their sport and recognise a gap between this and their current state, such as when undertaking performance profiling procedures (cf. Weston, Greenlees, & Thelwell, 2013). This awareness also allows athletes to correctly reflect upon and evaluate their own performance in training or competition using psychological techniques such as imagery, self-talk, and goal-setting (Duda et al., 2005). Self-control, or colloquially known as willpower, is needed to override inappropriate or habitual response tendencies (Baumeister et al., 2007; Muraven & Baumeister, 2000). Paradoxically however, by attempting to restrain oneself from acting in a certain way the limited reservoir of self-control is used up. The strength model of self-control explains that just like a muscle becomes drained after a period of exertion, self-control is a limited resource that can become fatigued and depleted by repeated attempts to self-regulate (Baumeister et al., 2007; Muraven & Baumeister, 2000). For example, Furley, Bertrams, Englert, and Delphia (2013) found that basketball players performed worse on a decisionmaking task after self-control resources were depleted by a prior but unrelated task requiring self-control. Regularly practising self-control can strengthen these resources, enabling athletes to become more resistant to depletion (Baumeister et al., 2007). That is, if these same basketball players applied self-control on a regular basis, they would have stronger willpower to use in the future. Whilst metacognition and self-control enable self-regulated athletes to be proactive and self-directed in their efforts, self-regulation is unlikely to occur without another essential ingredient: motivation (Baumeister et al., 2007; Zimmerman & Schunk, 2008). A male swimmer can be taught how to monitor his thoughts and feelings during a training session, but will be unlikely to sustain this behaviour without some level of motivation. Drawing from different sources of motivation, the swimmer will be more likely to self-regulate if he has a strong sense of personal competence (self-efficacy), holds more mastery rather than performance goals (achievement goals), and believes that his success is due to effort rather than luck (attributions). He would likely believe that his efforts will lead to desirable results (outcome expectancy), and he will participate in his sport because it is something he personally values and finds intrinsically interesting (self-determination). In general, athletes who display such an adaptive motivational profile are more likely to pay attention to training processes, engage with interest and curiosity, invest greater effort to improve, persist even when setbacks or difficulties occur, and define failure as motivating rather than demoralising (Duda et al., 2005). These motivational qualities not only function as a precursor to self-regulate, but can also be the mechanism through which self-regulation impacts upon learning and performance (i.e., mediator), as well as being an outcome of self-regulation itself (Zimmerman & Schunk, 2008). For example, by having an awareness of what they need to improve, selfregulated athletes will deploy appropriate strategies to achieve their goals. Reflecting on their improvements would provide a sense of accomplishment, which in turn would increase belief in their own capabilities to persist in these efforts (i.e., self-efficacy) (Zimmerman, 2002). As explained by social cognitive theory, believing one has the ability to succeed in 316

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a particular situation gives that person a sense of ownership or agency over their actions (Bandura, 1997). The influential role of social cognitive theory in our understanding of selfregulation and human functioning is discussed in the next section.

A social cognitive perspective of self-regulation From the perspective of social cognitive theory, purposeful action results from the interaction between cognitive, behavioural, and environmental factors (Bandura, 1991). The cognitive component includes self-regulatory skills, cognitive processes, as well as personal characteristics such as one’s age, experience level, and personality. The behavioural component includes any overt actions or verbalisations whereas the environment describes both the physical surroundings as well as the social environment created by coaches, officials, parents, and peers. Behaviour can affect and be affected by the individual and the environment. To control our own behaviours, we need to first look at ourselves (i.e., self-observation) and then compare ourselves to a standard (i.e., self-evaluation). If we identify that a gap exists, we can enact strategies and exert effort to move ourselves closer to our goals/standards. In meeting or exceeding standards, emotional reactions will be positive and further contribute to self-regulation (also see Carver & Scheier, 2003). However, a perceived discrepancy can lead to self-dissatisfaction and other negative emotional reactions, such as anxiety or negative affect. If the gap is small and the task involved is well-learned, efforts will likely be renewed. By comparison, if the demands of the task are perceived as too high and the gap is very large, self-regulation can become dysfunctional and inadvertently debilitate performance and well-being (Bandura & Jourden, 1991). For example, athletes with perfectionistic tendencies might drive themselves to achieve these unrealistically high performance standards and suffer from self-afflicted stress and harsh self-criticism resulting from falling short of their standards (Bandura, 1991). A further implication is that self-regulation occurs in a cyclical manner so that the ever changing personal, behavioural, and environmental factors can be met. Zimmerman (2002) explained that self-generated thoughts, feelings, and actions are planned and adapted based on performance feedback to attain self-set goals. A female gymnast will use feedback from a previous vault attempt to inform what adjustments to make the next time around. By observing and monitoring what factors contribute to her vaulting performance, she may in turn implement different self-regulatory strategies to achieve her goal on the apparatus. Behavioural self-regulation involves observing and adjusting performance processes (e.g., speed of the run up, hand placement) whereas environmental self-regulation refers to observing and varying environmental conditions or outcomes (e.g., placement of the vault). Finally, covert self-regulation involves monitoring and altering cognitions and affective states (e.g., using selftalk to regain an optimal focus).

The structure of self-regulation Zimmerman (1986) proposed a model of self-regulated learning that also applies to other aspects of an athlete’s performance. Zimmerman suggested that self-regulation consists of three interdependent phases, with self-regulatory processes and motivational beliefs interacting in an open loop: (1) forethought phase, (2) performance phase, and (3) selfreflection phase. Forethought processes influence performance control processes, which in turn influence self-reflection processes (Figure 31.1). The loop is considered complete once 317

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self-reflection processes influence forethought processes on a subsequent attempt at learning or performance. Each of these processes are composed of distinctive sub-processes (Table 31.1) that have been found to distinguish between expert athletes from non-experts (Cleary & Zimmerman, 2001; Kitsantas & Zimmerman, 2002). The forethought phase prepares the athlete for learning and performance through task analysis (e.g., goal-setting) and self-motivation (e.g., self-efficacy). Expert athletes often display higher levels of forethought by setting more technique and process goals than nonexperts, as well as having more structured daily routines (Kitsantas & Zimmerman, 2002). Expert athletes also display greater self-efficacy beliefs, intrinsic interest, and the perceived instrumentality of developing specific technical skills to aid the attainment of future goals. The performance control phase occurs during performance and influences one’s attention, volition, and execution of the task through self-control strategies and self-observation. Research has well established that expert athletes deliberately engage in more psychological skills such as imagery than non-experts (Cumming & Hall, 2002). They are also more likely to self-monitor both their technique and the outcome of performance attempts (Kitsantas & Zimmerman, 2002).

Performance

Forethought

Self-reflection

Figure 31.1 Zimmerman’s (1986) model of self-regulated learning

Table 31.1 Self-regulation phases and associated subprocesses Phase

Subprocesses

Examples

Forethought

Task analysis

UÊ Goal-setting UÊ Strategic planning

Self-motivational beliefs

UÊ Goal orientation UÊ Self-efficacy UÊ Outcome expectancies UÊ Self-determination/autonomous motivation

Self-control

UÊ Self-instruction UÊ Imagery UÊ Attention focusing UÊ Task strategies UÊ Self-recording UÊ Self-experimentation

Performance/ volitional control

Self-observation Self-reflection

Self-judgment Self-reaction

UÊ Self-evaluation UÊ Attributions UÊ Self-satisfaction/affect UÊ Adaptivity

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Finally, the self-reflection phase refers to processes that occur after performance and involves reflecting via self-judgments (e.g., self-evaluations) and self-reactions (e.g., self-satisfaction/ self-dissatisfaction). Kitsantas and Zimmerman (2002) found that experts self-evaluated their performance and attributed failures to poor form or technique. By attributing the cause of their performance to something that is under their control, experts can make corrections and adjustments on their next attempt of the skill as well as preserve a sense of self-efficacy. Self-regulation research has also focused on the dynamics of goal striving. In the next section we will briefly review the literature on self-regulatory reactions to challenges in goal striving and the potential role of motivation for goal striving in predicting such reactions.

The regulation of goal strivings Goal pursuit is rarely without its challenges, particularly in achievement settings such as sport, in which the attainability of short- and long-term goals can fluctuate due to injury, biological limitations, or other constraining factors (e.g., superior play by an opponent). Athletes need to be strategic in how they invest or re-allocate their limited resources in pursuit of important goals. Understanding and predicting the ways in which athletes react to challenges during goal pursuit is important as such reactions (e.g., persistence vs. disengagement) have implications for understanding variations in goal attainment, psychological well-being, and investment in future goal striving (Smith, Ntoumanis, Duda & Vansteenkiste, 2011). In sport, perceptions of success are enhanced by evidence of triumph over mounting adversity, and the notion of “always trying, never give up” is often glorified. Brandtstädter (2009) proposed a dual model of goal pursuit and goal adjustment to explain self-regulatory reactions to discrepancies between current and desired goal states. At the core of this model is the distinction between assimilative and accommodative modes. The former refers to self-regulatory processes that involve corrective and compensatory efforts to increase resources toward the goal in order to reduce goal discrepancy. The accommodative mode reflects processes of goal updating or abandonment and selection of a new goal. Brandtstädter (2009) considered both modes as adaptive and largely independent. The assimilative mode helps to increase commitment and focus toward the goal and reduce distractions. In contrast, the accommodative mode helps to re-focus goal striving and to protect well-being when a goal is no longer attainable. Wrosch, Scheier, Carver, and Schulz (2003) held similar notions; they proposed that increasing effort and commitment toward goal striving are only part of adaptive selfregulation. These authors argued that an equally important part is the ability to disengage from a goal when that goal is no longer attainable. Such strategic goal disengagement prevents the accumulation of failure experiences and frees personal resources for future goal striving. Wrosch et al. also highlighted the further self-regulatory benefits of alternative goal engagement, or goal reengagement, which can ease the distress caused by unattainable goals by providing future opportunities for goal attainment. Wrosch et al. viewed goal disengagement and alternative reengagement as somewhat independent self-regulatory processes. For example, disengaging from an unattainable goal may not necessarily lead to alternative reengagement. Similarly, individuals may adopt an alternative goal without fully disengaging from the prior goal. Carver and Scheier (2003) further elaborated on the various self-regulatory responses to goal failure by distinguishing between a) choosing alternative means to achieve the goal, b) choosing a new goal, c) scaling back the original goal, or d) simply not adopting a new goal. The first three self-regulatory responses have the potential for positive outcomes in terms of goal pursuit and well-being, whereas the last disengagement 319

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response (which reflects more traditional views of goal abandoning) is likely to result in aimlessness. Jostmann and Koole (2009) have further distinguished between different types of disengagement, namely cognitive, affective, motivational, and behavioural. An important question arising from the work of Brandtstädter (2009) and Wrosch et al. (2003) is which factors can predict whether individuals will persist or disengage from their goal striving. Variables such as self-affirmation, that is, reflecting upon important personal values or strengths (Vohs, Park, & Schmeichel, 2013), mental contrasting between future and reality (Oettingen, 2012), and planning (Masicampo & Baumeister, 2011) have been identified as factors that can facilitate disengagement from unattainable goals. In contrast, self-focused rumination undermines goal disengagement by inducing prolonged goalrelated thinking (van Randenborgh, Hüffmeier, LeMoult, & Joormann, 2010). Issues related to the pursuit of challenging goals, goal re-investment, and futile persistence are highly relevant in achievement contexts. Sport is an ideal domain to study such issues because goal-setting is a widely used technique in this context (Weinberg, Burke, & Jackson, 1997). Examples of athletes who overcome insurmountable obstacles to achieve success are numerous, but unfortunately cases of (many more) athletes who fail to overcome such obstacles and fade into oblivion often go unnoticed. The tennis player Andy Murray demonstrated a good example of adaptive self-regulation of his goal strivings when he dropped out of the French Open in 2013 (as he had not fully recovered from an injury), missing out on his goal of playing in four grand slam finals in a row. However, this decision allowed him to recuperate in time and win Wimbledon a month later.

Goal motives and regulation of goal strivings Work in sport on antecedents and consequences of different self-regulatory responses to goal challenges is in its infancy. Recently, in a series of field and lab-based studies Ntoumanis and colleagues examined the role of different goal motives as predictors of self-regulatory responses to goal challenges. This work draws from Sheldon and Elliot’s (1999) selfconcordance model which focuses on the “why” of goal striving. According to this model, the motives underlying goal striving can be differentiated into autonomous (e.g., enjoyment, personal importance) and controlled (e.g., guilt, social approval, pressure). Smith et al. (2011) have shown that autonomous goal motives are positively related to goal effort and attainment, as well as psychological well-being. In contrast, controlled goal motives are unrelated to effort and goal attainment, but are negatively related to well-being. Such findings are not surprising; when goal pursuit is fuelled by personal endorsement and valuing of the goal, goal persistence is bound to be high. In contrast, when goal pursuit is the outcome of pressures or contingencies, commitment will always be “on the line” and goal progress and attainment will be comparatively less likely. Ntoumanis et al. (2014) examined the role of self-reported (Study 1) and primed (Study 2) autonomous and controlled goal motives in predicting objectively-assessed persistence in a lab setting during the pursuit of an increasingly difficult goal on a cycle-ergometer. In Study 1, self-reported autonomous goal motives predicted goal persistence via challenge appraisals and task-based coping. In contrast, controlled goal motives predicted threat appraisals and disengagement coping which, in turn, was a negative predictor of persistence. In Study 2, primed autonomous (compared to controlled) goal motives predicted greater persistence, positive affect, and future interest for task engagement. These results are in line with Brandtstädter’s (2009) assimilative mode of goal management and provide further support for the adaptive role of autonomous motivation for goal striving, particularly in situations 320

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where goal difficulty increases over time (but nevertheless the goal is still unattainable). However, what is the role of motivation when goals are no longer attainable? To answer this question, Smith and Ntoumanis (2014) employed Sheldon and Elliot’s (1999) idiographic goal methodology in order to elicit current personal sport-related goals in a sample of athletes. The athletes reported at mid-season difficult and valuable goals for which they had been striving since the start of the current season and which they hoped to achieve by the end of the season. The athletes then were asked to imagine that these goals became unattainable. Smith and Ntoumanis (2014) found an interesting, yet conceptually plausible results pattern with regard to autonomous goal motivation. Athletes pursuing goals autonomously reported difficulty to cognitively and affectively disengage from these goals. This finding could be explained by the fact that individuals invest more psychological and physical resources to autonomously pursued goals, because such goals are more closely aligned with the self (Sheldon & Elliot, 1999). Thus, abandoning these goals is not easy. However, autonomous goal motivation was also associated, in a positive direction, with goal reengagement. Thus, although finding it difficult to “abandon” mentally the unfulfilled goal, individuals with high autonomous goal motivation did not simply give up, but instead made reengagement plans by identifying new goals. The link between autonomous motivation and alternative goal engagement is broadly in line with the findings of Ntoumanis et al. (2014), which indicated that individuals striving with autonomous goal motives are likely to exhibit a “fighting spirit” in the face of adversity. In a subsequent work, Ntoumanis, Healy, Sedikides, Smith, and Duda (2015) examined the links between goal motives and self-regulatory responses to unattainable goals in a lab setting using again a cycle-ergometer task and manipulating goal failure without (Study 1) or with (Study 2) the opportunity to re-engage. Aligned with Carver and Scheier’s (2003) model, in Study 2 the participants were offered the opportunity to re-engage in an alternative compatible goal. Consistent with Ntoumanis et al. (2014), autonomous motives positively predicted the cognitive ease of reengagement with an alternative goal when the current goal was perceived as unattainable, especially when participants realised goal unattainability relatively early during goal striving. Again, autonomous motives were negative predictors of ease of disengagement from an unattainable goal, and this was partly due to interfering rumination.

Conclusions and future directions Self-regulation is a complex but important set of skills for success that enables developing and elite athletes to optimise their learning, performance, and well-being. Surprisingly, selfregulation has received less research attention in sport compared to other contexts such as health or education. This dearth in the literature may be due to the lack of sport-specific valid and reliable measurement tools to assess metacognition and self-regulatory processes. Recent progress has been made towards filling this gap (e.g., Toering, Jordet, & Ripegutua, 2013). However, there is not yet a comprehensive measure of self-regulation in sport that pertains to both practice and competition settings as well as covering the main processes/ strategies common to most models/frameworks of self-regulation. Researchers are also encouraged to explore other relatively untapped methodologies to explore self-regulation, including think-aloud protocols, which involves asking athletes to verbalise their thoughts as they train or compete. Rather than depending on memory to later recall experiences, think-aloud protocols measures capture self-regulation processes concurrently with learning and performance using audio and/or video recordings (Greene, Robertson, & Croker Costa, 2011). From an applied perspective, think-aloud protocols can 321

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also be used by coaches to encourage their athletes to better monitor and control their own self-regulation, as well as give insight into athletes’ cognitive, metacognitive, motivational, and behavioural processes as revealed by the recorded verbalisations (Green et al., 2011). Indeed, improved ways to capture self-regulation will probably lead to more and effective interventions to promote athletes’ knowledge and deployment of different strategies. Athletes are unlikely to develop refined abilities to self-regulate through natural learning experiences alone (Kitsantas & Zimmerman, 2002), and will most likely benefit from interventions on how to more effectively manage their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. Future research should also examine how athletes can develop relevant experience which will help them to form more accurate assessments of goal difficulty and facilitate awareness of internal and external limits, as well as an earlier realisation of whether they should persist or disengage from their goal. This could be as specific as choosing one sport goal over another, or more general such as terminating one’s athletic career when appropriate (and adopting new life goals outside sport) as opposed to prolonging their career at the expense of their psyche and body. Future cross-domain investigations of multiple goal striving would also be useful, as adaptive and maladaptive self-regulation responses to goal difficulties (e.g., in sport) may interfere with subsequent goal pursuit in other life domains (e.g., school). Further, the role of cultural factors (societal or specific to a particular sport) merit future attention as athletes’ decisions to disengage or persist might vary as a function of those variables. For instance, in cultures with too strict codes of conduct and norm-oriented functions individuals do not have much space for “free movement” (Triandis, 1989). Finally, coaches and applied sport psychologists need to be also aware of athletes’ motives for goal striving in order to help these athletes to successfully self-regulate their goal pursuits particularly when faced with challenges.

References Bandura, A. (1991). Self-regulation of motivation through anticipatory and self-regulatory mechanisms. In R. A. Dienstbier (Ed.), Perspectives on motivation: Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (Vol. 38, pp. 69–164). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman. Bandura, A., & Jourden, F. J. (1991). Self-regulatory mechanisms governing the impact of social comparison on complex decision making. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 941–951. Baumeister, R. F., Heatherton, T. F., & Tice, D. M. (1994). Losing control: How and why people fail at selfregulation. San Diego, CA: Academic. Baumeister, R. F., Vohs, K. D., & Tice, D. M. (2007). The strength model of self-control. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, 351–355. Brandtstädter, J. (2009). Goal pursuit and goal adjustment: Self-regulation and intentional selfdevelopment in changing developmental contexts. Advances in Life Course Research, 14, 52–62. Carver, C. S., & Scheier, M. F. (2003). A self-regulatory perspective on personality. In T. Millon & M. J. Lerner (Eds.), Comprehensive handbook of psychology: Personality and social psychology (Vol. 5, pp. 185–208). New York: Wiley. Cleary, T. J., & Zimmerman, B. J. (2001). Self-regulation differences during athletic practice by experts, non-experts, and novices. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 13, 185–206. Cumming, J., & Hall, C. (2002). Deliberate imagery practice: Examining the development of imagery skills in competitive athletes. Journal of Sports Sciences, 20, 137–145. Duda, J. L., Cumming, J., & Balaguer, I. (2005). Enhancing athletes’ self-regulation, task involvement and self-determination via psychological skills training. In D. Hackfort, J. Duda, & R. Lidor (Eds.), Handbook of research in applied sport and exercise psychology: International perspectives (pp. 143–165). Morgantown, WV: FIT. Flavell, J. H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry. American Psychologist, 3(10).

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Furley, P., Bertrams, A., Englert, C., & Delphia, A. (2013). Ego depletion, attentional control, and decision-making in sport. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 14, 900–904. Greene, J. A., Robertson, J., & Croker Costa, L. J. (2011). Assessing self-regulated learning using thinking-aloud methods. In B. J. Zimmerman & D. H. Schunk (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation of learning and performance (pp. 313–328). New York: Routledge. Jonker, L., Elferink-Gemser, M. T., & Visscher, C. (2011). The role of self-regulatory skills in sport and academic performances of elite youth athletes. Talent Development & Excellence, 3, 263–275. Jostmann, N. B., & Koole, S. L. (2009). When persistence is futile: A functional analysis of action orientation and goal disengagement. In G. B. Moskowitz & H. Grant (Eds.), The psychology of goals (pp. 337–361). New York: Guilford Press. Kitsantas, A., & Zimmerman, B. J. (2002). Comparing self-regulatory processes among novice, nonexpert, and expert volleyball players: A microanalytic study. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 14, 91–105. Masicampo, E. J., & Baumeister, R. F. (2011). Consider it done! Plan making can eliminate the cognitive effects of unfulfilled goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101, 667–683. Muraven, M., & Baumeister, R. F. (2000). Self-regulation and depletion of limited resources: Does self-control resemble a muscle? Psychological Bulletin, 126, 247–259. Ntoumanis, N., Healy, L. C., Smith, A. L., Sedikides, C., & Duda, J. L. (2014). Self-regulatory responses to unattainable goals: The role of goal motives. Self and Identity, 13, 594–612. Ntoumanis, N., Healy, L. C., Sedikides, C., Duda, J. L., Stewart, B., Smith, A., & Bond, J. (2014). When the going gets tough: The “why” of goal striving matters. Journal of Personality, 8, 225–236. Oettingen, G. (2012). Future thought and behaviour change. European Review of Social Psychology, 23, 1–63. Sheldon, K. M., & Elliot, A. J. (1999). Goal striving, need satisfaction, and longitudinal well-being: The self-concordance model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 482–497. Smith, A. L., & Ntoumanis, N. (2014). An examination of goal motives and athletes’ self-regulatory responses to unattainable goals (special issue: Building Bridges between Motivation and SelfRegulation in Sport, Exercise, and Physical Education). International Journal of Sport Psychology, 45, 538–558. Smith, A. L., Ntoumanis, N., Duda, J. L., & Vansteenkiste, M. (2011). Goal striving, coping, and wellbeing: A prospective investigation of the self-concordance model in sport. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 33, 124–145. Toering, T., Jordet, G., & Ripegutu, A. (2013). Effective learning among elite football players: The development of a football-specific self-regulated learning questionnaire. Journal of Sports Sciences, 31, 1412–1420. Triandis, H. C. (1989). The self and social behavior in differing cultural contexts. Psychological Review, 96, 506–520. Van Randenborgh, A., Hüffmeier, J., LeMoult, J., & Joormann, J. (2010). Letting go of unmet goals: Does self-focused rumination impair goal disengagement? Motivation and Emotion, 34, 325–332. Vohs, K. D., Park, J. K., & Schmeichel, B. J. (2013). Self-affirmation can enable goal disengagement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104, 14–27. Weinberg, R. S., Burke, K. L., & Jackson, A. W. (1997). Coaches’ and players’ perceptions of goal setting in junior tennis: An exploratory investigation. The Sport Psychologist, 11, 426–439. Weston, N., Greenlees, I., & Thelwell, R. (2013). A review of Butler and Hardy’s (1992) performance profiling procedure within sport. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 6, 1–21. Wrosch, C., Scheier, M. F., Carver, C. S., Schulz, R. (2003). The importance of goal disengagement in adaptive self-regulation: When giving up is beneficial. Self and Identity, 2, 1–20. Zimmerman, B. J. (1986). Becoming a self-regulated learner: Which are the key subprocesses? Contemporary Educational Psychology, 11, 307–313. Zimmerman, B. J. (2002). Becoming a self-regulated learner: An overview. Theory into Practice, 41, 64. Zimmerman, B. J., & Schunk, D. H. (2008). Motivation: An essential dimension of self-regulated learning. In D. H. Schunk & B. J. Zimmerman (Eds.), Motivation and self-regulated learning: Theory, research, and applications (pp. 1–30). New York: Routledge.

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32 ONLINE MOOD P R O F I L I N G A N D SE L FR E G U L AT IO N O F A F F E C T I V E R E SP O N SE S Andrew M. Lane and Peter C. Terry The link between affective responses and performance in sports is well established (Beedie, Terry, & Lane, 2000; Hanin, 1997, 2010) and it is not uncommon for athletes to attribute poor performance to an inability to get into the right mood or to keep their emotions in check. Such reflections suggest that individuals are able to identify an optimal mindset for performance and that self-regulation of psychological states is a feature of preparation for competition. The present chapter explores strategies that athletes might use to generate their optimal mindset, including an online method of mood profiling that enables athletes to monitor how they feel, to consider whether that is how they want to feel, and offers suggested self-regulation strategies. We have elaborated at length on distinctions between the related constructs of mood and emotion (Beedie, Terry, & Lane, 2005; Terry & Lane, 2010). Emotions are typically more intense than moods, shorter lasting, stem from an identifiable source, and can be differentiated from mood by several other criteria (see Table 32.1). There are times, however, when emotion-mood distinctions become blurred, considering that affective states such as anxiety, happiness, and sadness are experienced as both emotions and moods. The situation is complicated further when we consider measurement issues. Measures of mood and emotion often use single adjective checklists (“confused,” “nervous,” etc.) and different scales use the same adjectives to assess supposedly distinct constructs. For example, the item “nervous” is considered to assess affect when part of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988), emotion when part of the Sport Emotions Questionnaire (SEQ; Jones, Lane, Bray, Uphill, & Catlin, 2005), and mood when part of the Profile of Mood States (POMS; McNair, Lorr, & Droppleman, 1971). Attempts to develop scales that distinguish between moods and emotions (Beedie, Terry, Lane, & Devonport, 2011) are rare and hence, in measurement terms at least, distinctions between the two constructs remain clouded. For the purposes of the present chapter, differentiation between emotions and moods is not essential. Instead, the content is focused on ways to gain insight, at an individual level, into how affective responses (or, more simply, feelings) can be assessed, contextualized, and regulated, with the aim of generating an optimal mindset for the task at hand. 324

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Table 32.1 Selected distinctions between emotions and moods (based on Beedie et al., 2005) Criterion

Emotion

Mood

Awareness of cause Cause Consequences Control Display Duration Intensity Intentionality Stability Timing

Individual is aware of cause Caused by a specific event or object Largely behavioral and expressive Not controllable Displayed Brief Intense About something Fleeting and volatile Rises and dissipates quickly

Individual may be unaware of cause Cause is less well defined Largely cognitive More controllable Less visible Enduring Diffuse Not about anything in particular More stable Rises and dissipates slowly

Measurement of affective responses Affective responses are commonly assessed via self-report scales that may differ in the number of dimensions they capture; the PANAS assesses two broad dimensions of positive affect and negative affect, the POMS and derivatives such as the Brunel Mood Scale (BRUMS; Terry, Lane, & Fogarty, 2003; Terry, Lane, Lane, & Keohane, 1999) assess six discrete mood dimensions (anger, confusion, depression, fatigue, tension, and vigor), and the SEQ (Jones et al., 2005) assesses five emotion dimensions (excitement, happiness, dejection, anxiety, and anger). The best choice of scale depends largely on contextual issues, in particular the specific purpose of the assessment. Alternative strategies, such as the Individualized Zones of Optimal Functioning (IZOF; Hanin, 1997) start by identifying feelings of interest and their likely influence on performance. The IZOF model promotes the identification of specific emotional responses at an individualized level, within a two-dimensional framework of performance functionality (optimal–dysfunctional) and hedonic tone (pleasure–displeasure), to anticipate and predict the idiosyncratic effects of emotions on performance. Although the IZOF approach has the advantage of assessing feelings deemed to be relevant to performance by the athlete rather than the researcher, there are limitations to the approach. First, normative data for the POMS (Terry & Lane, 2000) and the BRUMS (Terry & Lane, 2010) indicate that close to 50 percent of athletes score zero for depressed mood. Using an IZOF approach, assessment of depressed mood might be deemed to be irrelevant for a particular athlete, whereas even minor symptoms of depressed mood (e.g., low levels of unhappiness) are proposed to act as a catalyst for other negative mood responses and ultimately may debilitate performance (Lane & Terry, 2000, 2005). Second, when using individualized approaches, the absence of normative data makes the interpretation of raw scores more challenging, although multiple administrations of any scale with the same individual(s) offers the potential to generate personal norms (Hanin, 1997; Terry, 1995). The influence of pleasant and unpleasant feelings on performance is neither linear nor consistent. For example, positively-valenced feelings, such as happiness, are associated with optimal performance in some studies and dysfunctional performance in others (Hanin, 1997). Equally, some individuals report they perform well when feeling happy, whereas other individuals report that happiness associates with poor performance (Lane & Chappell, 2001). The same trends apply to negatively-valenced feelings, such as anger and anxiety. 325

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Although research summaries generally point to the debilitative effects of anxiety on highlevel performance (Woodman & Hardy, 2003), elite athletes may hold the view that feeling anxious will facilitate their performance (Jones & Swain, 1995). If an elite athlete is convinced that feeling anxious will facilitate performance, then instead of implementing strategies to reduce anxiety, and despite the unpleasantness of anxiety symptoms such as pre-competition vomiting, the individual may tolerate an unpleasant experience on the grounds that the end justifies the means. Many athletes report that feeling angry or anxious can assist performance and habitually engage in strategies to increase the intensity of these emotions (Lane, Beedie, Devonport, & Stanley, 2011). It can be helpful to have objective indicators of the intensity of affective responses associated with best performance to provide a standard against which to regulate feelings. The best emotion indicator is arguably the one that helps athletes identify optimal performance states simply and precisely. From this perspective, combining discrete states into larger more diffuse constructs, such as positive and negative affect, represents a loss of useful information. In this chapter, we focus on assessment of affective responses using the BRUMS (Terry et al., 1999, 2003), which has been subjected to comprehensive psychometric scrutiny and is available online via the In The Mood website (http://www.moodprofiling.com/). The factor structure of the BRUMS has been supported in sport-specific contexts (Fazackerley, Lane, & Mahoney, 2003) and among special populations (Argus, Terry, Bramston, & Dinsdale, 2004). It has been translated and cross-validated in Afrikaans (Terry, Potgieter, & Fogarty, 2003), Brazilian Portuguese (Rohlfs, Terry, de Carvalho, Krebs, Andrade, Rotta, & Iizuka, 2008), Chinese (Zhang, Si, Chung, Du, & Terry, 2014), Hungarian and Italian (Lane, Soos, Leibinger, Karsai, & Hamar, 2007), Persian (Terry, Malekshahi, & Delva, 2012), Japanese (Yatabe, Oyama, Fujiya, Kato, Seki, & Kohno, 2006), and Malaysian contexts (Hashim, Zulkifli, & Yusof, 2010; Lan, Lane, Roy, & Hanin, 2012). Importantly, the BRUMS has shown utility in several applied settings, as part of medical screening protocols (Galambos, Terry, Moyle, & Locke, 2005), assessing risk of post-traumatic stress disorder among combat troops (van Wijk, Martin, & Hans-Arendse, 2013) assessing risk of youth suicide (Gould, Marrocco, Kleinman, Thomas, Mostkoff, Côté, & Davies, 2005), and for monitoring cardiac rehabilitation patients (Sties, Gonzáles, Netto, Wittkopf, Lima, & de Carvalho, 2014). Finally, comprehensive tables of normative data have been generated for use with adolescent and adult, athletes and non-athletes (Terry & Lane, 2010).

Online interventions The growing reach of the Internet, with more than 2 billion users, supports the case for developing high-quality, self-help interventions. The multimedia and interactive capabilities of online services offer novel ways to engage the public, improve data capture and storage efficiency, and provide an estimated 80 percent reduction of therapists’ time (Cugleman, Thelwall, & Dawes, 2011). Collectively, such factors may eventually see online interventions become more the norm than traditional approaches. There is growing evidence of the efficacy of online interventions. In clinical settings, patients who followed a self-help intervention for the treatment of anxiety and depression recovered as effectively as patients who worked with a therapist face-to-face (Hirai & Clum, 2006). In health settings, self-help interventions are used to assist people to manage cravings, reduce binge drinking, and stop smoking (Cugelman et al., 2011; Webb, Joseph, Yardley, & Michie, 2010). In social settings, participants using a self-help intervention successfully learned to manage anxiety before giving presentations (Varley, Webb, & Sheeran, 2011). In 326

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Figure 32.1 Landing page of the In The Mood website, with various context options

Figure 32.2 Example mood profile and overall review

sport, self-help interventions have led to runners experiencing more pleasant emotions and performing better (Lane, Davis, & Devonport, 2011). Figure 32.1 shows the landing page of the In The Mood website, which offers various situational contexts in which mood profiling might be relevant. The single adjective approach of the scale allows for ease of completion and the software is programmed to prevent missing items, an issue commonly experienced when collecting self-report data. The website provides instant reports triggered by the pattern of mood responses. Raw scores (termed “Your answers” in the report) are transformed into standard scores (termed 327

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Table 32.2 “In the Mood” reports based on stereotypical mood profiles Profile

Report

Everest

Based on your pattern of responses, you have what is known as the Everest profile. If you take a look at the graphical representation of your profile, you will notice that it has a peak like that of Mount Everest. You have obtained this profile because you are currently exhibiting significantly higher levels of vigor than the average individual and lower levels of tension, depression, anger, fatigue, and confusion than the average individual. The Everest profile is often associated with champion athletes, which means that you are currently exhibiting the same mood as champions! Using the analogy of a traffic light, your scores are all in the green zone (green symbolizing Go!) and are associated with good performance! Based on your pattern of responses, you have what is known as the Iceberg profile. If you take a look at the graphical representation, you will notice that your profile has the shape of an iceberg, hence its name. This profile is characterized by higher levels of vigor and lower levels of tension, depression, anger, fatigue, and confusion than the average individual. The Iceberg profile is often associated with elite athletes, which means that you are currently exhibiting the same mood as an elite athlete. Using the analogy of a traffic light, your scores are all in the green zone (green symbolizing Go!) and are associated with good performance! You are clearly not feeling your best at the moment! Your profile, based on your pattern of responses, is known as the Inverse Iceberg. If you have a look at the graphical representation, you will notice how your profile has the shape of an inverted iceberg. The inverse iceberg profile is characterized by a lower level of vigor, and higher levels of tension, depression, anger, fatigue, and confusion than the average individual. This type of mood profile is associated with a poor state of physical and mental functioning. Using the analogy of a traffic light, your scores are all in the amber or red zones. Those in the amber zone serve as a warning signal for you to slow down or prepare to stop and to pay close attention to them, as they can be detrimental to performance. Those scores in the red zone act as a signal (just as you would stop when the traffic lights turn red) for follow-up action as they clearly have the potential to impede performance. Have a look at some of the reports below, particularly those with red lights.

Iceberg

Inverse iceberg

“Your scores” in the report) based on normative data (Terry & Lane, 2010) and explained using a traffic light system. For anger, confusion, fatigue, and tension, a standard score < 50 is classified as green, 50–70 as amber, and > 70 as red. For depressed mood, a slightly more conservative classification strategy is used, with raw scores of 0 (standard score of 44) classified as green, 1–6 (standard scores 48–67) as amber, and t 7 (standard score t 71) as red. For vigor, standard scores > 50 are classified as green, 40–50 as amber, and < 40 as red. Figure 32.2 shows the profile of an athlete reporting scores for tension, depression, fatigue, and confusion in the amber zone, and an anger score in the red zone, a profile unlikely to be associated with optimal performance, which would trigger recommendations of evidence-based strategies (Terry, Dinsdale, Karageorghis, & Lane, 2006) to modify mood responses. Some stereotypical mood profiles are well established in the literature. Much has been written about the iceberg profile (Morgan, 1980), combining above average vigor with below average anger, confusion, depression, fatigue, and tension, reported to be indicative of both positive mental health and superior performance (Raglin, 2001). The Everest and inverse iceberg profiles have also been discussed in the literature (Terry, 2005), and are regarded as 328

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90

80 Inverse Iceberg (n = 244) Inverse Everest (n = 64)

T - score

70

Surface (n = 349) 60 Iceberg (n = 695) 50

Shark Fin (n = 409)

Submerged (n = 603) Confusion

Fatigue

Vigor

Anger

Depression

Tension

40

Figure 32.3 Six distinct mood profiles identified via cluster analysis (N = 2,364). Adapted from Parsons-Smith (2015)

highly facilitative and debilitative of performance, respectively. Reports triggered by these stereotypical mood profiles are shown in Table 32.2. Four novel mood profiles – termed the surface, submerged, shark fin, and inverse Everest profiles – have been identified recently (see Figure 32.3; Parsons-Smith, Terry, & Machin, 2014) based on cluster analysis of three separate BRUMS datasets, each of | 2,000 profiles derived from the In The Mood website. Research has yet to establish the impact of these newly-identified mood profiles on athletic performance, although it has been shown that the inverse Everest and shark fin profiles are associated with debilitated performance, assessed by reduced adherence to safety behaviors, in high-risk vocations (Parsons-Smith, 2015). Given the very high scores for anger, confusion, and depressed mood associated with the inverse Everest profile, it may be indicative of clinical mood disorders. It should be emphasized, however, that although the BRUMS has demonstrated utility as a screening tool for clinical conditions (van Wijk et al., 2013), it should not be seen as a diagnostic tool. Regardless of whether associations are established empirically between specific mood profiles and important outcome variables, from an applied perspective, there are benefits in having access to a simple online tool that provides insights into the mindset and feelings of an athlete.

Self-regulation of affective responses People intuitively play an active role in managing their own moods and emotions. Over 400 self-regulation strategies have been reported in the literature (Stanley, Lane, Beedie, Friesen, & Devonport, 2012; Terry, Dinsdale, Karageorghis, & Lane, 2006; Thayer, Newman, & McClain, 1994). Common strategies include listening to music, talking with someone, using humor, relaxation techniques, engaging in physical activity, self-talk, venting, or spending time alone. Self-regulation of affective responses carries the implicit assumption that people are aware of an optimal set of feelings and can detect disparity from that standard (Carver, 2004; Webb & Sheeran, 2006). For example, an athlete might be feeling extremely tense prior to performance, and the perceived discrepancy between current and desired feelings may promote efforts to 329

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Figure 32.4 In The Mood strategies to regulate feelings of high anger and low vigor

relax. Alternatively, an athlete might be feeling too relaxed and attempt to generate tension. The key point here is that athletes instinctively monitor their mood states and frequently engage in self-regulation strategies. Figure 32.4 shows a series of recommended strategies to reduce feelings of anger and increase feelings of vigor derived from the In The Mood website. Affect regulation strategies have been shown to have a beneficial effect on coping under pressure in sport (Balk, Adriaanse, de Ridder, & Evers, 2013), whereas the simple suppression of negative feelings may have a deleterious effect on, for example, endurance performance (Wagstaff, 2014). Actively creating an appropriate mindset for competition appears to be more effective than trying to suppress affective responses (Hanin, 2010; Wagstaff, 2014), suggesting that as far as dysfunctional emotions in sport are concerned, prevention might be better than cure. It has been shown that high-performance athletes will often regulate or suppress expression of their own emotions to comply with group norms “for the sake of the team” (Tamminen & Crocker, 2013). Intuitive affect regulation strategies might be augmented by use of therapeutic techniques such as expressive writing (i.e., expressing feelings and thoughts about stressful events in writing; Pennebaker, 1997), which has been shown to be efficacious for modulating emotional and biochemical responses to traumatic events, by helping to make more sense of them, thereby promoting acceptance and healing (Pennebaker, 2010). Expressive writing may also benefit mental preparation for sport. Terry (2012), for example, reported on using expressive writing prospectively for affect regulation by having athletes write a “press report” of their performances in advance of a forthcoming competition (see Table 32.3). An implementation-intentions strategy may also be effective for affect regulation (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006). For example, if an athlete recognizes that she becomes overly anxious before competition and wishes to reduce this feeling, she might develop an if-then plan, such as “if I feel anxious, then I will remind myself of how well I performed in training.” 330

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Table 32.3 Prospective “press report” for an international field hockey player Report As the Hockeyroos took the field today, expectation filled the air … One player in particular (name of player), looked like she was having the time of her life, as though this was the very moment she was born for. For her, this day had been a long time coming, but that long time had also allowed for preparation and now she was ready. She played with the confidence of someone who trusted their own ability. With each play she was strong, agile and determined. Driven by something deep inside of her, she never stopped running today and was possibly the most talkative player on the field, encouraging her teammates at every possible moment. As the sun went down on this glorious day in Sydney, nothing could wipe the smile from her face.

To assist the process of affect regulation, athletes and practitioners might consider the following approaches: s Clarify beliefs about emotional states (known as meta-emotion beliefs; see Lane, Beedie et al., 2011). Although some athletes associate feeling calm, alert, and happy with best performance, others are convinced that intense anxiety and/or anger is helpful for them and will actively attempt to promote such feelings. s Systematically identify mood profiles associated with best and worst performance. This is achieved over time by regularly profiling pre-competition mood responses and rating the quality of performances. s Consider the use and effectiveness of a wide range of affect regulation strategies. Some strategies perceived to be effective may not actually be helpful, or may have the potential to be effective but are being used inappropriately. For example, many athletes use music to regulate emotions before competition (Lane & Davis et al., 2011) but may inadvertently choose music that elicits the wrong emotional response. s Recognize that some performance enhancement strategies also act to modify affective responses. For example, using imagery to recreate or anticipate a successful performance may also elicit the associated emotions.

Conclusion In this chapter, we have promoted the use of the In The Mood website as a method of providing simple assessments of affective responses, potential impacts of current feelings upon performance and, where appropriate, evidence-based recommendations of affect regulation strategies. Information provided by the In The Mood website offers a valuable catalyst for discussions with athletes about the cause and likely impact of their feelings, and the addition of qualitative information from other sources may produce a potent combination of strategies with which to assist athletes to achieve optimal performance.

References Argus, G. R., Terry, P. C., Bramston, P., & Dinsdale, S. L. (2004). Measurement of mood in adolescents with intellectual disability. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 25, 493–507. Retrieved from http:// www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15541628 Balk, Y. A., Adriaanse, M. A., de Ridder, D. T. D., & Evers, C. (2013). Coping under pressure: Employing emotion regulation strategies to enhance performance under pressure. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 35, 408–418. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23966450

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Beedie, C. J., Terry, P. C., & Lane, A. M. (2000). The profile of mood states and athletic performance: Two meta-analyses. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 12, 49–68. doi:10.1080/10413200008404213 Beedie, C. J., Terry, P. C., & Lane, A. M. (2005). Distinctions between emotion and mood. Cognition and Emotion, 19, 847–878. doi:10.1080/02699930541000057 Beedie, C. J., Terry, P. C., Lane, A. M., & Devonport, T. (2011). Differential assessment of emotions and moods: Development and validation of the Emotion and Mood Components of Anxiety Questionnaire. Personality and Individual Differences, 50, 228–233. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2010.09.034 Carver, C. S. (2004). Self-regulation of action and affect. In R. F. Baumeister & K. D. Vohs (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation: Research, theory and applications (pp. 13–39). New York: Guilford Press. Cugelman, B., Thelwall, M., & Dawes, P. (2011). Online interventions for social marketing health behavior change campaigns: A meta-analysis of psychological architectures and adherence factors. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 13(1), e17. doi:10.2196/jmir.1367 Fazackerley, R., Lane, A. M., & Mahoney, C. (2003). Confirmatory factor analysis of the Brunel Mood Scale for use in water-skiing. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 97, 657–661. Retrieved from http://www. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14620257 Galambos, S. A., Terry, P. C., Moyle, G. M., & Locke, S. A. (2005). Psychological predictors of injury among elite athletes. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 39, 351–354. doi:10.1136/bjsm.2005.018440 Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A metaanalysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69–119. doi:10.1016/ S0065-2601(06)38002-1 Gould, M. S., Marrocco, F. A., Kleinman, M., Thomas, J. G., Mostkoff, K., Côté, J., & Davies, M. (2005). Evaluating iatrogenic risk of youth suicide screening programs: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of the American Medical Association, 293, 1635–1643. doi:10.1001/jama.293.13.1635 Hanin, Y. L. (1997). Emotions and athletic performance: Individual zones of optimal functioning model. European Yearbook of Sport Psychology, 1, 29–72. Hanin, Y. L. (2010). Coping with anxiety in sport. In A. R. Nicholls (Ed.), Coping in sport: Theory, methods, and related constructs (pp. 159–175). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science. Hashim, H. A., Zulkifli, E. Z., & Yusof, H. A. (2010). Factorial validation of Malaysian adapted Brunel Mood Scale in an adolescent sample. Asian Journal of Sports Medicine, 1, 185–194. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3289187/ Hirai, M., & Clum, G. A. (2006). A meta-analytic study of self-help interventions for anxiety disorders. Behavior Therapy, 37, 99–111. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16942965 Jones, G., & Swain, A. (1995). Predispositions to experience debilitative and facilitative anxiety in elite and nonelite performers. Sport Psychologist, 9, 201–211. Jones, M. V., Lane, A. M., Bray, S. R., Uphill, M., & Catlin, J. (2005). Development of the Sport Emotions Questionnaire. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 27, 407–431. Lan, M. F., Lane, A. M., Roy, J., & Hanin, N. A. (2012). Validity of the Brunel Mood Scale for use with Malaysian athletes. Journal of Sport Science and Medicine, 11, 131–135. Retrieved from http://www. jssm.org/vol11/n1/19/v11n1-19abst.php Lane, A. M., & Chappell, R. H. (2001). Mood and performance relationships at the World Student Games basketball competition. Journal of Sport Behavior, 24, 182–196. Lane, A. M., & Terry, P. C. (2000). The nature of mood: Development of a conceptual model with a focus on depression. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 12, 16–33. doi:10.1080/10413200008404211 Lane, A. M., & Terry, P. C. (2005). Test of a conceptual model of mood-performance relationships with a focus on depression: A review and synthesis five years on. In T. Morris, P. Terry, S. Gordon, S. Hanrahan, L. Ievleva, & P. Tremayne (Eds.), Promoting health and performance for life. Sydney, NSW: International Society of Sport Psychology. Lane, A. M., Davis, P. A., & Devonport, T. J. (2011). Emotion regulation during running: A test of interventions using music. Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, 10, 400–407. Retrieved from www. jssm.org/vol10/n2/22/v10n2-22pdf.pdf Lane, A. M., Beedie, C. J., Devonport, T. J., & Stanley, D. M. (2011). Instrumental emotion regulation in sport: Relationships between beliefs about emotion and emotion regulation strategies used by athletes. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 21, e445–e451. doi:10.1111/j.16000838.2011.01364.x Lane, A. M., Soos, I., Leibinger, E., Karsai, I., & Hamar, P. (2007). Validity of the Brunel Mood Scale for use with UK, Italian and Hungarian athletes. In A. M. Lane (ed.), Mood and human performance: Conceptual, measurement, and applied issues (pp. 119–130). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science.

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McNair, D. M., Lorr, M., & Droppleman, L. F. (1971). Manual for the Profile of Mood States. San Diego, CA: Educational and Industrial Testing Services. Morgan, W. P. (1980). Test of champions: The iceberg profile. Psychology Today, 11, 92–93, 97–99, 102, 108. Parsons-Smith, R. L. (2015). Online mood profiling, mood response clusters, and mood-performance relationships in high-risk vocations. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Southern Queensland, Australia. Parsons-Smith, R. L., Terry, P. C., & Machin, T. (2014). Profile clusters of mood responses. Proceedings of the 28th International Congress of Applied Psychology, Paris, France, 8–13 July. Retrieved from https://bcom.mci-group.com/Abstract/Statistics/AbstractStatisticsViewPage.aspx?AbstractID=183467 Pennebaker, J. W. (1997). Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process. Psychological Science, 8, 162–166. doi:http://www.jstor.org/stable/40063169 Pennebaker, J. W. (2010). Expressive writing in a clinical setting. The Independent Practitioner, 30, 23–25. Retrieved from http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/faculty/pennebaker/reprints/ Pennebaker_IP2010.pdf Raglin, J. S. (2001). Psychological factors in sport performance: The mental health model revisited. Sports Medicine, 31, 875–890. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11665914 Rohlfs, I. C. P. de M., Terry, P. C., de Carvalho, T., Krebs, R. J., Andrade, A., Rotta, T. M., & Iizuka, C. A. (2008). Development and initial validation of the Brazil Mood Scale. In N. Voudouris & V. Mrowinski (Eds.), Psychology leading change (pp. 269–273). Melbourne, VIC: Australian Psychological Society. Retrieved from http://eprints.usq.edu.au/4353/ Stanley, D. M., Lane, A. M., Beedie, C. J., Friesen, A., & Devonport, T. J. (2012). Emotion regulation strategies used in the hour before running. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 10, 159–171. doi:10.1080/1612197X.2012.671910 Sties, S. W., Gonzáles, A. I., Netto, A. S., Wittkopf, P. G., Lima, D. P., & de Carvalho, T. (2014). Validation of the Brunel Mood Scale for cardiac rehabilitation program. Revista Brasileira de Medicina do Esporte, 20, 5–8. doi:10.1590/1517-86922014200401999 Tamminen, K. A., & Crocker, P. R. E. (2013). “I control my emotions for the sake of the team”: Emotional self-regulation and interpersonal emotion regulation among female high-performance curlers. Psychology of Sport & Exercise, 14, 737–747. doi:10.1016/j.psychsport.2013.05.002 Terry, P. C. (1995). The efficacy of mood state profiling among elite performers: A review and synthesis. Sport Psychologist, 9, 309–324. Terry, P. C. (2005). In the mood: Mood profiling applications and mood regulation strategies. In ISSP 11th World Congress of Sport Psychology, 15–19 August 2005, Sydney. Australia. http://eprints.usq.edu.au/657/ Terry, P. C. (2012). Citius, altius, fortius: If only it were that simple. Proceedings of the International Convention on Science, Education and Medicine in Sport, Glasgow, UK, 19–24 July. Retrieved from http://eprints.usq.edu.au/22574/ Terry, P. C., & Lane, A. M. (2000). Normative values for the Profile of Mood States for use with athletic samples. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 12, 93–109. Retrieved from http://eprints.usq. edu.au/4385/ Terry, P. C., & Lane, A. M. (2010). User guide for the Brunel Mood Scale. Toowoomba, QLD: Peter Terry Consultants. Terry, P. C., Lane, A. M., & Fogarty, G. (2003). Construct validity of the Profile of Mood States-A for use with adults. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 4, 125–139. doi:10.1016/S1469-0292(01)00035-8 Terry, P. C., Malekshahi, M., & Delva, H. A. (2012). Development and initial validation of the Farsi Mood Scale. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 10, 1–11. doi:10.1080/161219 7X.2012.645133 Terry, P. C., Potgieter, J. R., & Fogarty, G. J. (2003). The Stellenbosch Mood Scale: A dual-language measure of mood. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 1, 231–245. Retrieved from http://eprints.usq.edu.au/4397/ Terry, P. C., Dinsdale, S. L., Karageorghis, C. I., & Lane, A. M. (2006). Use and perceived effectiveness of pre-competition mood regulation strategies among athletes. In M. Katsikitis (Ed.), Psychology bridging the Tasman: Science, culture and practice (pp. 420–424). Melbourne, VIC: Australian Psychological Society. Retrieved from http://eprints.usq.edu.au/4362/ Terry, P. C., Lane, A. M., Lane, H. J., & Keohane, L. (1999). Development and validation of a mood measure for adolescents. Journal of Sports Sciences, 17, 861–872. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm. nih.gov/pubmed/10585166

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Thayer, R. E., Newman, J. R., & McClain, T. M. (1994). Self-regulation of mood: Strategies for changing a bad mood, raising energy, and reducing tension. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 910–925. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7983582 van Wijk, C. H., Martin, J. H., & Hans-Arendse, C. (2013). Clinical utility of the Brunel Mood Scale in screening for post-traumatic stress risk in a military population. Military Medicine, 178, 372–376. doi:10.7205/MILMED-D-12-00422 Varley, R., Webb, T. L., & Sheeran, P. (2011). Making self-help more helpful: A randomized controlled trial of the impact of augmenting self-help materials with implementation intentions on promoting the effective self-management of anxiety symptoms. Journal of Consulting Clinical Psychology, 79, 123– 128. doi:10.1037/a0021889 Wagstaff, C. D. (2014). Emotion regulation and sport performance. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 36(4), 401–412. Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063– 1070. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3397865 Webb, T. L., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Does changing behavioral intentions engender behavior change? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 249–268. doi:10.1037/00332909.132.2.249 Webb, T. L., Joseph, J., Yardley, L., & Michie, S. (2010). Using the internet to promote health behavior change: A systematic review and meta-analysis of the impact of theoretical basis, use of behavior change techniques, and mode of delivery on efficacy. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 12(1), e4. doi:10.2196/jmir.1376 Woodman, T., & Hardy, L. (2003). The relative impact of cognitive anxiety and self-confidence upon sport performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Sports Sciences, 21, 443–457. Retrieved from http:// www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12846532 Yatabe, K., Oyama, T., Fujiya, H., Kato, H., Seki, H., & Kohno, T. (2006). Development and validation of the preliminary Japanese version of the Profile of Mood States for Adolescents. St. Marianna Medical Journal, 32, 539–547. Retrieved from http://igakukai.marianna-u.ac.jp/idaishi/www/346/0234-06Kanaka%20Yatabe.pdf Zhang, C.-Q., Si, G., Chung, P.-K., Du, M., & Terry, P. C. (2014). Psychometric properties of the Brunel Mood Scale in Chinese adolescents and adults. Journal of Sports Sciences, 32, 1465–1476. doi: 10.1080/02640414.2014.898184

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33 M O O D M E A SU R E M E N T A N D R E G U L AT IO N I N A P P L I E D SE T T I N G S Jolly Roy and Garry Kuan

Meaning and perspectives on mood in applied sport settings Mood is closely related to sporting performance. Entering a competition arena, the spectators, the environment, the equipment, one’s colleagues, friends, family members, and also the music played can influence one’s mood. Mood is known to have effects on a range of processes, including perception, reasoning, memory, and behavior (Parkinson, Totterdell, Briner, & Reynolds, 1996). It is defined as “a set of feelings, ephemeral in nature, varying in intensity and duration, and usually involving more than one emotion” (Lane & Terry, 2000, p. 16). Mood has been shown to be involved in determining performance outcomes (Beedie, Terry, & Lane, 2000), and academic examinations (Tottedell & Leach, 2001). The current debates propose that emotions are complex and dynamic phenomena that consider the whole self, body and mind, experienced in patterns of relationships (Burkitt, 2014). Positive mood, which includes states of high arousal and high pleasure, has been linked to a range of performance-related behaviors, including enhanced creativity, more efficient decision-making, and greater cooperation (Baron, 1990; Forgas, 1998; Staw & Barsade, 1993). Negative mood, in contrast, such as fatigue has been shown to have a negative association with performance (Monk, 1990). Depending on the situation, mood state may influence performance in either a positive or negative manner. Athletes may wish to experience positive moods prior to a difficult or uncertain event, but, it is often the reverse with athletes experiencing a negative mood instead (Lane & Terry, 2000). This is due to a discrepancy between the demands of the task and the resources that the individual has for coping with the situation (Martin & Tesser, 1996). Therefore, setting realistic goals in training and competition within the task will help to increase the self-efficacy in athletes, which leads to more positive moods. Mood has received a great deal of attention in sport psychology literature (Lane & Terry, 2000; Mellalieu, 2003). The mood-performance relationship in an applied sport setting h+as sometimes been viewed skeptically. Understanding mood and its effects on sport performance and describing new ways to estimate mood states in applied settings form the focus of this chapter. Karageorghis and Terry (2011) described mood as a set of constantly changing feelings that vary in terms of strength and duration. They further stated that mood 335

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is an accumulation of emotional responses to daily events, which combine to form a mindset. Moods are more enduring than emotions and tend to be more persistent. For example, an athlete might report “feeling low” for no apparent reason to skip training. In late 1970s, William Morgan was the first to refer to the notion of mood states as an iceberg profile and termed it the “mental health model.” According to this model, successful athletes were viewed as mentally healthy with their profile of mood states exhibiting the form of an iceberg. According to Lane (2008), an iceberg profile comprised an above average vigor with below average anger, tension, confusion, depression, and fatigue. Lane and Terry (2000) proposed a conceptual model where depressed mood is the moderating variable that determines the effects of other moods on performance, such as increased anger, confusion, fatigue, tension, and reduced vigor. Based on the conceptualization of mood proposed by Morris (1992), Lane and Terry (2000) demonstrated that mood is a continuous construct on which clinical mood disturbance is at one end, and depressed mood is somewhere in between. Therefore, depressed mood should be split into a no-depression group and a depressed mood group on the basis of scores on the Profile of Mood States-A (Terry, Lane, Lane, & Keohane, 1999). An athlete’s mood is also a reflection of his psychological state at any given time, indicating how much effort he can mobilize to deal with the challenges of the situation (Jones, Meijen, McCarthy, & Sheffield, 2009). Morgan (1980) was the first to utilize the Profile of Mood Scale (POMS) (McNair, Lorr, & Droppleman, 1971), and found a correlation between athletic success and mood profile. POMS is a self-report scale consisting of 65 items measuring six mood dimensions of anger, confusion, depression, fatigue, tension, and vigor. Although some support was forthcoming that successful athletes exhibit an iceberg profile, the model did not discriminate between successful and less successful athletes (Prapavessis, 2000). Over the years, more researchers have become aware that the links between athletic performance and mood responses are probably more subtle and complex than the iceberg profiling (see review from Beedie et al., 2000; Rowley, Landers, Kyllo, & Etnier, 1995). Lane and Terry (2000) concluded that the mood and performance relationship remains equivocal and proposed a conceptual model to explain the mechanisms underlying the consequences of mood. In addition, Prapavessis (2000) explained that researchers should use the Individual Zones of Optimal Functioning theory (IZOF; Hanin, 1997, 2000) to investigate mood-performance relationships. Research that has investigated the mood and sport performance relationships in the applied settings showed inconsistent findings on the applied settings. Terry and Slade (1995) suggested that karate performance may be exceptionally mood dependent. They found that anger facilitates performance in karate competition, further suggesting that interventions which increase scores on vigor and anger, and reduce scores on tension, depression, fatigue, and confusion, may be particularly efficacious for karate performance. Lane (2001), who worked with 188 distance runners using the POMS-A and Pre-care Questionnaire, showed that the depressed mood group reported significantly higher scores on anger, confusion, fatigue, and tension with lower vigor and perceived readiness; while vigor correlated with perceived readiness in the no-depression group. In addition, anger showed a positive relationship with perceived readiness in the no-depression group, and an inverse relationship with perceived readiness in the depressed mood group. Lane, Whyte, Terry, and Nevill (2005), who examined 50 undergraduate students on their mood, performance goals, and examination performance, found that only the anger-performance relationship differed between the depression and no-depression groups, whereby anger was associated with improved performance in the no-depression group. In another study, Lastella, Lovell, and Sargent (2014) investigated the relationship between pre-competition sleep behavior to 336

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mood states and sporting performance. They found that disrupted sleep can negatively relate to the runners’ pre-competition mood states, such as increases in negative moods of fatigue and tension, and decreases in vigor.

Mood during competition Athletes encounter different difficult situations in addition to the pressure of winning which affects the mood states. For example, most of the elite competition venues are located in different geographical locations requiring athletes to travel far, face an unfamiliar environment, as well as cultural and dietary changes, resulting in significant mood disturbances (Terry, 2013). Karageorghis and Terry (2011) have indicated that there is a two-way relationship between mood and emotion. Mood shapes an athlete’s emotion, and subjective experience results in one particular mood state. Depressed mood is proposed as a moderator between other manifestations of mood in athletic performance (Lane & Terry, 2000). A moderating variable is the variable that determines the relationship between other variables. In the presence of depression, increased levels of negative mood states such as anger, tension, confusion, and fatigue will have an adverse effect on performance. In the absence of depression, vigor will have a facilitative effect on performance; fatigue and confusion will have a debilitating effect on performance; while anger and tension will have a curvilinear effect upon performance (Lane & Terry, 2000). During competition, if high levels of depression are reported by the athletes, a professional intervention is essential. Thus, an understanding is vital to gauge the athlete’s mood state, which can aid in regulation strategies. Mood states fluctuate as situations change and there is no such thing as an ideal mood for superior performance (Karageorghis & Terry, 2011). Practitioners have observed this in their professional practice (Lane, 2008; Mellalieu, 2003). We have also observed that unlike athletes with poor mood state who tend to give up fast, athletes with positive mood state are seen to persist longer in striving to achieve their goal. We assume that positive mood states can influence an athlete in two ways during competition. First, at the individual level the athlete is able to revert back quickly to an optimal state. At a group level, mood states in a team can be infectious, and can influence other team members (Roy & Hanin, 2010). Researchers have also found that mood state can influence injury risk. Studies have documented that athletes who experienced a positive state of mind incurred fewer injuries (Fawkner, 1995; Kleinert, 2007; Lavallee & Flint, 1996; Williams, Hogan, & Anderson, 1993). Thus, it is not uncommon for coaches of elite athletes to feel concerned about the mood state. Athletes with poor mood state are often seen in rehabilitation or even having problems making it to the rehab (Granito, 2001). Mood profiling in the applied context has a number of benefits such as creating awareness of an athlete’s current psychological state, augmenting understanding of his/her mood state and what is required to be successful, altering mood state to suit the performance context, identifying idiosyncratic mood patterns across different situations and competition. Karageorghis and Terry (2011) documented the uses of mood profiling for associating mood state with superior performance, to recreate a similar mood state prior to competition, and to monitor responses to training load. Recently, sport psychologists have been monitoring athletes’ mood using the Brunel Mood Scale (BRUMS) developed by Terry and Lane (2010). BRUMS was derived from POMS and developed to serve as a brief measure of mood state among athletes. BRUMS comprises 24 items classified under six subscales: anger, depression, confusion, fatigue, tension, and vigor. 337

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In summary, mood remains one of the most interesting areas in applied settings. An athlete’s subjective experience and emotions combine to manifest a mood and resulting behaviors, which can impact performance. This gives ample reason why understanding mood is becoming important in applied contexts, especially during competition.

Novel approaches in mood measurement and regulation strategies To address the challenges in the applied context, the following section illustrates how novel approaches are adopted to provide quick intervention to the problem. Although monitoring mood over a period is ideal, the crucial part is to manage mood during the competition period. Thus, the purpose of this section is to provide an overview of novel approaches, which we employ in our practice. We then outline briefly the beneficial role of mood regulation. In this section, we only address mood profiling using mood cards (Roy & Hanin, 2010) and highlight how a meaningful measure is derived from this approach. Given the nature of multicultural and language issues and resistance to paper and pencil tests among athletes in certain geographical locations, some practitioners used mood cards as a quick method of assessing mood in applied settings. The novelty of such an approach clearly has appealing features in that it can quickly assess moods experienced prior to or during break time in a competition. To serve as a quick measure of identifying mood states in applied settings, 24 mood cards with native translation, derived from the items of BRUMS (Terry, Lane, & Fogarty, 2003) were made with each mood state written on a card (e.g., flash card measuring approximately 3 × 2 inches). Athletes are required to select only those mood cards that reflect their moods at the time of assessment. The athlete can select the mood

Figure 33.1 Mood cards with code

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cards prior to the competition, which can be done in the changing room or while travelling to the venue and engage in quick regulation. To interpret the score, the verbal anchor (0 “not at all,” 1 “a little,” 2 “moderately,” 3 “quite a bit,” 4 “extremely”) provided in the original manual of BRUMS is considered. The modification is that the practitioner assigns a value of 3 (verbal anchor – “quite a bit”) to each selected mood card. The limitations include assuming that all other mood states were experienced less profoundly by the athlete at the time of assessment. To make the assessment as quickly as possible, each card is provided with a code (see Figure 33.1). For instance, all cards reflecting vigor have codes such as V1, V2, V3, and V4. Similarly, codes are assigned to all other mood subscales (e.g., for depression, D1, D2, D3, and D4). The rationale of adopting this method is that athletes typically select those mood cards which represent their mood state at the time of the assessment. Considering the time constraints during Table 33.1 Selection of mood cards / percentage of athletes Factors

Mood state

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Tension

Panicky Anxious Worried Nervous

n=19 % 0 32 11 21

n=19 % 0 26 5 5

n=18 % 0 33 6 17

n=18 % 0 22 0 6

n=19 % 0 16 0 5

Depression

Depressed Downhearted Unhappy Miserable

11 0 5 0

11 32 26 0

6 6 11 0

0 6 0 0

0 0 0 0

Anger

Annoyed Bitter Angry Bad tempered

5 0 0 0

16 5 5 0

0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0

Vigor

Lively Energetic Active Alert

63 32 21 11

37 21 16 5

83 50 28 6

72 67 83 17

79 79 74 32

Fatigue

Worn out Exhausted Sleepy Tired

0 0 21 0

0 11 5 0

0 17 0 0

0 0 0 6

0 0 11 5

Confusion

Confused Mixed up Muddled Uncertain

0 0 0 21

0 0 0 0

0 0 0 6

6 0 0 6

0 0 0 0

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Jolly Roy and Garry Kuan

competition, practitioners are keen on dealing only with these specific mood states to get the athletes into the right mindset. Our experiences showed that athletes respond more readily to mood cards than to the questionnaire, especially during competitions. Although research evidence was lacking on how accurate the mood cards method would be, we illustrated how we have used the mood card with the national football team to monitor the moods on the competition days. The team was unsuccessful in their day 1 match, causing their mood to deteriorate; and during the mood assessment on day 2, many athletes selected mood cards representing depression (see Table 33.1). Understanding that mood shapes emotional reaction within a given context, and plays a pivotal role in individual resource mobilization, a need was felt to deal with depression and increase the vigor in the team. Across the competition days, interventions were aimed at regulating depression and increasing vigor leading to improved self-esteem and self-confidence. For example, after the morning conditioning exercises, the athletes would sit in a circle and share their feelings with the team members, enabling each one to deal with the cause of Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Number of mood cards

4 3 2 Day 5

1

Day 3

0 Tension Depression

Anger

Day 1

Vigor Fatigue

Confusion

Number of mood cards

4

3

2 Day 5

1

Day 3

0 Tension Depression

Anger

Day 1 Vigor Fatigue Confusion

Figure 33.2 Example of individual mood profile using mood cards

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depression. In addition, the team developed a cheer slogan to repeat in an upbeat rhythm to counter depression and to develop vigor. Throughout the intervention, mood cards were used to assess the mood fluctuations among the athletes. If an athlete selected two cards with a verbal anchor indicating depression (e.g., downhearted, and unhappy), the score assigned to each selected card was 3, which added up to 6 (viz. downhearted =3 + unhappy =3, total =6). A raw score of 6 for depression converts to a T-Score of 70 (e.g., the 70th percentile) (Terry & Lane, 2010, user manual p. 6), which indicates “caution” (Terry & Lane, 2010, user manual p. 12). If the three cards are selected for vigor (e.g. active, lively, and alert), then the score would be active = 3, lively = 3, alert = 3, which adds up to 9 (3+3+3 = 9). A raw score of 9 converts to a T-score of 52 (Terry & Lane, 2010, p. 6). A comparison of the percentage of athletes selecting mood cards representing depression and vigor on day 2 and day 5 of intervention is indicative of how the mood card method can be quantified in applied settings (Table 33.1 and Figure 33.2). The iceberg represented in the figure for vigor provides support that intervention was successful in terms of mood regulation. The practical implications here seemed clear. Working under time constraints, a quick assessment using mood cards during competition would provide a clear path for intervention. If interventions are attempted arbitrarily, there is no assurance that they will be in the right direction.

Mood regulations: facilitating mood changes using art-based clay button method There are well-researched dedicated literatures specifically about mood regulation in sport (see Beedie et al., 2000; Karageorghis & Terry, 2011; Lane, 2008; Stevens & Lane, 2001). Interventions can differ across countries with different approaches from practitioners. The art-based clay button method (Roy & Nizar, 2009) uses clay as a main tool, and clay work enables non-verbal communication through which an individual finds expression (see Figure 33.3). Clay involves experiences of touch and provides endless opportunities for the creator to express using non-verbal language (Sholt & Gavron, 2006). This concept was adopted and extended to the clay button method for mood regulation. The central assumption is that individuals can delve into primary modes of expression (e.g., touch during childhood) and they can use clay work as a central window to represent their psychological experiences (mood states in this case). A clay product can be looked at, touched and examined from different angles and dimensions which has a crucial impact on how individuals represent themselves and held their felt needs (Sholt & Gavron, 2006) expressing their moods evolving from certain emotions. During competitions, it is important to introduce an activity which is simple, enjoyable, and creates distraction from athletes’ depression. Studies related to exercise settings have shown that more pleasant moods are observed when an activity is enjoyable to a participant (Motl, Berger, & Leuschen, 2000; Raedeke, 2007). We drew from here the enjoyment factor and introduced the clay button method to facilitate enjoyable distraction. While practitioners can adhere to established methods (Stevens & Lane, 2001) for mood regulation, the extent to which athletes enjoy these regulation strategies is not clear. We assumed that regulation strategies with pleasant distractions could augment positive mood changes. The clay button method for mood regulation involves five steps: 341

Jolly Roy and Garry Kuan

Mood Factor

Tension

Depression

Anger

Vigor

Fatigue

Raw score (assigned)

6

3

6

3

0

Confusion 3

T-score

61

55

62

28

34

52

Figure 33.3 Clay button method and assessment in applied context

1 Close your eyes and be mindful of your mood state. 2 Mould the clay to create an image of yourself (clay buddy). 3 Make four clay buttons of small size (roughly 0.5 mm diameter) with each color to represent 6 mood factors (example: red “anger”; black “depression”; yellow “vigor”; violet “tension”; grey “fatigue”, and brown “confusion”) and place them in respective boxes around the clay buddy (based on your current mood states). 4 Close your eyes and be mindful of required changes in mood state. Recreate these in the mind as you non-verbally communicate with your clay buddy. 5 Open your eyes and remove or add the clay buttons based on the new experience (mood state). Quantify the changes by noting down the number of buttons placed on the buddy before and after (step 3 and step 5 respectively). For quantitative analysis, each clay button is given a score of 3 as previously mentioned in the mood card method (see Figure 33.3), which can be converted, to a T-score (BRUMS Manual; Terry & Lane, 2010). Qualitative measures however has greater potential to yield deeper idiosyncratic experiences and should not be ignored. Periodical monitoring across a few weeks would help practitioners understand the mood patterns of individual athletes, the level of self-insight displayed by the athletes, and how quickly athletes are able to regulate their mood. Drawing from literature, which suggests that a change is as good as a rest (Karageorghis & Terry, 2011), providing athletes with novel approaches that are not a part of the daily routine is likely to produce a positive mood state. Socializing during the clay button activity facilitates catharsis, which helps an individual to regulate emotions and mood. In such instances, replacing the traditional assessment methods (e.g., questionnaire) with a purposeful enjoyable distraction should be considered relevant in applied settings.

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The dark side of mood regulation Mood regulation is often considered desirable in sports settings to get athletes into optimal performance state. It is still uncertain if mood regulation has a negative side to it. The hard reality is that while engaging in mood regulation, the practitioners can unintentionally turn a blind eye (due to work pressure) towards a team or an individual, which can be wrongly perceived as not showing support. This can have a domino effect. More specifically, small events can set off a chain of events resulting in poor performance outcome. For example, anger leading to confusion, resulting in depression followed by fatigue. All of this may combine to affect the performance of the athlete. Second, human emotions are so complex that practitioners need to understand and analyze the underlying causes of mood issues with maximum accuracy to provide the right management strategy. For instance, anger outbursts could be an early symptom of depression. Interventions should be directed at managing the causes of depression, but often the overt behavior of anger is considered and the practitioners might adopt wrong strategies of anger management. Finding the right interventions is crucial for performance enhancement.

Conclusions and future directions This chapter has explored how mood measurements and management can be done with different approaches. We have tried to translate our experiences from the field and integrate it within the existing body of literature on mood. The methods explained will enable practitioners to try out innovative methods in the applied settings. The art-based methods are relatively new in the sports setting. We believe that art-based methods for mood management will quickly evolve as it is enjoyable, cost effective, and fits the requirements of self-expression on mood-related matters. Alongside the growing interest in qualitative measures, methodological challenges to gain access to senses and experiences of individuals are reported (Sparkes & Smith, 2014). For continued research, we suggest that if selected music is introduced in the background, this would elicit greater volume of emotional expression and facilitate quicker mood management.

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Lane, A. (2001). Relationship between perceptions of performance epectations and mood among distance runners: The moderating effect of depressed mood. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 4, 235–249. Lane, A. (2008). Mood and sport performance. In. A. Lane (Ed.), Sport and Exercise Psychology, (pp.19– 34). London: Hodder Education. Lane, A. M., & Terry, P. C. (2000). The nature of mood: Development of a conceptual model with a focus on depression. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 12(1), 16–33. Lane, A. M., Whyte, G. P., Terry, P. C., & Nevill, A. M. (2005). Mood, self-set goals and examination performance: the moderating effect of depressed mood. Personality and Individual Differences, 39, 143–153. Lastella, M., Lovell, G. P., & Sargent, C. (2014). Athletes’ precompetitive sleep behavior and its relationship with subsequent precompetitive mood and performance. European Journal of Sport Sciences, 14, 123–130. Lavallee, L., & Flint, F. (1996). The relationship of stress, competitive anxiety, mood state, and social support to athletic injury. Journal of Athletic Training, 31, 296–299. Martin, L. L., & Tesser, A. (1996). Some ruminative thoughts. In R. S. Wyer (Ed.), The handbook of social cognition (Vol. 9, pp. 1–47). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. McNair, D. M., Lorr, M., & Droppleman, L. F. (1971). Manual for the Profile of Mood States. San Diego, CA: Educational and Industrial Testing Services. Mellalieu, S. D. (2003). Mood matters: But how much? A comment on Lane and Terry. (2000). Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 15, 99–114. Monk, T. H. (1990). Shiftworker performance. In A. J. Scott (Ed.), Occupational medicine – Shiftwork. Philadelphia, PA: Hanley & Belfus. Morgan, W. P. (1980). Test of champions: The iceberg profile. Psychology Today, 14, 92–108. Morris, W. N. (1992). A functional analysis of the role of mood in affective systems. In M. S. Clarke, Review of Personality and Social Psychology: Emotion (pp. 257–293). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Motl, R. W., Berger, B. G., & Leuschen, P. S. (2000) The role of enjoyment in the exercise-mood relationship. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 31, 347–363. Parkinson, B., Totterdell, P., Briner, R. B., & Reynolds, S. (1996). Changing moods: The psychology of mood and mood regulation. London: Longman. Prapavessis, H. (2000). The POMS and sports performance: A review. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 12, 34–48. Raedeke, T. D. (2007). The relationship between enjoyment and affective responses to exercise. Journal of Applied Sport psychology, 19, 105–115. Rowley, A. J., Landers, D. M., Kyllo, L. B., & Etnier, J. L. (1995). Does the iceberg profile discriminate between successful and less successful athletes? A meta-analysis. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 17, 185–199. Roy, J. & Hanin, N. Z. (2010). State measure of mood responses using mood cards: A sport psychology service delivery during competition. Oral presentation-3rd International Conference of Physical Education and Sport Science, Singapore, May 25–28. Roy, J., & Nizar, M. (2009). Babroy claybutton technique in thought management among Paralympics. Poster presentation at 12th ISSP World Congress of Sport Psychology, June 17–21, Marrakech, Morocco. Sholt, M., & Gavron, T. (2006). Therapeutic qualities of clay-work in art therapy and psychotherapy: A review. Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 23(2), 66–72. Sparkes, A. C., & Smith, B. (2014). Qualitative research methods in sports, exercise and health: From process to product. New York: Routledge. Staw, B. M., & Barsade, S. G. (1993). Affect and performance: A test of the sadder-but-wiser vs. happier-and-smarter hypotheses. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38, 304–331. Steven, M. J., & Lane, A. M. (2001). Mood-regulating strategies used by athletes. Athletic Insight, 3(3), 1–12. Terry, P. C. (2013). It is nice to go travelling, BUT… In S. J. Hanrahan & M. B. Andersen (Eds.), Routledge handbook of applied sport psychology (pp. 345–354). New York: Routledge. Terry, P. C., & Lane, A. M. (2010). User guide to Brunel Mood Scale. Queensland: University of Southern Queensland. Terry, P. C., & Slade, A. (1995). Discriminant effectiveness of psychological state measures in predicting performance outcome in karate competition. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 81, 275–286.

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Terry, P. C., Lane, A. M., & Fogarty, G. J. (2003). Construct validity of the Profile of Mood States: Adolescents for use with adults. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 4, 125–139. Terry, P. C., Lane, A. M., Lane, H. J., & Keohane, L. (1999). Development and validation of a mood measure for adolescents. Journal of Sports Sciences, 17, 861–872. Tottedell, P., & Leach, D. (2001). Negative mood regulation expectancies and sports performance: An investigation involving professional cricketers. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 2, 249–265. Williams, J. M., Hogan, T. D., & Anderson, M. B. (1993). Positive states of mind and athletic injury risk. Psychosomatic Medicine, 55, 468–472.

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34 G OA L O R I E N TAT IO N Dorothee Alfermann

In 1980, during a conference in Bielefeld (Germany) on theories and constructs of achievement motivation – with such outstanding participants like Bernard Weiner, Glyn Roberts, Heinz Heckhausen, Lyn Abrahamson, and Carol Dweck – John Nicholls outlined his theory of goal orientation as a theory of achievement motivation for the first time, and later published his ideas in a noteworthy publication (Nicholls, 1984). Different from former conceptions, particularly from the trait oriented theory of motivational dispositions striving for success or avoiding failure by McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, and Lowell (1953), Nicholls emphasized striving for competence instead of seeking (positive or negative) affect as the main impetus for achievement behavior. “Here, achievement behavior is defined as that behavior in which the goal is to develop or demonstrate – to self or to others – high ability, or to avoid demonstrating low ability” (p. 328). He then outlined his conception of two different goals which are based on comparison processes. On the one hand, people may evaluate their competence for tasks depending on their own past performance. As a result of this individual comparison, success or failure would indicate gains or losses of performance and thus high or low ability of the individual, respectively. On the other hand, people may compare their performance with that of others, the result of which does not necessarily indicate ability, but only if effort is taken into account. For example, solving a task with less effort than others would then lead to the conclusion of high ability. Thus, the social comparison process leads to a different result in ability evaluation and in motivational behavior than the individual comparison. To cut the story short, the theory postulates two types of dispositional, stable goal orientations, namely task orientation with an emphasis on mastering the task and a focus on individual comparison processes; and ego orientation (or competitive orientation) placing emphasis on social comparison processes and on surpassing others. These two dispositional goal orientations are related to different ability conceptions and motivational behaviors, like effort or task choice. Besides these two achievement goal orientations, in some publications there are also suggestions to include social approval orientation as a goal in achievement situations (for example, Stuntz & Weiss, 2009), but this concept did not receive much attention in the literature. For reasons of space we will concentrate therefore on task and ego orientation only.

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Goal orientation in sport: the construct and measurement devices Joan Duda (1989) introduced the goal orientation approach into sport science in the sense that she was the first to adapt the goal orientation approach to sport and to develop measurement instruments respectively, the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (TEOSQ; Chi & Duda, 1995; Duda & Whitehead, 1998). Task orientation was defined as tendency to master the task and to improve one’s performance in sport achievement situations, and ego orientation was defined as the tendency in sport achievement situations to surpass and outperform others and to evaluate one’s own performance according to other competitors. Comparable terms to task and ego orientation are mastery orientation and competitive (performance) orientation respectively. Until today, the goal orientation approach is very prominent and the TEOSQ with its two subscales is still widely used as a valid, reliable, and economic instrument to assess the two dispositional motives of ego and task goal orientation. The scales were developed with adolescents (15 years and beyond) and adults (cf. Chi & Duda). They have been translated into a number of languages, thus allowing cross-cultural research, including Asian languages like Chinese (for example Asghar, Wang, Linde, & Alfermann, 2013) and Japanese (Alfermann, Geisler, & Okade, 2013). Typically, the two goal orientation scales are unrelated showing zero or near zero correlations. Roberts, Treasure, and Balague (1998) developed a conceptually similar goal orientation instrument, the Perception of Success Questionnaire (POSQ), containing 12 items in an adult and a children’s version, validated with college athletes and children (starting from 11 years onwards). The Achievement Goal Scale for Youth Sports (AGSYS) is measuring task and ego goal orientation in children from 9 to 14 years old (Cumming, Smith, Smoll, Standage, & Grossbard, 2008). Similar to the results with the TEOSQ and the POSQ, the AGSYS represents two clearly orthogonal factors of task and ego orientation. In their crosssectional study, Cumming et al. found higher task than ego scores across the whole age range but with a slight decrease in task and an increase in ego orientation between the ages of 9 to 14. Also, as with the other measures, gender differences in ego orientation showed up, with boys/ males scoring higher than girls/females. To summarize, the TEOSQ and the POSQ may be used for adolescence and beyond, whereas the AGSYS is limited to children. Conceptually, all instruments rely on the two-factor model of goal orientations with task and ego orientation as orthogonal factors. Apart from these instruments there exist some other scales, which presumably assess goal orientations in sport. The most noteworthy instrument is the Sport Orientation Questionnaire (SOQ), developed by Gill and Deeter (1988). Different from the TEOSQ, the SOQ consists of three subscales that were confirmed by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The three scales are said to represent separate constructs, namely competitiveness (e.g., I am a competitive person), win orientation (e.g., winning is important), and goal orientation (e.g., I try hardest when I have a specific goal). The three scales are correlated, particularly win orientation and competitiveness with r = .52 and higher. Lower correlations are reported between task and win orientation (r = .04 to .34). Athletes high in competitiveness place high emphasis on social comparison and competition with others. This would mean that competitiveness corresponds to ego orientation. Win orientation is focused on winning and surpassing other, which could also be covered by ego orientation of the TEOSQ. And finally, goal orientation of the SOQ is clearly conceptually similar to task orientation of the TEOSQ. Gill and Deeter claimed that “the overall factor stability, reliability and validity evidence suggests that the SOQ can be a valuable measure for the investigation of competitiveness and achievement behavior in sport and exercise settings” (p. 191). Like the TEOSQ, the SOQ has been translated into other languages, its focus and usage being more related to the sport than the exercise domain. 347

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From the dichotomous two-factor model via the trichotomous model to the four factor model of goal orientations The two-factor model of goal orientation has inspired a high number of research studies with corresponding suggestions for education in school and in sport settings. It proved to be self-evident due to its simple and convincing structure. For example, using a typology approach, people could be characterized as high or low task oriented, and at the same time (independently from task orientation) as high or low ego oriented. Also, the typical pattern of goal orientation in participants of Western cultures, like North America or Europe, showed higher task than ego orientation, regardless of age. On the other hand, looking at the history of motivation research, particularly at the expectancy × value theories, the two-factor model seemed to ignore the conceptually important aspects of approach and avoidance in any motivational behavior. From a hedonistic viewpoint, people tend to avoid tasks where they feel incompetent or expect negative experiences and negative evaluation. Instead, they feel attracted toward tasks that meet their competence expectations and their hope for rewards. The old distinction between fear of failure and striving for success made by McClelland et al. (1953) was newly introduced into the goal orientation concept by Andrew Elliot. He first developed a trichotomous model of goal orientations, with mastery (task) approach goals and performance (ego) goals, the latter split into approach and avoidance performance goals (Elliot, 1999). These three motivational tendencies can be assessed with corresponding questionnaire scales. Smith, Duda, Allen, and Hall (2002) investigated the equivalence of three instruments presumed to measure the trichotomous framework of goal orientations in academic achievement situations (Elliot & Church, 1997; Midgley, Kaplan, Middleton, Maehr, Urdan, Anderman, Anderman, & Roeser, 1998; Skaalvik, 1997). In summary, it can be said that all three instruments obviously tap the same dimensions of task approach and performance approach goal orientation, but that the performance avoidance goal orientation scales in particular seem to focus on slightly different aspects of the construct (Smith et al.). Arguing that a full 2 × 2-model instead of the two-factor model of task and ego orientation or the trichotomous model would better represent motivational behavior in achievement situations, Elliot and McGregor (2001) developed a framework of approach as well as avoidance task and ego goal orientation with four corresponding scales of three items each. Task and ego orientation would represent the dimension of competence evaluation on either an individual or social frame of reference, as was explained earlier. Approach and avoidance motivational tendencies would represent the dimension of competence valence in the sense that achievement tasks are instantly regarded as attractive or unattractive. “Competence is valenced in that it is either construed in terms of a positive, desirable possibility (i.e. success) or a negative, undesirable possibility (i.e. failure)” (Elliot & McGregor, 2001, p. 502), thus leading to approach or avoidance motivation with corresponding behavior in achievement situations. Correlational analyses showed that only the mastery approach and performance avoidance scales were independent of each other, whereas the other five scale combinations correlated between .21 and .40. In three correlational studies with undergraduate students, the authors could show that the four motivational tendencies showed characteristic relationships with socialization experiences and learning experiences and behaviors. At the beginning, the extensions of the original two-factor model of goal orientations were restricted to academic achievement and non-sport contexts. Later, Conroy, Elliot, and Hofer (2003) adapted the Elliot and McGregor (2001) scales to the sport context and thus opened the arena to sport related research initiatives. The Achievement Goals Questionnaire for Sport (AGQ-S) contains 12 items, three for each motivational tendency. Item examples 348

Goal orientation

include “It is important to me to perform as well as I possibly can” (mastery approach), “I worry that I may not perform as well as I possibly can” (mastery avoidance), “It is important to me to do well compared to others” (performance approach), and “I just want to avoid performing worse than others” (performance avoidance). The intercorrelations between the four scales were similar to those reported by Elliot and McGregor for academic situations, namely zero for mastery approach and performance avoidance, but substantial for the other five combinations (.36 < r < .54). Nien and Duda (2008) tested the scales with 450 British athletes and could confirm the four factor structure. In addition, they found structural gender invariance across the scales. Results of studies conducted within the 2 × 2 framework are mixed. On the one hand, it seems fruitful to distinguish approach and avoidance goals because they are related to different antecedents, particularly in socialization experiences like parental support and motivational climate (e.g., Elliot & McGregor, 2001; Morris & Kavussanu, 2008). Also, with the 2 × 2 framework it seems possible to distinguish between the motivational implications of perceived negative and positive aspects of competitions, particularly threat versus challenge, the latter related to approach performance goals, the former to avoidance goals (Adie, Duda, & Ntoumanis, 2008). Also, mastery approach goals seem to shape the perception of competition as a challenge and thus as a positively framed opportunity for demonstrating performance, as shown in a longitudinal study over two seasons with British soccer players (Adie, Duda, & Ntoumanis, 2010). These results would have important implications for coaching and educational processes, particularly with regard to fostering multiple goals in athletes, and preferably approach goals (Guan, Xiang, McBride, & Keating, 2013). On the other hand, the measurement of avoidance goals seems difficult for younger age groups, children in particular, because they do not distinguish between four types of goals (Cumming et al., 2008). And there is also some evidence, that the 2 × 2 framework may not work for certain dependent variables, as was shown by Adie et al. (2010) for the effects of mastery approach goals on positive affect in young soccer players.

Correlational results with the two-factor model of goal orientation Biddle, Wang, Kavussanu, and Spray (2003) summarized the research literature on goal orientation published in the English language from 1990 until 2000. Only publications were considered where the TEOSQ or/and the POSQ had been used. Even with those restrictions, 98 studies with 110 samples could be considered in a meta-analysis. The authors point to disproportionally represented age groups in the samples, with adolescents (11 to 19 years) being in the majority. Also, only correlational studies were found which means that no causeeffect interpretations of the results are possible. Effect sizes were calculated and depending on the size they were interpreted as showing none (up to .19), small (about .20), moderate (about .50), or large (about .80) relationships between goal orientation and variables in question that were hypothesized by goal orientation theory. No large effect sizes were found (cf. Table 34.1). But all in all, most predictions of goal orientation theory are supported and reflected by the correlations. Neglecting the small effect sizes and considering primarily the moderate relationships, the following picture emerges. Task goal orientation is moderately related to the perception that effort is virtuous and leads to success. Participants with high task goal orientation are more apt to be physically active in order to reach mastery, fitness/health, and self-esteem. Task orientation is related to positive affect like enjoyment and satisfaction when doing sports, and lastly, to parents’ task orientation which points to possible modeling effects of socialization agents on goal orientation of their offspring. Conversely, ego orientation is related to the perception that performance and success may be due to ability and that 349

Table 34.1 Summary of correlations between goal orientation (task, ego) and relevant variables, adapted from the meta-analysis of Biddle et al. (2003) Goal orientation

Correlated variable

Number of studies/ participants

Task

Effort

19/2642

.47

Ego

Ability beliefs

19/2642

.45

Task

3/578

Task

Purpose of sport/ PE: Mastery Fitness/health Self-esteem Good citizenship Purpose of sport/ PE: Social status Self-esteem Perceived competence Perceived competence Positive affect

Ego

Ego

Task

Effect size

3/578 .53 .29 .25

29/6410

.24

39/10272

.43

Positive affect

39/10272

.05

Task

Negative affect

38/7780

–.15

Ego Ego

Negative affect Morally relevant attitudes and behaviors

38/7780 5/905

.07 –

Task

Parents’ task orientation Parents’ ego orientation Motivationrelated behaviors Motivationrelated behaviors

3/360

.54

3/360

.44

25/5480

.28

25/5480

.07

Ego Task Ego

Zero correlations with ability beliefs and deception Zero correlations with effort and deception Zero correlation with social status

.56 .37 .48 .32

29/6410

Ego

Additional results

Zero correlations with mastery and fitness/health

High task/high ego participants are more enthusiastic in playing games “Positive affect” included enjoyment and satisfaction “Negative affect” included anxiety, distress, negative thoughts, boredom Athletes high in ego orientation tend to report unsportspersonlike attitudes and to endorse aggressive acts; no effect sizes were calculated Samples with children and adolescents only

Behaviors included task choice, exerted effort, persistence

Goal orientation

physical activity is a means to gain social status over others. Also, ego orientation seems to be related to aggressive behaviors and other unmoral behaviors in sport, and it is moderately related to parents’ ego orientation. Lastly, contrary to theoretical assumptions, no differences in correlational patterns emerged between task and ego orientation on the one hand, and perceived own competence in achievement situations on the other. Considering the results it looks as if task orientation may be superior to ego orientation in the sense that the former is related to more positive consequences than the latter. In fact, those proposing the mastery goal perspective make the assumption that mastery (task) goals are adaptive, whereas performance (ego) goals may be maladaptive in achievement situations because the former result in better learning and in long-term motivation. There is a discussion in the literature about the consequences for the motivational education of youngsters in general and athletes in particular. Barron and Harackiewicz (2001) tested in two studies the hypothesis of a superiority of the task (mastery) goal perspective compared to the so-called multiple goal perspective, which means to encourage both goal orientations depending on the person, situation, and objectives. From a correlational study with self-set goals and an experimental study with assigned goals they came to the conclusion that the optimal goal in a given situation may not include task goals alone, but also be accompanied by ego goals in order to encourage motivation and high performance. Even though the studies were done in an academic, and not an athletic, context, their results seem to be applicable to the sport context. For example, Ntoumanis and Biddle (1998) found in British university team athletes that high ego orientation was not detrimental if accompanied by high task orientation, a result which corresponds to other research, like Fox, Goudas, Biddle, Duda, and Armstrong (1994) who found the highest sport motivation in children (mean age 11 years) with high task and high ego orientation. In a similar vein, Roberts, Treasure, and Kavussanu (1996) reported that the (negative) effects of ego orientation on causal attribution were mitigated by task orientation. Ntoumanis and Biddle could not only show that athletes high in task orientation perceived high task climates in their team (which corresponds to the task orientation perspective), but also that this perception was shared by athletes with high ego orientation if they were also highly task oriented. And finally, Biddle et al. (2003) concluded in their review that positive affect, particularly enthusiasm in playing games, was more likely in athletes who were high in task and in ego orientation. All in all, this would support the multiple goal perspective which seems to be particularly important for athletes because with increasing performance level and duration of their sport career they should get more and more involved in competitions and social comparison processes. Therefore, it seems functional to combine high task with high ego orientation. Biddle et al. (2003) emphasized that for their review only correlational studies were available. This means that all results cannot be interpreted as indicating causal effects, e.g. task or ego orientation influencing moral behavior. Instead, the results point to relationships, showing, for example, higher ego orientation to be related to unmoral behavior, the latter being the result or the effect of ego orientation, or an unknown variable may be responsible. Unfortunately, the most favorable objective of psychological research is to deliver evidence-based effects, and as such, correlational results cannot fulfill that task. It is therefore essential to test the theory of goal orientation in various ways. To enhance the internal validity of research, longitudinal studies and experimental approaches seem warranted. To enhance external validity, a variety of participants (e.g., various age groups; various cultures; various sport settings) should be considered. Fortunately, since the Biddle et al. review there is a growing body of research that fulfills these expectations. In the following we will first consider some longitudinal studies done in different environments and age groups, and second we will summarize correlational studies that were done in different environmental and cultural settings. 351

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Longitudinal and intervention studies with task and ego orientation In former correlational studies there were hints that the motivational climate, emphasized by the coach or the teacher in training or physical education groups, may have a causal influence on the dispositional goal orientations of the athletes and students. Smith, Smoll, and Cumming (2009) tested this hypothesis with 9–13 year old children, using the AGSYS as a measure for goal orientation. Over the course of a 12-week season, the goal orientation scores were collected twice (pre-season and late-season) and the perceived coach-initiated motivational climate scores once at the end of the season from children in 47 basketball teams. The results confirmed the hypothesis in the sense that perceived mastery climate increased task orientation and decreased ego orientation over the season, whereas perceived performance climate increased ego orientation only. All in all, coach-initiated motivational climate is obviously an important influential agent for the children’s goal orientation. Saotome, Harada, and Nakamura (2012) found similar results with Japanese male high school ice hockey players. Participants filled in the TEOSQ and the PMCSQ twice at the beginning and the end of a season. Data analysis confirmed the hypothesis that an increase in mastery climate over the season also changed athletes’ task orientation as well as their ego orientation, whereas performance climate influenced athletes’ ego orientation only. In addition, ego orientation changed, depending on a change in mastery and performance climate. Le Bars, Gernigon, and Ninot (2009) were interested in the contributing effect of goal orientation on the decision to drop out of competitive sport. For this reason they collected data on motivational climate and goal orientation from French adolescent judokas who had been selected for a national talent development program. Comparisons between 52 dropouts and 52 matched non-dropouts revealed significant differences in perceived mastery climate (of parents, coaches, and peers) and in task orientation (lower for dropouts), which supported the hypothesis that task orientation and mastery climate encourage the athletes’ motivation and may prevent them from dropping out. The results of a longitudinal study over two years with non-dropouts only could not show developmental differences in goal orientation over the two-year period, but in motivational climate with coach-initiated performance climate increasing and mastery climate decreasing over the two-year period. Adie et al. (2010) investigated adolescent soccer players of a British elite club over a twoyear period, using the mastery and performance scales of the AGQ-S (Conroy et al., 2003). The authors found that over the course of the first season athletes who afterwards dropped out from the club’s talent program reported a decrease in mastery approach goals, whereas players who continued witnessed high levels in this variable over the considered time period. In addition, mastery approach goals could predict positive affect in the athletes over the two seasons. All in all, the results from the basketball, the judoka, and the soccer study could be interpreted as supporting the mastery goal perspective – because they all show higher motivation and more positive affect in athletes over time. In addition, task orientation seems to inoculate athletes against dropout. Contrary to these results, there are two longitudinal studies with German athletes that found ego orientation to be a critical variable in career development. Würth (2001) assessed goal orientation with the TEOSQ in adolescent athletes of team and individual sports twice over a one-year period. Similar to other studies, the athletes scored higher on task than ego orientation at both points of measurement. Looking at the longitudinal development, task orientation remained stable (and high), but ego orientation (if in absolute values lower than task orientation) increased, particularly in those athletes who improved in performance over the year. Baron-Thiene and Alfermann (2015) did a follow-up study with adolescent talented athletes in Germany and assessed goal 352

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orientation with the SOQ. They found higher competitive orientation to be a predictor of dropout, whereas task and win orientation did not differentiate between dropouts and nondropouts. How about physical education? Is there a similar advantage of task orientation for motivation and positive affect in physical education lessons, as could be found by Adie et al. and Cumming et al. in club sports? Yli-Piipari, Barkoukis, Jaakkola, and Liukkonen (2013) observed 812 Finnish adolescents (aged 12/13 to 14/15 years) during their middle school years over a two-year period from Grade 7 to 9. The main results from a goal orientation perspective can be summarized as follows: boys scored higher on ego orientation than girls, but there were no sex differences in task orientation. Also, both task and ego orientation remained stable over the two-year observation period. And finally, those students whose task orientation had increased after two years also felt more enjoyment in PE and this contributed to a higher rate of physical activity. All in all, the results present a differentiated picture with no global effects of goal orientation on enjoyment, but with interindividual differences in the goal orientation development.

Situational and cultural context Even though goal orientation is regarded as a relatively stable, dispositional variable there may exist situational influences that could contribute to differences in goal orientation, depending on the situation. In a series of studies, van de Pol and Kavussanu tested the hypothesis that competition context and training context may be related to different goal orientation patterns in the same athletes. In a first study with tennis players they could show, as was to be expected, that athletes reported higher task orientation in training than in competition, whereas they scored higher on ego orientation in competition than in training (van de Pol & Kavussanu, 2011). In a study with British soccer players, they could replicate the results for ego orientation, whereas task orientation did not differ between the two contexts (van de Pol & Kavussanu, 2012). The same results emerged in a study with a variety of British individual and team athletes. Both types of athletes reported higher ego orientation in competition than in training, but again, task orientation did not differ between both contexts (van de Pol, Kavussanu, & Ring, 2012). It seems that task orientation is an essential part of motivation and motivational behavior. As such, striving for mastery and improvement is necessary in any achievement situation and thus may be independent of the context. This could explain why task orientation remained stable over the two situations. The question remains, why only the tennis players showed a decrease of task orientation in competition, compared to training. Looking at the mean scores of task orientation in all three studies, the tennis players had particularly high scores for task orientation in training, whereas the scores in competition were similar to the athletes of the other two studies. Maybe, this is just an idiosyncrasy of the tennis players and cannot be traced forward to other sports. In all three studies, ego orientation changed with the context, increasing in competition, compared to the training situation. The explanation could be that ego orientation is triggered by competition. Being motivated by social comparison and the challenge of defeating (or losing against) an opponent makes sense particularly in the competition situation and less so in training. These studies looked at the situational context, which may have an actual influence on goal orientation, depending on the demands of the achievement situation. Another aspect and influencing variable may be the cultural context, which could be regarded as a chronic influence variable. There exist a number of studies where researchers postulated differences in goal orientation between athletes and students from different cultural backgrounds, collectivistic versus individualistic backgrounds in particular. In collectivistic societies, the 353

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group and the group’s norms and concerns are central, also with regard to achievement strivings and success. In individualistic societies, the individual is central and success is regarded as the result of the individual’s performance and strivings. Cross-cultural research in this tradition led to comparative studies between athletes and students from Western (primarily North American and European nations) and Eastern cultures (particularly Asia), considering goal orientation. In three studies with Pakistani, Chinese (Asghar, Wang, Linde, & Alfermann, 2013), and Japanese athletes (Alfermann, Geisler, & Okade, 2013), we tested among others the hypothesis that Asian athletes would score higher than German athletes in ego orientation, and the Germans would score higher than Asian athletes in task orientation. The hypothesis was derived from differences in individualism and collectivism between the nations in question. The results supported the hypothesis in all three studies, even though the difference in task orientation between athletes of both cultures was lower than the difference in ego orientation. Also, it should be emphasized that Asian athletes showed more similar scores in task and ego orientation, whereas the typical pattern of results in individualistic societies is a much higher task than ego orientation (which was also found in the above mentioned studies of van de Pol and Kavussanu, regardless of the context). The higher ego orientation of Asian than European athletes seems worth considering in future studies and in applied settings in particular.

Conclusions and suggestions for future research The concept of goal orientation was introduced into achievement motivation theory and research in the 1980s as a competence related construct, postulating that comparison processes in achievement situations result in competence evaluations. Also, striving for competence (and not for positive affect) was regarded as the main impetus for achievement behavior. After a decade-long period of expanding theory development, measurement construction, and empirical research with mostly correlational designs, we can now see advancements in research strategies through longitudinal designs and through considering contextual influences (motivational climate, competition versus training, culture) on achievement motivation and behavior. Also, the scope and limitations of the new 2 × 2 framework of mastery and avoidance goal orientations should receive more attention. And finally, the mastery goal perspective which is still prevalent in Western publications should be reconsidered in light of research showing different results in Asian or/and collectivistic nations. Summarizing the literature, it seems striking that goal orientation research has a very strong, and nearly exclusive, focus on quantitative methods. This may be due to the fact that goal orientation is regarded as a dispositional variable and therefore assessed with standardized scales. On the one hand, this has the advantage of comparability between different studies and samples, including different cultures. On the other hand, important aspects may remain undetected. For good reasons mixed methods research is increasing in sport and exercise psychology (Culver, Gilbert, & Sparkes, 2012). Mixing qualitative with quantitative approaches can provide fresh new insights into the topic in question. This may also be true for goal orientation research. For example, in a mixed methods study on self-handicapping and goal orientation, Martin, Marsh, Williamson, and Debus (2003) emphasized cultural and family influences on students’ academic behaviors and learning strategies which only turned out due to the qualitative nature of data collection and analysis. “The data indicated that [they] tended to see the learning climate as competitive, and this evoked a need to outperform others” (p. 625). So from the students’ viewpoint, the motivational climate came 354

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first, and this shaped their goal orientation (which, by the way, is supported by longitudinal studies, as reported above). As such, “quantitative perspectives on psychological phenomena can limit (through predesigned surveys or experimental manipulation) the extent to which new insights and information can emerge” (Martin et al., p. 617). Therefore, in order to enrich and expand current knowledge on goal orientations and their antecedents and consequences it would be helpful to incorporate mixed methods into goal orientation research, particularly when considering social and cultural influences.

References Adie, J. W., Duda, J. L., & Ntoumanis, N. (2008). Achievement goals, competition appraisals, and the psychological and emotional welfare of sport participants. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 30, 302–322. Adie, J. W., Duda, J. L., & Ntoumanis, N. (2010). Achievement goals, competition appraisals, and the well- and ill-being of elite youth soccer players over two competitive seasons. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 32, 555–579. Alfermann, D., Geisler, G., & Okade, Y. (2013). Goal orientation, evaluative fear, and perceived coach behavior among competitive youth swimmers in Germany and Japan. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 14, 307–315. Asghar, E., Wang, X., Linde, K., & Alfermann, D. (2013). Comparisons between Asian and German male adolescent athletes on goal orientation, physical self-concept, and competitive anxiety. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 11, 229–243. Baron-Thiene, A., & Alfermann, D. (2015). Personal characteristics as predictors for dual career dropout versus continuation – a prospective study of adolescent athletes from German elite sport schools. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 21, 42–49. Barron, K. E., & Harackiewicz, J. M. (2001). Achievement goals and optimal motivation: Testing multiple goal models. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 706–722. Biddle, S. J. H., Wang, C. K. J., Kavussanu, M., & Spray, C. M. (2003). Correlates of Achievement Goal Orientations in Physical Activity: A Systematic Review of Research. European Journal of Sport Science, 3(5), 1–22. Chi, L., & Duda, J. L. (1995). Multi-sample confirmatory factor analysis of the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 66, 91–98. Conroy, D. E., Elliot, A. J., & Hofer, S. M. (2003). A 2 × 2 achievement goals questionnaire for sport: Evidence for factorial invariance, temporal stability, and external validity. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 25, 456–476. Culver, D. M., Gilbert, W., & Sparkes, A. (2012). Qualitative research in sport psychology journals: The next decade in 2000–2009 and beyond. The Sport Psychologist, 26, 261–281. Cumming, S. P., Smith, R. E., Smoll, F. L., Standage, M., & Grossbard, J. R. (2008). Development and validation of the Achievement Goal Scale for Youth Sports. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 9, 686–703. Duda, J. L. (1989). Relationship between task and ego orientation and the perceived purpose of sport among high school athletes. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 11, 318–335. Duda, J. L., & Whitehead, J. (1998). Measurement of goal perspectives in the physical domain. In J. L. Duda (Eds.), Advances in sport and exercise psychology measurement (pp. 21–48). Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology. Elliot, A. J. (1999). Approach and avoidance motivation and achievement goals. Educational Psychologist, 34, 169–189. Elliot, A. J., & Church, M. A. (1997). A hierarchical model of approach and avoidance motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 218–232. Elliot, A. J., & McGregor, H. A. (2001). A 2 × 2 achievement goal framework. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 501–519. Fox, K., Goudas, M., Biddle, S., Duda, J., & Armstrong, N. (1994). Children’s task and ego goal profiles in sport. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 64, 253–261. Gill, D. L., & Deeter, T. E. (1988). Development of the Sport Orientation Questionnaire. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 59, 191–202.

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Guan, J., Xiang, P., McBride, R., & Keating, X. D. (2013). Achievement goals, social goals, and students’ reported persistence and effort in high school athletic settings. Journal of Sport Behavior, 36, 149–170. Le Bars, H., Gernigon, C., & Ninot, G. (2009). Personal and contextual determinants of elite young athletes‘ persistence or dropping out over time. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 19, 274–285. Martin, A. J., Marsh, H. W., Williamson, E., & Debus, R. L. (2003). Self-handicapping, defensive pessimism, and goal orientation: A qualitative study of university students. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 617–628. McClelland, D. C., Atkinson, J. W., Clark, R. W., & Lowell, E. L. (1953). The achievement motive. New York: Appleton Century Crofts. Midgley, C., Kaplan, A., Middleton, M., Maehr, M. L., Urdan, T., Anderman, L. H., Anderman, E., & Roeser, R. (1998). The development and validation of scales assessing students’ achievement goal orientations. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 23, 113–131. Morris, R. L., & Kavussanu, M. (2008). Antecedents of approach-avoidance goals in sport. Journal of Sports Sciences, 26, 465–476. Nicholls, J. G. (1984). Achievement motivation, conceptions of ability, subjective experience, task choice, and performance. Psychological Review, 91, 328–346. Nien, C.-L., & Duda, J. L. (2008). Antecedents and consequences of approach and avoidance achievement goals: A test of gender invariance. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 9, 352–372. Ntoumanis, N., & Biddle, S. (1998). The relationship between achievement goal profile groups and perceptions of motivational climates in sport. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 8, 120–124. Roberts, G. C., Treasure, D. C., & Balague, G. (1998). Achievement goals in sport: The development and validation of the Perception of Success Questionnaire. Journal of Sports Sciences, 16, 337–347. Roberts, G. C., Treasure, D. C., & Kavussanu, M. (1996). Orthogonality of achievement goals and its relationship to beliefs about success and satisfaction in sport. The Sport Psychologist, 10, 398–408. Saotome, H., Harada, K., & Nakamura, Y. (2012). The relationship between change in perceived motivational climate and change in goal orientations among Japanese ice hockey players. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 7, 81–88. Skaalvik, E. M. (1997). Self-enhancing and self-defeating ego orientation: Relations with task and avoidance orientation, achievement, self-perceptions, and anxiety. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89, 71–81. Smith, M., Duda, J. L., Allen, J., & Hall, H. K. (2002). Contemporary measures of approach and avoidance goal orientations: Similarities and differences. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 72, 155–190. Smith, R. E., Smoll, F. L., & Cumming, S. P. (2009). Motivational climate and changes in young athletes’ achievement goal orientations. Motivation and Emotion, 33, 173–183. Stuntz, C. P., & Weiss, M. R. (2009). Achievement goal orientations and motivational outcomes in youth sport: The role of social orientations. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 10, 255–262. van de Pol, P. K. C., & Kavussanu, M. (2011). Achievement goals and motivational responses in tennis: Does the context matter? Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 12, 176–183. van de Pol, P. K. C., & Kavussanu, M. (2012). Achievement motivation across training and competition in individual and team sports. Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology, 1, 91–105. van de Pol, P. K. C., Kavussanu, M., & Ring, C. (2012). Goal orientations, perceived motivational climate, and motivational outcomes in football: A comparison between training and competition contexts. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 13, 491–499. Würth, S. (2001). Die Rolle der Eltern im sportlichen Entwicklungsprozess von Kindern und Jugendlichen. [Parents‘ role in the sport career development of children and adolescents]. Lengerich: Pabst Science. Yli-Piipari, S., Barkoukis, V., Jaakkola, T., & Liukkonen, J. (2013). The effect of physical education goal orientations and enjoyment in adolescent physical activity: A parallel process latent growth analysis. Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology, 2, 15–31.

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35 I M AG E RY Krista Munroe-Chandler and Craig Hall

Everyone has the ability to image. In fact, athletes as young as seven years of age have been shown to use imagery (Hall, Munroe-Chandler, Fishburne, & Hall, 2009). The following quotation demonstrates a professional athlete’s use of mental imagery during his pre-shot routine. I take one or two practice shots for me without the ball and ... people talk about visualizing and how important that can be to success as a shooter. I think that is true but this is like visualizing plus, it allows me to not only see the ball go to the basket, but to feel my mechanics, and most importantly as a shooter feel your rhythm. (Canadian National Basketball Association All-Star, Steven Nash, NBA Video, 2013, March 28) Mental imagery is often referred to as visualization, which is a limited term as it only denotes the sense of sight. Imagery includes more than just seeing something in your mind; it is multisensory. In fact, in the above quotation Nash refers to the skill of imagery allowing him to not only “see” the ball but also to “feel” the rhythm. Athletes may also “hear” the crowd cheering, “smell” the freshly cut grass of the soccer pitch, or “taste” the salty sweat on their lips. White and Hardy (1998) acknowledge the multisensory nature of the skill and define imagery as: an experience that mimics real experience. We can be aware of “seeing” an image, feeling movements as an image, or experiencing an image of smell, tastes, or sounds without actually experiencing the real thing. Sometimes people find that it helps to close their eyes. It differs from dreams in that we are awake and conscious when we form an image. (p. 389) In the following chapter, we will review common theories used to explain how imagery works followed by several conceptual models of imagery use. Individual differences in 357

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imagery use will be addressed next, including ability, age, and perspective. This is followed by the uses of imagery and a summary of imagery intervention research findings. We will then consider the application of imagery, including best practices for athletes. To conclude, we reflect on future directions in imagery research.

Theories/models of imagery Over the past four decades, many theorists have attempted to explain imagery’s powerful effects on behavior in sport. A popular theory used to describe how imagery operates is Lang’s (1977, 1979) bioinformational theory. According to Lang, the use of mental imagery to produce overt, emotional responses is an innate ability in humans. Characteristics of different mental images are stored in the brain’s long-term memory and organized as a mental schema. When athletes engage in mental imagery practice, stimulus characteristics regarding the content of those images are activated. This causes the activation of specific response characteristics (e.g., physiological activity and the resulting behaviors). Unwanted response characteristics associated with a particular image such as anxiety or lack of focus can be modified through imagery practice in order to improve performance (Vealey & Greenleaf, 2010). When developing imagery scripts based on Lang’s theory, it is believed that scripts containing many response characteristics will produce images that are more vivid than scripts containing many stimulus characteristics. Ahsen’s (1984) Triple Code (ISM) Model added a third element to the bioinformational theory’s stimulus and response characteristics – the meaning of the image to each individual. According to Ahsen, imagery consists of three parts: the image (I), the somatic response (S), and meaning (M). Ahsen believed that because all individuals carry their own unique sets of experiences with them, they will always interpret imagery instructions differently from others. This belief is evident in other areas of psychology as well. For example, in the development of his social cognitive theory, Bandura (1986) postulated that any changes due to imagery depends on a combination of unique personal, behavioral, and environmental factors that affect an individual’s interpretation of imagery. Paivio’s (1985) analytical framework conceptualizes how imagery functions in sport. It contends that imagery has cognitive and motivational functions that operate on either a specific or a general level. The cognitive general (CG) function entails imaging strategies, game plans, or routines, whereas the cognitive specific (CS) function involves imaging specific sport skills. The motivational general (MG) function of imagery involves imaging physiological arousal levels and emotions, and the motivational specific (MS) function of imagery includes imaging individual goals. Extending this framework, Hall, Mack, Paivio, & Hausenblas (1998) divided the motivational general function into a motivational generalarousal (MG-A) function, encompassing imagery associated with arousal and stress, and a motivational general-mastery (MG-M) function, representing imagery associated with being mentally tough, in control, and self-confident. Using Paivio’s (1985) framework as the foundation, Martin, Moritz, & Hall (1999) proposed the Applied Model of Imagery Use in Sport to represent how athletes use imagery. The model (see Figure 35.1) suggests that the sport situation influences the functions of imagery used by athletes, which in turn influences certain cognitive, behavioral, and affective outcomes. The main thrust of the model is that the function of imagery used should match the desired outcome. For example, CS imagery should be employed to learn new skills, and MG-M imagery should be used to enhance self-confidence. The model was summarized by Short, Monsma, & Short (2004) in that the model’s predictions are essentially “what you 358

Imagery

Sport situation

Imagery function

Desired outcome

raining

ognitive specific

cquisition and

ompetition

ognitive general

improvement of

otivational

skills and

specific

strategies

otivational

odification of

general – arousal

cognitions

otivational

egulation of

general – mastery

arousal and anxiety

Imagery ability isual inesthetic

Figure 35.1 Applied model of imagery use. Adapted from K. Martin, S. Moritz, S. & C. Hall (1999). Imagery use in sport: A literature review and applied model. The Sport Psychologist, 13, 245–268

see is what you get” (p. 342). Martin et al. went on to suggest that the relationship between imagery use and desired outcome is moderated by various individual differences, especially the ability to image. Holmes and Collins (2001) proposed the PETTLEP model to guide imagery intervention design. The PETTLEP is based on the notion that mentally imaged actions and actual physical execution of actions are functionally equivalent. Holmes and Collins argued that given this equivalence, many of the procedures shown to be efficacious in physical practice should also be applied in imagery practice. The PETTLEP highlights various key efficacious procedures or elements which should be attended to when creating imagery interventions for athletes: Physical, Environment, Task, Timing, Learning, Emotion, and Perspective. These elements are described in Table 35.1.

Individual differences in imagery use Ability. Hall (1998) proposed everyone has the ability to generate images, but the images generated may differ in quality or effectiveness. More specifically, the images may differ in the vividness, controllability, visual representation, kinesthetic feelings, ease, emotional experiences, and effectiveness of image formation. The ability to image sport skills, however, improves with practice. For example, Cumming and Ste-Marie (2001) had synchronized skaters participate in a five-week imagery training program. Over the course of the program the skaters improved both their visual and kinesthetic imagery ability. The most commonly used imagery ability measures are the Vividness of Movement Imagery Questionnaire – 2 (VMIQ-2: Roberts, Callow, Hardy, Markland, & Bringer, 2008), a revision of the original VMIQ (Isaac, Marks, & Russell, 1986), and the Movement Imagery Questionnaire – Revised (MIQ-R; Hall & Martin, 1997). The VMIQ-2 requires participants to image different physical movements and actions and to provide a rating of the vividness of those images on three sub-scales: internal visual imagery, external visual imagery, and kinesthetic imagery. The MIQ-R asks the participant to read a description of a movement, physically 359

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Table 35.1 The PETTLEP model of imagery P

Physical

E

Environment

T

Task

T

Timing

L

Learning

E

Emotion

P

Perspective

The physical nature of the imagery is dependent upon the task. You must determine whether relaxation or increased arousal is beneficial prior to imaging. The image should be as real or as close to the actual environment as possible. If you are unfamiliar with a competition venue, video or pictures may enhance your image. Depending on the task, your imagery perspective may vary. Skills that rely on form have been found to benefit most from an external imagery perspective. The temporal characteristics or timing of the image should be equal to that of your physical performance (e.g., if a gymnastics routine takes 45 seconds to physically execute, so too should the imagery). The content of the image should change based on the learning of the skill. For example, the content of your image when you are first learning a dive should be different from when you have mastered it. Images will be more effective if you attach meaning or emotion to them. If imagining winning a medal, feel the excitement and the joy that is part of it. Consider both perspectives, internal (visualizing through your own eyes) and external (visualizing like watching a video), when imaging.

Adapted from P. S. Holmes & D. J. Collins (2001). The PETTLEP approach to motor imagery: A functional equivalence model for sport psychologists. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 13, 60–83.

perform the specific movement, image the movement, and rate their ability to experience that image on both a visual and kinesthetic subscale. Williams, Cumming, Ntoumanis, Nordin, Ramsey, and Hall (2012) recently extended the MIQ-R to separately assess ease of imaging external visual imagery and internal visual imagery, as well as kinesthetic imagery. Both the VMIQ-2 and the MIQ-R assess the ability to image specific physical movements, but do not assess other imagery abilities such the ability to use motivational imagery. To remedy this situation, Gregg and Hall (2006) developed the Motivational Imagery Ability Measure for Sport (MIAMS). When completing the MIAMS, participants read a description of various sport-related MG-A and MG-M scenes; they then imagine the scene and rate their image on both the emotion they experience and the ease of forming the image. Thus, the MIAMS assesses the ability of an athlete to use MG-A and MG-M imagery. Recently, Williams and Cumming (2011) modified the Sport Imagery Questionnaire (SIQ; Hall et al., 1998) to specifically assess skill, strategy, goal, affect, mastery sport imagery ability. This instrument would be useful when attempting to determine the ease with which athletes can image common sport-related content. Of course, the various measures of imagery ability can be employed together to provide a more comprehensive assessment of an athlete’s overall imagery ability. Overall, research shows individual differences in imagery ability will have an impact on the effectiveness of imagery. Better imagery ability leads to better performance on a variety of motor tasks (Hall, 2001). Also, better imagers are more likely to engage in imagery, and greater imagery use will likely result in enhanced imagery ability (Gregg, Hall, McGowan, & Hall, 2011; Rodgers, Hall, & Buckolz, 1991). Age. Another variable that has been found to influence imagery use is cognitive development, which is most often distinguished by age. In non-sport settings, Kosslyn, 360

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Margolis, Barrett, Goldknopf, and Daly (1990) provided some findings about the differences in imagery use between children and adults. In the sport setting, the research team of Munroe-Chandler and Hall (e.g., Hall, Munroe-Chandler, Fishburne, & Hall, 2009; Munroe-Chandler, Hall, Fishburne, & Strachan, 2007) conducted several studies, both qualitative and quantitative, investigating young athletes’ (7–14 years) imagery use. In line with Piaget’s (1971) belief, the authors noted that children progress through different cognitive stages as they age, and thus young athletes’ imagery use may vary depending on their cognitive development. Hence, the researchers aimed to investigate the differences in the use of imagery among the four age cohorts (7–8, 9–10, 11–12, and 13–14). Similar to the adult imagery research, the results showed all participants in the study reported using imagery for training and competition, as well as using imagery for all five cognitive (i.e., learning skills and strategies of play) and motivational (i.e., imagining goals, staying focused and in control, enhancing confidence, and regulating arousal) functions. Additionally, developmental differences were evident in that the younger age cohort (7–10 years) used imagery differently from the older cohort (11–14 years). Contrary to adult data (Hall, 2001), however, was that gender differences were found to exist in young athletes’ use of imagery. The authors suggested that the type of sport (i.e., dance or gymnastics versus soccer or volleyball) and the socialization of male and female athletes in sport might explain this gender difference. Further research is needed in order to truly understand the effects of cognitive development on athletes’ use of imagery. Perspective. A key characteristic of the imagery process, and one aspect of visual imagery that can act as a mediator between imagery practice and performance enhancement, is the imagery perspective the athlete adopts. Mahoney and Avener (1977) defined perspective in terms of whether the image is internal or external. Although research in the area has evolved since Mahoney and Avener’s proposal, it is generally assumed that with internal visual imagery (first-person perspective), the athlete visualizes the movement as if actually taking part in the action. Contrastingly, with external visual imagery (third-person perspective), the athlete views themselves from the perspective of an external observer (much like watching oneself on TV). Research (Callow, Roberts, Hardy, Jiang, & Edwards, 2013; Hardy & Callow, 1999) has found that for tasks relying heavily upon the use of form, the external visual perspective may be more useful than the internal visual perspective because the former allows a performer to see the desired form associated with the correct movement. For tasks requiring an effective use of line, where a performer is required to make specific changes in direction at precise spatial locations (e.g., slalom-based tasks), the internal visual perspective appears to be the best perspective to aid performance. Some tasks require both form and changes in direction at precise spatial locations (e.g., a double straight-back somersault in gymnastics). With these types of tasks, switching between the two perspectives might be helpful, though evidence to support the effective use of imagery switching is lacking.

Imagery use In their qualitative examination of the four Ws of imagery use – where, when, why, and what – Munroe, Giacobbi, Hall, and Weinberg (2000) added insightful information regarding imagery use by athletes. With respect to “where,” athletes reported using imagery extensively in both training and competition, and they described doing so before, during, and after each – the “when.” In terms of “what” they imaged (i.e., the content of images), they described various characteristics such as the frequency, modality, and perspective with which they 361

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use imagery. It is employed most often just before competition and during practice. There are four different modalities of imagery used by athletes: visual, kinesthetic, auditory, and olfactory. Visual and kinesthetic imagery have been the focus of most research, with athletes reporting experiencing the visual and kinesthetic imagery concurrently more often than experiencing one modality before the other (e.g., visual then kinesthetic imagery) (Callow & Roberts, 2010). The primary instrument employed to measure imagery use in sport is the SIQ (Hall et al., 1998; Hall, Stevens, & Paivio, 2005). It is a 30-item self-report measure that asks athletes to rate how frequently they use the five functions of imagery. A number of studies have employed the SIQ to examine and provide support for the applied model of imagery proposed by Martin et al. (1999). More recently, the Sport Imagery Questionnaire for Children (SIQ-C; Hall, Munroe-Chandler, Fishburne, & Hall, 2009) was developed to measure the imagery use of young athletes. The SIQ-C is a 21-item questionnaire with statements measuring the frequency of imagery use in children 7–14 years of age, and again each of the five functions of imagery is assessed.

Research findings on imagery interventions Cognitive imagery. The majority of imagery interventions have targeted the CS function. The standard paradigm employed entails three conditions: a) a physical practice condition, b) an imagery practice condition (i.e., participants only engage in CS imagery and do no physical practice), and c) a control condition (i.e., no physical or imagery practice). Although some studies have found imagery practice to be just as effective as physical practice, most researchers have reported the order of performance from best to worst to be physical practice, imagery practice, and control (Hall, 2001). Taking the results of these studies collectively, it is generally recognized that CS imagery facilitates the learning and performance of motor skills, but not to the same extent as physical practice (Morris, Spittle, & Watt, 2005). In an extension of the above paradigm, the effects of combining physical and imagery practice (e.g., 50 percent physical and 50 percent imagery) compared to 100 percent physical or 100 percent imagery practice is examined. That is, a certain amount of imagery practice is substituted for physical practice. Durand, Hall, and Haslam (1997) reviewed the research combining physical and imagery practice and concluded that a combination of the two is about as equally effective as 100 percent physical practice. This conclusion has important implications for athletes. Although athletes would not normally substitute imagery practice for physical practice, occasionally circumstances may make this necessary (e.g., injury, fatigue, travel, loss of practice facilities). In these circumstances, by employing imagery, athletes may be able to maintain their usual levels of practice and obtain the positive benefits associated with such practice. The usual approach of athletes is to add CS imagery practice to their regular physical practice. To investigate the addition of CS imagery practice to regular physical practice, Blair, Hall, and Leyshon (1993) assessed the performance of elite and non-elite soccer players. Initially, the players were tested on a soccer task designed to include some of the basic skills of the sport (e.g., passing, dribbling, shooting). The players were randomly assigned to either an imagery practice group or a control group with the only restriction being that equal numbers of elite and non-elite players were in each group. The imagery group received six weeks of imagery practice on the soccer task while the control group spent this time developing a competition strategy for soccer, which should have had no influence on their performance of the soccer task. During this period all players engaged in their regular soccer activities (e.g., 362

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team practices). After the six weeks the players were again tested on the soccer task and the imagery group significantly increased their performance on the task, but the control group showed no change. The amount of improvement was about the same for both the elite and non-elite players in the imagery group. Similar results were found in a study examining the effects of a CS imagery intervention on the soccer skill performance of young athletes (Munroe-Chandler, Hall, Fishburne, Murphy, & Hall, 2012).These findings indicate that athletes should supplement their regular physical practice with CS imagery practice. There has been limited research conducted on CG imagery, likely because of the difficulties associated with measuring strategy performance (Westlund, Pope, & Tobin, 2012). In qualitative research with adult athletes (Munroe et al., 2000) and child athletes (MunroeChandler et al., 2007), participants reported using CG imagery for strategy development and execution. Despite its widespread use, imagery interventions conducted using CG imagery have found mixed results with support found for CG imagery interventions in some studies (Guillot, Nadrowska, & Collet, 2009) but not in others (Munroe-Chandler, Hall, Fishburne, & Shannon, 2005). Munroe- Chandler et al. (2005) specifically examined the use of CG imagery to improve young athletes’ soccer strategies (e.g., defending against a direct free kick) over seven weeks. In addition to self-report measures of imagery use, experts examined each game to rate the athletes’ performance on the soccer strategies. Although CG scores on the SIQ increased from baseline to post-intervention, no significant changes in soccer strategies were evident. The authors suggested a longer intervention (e.g., season-long) may have resulted in significant strategy improvements, and this suggestion is consistent with a recent review of imagery interventions supporting the success of longer interventions (Cooley, Williams, Burns, & Cumming, 2013). Further intervention-based research examining the relationship between CG imagery and performance is warranted. Motivational imagery. With respect to motivational imagery interventions, most of these have focused on MG-M imagery. Callow, Hardy, and Hall (2001) conducted an intervention with four elite junior badminton players to investigate the effect of MG-M imagery on self-confidence. Self-confidence data were collected once a week for 21 weeks prior to competitive matches. The imagery intervention consisted of six imagery sessions, two per week for three weeks. The imagery sessions were created around mastery situations in which being in control and confidence were emphasized. It was found that the imagery intervention improved the sport confidence for two of the players and stabilized the sport confidence of the third player. Recently, O, Munroe-Chandler, Hall, and Hall (2014) showed that an individualized MG-M imagery intervention could enhance three of the five young (Mage = 10.8) squash players’ self-efficacy. Cumming, Olphin, and Law (2007) examined self-reported psychological states and physiological responses (heart rate) experienced during different MG-M and MG-A imagery scenarios. Forty competitive athletes wore a standard heart rate monitor and imaged five scripts: mastery, coping, anxiety, psyching-up, and relaxation. The athletes reported their state anxiety and self-confidence after each script. A significant increase in heart rate from baseline to imagery was shown for the anxiety, psyching-up, and coping imagery scripts. Moreover, the intensity of cognitive and somatic anxiety was greater and perceived as being more debilitative following the anxiety imagery script. Overall, research indicates that MG-M imagery interventions can increase selfconfidence, and MG-A imagery interventions can influence levels of arousal and anxiety. When examining the influence of MG-A imagery in regulating arousal, investigators have often combined imagery with relaxation training (e.g., Cogan & Petrie, 1995), thus making it difficult to determine the exact role imagery plays in producing any treatment effects. 363

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With respect to the MS function of imagery, few (if any) interventions have focused exclusively on this motivational function. This may be due to the fact that MS imagery tends to be the function used least often by adult athletes and, as such, an intervention specifically aimed at the images associated with outcomes such as winning, has not yet been warranted. Moreover, sport psychology consultants emphasize process goals (e.g., following through with a free throw shot in basketball) over outcome goals (e.g., winning) (Burton & Weiss, 2008), therefore imagery researchers may not advocate an imagery intervention focused only on outcome images. Evans, Jones, and Mullens (2004) conducted a season-long imagery intervention with one elite rugby player. Although the intervention was not focused exclusively on MS imagery, the athlete verbally reported an increased use in MS imagery to increase his confidence. However, there was no corresponding increase in MS scores from the SIQ. The authors argued this increase may have been due to the rugby player’s use of process goals over outcome goals. Further, the authors suggested that process goals may be more salient in team sports (such as rugby), where there may be less control over personal performance. Evans et al. go on to note that this finding has “important implications for the use of different types of imagery in conjunction with different goal setting strategies, and specifically, the use of process and performance as opposed to outcome goals” (p. 268).

Athletes’ use of the five functions of imagery Imagery use by athletes as measured by the SIQ has been examined in many sports (e.g., ice hockey, volleyball, gymnastics, climbing, football, soccer), resulting in a general trend that CS and MG-M imagery are used most often and MS imagery is used the least often (Hall et al., 1998; Hallman & Munroe-Chandler, 2009; Munroe, Hall, Simms, & Weinberg, 1998). Overall findings have also suggested that athletes who compete at higher levels tend to use imagery more frequently (e.g., Hall, Munroe-Chandler, Cumming, Law, Ramsey, & Murphy, 2009; Watt, Spittle, Jaakkola, & Morris, 2008). There have been mixed reports regarding whether gender differences exist when considering the frequency and perceived effectiveness of imagery use. Kizildag and Tiryaki (2012) recently found no gender differences in imagery use, while Hall (2001) reported only minor gender differences. Contrastingly, Weinberg, Butt, Knight, Burke, and Jackson (2003) found that males used imagery more than females and perceived it as being more effective. Finally, and as might be expected, setting (practice vs. competition) and time of season (early, late, off-season) also influence imagery use (Cumming & Hall, 2002a; Munroe et al., 1998, 2000).

Applied recommendations/best practices Bull, Albinson, and Shambrook (1996) suggested that for imagery use to be effective it must be incorporated into an athlete’s daily routine (five-minute sessions once or twice a day). As athletes become more comfortable with, and better at, using imagery, they should systematically increase the amount of imagery employed, thus leading to greater athletic success (Cooley et al., 2013). Moreover, Cumming and Hall (2002b) argued that imagery requires deliberate practice and, just as for physical practice, more is better. Because imagery is a skill and improves with practice, athletes will become better imagers over the course of an imagery intervention. The better imagers they become the more effective their imagery will be. The information provided in this chapter is also important for the sport practitioner (sport psychology consultants) who can use the information when conducting interventions with athletes. Prior to working with an athlete, however, we recommend that a strong working 364

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Table 35.2 Recommendations for imagery use UÊ Images should be positive rather than negative (Hall, 2001). UÊ Athletes should be in a good mood when using imagery (Gregg, Hall, & Hanton, 2007). UÊ Athletes need to be encouraged to use imagery during those times when imagery use is typically less frequent, such as in the off-season and early competitive season (Munroe, Hall, Simms, & Weinberg, 1998). UÊ Less-skilled athletes need to be encouraged to use imagery (Hall, 2001). UÊ The image speed selected by an athlete can serve a specific purpose. When learning, developing or refining a skill, slow-motion imagery can be employed. Real-time imagery can be used when athletes are concerned with tempo or relative timing. Fast-motion imagery can energize athletes and improve focus (O & Hall, 2012). UÊ Athletes of all ages can benefit from imagery interventions (Munroe-Chandler et al., 2007).

relationship is built between the consultant and athlete prior to implementing such skills. This will ensure that the athlete, trusting in the consultant, is comfortable using the skills. Building trust with an athlete will also allow for the consultant to customize the intervention to the individual athlete.

Future directions Although there seems to be some support for individualized scripts (Mellalieu, Hanton, & Thomas, 2009; O et al., 2014) over generic scripts, more research is needed. For example, should a script be modified over the course of the intervention to accommodate for learning (Cooley et al., 2013)? Another factor that remains unknown is the dose-response of imagery. Researchers acknowledge that imagery amounts should be maximized, yet we still don’t know how much imagery is enough to produce positive performance effects (Cooley et al., 2013). Further, little is known as to the impact of negative imagery. Is it possible that negative imagery can be viewed as facilitative to performance (similar to the anxiety literature)? There are several avenues for future research with young athletes. Given the mixed results for the influence of imagery interventions on the learning and performance of strategies of play, and the lack of research on imagery to reduce young athletes’ competitive anxiety, additional research examining these issues is warranted. Moreover, future research should examine whether imagery can have a positive influence on other cognitions essential in sport such as staying focused and being mentally tough. Finally, an issue with youth sport is maintaining the athlete’s motivation for sustained participation. Future research should consider the role imagery plays in facilitating various forms of motivation and satisfying the basic psychological needs (i.e., competency, autonomy, relatedness) of athletes.

Conclusions about imagery Due to the fact that imagery can be implemented virtually anywhere, anytime, and by all athletes (regardless of age, skill, level), it remains an integral part of many mental skills training programs. Coaches, athletes, and sport psychology consultants have all recognized imagery as an effective intervention for influencing a number of factors, as evidenced in Martin et al.’s (1999) applied model. Every athlete (novice to elite, healthy and injured) can benefit from the use of imagery, providing the imagery is built into a daily routine and is specific to the athlete’s needs. 365

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36 W HAT I S F L OW ? Reconsideration of the state of optimal functioning beyond flow theory Masato Kawabata and Clifford J. Mallett

How to function optimally is considered a central question for the study of human behavior, including sport performance. An optimal functioning situation might be occasions in which individuals are fully and efficiently functioning in a task. In contemporary psychology, such a situation is described as “being in a flow state” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975/2000, 1990). Flow is a metaphorical term to illustrate the feeling of a state of mind that individuals similarly report when they are acting effectively with focused and intense involvement (Kawabata & Mallett, 2011). Athletes in English-speaking countries refer to the state as “being in the zone” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997; Jackson & Csikszentmihalyi, 1999). Given that the flow state is considered intuitively to be associated with optimal performance, it is critical to understand mechanisms to lead to and maintain a flow state. Csikszentmihalyi and his colleagues proposed the concept of flow four decades ago, but unfortunately to date, underlying mechanisms that lead to the flow state are relatively unknown. Experimental research on flow might be necessary to clarify the mechanisms; however, almost all research on flow has been descriptive and correlational in nature until recently (Moller, Meier, & Wall, 2010). Given that research and scholarship in flow owes much to the original work of Csikszentmihalyi and his co-workers, the tendency towards descriptive and correlational research might reflect Csikszentmihalyi’s personal orientation to a particular research paradigm. He considered that the study of human behavior, which is colored by a mechanistic orientation, often fails to explain the phenomena of human behavior (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975/2000). Over the past two decades, Kawabata and colleagues have attempted to enhance our understanding of the flow state (Kawabata, 2008). We suggest that understanding of the flow state (the situation in which individuals are functioning effectively with focused and intense involvement in the task at hand) will be enhanced if researchers consider this psychological state beyond flow theory. This is not a new idea. For example, Deci (1976) recommended including the experience of flow in a theory of motivation and relating it to other psychological theories about four decades ago; however, these attempts have been limited to correlational studies (e.g., Fortier & Kowal, 2007). In this chapter, therefore, we provide (a) an overview of the historical development of the flow concept; (b) theoretical and 369

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empirical issues surrounding the flow research; and (c) directions for how we might progress research and scholarship on the state of optimal functioning.

Historical overview The genesis of flow theory and research was to explore the quality of subjective experience that made a behavior intrinsically rewarding. Specifically, Csikszentmihalyi was primarily interested in how people feel while they were engaging in intrinsically motivated activities (i.e., subjective experience in action) rather than what causes intrinsically motivated behavior or the outcomes after cessation of the activity (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988). Through a series of extensive research studies across various intrinsically motivated activities (e.g., chess, rock climbing, dance, arts, and work), Csikszentmihalyi and colleagues (as reported in Csikszentmihalyi, 1975/2000, 1990) investigated how people described their activity when it was going especially well and consequently identified nine major components of flow experience: s Challenge-skill balance – a sense that one is engaged in a challenge commensurate with one’s current ability; s Action-awareness merging – involvement is so deep that action feels spontaneous and almost automatic; s Clear goals – a feeling of certainty about what one is going to do; s Unambiguous feedback – immediate and clear feedback about one’s action; s Concentration on the task at hand – a feeling of being intensively focused on what one is doing in the present moment; s Sense of control – a sense that one can deal with the situation because one knows how to respond to whatever happens next; s Loss of self-consciousness – lack of concern or worry about the self reflectively; s Transformation of time – a sense that the way time passes is distorted; s Autotelic experience (auto = self, telos = goal) – experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding.

Theoretical and conceptual issues Defining flow. Csikszentmihalyi (1992) stated that as long as the essential components of the experience are the same, it is still possible to talk about the same phenomenon despite differences in intensity and complexity of the experience. At the same time, he also cautioned against defining flow too soon as well as too precisely. However, any construct loses its scientific utility if it is defined too broadly (Fleming & Courtney, 1984). Furthermore, an ambiguous definition disturbs understanding of a construct even if the construct is considered to be important. In defining flow, several theoretical and conceptual issues should be acknowledged and addressed and these are discussed next. A critical issue about the concept of flow is that researchers adopt different definitions and sometimes these are contradictory. For instance, Moneta and Csikszentmihalyi (1996) defined flow is as “a psychological state in which the person feels simultaneously cognitively efficient, motivated, and happy [italics added]” (p. 277), whereas Csikszentmihalyi (1997) argued that “when we are in flow, we are not happy [italics added], because to experience happiness we must focus on our inner states, and that would take away attention from the task at hand” (p. 32). If the latter definition is considered more appropriate, no emotion is 370

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likely to be felt during the flow state. Nevertheless, in his bestselling book, Csikszentmihalyi (1990) described flow as “the state in which people are so intensely involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it” (p. 4). These slightly inconsistent definitions and/or descriptions of flow are problematic for researchers examining the flow concept as a scientific topic. Furthermore, Csikszentmihalyi has reported varying descriptions on how often flow can be experienced. On one hand, Csikszentmihalyi and Csikszentmihalyi (1988) stated that, “flow can happen anywhere, at any time, provided that the person’s capacities and the opportunities for action in the environment are well matched” (p. 85). In contrast, Csikszentmihalyi (e.g., 1992) stated that the frequency of flow depends on how it is measured and defined. For instance, he referred to the occasions when a surgeon is immersed in a complicated surgical operation or when a mother plays with her baby as examples of flow experience (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). In both examples, the surgeon and mother are likely to be immersed in their activities, but the intensity and complexity of those activities may not be the same. Flow theory implies that a flow state is perceived differently based on the intensity and complexity of an activity along a continuum from almost imperceptible microflow events like doodling to the truly memorable occasions of deep flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1992). However, this notion has not been rigorously tested despite its significance for the flow concept. Hence, we argue for critical examination of what components of flow differ as the intensity and complexity of an activity changes and how they vary. Given that the nine components mentioned above are major elements or general characteristics of flow experience, it might be useful to explore individual or activity-specific differences in whether other elements are perceived in a flow state (see Jackson, 1996; Swann, Crust, Keegan, Piggott, & Hemmings, 2014) so that people can acknowledge flow experience more frequently within their respective contexts. Another significant conceptual issue in flow research is a clearer understanding of how flow theory was developed. As mentioned earlier, the flow research and theory were developed originally through exploring how individuals felt while they were engaging in intrinsically motivated activities. Csikszentmihalyi (1975/2000) found that the goal of intrinsically motivated behaviors was actually to experience the activity itself. This finding is considered intuitively apparent given that people were asked about their feeling during their intrinsically motivated activities. However, it has been unclear whether autotelic nature is necessary to experience a flow state when people engage in extrinsically motivated activities. This is a significant and fundamental question related to the conceptualization of the flow concept, but Csikszentmihalyi and others have not examined this key question in the literature. Instead, the terms “autotelic experience,” “flow experience,” and “enjoyment” have been used interchangeably in flow theory. This loose use of the key words is considered highly problematic to conceptualize the flow concept and to examine the mechanisms that lead to a flow state. Csikszentmihalyi (1990) argued that full concentration on the activity is necessary to enjoy playing tennis, reading books, and engaging in conversations in an authentic way, implying that individuals are likely to enjoy any activity as long as they fully concentrate on the activity (in the moment) regardless of whether they are motivated intrinsically or extrinsically. According to self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2007), people need to experience the activity as autonomous to foster intrinsic or selfdetermined motivation for doing the activity; however, autonomy is not represented as an element in flow theory. If full concentration is sufficient to enjoy an activity regardless of the type of motivation, it seems appropriate that this hypothesis warrants examination. 371

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Furthermore, Csikszentmihalyi (1990) suggested that flow will occur when there is a balance between perceived challenge and perceived skills. Despite the notion of challenge as a central element in flow theory, its meaning seems ambiguous. Normally, challenge would be interpreted as the demands of the activity or situation (e.g., Deci & Ryan, 2000), but the term has been used interchangeably with any opportunity for action in flow theory. According to this latter definition, any opportunities could be challenging (i.e., difficult but stimulating) as long as individuals consider those opportunities worthy of engagement. Subjective importance (e.g., personal interest, curiosity, belief, value, or meaning) might affect individual perception of opportunities for action, but this relationship has not been clearly explained in flow theory. Deci and Ryan indicated that phenomena such as internalization and selfdetermination have been not well addressed in flow theory. It would be useful to represent the notion of challenge as a composite of a) the perceived difficulty of the activity and b) a sense of the importance of engaging in the activity. In addition, individual differences in perceived challenge could be understood better from a perspective of approach versus avoidance motivation (e.g., Elliot, Murayama, & Pekrun, 2011). The final conceptual issue in flow research is whether flow experience is always an optimal experience. Csikszentmihalyi and colleagues (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988) often consider flow experience as optimal experience. However, it is possible to experience flow in activities that are destructive to the self (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2002), and flow is associated with addictive behaviors such as exercise or gambling (Partington, Partington, & Oliver, 2009; Schüler, 2012). Whether a flow state is an optimal experience appears to depend on contextual and situational factors. In summary, it is appropriate not to oversimplify flow as optimal experience.

Measurement issues Measuring subjective experiences such as flow is complex and consequently challenging because of their “unstable and un-self-conscious” characteristics (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2002, p. 93). However, in accepting this challenge, researchers have developed and used multiple ways of assessing flow using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Early research by Csikszentmihalyi and his colleagues involved semi-structured interviews (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi, 1975/2000) and questionnaires with open-ended items (e.g., Massimini, Csikszentmihalyi, & Delle Fave, 1988) to understand the phenomenon. Interviews are considered essential in the initial stages of any research into the subjective aspects of experience because they provide rich and integrated descriptions of phenomenological events (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988). Questionnaires with open-ended questions are useful to obtain a preliminary idea of the phenomenology of the subjective experience from a large number of respondents (Massimini et al., 1988). It is considered important to undertake a significant volume of these exploratory studies to inform positivist hypotheses (e.g., Bishop, 2008). A popular quantitative method of collecting information on flow is the experience sampling method (ESM; Hektner, Schmidt, & Csikszentmihalyi, 2007). Study participants are equipped with a paging device (a pager, programmable watch, or handheld computer) that signals at pre-programmed times. At the time of each signal, ESM participants complete a self-report booklet to record measurement of mood, flow characteristics, and other factors such as motivation to be engaged in the activity. ESM allows for repeated measurement of an individual’s activities, thoughts, and accompanying psychological states in natural settings. Csikszentmihalyi and colleagues developed ESM because this method “would capture the 372

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experience as it occurred, when it was fresh in the mind” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975/2000, p. xix). This is “the unique advantage of ESM” (Hektner et al., 2007, p. 6) and has significantly contributed to developing the flow concept. A few studies were conducted with ESM in physical activity settings (e.g., Delle Fave, Bassi, & Massimini, 2003; Schüler & Brunner, 2009; Stein, Kimiecik, Daniels, & Jackson, 1995). To provide a measurement instrument that can be applied easily in physical activity settings, Jackson and colleagues (Jackson & Eklund, 2002; Jackson & Marsh, 1996) developed the Flow State Scale (FSS) and the Dispositional Flow Scale (DFS) and revised them (FSS-2 and DFS2) as alternative self-report instruments to assess flow experiences in physical activity. The FSS-2 and the DFS-2 are multidimensional scales measuring all nine dimensions of flow. The FSS-2 was designed to assess the experience of flow during a particular activity and data is collected immediately after completion of an activity. The DFS-2 is a dispositional measure of flow and was designed to assess the general tendency to experience flow characteristics during participation in an activity. These scales are multidimensional measures of flow with satisfactory psychometric properties and which can be used without disrupting performance. They were translated and validated in other languages (e.g., Kawabata, Mallett, & Jackson, 2008) and the shorter versions of the scales are also available (Jackson, Martin, & Eklund, 2008). A key measurement issue of flow is how to identify whether individuals are in a flow state differs significantly between measures. In the flow research employing ESM, a flow situation has been operationally identified by the optimal ratio between perceived challenges and skills. Csikszentmihalyi and colleagues consider identifying a flow situation based on the perceived challenge and skill balance as the most parsimonious and meaningful measure of flow (e.g., Massimini & Carli, 1988), but Rheinberg (2008) criticized the approach for defining flow experience only with one of its major components (i.e., perceived challenge and skill balance). Jackson and colleagues (Jackson & Eklund, 2002; Jackson et al., 2008) did not explain how to identify whether individuals were in a flow state based on the FSS-2 and DFS-2 responses. Based on theoretical and empirical grounds, Kawabata and colleagues (Kawabata & Evans, in press; Kawabata & Mallett, 2011, 2012) proposed that all the constituents of the prerequisite conditions to enter a flow state (i.e., clear goals, unambiguous feedback, and challenge-skill balance) should be utilized to identify a flow situation.

Issues of flow research in physical activity Several issues emerge in reviewing the studies on flow in physical activity. First, flow is not clearly defined with respect to the breadth and complexity of the flow concept. Flow is often described as a mysterious experience or narrowly defined as a psychological state that produces high performance (e.g., Pates, Oliver, & Maynard, 2001) in the sports setting, despite the view that the complete immersion in the activity is also likely to occur in non-sport settings such as having an interesting conversation with friends (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). Qualitative interviews have been conducted (mainly with elite athletes) to examine domain-specific descriptions of flow in sports (e.g., Jackson, 1992, 1995, 1996; Partington et al., 2009; Swann et al., 2014). Given that these interviewees tended to describe their intensive and memorable optimal experiences in studies of flow (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2002), elite athletes’ descriptions of flow experiences may have inadvertently contributed to the narrow conceptualization of flow by some researchers. Flow research in sport psychology has typically been associated with elite athletes’ intensive memorable experiences (e.g., Partington et al., 2009; Swann et al., 2014); however, flow experiences have been reported in recreational sports (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975/2000; Kawabata, 2008). For interview-based 373

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studies, it is critical how a flow state is explained to interviewees. If interviewees are asked to describe the most satisfying state they want to remember for the rest of their lives (Jackson, 1992) or a state that stood out in their memory (Swann et al., 2014), their answers are likely to be different when they are asked to describe positive moments in their sport (Sparkes & Partington, 2003). Thus, a clarification of the general picture of flow experience is necessary to progress research on flow experiences in physical activity for further understanding of a flow state. In doing so, it would be critical to examine how flow is experienced in addition to questioning about what flow is in a definitive sense (Sparkes & Partington, 2003). To address these issues, Kawabata (2008) proposed considering flow as an attentional process of absorption in the task at hand, which generates intrinsically rewarding feelings (i.e., what flow is). Kawabata and Mallett (2011) initially tested this hypothesis by examining the internal structure of flow from a process-related perspective (i.e., how flow is experienced). They empirically tested a model with structural equation modeling in which clear goals, unambiguous feedback, and challenge-skill balance were considered as the preconditions to enter a flow state and six other components as the characteristics of a subjective state while being in flow. Their hypothesized model was empirically supported after slight modifications by using the data from two independent flow groups. Due to the nature of cross-sectional data, causal inference could not be made from Kawabata and Mallett’s study. Nevertheless, their study was considered important to understand flow from a process-related perspective. Another key issue in flow research in physical activity is what elements of the flow construct are used to identify whether individuals are in a flow state. As mentioned earlier, different studies measure different elements of flow to address this issue. Despite the popularity of the FSS-2 and the DFS-2 (Jackson & Eklund, 2002), researchers employing the flow scales have not rigorously examined how one can interpret the scores from the flow scales to know whether the respondents were in a state of flow or not. Specifically, it has been unclear whether scores on the flow scales could quantitatively distinguish individuals who experienced a state of flow from those who did not. This is one of the major weaknesses of the flow scales (Moneta, 2012). To address this critical issue in making sense of the scores from the flow scales, Kawabata and colleagues (Kawabata & Evans, in press; Kawabata & Mallett, 2012) recently conducted a series of latent class factor analyses that combined the strengths of both latent class analysis and factor analysis on large FSS-2 and DFS-2 data sets. They found that four classes were identified for the FSS-2 responses and that people who experienced flow could be distinguished from those who did not based on the FSS-2 responses. For the DFS-2 responses, six classes were identified and that individuals who often experience flow attributes in physical activity could be differentiated from those who do not based on their DFS-2 scores. The compelling findings from these studies indicate that the FSS-2 and DFS2 scores could be used to differentiate individuals who experienced flow in physical activity from those who did not. Furthermore, they proposed criteria for classifying individuals into a flow- or non-flow group to improve research and practice using the flow scales. A third key issue is whether experiencing flow is actually related to optimal performance. It would be logical that flow experience, especially deep flow, is related to optimal performance given that individuals are fully functioning in a deep flow situation. When Jackson (1992, 1995, 1996) conducted interviews with elite athletes, they retrospectively reported that flow experience was related to their high performance. However, when Schüler and Brunner (2009) measured flow during a marathon race with ESM, they found that experiencing flow during a race was not directly related to race performance. These contradictory findings might be associated with measurement issues. Therefore, it is suggested that future research examine these measurement issues to progress our understanding of the flow construct. 374

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The final issue about flow in physical activity settings is whether a flow state can be promoted through intervention programs. In examining this question, several intervention studies were conducted in competitive sports contexts. For example, Pates (Pates et al., 2001; Pates, 2013) conducted hypnosis interventions with elite golfers, and Koehn, Morris, and Watt (2014) carried out an imagery intervention with nationally ranked junior tennis players. They reported that their interventions were effective to enhance the intensity of flow in competitions. However, because high performance athletes were employed, the sample sizes of those studies were relatively small (e.g., N = 1, Pates, 2013; N = 4, Koehn et al., 2014) and no control group was included in the studies. On the other hand, Kawabata (2015) conducted a five-month intervention study with college students (N = 135) to examine the efficacy of an intervention program for fostering flow in PE contexts. Longitudinal data were collected from both intervention and control groups. The quantitative data were analyzed rigorously with growth curve modeling to find out if the intervention program was useful to foster flow experience in PE contexts.

Conclusion The present chapter has outlined the concept of flow, a central concept within positive psychology (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). In reviewing the literature on flow in physical activity, several issues emerged. First, in the sport setting, flow tends to be described as a mysterious experience or defined narrowly despite the breadth and complexity of the flow concept. The other issues are about how to identify whether individuals are in a flow state differs significantly between measures and such an instruction was unavailable for multidimensional flow scales. Finally, it is still unclear whether experiencing flow is positively associated with enhancing performance. All the issues are important to be addressed to advance our understanding of flow in physical activity settings. We started dealing with some of the issues. Given that the conceptual and measurement issues of flow reviewed above are serious, it would be required to step back to critically examine what flow is and what components are essential to define the flow state (Moneta, personal communication, July 8, 2014). We suggest future research directions below.

Future directions s Identify what are the most essential characteristics of a flow state (e.g., immersion in an activity with a sense of control) and develop standardized criteria with integrated approaches and theorizing (e.g., psychophysiological methods; mixed methods; other theories) to detect individuals who experience flow based on the essential characteristics. s Examine the mechanisms to enter a flow state by conducting experiments with different activities and contextual factors (e.g., autonomy- or control-supportive environments) and test if autotelic nature is necessary to experience a flow state. s Systematically investigate whether the quality of a flow state is perceived differently (e.g., what components of flow are perceived and how) as the intensity and complexity of an activity changes by employing mixed methods and theories. s Rigorously examine whether experiencing flow is associated with enhancing performance by employing different methodological approaches. s Further examine the efficacy of intervention programs to enhance flow conducting longitudinal studies with mixed methods. 375

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37 T E A M R E SI L I E N C E Nick Galli

In 2004, the Boston Red Sox trailed the New York Yankees three games to none in the bestof-seven American League Championship Series of Major League Baseball (MLB). Fans of the Red Sox were resigned to the fact that their top rival would once again emerge victorious, and that the Sox 84-year world championship drought would continue. To further stack the odds against them, no team in the history of MLB had ever come back to win a best-ofseven series after losing the first three games. This trend seemed certain to continue when the Yankees took a 4–3 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 4, with Mariano Rivera, arguably the greatest closer in the history of baseball, on the mound to protect the lead. However, the Red Sox managed to tie the game, and went on to win Game 4 in extra innings. They followed with three more victories (the final two in New York), capping off one of the greatest comebacks in the history of North American team sports. Members of the media lauded the Red Sox for their resilience in having a “no quit” attitude (Kaegel, 2004). Indeed, the terms resilience, resilient, and resiliency have been used for years by athletes, coaches, and media to describe athletes and teams who overcome adverse circumstances to perform successfully. It is only recently that sport scholars have taken an interest in resilience as a construct of study in athletes who have successfully overcome adversity (e.g., Fletcher & Sarkar, 2012; Galli & Gonzalez, 2014; Galli & Vealey, 2008; Morgan, Fletcher, & Sarkar, 2013; Sarkar & Fletcher, 2014). However, the overwhelming majority of these studies have focused on individual athletes rather than teams. Given that many athletes compete in a context in which success and failure are gauged at the level of the team, and a group identity is encouraged, it seems equally important to examine resilience from a team perspective (Morgan, Fletcher, & Sarkar, 2012). Thus, the purpose of this chapter is to make a case for the importance of research related to team resilience in sport. To accomplish this purpose, first, foundational issues with regard to the study of resilience are discussed, including definitions and conceptualizations, as well as a review of the scholarly origins of the construct. Second, a review of the sport-based literature on resilience is provided. Third, a socio-ecological perspective on resilience is presented, in which resilience is considered at the collective rather than the individual level. Fourth, factors relevant to sport team resilience are reviewed. Finally, suggestions for future research on sport team resilience are offered. 378

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Definitions and conceptualizations of resilience The term resilience literally refers to the ability of a substance to spring back, recoil, or resume shape after bending, stretching, or compressing (Strümpfer, 1999). When applied to the study of human adversity, a variety of definitions and conceptualizations of resilience have been proposed (e.g., Sarkar & Fletcher, 2014; Windle, 2011). Masten et al. (Masten, Best, & Garmezy, 1990) offered a comprehensive definition of resilience, when they suggested that it is “the process of, capacity for, or outcome of successful adaptation despite challenging or threatening circumstances” (p. 426). The definition proposed by Masten et al. highlights the three ways that resilience has been conceptualized: (a) as a trait that people “have,” (b) as the act of successfully adapting to adversity, or (c) a dynamic interaction between people and their environment. The latter conceptualization is currently favored by most resilience scholars, as it accounts for the influence of both the person and their environment, and acknowledges the temporal nature of positive adaptation (Bonanno, 2012). Windle (2011) brought some clarity to the operationalization of resilience when he identified the components that make up resilience. These components can be thought of as the necessary “ingredients” for the occurrence of resilience. First, individuals must experience an adversity perceived as threatening to one’s psychological, physical, or social well-being. Second, individuals must possess protective factors at the individual (e.g., self-esteem), social (e.g., family support), and/or community (e.g., social capital) level. Third, these protective factors must work to allow the person to positively adapt, which refers to the achievement of better than expected development or functioning despite adversity (Masten et al., 1990). Finally, although resilience has almost always been conceptualized as positive and desirable, it is important to note that some have suggested it to have a dysfunctional side. Especially among men who adhere to hegemonic forms of masculinity, in which sacrificing one’s body and “bouncing back” from personal stressors are viewed as badges of honor, a lack of vigilance for health and well-being may be a dangerous side-effect of efforts to be resilient (Donaldson, 1993; Smith, 2013). Still, others have cautioned that when resilience is viewed as solely a personal attribute it can be used to blame those who “fail” to respond successfully to adversity (Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000) rather than focus on the necessary personal and environmental protective factors that can facilitate positive adaptation in the future. Finally, athletes may get the message that being resilient means pushing themselves beyond their normal limits and sacrificing their bodies for the “good of the team” (e.g., deviant overconformity; Coakley, 2008). When deviant overconformity to sport norms is conflated with resilience, athletes may be more likely to adopt behaviors such as overtraining, playing through serious injury, and unsafely experimenting with performance enhancing substances (Coakley, 2008).

Scholarly origins of resilience The systematic study of human resilience began in the 1970s in the field of developmental psychopathology, when researchers such as Garmezy (Garmezy, Masten, & Tellegen, 1984), Rutter (1985), and Werner (Werner & Smith, 1992) identified protective factors related to the healthy development of children exposed to harsh life circumstances. More recently, resilience has been investigated in adults who have experienced potentially traumatic life events such as terrorist attacks (Bonanno, Rennicke, & Dekel, 2005) and bereavement (Bonanno, Moskowitz, Papa, & Folkman, 2005). The study of resilience also has roots in the work of Martin Seligman and colleagues, who study resilience as a part of their Positive Psychology Center at the University of 379

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Pennsylvania. A major focus of Seligman et al.’s resilience training is on changing how individuals think about their misfortunes (Seligman, 1991). Rather than explain negative events as being due to factors that are permanent, uncontrollable, and pervasive (i.e., a pessimistic explanatory style), resilient individuals tend to explain such events as being due to factors that are temporary, controllable, and specific (i.e., an optimistic explanatory style). Building optimism has been the basis of resilience training programs delivered to athletes (Schinke & Jerome, 2002) and soldiers (Reivich, Seligman, & McBride, 2011). A criticism of this approach is that it reduces resilience to individual cognition, without noting the socioenvironmental contexts that can foster or inhibit resilience in individuals and groups.

Sport-based resilience research Initial studies of resilience in sport focused on performance, and resilience was operationalized as the act of overcoming a poor performance by subsequently performing well. Seligman’s (1991) explanatory style view of resilience served as the inspiration for much of this work. For example, Martin-Krumm, Sarrazin, Peterson, and Famose (2003) examined the factors that mediate the relationship between explanatory style and performance following failure on a basketball dribbling task in high school students. Failure was manipulated by telling the participants that they did not perform well compared to others. As expected, participants with an optimistic explanatory style performed better on the second trial than the first, and those with a pessimistic style did not improve. More recent studies on resilience in sport have taken a qualitative approach to understand the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of athletes who previously showed themselves as resilient. Based on semi-structured interviews with 10 high-level athletes, Galli and Vealey (2008) used a general inductive approach to develop a conceptual model of sport resilience, in which sport adversities faced by the athletes resulted in a process of agitation, characterized by unpleasant emotions and mental struggles mixed with cognitive and behavioral coping strategies. This process led to positive outcomes such as increased learning, increased motivation to help others, and a broadened life perspective. However, positive outcomes were also a product of pre-existing sociocultural (e.g., social support) and personal (e.g., achievement motivation) resources. Fletcher and Sarkar (2012) employed a grounded theory design to explore psychological resilience to personal, organizational, and performance stressors in their sample of 12 former Olympic champions. In the theory that emerged, psychological resilience was conceptualized as an overarching concept which framed the athletes’ responses to sport stressors. Multiple psychological factors, including having a positive personality, motivation, focus, confidence, and perceived social support, influenced performers to appraise stressors as challenges rather than problems, and evaluate their own thinking (i.e., meta-cognition). Challenge appraisals and meta-cognition led to facilitative responses such as increased task engagement, which then led to optimal sport performance. This study was an important step for resilience research in sport, as it offered the following definition of resilience within the sport context: “the role of mental processes and behavior in promoting personal assets and protecting an individual from the potential negative effect of stressors” (Fetcher & Sarkar, 2012, p. 675). Despite the collective nature of many sports, up until recently, all studies of resilience in sport have focused on resilience at the individual level. Morgan, Fletcher, and Sarkar (2013) filled this gap by exploring resilient characteristics of elite sport teams. Focus groups with five teams led to a formal definition of team resilience, which is “a dynamic, psychosocial process which protects a group of individuals from the potential negative effect 380

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of stressors they collectively encounter. It comprises processes whereby team members use their individual and collective resources to positively adapt when experiencing adversity” (Morgan et al., 2013, p. 552). A follow-up study by these same researchers offered insight into the underlying processes of team resilience, including an understanding of how such teams function. Interviews with eight members of the 2003 England rugby union World Cup winning squad led the authors to the conclusion that transformational leadership, shared team leadership, team learning, social identity, and positive emotions were all critical in illustrating how resilient teams operate (Morgan, Fletcher, & Sarkar, in press).

Beyond personal resilience: a socio-ecological perspective The fields of public health, community psychology, and social work have long recognized the utility of resilience for promoting happy and healthy groups of individuals. Such an interest can be traced to the work of sociologist Urie Bronfenbrenner, who suggested that human development can only be fully understood within the context of individuals’ ecological system, including families, schools, communities, and societies (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). The work of Bronfenbrenner was influential in conceptualizations of resilience that went beyond the individual to consider the collective. Such conceptualizations emphasize adversities, protective factors and positive adaptation of not only individual group members, but groups as a whole. The examination of collective resilience in organizational settings is of particular interest to sport researchers, as these groups are similar to sport teams in that they comprise individuals working together to achieve a common performance goal (Carron, Hausenblas, & Eys, 2005). In these settings, team resilience is defined as a construct that “serves to provide teams with the capacity to bounce back from failure, setbacks, conflicts, or any other threat to well-being that a team may experience” (West, Patera, & Carsten, 2009, p. 253). West et al. (2009) studied the influence of positive organizational behavior (e.g., team resilience) on outcomes such as cohesion, cooperation, and satisfaction in 101 groups of three to four college students who worked on four separate projects over the course of a semester. Team resilience was not a significant predictor of any of the outcomes after the first project, but did significantly predict both cohesion and cooperation after the final project, indicating that it may develop over time in the context of multiple team interactions (West et al., 2009). With regard to the factors related to team resilience, a recent study with 500 Israeli management teams revealed that team resilience was predicted by team members’ ability to express emotions, which in turn was predicted by interpersonal trust (Stephens, Heaphy, Carmeli, Spreitzer, & Dutton, 2013). According to the authors, the implication of these results is that a high degree of trust between teammates facilitates the expression of both positive and negative emotions in times of stress, which stimulates team resilience in the form of self-learning and active coping.

Sport team resilience Although only the qualitative study by Morgan et al. (2013) has focused on sport team resilience, studies have addressed the components of resilience previously described (i.e., adversity, protective factors, positive adaptation) as they relate to sport teams and the individuals who comprise them (e.g., Kerr & Males, 2010; Kristiansen, Murphy, & Roberts, 2012; Schinke, Battachio, Dube, Lidor, Tenenbaum, & Lane, 2012). Each component is briefly reviewed in the following sections. 381

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Team adversity. Windle (2011) described an adversity as an experience that poses a significant risk for the occurrence of a negative outcome. Like individual athletes, sport teams must collectively weather a variety of adversities in order to achieve optimal development, performance, and satisfaction. These adversities include performance failures and slumps (Kerr & Males, 2010), high volume and intensity physical training (Hackney, Pearman, & Nowacki, 1990), and traumatic events (Buchko, 2005). Depending on their severity, possible negative consequences of such adversities on team members include burnout (Goodger, Gorely, Lavallee, & Harwood, 2007), worsened subjective well-being (Felton & Jowett, 2013), and mental health concerns (Hammond, Gialloreto, Kubas, & Davis, 2013). Teams who are exposed to such adversities without their members experiencing concomitant negative outcomes likely possess a number of personal and collective resources allowing them to adapt positively. Team protective factors. Team protective factors can be examined at two levels: (a) the protective factors possessed by individual team members, and (b) the protective factors possessed by the team as a collective. Because the focus of this chapter is on team resilience, and because individual athlete protective factors have been discussed elsewhere (see Fletcher & Sarkar, 2012; Galli & Vealey, 2008), the focus here is on protective factors that may be represented at the team level. The only sport team resilience study by Morgan et al. (2013) previously discussed offers four possible protective factors relevant for these groups (i.e., group structure, mastery approaches, social capital, and collective efficacy). These four factors share similarities with protective factors found in other groups, particularly social capital (Norris, Sherrieb, & Pfefferbaum, 2011) and group structure (Walsh, 2011). The implication is that teams who: (a) have a solid structure characterized by formal roles and norms and open communication, (b) emphasize team improvement, (c) support one another, and (d) have a shared belief in the team’s ability to perform well, are better equipped to respond well to setbacks and challenges presented to them. In addition to the protective factors found by Morgan et al., others found in groups and teams outside of sport, such as emotional expression (Stephens et al., 2013), and having a positive shared belief system (Walsh, 2011) should be considered as possible buffers to negative outcomes from adversity. From a socioecological perspective, the extent to which teams within larger organizations are provided the necessary economic and material resources to succeed may also be of interest as protective factors (Kristiansen, Murphy, & Roberts, 2012). Team positive adaptation. Positive adaptation to adversities may be reflected in thoughts, moods, and emotions, or more overtly in behaviors that are more functional than expected given the nature of the adversity (e.g., Schinke et al., 2012). For individual athletes, bouncing back from a poor performance to produce a successful one is often the criterion used to classify athletes as resilient (Martin-Krumm et al., 2003; Mummery, Schofield, & Perry, 2004). The advantage of using performance as a gauge of positive adaptation is that it is easily measured, is objective, and, especially in higher levels of competition, is a valued outcome by players, coaches, and fans. Surprisingly, no studies to date have examined sport team performance as an indicator of positive adaptation following adversity. Although performance as positive adaptation should indeed be considered in future studies of sport team resilience, other indicators are equally important. Maintenance of relevant team protective factors such as cohesion, collective efficacy, and social capital, or low incidence of team conflict in the face of adversity, are other possible indicators of positive adaptation that warrant attention.

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Future research directions The lack of research focused on sport team resilience provides both challenges and opportunities for investigators. On the one hand, the lack of prior studies in this area make it difficult to identify relevant variables and hypothesize relationships. On the other hand, there is a large gap in the literature waiting to be filled by those interested in the nature of resilience in sport teams. For those who do wish to conduct research on sport team resilience, there are several issues and topics to consider. First, just as in the study of individual resilience, researchers who adopt quantitative research designs must clearly operationalize each component of the resilience process, and provide rationale for their decisions. For example, a researcher may choose to study team resilience in the context of a losing streak (i.e., adversity). The researcher must clearly identify what constitutes a successful outcome (i.e., positive adaptation) in this case, and may choose one or more outcomes, such as maintenance of cohesion, or a lack of team conflict. Finally, consideration must be given to the protective factors which may moderate the relationship between the chosen adversity and positive adaptation. Such factors might include social capital, coach leadership, or a positive belief system. It is important to note that since resilience is best considered in context, indices of positive adaptation and their related protective factors will necessarily vary depending on the nature of the team and the adversity (Luthar & Cicchetti, 2000). Finally, when possible, researchers should adopt longitudinal designs so as to better establish causality between protective factors and positive adaptation in the context of team adversity. Second, consistent with a socio-ecological approach, researchers must account for both personal and group factors when investigating team resilience. That is, researchers may ask questions related to the influence of individual team member attributes (e.g., optimism, self-efficacy) on team positive adaptation to adversity, and vice versa the influence of team attributes (e.g., social capital, collective efficacy) on individual positive adaptation to adversity. Furthermore, coaches, sport organizations, fans, and communities all likely play a role in teams’ resilience, and studies of team resilience should take these individuals and groups into account. It might be interesting to answer questions regarding the relative influence of individual team member risk and protective factors versus team protective factors on teams’ positive adaptation to adversity. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) may be a useful statistical tool for examining the team’s effect on individual team members’ ability to positively adapt, and has been used to explore other team-level issues in sport psychology (e.g., Cumming, Smoll, Smith, & Grossbard, 2007). Third, researchers conducting quantitative investigations of team resilience should give careful thought to measurement. Researchers in organizational and occupational psychology have thus far treated team resilience as simply an attribute of the team, and as a result measurement has consisted of a series of questions asked of each team member regarding their perceptions of the team’s ability to bounce back from adversity. Although this approach may allow researchers to understand teams’ collective efficacy regarding their ability to handle adversity (a protective factor), it ignores the adversity and positive adaptation components of resilience. Measures of adversity and positive adaptation should consider both objective (e.g., performance) and subjective (e.g., satisfaction) aspects (Windle, 2011). From a process perspective, those who wish to develop self-report measures of team resilience should understand that no single self-report measure can truly capture resilience, and that such measures are better viewed as an indicator of teams’ protective factors, rather than resilience as a whole (Bonanno, 2012). 383

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Fourth, further qualitative studies of team resilience will add to what is known about teams’ perceptions of the process of team resilience, as well as the subjective meanings that they ascribe to the term. Researchers may choose to purposefully sample teams on the basis of having experienced a previously demarcated positive adaptation in response to a specific adversity, and structure their questions such that they address relevant protective factors and possible relationships among protective factors. A mixed-methods approach can be employed by basing interviews on data from previously administered questionnaires (Creswell & Plano-Clark, 2011). Qualitative studies also offer an ideal venue from which to explore the previously mentioned dysfunctional side of resilience. For example, how do coaches define resilience for their athletes? And what honors are bestowed upon athletes who meet the criteria of being resilient? If being “resilient” is synonymous with returning quickly from injury, brushing off verbal abuse, and doing anything it takes to rebound from a loss, and such behaviors are celebrated, perhaps researchers need to begin examining links between resilience and dysfunctional behavior in athletes and teams.

Conclusion Emerging from the study of personal resilience to chronic and acute adversity, team resilience focuses on the individual and collective protective factors that facilitate positive adaptation to adversity in groups who work together to achieve a common goal. Although only a single study has explored sport team resilience, research on resilience in individual athletes, communities, families, organizations, and research on sport teams offer a foundation on which further work in this area can build. The lack of studies on sport team resilience to date presents an opportunity for researchers to design innovative quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods studies to answer important questions about the nature of team resilience in sport. Such work can inform the design of programs and interventions to facilitate the process of team resilience. Finally, the very notion of resilience as an inherently functional process awaits critique, as automatically associating the term with heroic achievements may prevent us from seeing the potentially dysfunctional behaviors that underlie them.

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Donaldson, M. (1993). What is hegemonic masculinity? Theory & Society, 22, 643–657. http://link. springer.com/journal/11186 Felton, L., & Jowett, S. (2013). ‘What do coaches do’ and ‘how do they relate’: Their effects on athletes’ psychological needs and functioning. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 23, 130–139. doi: 10.1111/sms.12029 Fletcher, D., & Sarkar, M. (2012). A grounded theory of psychological resilience in Olympic champions. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 13, 669–678. doi: 10.1016/j.psychsport.2012.04.007 Galli, N., & Gonzalez, S. P. (2014). Psychological resilience in sport: A review of the literature and implications for research and practice. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1080/1612197X.2014.946947 Galli, N., & Vealey, R. S. (2008). “Bouncing back” from adversity: Athletes’ experiences of resilience. Sport Psychologist, 22, 316–335. http://journals.humankinetics.com/tsp Garmezy, N., Masten, A. S., & Tellegen, A. (1984). The study of stress and competence in children: A building block for developmental psychology. Child Development, 55, 97–111. doi: http://dx.doi.org. ezproxy.lib.utah.edu/10.2307/1129837 Goodger, K., Gorely, T., Lavallee, D., & Harwood, C. (2007). Burnout in sport: A systematic review. The Sport Psychologist, 21, 127–151. http://journals.humankinetics.com/tsp Hackney, A. C., Pearman, S. N., & Nowacki, J. M. (1990). Physiological profiles of overtrained and stale athletes: A review. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 2, 21–33. http://www.appliedsportpsych. org/publications/journal-of-applied-sport-psychology/ Hammond, T., Gialloreto, C., Kubas, H., & Davis, H. (2013). The prevalence of failure-based depression among elite athletes. Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine, 23, 273–277. http://journals.lww. com/cjsportsmed/Pages/default.aspx Kaegel, D. (October 13th, 2004). No quit in resilient Red Sox. Retrieved from http://boston.redsox. mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20041013&content_id=892643&vkey=news_bos&fext=.jsp&c_ id=bos Kerr, J. H., & Males, J. R. (2010). The experience of losing: Qualitative study of elite lacrosse athletes and team performance at a world championship. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 11, 394–401. 10.1016/j.psychsport.2010.04.014. Retrieved fromhttp://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.lib.utah.edu/ Kristiansen, E., Murphy, D., & Roberts, G. C. (2012). Organizational stress and coping in U.S. professional soccer. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 24, 207–223. http://www.appliedsportpsych. org/publications/journal-of-applied-sport-psychology/ Luthar, S. S., & Cicchetti, D. (2000). The construct of resilience: Implications for interventions and social policies. Development and Psychopathology, 12, 857–885. doi: 10.1017/S0954579400004156 Luthar, S. S., Cicchetti, D., & Becker, B. (2000). The construct of resilience: A critical evaluation and guidelines for future work. Child Development, 71, 543–562. Martin-Krumm, C. P., Sarrazin, P. G., Peterson, C., & Famose, J. (2003). Explanatory style and resilience after sports failure. Personality and Individual Differences, 35, 1685–1695. doi: 10.1016/j. paid.2004.09.023 Masten, A. S., Best, K. M., & Garmezy, N. (1990). Resilience and development: Contributions from the study of children who overcome adversity. Development and Psychopathology, 2, 425–444. doi: 10.1017/s0954579400005812 Morgan, P. B. C., Fletcher, D., & Sarkar, M. (2013). Defining and characterizing team resilience in elite sport. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 14, 549–559. http://www.journals.elsevier.com/psychology-ofsport-and-exercise/ Morgan, P. B. C., Fletcher, D., & Sarkar, M. (in press). Understanding team resilience in the world’s best athletes: A case study of a rugby union World Cup winning team. Psychology of Sport and Exercise. Mummery, W. K., Schofield, G., & Perry, C. (2004). Bouncing back: The role of coping style, social support and self-concept in resilience of sport performance. Athletic Insight: The Online Journal of Sport Psychology, 6. http://www.athleticinsight.com/ Norris, F. H., Sherrieb, K., & Pfefferbaum, B. (2011). Community resilience: Concepts, assessment, and implications for intervention. In S. M. Southwick, B. T. Litz, D. Charney, & M. J. Friedman (Eds.), Resilience and mental health: Challenges across the lifespan (162–175). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reivich, K. J., Seligman, M. E. P., & McBride, S. (2011). Master resilience training in the US Army. American Psychologist, 66, 25–34. doi: 10.1037/a0021897 Rutter, M. (1985). Resilience in the face of adversity: Protective factors and resistance to psychiatric disorder. British Journal of Psychiatry, 147, 598–611. doi: 10.1192/bjp.147.6.598

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38 PA R E N TA L SU P P O RT I N YO U T H SP O RT A case of optimizing the motivational climate Chris Harwood Within both youth sport research and practice, parents have represented a population of consistent interest for developmental sport psychologists (Fredricks & Eccles, 2004). Parents are perceived to be key stakeholders in facilitating both “talent” and “positive youth” development objectives (Côté, 1999; Harwood, Douglas & Minniti, 2012; Holt & Dunn, 2004), and the quality of the environment shaping the child-athlete through appropriate adult role models and supportive relationships is perceived as vital to an athlete’s psychosocial growth (Fraser-Thomas, Côté & Deakin, 2005). Taking a broad view of parental support, the work of Fredricks and Eccles (2004) has been useful in the context of ascribing three key roles to parents in youth sport settings. First, parents serve as providers of an athlete’s experience, transporting them to training and competitions, supporting them financially and logistically (e.g., Baxter-Jones & Maffulli, 2003), as well as offering important emotional, esteem, and informational support, particularly following poor performances and losses (see Gould, Lauer, Rolo, Jannes & Pennisi, 2008; Wolfenden & Holt, 2005). Second, parents function as interpreters of their child’s experience. That is, through their feedback, evaluative behavior, and attitudes to their child, parents implicitly and explicitly communicate their beliefs about their children’s competence, the value they place upon factors such as winning, improvement, fairness, composure, and honesty, and their expectations for performance (Harwood et al., 2012). It is set against the social receipt of these beliefs and values that children are likely to evaluate themselves and make decisions regarding their competence, the importance of winning and behaving in a sporting and respectful manner, and the value they place on sport participation (Babkes & Weiss, 1999; Brustad, 1993). Finally, parents serve as role models for their children and may positively or negatively influence their child’s sport experience through the behaviors they display in different contexts. For example, if parents engage in sporting activities themselves, illustrating a strong work ethic and prosocial character, their children may replicate such behavior in training and competition. Similarly, if parents behave in a calm, respectful, and easy-going manner on the sidelines, then athletes are believed to be more likely to behave in a more even-tempered manner.

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These three higher order roles for parents are intuitively appealing, and one might agree that parents who master these three roles demonstrate greater sport parent expertise (see Harwood & Knight, 2015). Nevertheless, when considering parental support in the context of behaviors that positively influence the motivation, competence perceptions, and affective responses of young athletes, it is important to utilize and revisit theory that may explain how and why such factors are affected in athletes. Aligned with this current section of the handbook, the purpose of this chapter is to explore how motivational theory (namely achievement goal theory; AGT, Nicholls, 1989) informs the differing manners in which parents may offer optimal and sub-optimal support to their child-athlete. Specifically, this chapter will outline AGT and present the contributions and implications of research into parental motivational climate (Ames, 1992b). Additionally, this chapter will present contemporary advancements in this area, strengthening the case to scholars and practitioners that parental support may only be optimized when due consideration is taken of putting motivational theories into practice.

Principles of achievement goal theory Within achievement goal theory (AGT; Nicholls, 1989), achievement goals represent the meaning that individuals assign to achievement situations; their personal theory of achievement for a given task (Roberts & Treasure, 2012). Such goals provide a cognitive structure that organizes a person’s definitions of success and failure, motivational processes (e.g., attributions), affective reactions, and subsequent motivated behaviors (e.g., task choice, effort, persistence at a task). Nicholls (1989) proposed that an internal sense of one’s ability or competence was paramount in achievement tasks within education, sport, and work, but that individuals developed a proneness to conceive ability in two different manners. These two different conceptions of ability led to two contrasting achievement goals. People are task involved when gains in personal mastery of a skill or self-referent improvement are (sufficient) conditions to enrich them with a sense of competence. In contrast, people are ego involved when their sense of competence depends on demonstrating superior performance to others or achieving an equal normative performance but with less effort exhibited. Extensive research in the sport domain has illustrated how task-involved goals are associated with positive cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes, whereas ego-involved goals are linked to less desirable or neutral outcomes (Biddle, Wang, Kavussanu & Spray, 2003; Harwood, Spray & Keegan, 2008), especially when perceived competence is low, or where not accompanied by task-oriented goals (i.e., a high task/high ego profile; Hodge & Petichkoff, 2000). Importantly, AGT proposes that a young athlete’s achievement goals for a specific situation are determined by an interaction between their goal orientation (the dispositional proneness in individuals towards adopting task or ego goals) and the motivational climate (the specific situational and contextual circumstances in which the achievement task is defined – Ames, 1992b). It is the concept of motivational climate that is of central interest to understanding both optimal and suboptimal parental support from a motivational perspective.

The concept of motivational climate Carole Ames is credited as the scholar who paved the way for our contemporary understanding of motivational climate in sport. In parallel to Nicholls’ work through the 1980s, Ames (Ames, 1992a; Ames and Archer, 1988) investigated ego-involving versus task-involving classroom environments, proposing that situational cues, chiefly controlled by the teacher, influenced 388

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the salience of different achievement goals. Social agents were proposed to determine goal salience in pupils by the nature of their instructional demands and the evaluation criteria employed to underpin success. This body of literature subsequently informed two types of motivational climate. In a mastery/task-involving climate, the criteria for evaluation are selfreferenced and people are viewed as competent when they have improved, accomplished a task, or learned something new. Conversely, in a performance/ego-involving climate, the criteria for evaluation are normatively referenced with the emphasis [communicated to young children] on proving their ability, outperforming others, and making as few mistakes as possible. Based on Epstein (1989), Ames (1992a) posited specific session structures and behaviors for teachers and coaches that were likely to invoke mastery or performance climates – and which would subsequently serve to influence children’s achievement goals. These were presented under the TARGET acronym: task, authority, recognition, grouping, evaluation, and time (Ames, 1992b). A mastery/task climate included an emphasis in sessions on collaborative tasks, democratic leadership, recognition for effort/improvement, mixed ability groupings, private and individual evaluation, and sufficient time for everyone to learn. Conversely, a performance/ego climate accentuated competitive tasks, autocratic leadership, recognition of normative ability, segregation of children by ability, normative and public evaluation, and time for only the more advanced students to complete a task. Although the principles of achievement goal theory originated from research within educational settings, youth sport research scholars (Duda, 1993; Roberts & Treasure, 2012) appreciated its direct applicability to the domains of sport and physical education. Central to the wave of subsequent research into the antecedents and consequences of task and ego achievement goals in athletes, the concept of motivational climate has been vigorously investigated in sport settings. Beyond the motivational climate created by coaches (Walling, Duda & Chi, 1993) and peers (Ntoumanis & Vazou, 2005), scholars have investigated the motivational environment initiated by parents in youth sport and the potential impacts of such parental behavior on athletes.

Research into parent-initiated motivational climates Studies investigating the influence of parents on the motivation, cognitions, affective responses, and behavior of young athletes have employed both quantitative and qualitative methods over the past 20 years. Both methodological approaches to understanding the composition and impact of parental attitudes and behavior towards child-athletes have progressively offered important practical implications and guidance in relation to optimizing parental support.

Quantitative investigations of parental climate Sally White (White, 1996; White, Duda & Hart, 1992; White, Kavussanu & Guest, 1998) established the first line of survey-based research into how young athletes perceived the motivational climate created by their parents, with a primary focus on investigating subsequent associations with the athletes’ achievement goal orientations. Based on a measure of perceived motivational climate created by teachers in physical education (Papaioannou, 1994), White and colleagues (1992) developed the Parent-Initiated Motivational Climate Questionnaire (PIMCQ), a 14-item inventory that children completed twice to assess perceptions of their mother and father’s situational approach to achievement in sport. A revised 18-item version of the inventory shortly followed (White, 1996; PIMCQ-2), yielding similar psychometric 389

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results in the form of three distinct factors: a learning/enjoyment climate (e.g., my mother/ father encourage me to enjoy learning new skills) reflective of a task-involving situational goal structure; a worry-conducive climate (e.g., my mother/father makes me worried about performing skills that I am not good at); and a success-without-effort climate (e.g., my mother/father believe that it is important for me to win without trying hard). These latter two factors were deemed to be reflective of an ego-involving goal structure. Within these initial studies, perceptions of a parental learning/enjoyment climate was positively associated with an athlete’s task goal orientation and negatively correlated with an ego goal orientation. Conversely, young athletes’ perceptions of worry-conducive and success-without-effort climates have been linked with ego goal orientations in young athletes (White et al., 1998), female volleyball players (White, 1996), and secondary school PE students (Carr & Weigand, 2001). In addition, when examining the goal orientation profiles of adolescent athletes, White (1998) reported that high task/low ego and high task/ high ego athletes perceived a learning/enjoyment climate for both parents, while high ego/ low task athletes reported a success-without-effort climate for both parents. Interestingly, the high task/high ego athletes also reported how fathers valued success without effort, while mothers created a sense of worry over mistakes. This illustrates the potential complexity of dual parent–child relationships and the challenges of mixed messages within the same family environment. In this study, it is noteworthy that fathers in the high ego/low task group of athletes were perceived to create a high worry-conducive climate that was linked to the highest levels of reported competitive trait anxiety in this sample. In a more recent study examining the influence of the overall parental motivational climate (i.e., both parents combined) on 2 × 2 achievement goals in university athletes (Elliot, 1999), Morris and Kavussanu (2008) reinforced how mastery approach goals (i.e., task goals) were positively predicted by perceptions of a parental learning and enjoyment climate. Interestingly, the same climate also predicted mastery avoidance goals – the desire in an athlete to avoid a lack of learning or a poor self-referenced performance. Performance avoidance goals in athletes – the desire to avoid demonstrating normative incompetence – were predicted positively by perceptions of a worry-conducive climate. This relatively small body of research supports the potential socializing influence that parents can exert on a young athlete’s proneness towards particular achievement goals through the evaluative messages that parents are perceived to convey about achievement. However, recent research has started to examine more specific mechanisms and processes that parents may tap into through their behavior and interactions with young athletes. Appleton, Hall and Hill (2011) investigated the relationship between parental motivational climate and the perfectionistic cognitions reported by elite junior athletes. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that the strongest predictor of male and female athletes’ perfectionistic cognitions was the same-sex parent-initiated worry-conducive climate. This finding offered support for the same-sex parent–child hypothesis of perfectionism development, reinforcing how junior athletes may experience perfectionistic cognitions when the same-sex parent is perceived to be disparaging of mistakes and highly critical (Appleton et al., 2011). Interestingly, and unexpectedly, their regression analyses also revealed that a mother’s worry-conducive climate negatively predicted male athletes’ perfectionistic cognitions, while a father’s learning/enjoyment climate positively predicted a female athlete’s perfectionistic cognitions. Based on Vieth and Trull (1999), the authors speculated that male athletes may potentially reject the values or messages of opposite-sex role models (i.e., of their mothers) much more so than females [do of their fathers]; and that female athletes commit to high personal standards and learning from errors (i.e., adaptive perfectionism) when they 390

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experience a paternal achievement environment that encourages learning and optimizing skill development. What Appleton and colleagues’ research also illustrated was that the parent-initiated motivational climate was the strongest predictor of athletes’ perfectionismrelated thoughts above athletes’ perceptions of their coach-created motivational climate. Additionally, regardless of the age of the athletes (i.e., throughout adolescence), the role of a parental worry-conducive climate remained significant in terms of promulgating associations with same-sex perfectionistic thinking in athletes. The comparison between coaches and parents in terms of “whose motivational climate is most influential on young athletes?” was explored further by O’ Rourke, Smith, Smoll and Cumming (2014) within a sample of 238 junior swimmers (aged 9–14 years). Their findings illustrated that parent-initiated mastery climate (i.e., learning/enjoyment) was positively and significantly correlated with swimmers’ self-esteem and autonomous motivational regulation, whereas perceptions of a parent’s ego-involving climate (i.e., combining items related to worry and success-without-effort) was negatively related. Both coach- and parentinitiated mastery climate scores were negatively related with performance anxiety, whereas both parent- and coach-initiated ego-involving climate were positively related. Importantly, further hierarchical regression analyses revealed that parent-initiated climate was a significant predictor of late-season self-esteem, trait anxiety, and autonomous regulation over and above coach-initiated motivational climate. Such research has begun to illustrate the more pervasive nature of parental influence and the potential for parental values to be transmitted through the multiple contexts and more extensive time spent with children compared to coaches. O’Rourke and colleagues (O’ Rourke, Smith, Smoll & Cumming, 2011, 2012) utilized a slightly larger subset of swimmers from the same USA swimming project to address a number of other longitudinal parent-specific questions. Linked to the prior research above, O’ Rourke et al., (2012) revealed that early-season perceptions of a parental mastery climate predicted positive changes in swimmers’ self-esteem over the course of the season, whereas perceptions of a parental ego climate was associated with decreased self-esteem. The researchers also collected early, mid- and late-season data on swimmers’ perceptions of parental pressure defined as “a pattern of directive and controlling parental behaviors designed to prompt athlete responses and outcomes that are important to the parent” (O’ Rourke et al., 2011, p. 400). Such pressuring behaviors may include communication of achievement goals and expectations, careful monitoring of the athlete’s behavior, unsolicited technical instruction, encouragement, and the communication of response-contingent approval and disapproval. Through this additional data, O’ Rourke and colleagues (2011) were interested in determining whether these examples of parental behavior were harmful to swimmers dependent on the nature of achievement goals and definition of success that parents emphasized (i.e., the motivational climate they created). Interestingly, high perceived parental pressure within either a low mastery or a high ego motivational climate was associated with the highest levels of trait performance anxiety at all time points throughout the season. An early-season, high-parent pressure/low-mastery climate combination was associated with relative increases in anxiety over the season, whereas high parental pressure within a high mastery climate was associated with relative decreases in anxiety. These results indicated the protective function of a high parental mastery climate, and suggested that parental pressure needs to be understood in the context of the motivational climate parents create when exerting such pressure. Indeed, it appears from this study that parents who engage more intensely with their child to encourage effort, learning from mistakes, and focus on selfimprovement may essentially be pressuring their child in an adaptive manner.

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It is important to note that the vast majority of research on motivational climate from a quantitative perspective has been conducted in Western cultures. Indeed, in a recent systematic review of 104 correlational studies of motivational climate (including coach, parent, and peer climate measures) conducted by Harwood, Keegan, Smith and Raine (2015), only five studies emerged from Eastern nations (e.g., Singapore, South Korea and Japan). The nature of parent-initiated climates in Eastern cultures remains understudied, and our understanding of parental influence on young athletes in non-Western cultures remains limited. For example, Si, Duan, Li and Jiang (2011) clarify how coaches as traditional authority figures in Chinese culture take on the role of parenting elite athletes from an early age, whereby the child’s biological parents are distanced from the sport support roles that Westernized parents might be assumed to take. Such norms render scientific observations about the relative power of parent and coach climate to be highly culture-dependent.

Qualitative investigations of parental climate Whilst this body of quantitative research has emphasized the importance of athletes’ perceptions of their parental environment in regard to associations with motivational and other selective psychosocial factors (Harwood et al., 2008), it is limited by its correlational emphasis, its higher order abstractness and its distance from understanding the actual practicalities of what parents do to influence athlete motivation (Keegan, Harwood, Spray & Lavallee, 2014a). Only by investigating the scope of parental behaviors in-depth within sport settings will researchers be able to more clearly inform both practitioners and parents of optimal forms of motivational support. In response to such criticisms, Richard Keegan and colleagues (Keegan, Harwood, Spray & Lavallee, 2009; Keegan et al., 2014a; Keegan, Spray, Harwood & Lavallee, 2010) conducted a series of developmental qualitative studies exploring the social factors perceived to be motivationally relevant to young athletes in the sampling years, specializing years, and investment years (Côté, 1999). Whilst these studies targeted the roles of coaches, parents, and peers, attention will be specifically given to what these investigations offer to optimizing a parental motivational climate. In their first study, Keegan and colleagues (2009) conducted eight focus groups with 40 young athletes from 7 to 12 years of age. Several dimensions represented the ways in which these young children interpreted the motivational impact of their parents on their sport experience. Beyond the provision of social support, many of these themes supported traditional task and ego-involving behavioral distinctions. Parents were perceived to play important training and learning roles at this age, with value on informal “play-and-teach” behaviors (e.g., within the garden), balancing instruction within playful practice. Children also referred to parents’ pre-performance motivating behaviors including encouragement of effort and engagement, as well as building confidence in their skill through esteem support. In contrast, a parental concern for results and pressure to perform well, leading to more avoidance based goals, were also emergent themes. During competition and postcompetition, children referred to positive evaluative feedback, happiness and cheering in parents, tolerance of mistakes, and effort-contingent reinforcement. However, they also cited more negative, demotivating behaviors and parenting styles including a parent’s propensity for anger and emotional over-involvement, their use of rewards as a mechanism for control, evaluative comparisons with other competitors, and result-contingent reinforcement. In their follow-up focus group investigation with 79 specializing stage athletes (aged 9–18 years), Keegan et al., (2010) continued to illustrate how a better overall understanding of 392

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motivational climate may be derived by unpicking parents’ leadership style with their child, their feedback/evaluation preferences, their pre-performance behaviors, and overall support/ practice facilitation roles. These dimensions, evident in the sampling years, emerged more prominently in the data from specializing stage athletes. For example, although associated with self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985), the contrast between autonomysupportive versus controlling parenting styles was more polarized and evident in this stage of athletic development. Pressure, restriction of choice, strict rules, over-involvement, lack of listening, and one way communication served as negative motivators for talented young athletes compared with the positive effects of open, two-way communication, accountability with support, and athletes’ involvement in decisions offered by parents. What became clear from this developmental progression is the degree to which parents are challenged to “step up” in various behavioral roles that may comprise an optimal motivational climate as their children mature through their own athletic transition. Such descriptions of the evolving support roles of parents are widely cited in the youth sport parenting literature (see Côté, 1999; Durand-Bush, Salmela & Thompson, 2004; Harwood et al., 2012). This study further reinforced the pervasive ways in which parents play central roles in multiple settings during the specializing years beyond the increasing importance of coach and peers at this time. In the final study of their series, Keegan et al., (2014a) investigated 28 elite athletes in the investment stage of their career (aged 15–28 years) through a combination of interviews and focus groups. Their findings illustrated how previous components of the parental motivational climate (e.g., feedback/evaluation, leadership style, practice facilitation, pre-performance behaviors) were far more diminished for parents and far more central to coach and peer climates. As Keegan et al. (2014a, p.106) noted: the emancipated, independent athlete is likely to form very different relationships with their coach and, by definition, their parents – as a result of their increased autonomy and status … Elite athletes spend proportionately more time with their peers, extending beyond training/competition to include travelling, rooming, postevent, and attending social events outside of participation. Supportive of existing career developmental models vis-à-vis parental involvement (Wylleman, Alfermann & Lavallee, 2004), the motivational impact of parents in the investment stage appeared to lessen in magnitude and frequency. Their main sources of influence were restricted to travelling to watch, telephone conversations, and general emotional and moral support (e.g., keeping athletes “grounded,” and offering unconditional support) (Keegan et al., 2014a). As a result of these aforementioned studies, scholars gained a clearer picture not only of the scope, but also of the important interplay between parent-initiated, coach- and peer-created motivational climates through the lifespan of the young athlete. These richer facets, purported to influence the motivation of young athletes, could not easily be captured or understood by quantitative, survey-based research. Indeed, Keegan, Spray, Harwood and Lavallee (2014b) recently advanced the debate further by presenting a qualitative synthesis of research into the social motivational influences of athletes across the career span. In this study, they argued that traditional views of motivational climate underpinned by achievement goal theory (Nicholls, 1989) were perhaps too constrained, and that there was more to a motivational climate than its task or ego-involving components. Considering the role of allied motivational theories (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Elliot, 1999), their prior investigations and reviews of existing literature, Keegan and colleagues presented the concept of a motivational atmosphere created by coaches, 393

Competition conditions

Competition climate

Competence region

Training and learning conditions

Training and learning climate

Emotional conditions

Highly permeable borders between climates

Emotional climate

Social support conditions

Social support climate

Relatedness conditions

Relatedness climate

Autonomy region

Relatedness region

Complex interaction of intrapersonal and environment influences

Authority conditions

Authority climate

“Motivational landscape”

Evaluation conditions

Evaluation climate

“Motivational atmosphere” Over-arching, global concept containing all sub-climates and conditions

Figure 38.1 Keegan et al.’s (2014) Meteorological Model of Motivational Atmosphere. Reprinted with permission

Situational level Immediate behaviors of, and exchanges with, key social agents. Rich interactions occurring between external “motivational conditions” and intrapersonal factors to determine motivational outcomes

Contextual level Aggregate/average of social influences in a specific context:“on this team …” or “in this session …”

Global level Aggregate/average of all social influences across all agents

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parents, and peers (see Figure 38.1). This higher order meteorological concept comprised several sub-climates that subsequently reflected the scope of roles and behaviors impacting on an athlete’s motivation (i.e., their perceptions of competence, autonomy, and relatedness). Drawing from the information within Figure 38.1, parents (as well as coaches and peers) are proposed to impact on an athlete’s competence by the competition, training/learning and evaluation climates that they create; an athlete’s sense of autonomy depends upon the emotional climate parents create and the autonomy-supportive vs controlling nature of their parenting style; finally, parents contribute to a child’s sense of relatedness in sport through the social support they provide and the degree to which they provide opportunities for connections with others. In addition, Keegan and colleagues provide a detailed breakdown of the support roles, behaviors, and actions associated with parents within these climates and across the three athlete developmental phases.

Future research: investments in interventions Research informing the support roles and practices of parents has burgeoned greatly in recent years (Gould et al., 2008; Harwood & Knight, 2015), and there is a critical need for further research to investigate and understand the impact of parents who create differential (i.e., mixed) spousal climates within the same family system (Holt, Tamminen, Black, Mandigo & Fox, 2009). In addition, it is surprising that despite the sizeable amount of correlational and qualitative research conducted on parental motivational climate, few studies have sought to develop motivational interventions with parents with a view to optimizing parental support. As part of a field-based intervention designed to improve tennis players’ task involvement and competition cognitions, Harwood and Swain (2002) implemented a program of parent education and support entitled the “Competitive Performance Parent”. They provided individual educational sessions to parents on achievement goals, communication strategies, and behavioral guidelines to support a task-involving motivational climate. Parents were encouraged to engage in pre- and post-performance tasks focused on helping their son/ daughter to approach matches with a stronger focus on personal improvement through process goals, and to interpret competition as more of a challenge as opposed to a threat to their self-concept. By using a single-case design methodology, post-intervention improvements in player responses, and social validation from players suggested that this parental element of the program contributed to the effectiveness of the initiative. However, while the program sought to optimize the attitudes, values, and practices of parents when supporting their child, no data were collected on the actual motivational climate perceived by players, nor was any objective data accumulated on parents through the intervention. More recently, Smoll, Smith and Cumming (2007) implemented and evaluated an intervention directed at coaches and parents of 9–15 year olds participating in a community youth basketball program. Aimed at using the principles of achievement goal theory to reduce performance anxiety in young athletes, the 60 minute “Mastery Approach to Sport Parenting” (MAP) workshop promoted a task-involving motivational climate that deemphasized winning and competency-based social comparison in favor of defining success in terms of giving maximum effort, individual improvement, supporting and encouraging teammates, and enjoyment of the activity and team experience. By encouraging a focus on such positive and supportive behavior toward the players, results indicated that the intervention was successful in reducing players’ anxiety levels. An additional methodological strength of this study was the employment of a matched control group of athletes. In this matched condition, athletes increased significantly in performance anxiety from preseason to late season compared with 395

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the child-athletes whose coaches and parents had undergone the intervention. Given such a promising but limited body of work, applied researchers are encouraged to engage in more field-based intervention work with parents, particularly given the salience and pervasiveness of their influence on young athletes in the sampling and specializing years. In conclusion, the study of parental motivational climate over the past 25 years has progressed from separate, quantitative examinations of achievement goal theory to an appreciation that multiple, contemporary motivational theories may speak better to the integrated efforts of parents, coaches, and peers to secure an optimal motivational atmosphere. Interestingly, when one considers the original components of TARGET forwarded by Ames’ (1992b), one can see an evolution of these structural elements emerging in contemporary thinking. Further research is needed on which of the proposed parental sub-climates (Keegan et al., 2014b) are most salient to young athletes, and through which dimensions of climate parents have the greatest and least confidence in shaping a positive environment for their child to excel in and through sport. Finally, it is imperative to reinforce the need for greater cultural research that focuses on how parents adaptively support the motivation, psychosocial development, and performance of their child-athlete in systems of diverse societal values. Such research may enable practitioners to appropriately work with, and be informed by, specific cultural differences when consulting in youth sport.

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Cognition

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39 P E R S O NA L I T Y A N D PERFORMANCE Beyond the Big 5 Ross Roberts and Tim Woodman

Understanding the person behind the athlete, and realizing that athletes are different people, lies at the heart of effective applied sport psychology (Fifer, Henschen, Gould, & Ravizza, 2008). In contrast to this apparent truism on the importance of personality within sport and performance contexts, personality research has had something of a troubled history in the sport literature. Indeed, despite personality being erstwhile the subject of considerable research interest (Eysenck, Nias, & Cox, 1982), many sport psychology researchers have more recently turned their attention to sport-related cognitions and behaviours while neglecting the personality dimensions that might underlie those behaviours. This has led to personality being seen as something of a backwater in sport psychology research. We aim to redress that balance in this chapter. Specifically, the purpose of this chapter is to consider a more central role for personality and individual differences in the context of performance. Understanding the aspects of personality that might be associated with better/worse performance is not only of considerable theoretical importance, but it is of substantial applied importance; developing a better understanding of the sort of person who might be more (or less) likely to perform well would allow directors, managers, mentors, coaches, and practitioners to better tailor the strategies that are used to optimize individuals’ performance. Much of the existing personality work in sport has utilized the Five-Factor Model of Personality, the so-called ‘Big 5’ (Costa & McCrae, 1992), and so we provide only a brief review of this work in this chapter (readers are referred to Allen, Greenlees, & Jones, 2013 for an excellent and more detailed review of the Big 5 in relation to sport). We aim to present a review of personality that considers people beyond how they might fit into the Big 5. We adopt such an approach because we believe that personality and performance will be best understood by ensuring that the research is underpinned by two interrelated and overarching principles. First, researchers should consider performers beyond their relative fit into five largely measurement-derived broad traits (e.g., the Big 5). Instead, researchers should consider specific personality traits that have a specifically strong performance-focused theoretical basis. Second, people are complex and so the relationship between the person and his/her performance is also complex. As such, research questions that are formed on the basis of main effects (e.g., is extraversion a positive trait for performance?) have very limited value. Specifically, the relationship between personality and performance is best viewed through an 401

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interaction lens: the interaction between different aspects of personality and/or between the person and his/her environment (cf. Lewin, 1936).

Personality conceptualization Personality has been defined as the ‘psychological qualities that contribute to an individual’s enduring and distinctive patterns of feeling, thinking, and behaving’ (Cervone & Pervin, 2013, p. 8). Although personality has been discussed in writings as far back as Ancient Greece (see Allen et al., 2013), much of the initial impetus into understanding how basic differences in personality contributed to human functioning and health was provided by Freud, and then continued by other personality theorists (e.g., Adler, Jung, Reich, & Eysenck). These theorists considered personality development across the lifespan and proposed that early experiences shaped later thoughts and behaviours. As an example, Freud proposed a model of psychosexual development with oral, anal, and phallic personality types, each with their own aetiology in early childhood experiences. However, not least because the subject area (i.e., psychosexual development) was likely uncomfortable for many, later work migrated away from understanding individuals within the context of their development to broad traitbased approaches such as the ‘Giant 3’ traits of extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism (e.g., Eysenck & Eysenck, 1985) and the Big 5 traits of extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience, agreeableness, and neuroticism (see Costa & McCrae, 1992; Goldberg, 1992). This move toward trait theories was further facilitated by the progress that was made in statistical methods (e.g., factor analysis). The Big 5 has received considerable research attention and has been used as an underlying theoretical framework in a number of areas of personality psychology, including: leadership (e.g., Judge, Piccolo, & Kosalka, 2003), stress and coping (Carver & Connor-Smith, 2010), and performance (e.g., Barrick, Mount, & Judge, 2001; Woodman, Hardy, Zourbanos, Beattie, & McQuillan, 2010).

Big 5 personality research in sport Within sport research, the role of personality was initially viewed favourably, with early theorists suggesting that personality might account for up to 45 per cent of the variance in performance (Morgan, 1980). However, much of the early personality research (e.g., Schurr, Ashley, & Joy, 1977; Williams & Parkin, 1980) was beset by a number of problems, including a lack of theoretical rationale, methodological flaws, and a failure to control for Type I error rates (Eysenck et al., 1982). These early studies typically compared large groups of athletes (e.g., successful vs. non-successful athletes, team vs. individual athletes) on various personality scales in a search for the ideal sport personality, often without any underlying rationale. Unsurprisingly, for the vast majority of analyses, no differences between groups were revealed. The continuation of such atheoretical group-based comparison studies in the 1990s, likely contributed further to the relative paucity of interest in personality in sport. Thankfully, more recent sport work with the Big 5 has attempted to overcome some of these limitations, and has provided more illuminating findings regarding how personality might predict performance and performance-related behaviours. For example, Piedmont, Hill, and Blanco (1999) demonstrated the predictive utility of the Big 5 in athletic performance as, in a sample of collegiate athletes, conscientiousness (positively) and neuroticism (negatively) independently predicted game performance. These effects are consistent with findings from organizational contexts, where conscientiousness in particular is a reliable predictor of work performance (see Barrick et al., 2001). In addition to effects on performance, researchers 402

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have also examined relationships between personality, coping, and emotional reactivity to examine personality’s influence on the strategies used by athletes to deal with pressure (e.g., Allen, Greenlees, & Jones, 2011, 2014; Kaiseler, Polman, & Nicholls, 2012). These findings consistently demonstrate that conscientious athletes report greater use of approach- and problem-focused coping strategies, whereas neuroticism is associated with more avoidant coping and greater emotional intensity in response to stress. While these findings support the utility of personality in a performance context, they are limited in that they ‘only’ illustrate simple main effects of personality on performance-related variables. As noted earlier, we believe that a sharper focus should be given to interactions in order to develop a more intricate understanding of the influence of personality on performance. Several studies have recently taken this approach using the Big 5 as a theoretical basis. For example, Woodman et al. (2010) examined interactions between personality and psychological skills on the training behaviours of elite gymnasts. They found that goal setting was particularly beneficial for extravert (but not introvert) athletes in reducing distractibility in training. In addition, emotional control increased neurotics’ (but not emotionally stable athletes’) ability to cope with adversity. Furthermore, Bell, Mawn, and Poynor (2013) examined how neuroticism might moderate the speed-accuracy trade-off in decision-making in high standard academy cricketers. They found that neurotic cricketers’ decision-making was more effective the faster they made decisions, which runs counter to the accepted speedaccuracy trade-off position (cf. Fitts, 1954) and again demonstrates that performance-related research is complex and largely cannot be reduced to main effects. The aforementioned work by Allen and colleagues has also taken an interactive focus. As well as examining main effects of personality on coping, Allen et al. (2011) examined interactions between personality traits, finding evidence for three-factor interactions between particular traits and specific types of coping. For example, extraversion, openness, and neuroticism interacted to predict problemfocused coping. When extraversion was high, high levels of openness and low levels of neuroticism were associated with high levels of problem-focused coping, whereas there was no interactive effect of neuroticism and openness when extraversion was low. Although the interactive focus of this study was at the person level (as opposed to the person × environment approach taken in the other studies), the analyses support the benefits of going beyond simply examining the main effects of personality on various outcomes. Most recently, Allen et al. (2014), in their study of personality and emotional reactivity, also considered how personality and counterfactual thinking might interact to predict emotional responses to competition. Interestingly, they found no evidence for interactions as both personality and counterfactual thinking exerted additive effects on reactivity. Taken together, these studies generally support the utility of taking an interactive approach to examining the effects of Big 5 personality traits on behaviour. However, these studies also suggest that interactions may not be ubiquitous. Thus it seems vital for researchers in the future to consider the circumstances under which personality might exert interactive effects on the relevant outcome, and why this might be the case, and when personality’s effect is only additive.

Beyond the Big 5 The previous section outlined that the Big 5 can clearly have some predictive validity in relation to sport. Equally, to understand more fully the intricacies involved in personality and its effects on performance likely requires a person to be considered beyond five facets of their personality. Thus, moving beyond the Big 5 is warranted to examine personality variables with strong theoretical bases if we are to fully understand personality’s influence 403

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on performance. Such variables include, but are not limited to: narcissism, alexithymia, perfectionism, optimism, trait anxiety, and mental toughness. Detailed coverage of each of these variables is clearly beyond the scope of this chapter, so we have chosen to focus on the three variables of narcissism, alexithymia, and perfectionism. We have done this for two reasons. First, unlike broad trait-based approaches, considerable understanding exists regarding how these personality characteristics develop as a result of the parent-child relationship (e.g., Hewitt & Flett, 2002; Otway & Vignoles, 2006; Taylor & Bagby, 2013) and each of these variables has a strong theoretical basis. Second, for each of these variables, the performance arena provides a potential compensatory benefit to the self; a benefit that is likely not perceived as being so readily available in other aspects of everyday life. For coverage of the other variables mentioned here we refer readers to recent reviews of optimism (Carver, Scheier, & Segerstrom, 2010), mental toughness (Gucciardi & Hanton, in press) and anxiety (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007; Wilson, 2008).

Narcissism 1

In clinical settings, narcissism is defined as ‘a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and a lack of empathy’ (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th ed. text revision; American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p. 669). Research in normal (i.e., subclinical) settings within personality and social psychology has revealed that narcissism is associated with a grandiose – yet fragile – self-view, and feelings of entitlement (see Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). Despite such grandiose beliefs, narcissism is not always positively associated with performance (e.g., Gabriel, Critelli, & Ee, 1994). In fact, the quality of narcissists’ performance is dependent on the opportunity for personal glory that is available in a particular situation. In their now seminal set of studies, Wallace and Baumeister (2002) clearly demonstrated that narcissists perform very well in situations that offer opportunities for glory (such as performing difficult tasks, performing under pressure, receiving public evaluation) and perform relatively poorly when such an opportunity is lacking. Sport provides an excellent medium to examine the effects of narcissism on performance because of the opportunities for glory that are available, and this work has now been extended to the sporting arena. Specifically, in pressurized competitive settings narcissists perform very well, yet they perform poorly when the pressure is off (Guekes, Mesagno, Hanrahan, & Kellmann, 2012, 2013; Ong, Roberts, Arthur, Woodman, & Akehurst, 2015; Roberts, Callow, Hardy, Woodman, & Thomas, 2010; Roberts, Woodman, Hardy, Davis, & Wallace, 2013b; Woodman, Roberts, Hardy, Callow, & Rogers, 2011). This literature provides more evidence in favour of person × environment interactions and demonstrates that narcissists tend to excel when they perceive an opportunity for self-enhancement and tend to under-perform when such an opportunity is absent. Narcissists’ good performance when perceived glory is available provides them with an opportunity to demonstrate to the world how exceptional they (think they) are; this validates their grandiose beliefs. This is important for narcissists because their core selfconcept is fragile and in need of constant validation (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). In this way, a good performance when others are having difficulty provides a method for such selfvalidation. However, the mechanisms that underlie the narcissism–performance relationship are poorly understood. Wallace and Baumeister (2002) suggested that narcissists’ zeal for self-enhancement means that they will increase effort when they suspect that such an opportunity exists. When they view no such opportunity for glory, effort will be withdrawn, and performance will suffer. However, evidence is lacking regarding effort as a mechanism that underlies narcissists’ performance gains, although one study provides some evidence 404

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that supports this theoretical position. To explore whether narcissism was associated with social loafing, and whether any changes in performance were associated with changes in effort, Woodman et al. (2011) used a team-cycling task, in which participants cycled as far as possible in 10 minutes. When team scores were publicized and individual performances within the team were not identifiable, narcissists performed less well – they loafed. However, when individual performances within each team were made identifiable, narcissists increased the distance that they cycled by over one kilometer. This performance increase was mirrored by an increase in effort (heart rate and RPE). Although these data revealed parallel changes in effort and performance, they provide no direct evidence that the changes in effort were directly responsible for performance gains. Further, effort is a multidimensional construct as it contains both physical and mental components. The extant literature has yet to examine the role of mental effort in the performance of narcissists, despite the fact that mental effort is associated with good performance under pressure (e.g., see Cooke, Kavussanu, McIntyre, Boardley, & Ring, 2011). Thus it is clear that the role of effort in the narcissism–performance relationship is poorly understood and requires further investigation. Sport narcissism research has also recently started to examine more applied questions, such as how psychological skills influence narcissists’ performance. In line with the aforementioned interactionist perspective, narcissists’ love of competition may mean that psychological skills are simply not needed, or not beneficial. In contrast, low narcissists tend to choke under pressure (Wallace & Baumeister, 2002), and so may find psychological skills particularly beneficial in aiding performance under pressure. Interestingly, the available literature on this topic does not fully support this theorizing. Narcissists seem to benefit from the use of some psychological skills such as relaxation and self-talk (Roberts et al., 2013b) and imagery, providing that this imagery involves the self (i.e., is from an external perspective; Roberts et al., 2010). In contrast, low narcissists only seem to perform well under pressure when they have well-developed emotional control skills, and they do not seem to benefit from the use of other psychological strategies designed to aid performance (Roberts et al., 2013b). These findings are important as they highlight to the applied practitioner that ‘one size does not fit all’ when it comes to psychological skills training, and that personality needs to be given a more central consideration in their use. As narcissism appears to be a theoretically meaningful personality variable in the sport and performance domain, future work examining its influence in other domains (e.g., coach behaviours, group processes, responses to stress) appears worthwhile.

Alexithymia Alexithymia refers to a trait deficit in emotion regulation (Mikolajczak & Luminet, 2006). Derived from the Greek for lack of (prefix ‘a-’) words (‘lex’) for feelings (‘thymia’), and initially derived from clinical observations, alexithymia is characterized by the absence of words to express emotions. It is typically conceptualized as comprising two components: a difficulty in acknowledging emotions and feelings; and an inability to express emotions and feelings to others (Sifneos, 1972; Taylor, Bagby, & Parker, 1997). Within the clinical domain a considerable literature supports the relationship between alexithymia and a number of indices of poor mental health and emotion regulation, including anxiety and depression (Corcos & Speranza, 2003; Lumley, Stettner, & Wehmer, 1996), and difficulties in interpersonal relationships (Taylor et al., 1997). Despite a lack of alexithymia research in the performance domain, competitive performance environments could be particularly attractive for alexithymic individuals. 405

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This is because such competitive environments provide a means by which the alexithymic individual might regulate his/her emotions through the experience, and subsequent control, of anxiety (Roberts & Woodman, 2015). Indeed, theoretical perspectives on stress and risktaking (Fenichel, 1939; Woodman, Huggins, LeScanff, & Cazenave, 2009) suggest that highrisk environments provide an emotion regulation benefit to the self because they allow the individual to experience, and subsequently to control, anxiety – a control that is not enjoyed in everyday life; the mastery of anxiety in these settings facilitates a relative sense of wellbeing after having engaged in the activity. This transfer of emotion regulation benefits from the high-stress domain back into everyday life is also supported by empirical evidence. Indeed, alexithymia has been shown to be a key antecedent of engagement in risk-taking activities – such as mountaineering, ocean rowing, and sky diving (e.g., Barlow, Woodman, Chapman, Milton, Dodds, & Allen, 2015; Woodman, Cazenave, & LeScanff, 2008; Woodman et al.,, 2009; Woodman, Hardy, Barlow, & Le Scanff, 2010) – and alexithymic individuals have been shown to derive emotion regulation benefits from engaging with the high-risk domain. Such emotion regulation benefits include a relative reduction in anxiety (Woodman et al., 2008, 2009) and an increased ability to deal with close relationships (Woodman et al. 2010). Although competitive environments are not life threatening, they are still perceived to be a risky environment because of the threat to the performer’s ego (as evidenced by increased pre-competition anxiety, cf. Woodman & Hardy, 2001). Thus, these competitive environments might allow alexithymic athletes to experience, and then to master, anxiety. Interestingly, alexithymics’ relatively blunted emotional response might place them in an advantageous position for competition performance. Performing well under pressure requires the athlete to maintain control over his/her emotions. As such, individuals who typically suffer from an impoverished emotional experience (such as alexithymics) may be at somewhat of a competitive advantage over their relatively emotionally attuned counterparts. This leads to the intriguing possibility that emotion regulation difficulties – a hindrance in many aspects of living (e.g., interpersonal relationships) – could in fact be advantageous in the high-pressure competition domain. Furthermore, the alexithymic athlete’s relative emotional paucity in everyday life means that the motivation for competition might be rather more central to his/her sense of wellbeing than for the comparatively emotional athlete (cf. Barlow, Woodman, & Hardy, 2013). This centrality is because it is only in the competitive domain that he/she feels a degree of emotion. We encourage researchers to address these potentially very exciting research questions, which are currently in their infancy.

Perfectionism Perfectionism is characterized by the setting of extremely high personal standards alongside harsh criticism of one’s own behaviour. Although different conceptualizations of perfectionism exist in the literature (Frost, Marten, Lahart, & Rosenblate, 1990; Hewitt & Flett, 1991) there is a growing consensus that the different aspects of perfectionism that underpin these conceptualizations can be incorporated into two broad dimensions: perfectionistic striving, a dimension related to having high personal standards and striving for perfection; and perfectionistic concerns, a dimension related to highly critical self-evaluation (e.g., see Dunkley, Zuroff, & Blankstein, 2003; Gaudreau & Thompson, 2010; Stoeber & Otto, 2006). Using these broad dimensions, two models are currently promoted in the literature to explain the influence of perfectionism: the tripartite model (Rice & Ashby, 2007; Stoeber & Otto, 2006) and the 2 × 2 model (Gaudreau & Thompson, 2010). There is agreement across the two models that striving for perfection, when not accompanied by perfectionistic 406

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concerns (hereafter known as healthy perfectionism, see Stoeber & Otto, 2006), is associated with positive outcomes for the self. These beneficial effects seem particularly evident in performance-related contexts as healthy perfectionism has been linked to greater performance (Stoll, Lau, & Stoeber, 2008), Olympic success (Gould, Dieffenbach, & Moffet, 2002), effective coping (Gaudreau & Antl, 2008), and more self-determined forms of motivation (Gaudreau & Thompson, 2010). While striving for perfection (in the absence of concerns) appears to be a reasonably adaptive form of perfectionism, the combination of striving and concerns (hereafter unhealthy perfectionism, Stoeber & Otto, 2006) is rather more maladaptive. Unhealthy perfectionism is associated with depression (Rice & Mirzadeh, 2000), anxiety (Gotwals, Dunn, Causgrove, Dunn, & Gamache, 2010), and maladaptive behaviours such as the ‘yips’ (Roberts, Rotheram, Maynard, Thomas, & Woodman, 2013a). Thus it would appear that striving for an impossibly high standard, while simultaneously refusing to accept anything less that complete perfection as the norm, comes at the expense of unhealthy perfectionists’ wellbeing. The tripartite model and the 2 × 2 model purport that this unhealthy form of perfectionism is certainly more maladaptive than healthy perfectionism. However, further examination of these models reveals an interesting and subtle difference between the two models in relation to unhealthy perfectionism. From the perspective of the tripartite model, unhealthy perfectionism is clearly maladaptive and the most destructive form of perfectionism. In contrast, in the 2 × 2 model Gaudreau and Thompson (2010) described unhealthy perfectionism as a mixed combination of perfectionism which is somewhat maladaptive (yet not the most problematic). In fact, Gaudreau and Thompson (2010) proposed that the most damaging perfectionistic profile is one where the individual has low striving and is driven purely by perfectionistic concerns as this reflects a non-internalised form of perfectionism, where individuals are driven purely by external pressures and do not value the attainment of what is being striven for. Interestingly, this profile is classed as non-perfectionism in the tripartite model, because it fails to explicitly include perfectionistic standards, which are seen as a fundamental component of this tripartite approach (cf. Stoeber, 2012). Given this disparity between the models there is a need for further testing to more fully understand the appropriateness of each theoretical perspective. The 2 × 2 model is a very recent addition to the literature, and as a result, has yet to be subject to a substantial body of testing although recent work is supportive of its tenets (see Hill, 2013, in relation to burnout). Regardless of the similarities and differences in these models, both support the idea that the relationship between perfectionism and its various consequences is best understood from an interaction perspective. Utilizing this interaction approach offers an exciting, and we believe very appropriate, way forward for perfectionism research.

What is the future for personality and performance research? An emerging body of literature is now supporting the influence of personality in performance contexts. However, although momentum appears to be gathering, high-quality personality research is still lagging behind other areas of sport psychology. In this chapter we hope to have generated an interest in personality in relation to performance, and so we finish here with two recommendations for any such future work. First, if personality research is going to make an impact it needs to avoid the pitfalls associated with early personality work. Thus, studies that are grounded within a strong theoretical framework need to be at the forefront of future personality research. Studies that investigate group-based differences (e.g., comparing 407

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group vs. individual athletes on personality scales) are of no theoretical or applied value in advancing our understanding of how personality impacts performance. Second, in terms of developing a theoretically grounded understanding of the personality–performance relationship, there is a clear need to consider interactions. Theory should of course dictate whether any interactionist perspective should focus on person × environment interactions (e.g., Guekes et al., 2012; Roberts et al., 2013a; Woodman et al., 2010), or on interactions between different facets of the same personality variable (e.g., Gaudreau & Thompson, 2010). Regardless, going beyond the simple approach of examining personality’s main effects on performance-related outcomes will allow us to develop a much more comprehensive understanding of the effects of personality in this domain. In conclusion, we believe that there is currently a wonderful opportunity to expand significantly our understanding of the effects of personality on performance and we feel that the discipline of sport psychology is on the cusp of the next wave of developing that understanding. We mentioned at the start of this chapter that a fundamental principle in applied consultancy work is to understand the person behind the athlete. Spending more research time thinking about sportsmen and sportswomen as people first – and athletes second – will further help to advance our understanding of the psychological processes that underlie the attainment of optimal performance.

Note 1 We use the terms narcissist or high narcissist interchangeably to describe individuals who score relatively highly on valid self-report measures of narcissism such as Raskin and Hall’s (1979) Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI), as opposed to individuals with the more extreme narcissistic personality disorder defined by the American Psychiatric Association. The term low narcissist is used to describe individuals with relatively low scores on such self-report measures.

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40 M E N TA L R E P R E SE N TAT IO N AND LEARNING Thomas Schack and William Land

Mental representations play a central role in the control and organization of actions. Regardless of whether a surgeon is selecting the appropriate instrument for an operation or a basketball player is deciding to pass a ball to a teammate, the performer must use a mental representation to sort through an exceptionally large amount of information. The idea that mental representations play an important role in motor control is reminiscent of classical ideas in psychology, such as the “ideomotor” approach adopted by Lotze (1852) and James (1890) in the nineteenth century or the studies on the construction of movement presented by Bernstein (1947) in the middle of the twentieth century. James (1890) wrote for instance in his now seminal work, The Principles of Psychology: “We may… lay it down for certain that every representation of a movement awakens in some degree the actual movement which is its object” (p. 526). Our capacity to store such representations is the basis of our ability not only to learn and to anticipate what will happen in the future, but also to make plans and predictions. Mental representations thereby play a central role in the control and organization of actions and are vital for motor learning. The relationship between mental representations and motor performance is not only an issue for basic research (e.g., Jeannerod, 2004; Land, Volchenkov, Bläsing, and Schack, 2013), but also has implications for practical work with athletes (see McPherson & Vickers, 2004; Schack & Bar-Eli, 2007; Starkes & Ericsson, 2003).

Levels of representation and action control in sport Mental representations are involved in the control and organization of the entire action system at different levels of representation and execution. Prior to the current perspectives on anticipatory motor control, Bernstein had already pointed towards the large number of degrees of freedom in the human motor system, the need for continuous processing of sensory feedback to control this highly redundant system, and the importance of the anticipation of movement effects for movement organization. Bernstein (1967) proposed a model of the construction of movements according to which different organizational (and evolutionary) levels interact to generate and control different types of movement. These levels are thought to interact not simply in a fixed hierarchical manner, but their mode of

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Table 40.1 Levels of motor action (modified from Schack & Ritter, 2009) Code

Level

Main function

Subfunction

Tools

IV

Mental control

Regulation

Symbols; strategies

III

Mental representation Sensorimotor representation

Representation

Volitional initiation control strategies Effect-oriented adjustment Spatial-temporal adjustment

Sensorimotor control

Regulation

II

I

Representation

Automatization

Basic action concepts Perceptual representation Internal models Movement primitives

interaction and hierarchical organization depends on the type of movement task and the level of expertise of the performer. Bernstein’s model reflects the general idea that movement control is based on representations which serve intentional movement planning, and that these representations reflect the functional structure of the movement. Alongside Bernstein’s approach to the construction of action, there have been several formulations of the idea that movement control is constructed hierarchically (e.g., Jeannerod, 2004). The model proposed next, views the functional construction of actions (Schack, 2004b; Schack & Ritter, 2009) on the basis of a reciprocal assignment of performance-oriented regulation and representational levels (see Table 40.1). These levels differ according to their central tasks on the regulation and representation levels. Each level is assumed to be functionally autonomous. Both control levels, the level of sensorimotor control (I) and the level of mental control (IV), serve the main function of regulation, whereas the level of sensorimotor representation (II) and the level of mental representation (III) are representational, and are closely connected to the two regulation levels. While the regulation level of mental control (IV) is induced intentionally and is relevant for the anticipation of action effects, the regulation level I is perceptually induced and is controlled by recent environmental stimuli. The level of mental control is responsible for volitional control while the level of sensorimotor control (I) is based on movement primitives and responsible for automatization. If we imagine a sport task like alpine skiing, it is easy to understand that particular elements of motor control are automatized (level I) like rhythmical swing moves. However, they can also be controlled voluntarily (level IV) in the case of difficult environmental circumstances or in the case of re-learning. Relevant modality-specific (e.g., kinesthetical, visual) information representing the effects of the particular movement is stored on the level of sensorimotor representation (II). Mental representations of sensorical effects and movement structures are located within the level of mental representation (III), and are based on the conceptual building blocks of action (Basic Action Concepts) that will be described in the following section.

Building blocks in motor memory Basic Action Concepts (BACs) are differentiated from motor programs or motor schemata according to Schmidt (see Schmidt, 1975), schemata according to Arbib (see Arbib, Conklin, & Hill, 1987), and motor primitives (see Mussa-Ivaldi & Bizzi, 2000). BACs are addressed as conceptual units with functional and perceptual features, which are stored in memory to control motor patterns. From this point of view, action control is organized as perceptible 413

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events through a structured representation of anticipated characteristic (e.g., sensory) effects, with the corresponding motor activity automatically and flexibly tuned to serve these effects. In a different manner, motor programs generate the spatial and temporal muscle patterns itself. Furthermore BACs are different from motor primitives, because they are integrating motor information at a higher (more goal related and more functional) level of motor organization (see Schack, Bläsing, Hughes, Flash, & Schilling, 2014). To this extent, BACs can be regarded as cognitive tools for the execution of actions such as complex movement tasks in sports (see Schack, 2004b). Within these tasks, BACs serve the purpose of reducing the cognitive effort necessary for controlling the action. BACs can be described verbally as well as pictorially, and can often be labeled with a linguistic marker. For example, “turning the head” or “bending the knees” might be examples of such BACs in the case of, say, a complex floor exercise. As mentioned above, each individual BAC is characterized by a set of closely interconnected sensory and functional features. For example, a BAC in tennis such as “whole body stretch motion” is functionally related to providing energy to the ball, transforming tension into the swing, stretching but remaining stable, and the like. Afferent sensory features of the corresponding submovement that allow monitoring of the initial conditions are bended knees, tilted shoulder axis, and body weight on the left foot. Re-afferent sensory features that allow monitoring of whether the functional demands of the submovements have been addressed successfully are muscles stretched and under tension, proprioceptive and, finally, perhaps visual perception of the swinging arm and ball flight.

Measuring mental representations Research focusing on the functional links between mental representation and performance require new methods to delineate this relationship. Although experimental methods have been used to analyze short-term memory storage (e.g., Starkes, 1987), visual search (e.g., Allard & Starkes, 1980), and perceptual processes (e.g., Borgeaud & Abernethy, 1987), primarily previous studies on long-term memory (LTM) features have used interviews, questionnaires, paper-and-pencil tests, sorting and categorization tasks, and specific forms of protocol analysis. However, using such methods leads to problems with objectivity and reliability (see Thomas & Thomas, 1994). Hence, the existing repertoire of methods would benefit from approaches that determine experimentally the representation structures in LTM. A particularly interesting method to measure structures of mental representation in LTM, the so-called Structure Dimensional Analysis (SDA) method, was originally developed by Lander and Lange (1996) in cognitive psychology for ascertaining relational structures in a given set of concepts, and adapted by Schack (2004a, 2012) for analyzing representations of movements (Structure Dimensional Analysis – Motorics, SDA-M). This experimental approach has been documented in several contributions (Hodges, Huys, & Starkes, 2007; Schack, 2004b, 2012; Schack & Hackfort, 2007; Schack & Mechsner, 2006). Importantly, the method does not ask the participants to give explicit statements regarding their representational structures, but rather reveals this structure by means of knowledge-based decisions in an experimental setting. Altogether, the SDA-M consists of four steps. First, a special splitting procedure requires one to subjectively differentiate whether or not a given BAC, presented either pictorially or with verbal labels, is “functionally close” to another, or not. During the SDA-M procedure, a randomly selected BAC is presented as the standard unit, or anchor, and all other BACs are displayed below the anchor in a randomly 414

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ordered list. One after another, each BAC is subjectively compared for similarity to the anchor. Thereby, the list of BACs is split into two subsets, a positive (“close”) and a negative (“not close”) set, which are then repeatedly submitted to the same procedure, until every BAC has been compared to every other. Based on the participants’ decisions, the program sums the positive and negative subsets separately and delivers an Euclidian distance scaling between the items (BACs). Second in the process, a hierarchical cluster analysis is used to transform the set of items into a dendrogram. Third, a dimensioning of the cluster solutions is performed through a factor analysis linked to a specific cluster-oriented rotation process, resulting in a factor matrix classified by clusters. Finally, because the cluster solutions can differ both between and within individuals, a within- and between-group comparison of the cluster solutions is performed using a structural invariance measure lambda to determine their structural invariance (see Schack, 2012).

Experimental studies on mental representation structures Several studies in sport (e.g., Schack, 2004a, 2004b; Schack & Bar-Eli, 2007; Schack & Hackfort, 2007), dance (Bläsing, Tenenbaum, & Schack, 2009), movement rehabilitation after stroke (Braun et al., 2007), motor development (e.g., Stöckel, Hughes, & Schack, 2011), and cognitive robotics (e.g., Schack & Ritter, 2009, 2013) have used the SDA-Mapproach to measure the structure and dimension of mental representation in motor action experimentally. Most of the studies in sport are conducted to investigate the nature and role of mental representation in skilled athletic performance and to derive new technologies in mental training and technical preparation (e.g., Schack & Hackfort, 2007; Schack & Bar-Eli, 2007). The results of investigations in various sports such as golf, soccer, tennis, windsurfing, volleyball, dancing, gymnastics, and judo (e.g., Bläsing, Tenenbaum, & Schack, 2009; Schack, 2003, 2004a; Schack & Mechsner, 2006; Schack & Bar-Eli, 2007; Schack & Hackfort, 2007) have shown that the mental representation structures relate systematically to performance. These representation structures are the outcome of an increasing and effort-reducing order formation in LTM. In high-level experts, these representational frameworks are organized in a distinctive hierarchical treelike structure that is remarkably similar among individuals and well matched to the functional and biomechanical demands of the task. In comparison, action representations in low-level players and nonplayers are organized less hierarchically and more variably among individuals (e.g., Schack & Mechsner, 2006). In most of the above studies, the SDA-M method was applied to investigate general differences in mental representation between participants of varying levels of expertise or developmental stages. For this purpose, mean cluster solutions of groups of participants were compared, with each group representing a defined level of expertise and cluster solutions being understood as typical for this expertise level. The studies did not, however, pay attention to cluster solutions of individual participants within these groups, nor inter-individual differences in cognitive movement representations. Thus, an individual approach was taken by Weigelt, Ahlmeyer, Lex, and Schack (2011) who studied the mental representations of a judo throwing technique (Uchi-mata) in members of the German national judo team. The individual cluster solutions of two of the eight participants examined in this study were compared post hoc to the mean group cluster solution, which represented the functional movement phases as expected. The individual cluster solutions differed in details from the mean cluster solution and functional reference structure, reflecting individual preferences and technical differences as well as weaknesses in the judokas’ performance. The authors 415

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point out that such differences, interpreted with accuracy and care, can reveal subtle flaws in the technical skills of the athlete and can be used by an expert coach to improve and adapt further training.

Mental representations and learning in complex movements The observed differences in mental representations found between high- and low-ability performers suggest the notion that motor learning leads to the functional development of task-specific mental representations (Frank, Land, & Schack, 2013). In line with this assumption, theories of skill acquisition (e.g., Anderson, 1995; Fitts & Posner, 1967) suggest that the cognitive control structures governing task performance develop over the course of learning, with expert performance relying on well-developed mental representations which reduce the reliance on attention and working memory (Ericsson & Smith, 1991). Consequently, it has been assumed that motor learning can be considered as the modification and adaptation of representation structures in long-term memory (Schack, 2004b; Schack & Ritter, 2013). Recently, Frank et al. (2013) tested this assertion by examining the developmental change in mental representation structures during the learning of a golf-putting skill. The authors assumed that if motor learning was associated with adaptations to the cognitive structures underlying movement execution (i.e., mental representations), then functional changes to these structures would be observed following task practice. Novice participants, with no prior task experience, were randomly assigned to either a practice group or control (i.e., no practice) group. Employing a longitudinal design, participants in the practice group extensively practiced the golf-putting task over the course of three training days. The participants’ putting proficiency and mental representation of the putting task were assessed both before and after training. Prior to training, neither the control group’s nor the practice group’s mental representation revealed any meaningful structure as it relates to the biomechanical functions of the task, as measured by the SDA-M procedure (see Figure 40.1). However, after the completion of training, the practice group’s representation structure reflected a developmental change toward a hierarchical organization of action concepts similar to that of more skilled players (see Figure 40.2). Importantly, this change was accompanied by increased putting performance. In contrast, no changes were evident with respect to putting performance or mental representation structure for the control group who did not practice the task. These findings lend credence to the assumption that motor learning is closely linked to functional adaptations of representational networks in long-term memory. In order to build upon this finding, Land, Frank, & Schack (2014) asked whether the type of training instructions given to participants as they practiced a motor task could influence the rate of representation development during learning. Training instructions during learning can influence and direct a learner’s focus of attention. To this extent, research has consistently demonstrated that instructions that promote an external focus of attention (i.e., attention given to the effects of the movement on the environment) can facilitate skill acqusition (see Wulf, 2007, for a review). During learning, focus on the effects of a movement may play an important role in the integration of effector and perceptual processes within one’s sensorimotor representation (Weigelt, Schack, & Kunde, 2007). Given that BACs represent key body postures and their corresponding perceptual effects, Land et al. (2014) hypothesized that training which emphasized an external focus of attention would facilitate the development of structured mental representations. 416

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b 7

7

6

6 Euclidean distance

Euclidean distance

a

5 4 3 2

4 3 2 1

1 0

5

0

2 3 4 1 6 15 8 9 10 11 12 13 5 7 14 16 basic action concept

2 15 3 1 10 11 6 13 7 12 8 9 4 16 5 14 basic action concept

Figure 40.1 Mean group dendrograms of (a) the practice group (n = 12) and (b) the control group (n = 12) for the golf putt at pre-test. The numbers on the x-axis relate to the BAC number, the numbers on the y-axis display Euclidean distances. The lower the link between related BACs, the lower is the Euclidean distance. The horizontal dotted line marks dcrit for a given Į-level (dcrit = 3.41; Į = .05): links between BACs above this line are considered not related; horizontal gray lines on the bottom mark clusters. BACs: (1) shoulders parallel to target line, (2) align club face square to target line, (3) grip check, (4) look to the hole, (5) rotate shoulders away from the ball, (6) keep arms–shoulder triangle, (7) smooth transition, (8) rotate shoulders towards the ball, (9) accelerate club, (10) impact with the ball, (11) club face square to target line at impact, (12) follow-through, (13) rotate shoulders through the ball, (14) decelerate club, (15) direct clubhead to planned position, and (16) look to the outcome b 7

7

6

6 Euclidean distance

Euclidean distance

a

5 4 3 2 1 0

5 4 3 2 1 0

2 4 3 1 14 16 5 7 6 8 9 15 10 11 12 13 basic action concept

8 9 6 7 10 11 12 13 1 4 2 3 15 5 14 16 basic action concept

Figure 40.2 Mean group dendrogram of (a) practice group and (b) control group following training. Horizontal gray lines on the bottom mark significant clusters of BACs in memory. Figures 40.1 and 40.2 reprinted from C. Frank, W. M. Land, and T. Schack (2013), Mental representation and learning: The influence of practice on the development of mental representation structure in complex action, Psychology of Sport & Exercise, Vol. 14, pp. 353–361

To explore this question, novice participants were trained on a golf-putting task in which they were randomly assigned to either an internal focus training group (i.e., focus on the swing of the arms) or an external focus training group (i.e., focus on the roll of the golf ball). Results indicated that both training groups displayed improved putting performance along with significant functional changes in their underlying mental representation. That is, their mental representation structures indicated clear developmental changes more similar to those of skilled golfers. However, significant differences were observed between the internal and external training group with respect to both performance and representation structure. Not only did the external focus group reveal increased rates of learning, but also revealed mental 417

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representation structures that were more elaborate and functionally more similar to skilled golfers than those of the internal focus group. These findings highlight that the association between movements and their perceptual effects are crucial for learning. Furthermore, these findings reaffirm the assertion that both effector and perceptual elements are an important component of mental representations.

New paths in mental training From an applied perspective, the Cognitive Architecture Approach (CAA) (see Table 40.1) is important for both the development of suitable diagnostic procedures and the selection of appropriate training methods. As such, it allows one to define the relevant levels of motor action for targeted intervention more precisely. For example, a frequently observed problem is that athletes are able to perform a certain movement optimally in practice, but fail to do so in competitive settings. Such situations can lead to phenomena like choking under pressure (DeCaro, Thomas, Albert, & Beilock, 2011) or stage fright in performers (see Tenenbaum, Hatfield, Eklund, Land, Calmeiro, Razon, & Schack, 2009). If a perfomer has a well-structured mental representation, it can be concluded that performance decrements under pressure can be attributed to deficits in the level of mental control (level IV, see Figure 40.3). To this extent, such problems may reflect flawed emotional regulation or motivation. Psychological training procedures, which intervene at this level, particularly those targeting attentional control, self-talk, and stress and anxiety control (see Figure 40.3), aim to improve basic self-regulation (Schack & Hackfort, 2007). In contrast, training procedures that aim to optimize process regulation (i.e., optimal technical execution of a movement) should target the level of mental representations (level III) and the lower levels responsible for sensorimotor processes and automatization (levels I and II). For example, motor imagery has not only been shown to significantly improve learning and motor performance, but also mental representation structure (Frank, Land, Popp, & Schack, 2014). Utilization of the SDA-M method for assessing mental representation structures allows furthermore for development of new approaches to mental training. For example, the main Mental control Self-regulation training (e.g., self-instructions)

Mental representations Mental skills training (e.g., mental imagery)

Sensorimotor representations Sensorimotor training (e.g., biofeedback)

Sensorimotor control Automatisation training (e.g., freqency variation)

Figure 40.3 Levels of action architecture and related training methods for mental and technical preparation (modified from Schack et al. 2013)

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disadvantage of traditional mental training procedures, such as imagery, is that they try to optimize performance through repeatedly imagining the movement without taking the athlete’s mental representation into account (i.e., they are representation-blind). However, if the movement’s cognitive reference structure has structural gaps or errors, these will tend to be stabilized rather than overcome by repeated practice. Alternatively, we suggest that the athlete’s mental representation of the movement be measured prior to mental training, and that these representations be utilized to guide the mental simulation. Any observed decrements within the mental representation structure of the movement would be targeted via mental simulation. Such mental training based on mental representations (MTMR) has been applied successfully for several years in professional sports such as golf, windsurfing, volleyball, soccer (e.g., Schack & Bar-Eli, 2007). To this extent, it is clearly advantageous for a coach to know how mental structures form, stabilize, and change in sport action. A coach who possesses such knowledge is better able to address the individual athlete on his or her current level of learning, and shape instructions to maximize training and performance.

References Allard, F., & Starkes, J. L. (1980). Perception in sport: Volleyball. Journal of Sport Psychology, 2, 22–23. Anderson, J. R. (1995). Learning and memory. New York: Wiley. Arbib, M., Conklin, E., & Hill, J. (1987). From schema theory to language. New York: Oxford University Press. Bernstein, N. (1947). On the structure of movements. Moscow: State Medical Publishing House. Bernstein, N. (1967). The coordination and regulation of movements. Elmsford, NY: Pergamon Press. Bläsing, B., Tenenbaum, G., & Schack, T. (2009). Cognitive structures of complex movements in dance, Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 10, 350–360. Borgeaud, P., & Abernethy, B. (1987). Skilled perception in volleyball defense, Journal of Sport Psychology, 9, 400–406. Braun, S. M., Beurskens, A. J. H. M., Schack, T., Marcellis, R. G., Oti, K. C., Schols, J. M., & Wade, D. T. (2007). Is it possible to use the SDA-M to investigate representations of motor actions in stroke patients? Clinical Rehabilitation, 21, 822–832. DeCaro, M. S., Thomas, R., Albert, N. B., & Beilock, S. L. (2011). Choking under pressure: Multiple routes to skill failure. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 140, 390–406. Ericsson, K. A., & Smith, J. (1991). Prospects and limits of the empirical study of expertise: An introduction. In K. A. Ericsson and J. Smith (Eds.), Toward a general theory of expertise: Prospects and limits (pp. 1–38). New York: Cambridge University Press. Fitts, P. M., & Posner, M. I. (1967). Human performance. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole. Frank, C., Land, W., Popp, C., & Schack, T. (2014). Mental representation and mental practice: Experimental investigations on the functional links between motor memory and motor imagery. PLOS ONE 9(4): e95175. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0095175 Frank, C., Land, W., & Schack, T. (2013). Mental representation and learning: The influence of practice on the development of mental representations structure in complex action. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 14, 353–361. Hodges, N. J., Huys, R., & Starkes, J. L. (2007). A methodological review and evaluation of research of expert performance in sport. In G. Tenenbaum, & R. C. Eklund (Eds.), Handbook of sport psychology (3rd Ed., pp. 161–183). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology, Vol. 1. New York: Holt. Jeannerod, M. (2004). Actions from within. In T. Schack & G. Tenenbaum (Eds.), International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, Special Issue Part II: Representation and Planning, 2, 376–402. Land, W., Frank, C., & Schack, T. (2014). The impact of attentional focus on the development of skill representation in complex action. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 15, 30–38. Land, W., Volchenkov, D., Bläsing, B., & Schack, T. (2013). From action representation to action execution: Exploring the links between cognitive and biomechanical levels of motor control. Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, 7. doi: 10.3389/fncom.2013.00127 Lander, H.-J., & Lange, K. (1996). Untersuchung zur Struktur- und Dimensionsanalyse begrifflichrepräsentierten Wissens. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 204, 55–74.

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Lotze, R. H. (1852). Medizinische Psychologie oder Physiologie der Seele (pp. 287–325). Leipzig: Weidmann’sche Buchhandlung. McPherson, S. L., & Vickers, J. N. (2004). Cognitive control in motor expertise. International Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 2, 274–300. Mussa-Ivaldi, F. A., & Bizzi, E. (2000). Motor learning through the combination of primitives. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 355(1404), 1755–1769. Schack, T. (2003). The relationship between motor representation and biomechanical parameters in complex movements: Towards an integrative perspective of movement science. European Journal of Sport Science, 2, 1–13. Schack, T. (2004a). Knowledge and performance in action. Journal of Knowledge Management, 8(4), 38–53. Schack, T. (2004b). The cognitive architecture of complex movement. The construction of action – new perspectives in movement science. Special Issue Part II: Representation and Planning. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2, 403–438. Schack, T. (2012). Measuring mental representations. In G. Tenenbaum, R. C. Eklund, & A. Kamata (Eds.), Measurement in sport and exercise psychology (pp. 203–214). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Schack, T., & Bar-Eli, M. (2007). Psychological factors in technical preparation. In B. Blumenstein, R. Lidor, & G. Tenenbaum (Eds.), Psychology of sport training (pp. 62–103). Oxford: Meyer & Meyer Sport. Schack, T., & Hackfort, D. (2007). An action theory approach to applied sport psychology. In G. Tenenbaum & R. C. Eklund (Eds.), Handbook of sport psychology (3rd Ed., pp. 332–351). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Schack, T., & Mechsner, F. (2006). Representation of motor skills in human long-term memory. Neuro Science Letters, 391, 77–81. Schack, T., & Ritter, H. (2009). The cognitive nature of action – functional links between cognitive psychology, movement science and robotics. In M. Raab, J. Johnson, & H. Heekeren (Eds.), Progress in brain research: Mind and motion – the bidirectional link between thought and action (pp. 231–252). Dordrecht: Elsevier. Schack, T., & Ritter, H. (2013). Representation and learning in motor action – bridges between experimental research and cognitive robitics. New Ideas in Psychology, 31, 258–269. Schack, T., Bläsing, B., Hughes, C., Flash, T., & Schilling, M. (2014). Elements and construction of motor control. In A. Papaioannou & D. Hackfort (Eds.), Routledge companion to sport and exercise psychology: Global perspectives and fundamental concepts (pp. 308–323). London: Taylor & Francis. Schmidt, R. A. (1975). A schema theory of discrete motor skill learning. Psychological Review, 82, 225– 260. Starkes, J. L. (1987). Skill in field hockey: The nature of the cognitive advantage. Journal of Sport Psychology, 9, 146–160. Starkes, J. L., & Ericsson, K. A. (2003). Expert performance in sport: Advances in research on sport expertise. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Stöckel, T., Hughes, C. M. L., & Schack, T. (2011). Representation of grasp postures and anticipatory motor planning in children. Psychological Research, 76, 768–776. Tenenbaum, G., Hatfield, B., Eklund, R., Land, W., Calmeiro, L., Razon, S., & Schack, T. (2009). A conceptual framework for studying emotions-cognitions-performance linkage under conditions which vary in perceived pressure. In M. Raab, J. Johnson, & H. Heekeren (Eds.), Progress in brain research (174): Mind and motion. The bidirectional link between thought and action (pp. 159–178). New York: Elsevier. Thomas, K. T., & Thomas, J. R. (1994). Developing expertise in sport: The relation of knowledge and performance. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 25, 295–312. Weigelt, M., Ahlmeyer, T., Lex, H., & Schack, T. (2011). The cognitive representation of a throwing technique in judo experts – technological ways for individual skill diagnostics in high-performance sports. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 12, 231–235. Weigelt, M., Schack, T., & Kunde, W. (2007). Attentional focus affects highlight the role of mental representations in motor control. Bewegung und Training, 1, 51–52. Wulf, G. (2007). Attention and motor skill learning. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

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41 E X P E RT I SE A N D M E N TA L P R AC T IC E Aidan Moran

Whether out of envy or admiration, we have long been fascinated by the breath-taking feats of elite athletes, like the footballer Lionel Messi, who can perform apparently impossible skills with remarkable consistency and precision. Not surprisingly, this fascination with worldclass performance has spawned considerable psychological research over the past decade on the nature and determinants of “expertise” or the growth of specialist knowledge and skills through effortful experience (see review by Swann, Moran, & Piggott, 2015). To illustrate, this topic has featured in special issues of academic periodicals such as the Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology (Williams & Ericsson, 2008), Intelligence (Detterman, 2014), and Psychology of Sport and Exercise (Raab & Harwood, 2015). It has also generated scholarly tomes (e.g., Baker & Farrow, 2015; Campitelli, Connors, Bilalic, & Hambrick, 2015) and captured the interest of cognitive researchers (e.g., Ericsson & Towne, 2013) and popular science writers alike (e.g., Gladwell, 2009; Syed, 2010). Despite being a “hot topic,” however, research on expertise in sport is hampered by a number of unresolved issues – one of which will be explored in the present chapter. Specifically, how is expert performance related to mental, as distinct from physical, practice? Although this topic has received only scant attention to date, it is theoretically important because it raises interesting questions about the relationship between, and consequences of, actual and imagined actions. And so, the present chapter is organized as follows. To begin with, I shall present an overview of contrasting psychological theories of expertise. Next, I shall provide a brief critique of “deliberate practice” (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993) – a distinctive type of practice widely held to be the key to expert performance. After that, I shall consider the nature and efficacy of a rather different form of practice engaged in by sport performers: namely, “mental practice” or “seeing” and “feeling” a movement in one’s imagination before actually executing it. Then, following a consideration of relevant theoretical mechanisms, I shall provide some concluding thoughts on the relationship between expertise and mental practice.

What makes an expert athlete: born or made? Over the past 150 years, two broadly antagonistic theoretical accounts of expertise have emerged (Macnamara, Hambrick, & Oswald, 2014). On the one hand, some early pioneers 421

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advocated the genetic view that experts are “born.” Thus, Galton (1869) claimed that eminence in science, music, the arts, and sport tends to run in families. So, he proposed that “no man can achieve a very high reputation without being gifted with very high abilities and few who possess these very high abilities can fail in achieving eminence” (p. 16). On the other hand, many researchers, including Ericsson et al. (1993) have argued that experts are “made” in the sense that inherited talent exerts less influence on elite performance than do intensive programs of practice and training. To illustrate the lineage of this perspective, Bryan and Harter (1899) showed that it takes at least ten years to become an expert in Morse telegraphy. Echoing this idea, Watson (1930) suggested that “practising more intensively than others … is probably the most reasonable explanation we have today not only for success in any line, but even for genius” (p. 212). Subsequently, the cognitive researcher Hayes (1985) discovered that geniuses in different fields (e.g., musicians, chess players) required at least ten years of sustained practice before achieving expert levels of performance. Building on such theoretical foundations, Ericsson et al. (1993) postulated their seminal “deliberate practice” (DP) account of expert performance. So what are the main tenets of this theoretical approach? At the outset, Ericsson and Lehmann (1996), defined expertise operationally as “consistently superior performance on a specified set of representative tasks for a domain” (p. 277) such as sport or music. Using this definition, the theory of DP contends that expertise in any domain is an increasing monotonic function of accumulated hours of “deliberate practice” or engagement in highly structured activities that are “specially designed to improve the current level of performance” (Ericsson et al., 1993, p. 368). But what exactly does DP involve and is it sufficient for the development of expertise? According to Ericsson et al. (1993), “deliberate practice” is a highly structured, focused, purposeful – and curiously, not especially enjoyable – form of practice that involves “trying to exceed one’s previous limit, which requires full concentration and effort” (Ericsson & Lehmann, 1999, p. 695). More precisely, Ericsson (2013) defined it as “the engagement with full concentration in a training activity designed to improve a particular aspect of performance with immediate feedback, opportunities for gradual refinement by repetition and problem solving” (p. 534). DP involves individualized training on tasks that are highly structured by skilled instructors in order to provide “optimal opportunities for learning and skill acquisition” (Ericsson & Charness, 1994, p. 739). Capturing the essence of DP informally, Ericsson suggested that “when most people practise, they focus on things they can do effortlessly. Expert practice is different. It entails considerable, specific, and sustained efforts to do something you can’t do well – or even at all” (cited in Syed, 2010, pp. 73– 74). Typically, DP is contrasted with “mechanical” practice, which is characterized by the relatively mindless repetition of basic drills. Perhaps the research most frequently cited in support of the DP framework is that by Ericsson et al. (1993). Briefly, in one study, these investigators recruited samples of violinists who differed in their level of expertise and asked them to estimate the amount of practice that they had engaged in per week for each year of their musical careers. Results showed that, on average, the cumulative amount of DP was significantly greater for the most accomplished musicians than for their less proficient counterparts. For example, at the age of 20 years, the average amount of deliberate practice for the “best” violinists was over 10,000 hours – as compared with about 7,800 hours for the “good” violinists and around 4,600 hours for the least proficient violinists. In another study, Ericsson et al. (1993) discovered that expert pianists had accumulated an average of over 10,000 hours of DP by the age of 20 compared with about 2,000 hours for “amateur” pianists. Taken together, these findings led Ericsson 422

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et al. (1993) to conclude that “individual differences in ultimate performance can largely be accounted for by differential amounts of past and current levels of practice” (p. 392) and that “the differences between expert performers and normal adults reflects a life-long period of deliberate effort to improve performance in a specific domain” (p. 400). Similarly, Ericsson and Moxley (2012) proposed that “the concept of deliberate practice can account for the large individual differences between experts and novices” (p. 145). This latter claim is supported by a recent meta-analysis (Platz, Kopiez, Lehmann, & Wolf, 2014) that demonstrated a strong relationship between task-relevant practice (including DP) and musical achievement. As one might expect, the DP theory of expertise has attracted enormous scholarly and popular attention. To illustrate, a Google Scholar search on 26 May 2015 revealed that Ericsson et al.’s (1993) paper is a citation classic – having been cited more than 5,100 times by that date. Equally impressively, research by Ericsson and his colleagues on expertise has featured prominently in such popular scientific books as Outliers (Gladwell, 2009) and Bounce (Syed, 2010). It should be noted, however, that although the research of Ericsson and his colleagues is widely acclaimed as the source of the “10,000-hour rule” (i.e., the idea that it takes at least 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert in any field), the earlier contributions of Bryan and Harter (1899) and Hayes (1985) deserve due recognition.

Deliberate practice (DP): a brief critique Despite its seminal role in shaping modern research on expertise, the theory of DP has provoked controversy among academic and sporting communities (e.g., see reviews by Baker & Young, 2014; Platz et al., 2014; Macnamara et al., 2014). To illustrate, on the one hand, a range of studies supports Ericsson’s claim that DP is a vital determinant of expertise in sport. For example, Hodges, Starkes, and MacMahon (2006) concluded that “across a number of sports, ranging from figure skating to wrestling, from hockey to karate, sportspecific practice has been shown to be a significant predictor of skill-based differences in sport” (p. 481). However, on the other hand, dissenters (e.g., Hambrick et al., 2014; Kaufman, 2014; Macnamara et al., 2014) have identified certain weaknesses in DP theory as follows. First, according to a meta-analysis of the research literature by Macnamara et al. (2014), available empirical evidence does not support the claim by Ericsson et al. (1993) that individual differences in expert performance are largely accounted for by individual differences in amount of DP. Indeed, Ackerman (2014) argued that “some individuals may have accumulated 15,000, 20,000 hours or more of deliberate practice yet remain also-rans on the leader board … other factors must clearly play a role in the demonstration of expert performance” (p. 9). Similarly, Hambrick et al. (2014) found that the amount of DP accounts for only about one-third of the variance in music and chess and hence concluded that DP is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the development of expertise. Second, Kaufman (2014) argued that the sheer number of hours spent practicing is not as important to elite performance as is the quality of DP and that the “10,000 hours of practice” rule is overstated because the average number of hours of DP associated with expertise varies from domain to domain and from person to person. To conclude this brief critique, Gobet and Ereku (2014) pointed out another anomaly in the DP framework. Specifically, how can it explain the dominance of some sports by certain athletes (e.g., Roger Federer in tennis, Usain Bolt in sprinting) despite the fact that their rivals in these sports – who are themselves worldclass performers – have spent broadly similar numbers of hours practicing their skills? In spite of such criticisms, the DP framework has attracted increasing research interest from neuroscience because it provides a natural laboratory for the study of the plastic changes 423

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that occur in brain structures as a function of prolonged physical and/or mental practice (see Debarnot, Sperduti, DiRienzo, & Guillot, 2014). But what exactly is “mental practice”?

Mental practice: nature and theoretical mechanisms One of our most compelling mental capacities is the ability to mimic or simulate perceptual (e.g., “seeing” a red traffic light in one’s mind’s eye) and motor (e.g., kicking a ball) experiences. In psychology, the term “mental imagery” refers to a “multimodal” (i.e., involving different sensory systems) cognitive simulation process that enables us to represent perceptual information in our minds in the absence of actual sensory input (Munzert, Lorey, & Zentgraf, 2009). Perhaps the most frequent application of this process in sport is “mental practice” (MP; also known as motor imagery, MI; see Moran, Guillot, MacIntyre, & Collet, 2012) or the “cognitive rehearsal of a task in the absence of overt physical movement” (Driskell, Copper, & Moran, 1994, p. 481). Since the 1890s, hundreds of experimental studies have demonstrated the efficacy of motor (or “feeling oriented”) imagery in improving skilllearning in a variety of domains such as sport (e.g., Olsson, Jonsson, Larsson, & Nyberg, 2008), music (Bernardi De Buglio, Trimarchi, Chielli, & Bricolo, 2013), and medical surgery (Arora et al., 2011). Remarkably, psychological interest in MP/MI is as old as the discipline of psychology itself. For example, James (1890) suggested rather counter-intuitively that by anticipating experiences imaginatively, people actually learn to skate in the summer and to swim in the winter. At a more empirical level, Anderson (1899) conducted a series of studies demonstrating the effects of mental practice on gymnastic skills. He concluded that gymnastic movements could be learned without actual use of the muscles, solely through mental rehearsal. As this study led to hundreds of experimental successors, a number of general conclusions about the efficacy of MP/MI have emerged (see Moran, 2012). For example, MP, when combined and alternated with physical practice, seems to produce superior skill-learning to that resulting from either mental or physical practice alone. Also, expert athletes tend to benefit more from MP/MI than do novices, regardless of the type of skill being practiced. But what cognitive mechanisms account for such effects? Although many theories have been postulated since the 1930s to explain MP/MI effects, its underlying psychological mechanisms remain unclear. One reason for this equivocal state of affairs is that most MP studies are atheoretical rather than explicit hypothesis-testing investigations. Nevertheless, the most widely accepted theoretical account of how MI works is that provided by Jeannerod’s (1994, 2001, 2006) simulation theory. Although space limitations preclude a detailed account of this approach, its central tenets may be summarized as follows. To begin with, it postulates that action planning and motor imagery share a common mental representation. In other words, MI is based on the motor representation that underlies actual motor performance. Interestingly, James (1890) had anticipated this idea when he speculated that “sensation and imagination are due to the activity of the same centers in the cortex” (p. 720). Next, simulation theory proposes that the motor system is part of a cognitive network that includes such psychological activities as imagining actions, learning by observation, and attempting to understand the behavior of other people. Third, it claims that all actions involve a covert stage during which they are prepared or simulated. Put simply, motor images are “non-executed actions” (Jeannerod, 2004, p. 390). Finally, putting these ideas together, Jeannerod (2001) predicted that “motor imagery … should involve, in the subject’s motor brain, neural mechanisms similar to those operating during the real action” (Jeannerod, 2001, pp. S103–S104) – the so-called “functional equivalence” hypothesis. 424

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According to this hypothesis, imagined and executed actions share, to some degree, certain mental representations and underlying mechanisms (see brief review in Moran et al., 2012). For example, both overt and imagined actions share a motor representation of an intention to act. Whereas this intention is converted into an actual physical movement in the case of overt actions, it is inhibited in the case of imagined actions. Nevertheless, this shared motor representation facilitates certain forms of functional equivalence between actual and imagined actions. Thus, Hétu et al. (2013) found that the neural network underlying motor imagery includes several cortical regions known to control actual motor execution. Furthermore, Debarnot et al. (2014) concluded that the brain changes that occur during mental practice of a given motor skill tend to mimic closely those that occur after physical practice of the same skill. More recently, Avanzino, Gueugneau, Bisio, Ruggeri, Papaxanthis, and Bove (2015) found that motor imagery training induces neuroplasticity in the motor cortex. But is there evidence of functional equivalence at a behavioral level? Logically, if imagined and executed actions rely on similar motor representations and activate some common brain areas, then their temporal organization should be equivalent. Accordingly, there should be a close correspondence between the time required to mentally perform a given action and that required for its actual execution. Support for this idea comes from studies using “mental chronometry” tasks which involve evaluating the correspondence between the actual and imagined duration required to perform a given action (see review by Guillot & Collet, 2005). Building on simulation theory, Ridderinkhof and Brass (2015) developed an account of motor imagery called “predictive-processing theory.” This theory postulates that motor imagery works through an internal emulation process involving the anticipation of action effects. This emulation mechanism seems to be implemented in brain regions that partially overlap with those regulating overt motor behavior (e.g., the cerebellum, basal ganglia). Given the close parallels between the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying motor imagery and motor execution, and the fact that certain patterns of interference appear to be common to physical and mental practice (Gabriele, Hall, & Lee, 1989), some researchers (e.g., Cumming & Hall, 2002) have raised the possibility that the use of mental imagery in sport is analogous to deliberate practice. In support of this proposition, Nordin, Cumming, Vincent, and McGrory (2006) applied various criteria of deliberate practice (e.g., deliberation, concentration, relevance) to five different types of imagery usage measured by the Sport Imagery Questionnaire (SIQ: Hall, Mack, Paivio, & Hausenblas, 1998). Assuming that imagery affects behavior through motivational and cognitive mechanisms operating at general and specific levels, the SIQ is a 30-item instrument (containing five subscales) that asks respondents to rate on a seven-point scale how often they use five specific categories of imagery – “motivation general – mastery” (e.g., imagining appearing confident in front of others), “motivation general – arousal” (e.g., imagining the stress and/or excitement associated with competition), “motivation specific” (e.g., imagining winning a medal), “cognitive general” (e.g., imagining various strategies for a competitive event), and “cognitive specific” (e.g., mentally practicing a skill). Sample items from these subscales include “I imagine myself appearing self-confident in front of my opponents” (motivational generalmastery), “I imagine the stress and anxiety associated with competing” (motivation generalarousal), “I imagine myself winning a medal” (motivation specific), “I image alternative strategies in case my event/game plan fails” (cognitive general), and “I can mentally make corrections to physical skills” (cognitive specific). The six items that comprise each sub-scale are averaged to yield a score that indicates to what extent respondents use each of the five functions of imagery. Of the SIQ items analyzed by Nordin et al. (2006), “cognitive specific” 425

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images of skills and “cognitive general” images of sequences and routines were deemed to satisfy the main criteria of DP. To summarize, several sources of converging evidence suggest a link between expertise and mental practice/motor imagery. First, as mentioned earlier, expertise mediates the effects of MP/MI on skilled performance. This is not really surprising because expert athletes tend to display stronger MI abilities than do non-elite counterparts (Madan and Simghal, 2014). Second, some types of imagery usage (e.g., MP) satisfy the criteria of deliberate practice – which, as we have explained above, is strongly linked to expert performance. Finally, not only does motor imagery induce neuroplasticity but it also elicits task-specific, practice-induced cerebral activity. To illustrate, the muscles of expert tennis players tend to show increased corticospinal activation during tennis imagery but not during golf or table tennis imagery (see review by Yarrow, Brown, & Krakauer, 2009). Having made the case for a link between expertise and mental practice, what is the way forward?

Expertise and mental practice: concluding thoughts Traditionally, cognitive research on mental imagery has been dominated by neuroscientific methods that typically involve comparisons between the imagery performance of participants from clinical populations with those who exhibit apparently normal cognitive functioning. Although this paradigm has been helpful in identifying basic substrates of imagery processes, it sheds little light on expert performance. Therefore, to overcome this oversight, MacIntyre, Moran, Collet, and Guillot (2013) postulated a “strength-based” approach to the study of mental practice/motor imagery. Briefly, this approach urges researchers to target elite performers (e.g., top athletes) in order to enrich theoretical understanding of the psychological processes (e.g., “meta-imagery” skills or people’s knowledge of, and control over, their own imagery processes; Moran, 2002) that mediate expertise. This “strengthbased” approach could be combined with new methodological tools to elucidate the neural signature of expert athletes. For example, “pupillometry” – the measurement of pupil dilation as an objective index of mental effort (Laeng, Sirois, & Gredebäck, 2012) – could be used to investigate individual differences in attentional allocation processes among expert athletes as they alternate between physical and mental practice of a given skill. In the domain of music, O’Shea and Moran (in press) showed that pupillometry can be used to explore the functional equivalence between actual and imagined execution of piano movements in expert musicians. It would be intriguing to conduct similar studies in sport. To summarize, research on the relationship between expertise and mental practice raises fundamental psychological questions about the nature of actual and imagined actions.

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Jeannerod, M. (1994). The representing brain: Neural correlates of motor intention and imagery. Behavioural & Brain Sciences, 17, 187–202. Jeannerod, M. (2001). Neural simulation of action: A unifying mechanism for motor cognition. NeuroImage, 14, S103–S109. Jeannerod, M. (2004). Actions from within. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2, 376– 402. doi: 10.1080/1612197X.2004.9671752 Jeannerod, M. (2006). Motor cognition. New York: Oxford University Press. Kaufman, S. B. (2014). A proposed integration of the expert performance and individual differences approaches to the study of elite performance. Frontiers in Psychology, 5(707), 1–3. Laeng, B., Sirois, S., & Gredebäck, G. (2012). Pupillometry: A window to the preconscious? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7, 18–27. doi: 10.1177/1745691611427305 MacIntyre, T., Moran, A., Collet, C., & Guillot, A. (2013). An emerging paradigm: A strength-based approach to exploring mental imagery. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7(104), 1–12. Macnamara, B. N., Hambrick, D. Z., & Oswald, F. L. (2014). Deliberate practice and performance in music, games, sports, education, and professions: A meta-analysis. Psychological Science, 25, 1608– 1618. Madan, C. R., & Singhal, A. (2014). Improving the TAMI for use with athletes. Journal of Sports Sciences, 32, 1351–1356. Moran, A. (2002). In the mind’s eye. The Psychologist, 15, 414–415. Moran, A. (2012). Sport psychology: A critical introduction (2nd Ed.). London: Routledge. Moran, A., Guillot, A., MacIntyre, T., & Collet, C. (2012). Re-imagining motor imagery: Building bridges between cognitive neuroscience and sport psychology. British Journal of Psychology, 103, 224– 247. Munzert, J., Lorey, J., & Zentgraf, J. (2009). Cognitive motor processes: The role of motor imagery in the study of motor representations. Brain Research Reviews, 60, 306–326. Nordin, S. M., Cumming, J., Vincent, J., & McGrory, S. (2006). Mental practice or spontaneous play? Examining which types of imagery constitute deliberate practice in sport. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 18, 345–362. Olsson, C. J., Jonsson, B., Larsson, A., & Nyberg, L. (2008). Motor representations and practice affect brain systems underlying imagery: An fMRI study of internal imagery in novices and active high jumpers. The Open Neuroimaging Journal, 2, 5–13. O’Shea, H., & Moran, A. (in press). Chronometric and pupil size measurements illuminate the relationship between motor execution and motor imagery in expert pianists. Psychology of Music. Platz, F., Kopiez, R., Lehmann, A. C., & Wulf, A. (2014). The influence of deliberate practice on musical achievement: A meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 5(646), 1–13. Raab, M., & Harwood, C. (2015). Special issue of Psychology of Sport and Exercise: The development of expertise and excellence in sport psychology. Psychology of Sport & Exercise, 16, 1–2. Ridderinkhof, K. R., & Brass, M. (2015). How kinaesthetic motor imagery works: A predictiveprocessing theory of visualization in sports and motor expertise. Journal of Physiology – Paris, 109, 53–63. doi 10.1016/j.jphysparis.2015.02.003 Swann, C., Moran, A., & Piggott, D. (2015). Defining elite athletes: Issues in the study of expert performance in sport psychology. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 16, 3–14. Syed, M. (2010). Bounce: The myth of talent and the power of practice. New York: Harper Collins. Watson, J. B. (1930). Behaviorism. New York: W. W. Norton. Williams, A. M., & Ericsson, K. A. (2008). From the guest editors: How do experts learn? Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 30, 653–662. Yarrow, K., Brown, P., & Krakauer, J. W. (2009). Inside the brain of an elite athlete: The neural processes that support high achievement in sports. Nature Reviews: Neuroscience, 10, 585–596.

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42 B IO F E E D BAC K I N SP O RT Boris Blumenstein and Ernest Tsung-Min Hung

The concept of biofeedback (BFB) was introduced during the end of the 1960s. From the beginning BFB became a popular and useful tool, with tremendous potential in various professional fields of applied sport psychology and practices of athletic peak performance. The basic idea of BFB is to provide individuals with immediate biological information about what is going inside their body, including their brain (Schwartz, 1979). For this purpose, various types of sensitive electronic instrumentations (or modalities) are used to get feedback through physiological signal recording. The modalities include: EEG (brain activity), EMG (muscle activity), T (skin temperature), R (respiration), BP (blood pressure), EDR (electrodermal response), and HR, HRV (cardiovascular activity). Using a variety of BFB modalities, individuals can observe the relationship of their current psychological state and physiological response. In this chapter the current state of research in the field of BFB is described, the integration of biofeedback training (BFBT) with other psychological strategies is discussed, BFBT as part of psychological skills training (PST) is presented, and finally, suggestions for the future development of BFB in sport are provided.

Historical development of biofeedback in sport Historically, biofeedback approaches were limited to clinical medical practice (Basmajian, 1979; Brown, 1977; Green, 1973), and some articles proposing the use of biofeedback in sport were published (Zaichkowsky, 1975; Zaichkowsky & Kamen, 1978). Between the 1980s and the early 2000s, numerous studies examined the efficacy of biofeedback, and reviews of biofeedback application in sport were reported (e.g., Blumenstein, 2002; Leonards, 2003a, b, 2004; Sandweiss, 1985; Strack & Sime, 2011; Zaichkowsky, 1994; Zaichkowsky & Fuchs, 1988). Most of the studies in the1980s and 1990s were conducted in laboratory settings and were focused mainly on using different BFB modalities to: (1) reduce anxiety and competitive stress; (2) improve muscle strength and flexibility; and (3) enhance athletic performance. Most of the studies discussed the augmenting role of BFB on various physiological components and athletic performance (e.g., Sime, 2003; Zaichkowsky & Fuchs, 1988). However, it is important to note that improved performance was considered an automatic result. Moreover, when studying the effect of BFBT on improved performance, 429

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the volume/length of treatment (session × time) and the BFB modality should be considered (Blumenstein, 2002; Sime, 2003; Zaichkowsky & Fuchs, 1988). A significant step in the development of BFB application in sport was described in research by Petruzzelo, Landers, and Salazar (1991). It was suggested that BFBT can improve athlete performance when employed as a component of a larger “package” of psychological skill interventions. This idea was developed in numerous research studies and practical experience (e.g., Blumenstein, Bar-Eli, & Tenenbaum, 1995; Crews & Landers, 1993). At the same time, most studies and practitioners noted that there is a lack of knowledge and experience in transferring BFBT from a laboratory setting to the field (e.g., Crews, Lochbaum, & Karoly, 2001). To overcome this limitation, researchers and practitioners have made attempts to use BFBT as part of psychological skills training (PST), and to integrate it in athletic preparation on a stable basis. For this purpose multi-faced programs were developed, such as the Wingate Five Step Approach (W5SA; Blumenstein, Bar-Eli, & Tenenbaum, 1997), the Learning-Modification-Application Approach (LMA; Blumenstein & Orbach, 2012b), and the Integrated Psychological Skills Training Program (IPSTP; Beauchamp, Harvey, & Beauchamp, 2012). These programs were based on the principles and concepts of sport training (Balague, 2000; Beauchamp et al., 2012; Blumenstein, Lidor, & Tenenbaum, 2005; Blumenstein & Orbach, 2012a, b, 2014; Bompa, 1999). Moreover, applied sport psychologists/consultants successfully integrated BFB technology into daily athletic mental preparation (see DeMichelis, 2007; Wilson, Peper, & Moss, 2006).

Biofeedback as applied psychophysiology in sport BFB application originated from the field of psychophysiology. According to Andreassi’s (2007) definition, “psychophysiology is the study of relations between psychological manipulations and resulting physiological responses, measured in the living organism, to promote understanding of the relation between mental and bodily processes” (p. 2). Therefore the relevance of BFB interventions in sport based on the “psychophysiological principle” formulated by Green, Green, and Walters (1970, p. 3) is understandable. Every change in the physiological state is accompanied by an appropriate change in the mental-emotional state, conscious or unconscious and conversely, every change in the mental-emotional state, conscious or unconscious, is accompanied by an appropriate change in the physiological state. Numerous papers have demonstrated the potential offered by psychophysiology in sport, and claimed that it can improve research and practice within sport psychology, such as: (1) using psychophysiological measurements (EMG, EEG, EDR, HR) with elite athletes for diagnosis and performance enhancement; (2) understanding the athlete’s brain and complexity of sport performance by psychophysiological measurements; (3) applying biofeedback technology as an effective intervention in sport psychology; and (4) psychophysiological monitoring of performance, which represents an important source of information for elite athletes (e.g. Blumenstein & Orbach, 2014; Collins & McPherson, 2006; Hatfield & Hillman, 2001; Hatfield & Landers, 1987; Zaichkowsky, 2009). At the same time, Collins (2002) reported that “psychophysiology is an underused approach in sport psychology” (p. 16). Based on a review by Leonards (2003a, b, 2004), research in sport psychophysiology is still limited and mainly focused on: (1) arousal reduction, (2) optimizing autonomic control, and (3) rehabilitative interventions with injured athletes. In the last few years the interest in BFB 430

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within sport settings as part of applied psychophysiology has significantly grown. Special issues of Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology (vol. 6(1), 2012) and Biofeedback (vol. 39(3), 2011) were dedicated to applying psychophysiology in sport, and chapters and books have been devoted to psychophysiology and biofeedback in sport (e.g., Blumenstein & Orbach, 2012b, 2014; Edmonds & Tenenbaum, 2012; Strack, Linden, & Wilson, 2011). At the Thirteenth World ISSP Congress in Beijing (2013), a special symposium called “Biofeedback in Sport” was presented and was well attended.

EEG-neurofeedback and performance enhancement Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the number of claims made concerning the possibility of improving athletic performance via the use of BFBT with EEG. The modality of BFBT with EEG or EEG-neurofeedback has a special role in BFBT due to its close connection to the brain, which is the source of all mental processes. Unlike other BFBT modalities that connect to somatic or autonomic activity, and thus are more related to constructs such as arousal and emotional states, EEG-neurofeedback can be used for a wide spectrum of cognitive and emotional constructs. Gruzelier (2014a) concluded that EEG-neurofeedback is effective in improving sustained attention, orienting, and executive attention; the P300b, memory, spatial rotation, RT, complex psychomotor skills, implicit procedural memory, recognition memory, perceptual binding, intelligence, and wide ranging aspects of mood and well-being in healthy subjects. The rationale for applying EEG-neurofeedback in sports is based on the association of EEG components with sport performance. Although numerous studies have shown the relevance of EEG frequencies, such as left temporal alpha (Hatfield & Hillman, 2001), central alpha (Babiloni, Percio, Iacoboni, Infarinato, Lizio, Marzano et al., 2008), occipital alpha (Loze, Collins, & Holmes, 2001), frontal midline theta (Kao, Huang, & Hung, 2013), and EEG coherence (Deeny, Haufler, Saffer, & Hatfield, 2009) among several brain areas, to performance in precision sports (e.g., rifle and pistol shooting, golf putting, and archery), to the best of our knowledge only a small number of studies utilizing these established EEG components have been published. Landers, Petruzzello, Salazar, Crews, Kubits, Gannon, and Han (1991) published the first study in this area, which compared one session of neurofeedback training aimed at increasing left temporal slow potential (correct neurofeedback group) with that of increasing right temporal slow potential (incorrect neurofeedback group) and no neurofeedback (control group). The rationale was based on the observation of increased left temporal alpha, an indication of reduced verbal-analytical process that is deemed nonessential to skilled performance, and superior sport performance as well as the positive association between slow potential and alpha (Hatfield, Landers, & Ray, 1984). The results showed that correct neurofeedback improved shooting accuracy in archers while incorrect neurofeedback impaired performance; and the control group showed no change from pre-test to post-test. Similarly, in a within subject design, Arns, Kleinnijenhuis, Fallahpour, and Breteler (2008) compared neurofeedback with no neurofeedback on golf putting performance. Unlike the study of Landers et al. (1991), which used an EEG component that was found relevant to sport performance in previous studies, the criteria for neurofeedback in this study was an individually determined EEG frequency based on the EEG profile during successful putting trials. The results showed that neurofeedback improved putting performance on an average of 25 percent. This is an innovative approach, with an immense potential for application. However, it is not easy to determine the psychological explanation for the improvement, because the neurofedback criteria were quite different among the participants. Kao, Huang, 431

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and Hung (2014) recently demonstrated that one session of neurofeedback training targeted on reducing frontal midline theta (Fmș) successfully reduced Fmș at a resting condition and improved putting performance in three highly skilled golfers. The rationale for using reduced Fmș as a neurofeedback training target was based on the association of Fmș with top-down attention, and on recent findings associating lower Fmș with better performance in golf putting (Kao, Huang, & Hung, 2013) and basketball free throw (Chuan, Huang, & Hung, 2013) in highly skilled athletes. Despite several studies having provided evidence to support the effectiveness of EEG-neurofeedback on improving performance in precision sports, a number of methodological issues require further examination before making definite conclusions. As Gruzelier (2014b) delineated, numerous issues were important in examining the validity of an EEG-neurofeedback training on improving performance. A full discussion of these issues is beyond the scope of this chapter. Here we discuss three prominent issues as examples for consideration in future studies. First, the specificity issues that include frequency band specificity and topographical specificity require consideration. Among the three studies reviewed above, Landers et al. (1991) was the only one that partially addressed the specificity issue by looking at the effect of EEG-neurofeedback on most of the frequency bands (i.e., 1–30 Hz). Second is the nature of EEG-neurofeedback learning that includes across session learning, within session learning, and baseline increment. Two studies (Landers, et al., 1991; Kao et al., 2014) employed a single session design, and both employed a procedure that required within session progression to reach the targeted criteria. The within session learning progress was not reported in Arns et al.’s (2008) study. A third and often overlooked issue is phenomenological reports of neurofeedback learning and effect. Others have reported a close relationship between the timing of neurofeedback learning asymptote and the participant’s feeling of control in the targeted state (Gruzelier, 2014b). Therefore, phenomenological reports could be a useful guide to validating learning as well as providing information on outcome improvement.

Biofeedback training in athletic preparation A literature review revealed a large amount in research and practical work that used BFB training in various sports, such as rifle shooting and archery (Filho, Morães, & Tenenbaum, 2008; Landers et al., 1991; Wei-Duo, 1995), running (Blumenstein et al., 1995; Edmonds, 2012), tennis (Galloway & Lane, 2005), basketball (Kavussanu, Crews, & Gill, 1998), baseball (Carlstedt, 2012), fencing (Chen, Zhang, Ren, Xue & Wen, 1997), canoeing/ kayaking (Blumenstein & Bar-Eli, 1998), short-track speed skating (Beauchamp et al., 2012), swimming (Bar-Eli & Blumenstein, 2004), gymnastics (Perry, Shaw, & Zaichkowsky, 2011; Shaw, Zaichkowsky, & Wilson, 2012), football (Edvardsson, Ivarsson, & Johnson, 2012), handball (Costa, Bonaccorsi, & Scrimali, 1984), judo (Blumenstein & Orbach, 2012c), windsurfing (Blumenstein & Orbach, 2012d), and golf (Arave, 2012; Arns et al., 2008; Vernon, 2005). It is important to choose the BFB modality appropriate for the sport discipline, and to consider sport demands and competition conditions. It is also recommended to consider the personal way each athlete reacts to, perceives, and experiences the effect of BFB training and individualized BFB modalities (Blumenstein, 2002; Blumenstein, Bar-Eli & Collins, 2002). For example, HR, EEG, and R biofeedback modalities are relevant to performance in aiming tasks (e.g. archery, rifle shooting, golf ), which require intense focus, accuracy, stable body position, and breathing control (Landers et al., 1991). In contrast, in combat sport, the performance of which involves a high level of tactile and proprioceptive sensitivity and

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intense emotional involvement, EMG and EDR/GSR seem the most efficient modalities to be used (Blumenstein, 2002). Most studies point to the fact that BFB training was provided in laboratory settings (Andreassi, 2007). The lack of “the ability to transfer the learned response to the real world” was already discussed at the beginning of the twenty-first century (Crews et al., 2001, p. 578). Later on, the use of psychological skills acquired by BFB training in an ecological context is presented in two different models: the LMA and the Canadian approach.

Integrating biofeedback with psychological strategies/techniques Combining various techniques in one intervention “package” to examine the impact of each combination to sport performance enhancement is also evident in biofeedback research (e.g., Blumenstein, 2002; Petruzzello et al., 1991). Several studies (e.g., Blais & Vallerand, 1986; Costa et al., 1984) have demonstrated the positive effect of using BFB in conjunction with other psychological intervention techniques to control non-optimal states, which precede athletic competition (e.g., anxiety). Scartelli (1984) demonstrated some positive effects of combining EMG BFB with sedative music. Blumenstein and colleagues (1995) investigated experimentally the influence of various combinations of autogenic training, imagery, and music training on the performance of athletic tasks. EMG BFB was found to augment athletic performance when accompanied by autogenic training for relaxation and imagery for excitation. Bar-Eli and Blumenstein (2004) found that an intervention package that included BFB with mental training had a greater positive effect on performance in pre-elite swimmers compared to relaxation training alone. The above studies reveal that (1) when BFB is used as part of a multifaceted treatment package it becomes difficult to ascertain the extent to which it actually affects performance; and (2) when BFB is used as part of larger intervention, its unique effect augments performance. Researchers should determine which psychological techniques and intervention training package integrated with BFB are most efficient in different sports and varying contexts (e.g., practice/competition, athlete’s experience, training period). Additional attention should be given to the level of challenge to be encountered and it should also be recognized that, even in a single context, there are fluctuations in how the context is perceived and experienced.

Biofeedback and psychological skills training The integration of PST within the training process usually includes a combination of various PST techniques while considering specific demands of the sport, such as: four preparations (i.e., physical, technical, tactical, and psychological), the periodization principle, the level of experience, and age (Balague, 2000; Beauchamp et al., 2012; Blumenstein & Orbach, 2012a, b, 2014). Researchers and practitioners have intensively applied the idea of the periodization principle within a PST program (Balague, 2000; Blumenstein et al., 2005; Blumenstein & Lidor, 2007; Blumenstein & Orbach, 2014; Bompa & Haff, 2009; Holliday, Burton, Sun, Hammermeister, Naylor, & Freigang, 2008). The periodization principle is important for the integration of BFBT as part of a PST program (Beauchamp et al., 2012; Blumenstein et al., 2005; Blumenstein & Orbach, 2012a, b, 2014). For this purpose the LMA (Learning-ModificationApplication) approach (Blumenstein & Orbach, 2012b, 2014) and a multifaceted PST program for the Canadian short-track speedskaters (see Beauchamp et al., 2012) were developed. These approaches effectively outline in what way an integrated PST can be part of elite athletic preparation. The LMA approach includes three stages: Learning, Modification and Application, 433

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as well as seven stress distractors. Each of these stages takes place according to the athletic preparation. The Learning stage takes place with general preparation phase, Modification with the specific preparation phase, and Application with competition phase of the athlete’s annual training plan. Each stage is accompanied by BFB support and stress distraction, which makes it easier to transfer the learned psychological skills from the laboratory to field. The LMA approach was successfully used as part of athletes’ preparation for numerous international competitions (Blumenstein & Orbach, 2012b, 2014). However, researchers should determine other training models for different sports, and enable the transfer of the positive training effect of the LMA approach from laboratory to field. The Canadian approach includes seven phases: (1) orientation/observation; (2) sport analysis; (3) individual and team assessment; (4) concept utilization; (5) PST intervention strategies; (6) implementation; and (7) evaluation. This approach was applied successfully with elite athletes, both at the individual and team level, over a three year period, leading up to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games (Beauchamp et al., 2012). To strengthen the above approaches and to determine optimal training protocols, a few conditions should be considered: the use of a control group, examining the usability of the approaches in various sports, and defining differences between the genders and the effect of the approaches on young athletes.

Future directions BFB technology helps athletes learn to voluntarily control their physiological and psychological processes, and has great potential for aiding in the understanding of “how and why it works.” However, it is not possible to use the current BFB equipment during real sport situations. We hope that in the near future innovative BFB technologies, software, and portable equipment such as smart phones will allow athletes to learn and improve their self-regulatory skills. This might have the potential to expand the horizons of psychological preparation in sport. Moreover, an important issue to investigate is the process of the positive transfer of psychological skills learned by BFB technologies from the laboratory to the field. This can be done through longitudinal and qualitative perspectives such as observations, video recording, behavior analysis, and the athlete’s report. It is necessary to determine the duration of this process for different sports, and how long the psychological skills will remain at an optimal level for competitive goals. There should also be a focus on studies investigating the interaction between athletes, sport psychologists, and BFB technologies. Researchers should continue the integration of BFB training with other psychological interventions, and identify the optimal intervention package during the annual athletic preparations. Finally, all BFB applications should be provided according to the statement of ethical principles published by the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback (1992) and Hughes and Schaffer (2012).

Summary A substantial part of modern society is involved with technological innovations, and biofeedback technology is an example of this trend. The current generation is eager to perceive new technological approaches and apply them in various life domains. Therefore, the usability of BFB in sport shows good potential for the future in promoting psychological interventions. In order to continue the integration and usability of biofeedback in sport, the following is recommended: 434

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1 To develop new BFB devices that will be more comfortable and user-friendly for athletes, including telemetric versions and modern system of BFB. 2 To develop treatment standards and guidelines for BFB training in sport. 3 To develop training protocols for BFB interventions (session, duration, session order, loads and goals, combination of BFB and other psychological techniques). 4 To develop BFB training models for various sport disciplines and different training preparation periods. 5 To develop BFB training protocols for team sports, taking into consideration gender and age differences. 6 To further develop modern BFB research incorporating neurofeedback and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). 7 To determine ways of transferring positive training effects from the laboratory setting to the field. 8 To investigate the role of BFB training in various methodologies, such as in qualitative and longitudinal studies.

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Filho, E. S. M., Morães, L. C., & Tenenbaum, G. (2008). Affective and physiological states during archery competitions: Adopting and enhancing the probabilistic methodology of individual affectrelated performance zones (IAPZs). Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 20, 441–456. Galloway, S., & Lane, A. (2005). The effects of biofeedback training on elite junior tennis players. Journal of Sport Sciences, 23(11–12), 1247. Green, E. (1973). Biofeedback for mind-body self-regulation: Healing and creativity. In D. Shapiro, T. Barber, L. DiCara, J. Kamiya, N. Miller, & J. Stoyva (Eds.), Biofeedback and self-control (pp. 152–166). Chicago: Aldine. Green, E., Green, A., & Walters, E. (1970). Voluntary control of internal states: Psychological and physiological. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2, 1–26. Gruzelier, J. H. (2014a). EEG-neurofeedback for optimizing performance, I: A review of cognitive and affective outcome in healthy participants. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 44, 124–141. Gruzelier, J. H. (2014b). EEG-neurofeedback for optimizing performance, III: A review of methodological and theoretical considerations. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 44, 159–182. Hatfield, B. D., & Hillman, C. (2001). The psychophysiology of sport: A mechanistic understanding of the psychology of superior performance. In R. Singer, H. Hausenblas, & C. Janelle (Eds.), Handbook of research in sport psychology (2nd Ed., pp. 362–386). New York: Wiley. Hatfield, B. D., & Landers, D. M. (1987). Psychophysiology in exercise and sport research: An overview. Exercise and Sport Science Reviews, 15, 351–388. Hatfield, B. D., Landers, D. M., & Ray, W. J. (1984). Cognitive processes during self-paced motor performance: An electroencelographic profile of skilled marksmen. Journal of Sport Psychology, 6, 42–59. Holliday, B., Burton, D., Sun, G., Hammermeister, J., Naylor, S., & Freigang, D. (2008). Building the better mental training mousetrap: Is periodization a more systematic approach to promoting performance excellence? Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 20, 199–219. Hughes, P. A., & Schaffer, F. (2012). Cerfitification and ethics in applied psychophysiology. In W. A. Edmonds & G. Tenenbaum (Eds.), Case studies in applied psychophysiology: Neurofeedback and biofeedback treatments for advances in human performance (pp. 249–256). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Kao, S. C., Huang, C. J., & Hung, T. M. (2013). Frontal midline theta is a specific indicator of optimal attentional engagement during skilled putting performance. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 35, 470–478. Kao, S. C., Huang, C. J., & Hung, T. M. (2014). Neurofeedback training reduces frontal midline theta and improves putting performance in expert golfers. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 26, 271–286. Kavussanu, M., Crews, D., & Gill D. (1998).The effects of single versus multiple measures of biofeedback on basketball free throw shooting performance. International Journal of Sports Psychology, 29, 132–134. Landers, D. M., Petruzzello, S. J., Salazar, W., Crews, D. L., Kubitz, K. A., Gannon, T. L., & Han, M. (1991). The influence of electrocortical biofeedback on performance in pre-elite archers. Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise, 23, 123–129. Leonards, J. T. (2003a). Sport psychophysiology: The current status of biofeedback with athletes (Part I). Biofeedback, 31(2), 18–27. Leonards, J. T. (2003b). Sport psychophysiology: The current status of biofeedback with athletes (Part II). Biofeedback, 31(4), 20–23. Leonards, J. T. (2004). Sport psychophysiology: The current status of biofeedback with athletes (Part III). Biofeedback, 31(4), 27–31. Loze, G. M., Collins, D., & Holmes, P. (2001). Pre-shot EEG alpha-power reactivity during expert airpistol shooting: A comparison of best and worst shots. Journal of Sports Science, 19, 727–733. Perry, F. D., Shaw, L., & Zaichkowsky, L. (2011). Biofeedback and neurofeedback in sports. Biofeedback, 39(3), 95–100. Petruzzello, S. J., Landers, D. M., & Salazar, W. (1991). Biofeedback and sport/exercise performance: Applications and limitations. Behavior Therapy, 22, 379–392. Sandweiss, J. H. (1985). Biofeedback and sport sciences. In J. Sandweiss & S. Wolf (Eds.), Biofeedback and sport sciences (pp. 5–13). New York: Plenum. Scartelli, J. (1984). The effect of EMG biofeedback and sedative music, EMG biofeedback only, and sedative music only on frontalis muscle relaxation ability. Journal of Music Therapy, 21, 67–78. Schwartz, G. E. (1979). Disregulation and systems theory: A biobehavioral framework for biofeedback and behavioral medicine. In N. Birbaumer & H. D. Kimmel (Eds.), Biofeedback and self-regulation (pp. 19–48). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

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Shaw, L., Zaichkowsky, L., & Wilson, V. (2012). Setting the balance: Using biofeedback and neurofeedback with gymnasts. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 6, 47–66. Sime, W. E. (2003). Sports psychology applications of biofeedback and neurofeedback. In M. Schwartz & F. Andrasic (Eds.), Biofeedback: A practitioner’s guide (3rd Ed., pp. 560–589). New York: Guilford. Strack, B., Linden, M., & Wilson, V. (2011) (Eds.). Biofeedback and neurofeedback applications in sport psychology. Wheat Ridge, CO: AAPB. Strack, B., & Sime, W. (2011). History of biofeedback in sport. In B. Strack, M. Linden, & V. Wilson (Eds.), Biofeedback and neurofeedback applications in sport psychology (pp. 17–40). Wheat Ridge, CO: AAPB, Vernon, D. J. (2005). Can neurofeedback training enhance performance? An evaluation of the evidence with implications for future research. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, 30, 347–364. Wei-Duo, R. (1995). A study of EMG biofeedback for improving archery postural consistency. In F. H. Fu & M. Ng (Eds.), Sport psychology perspective and practice toward the 21st century (pp. 261–265). Hong Kong: Glory Press. Wilson, V. E., Peper, E., & Moss, D. (2006). “The Mind Room” in Italian soccer training: The use of biofeedback and neurofeedback for optimum performance. Biofeedback, 34(3), 79–81. Zaichkowsky, L. D. (1975). Combating stress: What about relaxation and biofeedback? Movement, 1, 309–312. Zaichkowsky, L. D. (1994). Biofeedback and imagery assisted self-regulation training in sports: Research evidence and practical applications. In S. Tsutsui & M. Kodama (Eds.), Biobehavioral self-regulation in the east and west (pp. 230–234). Tokyo: Springer-Verlag Inc. Zaichkowsky, L. D. (2009). A case for a new sport psychology: Applied psychophysiology and fMRI neuroscience. In R. J. Schinke (Ed.), Contemporary sport psychology (pp. 21–32). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science. Zaichkowsky, L. D., & Fuchs, C. Z. (1988). Biofeedback application in exercise and athletic performance. In K. B. Pandolf (Ed.), Exercise and sports science reviews (pp. 381–421). New York: Macmillan. Zaichkowsky, L. D., & Kamen, R. (1978). Biofeedback and meditation: Effects on muscle tension and locus of control. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 46, 955–958.

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43 M E N TA L T O U G H N E S S Critical reflections and future considerations Daniel F. Gucciardi and Sheldon Hanton

Mental toughness is a term used by professionals and lay people alike, particularly those individuals involved or interested in sport, to describe the psychological qualities of people who achieve outstanding performance. Although the meaning of mental toughness may seem clear at first glance, a closer examination of both everyday connotations and scientific conceptualizations reveals complexity to this concept. The purpose of this chapter is to critically evaluate the concept of mental toughness in sport, with a particular focus on its definition and conceptualization.1 Specifically, we will briefly review what we perceive to be the different waves of scholarly work and consider why, after 15 years of scientific research, mental toughness is still not that well understood as a scholarly concept, and in so doing offer our expectations as to how research might progress in the coming years.

First wave (1950–2000): professional practice knowledge The scientific and practical interest in mental toughness has gained momentum over the past decade, despite the first accounts of this concept dating back over 50 years. Originally discussed as a component of personality (i.e., tough-mindedness; Cattell, Blewett, & Beloff, 1955), much of the early writings on mental toughness were based on professionals’ experiences with and observations of athletes and coaches. This first wave resulted in a diverse assortment of definitions and conceptualizations of mental toughness which were characterized by practitioners’ views of positive psychological qualities (e.g., self-confidence, motivation) and mental skills (e.g., imagery, arousal regulation) considered important for success or which provided a defensive mechanism against adversity (for an initial review, see Connaughton, Hanton, Jones, & Wadey, 2008). Critical reflections. Examinations of the ways by which practitioners have used terms and their perceptions of the key aspects of a concept are an important first step in the conceptualization of a construct (MacKenzie, Podsakoff, & Podsakoff, 2011). Some of the most influential psychological theories, such as Beck’s cognitive theory of depression (1967), have been founded in professionals’ experiences, observations, and self-reflections of their practice (Locke, 2007). However, the unsystematic approach to the construction and communication

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of this knowledge in this first wave resulted in conceptual confusion and therefore hindered the integration of this knowledge into a theoretical account of mental toughness.

Second wave (2000–2015): identification of (unobservable) personal attributes It was not until the turn of the twenty-first century that mental toughness became the subject of systematic empirical work. Owing to the limited amount of basic knowledge on mental toughness in the academic literature, researchers embarked on a stream of descriptive research aimed at generating information that could provide the foundation for theory. This second wave was characterized by work that focused on identifying and describing unobservable personal attributes considered central to mental toughness (e.g., confidence, optimism), as well as sources of influence (e.g., coaches, parents) and the processes (e.g., motivational climate) by which they contribute to the development of these resources. The focus on identifying a core group of personal resources (i.e., common across individuals) that are employed to regulate one’s behavior is congruent with theoretical perspectives of stress (Hobfoll, 1989, 2002). Two streams of research are evident in this wave, which differ in their methodological approach. Sparked by the foundational work of Jones, Hanton, and Connaughton (2002),2 we located 13 qualitative studies published in peer-reviewed outlets that have been conducted to explore individuals’ perceptions of the fundamental attributes of mental toughness in sport.3 The majority of this work aimed to provide a rich, in-depth account of athlete mental toughness (cf. Slack, Butt, Maynard, & Olusoga, 2014) using cross-sectional interviews designed to generate an insight into participants’ retrospective experiences with the concept (cf. Crust, Nesti, & Bond, 2010). Different terms have been used to describe similar concepts thereby producing a seemingly endless list of individual attributes (Andersen, 2011). Despite the apparent inconsistencies in terminology across studies, most of these individual attributes reflect a core group of resources including self-efficacy, buoyancy, success mindset, optimistic style, context knowledge, and attention and emotion regulation (Gucciardi, Hanton, Gordon, Mallett, & Temby, 2015). A stream of quantitative research was instigated by Clough, Earle, and Sewell (2002), who integrated the views of athletes and coaches with existing theory to develop a model of mental toughness. Their 4Cs model of mental toughness drew from hardiness theory in which it is said that three interrelated attitudes or appraisal strategies capture a personality characteristic that buffers people from the deleterious effects of life stress (Kobasa, 1979). These three features are commitment (i.e., value activities or tasks and one’s continuation in them), control (i.e., one is influential in outcomes in life), and challenge (i.e., stress in life is expected and important for personal development). Clough et al. added a confidence dimension to the hardiness model to capture the views of athletes and coaches regarding the unique demands of sport contexts (i.e., belief that one is capable of achieving their goals). The 4Cs model and its associated measurement tool (i.e., MTQ48) has been widely adopted to examine mental toughness in sport (for a review, see Clough & Strycharczyk, 2012). Critical reflections. After almost 15 years of systematic research devoted to clarifying the fundamental attributes of mental toughness, what have we learned? Mental toughness reflects a fundamentally important but inadequately understood concept. The work completed in this second wave suggests that mental toughness encompasses a constellation of personal resources that people bring with them to a situation that is perceived as being facilitative for goal attainment in the face of varying degrees of situational demands. When 440

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conceptualized as a personal attribute, this boundary condition helps distinguish mental toughness from other types of resources. Resilience, for example, is not an attribute of people but rather encompasses an interaction between individuals and situations or contexts that involve non-normal levels of risk or significant adversity (Windle, 2011). The idea that possessing high levels of one resource is typically linked with having others is consistent with the notion of “resource caravans” in which characteristics aggregate and integrate over time as a collective rather than exist in isolation (Hobfoll, 2002). However, there has been little in the way of a theoretical justification for the combination of these resources as a core mental toughness construct, including clear criteria for their inclusion or exclusion. As has been argued (Johnson, Rosen, Chang, Djurdjevic, & Taing, 2012), and we have recently shown (Gucciardi, Hanton, et al., 2015), it may be erroneous to assume that individual resources pool together to form a coherent whole. Despite the achievements of this second wave of research, mental toughness remains a concept in need of a theory for it to be considered a legitimate scientific concept. Of course, we and others (e.g., Harmison, 2011) have recognized this need for many years, yet little work has been directed towards resolving this issue. An important prerequisite to theory development is the clarification of the nature of a construct, including its conceptual domain (e.g., applies to people not organizations) and theme (e.g., dimensionality, stability; MacKenzie et al., 2011). Yet, conceptual models of mental toughness have been presented without systematic attention to this fundamental aspect of concept development (e.g., Clough et al., 2002; Jones, Hanton, & Connaughton, 2007). Although an unsystematic approach may be useful in the exploratory stages of a research program, it is problematic for scholars to simply replicate this approach because it contributes to disconnect between definition and operationalization in empirical studies. For example, Madrigal, Hamill, and Gill (2013) defined mental toughness as “the ability to be more consistent and better than one’s opponent by remaining determined, focused, confident, and in control when under pressure” (p. 63) yet they measured this concept with items that capture personal qualities relevant to typical performance rather than through the demonstration of one’s ability to enact the proposed mechanisms (i.e., test of maximal performance). From a methodological standpoint, the predominance of “single shot” studies when compared with multi-study manuscripts and research programs (cf. Gucciardi, Hanton et al., 2015; Hardy, Bell, & Beattie, 2014) has limited the extent to which findings across studies have been integrated into a unifying theoretical framework. Additionally, scholars interested in mental toughness have relied on retrospective interviews and cross-sectional surveys. Of course, our work in this area is not immune to these methodological criticisms (e.g., Gucciardi, Jackson, Hanton, & Reid, 2015; Jones et al., 2002). Alternative methodological approaches (e.g., ethnography, case studies) and designs (e.g., experimental, longitudinal) may provide new insights into mental toughness that may not have been obtained through uniformity in ways of knowing. A key conclusion is that after all this time these methodological approaches have not sufficiently moved the knowledge base forward and even when viewed as a collective is theoretically murky. A fundamental shift in thinking is required to advance our understanding of mental toughness.4

Third wave (2015 onwards): observable behavior from person × situation interactions If the first wave of mental toughness research yielded insights into practitioners’ reflections of this concept based on their applied work, and the second wave generated knowledge on 441

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unobservable attributes (e.g., self-efficacy, optimism) through the application of scientific principles, then we see behaviors that occur during interactions between the person and the situation as the focus of the next decade or so of scientific inquiry. The importance of behaviors was explicitly acknowledged in some of our early work (e.g., Gucciardi, Gordon, & Dimmock, 2008; Jones et al., 2007) – though not in a substantively detailed manner – and has been reignited through recent research (Gucciardi, Jackson et al., 2015; Hardy et al., 2014). As with the measurement of unobservable concepts like thoughts and emotions, operational definitions of the target behavior(s) and the situation(s) where they are un/likely to occur are fundamentally important for the reliability and validity of measures of mentally tough behavior. Recent work suggests that mental toughness may be best defined as a personal capacity to deliver high performance on a regular basis despite varying degrees of situational demands (Gucciardi, Hanton et al., 2015; Hardy et al., 2014). Thus, a key focus in this wave of research seeks to isolate behaviors that enable the attainment of subjective (e.g., personal goals) and objective (e.g., kicking efficiency) indicators of performance. What do we mean by behavior? In this context, we define behavior as those acts displayed by a person that are observable and measurable. In other words, behavior refers to something that someone actually does that can be seen or heard and quantified in some way (e.g., frequency, rate, duration). To distinguish behavior from subjective interpretations or descriptions of behavior, one must qualify and specify the action (Kahng, Ingvarsson, Quigg, Seckinger, & Teichman, 2011). For example, saying someone has an excellent work ethic tells us little about his or her behavior. Work ethic may be displayed in behavioral terms in a number of ways, such as attending training early to work on a specific skill before the main session (e.g., goal kicking), or asking the coach for individualized feedback on one’s competitive performance that can be worked on during the following training week. It is also important to delineate between the functional (i.e., effects of the behavior) and topographical (i.e., form or properties) features of the behavior (Kahng et al., 2011). For example, resilience may be defined as returning to play following injury in a timeframe consistent with one’s medical prognosis (functional), or it could refer to using humor during the injury rehabilitation process (topographical). Both direct and indirect approaches can be employed for behavioral analyses of mental toughness (for reviews, see Kelley, LaRue, Roane, & Gadaire, 2011; Thompson & Borrero, 2011). Direct observation of behavior as it occurs in situ by a trained observer – whether the setting is natural or contrived – is the preferred method whenever possible (Bailey & Burch, 2002; Kahng et al., 2011). In an exploratory approach, for example, an experienced informant (e.g., coach, recruiter) might observe a training session or competitive match and report when a player demonstrates mentally tough behavior, including information on events that preceded the behavior, and occurred during and immediately after the behavior. Although the preferred approach, direct approaches are costly, time-consuming, and are prone to human errors and biases such as expectancies or fatigue during data collection (Kahng et al., 2011; Kelley et al., 2011). Behavior can also be inferred from sources or events other than direct observation. Archival or permanent records such as official performance statistics (e.g., second serve percentage) provide information on the outcomes of behavior rather than its form or properties (Kahng et al., 2011). Athletes can be trained to observe and record their behavior as it occurs, which can be useful for behaviors that are not directly accessible by others and/or occur in one or more settings (Nelson, 1977). Finally, interviews, surveys and rating scales can be employed to gather information on both the functional and topographical features of behavior, and perspectives on the temporal sequencing of events including antecedents and situational demands (Kahng et al., 2011; Kelley et al., 2011). 442

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Some of the limitations of indirect measurements include the inability to precisely measure the behavior itself (archival data); the reliability and accuracy is difficult to verify or the measurement approach itself may influence behavior (self-monitoring); and responses may be biased or inaccurate due to recall ability5 (interviews, rating scales) (Kahng et al., 2011; Kelley et al., 2011).

Shifting the empirical and conceptual focus: avenues for theoretical developments By shifting the empirical and conceptual focus to behaviors that occur during interactions between the person and the situation, we believe there is potential to augment the knowledge already generated in the first two waves of research. To facilitate this process, we have developed a model that provides a flexible heuristic for a new wave of research on mental toughness (see Figure 43.1). Although admittedly broad in nature, this model captures key features of previous work on mental toughness in new ways (personal resources and situational demands) and integrates them with our expectations regarding behavioral expressions to provide a foundation for theory development in this area. The first two waves of research focused primarily on generating insights into those unobservable attributes of performers considered mentally tough, yet little work provided evidence to support a direct link between these personal resources and performance or behavior. A core proposition of our heuristic is the notion that mental toughness “may be less about which personal characteristics individuals have at their disposal and more about what these personal characteristics allow them to do” in terms of visible and measurable behavioral acts (Mahoney, Ntoumanis, Mallett, & Gucciardi, 2014, p. 185). This proposition aligns with the recent shift to ascertain whether or not mentally tough behavior has occurred before we try to make sense of those unobservable attributes that might precede such actions (Hardy et al., 2014). In an attempt to help organize and guide future research from this perspective,

Dispositional traits

Characteristic adaptations

Identity or narratives

Striving behaviors Challenge stressors

Subjective performance Surviving behaviors

Hindrance stressors

Thriving behaviors

Objective performance

Figure 43.1 A conceptual heuristic to organize key variables for the theoretical development of mental toughness

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Mahoney et al. proposed a tripartite conceptualization of mentally tough behavior, which draws from self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985), in which mental toughness is said to foster behaviors or actions associated with striving (i.e., effort expended on tasks), surviving (i.e., overcoming daily hassles or stressors and major adversities), and thriving (i.e., growth through lived experiences). An important agenda for future research on mental toughness is to isolate behaviors that capture these three broad behavioral expressions with clarity and precision. A second proposition of our heuristic model is that the degree to which an individual displays mentally tough behaviors is a function of both situational demands or stressors and personality attributes, and their interaction (i.e., buffering hypothesis). Athletes encounter a variety of performance (e.g., injury, expectations) and organizational (e.g., interpersonal demands, organizational structure) stressors within the sporting environment (Mellalieu, Neil, Hanton, & Fletcher, 2009). Unsurprisingly, stress is common across most conceptualizations of mental toughness (e.g., Gucciardi, Hanton et al., 2015; Hardy et al., 2014). Within the context of a transactional perspective of stress, situational demands are perceived as either challenging or threatening for valued outcomes such as wellbeing and performance (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). In differentiating these situational features, scholars have described challenge stressors as having the potential to foster positive outcomes such as mastery, growth, or gains, whereas hindrance stressors typically thwart the attainment of such positive outcomes (e.g., Cavanaugh, Boswell, Roehling, & Boudreau, 2000). This differentiation in stressors is consistent with perspectives of mental toughness that have delineated its relevance for both negative and positive stressors (e.g., Gucciardi et al., 2008). However, scholars have yet to adequately integrate this distinction in types of stressors into current conceptualizations of mental toughness. Given that associations between stressors and valued outcomes can differ depending on the nature of the situational demands (Crawford, LePine, & Rich, 2010), it is important that challenge and hindrance stressors are distinguished in future research on mental toughness. The extent to which situational demands impede behavior and performance is dependent on appraisals as to whether or not the encounter exceeds one’s available resources (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) and whether the associated symptoms are perceived as debilitative or facilitative for performance (Jones, 1995). A common finding from past work on mental toughness is that the personal resource feature of this concept cannot be readily reduced to a single attribute or quality. Despite the widespread agreement on this theoretical feature, there are conceptual ambiguities and imprecisions regarding the dimensionality (e.g., inclusion/ exclusions criteria) and structure (e.g., core concept as a higher-order variable) of mental toughness. This confusion has resulted in the distinctiveness of mental toughness being obscured by unknown construct boundaries. One way to clarify the nature of the personal resources is to consider an alternative view of the self in which it is said that personality is expressed across three layers within a person (McAdams & Pals, 2006). Dispositional traits refer to broad aspects of the self that are relatively consistent across time and situations, and therefore provide an indication of typical ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving (e.g., the ‘Big Five’ or ‘16pf ’). The second layer of personality captures characteristics adaptations, which refer to goals, values, motives, and other aspects of psychological individuality that are context- or situation-dependent and which speak to what people want to approach or avoid in life, and how they proceed towards those valued targets. The final layer of personality – narrative identity – is where individuals integrate the past, present, and imagined future as an internalized sense of unity and purpose in one’s life (for other perspectives on narrative identity, see Smith & Sparkes, 2008). Life stories or narrative identities are heavily shaped by 444

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culture whereby an individual adopts the “prevailing narrative forms, images, metaphors, and plots and fits his or her personal experiences to them” (McAdams, 2013, p. 287). As with others (McAdams, 2013; see also, Coulter, Mallett, Singer, & Gucciardi, in press), we suspect that dispositional traits, characteristic adaptations, and narrative identity provide unique, adaptive personal and social functions for the expression of mentally tough behaviors. With regard to dispositional traits, for example, cricketers who are sensitive to negative stimuli of events that involve punishment can sustain goal-directed behavior because they typically detect threat early and therefore have more time to plan and execute effective responses in pressurized situations (Hardy et al., 2014). Preliminary evidence supports the expectation that mental toughness may be expressed across all three layers of one’s personality – as trait, adaptation, identity – and thereby may provide a useful framework for understanding those aspects of psychological individuality that predict mentally tough behaviors. In a sample of adolescent netballers, parent-reported mentally tough behavior was inversely related with athlete-reported fear of failure (dispositional trait) and obsessive passion (identity), and positively associated with frequency of inspiration (characteristic adaptation) and harmonious passion (identity; Gucciardi, Jackson et al., 2015). Nevertheless, not all aspects of psychological individuality will predict mentally tough behavior, nor will each provide a buffer against the deleterious effects of stress. An important avenue for future research on mental toughness is to identify those personal resources across each layer of personality that directly promote, as well as interact with situational demands to foster striving, surviving, and thriving behaviors.

Conclusion Mental toughness is an intuitively accessible concept, yet its elusiveness has troubled scholars over the past decade. The development of a theory of mental toughness remains a central agenda for future work. The considerations detailed in this chapter embrace an expanded perspective of mental toughness that might provide a foundation for theoretical precision in future work. Advances in both the science and practice of mental toughness depend on the gradual accumulation of findings from sound empirical research (Locke, 2007). It is our hope that the heuristic proposed in this chapter will motivate scholars to engage with the study of mental toughness in different ways from those they have in the past, as well as provide a framework within which to situate and integrate the accumulation of empirical findings. In an experimental setting, for example, one could examine whether certain personal resources (e.g., efficacy, hope) moderate the association between behaviors (e.g., amount of time planning one’s strategy) or performance (e.g., decision-making task) within low and high stress situations. An alternative approach would be to examine the key features of the heuristic as they naturally occur. Athletes might provide self-reports of dispositional traits (e.g., Big Five), characteristic adaptations (e.g., achievement goals, sport motivation), and narrative identity (e.g., athletic identity, passion) at the start of a season. Competitive and organization stressors as well as goal progress (i.e., subjective performance) could then be captured on a weekly basis via athlete self-reports, alongside informant-rated mentally tough behaviors. At the season end, data mining of match statistics from archival records would provide a resource to identify indicators of objective performance (e.g., kicking efficiency, shots on goal). Multilevel modeling would allow for the examination of the dynamic relationships among these variables (e.g., do certain personal resources predict consistency in performance?). A phenomenological approach might also be employed as a way to illuminate athletes’ lived experiences of the core features of mental toughness depicted in our model. 445

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Such studies will be important to the advancement of mental toughness as a scientific concept.

Notes 1 Issues pertaining to the measurement and development of mental toughness are not a primary focus in this chapter, as they have been dealt with in detail elsewhere (e.g., Gucciardi & Gordon, 2011). Nevertheless, we recognise that both streams of research are inextricably linked to conceptual issues so they will be alluded to where appropriate in the narrative. 2 This manuscript has received the most citations of any paper devoted specifically to the concept of mental toughness (Web of Science = 109; Google Scholar = 402). Metrics retrieved on October 19, 2015. 3 The references for these 13 studies are provided in Appendix A. 4 Interested readers are referred elsewhere for alternative critical perspectives that focus on the limitations of absolutist language (Andersen, 2011) and fascistoid ideology (Caddick & Ryall, 2012). 5 It is important to recognize that there are alternative views with regard to the quality of retrospection (e.g., Freeman, 2010).

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Gucciardi, D. F., Gordon, S., & Dimmock, J. A. (2008). Towards an understanding of mental toughness in Australian football. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 20, 261–281. doi: 10.1080/10413200801998556 Gucciardi, D. F., Hanton, S., Gordon, S., Mallett, C. J., & Temby, P. (2015). The concept of mental toughness: Tests of dimensionality, nomological network, and traitness. Journal of Personality, 83, 26–44. doi: 10.1111/jopy.12079 Gucciardi, D. F., Jackson, B., Hanton, S., & Reid, M. (2015). Motivational correlates of mentally tough behaviors in tennis. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 18, 67–71. doi: 10.1016/j.jsams.2013.11.009 Hardy, L., Bell, J., & Beattie, S. (2014). Preliminary evidence for a neuropsychological model of mentally tough behavior. Journal of Personality, 82, 69–81. doi: 10.1111/jopy.12034 Harmison, R. J. (2011). A social-cognitive framework for understanding and developing mental toughness. In D. F. Gucciardi & S. Gordon (Eds.), Mental toughness in sport: Developments in theory and research (pp. 47–68). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Hobfoll, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. American Psychologist, 44, 513–524. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.44.3.513 Hobfoll, S. E. (2002). Social and psychological resources and adaptation. Review of General Psychology, 6, 307–324. doi: 10.1037//1089-2680.6.4.307 Johnson, R. E., Rosen, C. C., Chang, C-H., Djurdjevic, E., & Taing, M. U. (2012). Recommendations for improving the construct clarity of higher-order multidimensional constructs. Human Resource Management Review, 22, 62–72. doi: 10.1016/j.hrmr.2011.11.006 Jones, G. (1995). More than just a game: Research developments and issues in competitive anxiety in sport. British Journal of Psychology, 86, 449–478. Jones, G., Hanton, S., & Connaughton, D. (2002). What is this thing called mental toughness? An investigation of elite sport performers. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 14, 205–218. doi: 10.1080/10413200290103509 Jones, G., Hanton, S., & Connaughton, D. (2007). A framework of mental toughness in the world’s best performers. The Sport Psychologist, 21, 243–264. Kahng, S., Ingvarsson, E. T., Quigg, A. M., Seckinger, K. E., & Teichman, H. M. (2011). Defining and measuring behavior. In W. W. Fisher, C. C. Piazza, & H. S. Roane (Eds.), Handbook of applied behavior analysis (pp. 113–131). New York: Guilford. Kelley, M. E., LaRue, R. H., Roane, H. S., & Gadaire, D. M. (2011). Indirect behavioral assessments: Interviews and rating scales. In W. W. Fisher, C. C. Piazza, & H. S. Roane (Eds.), Handbook of applied behavior analysis (pp. 182–190). New York: Guilford. Kobasa, S. C. (1979). Stressful life events, personality, and health – inquiry into hardiness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1–11. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.37.1.1 Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisals, and coping. New York: Springer. Locke, E. A. (2007). The case for inductive theory building. Journal of Management, 33, 867–890. doi: 10.1177/0149206307307636 MacKenzie, S. B., Podsakoff, P. M., & Podsakoff, N. P. (2011). Construct measurement and validation procedures in MIS and behavioral research: Integrating new and existing techniques. MIS Quarterly, 35, 293–334. Madrigal, L., Hamill, S., & Gill, D. L. (2013). Mind over matter: The development of the mental toughness scale (MTS). The Sport Psychologist, 27, 62–77. Mahoney, J., Ntoumanis, N., Mallett, C., & Gucciardi, D. (2014). The motivational antecedents of the development of mental toughness: A self-determination theory perspective. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 1, 184–197. doi: 10.1080/1750984X.2014.925951 McAdams, D. P. (2013). The psychological self as actor, agent, and author. Psychological Science, 8, 272– 295. doi: 10.1177/1745691612464657 McAdams, D. P., & Pals, J. L. (2006). A new big five: Fundamental principles for an integrative science of personality. American Psychologist, 61, 204–217. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.61.3.204 Mellalieu, S. D., Neil, R., Hanton, S., & Fletcher, D. (2009). Competition stress in sport performers: Stressors experienced in the competition environment. Journal of Sports Sciences, 27, 729–744. doi: 10.1080/02640410902889834 Nelson, R. O. (1977). Methodological issues in assessment via self-monitoring. In J. D. Cone & R. P. Hawkins (Eds.), Behavioral assessment: New directions in clinical psychology (pp. 217–240). New York: Brunner/Mazel. Slack, L. A., Butt, J., Maynard, I. W., & Olusoga. P. (2014). Understanding mental toughness in elite football officiating: Perceptions of English premier league referees. Sport and Exercise Psychology Review, 10, 4–24.

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Smith, B., & Sparkes, A. C. (2008). Contrasting perspectives on narrating selves and identities: An invitation to dialogue. Qualitative Research, 8, 5–35. doi: 10.1177/1468794107085221 Thompson, R. H., & Borrero, J. C. (2011). Direct observation. In W. W. Fisher, C. C. Piazza, & H. S. Roane (Eds.), Handbook of applied behavior analysis (pp. 191–205). New York: Guilford. Windle, G. (2011). What is resilience? A review and concept analysis. Reviews in Clinical Gerontology, 21, 152–169. doi: 10.1017/S0959259810000420

Appendix A – Qualitative studies references Bull, S. J., Shambrook, C. J., James, W., & Brooks, J. E. (2005). Towards an understanding of mental toughness in elite English cricketers. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 17, 209–227. doi: 10.1080/10413200591010085 Butt, J., Weinberg, R., & Culp, B. (2010). Exploring mental toughness in NCAA athletes. Journal of Intercollegiate Sport, 3, 316–332. Cook, C., Crust, L., Littlewood, M., Nesti, M., & Allen-Collinson, J. (2014). ‘What it takes’: Perceptions of mental toughness and its development in an English premier league soccer academy. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 6, 329–347. doi: 10.1080/2159676X.2013.857708 Coulter, T., Mallett, C. J., & Gucciardi, D. F. (2010). Understanding mental toughness in Australian soccer: Perceptions of players, parents, and coaches. Journal of Sports Sciences, 28, 699–716. doi: 10.1080/02640411003734085 Crust, L., Nesti, M., & Bond, K. (2010). Mental toughness and coping in an ultra-endurance event. Athletic Insight, 12(1). Retrieved from http://www.athleticinsight.com/Vol12Iss1/Endurance.htm Driska, A. P., Kamphoff, C., & Armentrout, S. M. (2012). Elite swimming coaches’ perceptions of mental toughness. The Sport Psychologist, 26, 186–206. Gucciardi, D. F., Gordon, S., & Dimmock, J. A. (2008). Towards an understanding of mental toughness in Australian football. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 20, 261–281. doi: 10.1080/10413200801998556 Jones, G., Hanton, S., & Connaughton, D. (2002). What is this thing called mental toughness? An investigation of elite sport performers. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 14, 205–218. doi: 10.1080/10413200290103509 Jones, G., Hanton, S., & Connaughton, D. (2007). A framework of mental toughness in the world’s best performers. The Sport Psychologist, 21, 243–264. Mahoney, J. W., Gucciardi, D. F., Mallett, C. J., & Ntoumanis, N. (2014). Adolescent performers’ perspectives on mental toughness and its development: The utility of the bioecological model. The Sport Psychologist, 28, 233–244. doi: 10.1123/tsp.2013-0050 Slack, L. A., Butt, J., Maynard, I. W., & Olusoga. P. (2014). Understanding mental toughness in elite football officiating: Perceptions of English premier league referees. Sport and Exercise Psychology Review, 10, 4–24. Thelwell, R., Weston, N., & Greenlees, I. (2005). Defining and understanding mental toughness in soccer. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 17, 326–332. doi: 10.1080/10413200500313636 Weinberg, R., Butt, J., & Culp, B. (2011). Coaches’ views of mental toughness and how it is built. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 9, 156–172. doi: 10.1080/1612197X.2011.567106

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44 SE L F- TA L K I N SP O RT Where are we now? James Hardy and Nikos Zourbanos

My thoughts before a big race are usually pretty simple. I tell myself: Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you’ll win... channel your energy. (Focus – Carl Lewis) As intimated within the above quote, elite athletes commonly view their self-talk as important and influential on subsequent competitive performance. Beyond athletes’ endorsements self-talk has captured the interest and has been the focus of study within a broad range of disciplines including philosophy (Plato, trans. 1993), neuroscience (Longe et al., 2010), developmental (Fernyhough & Fradley, 2005), educational (Burnett, 1996), social (Hart & Albarracin, 2009) as well as a sport psychology (Hardy, 2006). One of the reasons behind self-talk’s appeal to researchers is perhaps its pervasive use by humans. For instance, it has been reported that nearly all (96 per cent) adults engage in self-talk (Winsler, Feder, Way, & Manfra, 2006) and its use has been captured in over a quarter of sampled moments (Heavey & Hurlburt, 2008). Similarly, within the context of sport and exercise, Gammage, Hardy, and Hall (2001) reported that 95 per cent of exercisers endorsed their own use of self-talk related to physical activity. Furthermore, self-talk has become an established component of mental skills package interventions employed by sport psychologists working with athletes (Thelwell & Maynard, 2003). (That said, due to the ambiguity associated with a lack of exclusive focus on self-talk, the use of self-talk in combination with other strategies is not the focus of the present review.) Within the range of disciplines where self-talk has been examined it has been done under the guise of a number of terms including private speech, self-statements, internal dialogue, self-thoughts, self-directed language, and so on. While there is a clear overlap between these terms, there are also some important but subtle differences (e.g., compared to the conceptualization of self-statements, self-oriented thoughts can include mental images; which itself has a rich sports-related research literature – see Monroe-Chandler & Hall’s imagery chapter in this book for a brief review). The importance of being explicit about what we are discussing is not simply an academic exercise; it also has applied relevance as it enables all parties involved (e.g., client and practitioner) to be on the same page, facilitating understanding and clear communication (Van Raalte, 2010). Inevitably a number of self449

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talk definitions have been presented within the literature. To orientate the reader, we refer to self-talk as statements, phrases or cue words that are addressed to the self which might be said automatically or very strategically, either out loud or silently, phrased positively or negatively, having an instructional or motivational purpose, an element of interpretation, and incorporating some of the same grammatical features associated with everyday speech.

What do we currently know about self-talk? As the above description alludes to, there are number of different aspects allied to athletes’ self-talk. Nevertheless, given the sharp increase in the number of publications examining self-talk over the past decade and the present page restrictions, it is not feasible to review all these features in the present chapter (the interested reader is referred to more thorough reviews of the self-talk literature conducted by Hatzigeorgiadis, Zourbanos, Galanis, & Theodorakis, 2011; Theodorakis, Hatzigeorgiadis, & Zourbanos, 2012; Tod, Hardy, & Oliver, 2011). Instead, we focus our review on self-talk’s relationship with performance. When selftalk researchers have examined this relationship they have employed varied study designs and have largely focused on positive/negative self-talk and more recently instructional/ motivational self-talk. When considered from a global perspective, there is meta-analytic support for a positive moderate (d = .48) relationship between the general use of self-talk and performance (Hatzigeorgiadis et al., 2011). Furthermore Tod et al. (2011), in their systematic review, provided some initial insight into why the relationship might exist. They examined four broad possible mediators (i.e., cognitive, behavioural, motivational, and affectual) through which self-talk improves performance. Their results indicated consistent positive effects of self-talk on cognitive and behavioural factors, which essentially equated to enhanced concentration and improved form or technique, respectively. Some partial support for the motivational role of confidence was also presented although this was clearest with regard to instructional/ motivational types of self-talk. As highlighted by Tod et al. the majority of the research utilized in their review did not originate from elite athletes. Nonetheless findings from elite cricketers offer some support for the vital roles of concentration and confidence concerning why self-talk can be beneficial for performance (Miles & Neil, 2013). Of particular relevance for applied sport psychologists, Hatzigeorgiadis and colleagues (2011) also examined a number of potential moderators; that is, factors which either strengthened or attenuated the effect of self-talk. Their findings revealed that self-talk proved more effective for tasks requiring precision and accuracy, rather than tasks requiring strength and endurance; self-talk was more effective for novel rather than well-learned tasks; and interventions including self-talk training were more effective than interventions where no training was implemented. Given that the aforementioned reviews were the first attempts to explicitly examine potential mediators and moderators of the self-talk–performance relationship, researchers would do well to continue to develop and test theoretically grounded mediating and moderating variables in order to provide clearer guidelines for future research and applied practice. As far as practitioners of sport psychology are concerned, a context in need of urgent research attention is the competition setting as this is a critical performanceoriented situation which has largely escaped empirical investigation regarding how self-talk might be used optimally (see Hatzigeorgiadis, Galanis, Zourbanos, & Theodorakis, 2014, for an exception).

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Positive and negative self-talk Although most applied sport psychology textbooks will contain content referring to the ‘power of positive thinking’, there is surprisingly little empirical evidence available which speaks to the performance advantages of utilizing positive over negative self-talk. Through use of the Self-Talk and Gestures Rating Scale, an observation-based instrument, Van Raalte, Brewer, Rivera, and Petipas (1994) found a negative and significant relationship between negative self-talk said aloud and junior tennis performance, but no association between positive self-talk and performance. However in a follow up study utilizing adult tennis players neither positive nor negative self-talk significantly predicted the outcome of the subsequent point (Van Raalte, Cornelius, Hatten, & Brewer, 2000). In contrast, in their single-subject multiple baseline design experiment, Hamilton, Scott, and MacDougall (2007) reported cycling endurance performance gains in favour of positive self-talk as opposed to negative self-talk for their untrained participants. In particular, gains in performance demonstrated by the positive self-talk group members outweighed those exhibited by individuals assigned to the negative self-talk condition. To date perhaps the most convincing evidence originates from laboratory based experiments which unfortunately tend to lack ecological validity. For example, Van Raalte et al. (1995) found the use of a positive statement (“I can”) led novices to significantly greater dart throwing accuracy compared to a control group using a negative statement (‘I cannot’). This study was a replication of an experiment conducted by Dagrou, Gauvin, and Halliwell (1992). When this limited pocket of the experimental literature is collectively appraised it becomes apparent that while positive self-talk has a consistent positive effect on performance, there is a null effect of negative self-talk on performance, and only an inconsistent effect on performance when directly comparing positive and negative self-talk (Tod et al., 2011). Given the need for evidence-based practice and the acknowledgement of very limited (and atheoretical) empirical investigation, future research which fills these gaps will be particularly welcome.

Instructional and motivational self-talk As stated above, traditionally researchers investigated the effects of positive and negative selftalk on performance; however, a slightly more contemporary conceptualization has focused on the comparison of instructional and motivational self-talk with different tasks, testing the task-demand-oriented matching hypothesis (Theodorakis, Weinberg, Natsis, Douma, & Kazakas, 2000). Based on this hypothesis, for tasks requiring fine motor control (e.g., precision and timing) instructional self-talk should be more effective than motivational selftalk, since instructional self-talk increases the execution of the desired movement pattern through proper attentional focus. Whereas for tasks requiring strength or endurance, motivational self-talk should be more effective than instructional self-talk, as motivational self-talk increases strength through the optimal shaping of arousal and positive mood. Nevertheless, empirical examination of the matching hypothesis has offered equivocal results (e.g., Tod, Thatcher, McGuigan, & Thatcher, 2009). Hatzigeorgiadis et al.’s (2011) meta-analytic results provide partial support for the matching hypothesis, largely regarding instructional self-talk. More specifically, they found that for fine motor skills instructional self-talk was more effective than motivational self-talk, and that instructional self-talk was more effective for fine motor skill execution compared to the performance of gross motor skills. Alternatively, Tod et al. (2011) concluded in their systematic review that instructional self-talk was not consistently more effective than motivational self-talk for the execution of precision-oriented tasks. Building on the aforementioned summarizing, it can be argued 451

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that there remains a need for further research to determine which types of self-talk are more appropriate for performance enhancement, taking into consideration not only the task characteristics (e.g., fine vs gross motor skills) but also other variables such as athletes’ dispositions, skill levels, and psychosocial contexts. To date, limited investigation of self-talk across contexts has been conducted. That said, Hardy, Hall, and Hardy (2005) did report greater use of self-talk in relation to competitive scenarios compared to the practice setting. Further they noted how the use of instructional self-talk would likely be counterproductive within stressful environments, especially for skilled athletes.

Contemporary issues In the following section we outline a number of issues which have appeared in the recent research literature. Collectively these issues represent different but potentially complementary approaches which pull in the same direction. They ought to enhance our understanding of how self-talk might work as well as highlight possible fruitful but as yet, relatively ignored, alternative applications of self-talk.

From one matching hypothesis to many? Taking into consideration that there is a need for further research to determine which types of self-talk are more appropriate for performance enhancement, Zourbanos, Hatzigeorgiadis, Bardas, and Theodorakis (2013a) recently examined the effects of instructional and motivational self-talk on a novel (using the non-dominant arm) and a learned (using the dominant arm) handball overarm throw accuracy task to test two complementary matching hypotheses. It was hypothesized that instructional self-talk would be more effective than motivational self-talk for novel task execution at the earlier stages of learning (non-dominant arm condition) as such phrases represent explicit cues promoting skill proficiency. In contrast, motivational self-talk was expected to be more effective than instructional selftalk at later stages of learning (dominant arm condition) when skills are usually performed automatically demanding less attention. Their results confirmed the matching hypothesis as it applied to the novel task indicating that at early stages of learning, the use of instructional self-talk was indeed more beneficial for task execution compared to the motivational selftalk and control group. However, the corresponding matching hypothesis for the learned task was only partially supported, as both motivational and instructional self-talk brought about equal performance enhancement. Zourbanos et al. argued that the lack of differences between instructional and motivational self-talk was due to the task having been learned but not completely mastered, so that instructional and motivational functions of self-talk were equally relevant. Future research should continue to facilitate our understanding of the effects of instructional and motivational self-talk by examining new matching hypotheses that align different types of self-talk, based on theoretical grounds, across athletes’ different skill levels, individual characteristics, and varying contexts. In addition, follow-up investigation examining differences between instructional and motivational self-talk within the stages of learning framework would be beneficial. This could involve the utilization of novel and learned tasks executed by using experienced and amateur athletes (not school-aged pupils) conducted in real sport settings. Hardy, Begley, and Blanchfield (2015) only recently made some initial progress down this research avenue. They found that skilled athletes using their dominant foot demonstrated superior kicking accuracy when utilizing motivational as opposed to instructional self-talk. However, when the athletes executed the same task 452

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employing their non-dominant foot, no significant difference was apparent between these two types of self-talk.

Incorporating technology In the twenty-first century, technological innovations offer expanding opportunities to facilitate behaviour modification. Nowadays, in sport lots of parameters are digitized and measured more accurately from fitness level to health indicators (e.g., accelerometry, Global Positioning Systems (GPS), ihealth technologies). Murphy (2009) suggested that sport psychology may be a useful framework for studying the interface between technology, competition, and sport. Building upon this argument, incorporating technology into self-talk research might be a promising topic area for researchers and practitioners alike. For instance, with regard to the equivocal results concerning the matching hypothesis and the functions of self-talk, Zourbanos et al. (2013a) suggested that the use of electroencephalography (EEG) might offer insight into the regions of the brain activated when participants use motivational or instructional self-talk. Another advanced technological approach relevant to the examination of the functions of self-talk is Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) which compared to EEG, reveals more precise localization of relevant brain structures. Murphy (2009) suggested that sport psychology could play a critical role in the videogames industry, especially in Serious Games. Serious Games are not intended to be played primarily for amusement as they have an educational slant to them, which is the primary goal, rather than entertainment. Incorporating self-talk into the scenario of a serious game may help to provide the game players with the opportunity to practise the self-talk technique (e.g., thought stopping or the use of positive thinking) during the game and then transfer the technique to real life settings. For example, while an athlete is injured and unable to train, she may be able to refine her use of self-talk to aid her rehabilitation process. Alternatively young children may be able to practise the technique of self-talk during the game and then transfer this knowledge and newly gained skill to their schools lessons (e.g., mathematics examination). Finally, the use of mobile technology provides coaches and athletes with an extra tool for training. The use of online applications describing the optimal use of self-talk or the use of tablets or smart phones for listening to self-statements (recorded personal self-talk scripts) prior or during a race provides coaches and athletes with a performance-enhancing opportunity. Nevertheless reflecting on the above ideas, it is clear that the merging of selftalk and technology in sport has a long way to go yet to realize Murphy’s expectations.

Interpretation of self-talk A challenge for all researchers is the accurate measurement of the construct(s) under investigation. Nevertheless, an additional concern for researchers interested in self-talk is that athletes’ use and interpretation of what they say to themselves can be very idiosyncratic in nature (Hardy, 2006). Although manipulating self-talk within experimental study designs is an alternative approach to examining self-talk, rather than meet this challenge it tends to navigate around it. Relatively recent self-talk experiments have implicitly acknowledged the issue of self-talk interpretation by incorporating a period of self-talk training (e.g., two weeks pre-intervention period using various types of self-talk relevant to everyday sports tasks which are not the experimental task) so that participants can become familiar and personalize their self-talk cues (e.g., Blanchfield, Hardy, de Morree, Staiano, & Marcora, 2014). 453

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On the other hand, the idiosyncratic interpretation of self-talk has influenced some researchers’ analysis-oriented decisions. Hardy, Gammage, and Hall (2001a) did not include task-irrelevant self-talk within their data analysis as they argued that while an investigator might code a statement as irrelevant, the athlete saying the self-talk may well interpret its use very differently. For example, a runner saying a line from a song towards the end of his/her run might view this as being motivating, aiding his/her rhythm, or reducing the experience of pain; nevertheless an investigator might quite reasonably perceive the statement to be taskirrelevant. Without seeking the athlete’s interpretation, the researcher is perhaps somewhat hamstrung. With this in mind, researchers ought to be aware of the self-talk grid (Hardy, Hall, & Alexander, 2001b); a 9 × 9 self-report tool comprising two dimensions reflecting the valence of the statements utilized and their motivational interpretation. In other words, athletes completing the self-talk grid respond by indicating the extent to which their self-talk ranged from very positive to very negative in content and whether they viewed the selftalk as being very motivating to very de-motivating. Employing the self-talk grid, findings indicate that self-talk’s motivational interpretation is positively correlated with mood state (Hardy et al., 2001b) and self-efficacy (Hardy, Hall, Gibbs, & Greenslade, 2005). Although positive correlations have also been previously reported between these two aspects of selftalk, there also appears to be a cluster of athletes who perceive their pre-task self-talk to be very negative in content but view this as very motivating for themselves (e.g., an athlete giving himself a stern talking-to with regards to whether he should get out of bed for an early morning training run). Consequently, it appears as though the data derived from the self-talk grid have some construct validity. That said, the measure is largely atheoretical and does not draw from any framework to help researchers and practitioners guide the conceptualization of the interpretation of self-talk. Self-determination theory (SDT: Deci & Ryan, 2000) is a perspective of human behavioural regulation that has received a plethora of empirical support. Although initially developed to deepen our understanding regarding human motivation, SDT also has the potential to contribute to our understanding of the interpretation of self-talk (Oliver, Markland, & Hardy, 2010). Within SDT it is posited that humans have the innate psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, which need to be satisfied for optimal wellbeing. Furthermore, the interpretation of both external and internal events impact on need satisfaction. As there has not been a distinction between external (e.g., coach instruction to her players) and internal (e.g., an athlete’s self-talk) events, the interpretation or functional significance of internally occurring events such as self-talk can be conceptualized to be informational, controlling, and amotivating. To date, research (Oliver et al.) has examined informational and controlling self-talk, describing them along the lines of self-talk emphasizing an athlete’s own perspective, choice, and self-initiation, avoiding pressures, and offering positive feedback; whereas controlling self-talk is characterized by pressures to act, think, or feel a certain way, reflecting a lack of choice and control. Based on the above premise, Oliver et al. (2010) investigated the interpretation of selftalk within an education context; specifically, undergraduates’ experience of anxiety when studying statistics. To this end, Oliver et al. developed a self-talk measure which enabled students to initially report the three most common examples of self-talk they had used during a statistics lecture and then rate the functional significance of these statements. Findings from factor analyses indicated that seven (e.g., ‘assisted my understanding’) and four (e.g., ‘was self-critical’) items best represented informational and controlling interpretations of self-talk respectively, and that these constructs were independent. Informational self-talk was negatively correlated with post-lecture negative affect and state anxiety. However, the 454

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role of controlling self-talk became much more apparent when acknowledging that, like training and competing in sport, there were varying degrees of challenge connected with situations. The highest levels of negative affect and state anxiety were present for those students who found the lecture challenging (i.e., a negative experience and/or limited confidence in their understanding of the material) and reported usage of self-talk interpreted to be particularly controlling. Although this research represents an initial step towards a robust conceptualization of self-talk, one that is consistent with functional significance and draws from a reasonably comprehensive perspective, further investigation is needed in order to better understand athletes’ interpretation of self-talk. Relatively recent sportoriented research has supported the relationship between social factors and the use of selftalk (e.g., Zourbanos, Hatzigeorgiadis, Tsiakaras, Chroni, & Theodorakis, 2010), as have other SDT grounded studies (e.g., Oliver, Markland, Hardy, & Petherick, 2009); however a comprehensive investigation of the interpretation of self-talk has yet to occur.

Application of self-talk outside of the sports context As mental skills in general have relevance beyond sport specific scenarios, the same applies to self-talk which likely has salience to many contexts (e.g., education) especially those which are more performance-oriented such as the military, emergency services, as well as business and industry. Two specific contexts, where self-talk almost certainly can make a beneficial contribution, are outlined below. Self-talk and physical education. As it has become apparent that different types of self-talk can have differential effects. Kolovelonis, Goudas, and Dermitzaki’s (2011) study was one of the first studies that examined the effectiveness of different types of self-talk for primary PE students aged 11 years. Their results revealed that both instructional and motivational selftalk improved performance compared to a control group. In a series of studies, Zourbanos et al. (2013a) examined the effects of instructional and motivational self-talk on a novel and a learned handball overarm throw aiming task in primary PE students. Their results were more pronounced at early stages of learning; the use of instructional self-talk was more beneficial for the novel task, compared to the motivational self-talk and the control group. In another study, Zourbanos, Hatzigeorgiadis, Bardas, and Theodorakis (2013b) examined the effectiveness of a self- talk training program on soccer shooting in elementary students aged between 10 to 12 years. Overall, it was found that the use of instructional self-talk had a positive effect on learning the soccer task. Most recently and partially due to the suitability of self-talk as a motor-learning strategy for children, Zourbanos, Papaioannou, Argyropoulou, and Hatzigeorgiadis (2014) examined the moderating effects of perceived competence on the relationship between motivation (i.e., achievement goals) and selftalk. The authors found that for students with low perceived competence, ego orientation was positively related to self-reported use of negative self-talk, whereas no relationship existed between ego orientations and negative self-talk for students with high perceived competence. Furthermore, task orientation was positively related to positive self-talk irrespective of perceptions of competence. The study showed that achievement goals and perceived competence can influence students’ (and athletes’) positive and negative thinking. This is relevant because research illustrates how teachers’ behaviour can impact on both their students’ motivation and competence (e.g., Beauchamp, Barling, & Morton, 2011). Nevertheless, continued research is needed to determine which types of self-talk are more appropriate for young children in physical education classes for performance enhancement and well-being oriented reasons. 455

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Self-talk and exercise. Initial research suggests that exercisers also employ self-talk. Although the issue of adherence (i.e., frequency, duration, and intensity of workouts) is of primary concern for exercise psychologists and is fairly distinct from the performance-oriented objectives of sport psychologists, exercisers’ and athletes’ reported use of self-talk is relatively similar (cf. Gammage et al., 2001 and Hardy et al., 2001a respectively). Unfortunately, to date, the majority of research examining self-talk within the context of exercise has been quite descriptive in nature, and consequently very limited empirically derived practical advice has been gleaned. However, we do know that rather than being used to help initiate exercise, adult exercisers use self-talk most often at their exercise location during workouts (Gammage et al.). While most exercisers have endorsed the use of self-talk as being facilitative for their exercise experiences, there is speculation that some individuals can actually talk themselves out of exercising (O’Brien Cousins & Gillis, 2005). A related line of research, conducted by Gyurcsik and co-workers, focuses on acute thoughts regarding exercise with an emphasis on when people deliberate whether or not to exercise. Although acute thoughts involve exercise related images, they are not exclusively self-talk. The more positive these self-referential thoughts are, the higher adults’ self-efficacy and the greater workout attendance are (Gyurcsik & Brawley, 2000). Furthermore, positive acute thoughts are negatively related to individuals’ decisional struggle regarding whether to initiate exercise or not (Gyurcsik & Estabrooks, 2004). As such, it would seem that selftalk may have a role to play in aiding individuals to exercise more frequently; that said, this remains an obvious line for future research to examine. A relatively recent study dovetails with the above statement by providing support for the benefits of self-talk in terms of intensity and duration of exercise workouts. Blanchfield et al. (2014) examined the effect of motivational self-talk on exhaustive exercise. They found that the treatment group significantly prolonged the duration of their cycle to exhaustion task by 18 per cent when they utilized their personalized self-talk cues. In addition, the researchers were able to present some data offering support for the predictions of the psychobiological model of endurance performance (Marcora, Staiano, & Manning, 2009) which helps to explain how this extended workout duration may have occurred. More specifically, Blanchfield and colleagues reported reduced perceptions of effort (RPE) for the self-talk group compared to the control group during task completion, which should facilitate a prolonged workout. Given the clamped nature of the task (i.e., 80 per cent peak power output), the implication of this latter finding is that exercisers might be able to carry out more intense workouts (for a longer period) by using self-talk. However, this possibility remains to be tested. Self-talk research in sport, physical education, and exercise continues to develop rapidly but still remains largely atheoretical. To date, research has been fairly narrow in its focus. Much like the present chapter’s content, the empirical self-talk literature has a heavy leaning towards instructional and motivational self-talk assuming both are facilitative for performance, particularly under certain circumstances. We would encourage future research to adopt theoretical perspectives relevant to self-talk to further enhance our knowledge of this mental skill with maximum meaning. Indeed we would anticipate the shape of the future self-talk research literature to continue to commonly employ experimental study designs but be supplemented with advanced procedures (e.g., objective measures of cognitive activity). We would also expect a heavier emphasis on a contextual approach to better reflect the important and sometimes subtly different surroundings athletes have to operate in. As such, we would envision future self-talk research to be more responsive to practise driven issues. Consequently, more concrete practical guidance might be generated. For instance, although considerable logistical challenge would need to be overcome, investigation of self-talk within 456

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settings requiring athletes’ coping responses (e.g., stress and competition scenarios), perhaps with an emphasis on motivational self-talk, might be particularly enlightening. From the existent empirical self-talk literature we are, however, able to offer some (5 Ps of) evidence-based advice to practitioners. Content of self-talk interventions which is Personalized (i.e., individually shaped by the client) and Practised ought to be more effective than interventions, which do not include these aspects. Gaining clarity regarding the exact Purpose of the self-talk intervention will facilitate superior interventions and help determine the nature of the statements employed; consideration of the task requirements almost inevitably feeds into this decision-making process when a performance-related outcome is targeted (cf. matching hypothesis). Although the research literature is relatively scant and in need of reinvigoration and development, promotion of Positive phrasing is recommended. Gaining input from clients regarding the interpretation of their self-statements is crucial for optimizing this aspect. Linked to the previous point, a final issue involves consideration of the client’s Position which will further inform the practitioner, enhancing the efficacy of the designed intervention; for example, the client’s stance on whether or not she believes that her self-talk impacts on herself, at what stage of learning the client is, and if the client is likely to utilize the self-talk intervention whilst stressed. Nevertheless we recognize that such advice is reasonably crude, yet reflective of the available research, and perhaps this best illustrates to the reader how much the continued investigation of self-talk is needed.

References Beauchamp, M. R., Barling, J., & Morton, K. L. (2011). Transformational teaching and adolescent selfdetermined motivation, self-efficacy, and intentions to engage in leisure time physical activity: A randomised controlled pilot trial. Applied psychology: Health and well-being, 3, 127–150. Blanchfield, A., Hardy, J., de Morree, H. M., Staiano, W., & Marcora, S. (2014). Talking yourself out of exhaustion: Effects of self-talk on perceived exertion and endurance performance. Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise, 46, 998–1007. Burnett, P. C. (1996). Children’s self-talk and significant others’ positive and negative statements. Educational Psychology, 16, 57–67. Dagrou, E., Gauvin, L., & Halliwell, W. (1992). Effets du langage positif, negatif, et neuter sur la performance motrice. Canadian Journal of Sport Sciences, 17, 145–147. Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The ‘what’ and ‘why’ of goal pursuits: Human needs and the selfdetermination of behaviour. Psychological Inquiry, 11, 227–268. Fernyhough, C., & Fradley, E. (2005). Private speech on an executive task: Relations with task difficulty and task performance. Cognitive Development, 20, 103–120. Gammage, K. L., Hardy, J., & Hall, C. R. (2001). A description of self-talk in exercise. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 2, 233–247. Gyurcsik, N. C., & Brawley, L. R. (2000). Mindful deliberation about exercise: Influence of acute positive and negative thinking. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 30, 2513–2533. Gyurcsik, N. C., & Estabrooks, P. A. (2004). Acute exercise thoughts, coping, and exercise intention in older adults. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 34, 1131–1146. Hamilton, R. A., Scott, D., & MacDougall, M. (2007). Assessing the effectiveness of self-talk interventions on endurance performance. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 19, 226–239. Hardy, J. (2006). Speaking clearly: A critical review of the self-talk literature. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 7, 81–97. Hardy, J., Begley, K., & Blanchfield, A. (2015). It’s good but it’s not right: Instructional self-talk and skilled performance. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 27, 132–139. Hardy, J., Gammage, K. L., & Hall, C. R. (2001a). A descriptive study of athlete self-talk. The Sport Psychologist, 15, 306–318. Hardy, J., Hall, C. R., & Alexander, M. R. (2001b). Exploring self-talk and affective states in sport. Journal of Sport Sciences, 19, 469–475. Hardy, J., Hall, C. R., & Hardy, L. (2005). Quantifying athlete self-talk. Journal of Sport Sciences, 23, 905–917.

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Hardy, J., Hall, C. R., Gibbs, C., & Greenslade, C. (2005). Self-talk and gross motor skill performance. Athletic Insight: The Online Journal of Sport Psychology, 7(2).Retrieved from http://www.athleticinsight. com/Vol7Iss2/SelfTalkPerformance.htm Hart, W., & Albarracin, D. (2009). What I was doing vs. what I did: Verb aspect influences memory and future actions. Psychological Science, 20, 238–244. Hatzigeorgiadis, A., Zourbanos, N., Galanis, E., & Theodorakis, Y. (2011). Self-talk and sports performance: A meta-analysis. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, 348–356. Hatzigeorgiadis, A., Galanis, E., Zourbanos, N., & Theodorakis, Y. (2014). Self-talk and competitive sport performance. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 26, 82–95. Heavey, C. L., & Hurlburt, R. T. (2008). The phenomena of inner experience. Consciousness and Cognition, 17, 798–810. Kolovelonis, A., Goudas, M., & Dermitzaki, I. (2011). The effects of instructional and motivational self-talk on students’ motor task performance in physical education. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 12, 153–158. Longe, O., Maratos, F. A., Gilbert, P., Evans, G., Volker, F., Rockliff, H., & Rippon, G. (2010). Having a word with yourself: Neural correlates of self-criticism and self-reassurance. NeuroImage, 49, 1849– 1856. Marcora, S. M., Staiano, W., & Manning, V. (2009). Mental fatigue impairs physical performance in humans. Journal of Applied Physiology, 106, 857–864. Miles, A., & Neil, R. (2013). The use of self-talk during elite cricket batting performance. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 14, 874–881. Munroe-Chandler, K., & Hall, C. R. (in press). Imagery. In R. J. Schinke, K. R. McGannon, & B. Smith (Eds.), Routledge handbook in sport psychology. Abingdon: Routledge. Murphy, S. (2009). Video games, competition and exercise: A new opportunity for sport psychologists. The Sport Psychologist, 9, 487–503. O’Brien Cousins, S., & Gillis, M. M. (2005). “Just do it… before you talk yourself out of it”: the selftalk of adults thinking about physical activity. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 6, 313–334. Oliver, E. J., Markland, D., & Hardy, J. (2010). Interpreting self-talk: Associations between informational and controlling self-talk, and post-lecture anxiety and affect in higher education students. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 80, 307–323. Oliver, E. J., Markland, D., Hardy, J., & Petherick, C. M. (2009). The effects of autonomy-supportive and controlling environments on self-talk. Motivation and Emotion, 32, 200–212. Thelwell, R., & Maynard, I. (2003). The effects of a mental skills package on ‘repeatable good performance’ in cricketers. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 4, 377–396. Theodorakis, Y., Hatzigeorgiadis, A., & Zourbanos, N. (2012). Cognitions: Self-talk and performance. In S. Murphy (Ed.), Oxford handbook of sport and performance psychology (pp. 191–212). New York. Oxford University Press. Theodorakis, Y., Weinberg, R., Natsis, P., Douma, I., & Kazakas, P. (2000). The effects of motivational versus instructional self-talk on improving motor performance. The Sport Psychologist, 14, 253–272. Tod, D. A., Hardy, J., & Oliver, E. (2011). Self-talk: A systematic review. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 33, 666–687. Tod, D. A., Thatcher, R., McGuigan, M., & Thatcher, J. (2009). Effects of instructional and motivational self-talk on the vertical jump. Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 23, 196–202. Van Raalte, J. L. (2010). Self-talk. In S. Hanrahan & M. B. Andersen (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Applied Sport Psychology (pp. 510–517). New York: Routledge. Van Raalte, J. L., Brewer, B. W., Lewis, B. P., Linder, D. E., Wildman, G., & Kozimor, J. (1995). Cork! The effects of positive and negative self-talk on dart throwing performance. Journal of Sport Behavior, 18, 50–57. Van Raalte, J. L., Brewer, B. W., Rivera, P. M., & Petipas, A. J. (1994). The relationship between observable self-talk and competitive junior tennis players’ performances. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 16, 400–415. Van Raalte, J. L., Cornelius, A. E., Hatten, S. J., & Brewer, B. W. (2000). The antecedents and consequences of self-talk in competitive tennis. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 22, 345–356. Winsler, A., Feder, A., Way, E. L., & Manfra, L. (2006). Maternal beliefs concerning young children’s private speech. Infant and Child Development, 15, 403–420. Zourbanos, N., Hatzigeorgiadis, A., Bardas, D., & Theodorakis, Y. (2013a). The effects of a self-talk intervention on elementary students’ motor task performance. Early Child Development and Care, 183, 924–930.

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Zourbanos, N., Hatzigeorgiadis, A., Bardas, D., & Theodorakis, Y. (2013b). The effects of self-talk on dominant and non-dominant arm performance on a handball task in primary physical education students. The Sport Psychologist, 27, 171–176. Zourbanos, N., Hatzigeorgiadis, A., Tsiakaras, N., Chroni, S., & Theodorakis, Y. (2010). A multimethod examination of the relationship between coaching behavior and athletes’ inherent self-talk. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 32, 764–785. Zourbanos, N., Papaioannou, A., Argyropoulou, E., & Hatzigeorgiadis, A. (2014). Achievement goals and self-talk in physical education: The moderating role of perceived competence. Motivation and Emotion, 38, 235–251.

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PART VI

Group dynamics

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45 T E A M C O O R D I NAT IO N David W. Eccles

Who can fail to be impressed by a midfield player’s beautifully timed pass of the soccer ball to a striker sprinting into the box; or by an under-pressure quarterback’s ability to complete a pass to a receiver through a tiny window in the opponent’s defense? One reason we enjoy team sports, either because we play in a team or observe one as a fan, is the potential for the team to exhibit excellent coordination. Within sport psychology, however, there has been little research into understanding how teams achieve coordination. Sport psychologists have instead concentrated on understanding teams from a social perspective (e.g., Burke, Davies, & Carron, 2014). Cognitive sport psychology has provided insights concerning skilled sports performance (e.g., Williams, Ford, Eccles, & Ward, 2011) but the unit of analysis within this field is the individual, even when the focus is skilled performance by members of teams. Nonetheless, researchers have recently taken an interest in team coordination (e.g., Eccles & Tran Turner, 2014). The aim here is to review their work to provide direction for future research in this area and help identify means of enhancing team coordination of interest to sport psychology consultants and the athletes, coaches, and organizations these consultants serve. The chapter begins with definitions of team coordination. Next, an explanation is provided of why team coordination is required. A social-cognitive team-level explanation of how coordination can be achieved is then proposed. The chapter ends with a discussion of the applied implications of the framework described here and proposals for future research directions.

Theory and research on team coordination Within this section, the concepts discussed are based on the work of Eccles and his colleagues (Eccles, 2010; Eccles & Tenenbaum, 2004, 2007; Eccles & Tran Turner, 2014). The section begins with definitions of team coordination.

Definitions of team coordination Coordination can be defined as arranging team members’ actions so that, when they are combined, they are in suitable relation for the most effective result. Within the definition, 463

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the term “relation” concerns three dimensions of action: type, timing, and location. Coordination involves arranging team members’ actions so the correct type of action(s) is performed at the correct time(s) and location(s). Achieving a team action may require members to each undertake a specific action. For example, in a rugby lineout, in order for one player to catch the ball other players must lift the catching player into the correct position. Achieving a team action may also require team members to each undertake an action at a specific time. In volleyball, a ball delivered at the wrong time by the setter will result in a relatively ineffective strike by the hitters. Achieving a team action also may require team members to each undertake an action at a specific location. In a 100 m relay race, the athlete receiving the baton must ensure he or she is positioned to receive it in the changeover zone. Ideally, the baton exchange should occur at the latest point in this zone to allow the outgoing athlete maximum acceleration. Exchanging the baton in the middle of the zone prevents the outgoing athlete from fully utilizing the acceleration space.

The requirement for team coordination In this section, there is an attempt to address why achieving coordination is challenging. When an individual performs a task, even when the task involves multiple actions (e.g., in a pole vault), arranging these actions is simple relative to a situation in which tasks are completed by a team. For the individual, there are inherent constraints on action. An individual cannot be in more than one location at once and has difficulty executing more than one physical action simultaneously. By contrast, a team’s constituent members can be in as many different locations, and performing as many different actions, as there are team members. Furthermore, for an individual, the task has one controlling entity, which is the brain. For the team, there are as many controlling entities as there are team members. Each individual team member can function independently and pursue personal goals, and has unique knowledge of how to perform a given task. Without an attempt to coordinate the actions of individuals placed into a team, team members can (and tend to) independently select the type, timing, and location of their actions. However, team members cannot select actions at their own discretion if the team’s performance is to be successful because the action(s) undertaken by one team member must be related in terms of action type, timing, and location to actions undertaken by other team members. There is a striking effect on a team’s performance if one team member fails to execute the assigned task. For example, in American football, if the left tackle fails to protect the quarterback, the quarterback is unlikely to make a pass before getting sacked. Team performance is affected by the requirement to coordinate team members’ actions. For inexperienced teams (which includes experienced individual athletes who have little experience playing together as a team) in particular, a team’s overall performance tends to be superior to that of any individual within the team but is often less than the sum of the individual performances of the team members (Comrey, 1953). These losses in per person productivity as team size is increased are termed process losses (Steiner, 1972). Early evidence of process losses was provided in studies by Ringelmann (1913) of teams undertaking agricultural tasks (Kravitz & Martin, 1986). Ringelmann revealed that contributions by individual team members to the tasks decreased with each additional team member. On a rope-pulling task, there was no increase in force exerted on the rope when more than seven individuals were assigned to pull the rope. Contemporary studies, including a study of a sports team, have provided similar results (Comrey; Widmeyer, Brawley, & Carron, 1990). There are various explanations for process losses (Eccles & Tran Turner, 2014) but 464

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the focus here is on coordination losses. For example, Ringelmann attributed the process loss observed for the rope-pulling task to a lack of simultaneity of the muscular contractions of the individuals within the pulling team.

A social-cognitive explanation of how team coordination is achieved Several cognitive mechanisms have been proposed as mediators of an individual athlete’s performance (Ward & Eccles, 2006), which can form the basis for understanding how team coordination is achieved. With accumulated experience and practice in a given sport, there is an increase in the amount and organization of domain-specific information (e.g., tactical knowledge) an athlete possesses. There are also changes in the athlete’s long-term memory for domain-specific information. Memory structures are developed that enhance storage in, and retrieval from, long-term memory for domain-specific information. These structures support the integration of information from the current task environment (e.g., the score) with previously acquired domain-specific information. This allows the athlete to construct, and update during the performance of a task, an elaborate mental representation of the current task situation and possible future changes to this situation. The long-term memory structures also support the activation within this representation of various response options (i.e., actions) appropriate to resolving the current task situation and possible future task situations. Hence, the construction and updating of this representation enhances the athlete’s ability to anticipate changes in the task environment (including changes in teammates’ actions) and to select, prepare, and execute appropriate responses to these changes so that coordination can be achieved. Thus, a consideration of the cognitive mechanisms underpinning an individual athlete’s activity appears necessary for understanding how teams achieve coordination. However, these individual-level mechanisms do not appear sufficient to explain the team-level concept of team coordination. Another concept requires consideration but this concept has been overlooked within studies of skilled performance in team sports because, as stated above, the individual has been the unit of analysis in these studies. This concept is a shared knowledge state. To elaborate, team coordination depends on a psychological state being reached in which each team member’s understanding (i.e., representation) of the situation is at least similar to other team members’ understandings of the situation (Eccles & Tenenbaum, 2004); here, team members include both coaches and players. As proposed above, when individuals within a team have a unique knowledge of how to perform a given task, function independently, and pursue personal rather than collective goals, team coordination is typically poor. However, when each team member has a similar (i.e., shares) knowledge of how the team and its constituent members will perform the task, all team members can draw on that same knowledge to perform the task, which enhances team coordination. Two types of shared knowledge that underpin team coordination are discussed below; the first is established prior to a given game and the second is established and updated during a given game. Shared knowledge states established prior to a game. Prior to a given game, teams acquire a shared knowledge state concerning how the team and its constituent members will perform their tasks via two means. The first means involves practice- and competition-based play and the second means involves explicit planning. Shared knowledge acquired through play comprises knowledge of “situational probabilities,” which concern what actions the team and its individual members are likely to undertake in response to a given game situation.

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Team members come to share knowledge of situational probabilities by playing (a) the sport generally and (b) on a particular team. Regarding playing the sport generally, players learn from practicing and competing within their sport what teams and individual team members in general are likely to do in a given situation. Consider a newly formed soccer team where, previously, every team member has played the sport but no team member has played on this particular team. As a result of their experience playing the sport, all the players on this team know that when a midfield player on their team accidentally turns the ball over to the opposition, team members are likely to respond to the turnover by moving back towards their own goal into a defending position. On many well-established teams, players come to know through playing with each other what their team and its individual team members are likely to do in a given situation. Consider how team members playing on the same volleyball team for several years would learn that the setter always gives the ball to a backcourt player to hit when the setter is out of position and drawn away from the net due to a poor serve-receive pass. Coaches often design practice drills (e.g., “2 v 1s” in soccer) and scrimmages to accelerate players’ learning of situational probabilities related to their team and individual teammates. Coaches place players in game situations that require them to coordinate with their teammates so players learn how those situations “play out.” The distinction between shared knowledge acquired via experience of playing the sport and via experience of playing on a particular team has received recent empirical support in a study of tennis doubles (Blickensderfer, Reynolds, Salas, & Cannon-Bowers, 2010). While the space afforded here does not permit a detailed discussion of the study, evidence was provided in the study that shared knowledge is important for team coordination; and that team members come to share knowledge with other team members by playing the sport generally and playing on that particular team. As highlighted above, shared knowledge is also acquired prior to a given game via explicit planning. Coaches often provide information about the team’s intended actions to team members by communicating plans of action to those members. Coaches will often communicate a plan by presenting the plan (e.g., a play) verbally and sometimes graphically (e.g., via a whiteboard) during a team meeting and then by having the team practice executing the plan (e.g., running the play) on the field. Planning can take place at different levels of team functioning (cf. Hayes-Roth & Hayes-Roth, 1979). At the most general level, outcomes constitute the desired accomplishments of the team such as “win by two goals.” Planning at this level involves a decision, termed an intention, about which outcome(s) to pursue. At the next lower level, designs relate to the general behavioral approach taken to achieve an outcome, and the decision about which design(s) to employ is termed a scheme. An example of a design-level plan was provided in a study of collegiate soccer coaches by Gershgoren, Filho, Tenenbaum, and Schinke (2013), in which it was revealed that the team coaches “have a defensive philosophy” (p. 301). Next, procedures constitute specific sequences of gross actions such as “attack down the right wing.” Planning at this level involves a decision, termed a strategy, about which procedure(s) to employ. At the lowest level, operations constitute micro-level actions such as “Player A should attempt, whenever possible, to pass to Player B.” A decision at this level about which operation(s) to employ is termed a tactic. While planning can occur at any level of abstraction, plans involving only higher levels place few constraints on how that plan might be implemented at lower levels. For example, the procedure-level plan of “slow the game down” in soccer provides few specific constraints on players’ moment-to-moment selections at the operational level during the game, affording players flexibility in the use of tactics to slow the game down. 466

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The result of (a) playing the sport generally, (b) playing in a particular team within the sport, and (c) creating and practicing the execution of team plans is a relatively established, stable form of shared knowledge. This state is achieved prior to a given game and forms a cognitive resource that team members can utilize during a given game to achieve coordination. Consider an example of a defensive block in volleyball. The movements and actions of the players are planned by a coach and then discussed with the players. The play is then drawn on a whiteboard and team members watch a video showing the play being executed by another team. Next, the players rehearse the play during practice, first without hitters to block and then with hitters. The coach provides feedback and players practice the skill until they feel comfortable executing it. At this point, each player involved in the play knows: (a) when to use the play; (b) what actions those involved in the play are expected to perform; and (c) how his/her own actions fit with the actions of teammates. Subsequently, the play can be used during actual games. Shared knowledge states established during a game. Additional to the shared knowledge states obtained prior to a game, a dynamic form of a shared knowledge state about the team’s intended actions is established and updated by a team during a game. This “in-game” state is necessary because games in team sports are dynamic and changes to game situations are difficult to predict (e.g., interceptions in American football). Teams often switch strategies according to these changes. When a change occurs and a team begins to adopt a different strategy in response to this change, a challenge is that team members must come to know that the strategy has changed; that is, the team must update its in-game shared knowledge state. Consider a soccer team that has obtained a shared knowledge state prior to the game about two defensive strategies: (a) press the opponent high up the field to regain possession quickly; and (b) stand off the opponent and defend from deep to contain their attacks. The team then prepares to play an opponent and, by scouting the opponent, identifies that the opponent often loses the ball when pressed high up the field. A game plan is made to press the opponent high up the field when they have the ball. Thus, an initial in-game shared knowledge state is established. When the game begins, the team soon realizes that, contrary to expectations, the opponent retains possession quite effectively when pressed. Given this change, the team wants to switch their defensive strategy to standing off the opponent and defending from deep to contain their attacks. For this to occur, team members need to know the change is happening; that is, the team’s in-game shared knowledge state needs updating. Updating can occur via incidental and deliberate means. In terms of incidental means, one or two team members may respond to a change in the game situation by beginning to adopt a strategy different from the one they had been following. Returning to the soccer example, the realization that the opponent is actually effective at keeping possession when pressed may lead to one or two midfield players to stop pressing and drop deeper towards their defensive line. When other team members see these changes to their teammates’ actions, they may infer that the current strategy is being abandoned and a different strategy is being adopted. Note here that inferences of this type are more accurate when the team has a shared knowledge, achieved prior to the game, of the range of strategies available to the team. While the soccer team began to defend by pressing high up the field, team members also shared knowledge, prior to the game, of the defending-from-deep strategy. Consequently, during the game, they are able to recognize their teammates beginning to adopt a deeper defensive strategy when their attempts to win the ball high up the field prove fruitless. As proposed above, in-game shared knowledge states are also updated via the deliberate communication, both verbal (e.g., shouts) and non-verbal (e.g., pointing), of intended changes to upcoming actions between team members (including coaches). Evidence of the 467

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use of deliberate communication for this purpose has been provided in studies involving a variety of team sports (Bourbousson, Poizat, Saury, & Sève, 2010; Filho, Gershgoren, Basevitch, Schinke, & Tenenbaum, 2014; Lausic, Tenenbaum, Eccles, Jeong, & Johnson, 2009; Poizat, Bourbousson, Saury, & Sève, 2012). In many game situations, team members are able to adopt the strategy being communicated by drawing on their shared knowledge, achieved prior to the game, of the range of strategies used by the team. An example of this process was provided in a study of basketball by Bourbousson et al. The researchers filmed a basketball game and asked each of the five members of one of the teams to view the film of each play within a section of the game and describe his activity during that play. For each play, each player’s verbal response was analyzed to determine which (and how many) teammates were considered by that player in relation to his intended actions during the play. Players most frequently (49 per cent) considered only one other player and one player in particular, named “Chris.” Further analysis revealed that during offensive play, Chris’ main responsibility was to communicate (verbally or by gesture) to his teammates the play they were to use. Thus, it is likely that the members of this basketball team were able to adopt the play being communicated by Chris by drawing on their shared knowledge, achieved prior to the game, of the range of plays used by the team.

Applied implications Presented here are a few considerations for applied implications of the theory and research on coordination; for a more expansive range of considerations, see Eccles and Tran (2012) and Eccles and Tran Turner (2014). A key method of enhancing a team’s ability to achieve a shared knowledge state prior to, and during games is to enhance communication between team members. One approach to enhancing communication prior to a game involves aiming for “anywhere, anytime” learning by offering a representation of game plan information that lasts longer than the typical verbal presentation of the plan by a coach. An example would include providing players with handouts of positioning and structure. During games, time for planning and changing plans is limited and communication about plans can be difficult (e.g., due to noise). One strategy for improving verbal communication between two team members during a game involves ensuring there are three exchanges between the members, where the third exchange “closes the loop”: (a) Player A sends the message (“Mark number four”); (b) Player B acknowledges the message (“OK, I’m on player four”); (c) Player A acknowledges the confirmation, showing his awareness that Player B understands the message (“You’re marking four, keep it up”).

Directions for future research An understanding of team coordination will be advanced using two complementary lines of research. First, the methods used by skilled teams to achieve coordination need to be identified to generate “expert models” of the coordination process (Eccles, Ward, & Woodman, 2009), which can provide a principled basis for the design of practice regimens aimed at enhancing the performance of less-skilled teams. Two research approaches could be used to this end. First, following Lausic et al. (2009), measures of the coordination process could be developed and, under controlled conditions, low- and high-performance teams could be compared on these measures. Second, field approaches, including observation, measures of behavior, and interviews, might be used to obtain in-depth “contextual descriptions” of real attempts by skilled teams to achieve coordination. Field approaches such as these have been used in 468

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industrial domains where there is an understanding that, within human-machine systems, certain types of error, including coordination breakdowns, cannot be understood without studying whole systems in context (Hutchins, 1995). A second future research direction involves experimental tests of specific hypotheses derived from the framework proposed here. The literature does not contain tests of basic research questions concerned with the extent to which knowledge of a team’s intended actions needs to be shared for coordination to be achieved. One model for such research includes examinations of group coordination within social psychology (Abele & Stasser, 2008).

Conclusion In this chapter, we considered why team coordination is required and why it is difficult to achieve. Team-level social-cognitive states, such as shared knowledge states, and processes, such as communication, required to achieve coordination were then considered. We then presented implications of this framework for enhancing coordination in sports teams and offered directions for future research in this area. The continued study of the emerging topic of coordination will enhance our understanding of team functioning in sport.

Acknowledgments The author would like to acknowledge the kind contributions to this chapter made by Kate Petty and Joel Stewart, students in the Sport, Exercise, and Physical Activity undergraduate programme at Durham University.

References Abele, S., & Stasser, G. (2008). Coordination success and interpersonal perceptions: Matching versus mismatching. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 576–592. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.95.3.576 Blickensderfer, E. L., Reynolds, R., Salas, E., & Cannon-Bowers, J. A. (2010). Shared expectations and implicit coordination in tennis doubles teams. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 22, 486–499. doi:1 0.1080/10413200.2010.507497 Bourbousson, J., Poizat, G., Saury, J., & Sève, C. (2010). Team coordination in basketball: Description of the cognitive connections among teammates. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 22, 150–166. doi:10.1080/10413201003664657 Burke, S. M., Davies, K. M., & Carron, A. V. (2014). Group cohesion in sport and exercise settings. In M. Beauchamp and M. Eys (Eds.), Group dynamics in exercise and sport psychology: Contemporary themes (2nd Ed., pp. 147–163). London: Routledge. Comrey, A. L. (1953). Group performance in a manual dexterity task. Journal of Applied Psychology, 37, 207–210. doi:10.1037/h0061036 Eccles, D. W. (2010). The coordination of labour in sports teams. International Review of Sport Exercise Psychology, 3, 154–170. doi:10.1080/1750984X.2010.519400 Eccles, D. W., & Tenenbaum, G. (2004). Why an expert team is more than a team of experts: A cognitive conceptualization of team coordination and communication in sport. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 26, 542–560. Eccles, D. W., & Tenenbaum, G. (2007). A social cognitive perspective on team functioning in sport. In G. Tenenbaum & R. C. Eklund (Eds.), Handbook of sport psychology (3rd Ed., pp. 264–283). New York: Wiley. doi:10.1002/9781118270011.ch12 Eccles, D. W., & Tran, K. (2012). Getting them on the same page: Strategies for enhancing coordination and communication in sports teams. Journal of Sport Psychology in Action, 3, 1–10. doi:10.1080/21520 704.2011.649229 Eccles, D. W., & Tran Turner, K. (2014). Coordination in sports teams. In M. Beauchamp and M. Eys (Eds.), Group dynamics in exercise and sport psychology: Contemporary themes (2nd Ed., pp. 240–255). London: Routledge.

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Eccles, D. W., Ward, P., & Woodman, T. (2009). The role of competition-specific preparation in expert sport performance. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 10, 96–107. Filho, E. M., Gershgoren, L., Basevitch, I., Schinke, R. J., & Tenenbaum, G. (2014). Peer leadership and shared mental models in a college volleyball team: A season long case study. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 8, 184–203. Gershgoren, L., Filho, E. M., Tenenbaum, G., & Schinke, R. J. (2013). Coaching shared mental models in soccer: A longitudinal case study. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 7, 293–312. Hayes-Roth, B., & Hayes-Roth, F. (1979). A cognitive model of planning. Cognitive Science, 3, 275–310. doi:10.1207/s15516709cog0304_1 Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kravitz, D. A., & Martin, B. (1986). Ringlemann rediscovered: The original article. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 936–941. Lausic, D., Tenenbaum, G., Eccles, D. W., Jeong, A., & Johnson, T. (2009). Intra-team communication and performance in doubles tennis. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 80, 281–290. Poizat, G., Bourbousson, J., Saury, J., & Sève C. (2012). Understanding team coordination in doubles table tennis: Joint analysis of first- and third-person data. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 13, 630–639. Ringelmann, M. (1913). Recherches sur les moeurs animés: Travail de l’homme [Research on animate sources of power: The work of man]. Annales de l’Institute National Agronomique, 2e série-tome XII, 1–40. Steiner, I. D. (1972). Group process and productivity. New York: Academic Press. Ward, P., & Eccles, D. W. (2006). A commentary on “Team cognition and expert teams: Emerging insights into learning and performance for exceptional teams.” International Journal of Sport Exercise Psychology, 4, 463–483. Widmeyer, W. N., Brawley, L. R., & Carron, A. V. (1990). The effects of group size in sport. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 12, 177–190. Williams, A. M., Ford, P., Eccles, D. W., & Ward, P. (2011). Perceptual-cognitive expertise in sport and its acquisition: Implications for applied cognitive psychology. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25, 432–442. doi:10.1002/acp.1710

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46 R E L AT IO NA L C OAC H I N G I N SP O RT Its psychological underpinnings and practical effectiveness Sophia Jowett and Vaithehy Shanmugam Why do some coaches deliver results while others don’t quite manage to make their mark? In Europe, an example of extraordinary coaching success is Marcus Weise, field hockey coach, who maintained his successful streak over the past ten years or so. His coaching efforts as well as apparent energy and commitment culminated in gold in Athens 2004 with the German Women’s Olympic hockey team, as well as gold in Beijing 2008, and gold in London 2012 with the German Men’s Olympic hockey team. He is the only coach to have won gold with a men’s and a women’s team. In an interview, he was asked how he coaches his athletes, and he said that coaching is discovering the capacities and capabilities that his players hide; and he went on to say that ‘when you coach you need to find a door that enables you to get access to the player’. There are so many examples of exceptionally effective and successful coaches, in individual sports (e.g., Toni Minichiello, Jessica Ennis-Hill) and team sports (e.g., Alex Ferguson, José Mourinho). What these extraordinary coaches have in common is their desire and capacity to unlock their athletes’ hidden potential in order to maximize their chances to achieve success. Coaches who believe that their athletes possess more future potential than they presently demonstrate, are more likely to get the best out of their athletes and hence help them succeed. But how can an athlete’s hidden potential be released? It can be released when coaches and athletes start to form a genuine working relationship, where they trust, respect, believe, commit, and work together toward one goal. This interpersonal connection between the coach and each athlete in the team or squad, often referred to as ‘relational coaching’, lies at the heart of effective and successful coaching.

Two-person relationships at the heart of relational sport coaching To be a technically good coach is one thing, but what gives the coach the ‘edge’ (i.e., the extra effectiveness) in this unforgiving and relentless competitive sport environment, is the connection developed between the coach and athlete (see Figure 46.1). It is this connection that makes a difference to technical coaching because it supplies coaches with the key to opening the door to their athlete’s capabilities, capacities, and potential. The best athletes in the world (following success in World or Olympic Championships) often state that their 471

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Technical

Relational

coaching

coaching

Effective/ successful coaching

Figure 46.1 Ingredients of effective and successful coaching

coaches have been instrumental to their success. In contrast, it is rare to hear athletes who have won gold medals and broken records attacking and criticizing their coaches. This is neither random nor coincidental. This unique partnership or relationship developed between a coach and an athlete, we call relational coaching. Relational coaching is the way coaches and athletes connect to bring about performance success and personal satisfaction. Relational coaching emphasizes that at the heart of sport coaching lies the interpersonal relationship formed between the coach and every single athlete/member in the squad or the team. Each relationship provides a unique vehicle that allows coaches to transform their players by openly communicating about strengths and weaknesses, including individual and joint performance goals. The bond or connection that is formed allows each athlete/player to be more receptive and responsive in the knowledge that their coaches have their best interest at heart. We describe in this chapter how relational coaching is a sound platform from which players develop their skills, techniques, and tactics, and ultimately come closer to reaching their potential.

The coach–athlete relationship defined and operationalized ‘Relationship’ is a term that, because it is so common, we take its meaning for granted. We know that relationships are important because they can bring great happiness and a sense of reward but they can also bring sadness. We also know that relationships are not easy; they are difficult to manage and as complex to understand as the people concerned. Nonetheless, it is important to define the meaning of relationships. The coach–athlete relationship has been defined as the situation in which coaches and athletes’ feelings, thoughts, and behaviours are mutually and causally interconnected (Jowett, 2007). Over the past 15 years we have studied in depth the content, quality, and functions of the coach–athlete relationship. We interviewed hundreds and collected quantitative data from thousands of coaches and players (in a range of sports) about their thoughts of what is the relationship, what are its main ingredients or characteristics, and what is the role and significance of this relationship for skill development and performance as well as psychosocial development and wellbeing (e.g., Jowett, 2003; Jowett & Cockerill, 2003; Jowett & Frost, 2007; Jowett & Meek, 2000; Jowett &TimsonKatchis, 2005; Jowett, Timson-Katchis, & Adams, 2007). We found that there are four key properties that correspond with the definition’s main characteristics of the interdependence of coaches and athletes’ feelings, thoughts, and behaviours: 1 Closeness reflects the affective bond that is developed between coaches and athletes and is manifested in mutual trust and respect, emotional caring and support, as well as interpersonal liking and appreciation. Affective closeness is thought of as the bedrock of the sporting partnership. 2 Commitment reflects the intentions of coaches and athletes to maintain a bond or a connection that is both close and long term. This long-term orientation toward the

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Health Individual difference characteristics

Depression Anxiety Satisfaction Life quality

Closeness Socio-cultural factors

Commitment Complementarity Co-orientation

Relationship factors

Performance Motivation Passion Team cohesion Collective efficacy

Figure 46.2 Antecedents and consequences of the quality of the coach–athlete relationship (adapted from Jowett & Poczwardowski, 2007)

relationship is considered important as it takes time to develop skill and bring about success. 3 Complementarity reflects coaches and athletes’ behaviours that are complementary or cooperative. Accordingly, there are two sets of complementary behaviours that coaches and athletes show on the sport field: (a) corresponding refers to the same behaviours that the coach and the athlete are expected to display in training and competition such as, responsiveness and openness (see Jowett & Ntoumanis, 2004); and (b) reciprocal refers to different behaviours that the coach and the athlete are expected to display in training and competition such as, when the coach directs or instructs and the athlete follows or executes instructions in training (see Yang & Jowett, 2013). These two sets of behaviours are thought to determine the efficient conduct of interactions between coaches and athletes. 4 Co-orientation reflects coaches and athletes’ co-orientated or interdependent feelings, thoughts, and behaviours and highlights the degree to which coaches and athletes have a common ground (i.e., they are on the same page) about the nature of their sporting partnership. These four key relational constructs are said to define the quality of the sporting relationship between the coach and each performer in a squad or a team. These properties are known as the 3+1Cs of the coach–athlete relationship. Relationships that possess such properties are said to influence and be influenced by a number of factors including individual difference characteristics (e.g., age, gender, personality) as well as social-cultural (e.g., race/ethnicity, culture, language, sport type) and relationship (e.g., typical versus atypical relationships, length of relationships) factors (see Figure 46.2).

Assessing the coach–athlete relationship quality A fundamental tenet of model or theory construction is that it must be testable (Bacharach, 1989). Thus, a proposal of any theory or model should be accompanied by suggestions concerning measurement of its main constructs. The measurement of the 4Cs has been achieved through the development of Coach–athlete Relationship Questionnaires 473

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(CART-Q). The CART-Q was originally developed to measure coaches and athletes’ direct perceptions of closeness (e.g., ‘I trust my coach/athlete’), commitment (e.g., ‘I am committed to my coach/athlete’), and complementarity (e.g., When I am coached by my coach/When I coach my athlete, I am responsive to his/her efforts’) (Jowett & Ntoumanis, 2004). Subsequently, a corresponding questionnaire was developed to measure coaches and athletes’ meta-perceptions of closeness (e.g., ‘My coach/athlete trusts me’), commitment (e.g., ‘My coach/athlete is committed to me’), and complementarity (e.g., ‘My coach/athlete is responsive to my efforts’) (Jowett, 2009). These psychometric studies have highlighted the items comprising the CART-Q to possess sound properties of validity and reliability. These scales have also been translated and validated in Dutch (Balduck & Jowett, 2010), French (Michel, Jowett, & Yang, n.d.), Chinese (Yang & Jowett, 2010), and Arabic (Ahmad, 2014). In a recent validation study, the direct perspective of the CART-Q was found to be invariant across different languages/cultures (Belgium, China, Greece, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and the US) (see Yang & Jowett, 2012). The CART-Q has provided an impetus for research and for the generation of valuable theoretical knowledge and practical understanding in the area of coach–athlete relationships.

Overview of research on coach–athlete relationship This section selectively presents research that has been based on the 3+1Cs model and used the CART-Q to investigate antecedent and consequent variables of the quality of the coach– athlete relationship. A number of studies have been conducted to assess whether the coach– athlete relationship associates with different facets of satisfaction. Satisfaction has been the focus of a series of studies because individuals who are satisfied and happy, as opposed to dissatisfied and unhappy, are more likely to be persistent in good and bad times, choose more challenging activities, and generally desire to accomplish in the life domains that matter to them (cf. Michalos, 1980). Collectively, this research suggests that the better the quality of the coach–athlete relationship, the more satisfied athletes and coaches are with the coaching relationship (Davis, Jowett, & Lafrenière, 2013; Jowett & Ntoumanis, 2004; Lorimer, 2009), as well as with performance, training, and coach treatment (e.g., Jowett, 2009; Jowett, Shanmugam, & Caccoulis, 2012). Moreover, research findings indicate that the association between relationship quality and different facets of satisfaction is moderated by coaches and athletes’ relationship length, performance levels, and dyads’ gender composition (Jowett & Nezlek, 2012). Specifically, the longer the coaching relationship, the higher the level of performance, and same-gender dyads are likely to feel more satisfied, because they have better and stronger coach–athlete relationships. Correspondingly, research has shown that athletes who participate in individual sports are likely to be more satisfied than athletes who participate in team sports, because they seem to have developed relationships that are more close, committed, and complementary with their coaches (Rhind, Jowett, & Yang, 2012). One of the mechanisms that would seem to mediate or explain the link between the quality of the coach–athlete relationship and positive outcomes such as satisfaction is the fulfilment of the three basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Deci & Ryan, 2000). For example, Riley and Smith (2011) found that the three basic psychological needs partially mediated the association between perceived coach–athlete relationship and self-determined motivation in a sample of young basketball players (12–15 years of age). Subsequently, Felton and Jowett (2013) found that athletes’ perceptions of both coach–athlete relationship quality and coach autonomy-supportive behaviours led to athletes being skilful and competent and in turn feeling a sense of vitality, vigour, energy, and 474

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liveliness when the basic need of competence (feeling capable, skilled, and experienced) was satisfied. However, they also found that the need of competence explained the association between athletes’ perceptions of coach controlling behaviour and negative affect. This finding highlights that athletes are less likely to satisfy the need of competence within a coaching context where coaches are employing behaviours that are controlling and generally negative. Coach controlling behaviours are also likely to make athletes feel afraid, upset, nervous and hostile (see also Bartholomew, Ntoumanis, & Thogersen-Ntoumani, 2011; Felton & Jowett, 2015). A series of studies have highlighted that better quality coaching relationships associate with effective coaching behaviours. For example, Olympiou, Jowett, and Duda (2008) found that athletes who had relationships with their coaches that were characterized by high levels of trust and respect, co-operation, and commitment, perceived their coaches as being more task-orientated, focusing on athletes’ learning and developing skills as opposed to outperforming competitors. Similarly, Michel, Jowett, and Yang (2015) found that athletes’ high levels of closeness, commitment, and complementarity were better predictors of a range of positive coaching behaviours concerning physical preparation, skill development and goal setting; whereas low levels of negative coaching behaviours such as friction and discord were negatively associated with relationship quality. One explanation for these findings was that when athletes bond with and commit to their coaches, coaches may then feel duty-bound, obliged, or even compelled to reciprocate similar positive interpersonal behaviours (e.g., high levels of instruction, feedback, attentiveness, approachability). The maxim ‘one should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself ’ seems to be supported here. Moreover, the findings of this study would seem to suggest that not only coaches but also athletes would benefit from recognizing the role and significance of harmonious and stable coach– athlete relationships. Athletes who have the skills to connect with their coaches effectively by displaying positive interpersonal behaviours, feelings, and thoughts are more likely to elicit from coaches their best behaviours and practices and thus benefit the most from them. The coach–athlete relationship has also been associated with perceptions of self. For example, Jowett (2008) has found that academy athletes (selected/identified as talented) who had an established relationship (>3 years) with their coach not only perceived higher levels of closeness, commitment, and complementarity but also felt more competent, skilled, and capable than academy athletes who did not have an established relationship (5 bouts of exercise)? And for whom? Given that many participants in our studies perceived the task as competitive, it could be the case that individuals with ego goal orientations are more likely to stick with a superior exercise partner than someone who is more task goal oriented. Such are empirical questions and represent fertile areas for future research in group dynamics, the Köhler effect, and physical activity.

Conclusions Research on the Köhler motivation gain effect in exercise shows that motivation during physical activity can be reliably improved through the use of virtual partners. This line of research is a key contribution to group dynamics research in physical activity and highlights the psychological mechanisms through which groups increase motivation during physical activity (e.g., social comparison, indispensability) and several key moderators of those mechanisms. There are exciting implications for group dynamics physical activity research and practice, especially within the increasingly technological flavor of health promotion in the twenty-first century.

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I had so much help. So many people believed in me, when I didn’t believe in myself. So many people … motivated me every single day to be who I am. I failed so many times and got back up. I’ve been through the toughest times with my family, but I’m still standing … . When you’ve got people behind you, you can do whatever … . I tend to look back to what brought me here. And, you waking me up in the middle of the night in the summertime, making me run up the hill, making me do push-ups, screaming at me from the sidelines at my games at 8 or 9 years old … . You made us believe. (Kevin Durant, National Basketball Association 2014 Most Valuable Player, 6 May 2014) Kevin Durant’s acceptance speech perfectly encapsulates the power of support. It goes beyond merely thanking people for their support, as is often seen in post-competition interviews. It also speaks to the evidence from sport psychology that athletes consistently cite social support as a key ingredient of their success (Connaughton, Wadey, Hanton, & Jones, 2008; Fletcher & Sarkar, 2012; Gould, Guinan, Greenleaf, Medbery, & Peterson, 1999; Kristiansen & Roberts, 2010; Rees & Hardy, 2000). Indeed, such has been the proliferation of research in sport psychology into this important topic that social support is now linked with a host of important variables in sport: enhanced coping with organizational stressors (Kristiansen, Murphy, & Roberts, 2012), return from injury (Carson & Polman, 2012; Mitchell, Evans, Rees, & Hardy, 2014; Podlog, Wadey, Stark, Lochbaum, Hannon, & Newton, 2013; Rees, Mitchell, Evans, & Hardy, 2010), psychological resilience (Fletcher & Sarkar, 2012; Morgan, Fletcher, & Sarkar, 2013; Sarkar & Fletcher, 2014), self-confidence (Rees & Freeman, 2007), athletes’ self-talk (Zourbanos, Hatzigeorgiadis, Goudas, Papaioannou, Chroni, & Theodorakis, 2011), lower levels of burnout (Raedeke & Smith, 2004), and performance (Freeman & Rees, 2008; Rees, Hardy, & Freeman, 2007; Rees & Freeman, 2009, 2010). This research interest mirrors the literature in social psychology, in which it has been long understood that social networks are crucial to our health, well-being, and learning and transfer of skills (Bolger, Foster, Amiram, & Ng, 1996; Chiaburu, van Dam, & Hutchins, 2010; Cohen & Janicki-Deverts, 2009; Ertel, Glymour, & Berkman, 2009; Thoits, 2011; 505

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Uchino, 2004; Umberson & Montez, 2010). In Berkman and Syme’s (1979) seminal study – a prospective study of 6,298 adults from Alameda County, California – those with fewer social ties at baseline were more likely to die during the nine-year follow-up period. Such profound results were brought up-to-date in a recent meta-analysis, demonstrating that the influence of social relationships in predicting reduced risk of mortality is equivalent to quitting smoking, and exceeds the detrimental effect on mortality risk of obesity, high blood pressure, and physical inactivity (Holt-Lunstad, Smith, & Layton, 2010). In fact, the key message here is that across an average of 7.5 years of follow-up, those with adequate social relationships have a 50 percent greater likelihood of survival compared to those with poor social relationships. The implication of this research for sport is clear: athletes should not feel they must “go it alone” in their pursuit of success, but should, in fact, be encouraged to be proactive in their use of social support, and not consider such action a sign of weakness. Understanding the role of social support in sport is thus important for researchers and practitioners. The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the social support construct and related research, by focusing on types of support, dimensions of support, theory and mechanisms, measurement, what makes support effective, some potential future directions, and applied implications.

Types of support Social support is composed of three major subconstructs (Lakey, 2010). Social integration reflects the number of different types of relationships in an athlete’s support network. Perceived support refers to an athlete’s potential access to support, and is a subjective judgment that support will be provided if needed. Enacted support (sometimes referred to as received support) reflects specific helping actions provided by members of an athlete’s support network within a specific time frame. Although perceived and enacted support are conceptually related (and may interact in potentially important ways: Uchino, 2009), the social support literature considers them two key but separate constructs, which may share as little as 12 per cent common variance (e.g., Haber Cohen, Lucas, & Baltes, 2007). It is people’s perception of social support that has generally been noted as crucial for their mental health and emotional well-being, with evidence for the benefits of enacted support quite mixed (Uchino, 2009). That is, enacted support has been noted to have a beneficial effect, no effect, or even a detrimental effect on key outcomes of interest (e.g., Reinhardt, Boerner, & Horowitz, 2006). Despite evidence in sport suggesting athletes sometimes view their social support as more negative than positive (Udry, Gould, Bridges, & Tuffey, 1997), there is evidence for the benefits of both perceived and enacted support in relation to sport performance (e.g., see Freeman & Rees, 2008).

Dimensions of support Perceived and enacted support are generally considered to be multidimensional. Although debate exists over how many dimensions comprise social support (Cutrona & Russell, 1990), four that have regularly been noted are emotional, esteem, informational, and tangible support. Rees and Hardy (2000) noted these four dimensions of support in their study of high-level athletes, drawing on the definitions of Cutrona and Russell (1990). Emotional support refers to being there for comfort and security, leading to an athlete feeling loved and cared for; esteem support refers to bolstering an athlete’s sense of competence or self-

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esteem; informational support refers to providing the athlete with advice or guidance; and tangible support refers to providing the athlete with concrete instrumental assistance.

Theory and mechanisms The most prominent theoretical perspective to understand social support in sport is the work of Lazarus and colleagues on stress and coping (Lazarus, 1966; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). According to this perspective, perceived and enacted support operate through appraisal and coping mechanisms. When compared with athletes with low levels of perceived support, athletes with high levels of perceived support are less likely to appraise difficult situations (stressors) as stressful (Bianco & Eklund, 2001). In a study of golfers, Freeman and Rees (2009) demonstrated support for this reasoning, with perceived support associated with appraising a golf competition as less of a threat. In addition, Freeman and Rees found that this perceived support was positively associated with situational control, which in turn was positively associated with challenge appraisals and negatively associated with threat appraisals – these more favorable appraisals were in turn associated with better performance. As demonstrated by Freeman and Rees (2008), however, if situations are then appraised as stressful, enacted support should help athletes to cope better and ultimately maintain performance levels. What the above describes is the idea that support can buffer (reduce) the potentially detrimental impact of stressors/stress on outcomes – the stress buffer effect. A stress buffer effect in relation to performance would be demonstrated as follows: at low levels of stress, there would be no difference in performance between those with high and low levels of support; at high levels of stress, however, those with low levels of support would perform worse compared with those with high levels of support. When, however, support affects performance independently of stress, this is termed a main effect – that is, more support is simply associated with better performance.

Measurement With increasing research interest in sport, there has been greater diversity in the conceptualization and measurement of social support. As is true of social psychology, this has made synthesis of findings difficult. Indeed, Sarason and Sarason (2009) expressed concern that the limited conceptual foundation of many social support questionnaires had impeded research efforts. The use in sport of measures from social psychology (e.g., the Interpersonal Support Evaluation List: Cohen, Mermelstein, Kamarck, & Hoberman, 1985; the Social Support Survey: Richman, Rosenfeld, & Hardy, 1993) has been questioned, because such measures do not necessarily reflect the specific forms of support that are required by athletes (Rees, Ingledew, & Hardy, 1999), and researchers have called for measures of social support that are relevant to the support experiences of athletes (Bianco & Eklund, 2001; Holt & Hoar, 2006; Rees, 2007). As Rees and Hardy (2000) noted, athletes receive unique forms of support for sport-specific demands, such as dealing with injuries, pre-competition nerves, performance catastrophes, and technical difficulties, in addition to receiving support for everyday concerns. To address the above issue, some researchers have created unique, context-specific measures for their studies (e.g., Freeman & Rees, 2008; Lubans, Morgan, & McCormack, 2011; Mitchell et al., 2014; Rees & Hardy, 2004; Rees & Freeman, 2009; Rees et al., 2010; Zourbanos et al., 2011). Although this helps to ensure good content validity, such practice 507

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may further contribute to the difficulty in making valid comparisons across studies (Holt & Hoar, 2006; Vangelisti, 2009). Freeman and colleagues have recently attempted to overcome these concerns by developing two measures that can be used to assess support across all sporting contexts. The first was designed to assess perceived support: the Perceived Available Support in Sport Questionnaire (PASS-Q; Freeman, Coffee, & Rees, 2011). The PASS-Q is a 16-item measure of the four dimensions of emotional, esteem, informational, and tangible support. It asks the question: “If needed, to what extent would someone … ,” with responses such as “boost your sense of competence” (an item from the esteem support subscale), and a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 4 (extremely so). As well as providing evidence for the four-dimensional factor structure of the PASS-Q across two studies, Freeman et al. (2011) demonstrated that the support dimensions were associated with higher levels of self-confidence and lower levels of burnout. The second was designed to assess enacted (received) support: the Athlete Received Support Questionnaire (ARSQ; Freeman, Coffee, Moll, Rees, & Sammy, 2014). The ARSQ is a 22-item measure of the same four social support dimensions. Measurement within the ARSQ is somewhat different, however, in that it asks for a more ‘objective’ frequency count of supportive behaviors. So, athletes are asked “In the last week, how often did someone … ,” with responses such as “show concern for you” (an item from the emotional support subscale), and a 5-point frequency scale: not at all, once or twice, three or four times, five or six times, seven or more times (coded 0–4). Here, across four studies, Freeman et al. (2014) demonstrated support for the four-dimensional factor structure, with additional evidence of main and stress buffer effects on self-confidence, positive affect, and negative affect. The development of the ARSQ also has implications for the measurement of social support more widely, in that it employed a sophisticated formative (versus the normal reflective) approach to measurement (Diamantopoulos & Winklhofer, 2001; MacKenzie, Podsakoff, & Podsakoff, 2011), with subsequent use of partial least squares structural equation modeling (see Freeman et al., 2014).

Is support always effective? Evidence of the form outlined in this chapter often underpins researchers’ recommendations to encourage the provision of support (e.g., Connaughton et al., 2008). Empirical evidence suggests, however, that such provision does not always meet its intended aims. As noted earlier, researchers have frequently found the provision of support to be unrelated to outcomes or, worse still, associated with negative outcomes (e.g., Deelstra, Peeters, Schaufeli, Stroebe, Zijlstra, & Doornen, 2003; Freeman, Rees, & Hardy, 2009; Searle, Bright, & Bochner, 2001). Thus, although perceived support is noted as almost universally positive, the evidence for the influence of enacted/provided support is mixed. This raises the question, if social support is so crucial for athletes, what makes its provision effective?

What makes support effective? Five key aspects Although social integration and perceived support are associated with many positive outcomes, enacted support is frequently unrelated or even negatively related to variables of interest – the paradox of support (Maisel & Gable, 2009). Support effectiveness may be influenced by a host of factors, five of which are outlined below. First, support effectiveness may depend on initial levels of perceived support. In one intervention study, Freeman and colleagues (Freeman, Rees, & Hardy, 2009) provided 508

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golfers with support via a focused, professionally-led intervention, instigated after a baseline period. Although an overall performance improvement was noted, the effects were not statistically significant for all golfers. Rees and Freeman (2010) provided one potential explanation for this finding. In a golf-putting experiment, they found that the impact of their support manipulation differed depending on whether participants had initially reported high or low levels of perceived support. Specifically, those reporting low levels of perceived support benefited the most (in terms of their performance) from the subsequent provision of support. Second, support effectiveness may depend on its match with the situation. According to Cutrona and Russell’s (1990) optimal matching hypothesis, uncontrollable events lead to a need for support that fosters emotion-focused coping (e.g., emotional and/or esteem support), and controllable events lead to a need for support that fosters problem-focused coping (e.g., informational and/or tangible support). In a study examining the stress-buffering effects of social support in relation to processes underpinning tennis performance, Rees and Hardy (2004) demonstrated support for this process, by matching specific types of sport-relevant social support with the needs elicited by specific controllable and uncontrollable stressors. Despite such findings in sport, in general, the optimal matching model has received little empirical support (Burleson, 2003; Burleson & MacGeorge, 2002). Instead, similar supportive behaviors can serve multiple functions, with different supportive behaviors achieving similar objectives (Burleson & MacGeorge, 2002; Viswesvaran, Sanchez, & Fisher, 1999). In reality, Cutrona and Russell (1990) recognized that specific forms of social support do not exclusively foster either emotion- or problem-focused coping, with a high degree of overlap between dimensions in naturalistic settings. Thus, attempts to bolster an athlete’s self-confidence (esteem support) may be interpreted as a sign of caring (emotional support), as well as reflecting the provision of specific guidance (informational support) on how to succeed. Third, support effectiveness may depend on the context (Berg & Upchurch, 2007). In performance settings, esteem support appears to be particularly beneficial (Rees & Freeman, 2010; Freeman & Rees, 2009; Rees & Freeman, 2007; Rees, Hardy, & Freeman, 2007), perhaps because it may be considered more nurturing, less obtrusive, less controlling, and less likely to undermine important mechanisms such as self-efficacy than informational (direct advice) and tangible (concrete instrumental assistance) support (Bolger & Amarel, 2007; Trobst, 2000). Here, the provision of informational and tangible support could undermine recipients’ belief in their skills and ability to perform well in the absence of such help or advice. Fourth, the timing of support may be important. In line with the reasoning of Bolger and Amarel (2007), support may be more effective when an athlete has appraised a situation and asked for help than when support is provided before it has been requested. This may have implications for sport, because in many instances the nature of coaching requires that support and advice be given without a direct request for such help. Being sensitive to the potential pitfalls of providing support at this point in time could therefore be important. According to Bolger and Amarel’s (2007) analysis, support could still serve its intended purpose and not undermine self-efficacy if it is delivered in such a way that the athlete does not notice it or interpret it as support – Bolger and Amarel refer to this as invisible support. One way a player could then assist a struggling teammate would be by requesting advice from the coach on a shared task. Alternatively, if a player sees a teammate in difficulty, she could highlight her “own problem” and how she is overcoming it, as a means to influence the teammate without directly addressing the teammate.

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Fifth, although various network members tend to engage in the provision of various types of social support (Bianco, 2001), they often differ in their expertise in providing specific types of support (Johnston & Carroll, 1998; Lehman, Ellard, & Wortman, 1986; Rees, Smith, & Sparkes, 2003; Rosenfeld & Richman, 1997), with discrepancies between providers’ and recipients’ ratings of the usefulness of support (Coriell & Cohen, 1995). Thus, a consideration of the providers of support is also important. In fact, their level of knowledge and expertise, the quality of relationship they share with the recipient, and whether they have experienced similar situations themselves (Bianco, 2001; Hardy & Crace, 1991; Suitor, Pillemer and Keeton, 1995) all appear to be important factors associated with effective support providers. And more recent research demonstrates that individuals’ appraisals of others’ supportiveness may reflect a unique matching between the individual and the support provider (Lakey, Lutz, & Scoboria, 2004; Rees, Freeman, Bell, & Bunney, 2012). That is, as Rees et al. showed, one coach’s apparently objectively supportive behavior may be viewed by various athletes in markedly different ways. Taking this further, drawing on a social identity approach (Rees, Haslam, Coffee, & Lavallee, 2015), research has demonstrated that only when support, advice, and feedback are received from someone with whom one shares a common identity will the support have its intended impact (Haslam, O’Brien, Jetten, Vormedal, & Penna, 2005; Rees, Salvatore, Coffee, Haslam, Sargent, & Dobson, 2013).

Future directions for research into social support Research into social support in sport has flourished in recent years. What do we need to know next? In our laboratory, we have been working across a number of different strands, which we believe offer much for future research. In the first strand, we have been examining the role of perceptions of support within the coaching process. Coaches play a major role in sport and social support is integral to the coaching process (Antonini Philippe & Seiler, 2006; Bianco, 2001, Chelladurai & Saleh, 1980; Kristiansen & Roberts, 2010; Rosenfeld, Richman, & Hardy, 1989; Robbins & Rosenfeld, 2001). Thus, we have been observing what influences athletes to perceive (or judge) coaches as more or less supportive. Drawing on the methods of generalizability theory (Cronbach, Gleser, Nanda, & Rajaratnam, 1972), our research has demonstrated (Rees et al., 2012) that perceptions of coach support primarily reflect relational components. This means that, rather than perceptions of support reflecting either the personality of the athlete (e.g., to judge all coaches as supportive) or some objective quality of the coach (e.g., such that all athletes rate one coach as universally supportive), athletes may systematically disagree on the supportiveness of their coaches. Thus, one coach may be viewed very differently by different athletes. Extending this work, Coussens and colleagues (Coussens, Rees, & Freeman, 2015) have demonstrated that personality, coach competence, and social identity all underpin these perceptions of support at the same relational level. That is, when athletes perceive specific coaches to be highly agreeable, competent, and sharing a common identity, they are also more likely to perceive those same coaches to be uniquely supportive. This line of research has important implications for practice, and for understanding that not all coaches will necessarily be viewed as supportive by all athletes. Thus, even when coaches try to be fair and equitable in support of their athletes, they will inevitably be viewed by those athletes in very different ways. In a second strand, we have been drawing on the work of Bolger and colleagues (Bolger & Amarel, 2007; Bolger, Zuckerman, & Kessler, 2000) in addressing the evidence that the provision of support does not always meet its intended aims, focusing on two key aspects of the support process: (a) the dimension of support, and (b) the visibility of support. For 510

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example, in one golf-putting experiment with novices, Moll and colleagues (Moll, Rees, & Freeman, 2015) created a scenario in which a confederate (playing the role of a fellow novice golfer who had just completed the same task) was scripted to provide one of five supportbased manipulations (visible informational support, invisible informational support, visible esteem support, invisible esteem support, and no support) prior to participants performing the golf-putting task. The results demonstrated that participants given visible esteem support and invisible informational support outperformed those given no support, whereas those given invisible esteem support and visible informational support did not. This implies that, in this context, esteem support is effective when it is explicit and visible for recipients; informational support is effective when it is communicated in a subtler, indirect, and invisible manner. In addition to continuing with these two strands of research, we believe (Rees et al., 2015) that a focus on social identity (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) and self-categorization (Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987) theories has much to offer the social support literature (and the sport psychology literature more widely). In recent work by Levine and colleagues with soccer fan behavior (Levine, Prosser, Evans, & Reicher, 2005; Slater, Rovira, Southern, Swapp, Zhang, Campbell, & Levine, 2013), it has been observed that the likelihood of receiving support from others depends upon those others perceiving us to be representative of a shared social identity (in social identity terms, an “ingroup” member). For example, in their 2005 research, Levine and colleagues asked fans of British soccer club Manchester United to think about their team before being instructed to walk from one room on the testing site to a video projection room in another building. On their way, a confederate fell over in front of them. The confederate either wore a Manchester United shirt, a Liverpool shirt (Liverpool are Manchester United’s greatest rivals), or a plain red t-shirt. The Manchester United fans helped the stricken confederate in the Manchester United shirt almost every time. However, when the confederate wore a Liverpool or plain red t-shirt, the Manchester United fans were far less likely to help. When fans were asked to think of themselves with a more inclusive “soccer fan” identity, they generally helped when the confederate wore a Manchester United or Liverpool shirt, but not when that person wore the red t-shirt. The implication is that we are more likely to offer help to people we perceive as belonging to an ingroup that is salient for us, and we are more likely to receive help from people who perceive us as belonging to an ingroup that is salient for them.

Applied implications Social support is a complex construct, and various factors need to be considered when applying the findings from social support research. Hogan, Linden, and Najarian (2002) noted that even the most well-intentioned, professionally-led support interventions can be experienced by recipients in a negative manner. As noted earlier, the provision of support may be ineffective, or even detrimental, if it reduces a recipient’s sense of autonomy, control, or self-efficacy. A well-intentioned family member, who tries to help a child in planning a training program might well be perceived as over-bearing and controlling rather than supportive. Similarly, a well-intentioned coach trying to improve the performance of her athletes might run the risk of undermining their self-efficacy, if focusing on weaknesses, and the support has not been requested. As noted above, a number of key task-, recipient-, and provider-related factors may influence the effectiveness of any support. Thus, support interventions need to be carefully planned and implemented, based on theory and empirical evidence. More generally, generating an understanding of the multidimensional nature 511

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of social support is key for applications, in conjunction with appreciating the distinction between perceived and enacted support, and the potential risks inherent in the provision of support. Members of an athlete’s support network would thus be well-advised to further their understanding of the support process. At the same time, interventions might focus on helping athletes to understand how to maximize the different types of available support in their network and learn the skills to be proactive in using this resource.

Conclusion Social support is associated with a range of favorable outcomes in sport, and athletes believe it is fundamental to their success. As such, the social support construct holds great appeal for researchers and practitioners. Despite this appeal, social support is more complex than many might appreciate, and this complexity needs to be understood and explored, to further develop theory and effective interventions. There is still much to learn, and this makes the area an exciting one, ripe for examination by sport researchers. I hope that by embracing this topic further, we develop a truly integral understanding of how support can help athletes.

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Lakey, B., Lutz, C. J., & Scoboria, A. (2004). The information used to judge supportiveness depends on whether the judgment reflects the personality of perceivers, the objective characteristics of targets, or their unique relationship. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 23, 796–814. Lazarus, R. S. (1966). Psychological stress and coping process. New York: McGraw-Hill. Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress appraisal and coping. New York: Springer. Lehman, D. R., Ellard, J. H., & Wortman, C. B. (1986). Social support for the bereaved: Recipients’ and providers’ perspectives on what is helpful. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 54, 438–446. Levine, R. M., Prosser, A., Evans, D., & Reicher, S. D. (2005). Identity and emergency intervention: How social group membership and inclusiveness of group boundaries shapes helping behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 443–453. Lubans, D. R., Morgan, P. J., & McCormack, A. (2011). Adolescents and school sport: The relationship between beliefs, social support and physical self-perception. Physical Education & Sport Pedagogy, 16, 237–250. MacKenzie, S. B., Podsakoff, P. M., & Podsakoff, N. P. (2011). Construct measurement and validation procedures in MIS and behavioural research: Integrating new and existing techniques. MIS Quarterly, 35, 293–334. Maisel, N. C., & Gable, S. L. (2009). The paradox of received social support: The importance of responsiveness. Psychological Science, 20, 928–932. Mitchell, I., Evans, L., Rees. T., & Hardy, L. (2014). Stressors, social support and the buffering hypothesis: Effects on psychological responses of injured athletes. British Journal of Health Psychology, 19, 486–508. Moll, T., Rees, T., Freeman, P. (2015). Enacted support and golf-putting performance: The effects of support content and visibility. Manuscript submitted for publication. Morgan, P. B. C., Fletcher, D., & Sarkar, M. (2013). Defining and characterizing team resilience in elite sport. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 14, 549–559. Podlog, L., Wadey, R., Stark, A., Lochbaum, M., Hannon, J., & Newton, M. (2013). An adolescent perspective on injury recovery and the return to sport. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 14, 437–446. Raedeke, T. D., & Smith, A. L. (2004). Coping resources and athlete burnout: An examination of stress mediated and moderation hypotheses. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 26, 525–541. Rees, T. (2007). Influence of social support on athletes. In S. Jowett & D. Lavallee (Eds.), Social psychology in sport (pp. 223–231). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Rees, T., & Freeman, P. (2007). The effects of perceived and received support on self-confidence. Journal of Sports Sciences, 25, 1057–1065. Rees, T., & Freeman, P. (2009). Social support moderates the relationship between stressors and task performance through self-efficacy. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 28, 245–264. Rees, T., & Freeman, P. (2010). The effect of experimentally provided social support on golf-putting performance. The Sport Psychologist, 18, 333–348. Rees, T., & Hardy, L. (2004). Matching social support with stressors: Effects on factors underlying performance in tennis. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 5, 319–337. Rees, T., & Hardy, L. (2000). An investigation of the social support experiences of high-level sport performers. The Sport Psychologist, 14, 327–347. Rees, T., Freeman, P., Bell, S., & Bunney, R. (2012). Three generalizability studies of the components of perceived coach support. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 34, 238–251. Rees, T., Hardy, L., & Freeman, P. (2007). Stressors, social support and effects upon performance in golf. Journal of Sports Sciences, 25, 33–42. Rees, T., Haslam, S. A., Coffee, P., & Lavallee, D. (2015). A social identity approach to sport psychology: Principles, practice, and prospects. Sports Medicine, 45, 1083–1096. doi: 10.1007/s40279-015-0345-4 Rees, T., Ingledew, D. K., & Hardy, L. (1999). Social support dimensions and components of performance in tennis. Journal of Sports Sciences, 17, 421–429. Rees. T., Mitchell, I., Evans, L., & Hardy, L. (2010). Stressors, social support and psychological responses to sport injury in high and low-performance standard participants. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 11, 505–512. Rees, T., Salvatore, J., Coffee, P., Haslam, S. A., Sargent, A., & Dobson, T. (2013). Reversing downward performance spirals. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49, 400–403. Rees, T., Smith, B., & Sparkes, A. (2003). The influence of social support on the lived experiences of spinal cord injured sportsmen. The Sport Psychologist, 17, 135–156. Reinhardt, J. P., Boerner, K., & Horowitz, A. (2006). Good to have but not to use: Differential impact of perceived and received support on well-being. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 23, 117–129.

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PART VII

Forecasts to the future

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50 AT H L E T E S’ T R A N SI T IO N S I N SP O RT A N D L I F E Positioning new research trends within the existing system of athlete career knowledge Natalia Stambulova In this chapter building metaphors borrowed from Forscher’s “Chaos in the brickyard” (1963) are used to briefly summarize a current status of the career transition topic in sport psychology and then to consider several new research trends with an attempt to find their places in the existing system of athlete career knowledge.

Brief introduction to the career transition topic and its traditional trends A little over fifty years ago, researchers and scientific communities all over the world were challenged by Dr. Bernard Forscher’s letter to the editor of Science entitled “Chaos in the brickyard” (1963). Forsher described the situation in science using a set of building metaphors presenting senior researchers as builders who build edifices related to particular research areas by means of selecting and using proper bricks (i.e., scientific facts) produced mainly by younger researchers and PhD students or brick-makers. The author’s main concern was about too many bricks regularly produced that caused serious difficulties for the builders to complete useful edifices and led to chaos in the brickyard. Considering today’s situation in science with a lot of new journals and online publications through the prism of Forscher’s metaphor, we can say that the amount of bricks is growing rapidly, and therefore special efforts should be made to timely find their places in related edifices. In this chapter I am going to briefly overview major established career knowledge in sport psychology (i.e., the existing edifice) and then to outline new research trends (i.e., recently produced bricks) with an attempt to explore their fit into, and find their places in, the edifice of athlete career knowledge. When Forscher published “Chaos in the brickyard,” the career topic in sport psychology was in its infancy, but during the five following decades it turned into a popular research and applied area in sport psychology. In the book “Career transitions in sport: International perspectives,” Lavallee, Wylleman, and Sinclair (2000) revealed how starting with four publications in the 1950s and 1960s an amount of related contributions exponentially increased resulting in the annotated bibliography of 226 career transition references. In 2013 Park, Lavallee, and Tod provided a systematic review of only one area in career research that was athletic retirement literature and identified 126 publications in English (1968–2010) that met 519

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their inclusion criteria. The recent anthology “Athletes’ careers across cultures” (Stambulova & Ryba, 2013a) included nearly 500 references from authors representing 19 countries, with 223 publications in national (i.e., other than English) languages. Ten review papers/books on career transitions published between 1999 and 2010 (Alfermann & Stambulova, 2007; Gordon, Lavallee, & Grove, 2005; Hackfort & Huang, 2005; Lavallee & Wylleman, 2000; Petitpas, Brewer, & Van Raalte, 2009; Stambulova, 2010a; Stambulova, Alfermann, Statler, & Côté, 2009; Taylor & Ogilvie, 2001; Wylleman, Alfermann, & Lavallee, 2004; Wylleman, Lavallee, & Alfermann, 1999) were included into a meta-review (Stambulova, 2012) that showed how the edifice of the career transition topic was built and re-built during recent decades. In the aforementioned meta-review, an evolution of the career transition topic in sport psychology was described through the following major shifts: (1) from defining a transition as an event to seeing it as a process, (2) from perceiving athletic retirement as a social death to seeing it as a social rebirth, (3) from a particular focus on athletic retirement research to a holistic lifespan/developmental perspective in studying athletic and non-athletic, normative and non-normative transitions, (4) from theoretical frameworks developed in other disciplines to frameworks specific to sport, (5) from a career description to the explanation of a transition process, and then to career assistance interventions and programs, and (6) from perceiving a body of career transition knowledge as universal and applicable to any culture to more culturally informed career research and interventions. Taking into account some recent review-type publications since the meta-review came out (e.g., Park et al., 2013; Stambulova & Ryba, 2014; Stambulova & Wylleman, 2014; Wylleman, De Knop, & Reints, 2011) it is possible to briefly outline how the edifice of the career transition topic in sport psychology looks like today. The foundation of the edifice is a reconceptualization of an athlete from an athletic performer to “a whole person” that led to the holistic lifespan/developmental perspective in considering athletes’ developments in athletic and non-athletic (psychological, psychosocial, academic/ vocational, physical, and financial) domains and to viewing an athletic career as a part of, and a resource for, an individual’s life career (Stambulova, 2014; Wylleman & Lavallee, 2004; Wylleman et al., 2011; Wylleman, Reints, & De Knop, 2013). Currently, there is a relative consensus between career researchers and practitioners about sport-specific definitions of the key concepts of the topic including, for example, athletic career, career transition, and career assistance (see, e.g., Stambulova & Wylleman, 2014). These concepts can be further specified based on the established taxonomies, such as normative (i.e., predictable) and nonnormative (less predictable), and athletic and non-athletic transitions. Right on this foundation of the edifice, three major floors can be constructed. The first floor consists of career development research guided by career/talent development models and aimed at describing career stages, positioning normative career transitions in the career course, and outlining career pathways (Bloom, 1985; Côté, Baker, & Abernethy, 2007; Salmela, 1994; Samuel & Tenenbaum, 2011; Stambulova, 1994; Wylleman & Lavallee, 2004; Wylleman et al., 2011). The second floor is formed by career transition research guided by transition frameworks, such as Schlossberg (1981), Stambulova (2003), and Taylor & Ogilvie (1994). Foci in this type of research are on describing and explaining a transition process and factors involved as well as on outlining transition pathways in relation to athletes’ normative and non-normative, athletic and non-athletic transitions (e.g., Alfermann, Stambulova, & Zemaityte, 2004; Cecić Erpič, Wylleman, & Zupančič; 2004; Petitpas et al., 2009; Stambulova, 1994, 2003, 2009; Stambulova, Franck, & Weibull, 2012). The third floor of the edifice consists of career assistance programs and interventions aimed at helping athletes with various athletic 520

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and non-athletic career issues, such as lifestyle, relationships, and educational/vocational planning. This applied work is guided by intervention frameworks, strategies, and tools validated in professional practice experiences and integrated into the professional culture of career assistance (e.g., Danish, Petitpas, & Hale, 1993; Lavallee, 2005; Lavallee, Nesti, Borkoles, Cockerill, & Edge, 2000; Stambulova, 2010a, 2010b, 2011, 2012; Wylleman & Reints, 2014). Recently, a cultural turn in sport psychology (Ryba & Wright, 2005; Ryba, Schinke, & Tenenbaum, 2010) has stimulated a turn to cultural mind-sets in career research (Stambulova & Alfermann, 2009) and then the development of a new paradigm termed cultural praxis of athletes’ careers (Stambulova & Ryba, 2013b; 2014) that can be seen as a staircase linking the floors of the edifice.

Cultural praxis of athletes’ careers and an overview of new research trends In the concluding chapter of “Athletes’ careers across cultures,” Stambulova and Ryba (2013b) summarized career research and career assistance programs in 19 countries and justified development of the aforementioned new paradigm by essential changes in sport and international sport culture (e.g., globalization, transnationalism, commercialization, and professionalization). The authors stated that “sport has become more demanding, complex, and multifaceted, uniting diversities and stimulating to appreciate them” (p. 247) and therefore culture-blind research and practice are in mismatch with the current reality. The cultural praxis of athletes’ careers (Stambulova & Ryba, 2013b, 2014) is defined as a set of challenges for career researchers and practitioners on integrating career theories, research, assistance, and athletes’ cultural contexts into cultural praxis. Researchers and practitioners are urged: to apply a holistic perspective in viewing athletes, their development and related environments; to position their projects (and themselves) in relevant socio-cultural contexts with contextual awareness and reflexivity permeating all the stages of the projects’ preparation and execution; to investigate idiosyncratic career patterns and pathways; to explore careers of transnational athletes and to further develop multicultural consulting; to promote participatory action research born of collaboration between researchers/ practitioners and sport participants. All these challenges have been identified based on the analysis of existing career research and practice (i.e., bricks already used in the edifice) and especially based on considering new bricks made within cultural sport psychology and the career topic. It is meant that there are already career projects in which researchers have attempted to meet the challenges outlined in the cultural praxis of athletes’ careers, and these projects are under consideration below. The new trends introduced in this chapter deal with career transition research and therefore should be positioned on the second floor of the edifice. At the same time, by means of incorporating cultural praxis ideals, these projects directly or indirectly contribute also to career development research (the first floor of the edifice) and career assistance (the third floor). These new trends can be classified into two categories. One deals with advances in studying athletes’ normative career transitions and includes: (a) exploring temporal structures of the transition to the postcareer (Reints, 2011) and the junior-to-senior transition (e.g., Olsson & Pehrson, 2013), (b) investigating the junior-to-senior transition from the holistic ecological perspective (Henriksen, 2010), and (c) studying athletes’ dual career transitions from the holistic developmental perspective (e.g., Aquilina, 2013; Stambulova, Engström, Franck, Linnér, & Lindahl, 2015). The other deals with exploring new kinds of athletes’ transitions, such as (a) cultural transitions (e.g., Ryba, Stambulova, Ronkainen, Bundgaard, & Selänne, 2015), (b) 521

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transitions to elite residential training centers (e.g., Poczwardowski, Diehl, O’Neil, Côté, & Haberl, 2013), and (c) conceptualizing important competitions, especially Olympic Games (e.g., Hollings, Mallett, & Hume, 2014; Schinke, Stambulova, Trepanier, & Oghene, 2015), as career transitions.

New trends in studying athletes’ normative career transitions Temporal structures of the transition to the post-career and the juniorto-senior transition In current sport psychology literature, a transition is considered as a process, and in major athletic transitions this process might last several months or even years. For example, the European Perspectives on the Athletic Retirement project (Alfermann et al., 2004; Stambulova, Stephan, & Jäphag, 2007) revealed that athletes from five European countries estimated duration of their transition to the post-career between eight and 19 months. Research on the junior-to-senior transition revealed that this transition lasts between one and three years (Stambulova et al., 2012). Keeping these figures in mind, it is possible to anticipate that the transition periods are not homogeneous and, therefore, it is possible “to zoom” into the transition process and identify its temporal structure or a sequence of relevant phases. Recently such attempts were made in relation to the athletic retirement and the junior-to-senior transition. Phases in the transition to the post-sports career were identified in Reints’ (2011) study where the author focused on the retirement process of elite Flemish athletes representing different sports. A structured survey was constructed based on the holistic athletic career model (Wylleman & Reints, 2010) in a combination with some ideas of the athletic career transition model (Stambulova, 2003) and athletic retirement literature. Four phases were described in terms of athletes’ adjustment quality at six levels, such as athletic, psychological, psychosocial, academic/vocational, financial, and physical. The phases were: (a) planning for athletic retirement, (b) career termination, (c) start of the post-athletic career, and (d) reintegration into society. Quality of adjustment varied among athletes but the tendency was that “the quality of the post-athletic career rises as time goes by” (p. 96) with the highest perceived adjustment quality at the fourth phase. The project aimed at identifying a temporal structure of the junior-to-senior transition was conducted by Olsson and Pehrson (2013) with a focus on Swedish ice-hockey players. Participants included active ice-hockey players positioned at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the transition, a dropped-out player, and coaches. The study was designed in several stages. First, two career/transition frameworks (Stambulova, 2003; Wylleman & Lavallee, 2004) coupled with an analysis of the Swedish ice-hockey culture were used to create a four-phase (Preparation, Orientation, Adaptation, and Stabilization) working model. Second, the working model was used to develop interview guides that looked at demands, resources, barriers, and coping strategies of the players at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the transition. Third, the working model itself was shared with the players who already coped with this transition or dropped out, as well as junior and senior coaches to get their input. Fourth, based on all of the interview and feedback data, the working model was transformed into an empirical model entitled “Phases in the junior-to-senior transition in Swedish ice-hockey.” It appeared that at each transition phase players dealt with specific demands and used various resources and coping strategies. The empirical model is planned to be validated with more players, coaches, and experts involved and then used to develop a 522

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psychological support system for Swedish hockey players based on the major challenges they are likely to encounter phase-by-phase in the junior-to-senior transition. In both projects the authors positioned their studies in cultural contexts and used the same idea of “zooming” into the transition process. At the same time, different research methodologies and designs employed make a comparison of the studies a bit difficult. But both projects show that we can deepen our knowledge about a transition process considering its temporal structure and content of each related phase. “Zooming” is possible not only into the transition process but also into career stages. One example in a qualitative study of professional careers of Canadian National Hockey League (NHL) players resulted in an empirical career model of the NHL players with four stages: entering the NHL, developing as an NHL player, reaching the NHL elite, and maintaining NHL play involvement (Battochio, Stambulova, & Schinke, 2015).

The junior-to-senior transition from the holistic ecological perspective Up to date, a majority of transition research in sport psychology was conducted from an individual perspective that is with a focus on athletes’ transition experiences, for example, perceived demands/challenges, coping strategies, as well as internal and external resources and barriers. External resources and barriers traditionally referred to the athlete’s microenvironment, such as support (or pressure) from coaches, parents, and peers. The juniorto-senior transition studies emphasized a decisive role of social support (mainly from athletic micro-level) in the athletes’ successful coping and adaptation on the senior level (e.g., Pummell, Harwood, & Lavallee, 2008; Stambulova, 2009; Stambulova et al., 2012). Recent ecological research on the junior-to-senior transition shifted attention to athletic talent development environments (ATDEs) the transitional athletes are embedded in, and the authors have begun considering the transition environment holistically, that is as consisted of microand macro-levels, athletic and non-athletic domains, and a developmental dimension (past, present, and future of the environment). A key project that led to formulation of major tenets of the holistic ecological perspective in talent/career development was aimed at investigation of three successful ATDEs in Scandinavia including one Danish sailing team, one Swedish athletics club, and one Norwegian kayak environment within a private sport school (Henriksen, 2010; Henriksen, Stambulova, & Roessler, 2010a, 2010b, 2011). The authors defined successful ATDEs as teams or clubs that manage continually to produce senior elite athletes from among their juniors, that is the environments facilitating well athletes’ junior-to-senior transition. Two working models – the ATDE model and the Environment Success Factors (ESF) model – were developed to guide collecting empirical data (via participant observation, multiple interviews, and analysis of written documents) to describe the ATDEs under study and analyze factors contributing to their success. Based on the empirical data, the working models were transformed into empirical models demonstrating specific features of each of the three ATDEs and their organizational cultures. Further cross-case analysis allowed identifying a set of characteristics of successful ATDEs including: (a) training groups with supportive relationships, (b) proximal role models, (c) support of sport goals by wider environment, (d) support of the development of psychosocial skills, (e) training allowing for diversification, (f) focus on long-term development, (g) strong and coherent organizational culture, and (h) integration of efforts from different levels and domains of the ATDE (Henriksen, 2010). Thus, athletic environments sharing these characteristics were found to be optimally supportive for the transitional athletes. 523

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Further, the set of characteristics of successful ATDEs was also useful as a reference point to study less successful or “struggling” athletic environments failing to effectively help their athletes with the junior-to-senior transition. Such a study was recently conducted on a struggling golf environment in Denmark (Henriksen, Larsen, & Christensen, 2014). This study provided support to the set of characteristics of successful ATDE “from its opposite pole”; that is it revealed that the struggling ATDE had many features that were opposed to the characteristics listed above, such as a lack of interactions between elite and junior athletes, early specialization, and inconsistent culture. This new research area opens a new trend in career assistance that is optimizing athletic environments to facilitate athletes’ junior-tosenior transitions.

Athletes’ dual career transitions from the holistic developmental perspective Dual career transitions are athletes’ simultaneous transitions in sport (e.g., to a new level in a sport system) and education or work (to the next level in the educational system or within the working structure). Usually they are seen as normative (especially in terms of sport and education) and require a number of resources to successfully cope. Inevitably these transitions are also associated with changes in the athlete’s private life, such as a move from home, and a changing social network. Therefore, using the holistic developmental perspective sounds natural for research on dual career pathways and relevant transitions. But the role of socio-cultural context was for a long time underestimated in this type of research because of the predominance of North American studies within their school-based sport context (e.g., Petitpas et al., 2009). A new trend introduced here is (mainly) European research on athletes’ dual careers combining the holistic developmental perspective with carefully considering socio-cultural contexts the athletes belong to and also focusing on a specific nature of dual career transitions. In European countries sport is usually club-based, and therefore special arrangements are needed between sport and educational institutions to facilitate athletes’ dual careers. Recent European Union (EU) Guidelines on Dual Careers of Athletes (2012) stimulated a wave of dual career sociological and psychological studies employing different cultural paradigms (cross-cultural and cultural), research designs (cross-sectional and longitudinal), and methodologies (e.g., quantitative, qualitative, mixed-method) in studying studentathletes from different European countries. The studies on dual career motivation (Lupo, Guidotti, Gonçalves, Moreira, Doupona Topic, Bellardini et al., 2015), opportunities and constraints to pursue a dual career (Aquilina, 2013), student-athletes’ academic achievements and self-regulation skills (Jonker, Elferink-Gemser, & Visscher, 2009), dual career transitions (Stambulova et al., 2015) – all emphasized the crucial role of socio-cultural context. One example is a Swedish national-level study on athletes’ transition to, and adaptation at the national elite sport schools providing dual career programs preparing student-athletes (upon graduation) for university education and also the national team level in sports (Stambulova et al., 2015). In this mixed-method longitudinal project student-athletes’ perceived transition demands, coping strategies, resources and barriers were investigated in relation to sport, education, and private life in a combination with measuring (and also qualitatively exploring) their athletic and student identities. The results revealed several interesting tendencies, for example, the dominant role of participants’ personal resources (e.g., educational, sport, and life skills) and important contribution of autonomy support in their adaptation. The study also shed light on the nature of a dual career transition demonstrating 524

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that student-athletes’ feelings of adjustment at the elite sport school were relevant to obtaining an optimal balance between sport and studies and also private life. The optimal dual career balance was defined as a combination of sport and studies helping student-athletes to achieve their educational and athletic goals, to live satisfying private lives and maintain their health and well-being. Recommendations were provided for dual career support services on helping the student-athletes to make both sides of their dual career complementary instead of comparable. Following the participants’ reflections on their inability “to constantly give 100 percent” in both sport and school, one recommended strategy was individually planned shifts in prioritizing sport or studies depending on the competition and exam schedules. The study also led to developing the Swedish dual career model inspired by the cultural praxis of athletes’ careers, the EU Guidelines on Dual Careers of Athletes, and the holistic athletic career model. In the model, stages in the Swedish educational system with related age markers are aligned with stages in athletic and vocational careers showing possible dual career pathways for Swedish athletes and relevant transitions. The model can be seen as an agenda for future dual career research in Sweden and possibly for national dual career support services and also as an example on how researchers in other countries can plan their dual career research and further applications. There is also emerging ecological research on athletes’ dual careers shifting focus to the athletic environments promoting dual career values. A recent study was focused on organizational culture of an Australian professional football club that successfully managed to maintain on-field success with off-field player development including promotion of dual career issues and helping players to make a meaningful choice in terms of their off-field activities and development (Pink, Saunders, & Stynes, 2015). It might be also interesting to continue investigating organizational cultures of athlete-friendly educational institutions (e.g., Henriksen et al., 2011) and to combine the individual and ecological perspectives in dual career research.

New kinds of athletes’ career transitions in focus Before introducing the new kinds of athletes’ transitions, it is worth noting that the further transition research is developed, the more it is becoming clear that the existing transition taxonomy based on their predictability (i.e., normative and non-normative) is insufficient to cover diversity of athletes’ career transitions. There are transitions that can be predicted for certain groups of athletes, but not for all athletes. In developmental psychology literature such transitions relevant to (and predictable for) only certain groups of people are called quasi-normative (Hendry & Kloep, 2002). This term was already briefly introduced in sport psychology transition literature (e.g., Stambulova, 2013; Schinke et al., 2015) but more efforts should be made to establish it. The three new kinds of athletes’ transitions under consideration in recent research – cultural transitions, transitions to elite residential training centers, and the transitions relevant to participation in the Olympic Games or other important competitions – all can be re-conceptualized from non-normative (i.e., seen as leaving limited opportunities to be prepared in advance) to quasi-normative career transitions that are predictable for transnational and immigrant, elite and professional athletes (i.e., can be expected, planned, and prepared for).

Cultural transitions Currently, cultural transitions research in sport psychology is conducted mainly by cultural sport psychology scholars interested in exploring athletes’ cultural transition experiences. 525

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This was fortunate for career transition scholarship because from the beginning it has led to culturally competent research (Ryba, Stambulova, Si, & Schinke, 2013) in this area based on cultural psychology and cultural studies paradigms. Two interrelated lines of current sport psychology research are relevant to athletes’ cultural transitions. One line consists of acculturation/cultural adaptation studies focusing on migrant/immigrant athletes and coaches, who move to a new socio-cultural context for extended time periods (e.g., Blodgett, Schinke, McGannon, Coholic, Enosse, Peltier, & Pheasant, 2014; Schinke, McGannon, Battochio, & Wells, 2013; Schinke, McGannon, Yukelson, Cummings, & Parro, 2015). The other focuses on cultural adaptation and transitions of transnational athletes “who conduct cross-border activities on a regular basis and whose athletic and non-athletic development is transformed through transnational practices” (Ryba & Stambulova, 2013, p. 11; see also Agergaard & Ryba, 2014; Ryba, Haapanen, Mosek, & Ng, 2012; Ryba et al., 2015). In both lines of research the scholars distance themselves from a simplified view of cultural transition processes as linear movements from “home” culture towards “host” culture. They consider the transition as “dynamic psychological processes involving cognitive movements in and between different cultural standpoints” (Schinke et al., 2014, p. 354) leading to “conceptual transformation of meaning and reconstruction of subjectivity” (Ryba et al., 2015, p. 126). In other words the researchers trace how through the transition process athletes change “assumptions about the self and the world” (Schlossberg, 1981, p. 5) and develop not only as athletes but as whole persons. In the acculturation of immigrant athletes/coaches research, acculturation challenges, forms of support or constraints/pressures of the host culture, and relevant strategies used in a cultural transition have been emphasized. Especially important is to acknowledge the participatory action approach in this research area involving researchers from a host culture, a home (minority) culture, and athlete participants. For example, acculturation challenges of Canadian Aboriginal athletes transferred to a Euro-Canadian context (Blodgett et al., 2014) were explored by using mandala drawings to facilitate conversational interviews with the Aboriginal athletes, and a local culturally safe version of an inductive-thematic analysis was employed. Results revealed two major groups of transition challenges: “culture shock” in relation to the host culture (e.g., being overwhelmed by change, dealing with racism and prejudice, lacking meaningful engagement with the host culture members) and “becoming disconnected” with the home culture (e.g., being far from family, missing Aboriginal culture, and dealing with on-reserve rejection). In fact, the transitional athletes experienced a belonging/identity crisis and needed to negotiate “meaningful positions for themselves in and between two cultural realities” (p. 345). Comparable challenges were experienced by immigrant elite athletes and coaches who moved to Canada from different countries (Schinke et al., 2013). Their transition/acculturation processes (investigated through focus group interviews followed by a thematic analysis) were described through their challenge to navigate between cultural norms of the home community and the host community, and their “acculturation loads” depending on how much external support was available from the people representing the host culture. In relation to the latter, the authors identified two major strategies in the cultural transition termed “shared acculturation” (i.e., a two-way process) and “one-sided acculturation” (i.e., the immigrant athlete/coach was left alone to deal with the acculturation challenges). The shared acculturation strategy was found to be more facilitative for the transitional subjects. The next step logically undertaken by the authors (Schinke et al., 2015) was to increase awareness in the host culture about challenges experienced by elite athletic immigrants and about mutual benefits of the shared acculturation approach. 526

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In the transnational athletes’ research, cultural transitions are seen as central and providing an inevitable impact on all the athletes’ athletic and non-athletic transitions (Agergaard & Ryba, 2014). This is well shown in the recent life-story interview study of dual career pathways of transnational athletes (Ryba et al., 2015), in which the direction of geographic mobility and the core transition motive were used to classify the dual career pathways. Three patterns of dual career organization were discerned from six transnational athletes’ narratives: (a) mobility within the European Union: the sport exile pathway (i.e., motivated by searching for better conditions in the host country for the athletic career but also for education as the second priority), (b) mobility to the USA: the sport mercenary pathway (i.e., motivated by athletic scholarship), and (c) mobility to the USA: the nomadic cosmopolitan pathway (i.e., motivated by exploring the world and seeking for new opportunities). In spite of providing the taxonomy of dual career pathways, the authors emphasized the athletes’ idiosyncratic experiences in meaning making for their transition decisions, considerations of contextual factors, and strategies used to navigate between the host and the home cultural realities. Cultural transition processes briefly outlined above are partly observable through the individual’s behavioral changes but, as the researchers argue, major changes refer to internal transformations of mobile subjects through participation in cultural practices. At the same time, athletes who fail in cultural transitions, experience symptoms comparable with symptoms of a crisis-transition (e.g., decrease in self-esteem, emotional discomfort), and if a crisis is not solved, they also experience negative consequences of not coping (e.g., moving back home before the contract ends, being fired, experiencing injury, burn out or depression) (Stambulova, 2003). Therefore, this line of research has a potential to advance cultural transition interventions facilitating athletes/coaches’ acculturation and, thus, their performance and well-being.

The transition to elite residential training centers With constantly increasing performance demands upon elite athletes, many countries invested in developing elite residential training centers seen as resource environments for elite athletes helping them to achieve their sport goals and also to contribute to the national sport pride. Elite athletes reside in such centers to train and prepare for competitions, use high quality coaches’ and other experts’ support, and in some centers also to combine sport with education. It is important to note that elite training centers are different from dual career environments in a way that their focus is mainly on athletes’ sport training, performance and achievements. The centers are developed for the benefit of athletes, but there is anecdotal evidence that far from all their residents can successfully adjust and correctly utilize resources available there. Verkooijen, Van Hove, and Dik (2012) were among the first who attracted attention to studying athletes residing at elite training environments, but their focus was not in the transition process but more on the transition outcomes through a quantitative comparison of athletes living in the Dutch Elite Sport Center (Dutch abbreviation CTO: Centrum voor Topsport en Onderwijs) and athletes of the same age (between 16 and 30) and sport level (national elite) who were non-CTO residents. The comparison revealed that the CTO residents had a significantly higher amount of practice hours per week, lower psychosocial well-being, and a lower sense of accomplishment in relation to their high expectations compared to non-CTO resident athletes. The CTO residents also showed a tendency to a higher athletic identity, but the difference between the two groups was statistically insignificant. The quantitative methodology used in this study did not allow the authors to 527

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explore the CTO-residents’ experiences deeply, but the study revealed a need for further investigation of challenges/demands, resources, barriers, and coping strategies used by successful and less successful residents of elite training environments. A pioneering project on the transition to an elite training environment was conducted in the USA context (Poczwardowski et al., 2013) with a focus on internal and external resources contributed to six resident athletes’ successful transition to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs (CSOTC). A successful transition was defined as “an adaptation to the CSOTC environment both initially (first weeks) and over time (months and years), leading to successful performance internationally” (p. 36). In this mixed-method study, in-depth interviews about the transition/residence experiences were combined with psychological profiling of the participants’ personal attributes. The qualitative analysis revealed three major categories describing (a) athletes’ resources (e.g., previous successful transition experiences, perception of athletic growth, confidence, determination), (b) the environmental resources utilized by the athletes (e.g., facilities, CSOTC programs and staff, social support), and (c) athlete-environment fit outlining some characteristics of the transition process and outcomes (e.g., growing from challenges, positive perception of the CSOTC, lack of barriers). Combining the qualitative and quantitative data, the authors concluded about optimism, sport-life balance, and transition/performance enhancement resourcefulness as key factors for the successful adaptation at the SCOTC. Further development of this research line might help to improve psychological support services at elite residential training centers.

Olympic Games or other important competitions as career transitions An idea that participation in Olympic Games or other subjectively important competitions might have a significant impact on athletes’ careers in sport, and often also in life, is not new. Narratives circulating in sporting culture and media stories provide anecdotal evidences of such an impact. But career researchers just recently began to explore important competitions as career change events or career transitions (Hollings et al., 2014; Samuel & Tenenbaum, 2011; Schinke et al., 2015; Sigurgeirsdóttir, 2013; Stambulova, 2004; Stambulova, Stambulov, & Johnson, 2012; Wylleman, Reints, & Van Aken, 2012). A pioneering study in this area (Stambulova, 2004) dealt with junior Russian athletes’ retrospective views of their first (well-remembered) competition using a survey with closeand open-type questions based on the athletic career transition model (Stambulova, 2003). The participants’ answers provided a description of the transition process with perceived demands (e.g., to reach their goals, to meet their own and others’ expectations), resources (positive feelings, practice experiences, social support), barriers (a lack of competition knowledge, negative thoughts and feelings), coping strategies (“doing like in practice,” “observing how others do,” “searching for help if lost”), and consequences of the first competition (inspiration for continuation in sport vs. a fear of competitions that needed to be treated in the further career). The study confirmed that important competitions during the earlier athletic career stages might have an impact on motivating athletes to continue and invest in sport or to dropout. It is even possible to anticipate that the further athletes progress through the career stages and sport performance levels, the more impact important competitions might have on their athletic and non-athletic planning and development. Illustrative to this extrapolation is a study of Hollings et al. (2014) on experiences of New Zealand elite track-and-field athletes with regard to the World Junior Championship in Athletics (WJC). The participants were interviewed before and after the WJC to understand 528

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its career impact. The authors concluded that the WJC was seen by the athletes as an opportunity to gain experience of world-class competition and test their performance, but also as a key reference point in their decision making about further investment in sport and preparation for the junior-to-senior transition. Another line in exploring the transitional nature of important competitions refers exclusively to the Olympic Games. Extensive literature on athletes’ Olympic preparation and performance (e.g., Gould, & Maynard, 2009; Haberl, 2009; Pensgaard, & Duda, 2003) is now complemented by identifying phases in the Olympic Games transition process and investigating athletes’ experiences (e.g., perceived changes/demands, resources, coping strategies) within each phase retrospectively or proactively. Several attempts were undertaken to structure the Olympic Games transition process as having five phases. For example, Wylleman et al. (2012) used interviews and athletes’ self-reports to describe changes in athletic, psychological, psychosocial, and academic/vocational development experienced by four Belgian Olympians prior to the 2008 Olympic Games in the preliminary-preparation phase (between the selection to the team and the games), the during-the-games phase, and (two months) the aftergames phase. In regard to each phase the participants reported changes covering all four developmental dimensions that allowed the authors to further promote the holistic developmental perspective as important in studying Olympic athletes. Sigurgeirsdóttir (2013) conducted narrative interviews to explore transition experiences of eight Icelandic Olympic athletes who participated in the 2012 Olympics. Their stories were then shaped using the five-phase Olympic preparation and games structure (Stambulova et al., 2012) emphasizing major themes permeating each phase. At the preliminary preparation phase the athletes struggled to gain international competition experience and to get financial support. In the qualification phase they emphasized the importance of clear criteria for team selection and the benefits of early qualification. At the Olympic season phase, the highest priority was given to good relationships with coaches, energy management, overtraining prevention, and exploring the Olympic venue. The games phase was marked by “hunger” for achievement, distraction awareness/coping, and expert support. The post-games phase was related to analysis and evaluation of the games, career change, and increased public attention and responsibility. The aforementioned retrospective studies shed light on the temporal structure and content of the Olympic Games transition process and might be used as a basis for working with Olympic athletes. But as shown by Schinke et al. (2015), it is possible to plan a psychological support system for Olympic athletes based on the proactive vision of their Olympic experiences as a sequences of phases and meta-transitions (i.e., transitions to, within, and out of the Olympic cycle). Precisely, “psychological support for Olympic preparation of the Canadian men’s boxing team” was planned for the boxers’ progression through the ownthe-podium (OTP) program providing financial and expert support to medal hopefuls for the 2016 Olympic cycle. Six meta-transitions contributing to the Olympic Games transition are: (a) entering the OTP, (b) entering major games tournaments, (c) Olympic qualification, (d) focused preparation for the Olympics, (e) to the Olympic podium, and (f ) to the postgames. In relation to each of these meta-transitions, the athletes’ major anticipated demands (e.g., adaptation to the national team staff and orientation in the resources available during the first meta-transition or analysis of the games experience and plan for the future during the sixth transition), and relevant psychological support services were outlined. The next expected step in this project is to follow the real Olympic preparation and participation process and then to summarize the athletes’/staff ’s reflections in order to make necessary changes for the next Olympic cycle. This project can also serve as an example on how such work can be done in various sports and countries. 529

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Conclusion: existing edifice and new research trends

Cultural praxis of athletes’ careers paradigm Holistic perspective; contextual sensitivity; idiosyncratic approach; careers of transnational athletes; multicultural consulting; participation action research

Structuring the current career knowledge in sport psychology and positioning new research trends in this structure was an exciting building process with the outcome schematically presented in Figure 50.1. These were described earlier in the chapter, and the rest of the chapter brings the new research trends into the picture. In the “Chaos in the brickyard,” Bernard Forscher emphasized that quality of new bricks is important for “the success of the edifice,” and when bricks are sound and assembled properly, “the edifice is useful and durable…”. If bricks are faulty or if they are assembled badly, “the edifice would crumble” (1963, p. 339; italics are mine). Therefore, for the purpose of this review I tried to select high quality bricks that contribute new ideas and deepen our knowledge about athletes’ career transitions. Moreover, the new research trends introduced here are characterized by researchers’ creativity in using different research methodologies, designs, and way of theorizing (e.g., transformation of working models into empirical models), as well as in picking up and meeting challenges outlined in the cultural praxis of athletes’ careers (e.g., the holistic view of athletes, their development, and environment, participation action research). The three new trends in studying normative athletes’ transitions have shown a good fit to the existing transition taxonomy (normative vs. non-normative) and contribute Career assistance (CA)

Guided by intervention frameworks, CA professional culture and application of relevant tools

Career assistance programs and interventions aimed at helping athletes to deal with athletic and non-athletic career issues

New contributions to CA: *
empirical frameworks facilitating support in normative CT *
optimizing ATDEs *
dual career support services *
cultural transition interventions *
support to residents at elite training centers *
applying transition framework in working with Olympic athletes

Career transition (CT) research

Guided by career transition frameworks

Aimed at description and explanation of a transition process and outlining transition pathways in relation to: *
normative/ non-normative transitions *
athletic/ non-athletic transitions

New trends in studying normative CT: *
temporal structures of the juniorto-senior and athletic retirement transitions *
ecological transition research *
dual career (in sport and education) transitions research

Career development (CD) research

Guided by career development frameworks

Aimed at description of career stages and prediction of normative career transitions and career pathways

New focus on quasi-normative CT: *
cultural *
to elite training centers *
Olympic Games or other important competitions

New trend: *
dual career (in sport and education) pathways (including ones of transnational athletes)

Conceptualizations of an athlete as “a whole person”, athletes’ development as holistic, and athletic career as a part of life career

Figure 50.1 Sketch positioning new research trends within existing system of athlete career knowledge

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with: temporal structures of the junior-to-senior and athletic retirement transitions, new models to study ATDEs from the holistic ecological perspective and characteristics of successful ATDEs facilitating their junior athletes’ transition to the senior level, and deeper understanding of the nature and process of athletes’ dual career transitions. These studies also open new trends in career assistance, for example, using empirical phase-byphase models to facilitate psychological support in the junior-to-senior transition and the transition to the post-career, providing grounds for optimization of ATDEs, and creating content of dual career support services. The three other new research trends relevant to new kinds of athletes’ transitions were a weaker fit to both normative and non-normative transitions, and therefore a new kind – quasi-normative transitions (predictable for certain groups of athletes) – was introduced. The quasi-normative transitions described here – the cultural transitions, the transitions to elite residential training centers, and the transitions relevant to important competitions – move us away from the idea of “transitions in general” to a more nuanced picture of athletes’ transitions in sport and life depending on their level in sport, cultural positioning, and selected career pathways. These studies also contribute to career development research with career/dual career pathways (including those of transnational athletes), and to career assistance with recommendations on how to facilitate athletes’ cultural transitions (e.g., shared acculturation), how to support athletes’ transitioning to elite training centers, and how to use the transition framework in working with athletes in preparation for important competitions, including Olympic Games. The new research trends being positioned mainly in career transition research (the second floor) also contribute to the career development research (the first floor) and to career assistance (the third floor). This is exactly in the spirit of the cultural praxis of athletes’ careers confirming its role as staircase in the edifice. Keeping in mind that the career transition topic is advancing rapidly, the edifice outlining the current system of career knowledge in sport psychology is expected to be developed further. The suggested structure leaves an opportunity to position emerging research trends (e.g., an injury as a career transition; see Ivarsson, Stambulova, & Johnson, 2015) in which more data should be published to create high quality bricks to be included in the edifice.

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51 A B R OA D P E R SP E C T I V E ONTO FUTURE P R AC T IC E S O F A P P L I E D S P O RT P SYC H O L O G Y Carole A. Oglesby

Part 1: widen the lens The editors have given me an opportunity to forecast a future for applied sport psychology. It may be that I am seen as an “old hand” with many personal observations of a trajectory of development of applied sport psychology in the USA and, in a more limited view, globally. In some statistical procedures, if we have many repetitions of measures over time, future data points along a projected time line can be predicted. It works reasonably well as long as the observed data points conform to a discernable pattern: straight line, curvilinear, and the like. It also helps if your observations take place in a setting that does not undergo wildly fluctuating conditions. Perhaps you can see that simply “being older” does not give much advantage to the predictor in our particular environment. I am going ahead with forecasting but not because of what has been seen in applied sport psychology in our past but rather because of what I see today and out ahead. I believe no future is foretold, or fixed, by past events nor precisely our current circumstances. My views concerning our collective future are rooted in the assumptions of two psychological theories. The first is humanistic psychology whereby the future is chosen in both individual, singular, steps and in the aggregate of societal and cultural movements. The second stance comes from feminist psychology and its insistence that great insight may be gained from a re-directed focus away from those in power and control and towards the perspectives of individuals and groups that, consciously or not, have been marginalized and ignored as lacking import (Arnold, 2014; Freeman, Bourque, & Shelton, 2004; McHugh, 2014; Puhl, Brown, & Voy, 1985). From the platform of these theoretical systems, our global future, I would say, rests largely in how we manage to come to terms with living in balance and justice with other inhabitants of this small, beautiful, blue and green planet. One of the most crucial and problematic aspects of finding balance is in terms of the distribution of resources and opportunities, Right now, on the cusp of the United Nations Post 2015 Development Goal process, the imbalances of resources and opportunities have made ourselves, our communities, and our societies as misshapen as a tiny tree struggling to grow and live in a radioactive and toxic environment. 536

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Rather than speaking in generalizations, let me be specific to the opportunity and resource we know, and care, the most about: applied sport psychology services. Although in a theoretical sense, we have promulgated the notion that applied sport psychology potentially serves everyone the reality is that only athletes reliably receive applied sport psychology services. Further, even this occurs only in some countries and sporadically in a few others. Athletes are exemplars of what human performance can be. They show the pinnacles of performance of which we are capable. There is an important place in our human “optimal future” for these exemplars. We cannot, however, “starve the multitudes” to sustain the exemplars. Somebody (in Cold War days) tried that before and it did not work! We will rise and fall together in the decades before us. Right now, although we may not plan it (or want it) this way, the most current investigation of Association for Applied Sport Psychology reveals that a predominant portion of applied sport psychology service and focus goes to athletes. That group is the focus of our present worldview. I say the optimal future ahead rests on widening the lens of applied sport psychology to include all humans who move. Our lens must include all humans who move and can benefit in health, empowerment, economic advancement, and joy from optimal personal human movement expression. We need to find ways to reformulate what we do conceptually and, with our research, reformulate the curricula and design of our training, internship and externships experiences and reformulate and redistribute the career options to practitioners to extend our knowledge of services to all those within the widened lens. If this sounds a simple task it most certainly is not. Traditional sport psychology approaches and techniques are highly focused on the “now” of performance: activation level optimal for the moment, attentional choices for the movement, goal “smart.” All of this is posited as “self-regulation” in the moment of performance. This narrow attention to the “now” is not wrong when seen as the support structure for performance itself. If applied sport psychology is defined as a supporting structure for optimizing performance and developmental personal growth over a lifetime of shifting circumstances and capability levels, the awareness, understanding and skill sets must take into account two demand sets rather than one: (1) demand to understand, become aware, build skills to manage performance factors; and (2) demand to understand, build skills, manage dispositional factors of self and significant others, and accommodate evolving vulnerabilities in performance over time. The singular focus on the “now” of performance is an effective one for athletic competitions, military objectives, concert or dramatic performances or meeting a business goal. Much of the attention of our current conference and journals suggests a mobilization of great energy in pursuit of optimal performance in these contexts. The first of the demand sets (the “Now” focus) described above is crucial. My view of the optimal future for applied sport psychology is to balance our energy and priorities through attention and recognition to the second demand set which is closely aligned with what is termed developmental sport: sport psychology principles embedded in lifetime sport programs for all. Presently much of developmental sport is seen as a kind of “sport peace corps” in which programs are launched in the most dire of circumstances, Efforts are made to enable children to “play again” when they have endured, or are enduring, war, natural disasters and deprivation. Foundations, charities, corporations and even governments are flocking to sponsor such programs (www. beyondsport.org) and enormous good is envisioned. A child, community, country does not require calamity to benefit from health inducing sport and physical activity programs guided by optimizing psychological principles as well as appropriate medical, physiological and technical coaching. 537

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In addition to envisioning applied sport psychology professionals working individually, or in “encampments” such as Olympic Training Facilities or university athletic programs, we should begin to envision life-long sporting or other physical activity healthy practice sites (with psychological principles completely integrated). Because our history in applied sport psychology has so focused on “the performing athlete,” extra effort will be required to build appropriate and effective knowledge bases on children, differently-abled, and masters (late adult to older) populations. In countries other than the USA, where national government-stimulated initiatives are common, the goal could simply be to successfully integrate the work of applied sport psychology professionals into ongoing and new developmental initiatives. In the USA, efforts might engage university-based, Kinesiology program leaders to support community or statewide initiatives. None of this may sound particularly new but what is new is the “cradle to grave” commitment. It will be a new commitment that sport psychology professionals will serve through creating innovative, engaging sport and physical activity programs aimed at all individuals (mainstream, autistic, special education, differently-abled children, adults, aged). The goal of such programs will be to optimize performance and satisfaction to the extent possible and actualize as many of each individual’s capabilities as possible (through the life span). In thinking about what specific changes would need to be set in motion to reformulate applied sport psychology from what exists to this “widened lens” reality, two types of issues seem paramount: (1) altering compensations and motivations for those in the field and in training, (2) expanding knowledge bases. Motivation for developmental practice. This is an extremely practical consideration. In a few highly structured national/community settings, it might be determined that “X number” of sport psychology prepared professionals were needed for new “widened lens” programs and this structuring would be “managed” at a national level. Such contexts are not typical and so attracting new professionals away from an intention to be “the” consultant for a medalist skater, champion golfer, professional or university basketball team will be a challenge. If, however, “cradle to grave” programs, perceived as valuable community/national resources and supported with career placement and opportunities to advance to highly responsibilities and competencies were in place, there is a likelihood people will choose them. New areas of knowledge. As applied sport psychology consultants begin to work with what might be considered non-traditional clients, the most crucial new knowledge will be the dispositional challenges of working with trauma-affected individuals and attachments styles. These two content areas are not unknown but must surely be regarded as unfamiliar territory. In attending many conferences and reviewing sport psychology journals, trauma basics are found rarely and attachment styles practically never. In this brief foray into forecasting, I will present some basics about these areas emphasizing how, and why, I believe our applied “wide-lens” approach will utilize these basics as fundamental. Concluding the consideration of important new, or less traditional, content areas will be an examination of the transition from the binary male–female sex role division of the past to the multi-sexuality settings evolving before our eyes. One of the most fixed aspects of sporting activity has been male/female categories of competition. Even traditional “co-ed” competition is replete with rules about how many of each sex compose a team, who touches the ball and in what order. These “hard boundaries” are being tested by individuals changing their bio-medical gender identity and by fluid sexual identity changes which may even be frequent. This is another reality for which applied sport psychology must be readied.

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Part 2: widening the lens with new knowledge: trauma and attachment style relationships Trauma has been defined, especially since the world wars, as a dysfunction following an unanticipated single event; or multiple events beyond the range of the normal (Shalev, 1996; Williams & Sommer, 1994). More recently it has been understood that traumatic effects may also follow non-catastrophic events, additive effects of lower level, insidious stressors. Other work, particularly among racial and sexual minority groups, has identified trauma-like effects of daily “microaggressions” (Sue, Capodilupo, Torino, Holder, Nadal, & Esquilin, 2007). Trauma-affected behavior has additionally been observed following loss of loved ones and valued friends, teammates, colleagues, as well as following developmental losses and losses of positive aspects of self. Events impact on individuals in very differing ways with some individuals recovering function following particularly horrific events, and others affected life-long in ways resistant to healing. When trauma brings on diagnosable psychological conditions (post-traumatic stress disorder) it has been found that so-called “Active therapies” (movement therapies) aid in many circumstances. It is not my intention to invoke that kind of clinical intervention here. I am writing about the need for applied sport psychology professionals to understand the fundamental definitions and consequences of trauma, recognize possible trauma-affected behavior in clients and client groups and become adept at modifying their own behavior and program environment, to facilitate engagement of potential affected individuals. A particularly successful and effective effort that is exemplary of what many of us should be doing is to be found in the work of Lou Bergholz, founder of Edgework Consulting (www. edgeworkconsulting.com). It would be beneficial to review all their materials on traumasensitive curricula and coaching for a sense of innovation and possibilities. The athletes, who are the staple consumers of present applied sport psychology service, experience stress and, beginning to be recognized of late, trauma (Williams & Andersen, 1998). These events may be injuries (ending competitions or career), critical event losses, ill treatment from coaches. The list is endless. I suggest here that, as we widen the lens and become more inclusive in relation to those receiving services, the knowledge and awareness of “trauma sensitivity” becomes a much more pressing necessity. The longer one lives, the more opportunities for psychologically damaging events to be encountered. This is a truism in the best of circumstances. The present world environment is such that war, massive population migration, disease outbreak, natural disaster have become ever more common. “Trauma has a huge impact on all aspects of civilization and individual lives yet, the reality of trauma is often overlooked in societal approaches to public policy, education, and the resources offered for promotion of mental health” (Ogden, Minton, & Pain, 2006). There will be a pressing need to learn more, teach more, and practice more with a focus on trauma. The second content area to have drawn my attention is attachment styles. Attachment theory has been a staple of child development within psychology since Bowlby (1982) and further elaborations by Schore (1994). Based on work of colleagues at California State, Northridge (Thomson & Jaque, 2012), a link seemed possible between perceptions of trauma and attachment styles of performers. In this brief and speculative forecast, I will not detail a review of the attachment theory research. I simply suggest how further and more intensive investigation of trauma/attachment interaction may reveal it to be powerful and have observable relationship with performance and other consequences of performance. The first direct application of attachment theory in sport appears to occur in the work of Forrest (2008) who states

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There is virtually no research in the sport psychology field linking reports of early attachment experiences of stress such as trauma, abuse, rejection, pressure to achieve, a loss of a loved one, to how an athlete responds to competitive stress. Attachmentbased self-regulatory perspective suggests such experiences may be underlying individual differences in athletes’ attachment flexibility under competitive stress. (p. 242) Attachment theory emerged in the 1970s and 1980s as an interdisciplinary area involving child and developmental psychology, neurobiology, clinicians and performance psychologist (Vander Kolk, 1994). Generally, it was found that socio-effective interactions between an infant/child and primary caregiver either enhanced or inhibited a child’s neuroemotional development (Forrest, 2001). Centered attention (gazing), supportive and positive interactions often appeared crucial to the development of the child’s capacities to manage their own attention and activation levels in response to attachment related stress in experimental situations. The conclusions drawn were that the immature neuro-emotional system of an infant/ child cannot tolerate intense negative effect. Researchers described that insecurely attached children consistently experienced environments that were not attuned/responsive and have developed context independent (fixed) response patterns either avoidant to care-giver attachment or fixated on the caregiver and relationship (Schore, 1994). These studies were examining effects of caregivers’ practices that varied with differing degree of skill, awareness and maturity. It is, frankly, beyond my imagining to assess the attachment patterns evolving in contemporary settings of missing caregivers (i.e., individuals, family and entire community settings), school shootings, violence accompanying any foray outside the home or inside the home. It seems an inescapable conclusion that a large measure of what may be termed “attachment dysfunction” permeates the sporting context in which we work now and, most definitely, in a wide-lens future. Sport psychology literature has addressed constructs such as attentional style, perceptual style, and activation style. In the future we may add attachment style to this list. These predispositions are often viewed as primarily “gene-based” and thus personality characteristics to be understood and managed without much hope for change. An alternative view comes from a renowned biologist who has become a major voice calling for more focus on environmental factors and less certainty concerning the immutability of DNA (Lipton, 2005). Epigenetic research has established that DNA blue prints passed down through genes are not set in concrete from birth. Environmental influences including nutrition, stress, emotions, can modify the gene without changing the basic blue print. (p. 37) In “Biology of Belief ” (Lipton, 2005), Lipton described the origin of his journey away from a “DNA and genes control everything” stance to a widened lens of his own that grants important status to environmental factors. As a cell biologist I observed when I provided a healthy environment for my cells, they thrived. When the environment was less then optimal they faltered. When I adjusted the environment, the “sick cells” revitalized. (p. 19) 540

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Lipton’s book provides a science-based road map to understanding that environmental, even human created shifts, can alter human behavior and health outcome all the way up the chain of biology from individual cells to individuals and communities. The early attachment research was conducted with very young children and infants. Later, researchers were able to utilize an adult version of the attachment assessment instrument and demonstrated that three attachment style patterns were evident (George, Kaplan, & Main, 1996; Main, 1996). These are the patterns we might observe in applied sport psychology settings. s Secure: individual utilizes a flexible attachment to tasks and activation control in a variety of settings. s Insecure avoidant: individual appears dismissive of others during stressful situations; does not expect to be aided by others; devalues any help extended; may express unworthiness of attention or over concern with attempts to give help. s Insecure anxious: individual is preoccupied internally; inflexible and inattentive to environment and focused on self. The combination of insecure attachment styles, and a background of trauma experiences, creates a describable cluster of behaviors that can alert an aware professional that “traumasensitive” steps may be invoked. Edgework Consulting (2013) identifies the following possible descriptions: s Small, seemingly benign game or play incidents escalate rapidly even to violence. s Low awareness of own and others’ feelings and consequences of own behavior. s Low ability to make friends or form pro-social connections with participants or coaches. s Struggles to stay within the rules when things not going well. s Low capacity to handle losses or competition. s Low capacity to focus under stress. Based on my own study and consulting experiences, I have developed a set of strategies for self-regulation in the context of attachment related stress and trauma. In work with clients, or groups, in situations marked by elevated stress levels on intense emotion expression that appears ill matched with circumstance, these are steps I follow: 1 Off-field time devoted to deeper understanding of individual dispositions and how over-reliance on player’s own fixed pattern responses may not be optimal in performance. Example: 1.1 A rower may have a perceptual style favoring quiet, single focus settings such as early morning workouts in isolated settings. The typical “regatta environment” is practically the reverse of this comfort level. An understanding of perceptual styles, awareness of red flag signals to alert performer that stimuli are approaching a level negative to performance, and self-regulation skills to move personal activation closer to optimal becomes a valuable skill set for performance and life settings. Example: 1.2 Participants with attachment insecure styles are vulnerable to issues with coaches. Deepening understanding of predispositions that transcend specific settings and specific people can defuse some of the perceived injustices or hurt. (See Step 2 as well.) 541

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2 Off field/court time devoted to collecting a history of relationships with parents and caregivers, other important adult figures, coaches. My personal work has been much enhanced by readings/seminars on family system approaches. An example of an application of gaining background insight on familial patterns of engagement, potentially re-enacted in present settings, can be seen in a recent publication (Schinke, Fisher, Kamphor, Gould, & Oglesby, in press). 3 Clear away past traumatic events through off court/field story-telling and sharing involving “worst moment scenarios,” desensitization of event, boundary setting concerning that particular time/space … “that was then, how are things different now?” 4 Together with participants, frequently image and rehearse venues, conditions, expected/ unexpected interactions in order to build anticipations regarding possible vulnerabilities and antidotes for negative patterns. Example – if a participant demonstrates a tendency to withdraw and focus internally under stress, work together to develop and practice an efficient checklist of actions to take to maintain full awareness of the present surroundings. 5 Enable participant to build “system-savvy strategies” to maneuver complex or difficult interpersonal circumstances. The great majority of sport-oriented programs exist as part of an infrastructure. A youth club team is part of a league or a region of a national governing body. A masters (older adult) program is part of a community recreation or health system. The participating individual will be aided by building an awareness of the structure and limitations of the particular system. The individual needs to understand everything that happens is not a fault or flaw of the individual on-scene or personally directed to hurt you.

Part 3: binary sex demarcation in sport: gone with the wind? As we widen the lens of applied sport psychology services, invariably we will see inside our programs individuals who do not fit, may choose not to fit, into traditional sex, gender, sexuality role binaries. Many presently in the field experienced course work and training that may have over focused on men, were left with expectations of large differences between male and female in sport and, lastly, that male/female, masculinity and femininity were opposing/oppositional constructs. Textbooks, until feminism began to make an impact on social science, said nothing about women or catalogued female inadequacies compared to male counterparts (Eagly, Rose, Riger, & McHugh, 2012). Psychological instruments treated masculinity/femininity as “either/or categorical labels” until as recently as 1971 (Bem Sex Role Inventory – Holt & Ellis, 1998) and (Personal Attribute Scale – Spence & Helmrich, 1978) In a scant two to three decades, our social environment has altered from an admittedly simplistic, “pink and blue,” binary view of sex and gender to a social media-conscious world in which an individual has (presently) 54 different choices of Facebook labels to self-describe. Much more could be out ahead. In seeking to forecast, and perhaps aid in charting a course through choppy waters, I suggest we focus on “professional responsibility” as our north star. Looking for an acronym to summarize our professional responsibility in terms of the sexualities aspect of diversity, I call for a “PIES” model: P- Performance optimization focus I- Informed awareness focus E- Empathy and equity focus S- Safety focus 542

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Table 51.1 Basic, brief definitions Definitions Biological sex

Physical characteristics used to assign gender at birth, usually genitalia and perhaps chromosomes, hormones. More variation is possible than generally understood.

Gender identity

Inner concept of self as male, female or both or neither. Identity is expressed by dress, speech, behavior. One’s emotional, romantic, sexual orientation/performance areother aspects.

Forms of emotional/romantic/sexual orientation “Traditional” Male to female (Heterosexual) Female to male “Non traditional” Male to male (Homosexual) Female to female (Gay sometimes used as synonymous with homosexual but lesbian more common for female to female) Bisexual – attractions to either Gender fluidity Ranges of expression that change even day-to-day (Griffin & Carroll, 2010). Intersex This is a condition in which there are variations in sexual development such that an individual (baby, teen, or adult) has anatomical/biochemical characteristics of both sexes. Approximately 1 in 100 births result in infant surgery to correct the condition. Having the intersex condition does not necessarily affect gender identity. Transsexual Individual whose gender identity differs from birth-assigned gender. Some individuals “transition” socially through alterations in dress, speech, behavior only. Others decide to transition medically/physically in a multi-step process that may take years including hormone treatment and surgeries (Cunningham, 2012; Griffin & Carroll, 2010).

Before suggesting some steps to carry out this PIES model, we need to clear away a couple of stumbling blocks. The first, I suggest is, fear. When an individual comes to grips with persons who seem widely divergent to traditional behavior, appearance, societal norms, the emotion of fear can be experienced. The consultant may hear internal voices. “If I embrace this client’s worldview, will my own sexuality be questioned?” “If I embrace this client’s worldview, will other clients and colleagues avoid/shun me?” These are voices of internalized homophobia and trans-phobia and will need to be addressed as with other cultural diversity issues. In this brief chapter, no panacea will be offered but, along with course work in cultural competence, continuing workshops in cultural competence, habits of reflection and reflexivity, as well as peer and professional supervision are absolute necessities for the way ahead. Another early stumbling block for some of us is to get comfortable with new labels and new languages to utilize in everyday settings. Table 51.1 illustrates a few of the terms we will need to well understand. As the applied sport psychology consultant of the future, you will undoubtedly be working with clients, coaches, teachers, administrators, governing body officials, parents across this entire range of sexualities. Hopefully, if this is not yet a personal “wheel house,” use of the following practices may often be an aid. 543

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Table 51.2 Situational analysis worksheet: sexual variance culture matrix Athlete/client

Enmeshed Own

Involved Other

Adam (Q)

Own *

Barry (G)

Rejected Other

Own

Detached Other

Own

Other

*

*

Implications +

*

–

Cisco (H)

*

*

–

Alicia (L)

*

*

–

Bernie (B)

*

*

Costanza (T)

+ *

*

–

Key: Orientations (if known) – B bisexual; G gay; H heterosexual; L lesbian; Q queer; T transexual

1 Practice reflection and reflexivity on a regular and consistent basis. These terms have already been presented in this text so no restatement is necessary. Frequent audit of our own behavior, worldview, status, and privileges as a sexual being need to be part of the self-awareness package. 2 As an aspect of the “informed awareness” of the PIES model, carefully study and polish your own knowledge of forms of sexual variance (LGBTQ), heroes and heroines, and legends and history. Use this information to both connect and empower those you encounter in your work. 3 Use all the cultural competence skill set as outlined in this book. 4 Analyze terms/environment in regard to sexualities and how these realities may impact on all relationships and interactions occurring. In Table 51.2, you can see a fictitious team environment with which you might image issues, challenges and strengths that might unfold. This is a worksheet that might be filled out by an applied sport psychology consultant struggling to make some sense out of dynamics observed in a co-ed volleyball team with whom the consultant is working. Across the top are labels to represent the degree of involvement of each client/athlete with sexuality micro-cultures with which each might identify: Adam (designated by Q) a gay man with a high level of political and historical awareness of his sexuality; Barry – gay man; Cisco – heterosexual man; Alicia – lesbian; Bernice – bisexual woman; Costanza – transexual (transitioning from male to female through dress and behavior only). There are four categories for the degrees of involvement in each micro-culture. These categories are applications of constructs from Family Systems work: Enmeshed – no boundaries about separate contexts for sexual identity expression and little time given to awareness of other orientations; Involved – healthy boundaries with high awareness and acceptance of other orientations; Reject – dislike and/or deny orientation; Detached – little to no connectivity to sexual identity orientations. The table has “Own” and “Other” designations as any one of the four categories may be adopted for one’s own or others’ orientations. The consultant can use the charting to bring awareness to potential tensions or even hostility outbreaks among team members. Looking to the line for Adam, his involved status with his own and others’ identity orientations results in a “+” meaning positive interactions potentially trouble-free. A designation of a “–” in the final column means that a clash could be waiting or in play. For example, Barry seems obsessed with hetero culture (hyper masculinity) 544

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and rejecting of his own sexuality; Cisco often looks and talks a great deal like Barry, however he is a heterosexual enmeshed in his own micro-culture and rejecting of homosexuality; Alicia is enmeshed in lesbian culture and rejects hyper femininity and heterosexual women with whom she comes in contact. While the game is on, things can look fine, but in other team contexts the sport psychology consultant will have to be highly aware. A double negative indicates to the consultant that the individual may be in need of extra resources and support. Costanza, for example, is male but transitioning to female in dress and behavior without surgery or hormones. Costanza rejects the female identity she feels obligated to enact and is detached from other people and “mainstream” norms. Costanza could easily become a target for bullying, abuse, or even suicide. Sometimes, individuals such as those described feel incredibly fortunate to find sport performance as a “safe harbor” for troubled lives. Those of us with professional responsibilities in sport contexts must be certain that sport remains the safe harbor and not another context for personal torture.

Conclusion It is a “brave new world” before us. The challenges seem to me, immense. Our immediate surroundings inexorably press us towards simplistic methods of assessing program and success; how much can you earn, how many clients, how great is your reputation, what are the money/wins by the clientele. I am strongly suggesting a very different sort of metric. Yes, wanting/striving to enable achievement and optimizing all the potential of each person with whom we work is a goal. We can better approach all these goals through deepening and widening the lens of applied sport psychology. Moving ahead we will strive to know, and bond with, those with whom we work and measure our progress and success only by theirs. This is how we truly secure the future.

References Arnold, K. (2014). Behind the mirror: Reflective listening and its Tain in the works of Carl Rogers. The Humanistic Psychologist, 42, 354–369. BeyondSport. (2014). The leading global force in the convening of sport for social change. Retrieved March 17, 2015, from http;//www.beyondsport.org Bowlby, J. (1982). Attachment and loss: Attachment. New York: Basic Books. Cummingham, G. (2012). Sexual orientation and gender identity in sport. College Station, TX: Center for Sport Management Research and Education. Eagly, A., Rose, S., Riger, S., & McHugh, M. (2012). Feminism and psychology analysis of a half century of research on women and gender. America Psychologist. Washington, DC: APA. Edgework Consulting. (2013). Playing to heal: Designing trauma-sensitive sport programs. Boston, MA: Edgework Consulting. Edgework Consulting. (2015). Tools and resources. Retrieved March 17, 2015, from, http:// www. edgeworkconsulting.com Forrest, K. (2001). Towards an etiology of dissocative identity disorder: A neurodevelopmental approach. Consciousness and Cognition, 10, 259–293. Forrest, K. (2008). Attachment and attention in sport. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 2, 242–257. Freeman, S., Bourque, S., Shelton, C. (2004). Women on power: Leadership redefined. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press. George, C., Kaplan, N., & Main, M. (1996). Adult attachment interview protocol (3rd Ed.). Unpublished manuscript. Griffin, P., & Carroll, H. (2010). On the team: Equal opportunity for the transgender student athlete. East Meadow, NY: Women’s Sports Foundation. Holt, C., & Ellis, J. (1998). Assessing the current validity of the BSRI. Sex Roles, 39(11/12), 929–941. Lipton, B. (2005). Biology of belief. Hay House: New York City.

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Main, M. (1996). Introduction to the special section on attachment and psycho pathology: Overview of field of attachment. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64, 237–243. McHugh, M. (2014). On feminist leadership. The Feminist Psychologist, 41(4), 1–2. Ogden, P., Minton, K., & Pain, C. (2006). Trauma and the body: A sensation approach to psychotherapy. New York: W. W. Norton. Puhl, J., Brown, H., & Voy, R. (1985). Helping injured athletes cope. Sport science in perspective for women. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Schinke, R., Fisher, L., Kamphor, C., Gould, D., & Oglesby, C. (in press). Certified consultants’ experiences working with diverse clients. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology. Schore, A. (1994). Affect regulation at the origin of the self: The neurobiology of emotional development. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Shalev, A. (1996). Stress vs traumatic stress from acute homeostatic reaction to chronic psychopathology. In B. Vander Kolk, A. McFarlane, & L. Weisaeth (Eds.), Traumatic stress (pp. 77–101). New York: Guilford. Spence, J., & Helmrich, R. (1978). Masculinity and femininity: Their psychological dimension correlates and outcomes. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Sue, D., Capodilupo, C., Torino, G., Holder, A., Nadal, K., & Esquilin, M. (2007). Racial microaggressions in everyday life: Implications for clinical practice. American Psychologist, 62, 271–286. Thomson, P., & Jaque, V. (2012). Dissociation and the adult attachment interview in artists and performing artists. Attachment and Human Development, 14, 145–160. Vander Kolk, B. (1994). The body keeps the score: Memory and the evolving psychology of posttraumatic stress. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 1, 253–265. Williams, M., & Sommer, J. (1994). Handbook of post-traumatic therapy. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Williams, J., & Andersen, M. (1998). Psychosocial antecedents of sport injury: Review and critique of the stress injury model. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 10, 5–25.

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52 T E A M R E SI L I E N C Y I N SP O RT Research to practice David Yukelson and Robert Weinberg

A few years ago in an NFL playoff game, the Kansas City Chiefs were leading the Indianapolis Colts 38–10 early in the third quarter, and at that point very few people gave the Colts a chance to win. But evidently nobody told the Colts (and particularly quarterback Andrew Luck) that they had no chance to win. With an incredible comeback, they went on the beat the Chiefs 45–44 and overcame the second largest deficit in NFL playoff history. This dramatic comeback might be characterized as the Indianapolis Colts being resilient as a team; never giving up and finding a way to overcome adversity. More recently, the Golden State Warriors led by NBA MVP Stephen Curry overcame a 20 point fourth quarter deficit on the road to defeat the New Orleans Pelicans 123–119 in what has become the third greatest comeback in NBA Playoff history. Stephen Curry had a phenomenal shooting game, scoring 40 points, and made seven three pointers including one in the final seconds of regulation to send the game into overtime, and another at the beginning of overtime that gave the Warriors the lead for good. In a post-game TV interview, when asked what it meant to win this playoff game on the road in the manner in which they did, Curry made reference to the Warriors being a resilient stubborn basketball team doing whatever it takes to find a way to win. During the fourth quarter run, “we executed our assignments, got defensive stops when we had to, and kept our composure” (Associated Press, 2015). In the same interview, teammate Klay Thompson was quoted as saying “we have not been in that position a lot this year, but mental toughness and resilience is probably (among) our best traits. It was an amazing way to finish the game” (Associated Press, 2015). Similar scenarios have occurred in college football playoffs as well. When asked at a press conference what impressed Coach Urban Meyer the most about his Ohio State Buckeye team following a 42–35 come from behind victory against perennial National Champion Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, Meyer praised his team for its resilience after trailing 21–6 in the second quarter. He said at times we played awful. We put our defense in difficult situations and got away from playing Ohio State football that we preach regarding the importance of field position. And we overcame it with some excellent efforts, which is what you have 547

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to have at times. But this is a great team victory because we didn’t play well at times but we found a way to win. (Allstate Sugar Bowl, 2015) The same resilience was duplicated two weeks later in the National Championship Game; Ohio State overcame four turnovers and a touchdown early in the game to defeat the University of Oregon by 22 points (42–20). But this did not happen by accident, throughout the year; the team worked with a leadership consultant on resilience training, harnessing the power of positive thoughts and responses to almost every imaginable event (Cohen, 2015). All season long, the offense, defense, and specialty teams picked each other up. They believed in one another, cared about each other, and played with a certain psychological edge; a will to win and determination they were not going to lose. When asked what powered this team’s resilience, players said it’s about playing for each other and having a brotherhood of trust (Cohen, 2015). Unfortunately, from a research perspective, the concept of team resiliency in sport has been virtually neglected with only anecdotal reports of individuals (rarely teams) demonstrating what some consider to be resiliency in the face of adversity. Thus, the purpose of this chapter is twofold. First, the concepts of individual resiliency and mental toughness will be explored and developed from a research perspective. Second, practical examples of team resiliency and collective mental toughness in sport will be presented, linking the research to the real world practice of team resiliency.

Individual resiliency and mental toughness The notion of resiliency and mental toughness has long been recognized by coaches and athletes as being important in sport. Over the past decades, it has become evident to sport psychologists that some people perform well and react positively to aversive challenging situations, whereas others become overwhelmed and react or perform poorly. How people respond to adversity has been investigated in different contexts such as business (Riolli & Savicki, 2003), education, (Gu & Day, 2007), the military (Palmer, 2008; Reivich, Seligman, & McBride, 2011), and sport (Galli & Vealey, 2008). Having the personal resources to draw upon to effectively deal with difficult situations and adapt well in the face of adversity has been discussed under the concept of resiliency. In part because resiliency has been studied within a wide range of contexts, many different definitions of resilience have emerged from divergent literatures (see Fletcher & Sarkar, 2013, for a review). As such, it is important to be sensitized to the different sociocultural factors that may influence exactly how resilience is defined across diverse populations. From a conceptual perspective, individual resilience can be defined as encompassing “the role of mental processes and behavior in promoting personal assets and protecting an individual from the potential negative effect of stressors” (Fletcher & Sarkar, 2013, p. 16). In general, the literature on resilience points to the importance of two core concepts: handling adversity and positive adaptation. In essence, resilience is required when individuals encounter aversive situations, which can range from daily hassles (e.g., being in traffic and running late for work) to major life events (e.g., a divorce or death in the family). The positive adaptation refers to one’s capacity to bounce back and recover quickly from difficulties met and must be appropriate for the adversity encountered. Researchers have identified many factors that help protect individuals from the negative consequences of aversive events and thus provide a positive adaptation to stress including self-esteem, hardiness, self-efficacy, positive attitude, optimism, positive affect, and positive emotions. 548

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It is also important to distinguish resiliency from coping as these are often seen as the same thing. Whereas resiliency influences how an event is appraised and perceived, coping refers to the strategies employed following the appraisal of a stressful situation (Fletcher & Sarkar, 2013). How people respond to stress and/or adversity can be either positive or negative, subsequently impacting their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). From a mediating perspective, not only does resilience help people regard stress and adversity in a positive way, but it affects their decisions and choices to respond in a given situation appropriately and cope effectively afterwards. In addition, it should be noted that positive life events (e.g., getting married or being promoted to a higher job position) that are not ostensibly related to a higher probability of undesirable outcomes, could also be relevant to defining resilience. For example, getting married is typically seen as a positive event with the potential for many positive outcomes mentally, physically, and spiritually. However getting married also requires many different changes, compromises, and adaptations to living with a partner that involve individuals (and couples) needing a wide range of interpersonal relationship resources to making this union work. This can be seen with the high divorce rate, where evidently many people do not possess (or use) these relationship skills, and over the long haul, a positive situation turns into a negative one. Although there has been a fair amount of research on the conceptualization, definition, and empirical study of resilience in general psychology, the study of individual resilience in sport has been fairly recent. The notion of resiliency seems appropriate for the study of sport because one needs to adapt effectively and bounce back quickly from adversity, whether it is performing poorly, coming back from an injury, being cut from a team, or several losing seasons back-back. From an attributional perspective, articles have been written about athletes successfully developing positive contextual coping skills and solution based thinking to deal with adversity which is central in facilitating a sense of hope, optimism, belief, and determination in accomplishing goals deemed important for that particular person (Schinke & Peterson, 2002). Having the personal resources to cope effectively with adverse challenging situations and the ability to excel in environments where athletes’ capacities and capabilities are often stretched to the limits is what resiliency and mental toughness in sport is all about. Based on his extensive work with elite athletes, Jim Loehr (1982) was one of the first to write on the topic of resilience and mental toughness in sport. Establishing a connection between emotional self-control and a specific kind of energy, thinking, and mental focus associated with an athlete performing well under pressure, Loehr developed an Athletic Excellence Training program specifically geared at building athletes’ sense of resilience and mental strength. The first study specifically designed to investigate resiliency in sport was conducted by Galli and Vealey (2008). The researchers interviewed athletes who described their experiences with resiliency and the following key findings emerged from the study: (a) having personal resources and psychological traits such as self-determination, competitiveness, optimism, persistence, and commitment were seen as critical to overcoming adversity, (b) the heart of the resilience process was the use of coping strategies to deal with unpleasant emotions such as feeling embarrassed, angry, confused, and frustrated, (c) sociocultural influences such as social support were seen as critical to being resilient, (d) sustainability and resiliency in coping with adversity extended over a considerable period of time (usually months), (e) although dealing with adversity was often unpleasant, many positive outcomes resulted from these coping efforts including learning from the experience and developing perspective, gaining motivation to help others, and generally being strengthened because of the adversity. Similarly, in a study examining psychosocial competencies among elite junior soccer players, Holt and Dunn (2004) found that resiliency emerged as one of the major 549

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themes central to success. Specifically, the abilities to respond positively to adversity and perform well under pressure were found to be important aspects of resilience. Using a quantitative approach, researchers have explored individual qualities of resilience in cricket (Gucciardi, Jackson, Coulter, & Mallett, 2011). Some of these qualities included remaining focused under pressure situations, adapting to a changing environment, and coping well with unpleasant feelings such as frustration and anger. Alternatively, using a qualitative approach to study the relationship between resilience and performance success among Olympic champions, Fletcher and Sarkar (2012) found a number of psychological factors helped buffer these elite athletes from the potential negative effects of different stressors. These psychological factors included concentration, confidence, commitment, and social support, all of which helped these athletes cope more effectively with the perceived stressors by influencing their appraisal processes and thoughts about their particular challenges. Specifically, they had more constructive cognitions and positive reactions to perceived stressful situations and subsequently took more personal responsibility and accountability for their thoughts, feelings, and actions. More recently, Sarkar and Fletcher (2014) identified certain types of people who choose to actively engage in challenging situations that present opportunities for them to raise their performance level and thus exhibit resilience. Results revealed several themes that characterize these thriving and resilient individuals including a sense of control, flexibility and adaptability, balance and perspective, a positive and proactive personality, and perceived social support. Finally, it is not uncommon for people (coaches, athletes, fans, and media) to interchange the terms resilience and mental toughness. Striving to build a conceptual framework for understanding mental toughness in sport, Jones, Hanton, and Connaughton (2002) developed a series of focus group interviews with elite athletes designed to assess perceived idyllic attributes characterizing a mentally tough resilient performer. Four key attributes emerged from the study; mentally tough athletes were found to have an internalized motivation and drive to succeed, a strong belief in self, a connected and engaged performance focus, and a resilient determination that enabled them to bounce back following setbacks. The authors operationally defined mental toughness as the natural or developed psychological edge that allows athletes to generally cope better than their opponents with the many demands that sport places on a performer, and specifically be more determined, focused, confident, and in control under pressure. Subsequent research has provided support for Jones et al.’s (2002) conceptualization of mental toughness in sport (Bull, Shambrook, James, & Brooks, 2005; Gucciardi, Gordon, & Dimmock, 2008; Jones, Hanton, & Connaughton, 2007), while others have voiced methodological concerns about sample size used and generalizations made that are not theoretically based (Crust, 2008). In addition, resilience is not the same thing as mental toughness (Gucciardi et al., 2008). Whether one wins or loses a competitive contest, demonstrating grit, determination not to give up, a stick-to-itiveness no matter what the situation (characteristics of resilience), should be thought of as a byproduct or component of being mentally tough. In summary, helping athletes bounce back quickly and remain focused and resilient when things are not going well is a key to athletic success. Looking forward, the individual concepts of resilience and mental toughness need to be further distinguished and situations requiring resilience versus mental toughness need to be explored. This should help coaches to know whether to try to build mental toughness or simply resilience in their athletes.

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Team resilience Although these recent studies have started to provide more insight and understanding of the resilience process of individuals, until recently there has been a dearth of research investigating team or group resilience. Following in the tradition of self-efficacy, which was introduced as an individual construct (Bandura, 1977) and then expanded to the group concept of collective efficacy (Bandura, 1990), researchers are beginning to investigate the concept of group or team resiliency (Brodsky et al., 2011). Self-efficacy is defined as the strength of one’s conviction that he or she can successfully execute a behavior required to produce a certain outcome (Bandura, 1977). Efficacy expectations determine how much effort people expend on a task and how long they will persist in the face of adversity or setbacks. According to Bandura (1990), one measure of a successful athlete is her/his ability to respond to adversity and setbacks with an unshakable sense of self-efficacy. Collective efficacy reflects a commitment on the part of group members to specific goals and shared purposes that are attainable through teamwork, persistence in the face of adversity, and a concerted team effort (collective buy in, never give up, can do, will do). In differentiating individual self-efficacy from collective efficacy, Bandura (1990) noted: Perceived collective efficacy is likely to influence how much effort players put forth together, their ability to remain perseverant and task oriented during periods when the team is struggling, and their capacity to bounce back from wrenching defeats. … They do not panic when they fall behind. Rather, they typically stage successful comebacks by giving determined effort in pressure-packed closing periods of games. (pp. 155–156) Myers and Feltz (2007) further clarified that collective efficacy is not a fixed trait, but rather a dynamic construct that may fluctuate and change during the course of a season or even within a game itself. Most of the research on group resilience has emanated from organizational outreach projects or drug and alcohol team approaches (e.g., Bennett, Aden, Broome, Mitchell, & Rigdon, 2010; Brodsky et al., 2011). For example, Bennett et al. (2010) developed a team resilience program for young restaurant workers who were at risk for alcohol and other drug abuse. Results revealed that over the course of educational training sessions, participants demonstrated higher team resilience on a variety of different psychological and behavioral coping measures. They went on to note “resilience may be viewed as much a social factor existing in teams as an individual trait” (Bennett et al., 2010, p. 225). In essence, this suggests that team members do not exist in isolation; rather they can positively adapt to environmental conditions through collective efforts. When researching resilience at the group or team level, the focus has thus shifted to different psychosocial factors such as interpersonal trust, cohesion, communication, and collective efficacy. In addition, research has identified a number of resilience processes working at the organizational level such as developing shared value systems, focusing actions based on an organization’s mission, setting a team culture which emphasizes interdependence, and reframing organizational stressors (Wagstaff, Fletcher, & Hanton, 2012). The notion of team resilience has a great deal of relevance for sport teams as there are numerous examples of team sports (e.g., football, basketball, ice hockey, soccer, rugby, baseball), and countries (as well as states and cities) typically identify with teams more than with individuals. Unfortunately, team resilience has been virtually ignored in terms of empirical research with the notable exception of a recent study by Morgan, Fletcher, 551

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and Sarkar (2013). They employed focus groups from five different elite teams to study the concept of team resilience. Team resilience was defined as “a dynamic, psychosocial process which protects a group of individuals from the potential negative effect of the stressors they collectively encounter. It comprises the processes whereby team members use their individual and combined resources to positively adapt when experiencing adversity” (p. 549). Results revealed four main themes that were characteristic of elite resilient sport teams. These included (a) mastery approaches, which focused on team members having a shared commitment to team improvement and excellence. Resilient teams focused on what was important to success and filtered out those things that were irrelevant; (b) group structure, which helped shape both group norms and roles so that the entire team had a shared vision and blueprint of what it takes to be successful; (c) social capital, which refers to the existence of high quality interactions and caring relationships within teams. Players spoke of forming emotional bonds with teammates as well as receiving social support to help them “get up” and “stay up” for both practices and competition; and (d) collective efficacy which refers to a group’s shared beliefs in its ability to successfully perform a given task. Resilient teams not only gained confidence from achieving success, but they also identified that the experience of working through adversity served as a critical source of collective efficacy. This study is important because it provides a clearer definition of what team resilience is and proposes a theoretical framework for researchers to investigate characteristics of what resilient sport teams might look like, as well as identify psychosocial processes that facilitate the group’s ability to adapt and adjust positively during challenging adverse situations. Along these lines, using narrative analysis of autobiographies from members of the 2003 England Rugby Union Championship Team, Morgan, Fletcher, and Sarkar (2015) investigated the dynamic and temporal nature of team resilience over the course of a season in an attempt to better explain some of the underpinning psychosocial processes. Consistent with their earlier research (Morgan et al., 2013), findings revealed five significant psychosocial processes associated with team resilience over time: a) transformational leadership (building of relationships and reciprocal communication between coaches and athletes); b) shared team leadership (spread of leadership responsibilities among team members promoting a greater sense of ownership and collective accountability); c) team learning (seeking feedback and drawing positive lessons from adverse situations encountered during the year); d) social identity (creating a distinct team identity/mentality such as “band of brothers”); and e) positive emotions (pride in accomplishment and positive emotional energy transmitted within the team). These findings are consistent with a recent study by Yukelson and Rose (2014) investigating sustainable excellence and processes underlying championship team cultures (strong leadership from within the team, role execution and synergistic team functioning, individual and collective accountability, and a resilient collective will to win).

Psychosocial factors important to building team resilience One commonality from the above findings is that the quality of interpersonal relationships and group process is critical for the development of team resilience. This includes the importance of having a shared vision and unity of purpose, invested energy directed toward achieving team goals, understanding and acceptance of group norms and team roles, effective communication and emotional bonding among team members. In essence, what is being described is the development of a team culture that all players buy into that is conducive for team success. A good example of effective group process comes from a recent narrative case study of the coaching staff of the New Zealand All Blacks world-class rugby team (Hodge, Henry, & 552

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Smith, 2014). Although many different factors were found to contribute to team resilience, two of the more critical ones were transformational leadership and motivational team climate. Transformational leadership involves coaches building relationships with players based on personal, emotional, and informational exchanges, with the goal of developing players to their fullest potential (Arthur, Hardy, & Woodman, 2012). Transformational leadership is about shaping how individuals and groups attend to and subsequently respond to a given situation, not necessarily by telling people what to do but by empowering and involving them in decisions that impact them directly. Successful teams that are invested in one another spend valuable time talking, listening, evaluating, sharing, adjusting, and adapting to changing conditions and situations that arise (Katzenbach & Smith, 2005; Yukelson, 1987). Wanting to create an identity unique for the All Blacks, the coaching staff involved the athletes in creating a shared vision and created challenging performance goals for the team and discussed support needed to achieve the vision. Based on two critical turning points that occurred throughout the course of a few years, the coaches instituted a non-hierarchical dual management model of leadership including instituting a team leadership council to promote empowerment and give responsibility and ownership to the players for their team’s success. This type of transformational leadership model involving shared decision-making and reciprocal influence has been shown to increase collective accountability and team performance in a variety of contexts including business management (Katzenbach & Smith, 2005), developmental global initiatives (Scharmer & Kaufer, 2013), and sport (Yukelson, 1987) and was successful with the All Blacks. Motivational climate in sport refers to the values emphasized by coaches and their behaviors designed to influence athletes’ motivation and behavior. The key elements in the All Blacks’ motivational climate reflected an autonomy-supportive coach approach, which offered accountability for decision-making, encouraged athletes to take initiative, and used empowering performance feedback (e.g., feedback based on improving strengths, not just reducing weaknesses). This autonomy-supportive coach approach emphasizes self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2002), fostering the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness and has been supported by considerable research evidence in sport (e.g., Gillet, Vallerand, Amoura, & Baldes, 2010; Lyons, Rynne, & Mallett, 2012). Similarly, recent research by Fransen et al. (2014) may add some insight into leadership factors impacting team resilience. The study looked at the impact strong athlete team leaders have on two types of team confidence; collective efficacy (teammates’ confidence in their team’s ability to function effectively), and team outcome confidence (teammates’ confidence in their team’s ability to obtain a goal or win a game) seems to fit nicely with the conclusions presented by both Hodge et al. (2014) and Morgan et al. (2015). Strong athlete leaders were found to significantly contribute to their teammate’s identification as a team, their teams’ outcome confidence to successfully outperform their opponent, and overall sense of collective team efficacy. Based on structural equation modeling, collective efficacy was demonstrated to mediate the relationship between expressed team confidence in the leader and team outcome confidence. In addition, results revealed athlete leaders not only affect their teammates but their coach’s collective efficacy and team outcome confidence as well. The findings are one of the first in a sport setting to highlight the potential value of collective efficacy and team identification as psychosocial processes underlying how athlete leaders impact their teammates’ team outcome confidence. In the future, directly exploring the link between collective efficacy and team resilience would be helpful to coaches trying to build teams that have athletes who are confident in each other and can withstand and 553

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even prosper in difficult and stressful situations. Another area to explore would be isolating some of the antecedent psychosocial variables identified by Morgan et al. (2013, 2015) and Hodge et al. (2014) that might influence team resilience such as self-determination and motivational climate, team leadership, collective team identity, reciprocal influence, and positive emotional energy.

Practical applications: interviews with coaches and athletes on team resilience To improve ecological validity and get a better understanding from a practical perspective of the salience of what team resilience might encompass in sport, select coaches and athletes at Penn State were asked for their viewpoints to see how their ideas fit with current research. It was interesting to note most coaches related to the concept of team mental toughness as opposed to team resilience, so we used the terms interchangeably when asking for their opinion. Similarly, when people think about the concept of resilience, they usually think in terms of dealing with some type of setback, failure, or difficult situation. However, resilience also pertains to sustaining good performance over periods of time. It is not easy to repeat as a champion. Everyone expects you to win, and the other team is targeting you as well. In the coach–athlete interviews presented below, they often speak of resilience in terms of excellence and expectations for continued success. Penn State Women’s Volleyball Coach Russ Rose, whose teams have won six NCAA National Championships, identified a number of factors associated with team resilience including the importance of commitment and accountability (collective buy-in to the team’s mission each year, starts the first day of practice), team grit and determination (grinding it out on a daily basis, being mentally tough in game situations), composure and choices (have to make good decisions under pressure), and being great competitors (embrace each competitive opportunity, find a way to win no matter what the situation). He went on to add “don’t let a mistake beat you twice.” Similarly, Beth Alford-Sullivan, former Penn State Head Coach and current Director of Men’s and Women’s Track and Field at the University of Tennessee, believes team resilience is reflected in the collective synergy of a team directed toward the task at hand and intended outcome. Visualize the following scenario: the 4 × 400 relay is the final event of the track meet, the outcome of the meet is on the line, each member of the relay team must find a way to dig deep inside, get it done individually and bring home the victory for the team. Although the team won the relay with a gritty determined effort, it was not one event that won the meet but rather the synergistic efforts of everyone combined contributing to the final team outcome. From a collective belief and resilient standpoint, at the end, the relay team was not going to be denied. Insights from both coach Rose and coach Alford-Sullivan about group process, shared beliefs, collective efficacy, team focus, and resilient determination supports some of the aforementioned research presented above (Fransen et al., 2014; Galli & Vealey, 2008; Holt & Dunn, 2004; Morgan et al., 2013). Highlighting the importance of leadership within the team (Morgan et al., 2015), Penn State ice hockey coach Guy Gadowsky believes team mental toughness is a byproduct and extension of the team leader’s mental toughness. Whether it is leadership at practice, discipline on the ice, competitive zeal, or focus under pressure, the team as a whole will most often emulate the leadership core of the team. Likewise, Kori Chapic, captain of the Penn State Women’s Soccer team said collective team toughness is defined by the mentality of team leaders and works its way throughout the team (as she noted on the field, that extra 554

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oomph and push that leaders emulate and others pick up; in games, it means someone stepping up in pressure situations and making something great happen); it all adds to the team’s sense of collective resolve. Women’s ice hockey coach Josh Brandwene said team mental toughness comes down to two factors: collective efficacy and social contagion (Josh has a strong educational background in social learning and positive psychology). He says if his team truly believes in themselves and has a high degree of collective efficacy, the greater their sense of collective resilience and resolve should be. If something goes wrong on the ice, the team has to continue to believe in one another, play within their system, and give maximum effort/energy directed toward getting the job done. Along these lines, when someone steps up and performs well under pressure, the group draws positive energy from one another and the social contagion can get infectious (strong support for Morgan et al.’s (2013, 2015) thoughts about group structure, mastery attempts, social capital, internal team leadership, and emotional bonding, as well as Bandura’s (1990) writings about collective efficacy). Head Penn State baseball coach Rod Cooper feels team mental toughness is tied to accountability and respect (e.g., for yourself, the team, the program). The game is all about being resilient and handling frustration. Individually as a player, he feels you have to be mentally disciplined and focused, willing to make choices based on what is good for the team at that particular moment and not what might be best for you. If something goes wrong, don’t point fingers, don’t make excuses, and don’t let bad body language impact others. You have to stay the course, keep battling, execute, and get the job done (e.g., in baseball terminology, win the next pitch; win this at bat, win the next inning, etc.). David Taylor, two-time NCAA National Champion and Captain of the Penn State Wrestling Team that won four consecutive NCAA Team Championships says team toughness starts at the top with the vision and expectations set forth by the coaching staff and filters down through the team in terms of the dedicated work ethic and day-to-day commitment required in building a championship program. In terms of resiliency, he noted each of the four years his team won a national championship; there was some kind of galvanizing experience the team had to work through before eventually winning the championship. One year it was a couple of guys persevering through the arduous process of wrestle backs, scoring valuable points at the end of the tournament to help the team win the Big Ten Championship by the slightest of margins, serving as a precursor two weeks before winning the first of four NCAA Championships. Another year, being inspired by the resilient determination of a sixth-year senior (medical redshirt) working through injury and adversity his entire career to earn AllAmerican honors his final year. Throughout the four years, the guys believed in one another, fed off of each other’s performances, wrestled with great pride, passion, intensity, and team toughness. Finally, former head basketball coach at Bucknell University, Pat Flannery, used one word to describe teams that are resilient: stick-to-itiveness. During the course of a basketball game, a team must be able to withstand the ebb and flow of momentum shifts in a game. In order to sustain focus and work on composure and resiliency skills, his team adopted a boxing metaphor: give the first punch (i.e., make things happen quickly); be prepared to take the next sequence of punches (i.e., keep your poise and belief, adapt and be resilient); give the punch back (i.e., next surge). Coach Flannery’s teams always personified a blue-collar work ethic and never say die mentality. He found the boxing metaphor to be very helpful in building team resolve during the course of a season. The coaches and athletes have provided valuable input for practitioners and researchers to consider. Over the course of a season, there are a variety of psychosocial factors that can 555

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impact team resilience. Looking forward, each team has its own goals, normative operating procedures, roles, and interpersonal team culture. It is important we learn more about explanatory styles and attributions of resilient athletes and teams (Schinke & Peterson, 2002) and the impact athletes stepping up and making big plays in pressure situations has on group process and a team’s collective belief and resolve. Likewise, drawing on performance profiling (Butler & Hardy, 1992) and transformational team building techniques (Yukelson, 1987), it would interesting to have athletes brainstorm at the beginning of a season characteristics of synergistic resilient teams they admire, and proactively identify strategies on how best to respond when confronted with difficult situations in the future.

Conclusion To achieve consistent performance at the highest levels requires commitment, belief, focus, composure, self-determination, persistence, and resilience. In this chapter, resilience has been looked at both from a theoretical and practical perspective. Resilience has been linked to both individual and collective self-efficacy (positive thoughts and expectations, effort expenditure and persistence in the face of adversity), emotional self-control and composure (poise, focus, arousal regulation and energy management, decision-making under pressure), and mental toughness (embracing the situation, thriving under pressure, having a strong will to win) and has emerged as a major theme central to optimal performance in sport (Bandura, 1977, 1990; Fletcher & Sakar, 2013; Galli & Vealey, 2008; Jones et al., 2002, 2007; Sarkar & Fletcher, 2014). Traditionally, psychological resilience has been operationally defined as an individual’s ability to properly adapt to stress, bounce back from adversity and/or setbacks quickly in a positive manner. Recent research addresses another component that is relevant to athletics: sustaining excellence and exceptional performance for the duration of an event, season, or even seasons (Gucciardi et al., 2008; Morgan et al., 2015). In ferreting out the most salient keystone characteristics of resilience as it pertains to sport, the following variables seem most relevant: a) having strong self-belief and positive mindset (e.g., the efficacy expectation and belief “I can and will get this done”); b) selfdetermination and personal resolve (perseverance and willpower to think confidently when confronted with adversity); c) stick-to-itiveness (keep battling, stay with it, remain focused on the goal and task at hand); d) adaptability and mental agility (having the capacity to adapt and refocus quickly when difficulties arise while competing and/or performing). When it comes to team toughness, there are a variety of psychosocial team variables that come into play such as leadership, communication, role identification and understanding, belief in and caring for one another that interact with some of the individual resilient attributes noted above whereby team members use their individual and collective resources to positively adapt when confronted with significant adversity or challenging conditions (Morgan, Fletcher, & Sarkar, 2013, 2015). Based on information presented in the chapter, some of the key psychosocial characteristics that are part of and influence team resilience include: a) having a shared vision and strong collective team identity (collective buy in; everyone committed, invested, and engaged in achieving team’s mission; empowered team persona); b) culture of caring (quality interactions and emotional bonds with teammates, authentic communication based on trust, mutual respect, and reciprocal influence); c) solid internal team leadership (leaders step up at crunch time; they lead by example and inspire others to follow); d) collective belief (strong-minded determination to get the job done); e) team synergy and collective resolve (teammates drawing positive emotional energy from one

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another, no matter what the situation; never say die mentality); f ) ongoing team learning (reviewing, adapting, adjusting, always positive lessons to draw from each experience). In terms of future research, Morgan et al. (2013, 2015) extend resilience research by providing greater definitional clarity of resilience at the team level (i.e., what team resilience is; what resilient teams might look like) and by proposing a psychosocial framework to profile resilient characteristics of elite sport teams. Although such knowledge provides descriptive information about the psychosocial variables and factors that enable teams to cope effectively under pressure, little is known about the temporal dynamics of how a team develops and maintains collective resilience over the course of a season, so this would be a good area for future research to explore from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective. In summary, resilient teams believe in one another and find a way to get the job done. They are invested in each other and are persistent in what they set out to do as a team. When resiliency calls, they have each other’s backs. No matter what the situation, the goal is to compete and show great collective resolve, drawing positive emotional energy from one another, battling until the competitive contest ends. The lessons learned about team resilience being a process, not a final destination, is sustainable and transformational. You may not always win the competitive contest but if you are willing to look within to find personal meaning and feedback from the experience about individual and collective resilience, the lessons learned can be quite valuable.

References Allstate Sugar Bowl. (2015). Ohio State post-game press conference transcript, January 1, 2015. Retrieved from http://www.allstatesugarbowl.org/site827.php Arthur, C., Hardy, L., & Woodman, T. (2012). Raising the Olympic dream: Vision, support and challenge. Reflective Practices, 13, 399–406. Associated Press. (2015). Stephen Curry, Warriors cap 20-point, 4th-quarter comeback with OT win. Retrieved from “ESPN.com”, April 24, 2015. Retrieved from http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/ recap?gameId=400790903 Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84, 191–215. Bandura, A. (1990). Perceived self-efficacy in the exercise of personal agency. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 2, 128–163. Bennett, J., Aden, C., Broome, K., Mitchell, K., & Rigdon, W. (2010). Team resilience for your restaurant workers: Research-to-practice adaptation and assessment. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 15, 223–236. Brodsky, A., Welsh, E., Carillo, A., Talwar, G., Scheibler, J., & Butler, T. (2011). Between synergy and conflict: Balancing the processes of organizational and individual resiliency in an Afghan women’s community. American Journal of Community Psychology, 47, 217–235. Bull, C., Shambrook, C., James, W., & Brooks, J. (2005). Towards an understanding of mental toughness in elite English cricketers. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 17, 209–227. Butler, R. J., & Hardy, L. (1992). The performance profile: Theory and application. The Sport Psychologist, 6, 253–264. Cohen, B. (2015). The power of Ohio State’s positive thinking. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved January 8, 2015 from http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-power-of-ohio-states-positive-thinking-1420738209 Crust, L. (2008). A review and conceptual re-examination of mental toughness: Implications for future researchers. Personality and Individual Differences, 45, 576–583. Deci, E., & Ryan, R. (2002). Handbook of self-determination research. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. Fletcher, D., & Sarkar, M. (2012). A grounded theory of psychological resilience in Olympic champions. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 13, 669–678. Fletcher, D., & Sarkar, M. (2013). Psychological resilience: A review and critique of definitions, concepts, and theory. European Psychologist, 18, 12–23.

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Fransen, K., Coffee, P., Vanbeselaere, N., Slater, M., De Cuyper, B., & Boen, F. (2014). The impact of athlete leaders on team members’ team outcome confidence: A test of mediation by team identification and collective efficacy. The Sport Psychologist, 28, 347–360. Galli, N., & Vealey, R. (2008). “Bouncing back” from adversity: Athletes’ experiences of resilience. The Sport Psychologist, 22, 316–335. Gillet, N., Vallerand, R., Amoura, S., & Baldes, B. (2010). Influence of coaches’ autonomy-support on athletes’ motivation and sport performance. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 11, 155–161. Gu, Q., & Day, C. (2007). Teachers’ resilience: A necessary condition for effectiveness. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23, 1302–1316. Gucciardi, D., Gordon, S., & Dimmock, J. (2008). Towards an understanding of mental toughness in Australian football. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 20, 261–281. Gucciardi, D., Jackson, B., Coulter, T., & Mallett, C. (2011). The Connor-Davidson resilience scale (CD-RISC): Dimensionality and age-related measurement invariance with Australian cricketers. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 12, 423–433. Hodge, K., Henry, G., & Smith, W. (2014). A case study of excellence in elite sport: Motivational climate in a world champion team. The Sport Psychologist, 28, 60–74. Holt, N., & Dunn, J. (2004). Toward a grounded theory of the psychosocial competencies and environmental conditions associated with soccer success. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 16, 199– 219. Jones, G., Hanton, S., & Connaughton, D. (2002). What is this thing called mental toughness? An investigation of elite sport performers. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 14, 205–218. Jones, G., Hanton, S., & Connaughton, D. (2007). A framework of mental toughness in the world’s best performers. The Sport Psychologist, 21, 243–264. Katzenbach, J., & Smith, D. (2005). The discipline of teams. Harvard Business Review, July–August, 162– 171. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Lazarus, R., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. New York: Springer. Loehr, J. (1982). Mental toughness training for sports. Lexington, MA: Forum Publishing. Lyons, M., Rynne, S., & Mallett, C. (2012). Reflection and the art of coaching: Fostering high performance in Olympic Ski Cross. Reflective Practice, 13, 359–372, Morgan, P., Fletcher, D., & Sarkar, M. (2013). Defining and characterizing team resilience in elite sport. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 14, 549–559. Morgan, P., Fletcher, D., & Sarkar, M. (2015). Understanding team resilience in the world’s best athletes: A case study of a rugby union World Cup winning team. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 16, 91–100. Myers, N., & Feltz, D. (2007). From self-efficacy to collective efficacy in sport: Transitional methodological issues. In G. Tenenbaum & R. Eklund (Eds.), Handbook of sport psychology (3rd Ed., pp. 799–819). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Palmer, C. (2008). A theory of risk and resilience factors in military families. Military Psychology, 20, 205–217. Reivich, K., Seligman, M., & McBride, S. (2011). Master resilience training in the US Army. American Psychologist, 66, 25–34. Riolli, J. L., & Savicki, V. (2003). Information system organizational resilience. Omega: The International Journal of Management Science, 31, 227–233. Sarkar, M., & Fletcher, D. (2014). Ordinary magic, extraordinary performance: Psychological resilience and thriving in high achievers. Journal of Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology, 3, 46–60. Scharmer, O., & Kaufer, K. (2013). Leading from the emerging future. Berrett-Koehler: San Francisco. Schinke, R. J., & Peterson, C. (2002). Enhancing the hopes and performance of elite athletes through optimism skills. Journal of Excellence, 6, 36–47. Wagstaff, C., Fletcher, D., & Hanton, S. (2012). Positive organizational psychology in sport: An ethnography of organizational functioning in a national sport organization. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 24, 26–47. Yukelson, D. (1987). Principles of effective team building interventions in sport: A direct services approach at Penn State University. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 9, 73–96. Yukelson, D., & Rose, R. (2014). The psychology of ongoing excellence: An NCAA coach’s perspective on winning consecutive multiple national championships. Journal of Sport Psychology in Action, 5, 44–58.

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53 OV E RT– C OV E RT B E HAV IO R S’ L I N KAG E Forecasting the future of sport psychology science Gershon Tenenbaum and Edson Filho Sport and exercise psychology is a scientific and applied domain, which centers on social, applied, cognitive, cultural, and methodological issues pertaining to sport and exercise (Eklund & Tenenbaum, 2013; Filho & Tenenbaum, 2015). We claim that major advances in sport psychology will result from studying the neural correlates of both individual and teams’ mental operations. In effect, the epistemological route of sport psychology revolves around understanding how mental processes influence performance in sports. Recent global initiatives aimed at mapping the human brain (Human Brain Project, European Commission; BRAIN project, USA) further illustrate the importance of researching how the human brain learns, thinks, and guides motor behavior (Leshner, 2013). Accordingly, we present a succinct review of the literature on information processing, while commenting on avenues for future research regarding (1) overt–covert research concepts, (2) information processing and response-selection, (3) knowledge base and structure implications on the perceptual-cognitive system, and (4) perception-cognition-action linkage under pressure. We conclude by introducing and discussing research avenues involving epigenetics and the nature–nurture debate, as well as general methodological guidelines pertaining to both nomothetic and idiosyncratic research efforts in sport and exercise psychology.

Overt–covert frameworks in sport psychology Recently, due to the development of new bio-neurofeedback methodologies, covert frameworks measuring psychophysiological processes anteceding action execution and decision alteration have been widely used in both research and practice (Perry, 2012). Today, scholars agree that a greater understanding of brain processes underpinning information processing and action execution can be obtained by integrating sport psychology constructs and psychophysiology measures. In this regard, Coles (1989) noted that psychobiological measures have a dual-status as they “serve as markers for psychological processes – as ‘windows’ on cognition and they can also serve as markers of physiological processes – as ‘windows’ on the brain” (p. 252). In addition to the overt and covert methodologies, sport and exercise psychologists have often been interested in eliciting differences among high and low-skilled athletes (i.e., 559

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“the expert-novice paradigm”; see Ericsson, 2007). Overall, extant research suggests that skilled athletes’ perceptual-cognitive processes differ from their less-skilled counterparts (Williams & Ward, 2003). Skilled athletes exhibit faster and more accurate visual search strategies, anticipation of upcoming events in games, memorization of the structural set-up of the playing environment, decision-making, and ability to shift attention from one style to another (e.g., inward to outward) while perceiving patterns rather than single cues (Ericsson & Ward, 2007; Tenenbaum & Bar-Eli, 1993). While it is well established that experts possess more elaborated domain-specific perceptual-cognitive skills than novices, the mediating mechanisms underlying such differences remain unclear. In this regard, Ericsson (2007) has posited that contemporary and future research on expertise should focus on identifying the mediating mechanisms of expert performance (i.e., the expert performance approach) rather than on primarily describing differences among experts and novices. Altogether, covert frameworks in general and brain activity research in particular, have the potential to advance our understanding of the mechanisms underlying superior information processing and response-selection in sports.

Information processing and response-selection Information processing frameworks have oriented research and practice in sport psychology over the past decades (Tenenbaum, 2004). This approach assumes that knowledge is accumulated through practice and experience in the environment, and is represented in the form of mental representations (i.e., schemata) in the long-term memory (LTM). Mental representations enable cue identification and response-selection prior to signalizing action information to the motor system. Thus, before response execution, the onset of environmental stimuli is used for adjustment and preparation before action execution (Tenenbaum et al., 2009). Furthermore, when pre-cueing (i.e., priming) occurs, the selection process is more efficient, resulting in a decrease reaction time (Buckolz, O’Donnell, & Hall, 1986). Indeed, classic research in applied psychology has shown that priming is essential for choosing an appropriate response in highly dynamic environments (Alain, 1991). Highskilled athletes choose the priming option with the highest utility value, meaning the option that will ensure the best chances of selecting the best response in the time. Early chronometric research approaches aimed at capturing the neurological activity underlying human information processing revealed that the lateralized readiness potential (LRP) is a reliable measure of both motor response execution and response inhibition (Coles, 1989). More specifically, the latency and accuracy of behavioral responses depend on neurological response activation processes, which are in turn controlled by an evaluation process that gradually accumulates evidence on response priming and response competition process (Buckolz et al., 1986). Although informative, previous basic research failed to represent information processing and decision-making processes in open environments, in which athletes must attend to environmental cues and make decisions under conditions that vary in complexity and carry both temporal and emotional pressures (Tenenbaum, 2004). In open skill settings, such as ball games, a number of stimuli are processed simultaneously (Abernethy, 2001; Tenenbaum, 2004; Umilta, 1991). Within this setting two mechanisms operate to interrupt or withhold speed responses, namely a central (cortical) mechanism and a peripheral mechanism (De Jong, Coles, & Logan, 1995). The central mechanism inhibits response activation processes in cortical motor structures to prevent central outflow of motor commands. The peripheral mechanism prevents the actual execution of central motor commands by peripheral motor structures. It should be noted that actions (and action alterations) in open 560

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skill settings are performed under different time constraints and consist of various tactical and technical aspects. These different conditions require a constant interchange between the central and peripheral mechanism. When the central inhibitory mechanism dominates, then the lateralized readiness potential threshold is of vital importance for successful inhibition of the initiated action. When the peripheral mechanism dominates, this threshold cannot be determined or, alternatively, is not of importance. Tenenbaum and Summers (1997) suggested that the more skilled an athlete is the more attention s/he can allocate to the various components which affect his or her decisions and, therefore, the faster he or she can inhibit, change, or selectively choose among alternatives under different environmental conditions. The importance of studying central mechanisms in general, and interneuron connections in particular, remain an area of interest for sport psychologists. To advance science on how athletes make fast and accurate decisions, researchers and practitioners must first overcome the problem of self-referentiality (i.e., the human brain striving to understand its own functional architecture) by looking at the brain as a complex and self-organizing system rather than as a solely central, coordinating entity (see Singer, 2009). To Singer, the brain is not linear and its 1011 neurons can no longer be represented by classic physics and simplistic linear models. Accordingly, to better capture how elite athletes evolve knowledge base structures, sport psychologists may seek inspiration in nonlinear mathematical modeling (e.g., dynamic system theories) and brain scanning advances allowed by quantum physics.

Knowledge base and structure implications on the perceptualcognitive system Knowledge (e.g., declarative and procedural) is stored in the long-term memory (LTM) in the form of neural networks (i.e., schemas, mental representations), which contain information about both the movement and their anticipated consequences (e.g., action plans; see Tenenbaum & Razon, 2008). Neural schemas can be automatically retrieved from LTM via long-term working memory (LTWM), requiring little involvement from the central processing executive controls (Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995). This ultimately frees a performer’s central executive system for other important tasks for decision-making and motor performance. While feed-forwarding environmental information for further processing, affective (e.g., emotional control), motivational (e.g., positive self-talk), and cognitive information processes interact, thus coexisting within neural schema (Tenenbaum, 2004). Consequently, it is imperative that decision-making models account for both emotions and memory. Emotions coincide with action, but also result from an action (Lazarus, 1999). Emotions that result from an action are evoked once the performer appraises the outcome relative to its anticipated form. Positive/pleasant emotions (e.g., joy) facilitate an overall expansion of resources, such as attention, cognitive processes, cognitive flexibility, action possibilities, and intellectual and social resources (Fredrickson, 1998). Negative/unpleasant emotions (e.g., anxiety) result in narrowed attention (Easterbrook, 1959), more analytical decision-making (Tenenbaum et al., 2009), decreased accuracy, and greater movement variability (Coombes, Cauraugh, & Janelle, 2006; Land & Tenenbaum, 2012). A pending question in psychology in general and sport psychology in particular, is how “creative insight” occurs under contextual and time pressure (Kounios & Beeman, 2009). Given that an extensive knowledge base is viewed as a sine qua non condition for domainchanging creativity (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1993), studies on spike-timingdependent plasticity may ultimately reveal the neuronal code linked to LTWM formation and breakthrough insights across domains of motor performance (e.g., arts, music, sports). 561

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Neuroscientists are also interested in the space–time neuronal dynamics occurring at the frontal cortex and brain’s white matter (for a review see Dietrich & Kanso, 2010). Specifically, lowered activation in the frontal cortex is associated with lower self-monitoring and presentation concerns, thus representing an anatamo-functional correlate of divergent thinking. Furthermore, the brain’s white matter has been linked to insightful problem solving given its importance in coordinating communication among the different brain regions. Finally, the visual search for cues and patterns has also been linked to optimized decisionmaking in humans, given that gazing behavior is associated with hemisphere-dominance, which in turn influences the likelihood of problem solving strategies (Aziz-Zadeh, Liew, & Dandekar, 2013).

Visual search for cues and patterns The first decision a performer in an open and dynamic environment must make is related to attention allocation – where one should gaze. A primary goal for the attention allocation stage is to minimize environmental uncertainty and ambiguity allowing the anticipation of the correct response in a given situation (Tenenbaum, 2004). Visual scan of the environment has two parameters: fixation and duration. Fixation relates to the direction of visual attention on the target stimuli, while duration is the lag time between two shifts in fixation (Tenenbaum, 2004). Expert athletes use fewer fixations for longer durations (Mann, Farrow, Shuttleworth, & Hopwood, 2009; Williams & Ward, 2003) though sometimes employ a greater number of fixations of shorter duration toward distinct and informative locations (Roca, Ford, McRobert, & Williams, 2011). There are two types of visual scanning strategies: target control and context control (Tenenbaum, 2003, 2004). Target control, which requires more time, involves sequentially scanning individual targets and comparing the obtained visual information with knowledge stored in the LTM until a compatible “match” is verified. In contrast, novices tend to gaze at events chronologically while experts engage in synthetic analysis, which refers to a gaze that allows many events to be seen at once during one eye fixation. In contrast, context control is enhanced with training as performers develop mental representations in the form of patterns, thereby using these patterns to search the environment. Context control is said to be more effective than target control strategies and used by experienced performers. In essence, this strategy reduces the load on information processing, increases efficiency of the visual system, and simplifies the communication between working memory and LTM. A shift in gaze under certain conditions is preceded by an attention shift (Henderson, 2003). “Quiet eye” research has provided strong evidence for a corresponding attention shift in the direction of the saccade (Vickers, 2006). The quiet eye refers to the final fixation or tracking gaze that is directed at a specific location or object within three degrees of the visual angle, and for a minimum or 100ms prior to the final movement on the task. The quiet eye duration has been characteristic of successful performance in numerous motor tasks (Henderson, 2003; Panchuk & Vickers, 2006) and identified as a predictor of expertise in perceptual-motor tasks (Mann et al., 2009; Mann, Williams, Ward, & Janelle, 2007). Experts seem to see critical information earlier and process the information for longer prior to the final movement as indicated by the earlier onset of the quiet eye. Furthermore, attentional flexibility can be also understood through Nideffer’s (1976) model of attentional styles, in which the ability to change direction and breadth/width of attention efficiently when necessary is a main determinant of performance quality. Although still rare, research on how mental skills (e.g., imagery, self-talk, goal-setting) influence attention flexibility is important 562

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to advance the field of sport psychology (Blanchfield, Hardy, de Morree, Staiano, & Marcora, 2014). Specifically, understanding how mental skills influence attention may inform applied guidelines on peak performance experiences (flow-feeling, being in the zone), which depend on optimal focus and are ubiquitously linked to anticipation mechanisms.

Anticipatory mechanism Anticipation is the process of deriving meaning from the fed forward cues by LTWM to determine a response to the situational demands (Tenenbaum, 2004). The ability to make accurate predictions based on incomplete information is essentially anticipatory capability. Because anticipation activates a range of solutions from LTM that facilitates action response decisions, Tenenbaum and Razon (2008) called anticipation “the most crucial component in the decision-making sequence” (p. 3). Specifically, if one can anticipate upcoming events, s/ he can retrieve a line of action from LTM faster and more reliably (Gabbett & Abernethy, 2013; Roca et al., 2011). The performer’s history of experiences within domain-specific situations informs the computation of an estimate of consequence likelihood. This precomputed estimate information is stored within the neural schema enabling anticipatory capability. The identification, recognition, and comprehension of patterns play a vital role in this ability (Tenenbaum & Lidor, 2005). Research on decision making in sports has revealed several differences among experts and novices. Experts have been found to be superior in using advanced cues than novices because of their ability to organize early cues into information units, which in turn allow for faster prediction of the next move(s) in a game (Abernethy & Russell, 1987; Gabbett & Abernethy, 2013; Tenenbaum et al., 2009). This difference becomes more salient as the situation becomes more complex and the decisions more difficult. In fact, high-profile athletes decide an action to perform in response to what they know will happen, while athletes of lower caliber decide an action based on what they think will unfold (Tenenbaum, 2004). In all, experts recognize patterns and structure in the environment more quickly and accurately than novices, and make more accurate predictions of what others are likely to do in a situation (Raab & Johnson, 2007). Advances in our understanding of skilled anticipation may depend on new studies in neuroplasticity. In effect, while the functional dynamics of expert performance is relatively well-established (quiescence in the cortical areas resulting in economical brain activity and less interference in cognitive processing and motor responses), few studies on the anatomical characteristics of athletes’ brains exist (Nakata, Yoshie, Miura, & Kudo, 2010). Scholars interested in this topic may seek inspiration in music, where neuroanatomical differences in musicians’ brains have suggested that skilled anticipation is the result of experiencedependent brain plasticity (Zatorre, 2013). Noteworthy, the concept of neuroplasticity is also at the core of memory constructs.

Memory constructs Memory representations enable the performer to use patterns in the anticipatory process (Tenenbaum & Lidor, 2005). According to Ericsson & Kintsch (1995), the long-termworking memory (LTWM) accounts for the superior memory and retrieval capabilities of experts in their domain of expertise. LTWM enables the performer to expand WM by using LTM. Of note, LTWM develops through the formation of a domain-specific retrieval route that maintains information in a more readily accessible state than LTM, and is less prone to interference and storage capacity limitations than WM (Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995). 563

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Moreover, LTWM structures automatically guide the sensory system. As such, a sensorial cue can be used to “unpack” the retrieval structure allowing for rapid and efficient retrieval of the knowledge base. This automatic process allows the performer to use resources for other performance components that require the use of central executive resources (e.g., focused attention and thought; Schack & Tenenbaum, 2004). Scientists studying memory are still at the “tip of the iceberg,” as memory formation is a parallel and distributed phenomenon involving numerous brain areas, and the billion associated neurons (Singer, 2009). Given that memory is intrinsically related to practical (e.g., motor performance and learning) and philosophical (e.g., conscience and free will) dilemmas and unknowns, studies on memory constitute an important area for future research across domains. Sport and exercise psychologists may particularly benefit from newly developed Connectomics methodologies aimed at producing high-resolution images of packing of interneuron connections related to memory formation (Van Dijk et al., 2010). Researchers and practitioners should also consider specific questions on aging and expertise, as well as the influence of concussions in the formation of new memories. A better understanding of how LTWM is established may ultimately advance our understanding of optimal and less-thanoptimal decision-making processes.

Response-selection and alteration Decision-making is the action of selecting a response from several alternative response choices. Successful decision makers generate few courses of action and tend to select the first, and often best, option (Johnson & Raab, 2003; Raab & Johnson, 2007). In contrast with the Take-The-First heuristic, and in line with LTWM tenets, there is also evidence that decision quality improves when athletes generate more options during the situational assessment (Ward, Suss, Eccles, Williams, & Harris, 2011). Specifically, Ward and his colleagues observed that high-skilled law enforcement officers created more critical options during both the assessment and intervention phases, and that the number of critical options generated was positively related to the quantity of optimal decisions in both phases. It is important to note that there is a moment in time, following response-selection, in which no change in motor behavior can occur (i.e., “point of no return”; see Tenenbaum & Summers, 1997). Up to this point, responses can be inhibited and decisions altered through either a central/cortical mechanism or peripheral mechanism (De Jong et al., 1995). By inhibiting response activation, the central/cortical mechanism prevents the motor structures of the brain from sending the motor command out to the peripheral structures. Should the motor command be sent by the brain, the peripheral mechanism can inhibit the peripheral structures from executing the response. Activation of alternative response pathways below a certain threshold allows the expert to easily alter decisions in dynamic, complex, and timeconstrained environments (Tenenbaum & Summers, 1997). It is important to note that different language roots create distinct brain networks and consequently different ways of appraising information and selecting behavioral responses (Zatorre, 2013). Thus, scholars interested in communication may examine how different language roots influence: (a) information processing and response-selection in sports, and (b) acculturation in multi-cultural sport environments. Furthermore, studying language structure and acquisition may yield advancements in sport and exercise technology. This stems from the notion that robotics and cybernetics applied to the movement sciences rely on pre-established linguistic commands (and feedback-loops) to select, generate, and evaluate, artificial movement action (Jeong, Arie, Lee, & Tani, 2012). 564

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Decision execution and evaluation Once a response is decided upon, the decision is executed, producing an action or other observable behavior. In principle, the action chosen should be the one that best fits the current environmental situation. A successful action is dependent on the system’s ability to encode and access information relevant to the task and environment (Tenenbaum & Razon, 2008). Specifically, to ensure effective and appropriate execution of actions as a motor signal (i.e., efference) is sent to the periphery in order to produce movement, a copy of this signal is created (i.e., efference copy; Wolpert & Miall, 1996). The efference copy provides input into an internal model that generates predicted sensory feedback and estimates the sensory consequences of the movement. The estimated sensory experience is then compared to actual incoming sensory information. Movement adjustments are made based upon this comparison. Further, results of the comparison determine the necessity of decision alterations. If a decision alteration is needed, the system reverts back to the responseselection stage. Finally, the results of the comparison inform the nervous system on how well the expected action matched the actual action, ultimately developing domain-specific mental schemas (Wolpert & Miall, 1996). Again, research on mental schemata development may contribute to the advancement of robotics and cybernetics in applied psychology. Advancing knowledge on shared mental models, through social neuroscience frameworks (e.g., the dual-brain approach; see Schilbach et al., 2013), and both intra and hyperbrain studies, is another promising avenue for future research (see Filho, Bertollo, Robazza, & Comani, 2015). In particular, sport and exercise psychologists may look into the reciprocity and distributedness of “small world networks” (graph theory; see Newman, 2006) to determine how interacting brains synchronize (time and space) in team sports (i.e., Shared Mental Models; see Filho et al., 2015). Studies on empathy, through a dual-brain framework, may also provide coaches and applied sport psychologists with specific guidelines on how to help athletes deal with competitive pressure.

Perception-cognition-action linkage under pressure Neurologically, brain areas associated with emotional processing (i.e., amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex), higher level cognition (i.e., prefrontal and temporal cortex), and movement (i.e., basal ganglia, thalamus, supplementary motor area, pre-motor cortex, and primary motor area) present functional changes under stress-related conditions (Hatfield, Haufler, Hung, & Spalding, 2004). The three major systems, each of which impacted by the stress neural network, involved with the decision-making process are: the perceptual, cognitive, and motor. Changes in perception, cognition, and movement are discussed separately for simplicity. However, it is established that these changes do not occur in isolation. Complex interactions occur between the three systems, and a change in one area can impact another as summarized in Figure 53.1.

Perceptual changes under pressure Numerous changes in attention allocation result from changes to the perceptual system due to perceptions of pressure. Specifically, individuals tend to preferentially process threat (Baddeley, 1972), experience narrowing of attention to a more limited number of cues (Easterbrook, 1959), experience an inward shift of attention (versus attending externally to the environment; Friedland, Keinan, & Regev, 1992), and become more selective in attention (Chajut & Algom, 2003). These alterations are largely the cause of underlying neurobiological 565

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Non-linear mathematical modelling

Perception

Neural correlates of creative insight

Memory

Response selection

Neural correlates of mental skills

Experience-dependent brain plasticity

Movement output

Robotics and cybernetics

Figure 53.1 Forecast for sport psychology based on information processing theory

changes, such as increased bottom-up processing (Ohman, Flykt, & Esteves, 2001), changes in norepinephrine within various brain regions (Henckens et al., 2009), and WM alterations (Baddeley, 2003). The increase of self-consciousness is viewed as a determinant trigger of dysfunctional performance in sports. In particular, an increase in self-focus can interrupt the automaticity of well-learned skills and thus cause a decrease in performance (Beilock & Carr, 2001; Masters & Maxwell, 2008). Masters (1992) posited that the inward focus cues a reinvestment into the explicit knowledge leading to dechunking of implicit control structures which normally run automatically. Dechunking, in which a larger movement is broken down into smaller sequences of independent units that must be activated separately, slows down performance and increases the likelihood of error (Masters & Maxwell, 2008). Extending upon the dechunking hypothesis, there is evidence that superior performers minimize communication between the thinking parts of the brain and the motor regions along with a quieting of the nonessential regions of the brain. Activation of nonessential brain regions in experts under stress conditions has been shown to result in performance degradation (Hatfield et al., 2004).

Cognitive changes under pressure When an individual appraises a person-environment encounter to be threatening, subcortical structures, such as the stria terminalis and the hippocampus, are activated causing a chain of events in the stress networks (Tanaka, Funase, Sekiya, & Murayama, 2012). Because these changes may cause relevant cues to be missed (due to attention narrowing), neural schema activation can be negatively affected. In fact, performance decrement tends to occur because relevant retrieval cues are not fully processed (Tenenbaum et al., 2009), causing a collapse of the mental schemata (Tenenbaum & Razon, 2008). Given neural schemas play a role in nearly every aspect of the decision-making sequence, changes in schema activation may be detrimental to subsequent attention allocation, anticipatory capabilities, incomplete activation of response options, and inappropriate response-selection. 566

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Motor changes under pressure. Aside from attention, numerous brain regions which influence motor control (i.e., motor cortex, cerebellum, basal ganglia, and spinal cord) have a large number of glucocorticoid receptors (Metz, Jadavji, & Smith, 2005). Pressure situations, assessed by subjective state anxiety and heart rate, have been found to increase corticospinal motor tract excitability (Tanaka et al., 2012). Increased excitability was correlated with decreased performance accuracy of a fine motor skill. Besides changes in efferent signals due to the neurobiological alterations, afferent feedback may be impaired under conditions of stress (when sensory perception and feedback is usually altered), thus compromising movement (Metz et al., 2005). Neurobiological alterations in efferent and afferent pathways seem to affect temporal and qualitative aspects of movement, as well as movement accuracy, efficiency, and fluency (Metz et al., 2005). Movement variability can be functional or dysfunctional, and therefore facilitative or debilitative to performance (Land & Tenenbaum, 2012). Dysfunctional increases in movement variability are characterized by variability in the relative timing, which leads to variability in the movement outcome. Collins, Jones, Fairweather, Doolan, and Priestley (2001) found that under high anxiety conditions rigid coupling of the hip, knee, and ankle joints was noted resulting in reduced movement variability. Conversely, performance under low anxiety conditions revealed freer movements and greater variability. Reduced movement variability is also attributed to freezing movement degrees of freedom and/or increased self-focus (Baumeister, 1984). In essence, individuals experiencing stress may attempt to reduce degrees of freedom to simplify the skill execution (Pijpers, Oudejans, Holsheimer, & Bakker, 2003). In view of the aforementioned influence of type of learning on performance under pressure situations, sport psychologists may investigate the neural correlations differentiating implicit and explicit learning methodologies. In examining how the brain self-organizes itself by associating the inputs received (type of learning) and its consequences (likelihood of dechunking), we may better understand how mental schemas “breakdown” under pressure. The relationship between mindfulness and performance remains unclear and warrants further consideration (Kang, Gruger, & Gray, 2013). Specifically, mindfulness training is positively linked to explicit cognitive function but its reliance on attentional control may lead to a de-automatization of implicit learned cognitive functions (Chambers, Lo, & Allen, 2008). Figure 53.1 summarizes the other areas of future research discussed herein, and is particularly related to neuroscience initiatives. Next, we discuss the importance of epigenetic studies (on how natural and cultural evolution influences learning), as personalized medicine and DNA testing promises to revolutionize athletic performance.

Beyond cognition and the brain: future research avenues in sport psychology The Human Genome Project (HGP) was the largest collaborative research project in the history of science, involving 13 years of uninterrupted research conducted by thousands of scholars in hundreds of laboratories around the world (National Human Research Institute, US). Results are starting to reshape medicine (Preventive Genetic Medicine) and the sport sciences. DNA “ancestry testing” and “sports-related-genetic testing” are now widely available, and promise to reveal risk factors and athletic performance indicators. The challenge for sport psychologists is to address the ethical and social implications of this genetic revolution, as well as to critically analyze the validity of DNA testing results and interpretation. To this extent, Wagner and Royal (2012) noted that coaches and parents may have children tested to determine 567

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which sport may be “ideal” from a genetic standpoint. Thus, the nature–nurture debate also regains momentum as scholars continue to investigate how the gene-environment interaction influences performance in sports, and its antecedents and outcomes such as decision-making and efficacy beliefs. Statistical modeling considering genetic and environmental factors is increasingly common as educational and biological databases have been created around the world. While it is well-established that human performance is too complex to be entirely genetically programmable, scholars remain interested in understanding how personal habits, cultural evolution, and genes determine who we are. In addition to epigenetics, sport and exercise psychologists should consider theory integration rather than segregation. This is aligned with the importance of developing parsimonious models in applied psychology in general, and in sport and exercise psychology in particular (Gigerenzer, 2010; Filho, Tenenbaum, & Yang, 2015; Tenenbaum & Filho, 2015). While the exact sciences work towards theory simplification and unification, psychologists sometimes “treat other people’s theories like toothbrushes – no self-respecting person wants to use anyone else’s” (Waltkins, 1984, p. 86). Beyond integration and synthesis of nomothetic models, multimodal methods targeting different sensorial experiences are essential to the development of sport psychology. Multimodal biofeedback equipment and exergaming technology (used to create virtual and augmented reality scenarios) are relatively new trends in both exercise, educational, and mental training settings. The development of robotics also promises to impact the motor sciences and Paralympic sports. Finally, idiosyncratic research remains a fundamental piece of sport and exercise psychology. The study of individuals’ psycho-bio-social experiences while exercising and playing sports is at the core of sport and exercise psychology research and practice. In all, sport and exercise psychology shall remain a flexible science, as it continues to combine both nomothetic and idiosyncratic frameworks in its epistemological quest towards understanding how “the mind” interacts with the sporting environment, and influences the performer’s actions.

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54 FORECASTS TO THE FUTURE Group dynamics Mark A. Eys and Kevin S. Spink

The most expensive team in baseball history is barely above .500 and Los Angeles Dodgers manager Don Mattingly … blames a lack of cohesion among the players. “One thing you can’t measure is that feeling you have as a team when everybody’s playing together and everybody’s going in one direction.” (Saxon, 2014, paras 1 and 11) As the above quote illustrates, and consistent with the suggestions from several chapters in this book, factors surrounding the group environment are perceived to be critical in understanding important outcomes in sport. Furthermore, the prevalence of group contexts in sport necessitates a strong understanding of the foundation and processes that underpin team performance and individual adherence. For example, the four major sports in North America (i.e., football, basketball, baseball, and hockey; Fort, 2006), and six of the eight most popular sports based on enrollment in Canada, are team sports (Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute, 2013). On a global level, seven of the top ten participant sports in the world are team sports (topendsports, 2015). The “actions, processes, and changes that occur within groups and between groups” describe the field of group dynamics (Forsyth, 2014, p. 2). Over the past three decades, there have been sustained efforts to understand the dynamics of sport groups, and comprehensive syntheses of this literature can be found in other outlets (e.g., Beauchamp & Eys, 2014; Martin, Bruner, Eys, & Spink, 2014; see also chapters within this book). Although these ongoing research efforts have yielded important insights into team functioning, it is our contention that the field of sport group dynamics is still in its adolescence in many areas (to borrow an expression from Forsyth, 2000, regarding the general group dynamics literature), and that there continues to be a strong need for additional research attention. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a brief forecast of the future of group dynamics research in sport. In essence, we engage in a “crystal-ball gazing” exercise regarding research topics we consider as targets for exploration in the coming years. To guide our discussion, we revisit (and revise) some of the key questions posed by Forsyth (2000) in his introduction to a special volume of the journal Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, in which contributors reflected on 100 years of group research across all settings. The questions we 572

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focus on include: (a) What forces bind membership to their group? (b) Who will lead and who will follow? (c) How do group members integrate their efforts, and (d) how do groups influence their members? Furthermore, we reflect on each of the above using the framework suggested by Zanna and Fazio (1982) outlining three generations of research questions. Does a relationship exist between two variables (first-generation)? Are there conditions moderating these relationships (second-generation), and what are the causes (mediators) of these relationships (third-generation)? Of course, the present chapter is unable to include all variables, but it is our hope that the following discussion provides a basis for future research in selected areas of group dynamics.

What forces bind membership to their group? Cohesion. In simple terms, cohesion is often seen as the glue that binds members in a group. It has been defined as “the dynamic process which is reflected in the tendency for a group to stick together and remain united in the pursuit of its instrumental objectives and/or for the satisfaction of member affective needs” (Carron, Brawley, & Widmeyer, 1998, p. 213). Given these definitions, be it informal or formal, it should come as no surprise that cohesion often surfaces first when thinking about the binding properties of groups, and an examination of the extant research supports this contention. A number of studies examining first-generation research questions has established a positive relationship between perceptions of cohesion and various adherence outcomes in the sport setting such as intention to return (Spink, 1995) and actual return to a team (Spink, Wilson, & Odnokon, 2010). As the relationship between cohesion and measures of adherence has been established on many fronts, little is likely to be gained with further examination of first-generation questions addressing this coupling. However, it is worth noting that most of the relationships reported have been correlational in nature. As such, one important future direction on the first-generation front could be the use of experimental designs to manipulate cohesion, which would help tease out the cause–effect relationship between cohesion and adherence. To manipulate cohesion, sport researchers could take a page from the exercise area where team-building interventions using an established model (Spink, 2014) have been implemented successfully to enhance cohesion in both youth (Bruner & Spink, 2010) and adult (Carron & Spink, 1993) exercise settings. Given the preponderance of first-generation research questions answered to date, researchers might want to turn their attention to examining moderating variables. While some second-generation questions have been addressed in the exercise area (e.g., structured versus unstructured settings; Spink, Ulvick, Crozier, & Wilson, 2014), we would suggest that these moderators also deserve attention in the sport setting. One other interesting secondgeneration question that has yet to be addressed is the possible moderating role of cliques on the cohesion/adherence relationship. While cliques are often perceived as negative features of groups, it has been reported by athletes that these “groups-within-groups” also have positive features that might interact with both cohesion and adherence (Martin, Wilson, Evans, & Spink, 2015). When this is coupled with the fact that group minorities can have a powerful effect on group processes (Moscovici, 1985), examination of the effect of cliques (e.g., number and size) on the cohesion/adherence relationship within sport groups is likely to add to the literature base. In terms of the binding function of cohesion, there also is merit to examining thirdgeneration research questions. One question that deserves attention is the examination of possible mechanisms that might help explain why cohesion influences adherence. Given 573

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that relationships have been previously identified between cohesion and satisfaction (Spink, Nickel, Wilson, & Odnokon, 2005) and satisfaction and adherence (Remers, Widmeyer, Williams, & Myers, 1995), examining satisfaction as a potential mediator of the cohesion/ adherence relationship might provide a useful starting point. Groupness. While the association between cohesion and staying with the team seems obvious, at a more basic level, would the simple recognition that one is part of a “group” rather than surrounded by a mere collection of individuals be enough of a distinction to bind an individual to a group? In the activity setting, groupness reflects the extent to which one perceives a collection of individuals who exercise together to be more like a group, rather than a mere collection of individuals (Spink, Wilson, & Priebe, 2010). The results of one study revealed that perceiving a collection of co-exercisers as more like a group was associated with participating in this setting more frequently and attending a greater percentage of classes than those who perceived the collection as less like a group (Spink et al., 2010). As the groupness construct is a new entrant to the activity area generally, and research in the sport setting is non-existent, efforts should be directed to formulating and answering first-generation research questions. One that comes readily to mind is the examination of the groupness/adherence relationship in the sport team setting. While documented in the exercise setting, it is likely that sport teams will vary in the characteristics that reflect groupness, like the tightness of bonds and degree of interaction among members (Martin et al., 2014). Given these possible differences, a question remains as to whether perceiving a sport team as more groupy, even though it carries the “team” designation, would positively relate to individuals remaining with the team. Establishing this relationship in the sport setting would be valuable given the importance of adherence to both individual and group outcomes. One study reported some initial support for this suggested relationship when it was found that participants at a summer sport camp who reported higher perceptions of groupness with fellow participants at the camp also expressed greater intentions to return to the camp the following year (Crozier & Spink, 2014). Another important first-generation question worth pursuing concerns the relationships among cohesion, groupness, and adherence. No studies to date have examined how these constructs together may relate to an individual adherence outcome in sport. Given that the constructs of groupness and cohesion likely have both similarities and differences, questions that could be answered by examining them together would include: Are both constructs necessary for individuals to adhere? Are the effects on adherence additive or multiplicative? If only one is required, which one?

Who will lead and who will follow? Transformational leadership. Much of the initial research regarding leadership in sport targeted coaches, as well as the more transactional behaviors displayed by these individuals (i.e., training and instruction, social support, feedback; Chelladurai & Saleh, 1980). More recently, researchers have provided evidence of the importance of transformational leadership behaviors within sport. These leadership behaviors influence followers in a manner that considers their individual needs and values (Bass & Riggio, 2006), and include idealized influence (e.g., set good examples for followers), inspirational motivation (e.g., display enthusiasm and optimism), intellectual stimulation (e.g., allow for problem solving to occur with the input of group members), and individualized consideration (e.g., support specific needs of each follower).

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Generally speaking, transformational leadership research pursuits in sport have relied on literature from other areas (e.g., military, organizations, work settings) as evidence for first-generation answers (Stenling & Tafvelin, 2014; are there relationships between transformational leadership and other variables of interest?). Although we stress the need to replicate first-generation research within sport, the assumption that relationships determined in other performance areas are relevant to sport has promoted a series of secondand third-generation questions. As examples of second-generation questions, Arthur, Woodman, Ong, Hardy, and Ntoumanis (2011) found that individual characteristics (e.g., follower narcissism) moderated the relationship between transformational leader (coach) behaviors and athlete motivation/effort. Specifically, the positive relationship between these two variables was stronger for those low in narcissism. Examination of moderators also has been extended to group variables. Callow, Smith, Hardy, Arthur, and Hardy (2009) reported that the performance level of the team moderated the relationship between transformational leadership behaviors and cohesion, leading to the suggestion that “level of performance should be considered when deciding on what specific leadership behaviors to employ if trying to foster team cohesion” (p. 408). Finally, a series of studies have asked third-generation questions and identified (as examples) psychological need satisfaction, intra-team communication, and intrinsic motivation as mediators of the relationships between transformational leadership and wellbeing (Stenling & Tafvelin, 2014), task cohesion (Smith, Arthur, Hardy, Callow, & Williams, 2013), and sport performance (Charbonneau, Barling, & Kelloway, 2001), respectively. Overall, there are clear indications that transformational leadership behaviors are effective in eliciting positive responses from followers, and continued efforts can be made to determine under what conditions these relationships exist as well as the mechanisms. However, we also encourage returning to first-generation questions on this topic by focusing greater attention on determining the antecedents of transformational leadership (i.e., what leads to transformational leadership), followed by exploration of second- and third-generation questions regarding these antecedents, that will eventually inform the development and testing of effective interventions designed to enhance transformational behaviors in sport. Athlete leadership. Leadership provided by the coaching staff has been a major focus for sport researchers. However, athlete/peer leaders undertake important task-, social-, and externally-focused functions for the team (Loughead, Hardy, & Eys, 2006), and tend to exhibit transactional and transformational behaviors differentially from the coach (Price & Weiss, 2013). There has been a strong focus on first-generation questions for this topic using quantitative and qualitative approaches. For example, perceptions of athlete leaders are related to social and task cohesion (Price & Weiss, 2013) and satisfaction (Eys, Loughead, & Hardy, 2007). Moran and Weiss (2006) also highlighted several psychosocial variables predictive of self- and teammate-ratings of leadership. With this accumulation of firstgeneration research, we encourage further consideration of the conditions that might modify relationships involving athlete leadership (second-generation questions) that are absent from the knowledge base. For example, are there specific athlete leader behaviors that are more or less effective for male vs. female sport teams? Does competitive level or age dictate when, or if, athletes should be designated as peer leaders or allowed some latitude with respect to leadership behaviors? How does team size affect the emergence and effectiveness of peer leaders? Followership. The concept of followership has recently gained attention in the organizational psychology literature, and has considerable possibilities for sport research. Followership represents “the characteristics, behaviors, and processes of individuals acting 575

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in relation to leaders” (Uhl-Bien, Riggio, Lowe, & Carsten, 2014, p. 96), and the concept as it applies to athletes on sport teams has yet to be examined. Clearly, laying a foundation for understanding how athletes and coaches view followership is necessary, and research asking first-generation questions identifying relationships between followership behaviors and critical team variables is needed. For example, what are the beneficial/detrimental behaviors followers employ, and how do these relate to team performance and processes? Do coaches employing various styles of leadership (e.g., autocratic, democratic, delegative, etc.) desire different followership behaviors? How does followership affect the ongoing task and social cohesion perceptions of all group members? Overall, there is a need to determine the effects of followership within sport through programmatic research that can draw on the extant organizational literature.

How do group members integrate their efforts? Roles. A role encompasses a set of behaviors expected from an individual occupying a particular position within the group or other social context (Biddle & Thomas, 1966). Previous literature (e.g., Eys, Schinke, Surya, & Benson, 2014) provides a comprehensive overview of the various types of roles (i.e., task vs. social roles; formal vs. informal roles) as well as the transmission of role expectations from one individual to another (role episode model; Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek, & Rosenthal, 1964). Without question, the most heavily researched role element in sport is role clarity/ambiguity, referring to the degree to which athletes understand what is expected of them as a member of their team. While there remain many avenues for future research on this topic, researchers have asked and answered questions at all levels. First-generation research initially demonstrated positive relationships between role clarity and athlete satisfaction, cohesion, leadership behaviors, and intra-team communication, as well as a negative relationship with competitive state anxiety (see Eys et al., 2014). As it pertains to a second-generation question, Bray, Beauchamp, Eys, and Carron (2005) investigated the relationship between role ambiguity and athlete satisfaction as moderated by athletes’ need for clarity. Their results demonstrated that the negative relationship between role ambiguity and satisfaction was only present for those athletes with a high need for clarity. Finally, Beauchamp, Bray, Eys, and Carron (2002) found a mediational relationship (third-generation question) suggesting that the negative link between role ambiguity and performance was explained in part by role efficacy. In other words, lack of clarity about one’s role leads to decreased perceptions of competence that, in turn, result in lower performance. However, role clarity/ambiguity represents only one among many role elements, and we encourage greater exploration of others. Early efforts have been made to understand role acceptance (i.e., the willingness of athletes to execute their role responsibilities; Benson, Eys, Surya, Dawson, & Schneider, 2013), satisfaction (Surya, 2012), and efficacy (Bray, Brawley, & Carron, 2002), while concepts such as role overload and role conflict (Kahn et al., 1964) have yet to receive research attention in sport. For the former concepts, a focus on first-generation questions would seem appropriate following from conceptual and measurement advances as needed. For example, do perceptions of role acceptance and role satisfaction relate to other individual (e.g., adherence) and group (e.g., cohesion, performance) oriented variables? Regarding the latter concepts (i.e., overload and conflict), qualitative approaches (e.g., interviews, focus groups, etc.) with athletes and coaches would yield valuable information to determine the experiences and perceptions of athletes and coaches, and serve as a base for future research on these topics. 576

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How do groups influence their members? Norms. As humans, we are social beings. A corollary of this need for social affinity is that we often conform to others. In simple terms, conformity can occur for one of two reasons: (1) We are seeking information from others about what to do in a given situation and (2) we want to fit in (i.e., not appear deviant) (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955). A powerful lever of social influence in understanding why individuals conform is normative information (Goldstein & Cialdini, 2007), yet, it has only emerged recently in the activity area. We suggest that researchers ask and address first-generation questions when examining social norms within a sport team. The focus theory of normative conduct is one conceptual model that holds promise when asking questions within a sport setting (Cialdini, Reno, & Kallgren, 1990). Support for using this model in the sport setting is two-fold. First, the model distinguishes between descriptive (individual’s perception of what is most commonly done in a given situation) and injunctive norms (individual’s perceived degree of social approval/disapproval for engaging in a behavior). These norm types appear to capture the two reasons outlined above for conformity-seeking information from others about what to do in a given situation (descriptive norm) and wanting to fit in (injunctive norm). Second, this model has been receiving increased attention in the activity setting. In the activity area, most research has focused on descriptive norms. In general, a positive relationship has been established between the perception of others’ activity behavior (the descriptive norm) and the maintenance of individual activity as well as maximal effort outcomes in exercise settings (Priebe & Spink, 2012, 2014). Given that producing maximal effort is an inherent part of the fabric of sport, using normative information to influence the effort levels of sport members would appear to be a logical extension of existing activity research. The descriptive norm-behavior relationship has been extended to the sport setting, where it was found that the perception of how hard other players worked influenced individual effort (Spink, Crozier, & Robinson, 2013). While more research examining descriptive norms is certainly needed in the sport setting, examination of injunctive norms might be more fruitful given that the key defining characteristic of this type of norm, social sanctions, would likely be prevalent in a sport setting. Psychological climate. When one thinks about sport, creating team environments that engage and motivate players is the goal of coaches. However, as players typically do not respond in mechanical ways to the features of the team environment, this is often easier said than done. The reality is that player responses often have more to do with their perception and interpretation of the team environment. One social psychological variable that distinguishes between physical and psychological environments is psychological climate. Drawn from the organizational development research (James, Hater, Gent, & Bruni, 1978), the construct represents a perceptually based, psychologically processed description of the environment. The construct was initially suggested by James and Jones (1974) to refer to the meanings that individuals ascribe to aspects of their work environment (e.g., jobs, co-workers, leaders). While it has been examined almost exclusively in the work setting, encouragement to examine it in other settings has occurred (James et al., 2008). To date, one study has been conducted in the sport setting. Results revealed a positive relationship between measures of psychological climate based on a model proposed by Kahn (1990) and self-reported player effort over the course of an ice-hockey season (Spink, Wilson, Brawley, & Odnokon, 2013). Given the newness of this construct, first-generation research questions should form the foundation for work examining psychological climate in the sport setting in the near future. This could occur at three levels. First, given that the construct represents a psychologically 577

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processed interpretation of the situation, further examination of the measure in sport is warranted when examining measures of engagement as well as other measures. With respect to other measures, associations between psychological climate and dependent variables that are important in the sport setting such as individual performance, individual satisfaction, and team outcomes also could be examined. Finally, these associations should be extended to cause-effect relationships by employing experimental designs.

Summary Group environments are pervasive in sport, and necessitate a strong understanding of the social structure and processes that facilitate member adherence as well as individual and team performance. In the preceding sections, we highlighted a series of constructs that we believe are important for advancing the field of group dynamics. However, we also recognize that they represent only a subset of variables that need to be examined in order to answer questions related to binding individuals together, leadership, integration, and social influence in sport. To date, researchers have tackled a range of group dynamics questions using first-, second-, and third-generation approaches (Zanna & Fazio, 1982). As we move forward, we encourage researchers to establish a strong foundation of knowledge based on first-generation answers for newer constructs prior to engaging in more complex questions related to moderating and mediating processes. The answers to questions systematically posed will aid in informing the development of well-founded interventions designed to maximize and integrate the efforts of athletes and coaches.

References Arthur, C. A., Woodman, T., Ong, C. W., Hardy, L., & Ntoumanis, N. (2011). The role of narcissism in moderating the relationship between coaches’ transformational leader behaviors and athlete motivation. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 33, 3–19. Bass, B. M., & Riggio, R. E. (2006). Transformational leadership (2nd Ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Beauchamp, M. R., & Eys, M. A. (2014). Group dynamics in exercise and sport psychology (2nd Ed.). Oxford: Routledge. Beauchamp, M. R., Bray, S. R., Eys, M. A., & Carron, A. V. (2002). Role ambiguity, role efficacy, and role performance: Multidimensional and mediational relationships within interdependent sport teams. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 6, 229–242. Benson, A., Eys, M. A., Surya, M., Dawson, K., & Schneider, M. (2013). Athletes’ perceptions of role acceptance in interdependent sport teams. The Sport Psychologist, 27, 269–280. Biddle, B. J., & Thomas, E. J. (1966). Role theory: Concepts and research. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Bray, S. R., Beauchamp, M. R., Eys, M. A., & Carron, A. V. (2005). Need for clarity as a moderator of the role ambiguity – satisfaction relationship. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 17, 306–318. Bray, S. R., Brawley, L. R., & Carron, A. V. (2002). Efficacy for interdependent role functions: Evidence from the sport domain. Small Group Research, 33, 644–666. Bruner, M., & Spink, K. S. (2010). Evaluating a team-building intervention in a youth exercise setting. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 14, 304–317. Callow, N., Smith, M. J., Hardy, L., Arthur, C. A., & Hardy, J. (2009). Measurement of transformational leadership and its relationship with team cohesion and performance level. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 21, 395–412. Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute (2013). Bulletin 1: Participation in sport among children and youth. Getting kids active! 2010–2011 physical activity monitor: Facts and figures. Ottawa, ON: CFLRI. Carron, A. V., & Spink, K. S. (1993). Team building in an exercise setting. The Sport Psychologist, 7, 8–18.

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Carron, A. V., Brawley, L. R., & Widmeyer, W. N. (1998). The measurement of cohesiveness in sport groups. In J. L. Duda (Ed.), Advances in sport and exercise psychology measurement (pp. 213–226). Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology. Charbonneau, D., Barling, J., & Kelloway, E. K. (2001). Transformational leadership and sports performance: The mediating role of intrinsic motivation. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 31, 1521– 1534. Chelladurai, P., & Saleh, P. (1980). Dimensions of leader behavior in sports: Development of a leadership scale. Journal of Sport Psychology, 2, 34–45. Cialdini, R. B., Reno, R. R., & Kallgren, C. A. (1990). A focus theory of normative conduct: Recycling the concept of norms to reduce littering in public places. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 1015–1026. Crozier, A. J., & Spink, K. S. (2014). Working hard or hardly working at sport camps: Examining the effect of others. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 36, S85. Deutsch, M., & Gerard, H. B. (1955). A study of normative and informational social influences upon individual judgment. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 51, 629–636. Eys, M. A., Loughead, T. M., & Hardy, J. (2007). Athlete leadership dispersion and satisfaction in interactive sport teams. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 8, 281–296. Eys, M. A., Schinke, R. J., Surya, M., & Benson, A. J. (2014). Role perceptions in sport groups. In M. Beauchamp & M. Eys (Eds.), Group dynamics in exercise and sport psychology (pp. 131–146). Oxford: Routledge. Forsyth, D. R. (2000). One hundred years of group research: Introduction to the special issue. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 4, 3–6. Forsyth, D. R. (2014). Group dynamics (6th Ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Fort, R. (2006). Competitive balance in North American professional sports. In J. Fizel (Ed.), Handbook of sports economics research (pp. 190–206). Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, Inc. Goldstein, N. J., & Cialdini, R. B. (2007). Using social norms as a lever of social influence. In A. R. Pratkanis, (Ed.), The science of social influence: Advances and future progress (pp. 167–192). New York: Psychology Press. James, L. R., & Jones, A. P. (1974). Organizational climate: A review of theory and research. Psychological Bulletin, 81, 1096–1112. James, L. R., Choi, C. C., Ko, C. E., McNeil, P. K., Minton, M. K., Wright, M., & Kim, K. (2008). Organizational and psychological climate: A review of theory and research. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 17, 5–32. James, L. R., Hater, J. J., Gent, M. J., & Bruni, J. R. (1978). Psychological climate: Implications from cognitive social learning theory and interactional psychology. Personnel Psychology, 31, 781–813. Kahn, R. L., Wolfe, D. M., Quinn, R. P., Snoek, J. D., & Rosenthal, R. A. (1964). Organizational stress: Studies in role conflict and ambiguity. New York: Wiley. Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal, 33, 692–724. Loughead, T. M., Hardy, J., & Eys, M. A. (2006). The nature of athlete leadership. Journal of Sport Behavior, 29, 145–158. Martin, L. J., Bruner, M. W., Eys, M. A., & Spink, K. S. (2014). The social environment in sport: Selected topics. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 7, 87–105. Martin, L. J., Wilson, J., Evans, M. B., & Spink, K. S. (2015). Cliques in sport: Perceptions of intercollegiate athletes. The Sport Psychologist, 29, 82–95. Moran, M. M., & Weiss, M. R. (2006). Peer leadership in sport: Links with friendship, peer acceptance, psychological characteristics, and athletic ability. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 18, 97–113. Moscovici, S. (1985). Social influence and conformity. Handbook of Social Psychology, 2, 347–412. Price, M. S., & Weiss, M. R. (2013). Relationships among coach leadership, peer leadership, and adolescent athletes’ psychosocial and team outcomes: A test of transformational leadership theory. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 25, 265–279. Priebe, C. S., & Spink, K. S. (2012). Using messages promoting descriptive norms to increase physical activity. Health Communication, 27, 284–291. Priebe, C. S., & Spink, K. S. (2014). Blood, sweat, and the influence of others: The effect of descriptive norms on muscular endurance and task self-efficacy. Psychology of Sport & Exercise, 15, 491–497. Remers, L., Widmeyer, W. N., Williams, J. M., & Myers, L. (1995). Possible mediators and moderators of the class size–member adherence relationship in exercise. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 7, 38–49.

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Saxon, M. (2014, June 5). Don Mattingly: Chemistry at issue. ESPN. Retrieved from http://espn. go.com/los-angeles/mlb/story/_/id/11034128/don-mattingly-blames-los-angeles-dodgers-lackcohesion Smith, M. J., Arthur, C. A., Hardy, J., Callow, N., & Williams, D. (2013). Transformational leadership and task cohesion in sport: The mediating role of intrateam communication. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 14, 249–257. Spink, K. S. (1995). Cohesion and intention to participate of female sport team athletes. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 17, 416–427. Spink, K. S. (2014). Team building. In R. Eklund & G. Tenenbaum (Eds.), Encyclopedia of sport and exercise psychology (Vol. 19, pp. 741–744). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Spink, K. S., Crozier, A. J., & Robinson, B. (2013). Examining the relationship between descriptive norms and perceived effort in adolescent athletes: Effects of different reference groups. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 14, 813–818. Spink, K. S., Nickel, D., Wilson, K., & Odnokon, P. (2005). Using a multilevel approach to examine the relationship between task cohesion and team task satisfaction in elite ice-hockey players. Small Group Research, 36, 539–554. Spink, K. S., Ulvick, J. D., Crozier, A. J., & Wilson, K. S., (2014). Group cohesion and adherence in unstructured exercise groups. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 15, 293–298. Spink, K. S., Wilson, K. S., Brawley, L. R., & Odnokon, P. (2013). The perception of team environment: The relationship between psychological climate and members’ perceived effort in high performance groups. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 17, 150–161. Spink, K. S., Wilson, K., & Odnokon, P. (2010). Examining the relationship between cohesion and return to team in elite athletes. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 11, 6–11. Spink, K. S., Wilson, K. S., & Priebe, C. S. (2010). Groupness and adherence in structured exercise settings. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 14, 163–173. Stenling, A., & Tafvelin, S. (2014). Transformational leadership and well-being in sports: The mediating role of need satisfaction. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 26, 182–196. Surya, M. (2012). Athletes’ perceptions of role satisfaction (Unpublished master’s thesis). Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Topendsports (2015). Ultimate list of the world’s most popular sports. Retrieved from http://www. topendsports.com/world/lists/popular-sport/final.htm Uhl-Bien, M., Riggio, R. E., Lowe, K. B., & Carsten, M. K. (2014). Followership theory: A review and research agenda. The Leadership Quarterly, 25, 83–104. Zanna, M. P., & Fazio, R. H. (1982). The attitude behavior relation: Moving toward a third generation of research. In M. P. Zanna, E. T. Higgins, & C. P. Herman (Eds.), Consistency in social behavior: The Ontario symposium, Vol. 2 (pp. 283–301). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

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55 I N T E R D I S C I P L I NA RY C O N N O I S SE U R SH I P I N S P O RT P SYC H O L O G Y R E SE A R C H Andrew C. Sparkes and Brett Smith Interdisciplinary work involves researchers from a variety of disciplines collaborating to solve a common problem. Multidisciplinary work involves researchers from various disciplines working separately on different aspects of a broad problem. Accordingly, as Sparkes and Smith (2014) and Stock and Burton (2011) note, the former is different from the latter in the level of integration and cooperation it requires to meet the aims of bridging disciplinary viewpoints. Interdisciplinary research enables the examination of existing accumulated knowledge from the perspective of a neighboring discipline and, most importantly, crossing boundaries to create new knowledge. This approach involves bringing people and ideas together from different disciplines to jointly frame a problem, agree on a methodological approach, and analyze data. Thus interdisciplinary research requires a much more collaborative approach to problem formulation and methodological development than multidisciplinary research. (Stock & Burton, 2011, p. 1096) Based on their review of studies that assessed interdisciplinary teamwork in healthcare research published in England from 1990 to 2010, Lakhani, Benzies and Hayden (2012) identify the following seven attributes as necessary for effective interdisciplinary research to take place: Team purpose; Goals; Leadership; Communication; Cohesion; Mutual respect; Reflection. They note that achieving each of these individual attributes is difficult and that the problem is compounded when the task of achieving all of them is considered. This point is reinforced by Sparkes (2015) in his reflections on the complex and messy process dynamics involved when sport psychology researchers from different disciplines attempt, in all good faith, to work together. Sparkes (2015) notes the problems of bringing together sport psychology researchers socialized into various world views, or paradigms, that may not just be different but also incommensurable (e.g., positivism and critical theory). As Gill (2011) states, ‘different methods (data collection, analysis strategies) may mix well, but different methodologies and research paradigms (underlying philosophies and epistemologies) do not mix so easily’ 581

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(p. 309). This is particularly so when there are differences regarding the goal of inquiry, the role of values, the role of theory, the voice represented, the researcher role, and the legitimacy criteria called upon to judge the inquiry. For example, given the view of knowledge as observable, empirical, quantifiable, and verifiable held within positivism, this paradigm has prediction and explanation as goals of inquiry with the role of the researcher being that of a disinterested and detached scientist. In contrast, given the view of knowledge as multiple, situated, and socially and historically bounded held within critical theory, this approach has empowerment and emancipation as the goal of inquiry. Here, the role of the researcher is that of transformative intellectual in the form of advocate or activist. These are differences that make a difference when it comes to working together and communicating ideas within an interdisciplinary research (IDR) project. Another example of a difference that makes a difference in IDR are the criteria that are called upon to judge both the process and products of inquiry by those working within various paradigms. For positivist and post-positivist researchers the standard criteria used for judging the quality of a study are normally those of validity, reliability, and generalizability. However, as Sparkes and Smith (2014) point out, given the different philosophical assumptions that inform the constructivist, phenomenological, narrative, critical, and post-structural paradigms, these terms take on different meanings, if indeed they have any meaning at all. While positivist and post-positivist researchers might be able to make some connection to the parallel trustworthiness criteria of confirmability, credibility, transferability, and dependability used by some constructivist researchers, they are less likely to be able to connect to the criteria called upon by some critical researchers like Lather (1993) who seek various transgressive validities (e.g., ironic, paralogical, rhizomic, and voluptuous). Critical researchers are also likely to engage with the criteria that some autoethnographers like Holman Jones (2005) use to judge their work. These might include: participation as reciprocity; partiality, reflexivity, and citationality as strategies for dialogue; dialogue as a space of debate and negotiation; personal narrative and storytelling as an obligation to critique; evocation and emotion as incitements to action; and engaged embodiment as a condition for change. Given the situation described above, if those involved in IDR in sport psychology are to communicate across difference, engage with each other in mutually respectful ways, and judge the processes and products of alternative forms of inquiry using criteria that are consistent with and relevant to their internal meaning structures and purposes then, at the very least, they need to become multilingual in relation to the terminologies used (Sparkes, 2015). Acknowledging and respecting difference, and stepping outside one’s zone of comfort and expertise is no easy task (Smith & McGannon, 2015). Yet, as Stock and Burton (2011) argue, whilst it is a rare scholar who seeks to read outside the discipline in search of new information and new metaphors that can increase the precision and comparability of their own work, it is vital that researchers do this, not least for intellectual curiosity. As they note, a ‘lack of intellectual curiosity hampers personal relationships in projects orientated across disciplines, just as the reverse is true’ (p. 1092). In support, Smith and McGannon (2015) also argue that intellectual curiosity is crucial if researchers from different disciplines are to cross boundaries in order to create new knowledge in the field of sport psychology, and advance the discipline. With this curiosity and movement across boundaries comes an ethical imperative in which the task, according to Bernstein (1991), is to assume the responsibility to listen carefully and attempt to grasp what is being expressed and said in alien traditions. For him, this needs to be done in ways that resist the dual temptation of either facilely assimilating what others are saying into our own categories and language without doing justice to what is genuinely different, or 582

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simply dismissing what the other is saying as incoherent nonsense. Such responsibility Bernstein argues, ‘should not be confused with an indifferent superficial tolerance where no effort is made to understand and engage with the incommensurable otherness of the “Other”’ (p. 66). Sparkes and Smith (2009, 2014) propose that assuming the responsibility to listen carefully and attempting to grasp what is being expressed in different disciplines in sport psychology, so that judgment might be passed in an ethical and fair manner on the process and products of their inquiries, calls for the qualities of connoisseurship. For Eisner (1991) this involves the ability to make fine-grained discriminations among complex and subtle qualities. Accordingly, connoisseurship ‘is the art of appreciation. It can be displayed in any realm in which the character, import, or value of objects, situations, and performances is distributed and variable’ (p. 63). Eisner emphasizes that the term appreciation should not be conflated with ‘a liking for’. There is no necessary relationship between appreciating the strengths and weaknesses of a research approach (e.g., post-positivism or constructionism) or discipline (e.g., psychology or sociology) and liking it. Furthermore, as Eisner argues, ‘Nothing in connoisseurship as a form of appreciation requires that our judgements be positive. What is required (or desired) is that our experience be subtle, complex, and informed’ (p. 69). In support of this view, Schwandt (1994) points out that for the connoisseur, perceiving or experiencing is a kind of heightened awareness or educated perception, that involves a particular kind of attention to nuance and detail as well as to the multiple dimensions or aspects of the phenomenon under consideration. Importantly, connoisseurship in relation to IDR in sport psychology is about risking one’s prejudices when encountering something new or unfamiliar. As Smith and Deemer (2000) comment, ‘Just as in the process of judgement one asks questions of a text or person, the person or text must be allowed to ask questions in return’ (p. 889). They argue that approaching a novel form of inquiry requires that one be willing to allow it to challenge one’s prejudices and possibly change the criteria one is using to judge the processes and products of the inquiry, thereby changing one’s idea of what is and is not good inquiry. Smith and Deemer stress, however, that there is no method for engaging in the risking of one’s prejudices and, if anything, ‘to risk one’s prejudices is a matter of disposition – or, better said, moral obligation – that requires one to accept that if one wishes to persuade others, one must be equally open to be persuaded’ (p. 889). Against this backdrop it is useful to consider what can happen when IDR projects are undertaken in the absence or presence of what we might call interdisciplinary connoisseurship as part of the process. The following examples provide interesting insights into what can happen when researchers drawing on different forms of inquiry (quantitative and qualitative) engage with each other in the conditions of absence or presence.

Interdisciplinary research in the absence of connoisseurship The first example is a study by O’Cathain, Murphy and Nicholl (2008). They interviewed researchers who worked on IDR projects. With regard to the facilitators of, and barriers to exploiting the potential of IDR, they found that qualitative researchers often described how quantitative researchers made judgments about the quality of their work based on the strengths and purposes of quantitative research, in particular the use of large random samples to ensure statistical generalizability. These researchers felt, therefore, that some quantitative researchers did not respect qualitative research and led to them constantly being asked to justify their work, or fight for space to talk about their work, within team meetings. This lack 583

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of respect for ontological, epistemological, and methodological difference was communicated both explicitly and implicitly. It often led to team meetings being perceived as places of battle rather than integration. O’Cathain et al. also point out that some quantitative researchers in the project felt that qualitative researchers did not respect their work and this had negative consequences for those involved. It is interesting to note that in this study by O’Cathain et al. (2008) that the team members described the term ‘respect’ as being ‘open to different approaches to research, understanding different approaches, and being willing to be involved in the “other” approach’ (p. 1581). Respect was seen as a precondition for qualitative research to be treated as equal to quantitative research within a study and valued for what it can do, rather than being seen as a second-class component in the project. That this did not happen clearly had negative consequences for those involved and the full potential of IDR in this instance was not achieved. The need for mutual respect between those involved in IDR is supported by Lunde Heggen and Strans (2013) in their case study of a team of researchers who focused on athletes with knee injuries. Importantly, their study raises the often overlooked, but crucial issue of power in the relationships between those involved (see also McGannon & Schweinbenz, 2011; Sparkes, 2013, 2015). For Lunde and colleagues, power issues and relationships were articulated by the members of the project team along a number of axes, and were often accompanied by an expression of their disempowerment or inferiority in a hierarchy. Of interest here, is the way that the historical genesis of the project led to an asymmetry in ownership that led to the qualitative researchers not feeling entirely included in the overall project design, nor in the overall presentation of the project in various arenas. In part, Lunde et al. (2013) suggest, this was because the project was covertly or perhaps subconsciously quantitative dominant, and so gave higher scientific value to the post-positivist, experimental, methodology that was used rather than to qualitative observations. In view of this, the qualitative researchers suffered under forms of paradigmatic, methodological, and method disrespect in spite of the plans and intents of symmetry. In this perceived discrepancy between plans, good intentions, and real dominance, Lund and colleagues illuminate the connections between the philosophical, collegial, and personal in the project and how differences in these can lead to experiences of disrespect and personal disappointment. Lunde et al. conclude that the outcome of the knee project was one of tolerant ambivalence between the researchers working in two different paradigms. Of course, the project as described by Lunde et al. (2013) and O’Cathain et al. (2008) may be extreme cases in terms of how IDR teams operate and should not be taken to represent all such ventures. It does, however, draw attention to the difficulties of bringing together researchers from different disciplines that hold different views on ontology, epistemology, methodology and how various techniques should be used for specific purposes. Importantly, these studies illustrate the negative experiences that can accrue for the researchers involved and the impact this can have on their ability, and willingness, to generate new knowledge and meanings in the absence of interdisciplinary connoisseurship.

Interdisciplinary research in the presence of connoisseurship The amount of work and ongoing negotiation required to enable a successful, collaborative, and mutually respectful IDR team to develop is evident in the case study provided by Krane, Ross, Barak, Rowse and Lucas-Carr (2012). They draw upon personal journals and reflexive group interviews to provide a behind-the-scenes account of the inner workings of a feminist research group made up of female faculty and graduate students, with very 584

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different academic experiences and interests, as they navigated their way through a project that focused on visual representations of female athletes. While sharing a common research goal, each member negotiated her personal, conceptual, and epistemological stances as they produced an effective, interdisciplinary pastiche. As part of this process, the members of the group worked hard to create a non-hierarchical, safe, and mutually trusting atmosphere in which each could find their academic voice. They continuously and ethically questioned their methods, and incorporated reflexivity throughout their engagement with each other. Their guiding philosophy was also that every member of the group brings something important to our conversations. For example, experience brought indispensable know-how to the project; yet, inexperience brought refreshing new perspectives to the research …We aimed to treat everyone equitably and we counted on each person contributing in a manner consistent with their academic background …Part of doing hierarchy with a difference is to value diversity within the research group members … Embracing a mode of working together that did not rely on a rigid hierarchical structure and being open to share with and learn from one another required that the people in positions of power recognized and openly acknowledged their privilege. Because we embraced our different vantage points, we all benefited from our interactions. (Krane et al., 2012, pp. 255–257) As the account by Krane et al. (2012) illustrates, doing IDR is a time-consuming and complex process that requires a high degree of sustained commitment. For example, in Krane and colleagues’ study, substantial introductions took place over several months at the start of the project. As a result, they were able to learn about and understand each other’s sport background, epistemological and theoretical grounding, and academic backgrounds and interests. Through respectful and unhurried deliberation the members of the group became adept at explaining ideas, using examples and educating each other. In so doing, they were able to find common ground and a common language, as well as recognize the unique strengths and perspectives that each person brought to the research as they solidified the study design and evolved into an interdisciplinary unit. This is not to say that the members of the group did not face challenges along the way. As Krane et al. state, ‘It was not always easy; there were sticking points, snags, and differences of opinion ... At times the process seemed arduous; examining a concept from so many perspectives seemed excessive’ (p. 265). Working through these challenges in a collaborative and reflexive manner was, however, an integral part of working together across differences so that members of the group grew as scholars and individuals. More recently, even though they offer their reflections on ‘doing’ multi-disciplinary research (but that we see as inter-disciplinary research), Spiller, Ball, Daniel, Dibb, Meadows and Canhoto (2015) confirm the insights provided by Krane et al. (2012) about the complex relational processes of engaging in IDR. The project described by Spiller et al. (2015) involved six academics from diverse disciplinary and theoretical backgrounds working together with a view to examining UK government surveillance regimes. For them, the process of coming together, working together, and finding a comfortable space in which they could relax and share theoretical persuasions led to what they call a carnivalesque collaboration that involved the following.

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There is a suspension that enables new modes of inter-relationships, in which those who do not normally mingle or converse do so. Eccentricity is prevalent when behaviours viewed as alternative or different are celebrated for their performative zeal. In addition, a carnivalistic mésalliances is encouraged, in which formalities and distinctions are ignored for the duration of the carnival and where there is room for profanation, as obscenities and ridicule of those of higher social order is tolerated. (Spiller et al., 2015, p. 558) Spiller et al. (2015) describe creating a place where they met regularly to discuss research ideas and issues that they came to define as ‘the research sanctuary’ that provided an escape from the usual official order and official ideology of academia. This collaborative space was important in how they came to work together throughout the project. In this sanctuary, each of them was ‘the only expert in the room’ in relation to their respective discipline, so that each brought a knowledge with which the others were less familiar. As a result, team members at all career stages enjoyed status, and political or competitive elements were deferred. As they worked though their project, Spiller et al. (2015) realized the need to ‘let go’ as part of the process of doing IDR. This was not easy to accomplish and involved some uncomfortable and sometimes painful moments for the team. As an example of letting go, problems were encountered with their writing styles. These were often incompatible, with three members readily applying critical perspectives to their work, while the others tended to use more positivist styles. Consequently, they each had to move away from their theoretical histories and perspective, and learn new approaches in order to harmonize their writing styles for journals and during the writing of a book manuscript. In this instance, as with others in the project, each researcher was required to adopt a degree of plasticity to adapt to the new working arrangements. The process helped distance them from their disciplinary roots and compromised the degree to which each ‘fitted’ with one another as they sought new, hybrid, and cohesive ways to ground their research project in collaborative ways. As Spiller et al. wrote. When we do research using an unfamiliar method or write about a new theory, we are not irrevocably changed as researchers; rather, we have merely expanded our research perspectives and experiences. A willingness to work in this manner is essential and may explain the dynamic of this particular research team and why it was productive. We let go when we agreed to join the team, and each time we entered a research meeting, we continued to let go. (p. 563) For Spiller et al. (2015), moving into the unknown or working ‘in-between’ as part of a collaborative engagement in the project was challenging and anxiety provoking for those involved. Such letting go was necessary, though balanced, with the act of coming together. As Spiller and colleagues acknowledged, as researchers, they were structured by and rightly celebrated and protected their disciplines, research methods, research teams, and research audiences. So, for them, it was important that they could return to the comfort of their disciplinary ‘homes’ when away from the project to ground themselves in the familiar and provide a secure space for reflection. In combination, this dynamic process of letting go and coming together led to the team members gaining an ‘extremely positive’ experience of engaging in IDR, and led to the development of new knowledge and meanings.

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Brief reflections As presented above, something very different seems to have taken place in the two studies described by O’Cathain et al. (2008) and Lunde et al. (2013), and the two studies described by Krane et al. (2012) and Spiller et al. (2015). Clearly, we have set the two pairs up as polar opposites and have not considered the range of variations that can operate in between them. Despite this negligence, for the purposes of our argument, this polarisation functions to highlight what we believe can happen when interdisciplinary connoisseurship is absent or present in IDR. It also signals the consequences that follow in terms of individual experiences and scholarly outcomes. In saying this, we are not claiming a causal relationship. We do suggest, however, that interdisciplinary connoisseurship can play an important role in developing a collaborative and creative research environment in which there is mutual respect across difference. Such respect as part of interdisciplinary connoisseurship enables those involved the freedom to communicate their ideas, and share their strengths and weaknesses in the pursuit of new knowledge without fear of ridicule or retribution. The studies by O’Cathain et al. (2008) and Lunde et al. (2013) also highlight that simply bringing researchers from different backgrounds together does not constitute IDR. Nor does it offer any guarantee of a successful outcome. In contrast, the studies by Krane et al. (2012) and Spiller et al. (2015) illustrate that a great deal of hard work needs to be invested throughout an IDR project if interdisciplinary connoisseurship is to be fostered so that mutual respect across difference becomes a possibility for all those involved. Here people’s specific strengths, rather than their weaknesses, are valued and celebrated within a flexible and dynamic process of inquiry. None of this, of course, guarantees a successful IDR project. Indeed, being involved in a successful IDR project now is no guarantee that future collaborative research, with the same team members, or different team members, will be successful. All we can say, based on the examples we have considered as well as some of our experiences, is that for us, the chances of successful IDR in sport psychology is likely to be enhanced by the presence rather than the absence of interdisciplinary connoisseurship.

References Bernstein, R. (1991). The new constellation: The ethical-political horizons of modernity/postmodernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Eisner, E. (1991). The enlightened eye: Qualitative inquiry and the enhancement of educational practice. New York: Macmillan. Gill, D. (2011). Beyond the qualitative-quantitative dichotomy: Notes from a non-qualitative researcher. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 3, 305–312. Holman Jones, S. (2005). Autoethnography: Making the personal political. In N. K. Denzin, & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (3rd Ed., pp. 763–792). London: Sage. Krane, V., Ross, S., Barak, K., Rowse, J., & Lucas-Carr, C. (2012). Unpacking our academic suitcases: The inner workings of our feminist research group. Quest, 64, 249–267. Lakhani, J., Benzies, K., & Hayden, K. (2012). Attributes of interdisciplinary research teams: A comprehensive review of the literature. Clinical and Investigative Medicine, 35, E60–E65. Lather, P. (1993). Fertile obsession. The Sociological Quarterly, 34, 673–693. Lunde, A., Heggen, K., & Strans, R. (2013). Knowledge and power: Exploring un- productive interplay between quantitative and qualitative researchers. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 7, 197–210. McGannon, K. R., & Schweinbenz, A. N. (2011). Traversing the qualitative-quantitative divide using mixed methods: Some reflections and reconciliations for sport and exercise psychology. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 3, 367–381. O’Cathain, A., Murphy, E., & Nicholl, J. (2008). Multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, or dysfunctional? Team working in mixed-methods research. Qualitative Health Research, 18, 1574–1585. Schwandt, T. (1994). Constructivist, interpretivist approaches to human inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 118–137). London: Sage.

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Smith, B., & McGannon, K. R. (2015). Psychology and sociology in sport studies. In R. Giulianotti (Ed.), Routledge handbook of the sociology of sport (pp. 194–203). London: Routledge. Smith, J., & Deemer, D. (2000). The problem of criteria in the age of relativism. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd Ed., pp. 877–896). London: Sage. Sparkes, A. (2013). Qualitative research in sport, exercise and health in the era of neoliberalism, audit, and New Public Management: Understanding the conditions for the (im)possibilities of a new paradigm dialogue. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 5, 440–459. Sparkes, A. (2015). Developing mixed methods research in sport and exercise psychology: Critical reflections on five points of controversy. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 16, 49–59. Sparkes, A., & Smith, B. (2009). Judging the quality of qualitative inquiry: Criteriology and relativism in action. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 10, 491–497. Sparkes, A., & Smith, B. (2014). Qualitative research methods in sport, exercise and health: From process to product. London: Routledge. Spiller, K., Ball, K., Daniel, B., Dibb, S., Meadows, M., & Canhoto, A. (2015). Carnivalesque collaborations: Reflections on ‘doing’ multi-disciplinary research. Qualitative Research, 15, 551–567. Stock, P., & Burton, R. (2011). Defining terms for integrated (multi-inter-trans-disciplinary) sustainability research. Sustainability, 3, 1090–1113.

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56 C L O SI N G T H E L O O P Kerry R. McGannon, Brett Smith and Robert J. Schinke

To ‘close the loop’ on this international handbook and, we hope, to open up further conversations, this final chapter is framed through a ‘lens’ of reflecting back upon two central questions: (1) did we accomplish our aims with the book? And (2) what was learned as a result? To articulate the answers to these questions, we first briefly reiterate the aims/purpose of the book, followed by some reflections gleaned throughout the handbook process. We position these reflections as points/lessons to be learned/shared and as tentative ‘takeaways’ for the future. Consistent with ‘academic connoisseurship’ outlined in our introduction (Sparkes & Smith, 2009; see also Schinke, Tenenbaum, Lidor, & Lane, 2014), these reflections are offered in the spirit of creating dialogue, rather than being a monologue (e.g., our viewpoint), or viewed as a set of definitive/rigid points with which readers ‘must’ engage, agree or align. We hope that readers use their own academic backgrounds, experiences and imaginations regarding these points/takeaways as well as form their own views. In turn, we hope that together, these views raise new questions, spurring continued growth within sport psychology to help the domain to continue flourishing within the fluidity of a dynamic global sport psychology landscape.

Aims/purpose of the handbook revisited The Routledge International Handbook of Sport Psychology was broadly conceived as a ‘thematic guide’ and contemporary resource for sport psychology scholars interested in the breadth of scholarship found within the domain’s past, current, developing and rapidly changing landscape. Our aim was to not only extend previous sport psychology handbook offerings and established sport psychology topics, but to also offer novel topics and approaches (e.g, multiple sport psychology histories, cultural sport psychology, new ‘takes’ on established topics) as these are experiencing rapid growth and development within the field. We aimed to achieve this goal of extended and novel offerings in a number of ways. The first of these was organizing the book into broad sections titled ‘emerging themes’ (Parts I and II) and ‘established themes’ (Part III). Further, each chapter was written by renowned authors from a diversity of countries, holding a range of perspectives, in order to reflect diversity and inclusivity, and to ‘tap into’ multiple knowledges, within and across the domain. ‘Emerging 591

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themes’ housed chapters within the sections of international histories in sport psychology, athlete adjustments and transitions, and cultural sport psychology. We regard the chapters within these sections as a particularly novel and innovative feature of this handbook, as they further allowed us to extend previous sport psychology handbook offerings due to the centrality and space each was given for the first time – particularly the topics of history and cultural sport psychology. Likewise, Parts IV to VI containing chapters within the areas of motivation and emotion, cognition, and group dynamics are novel additions. These chapters offer new understandings and interpretations on established topics. Providing a balance to the opening of the book, which was devoted to where sport psychology has been historically within developed and developing countries, we closed the book with commentaries from esteemed, established scholars to explore where sport psychology might be headed into the future. Each scholar’s forecast offered a uniquely reflective vantage on the various overarching sections of the book – from athlete adjustments and transitions, cognition, motivation and emotion, group dynamics and cultural sport psychology – to interdisciplinary connoisseurship, which is the spirit in which we position this international handbook as open to a multitude of viewpoints, not placing one as more or less important than the other.

Reflecting back on our journey: three key points By organizing the book in the above manner and having been fortunate to secure contributions from world-class scholars spanning a breadth of thematic areas resonating within the field, we believe that we met our aim of providing an updated and novel handbook encapsulating the contemporary, dynamic, global landscape of sport psychology. Having said that, in order to further contextualize this assertion, we reflect more deeply and critically on this process by turning to three ‘key’ points taken from our journey of engaging with a diversity of scholars, approaches and topics. The first of these points is that, as already alluded to in our introduction and within the present closing, sport psychology is a vibrant and flourishing field, which is pushing the envelope to better understand and impact the human condition. While time and space prohibit highlighting the details of all of the chapters within the book to support this statement, a few examples come to mind that reveal a field that concerns itself not only with athlete and sport performance enhancement and mental skills. People in the field are also engaging more critically with athlete welfare and well-being by crossing boundaries within, and outside of, the discipline of sport psychology to explore such issues. These sorts of foci and practices of crossing disciplinary boundaries, we believe, are important as they reveal the range of issues that athletes and sport participants alike may face in a more critical manner within a sport culture that can be both positive and negative (Smith & McGannon, 2015). For example, under the ‘emerging themes’ umbrella we see topics within the athlete adjustment and transitions section highlighting not only the importance of coping and character/morality issues in sport, but that these sorts of issues may cross-over and/or relate to the vulnerabilities of athletes such as burnout, disordered eating and gender, athlete abuse, and concussion. Likewise within the cultural sport psychology section, we see a number of ‘critical lenses’ in chapters on cultural studies and feminism that intersect with the aforementioned topics and also allow for the consideration of topics discussed in chapters on whiteness/white privilege, race and ethnicity, disability and sexuality and LGBT within this section. Under the ‘established themes’ umbrella we see topics within the motivation and emotion section that continue to reinforce the importance of theory-driven research in 592

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chapters on self-regulation and emotional regulation. Topics within the cognition section such as self-talk and mental toughness are also more than ‘just’ taken-for-granted mental skills, these are important areas of debate regarding conceptualization and measurement as well as ‘entry points’ for athlete understanding or enhancing performance, motivation and self-determined well-being. Within the group dynamics section under the ‘established themes’ umbrella we further see that the boundaries we set up between chapters are again permeable and fluid. While more will be said about the notion of boundary crossing within and between areas in points two and three, for now it can be noted that the chapters within Parts IV to VII such as shared mental models, team resilience and motivational gains in group contexts, show that ‘within the head phenomena’ are impacted by the social and cultural milieu. We thus encourage and challenge readers, as well as ourselves, to be open to reading across the parts of the book, regardless of one’s interest, background, epistemology or world view, since each chapter may have something to offer each of us in terms of stretching one’s own thinking and research boundaries in sport psychology (Smith & McGannon, 2015). Our second point of reflection on our journey with this handbook, is that there are new and/or emerging areas (e.g., methods, methodologies, approaches, new directions) in sport psychology. This second point dovetails off from our first point. Sport psychology is a healthy and flourishing field, but both pushing the envelope and taking risks in research is essential for the continuation of sport psychology’s development and vibrancy. This point was evident across, and within, each of the chapters, despite the fact that boundaries were artificially set up for coherency reasons by placing chapters under ‘emerging themes’ and ‘established themes’ umbrellas. In this regard, irrespective of the specific topic and where it was housed, all authors engaged with, in some form/manner, issues related to methods, methodologies, and new directions, as each of these pertained to their topic. One specific aspect of this practice that comes to mind was the commonality of all authors grappling with issues of conceptualization in some form – whether in adjustments and transitions, cultural sport psychology, motivation and emotion or in cognition. These were discussed in relation to implications concerning how then to understand particular phenomena and move forward issues related to sport participation (e.g., self-identity or disability in cultural sport psychology, imagery or flow in motivation and emotion, or mental toughness in cognition). Further, as already alluded to when discussing our aims and in our first reflection point, there are a multitude of emerging topics and/or new approaches or ‘takes’ within the present volume not previously included in sport psychology handbooks. Examples of these include, but are not limited to, sexuality in sport, hazing, concussion, the gendered aspect of disordered eating, athlete migration, shared mental models, team resilience, and biofeedback. The opening history chapters and forecasts chapters which close the book also represent novel and emerging perspectives/ways of thinking about sport psychology within the bigger picture and context of the discipline. Overall, we are indebted to contributors to the book for being critical and reflective in the writing of their chapters. We are also grateful that authors took what we believe were ‘risks’ in the ideas put forward and the way(s) in which they framed them. This practice keeps the field dynamic, fluid and growing, the importance of which is further underscored by Smith (2010) who noted: the consequences of doing ‘safe’ or ‘risky’ research may be profound. It might result in a sterile or fertile field. Having a lot of ‘safe’ research but not much research that takes ‘risks’ may mean that our work becomes predictable, formulaic, and insipid rather than innovative, creative and exciting. And if we all march to the same 593

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drumbeat, then developing and enriching our understandings of the psycho-social worlds of people involved in sport/exercise could be severely limited. (p. 95) Our third and final reflection on our handbook journey relates directly to our second point and the specific quote above, which is that while the field of sport psychology is healthy and in good shape, there is still room for growth and improvement to keep pushing the envelope concerning creativity, knowledge and understanding. While detailing exact, specific areas for development and improvement is beyond the scope of this chapter, important for continued growth and vibrancy in the field is boundary crossing (Smith & McGannon, 2015). As the term is used here, boundary crossing can refer to crossing boundaries within and across the various areas of research and topics within sport psychology. But it also extends to crossing boundaries outside of the discipline, as many authors have within the present volume, to read and learn from research outside of sport psychology (e.g., anthropology, sociology, psychology and engineering). Such boundary crossing needs to continue if our field is to grow and flourish in vibrant ways – whether in topics pertaining to ‘emerging themes’ or ‘established themes’ and everything in between. An additional aspect of boundary crossing related to the foregoing is continuing to embrace and/or be open to a multitude of research methods and methodologies underpinned by a variety of epistemologies to explore old, existing and new lines of inquiry within sport psychology. A key aspect of accomplishing such a purpose is to not only read more outside of sport psychology, but to also critically reflect on one’s own world view and background, by way of considering what, and how, one’s own values, social position and self-identities may impact the research process (McGannon & Smith, 2015). Having advocated for boundary crossing in this manner through engaging in this self-reflexive process ourselves, we too recognize that this is not an easy undertaking. For example, we have sometimes struggled with boundary crossing and maintaining an openness to variation of approaches, perspectives and world views that we have respected but questioned over the years. Such struggles also need to be contextualized within academic politics and current practices and trends that make some research directions more viable than others in our field (Sparkes & Smith, 2009). With this final point, we remind readers, and also ourselves, that the main goal of boundary crossing within the context of academic connoisseurship is to add to the wider dialogue within sport psychology that encourages researchers to ask new questions and think differently, and in so doing, generate new knowledge that leads to creative solutions to psychological, social and cultural challenges in sport contexts.

Conclusion – and we hope an opening We extend first our sincere gratitude to all the chapter contributors. Each of them gave untold time in a patient and diligent manner to provide chapters that, for us, expanded our own thinking and often crossed boundaries. For such collegiality and creativity we are indebted, and moreover, we recognize that we would not have accomplished our aims or vision for this handbook without their untold commitment to the book and sport psychology field. We further recognize that in dividing up the book into ‘thematic areas’ and including certain chapters by certain authors, that we have excluded perspectives and voices within the domain that also would have greatly enriched this offering and helped reach our aim with the book further. Whether readers of this handbook will think that we have accomplished our original aims with the inclusion of these chapters and perspectives remains to be seen. 594

Closing the loop

While we cannot be all things to all people, it is hoped that readers will take this book and its contents in the spirit of academic connoisseurship, which maintains an openness to explanation, variation and creativity in the academic and research process. We look forward to a continuing dialogue and the opening and possibilities that can come with the addition of other sport psychology handbooks that expand thinking and ways of being.

References McGannon, K. R., & Smith, B. (2015). Centralizing culture in cultural sport psychology research: The potential of narrative inquiry and discursive psychology. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 17, 79–87. Schinke, R. J., Tenenbaum, G., Lidor, R., & Lane, A. (2014). Adaptation revisited: An invitation to dialogue. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 8, 92–111. Smith, B. (2010). Narrative inquiry: Ongoing conversations and questions for sport and exercise psychology research. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 3, 87–107. Smith, B., & McGannon K. R. (2015). Psychology and sociology in sport studies. In R. Giulianotti (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of the Sociology of Sport (pp. 194–204). London: Routledge. Sparkes, A. C., & Smith, B. (2009). Judging the quality of qualitative inquiry: Criteriology and relativism in action. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 10, 491–497.

595

INDEX

When the text is within a table, the number span is in italic. When the text is within a figure, the number span is in bold. When the text is within a note, this is indicated by page number, ‘n’, note number. 2 × 2 model of goal orientations 348 2 × 2 model of perfectionism 406–7 3+1Cs model of coach-athlete relationships 472, 474 3Cs model of coach-athlete relationships 478, 481–2 3Ps of athlete development 128–9, 131, 134, 135 4Cs model of coach-athlete relationships 473 4Cs model of mental toughness 440 4Cs of athlete development 129, 134 5Cs of athlete development 129 5Ps of self-talk 457 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games 93 2008 Beijing Olympic Games 40, 43, 44, 471 2012 London Olympic Games 185, 286, 529 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games 54–5 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games 54–5 AAHPER (American Association of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation) 20 AASP (Association for Applied Sport Psychology) 28, 29, 31n17, 96, 232, 296 ABEPEEx (Brazilian Association of Studies in Sports and Exercise Psychology) 59, 63 ABRAPESP (Brazilian Association of Sports Psychology) 59 accreditation 26, 95–6, 102–3 see also certification acculturation 147–54; athletes’ transitions 526–7, 531; Canada 68, 147; context 148–9; language roots 564; research 152–3; theoretical approaches 149–50; transition process 150–2, 153–4 acculturative stress 147, 148–9 Achievement Goal Scale for Youth Sports (AGSYS) 347, 352 achievement goal theory (AGT) 131, 388

Achievement Goals Questionnaire for Sport (AGQ-S) 348, 352 Ackerman, P. L. 423 ACPE (Catalan Association of Sport Psychology) 92 active video games (AVG) 497–8 adaptation 119–25; acculturation 147, 149, 151, 152; athlete development 129; career transitions 522, 523, 524, 526, 528, 529; characteristics 443–5; cultural 75, 111; hazing 306; learning 416; mental toughness 548–9; sport injury 173; team resilience 379, 381–2, 383–4 adaptive self-regulation 319–20, 322 adherence: concussion 211; culture, race, ethnicity 250, 252; group dynamics 572, 573– 4, 578; self-regulation 329; self-talk 456; sport injury 169–70, 170–1 Adie, J. W. 349, 352–3, 476 adversity coping framework 41, 42 advocacy 190, 192, 238, 239, 244, 255 aesthetic sports 177–8 affect regulation strategies 329–30 affective response measurement 325–6 affective responses 324–31, 388, 389 African-American issues 229, 231, 233, 272 AGQ-S (Achievement Goals Questionnaire for Sport) 348, 352 AGSYS (Achievement Goal Scale for Youth Sports) 347, 352 AGT (achievement goal theory) 131, 388 Ahsen, A. 358 Al Ariss, A. 234 Alderman, R. 67, 70, 74, 75 alexithymia 404, 405–6 see also emotion regulation

596

Index

Allen, M. S. 403 ally programs 238, 239 AMA (American Medical Association) 205 Amarel, D. 509, 510 American Association of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation (AAHPER) 20 American Federation of Psychology Associations (FIAP) 97 American Medical Association (AMA) 205 American Psychological Association (APA): Brazil 60; United States 23–5, 26, 27–8, 29, 30nn5&9&11, 31n12; whiteness 232 Ames, C. 388–9, 396 Andersen, M. B. 167, 168, 205 Andreassi, J. 430 anger management 343 Anshel, M. H. 25 antecedents: anxiety 103; burnout 157–8, 160–1, 161–2; coach-athlete relationships 474; goal orientation 349, 355; leadership in sport 485–6, 489, 575; mental toughness 442; overtcovert behaviors’ linkage 568; parental support 389; psychosocial variables 554; risk taking 406 anthropology 56, 272, 305 anti-hazing policies 308–9 anticipation mechanisms. 563 APA see American Psychological Association (APA) APA 47 (APA Division 47) 23–5, 27–8, 29, 30n11, 31n12 APA Division 47 (APA 47) 23–5, 27–8, 29, 30n11, 31n12 Appleton, P. R. 160, 390–1 applied considerations 191, 192 Applied Model of Imagery Use in Sport 358 applied practice: athlete maltreatment 192; Canada 71–2; self-talk 450; spirituality 200–1; team resilience 554–6; United Kingdom 101, 102, 104 see also praxis applied research: athlete maltreatment 192; Canada 72; China 39; disabilty 299; Israel 83, 84; Japan 54; parental support 396; Russia 11 applied sport psychology services 537, 542 appraisals in sport: coping 119, 120, 121, 122–3, 125nn1&2; injury 167, 168, 169; mental toughness 440, 444; self-regulation 320; social support 507, 510; team resilience 380, 549–50 see also challenge appraisals appropriate settings 130, 132–4, 134–5 Arns, M. 431, 432 ARSQ (Athlete Received Support Questionnaire) 508 Arthur, C. A. 575 assessment of concussion 208 assimilation 149 Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP) 28, 29, 31n17, 96, 232, 296

Association for the Advancement of Applied Sport Psychology (AAASP) 23–5, 25–6, 27, 30n10, 31nn12&16&17, 72 athlete burnout 3, 157–63, 592; antecedents 158–9, 159–60, 160–1; conclusions 162–3; definitions 158; research 157, 161–2; social support 505, 508; team resilience 382; transitions 114; women coaches 491 Athlete Burnout Questionnaire 160, 162 athlete development 3, 128–35; appropriate settings 132–4; athlete maltreatment 186, 189; Canada 69; career transitions 112–13, 114; cultural transitions 526; disability sport 299; interactive elements 129; leadership in sport 489; outcomes 128–9; parental support 393; Personal Assets Framework for Sport 134–5; personal engagement 130; quality relationships 131–2; relational coaching 476 athlete engagement 158, 159–60 athlete leadership 485, 488, 490–1, 575 athlete maltreatment 184–92; background and development 184–5, 185–6; future research 190–2; relational and non-relational 186–7, 187; relational maltreatment 187–90, 188 Athlete Received Support Questionnaire (ARSQ) 508 athlete welfare 184, 185–6, 592 athlete’s personal characteristics 488 Athletic Career Transition Model 111, 115, 116, 522, 528 athletic retirement 15, 111, 519–20, 522, 530–1 attachment 42, 477–8, 538, 539–41 attachment theory 539–41 attentional styles 540, 562 Australia 120, 185, 204, 238–40, 243, 525 autoethnography 224, 233, 280, 582 autonomous motivation 158, 159, 162, 318, 320–1 Avanzino, L. 425 Avener, M. 361 AVG (active video games) 497–8 Avolio, B. J. 487, 491 BACs (Basic Action Concepts) 413–14, 414–15, 416–17 Balague, G. 92, 93, 96, 347 Bandura, A. 358, 551 Bar-Eli, M. 84–5, 86–7, 433 Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games 93 BASES (British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences, formerly BASS) 100–1, 101–2, 102–3 Basic Action Concepts (BACs) 413–14, 414–15, 416–17 BASS (British Association of Sport Sciences, now BASES) 100 Batey, J. 292–3 Baumeister, R. F. 404

597

Index

beach volleyball 177–8 Beauchamp, M. R. 576 Beck, A. T. 439 Becker, Jr., B. 56, 58–9 behavior setting theory 132 Beijing 2008 Olympic Games 40, 43, 44, 471 Bell, J. J. 403 Bergholz, L. 539 Berkman, L. F. 506 Berman, E. 177 Bernstein, N. 412–13 Bernstein, R. 582–3 Berry, J. W. 149, 152 BFB see biofeedback (BFB) BFBT (biofeedback training) 86, 429–30, 431, 432–3 Biddle, S. 103, 349–51, 350 Big 5 (Five-Factor Model of Personality) 401, 402–3, 403–4, 444, 477 binary sex demarcation 542–5, 543, 544 Bio-Ecological Theory (formerly Ecological Systems Theory) 248–9 bio-neurofeedback 68, 559 biofeedback (BFB) 4, 429–35, 593; applied psychophysiology 430–1; background and development 429–30; biofeedback training (BFBT) 432–3; EEG-neurofeedback 431–2; future recommendations 434–5; Israel 86; mental representation 418; overt-covert behaviors’ linkage 568; psychological skills training (PST) 433–4 biofeedback (BFB) modalities 429–30, 432 biofeedback (BFB) technologies 430, 434 biofeedback training (BFBT) 86, 429–30, 431, 432–3 bioinformational theory 358 biological-physiological responses 86 biological sex 543 Biology of Belief (Lipton) 540–1 biomechanics: Israel 82, 83; Japan 50; mental representation 415, 416; sport-related concussion (SRC) 205, 206; United Kingdom 100 Blair, A. 362 Blanchfield, A. 456 Blodgett, A. T. et al. 152–3, 230, 234, 281 Blumenstein, B. 84, 85–6, 433 Bolger, N. 509, 510 Bolter, N. D. 142 Bowlby, J. 539 boxing 147, 148–9, 204, 206, 529, 555 BPS (British Psychological Society) 101–2, 102–3 Brackenridge, C. H. 184 Brandtstadter, J. 319–20 Brass, M. 425 Bray, S. R. 576 Brazil 56–63; accreditation 60–1, 62–3; challenges 61–2; concussion 210; historical

background 56–7, 57–9, 58–9; online mood profiling 326; Spain 97 Brazilian Association of Sports Psychology (ABRAPESP) 59 Brazilian Association of Studies in Sports and Exercise Psychology (ABEPEEx) 59, 63 Brazilian Society of Sports Psychology (SOBRAPE) 57–9, 58 Breland-Noble, A. M. 150 Britain see United Kingdom British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences, formerly BASS (BASES) 100–1, 101–2, 102–3 British Association of Sport Sciences, now BASES (BASS) 100 British Psychological Society (BPS) 101–2, 102–3 Bronfenbrenner, U. 129, 132–3, 134, 248–9, 381 Brown, C. 28, 29 BRUMS (Brunel Mood Scale) 325–6, 329, 337, 338–9, 342 Brunel Mood Scale (BRUMS) 325–6, 329, 337, 338–9, 342 Brunner, S. 374 Bryan, W. L. 422, 423 Buber, M. 200 buffering hypothesis 444 building blocks 223, 413–14, 487 Bull, S. J. 364 Burke, P. 220 burnout see athlete burnout Burton, R. 581, 582 Busanich, R. 266, 279 Butryn, T. M. 231, 233–4, 235, 276, 280–1 CAA (Cognitive Architecture Approach) 418 Cagigal, J. M. 91–2 CAHPERD (Canadian Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance), later Physical and Health Education Canada 71 Callow, N. 575 Canada 65–77; academic mapping 65–9, 66, 67– 9; acculturation 147, 148–9, 152; background and development 70–1, 71–2, 72–3; Canadian approach 430, 433–4; contributions to global field 73–5; cultural studies 281; future trends 75–6, 76–7; group dynamics 572; hazing in sport 304, 310; motherhood 286; transitions 526; United Kingdom 105 Canadian Aboriginal athletes 75–6, 152–3, 526 Canadian Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (CAHPERD), later Physical and Health Education Canada 71 Canadian Registry for Sport Behavioral Professionals 72 Canadian Society of Psychomotor Learning and Sport Psychology (SCAPPS) 71, 74

598

Index

Canadian Sport Psychology Association (CSPA) 72, 73 career transitions 3, 111–16; acculturation 150–1; background and development 519–21; cultural praxis 521–2; cultural transitions 525– 7; elite transitions 527–8; future research 530– 1; motherhood 293; normative transitions 522–3, 523–4, 524–5; Olympic Games 528–9; self-identity 221, 223; sport injury 167, 172, 173 Carron, A. V. 67, 70–1, 74, 576 CART-Q (Coach-Athlete Relationship Questionnaires) 473–4, 477 Carvalhaes, J. 57, 58 Case, P. 198 Catalan Association of Sport Psychology (ACPE) 92 CCCS (Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies) 272, 273, 275 Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) 272, 273, 275 certification 25–7, 53, 72, 82, 255 see also accreditation CFP-CRP (Federal and Regional Councils of Psychology) 60 CFP (Federal Council of Psychology) 59–60 Chai, W. X. 39–40 challenge appraisals 121, 320, 380, 507 character definition 138–9 Chelladurai, P. 488, 489 China 36–44; 1950s to mid-1960s 36–7; 1980s to mid-1990s 37, 38–9, 39–40; future trends 43– 4; mid-1990s to present day 40–1, 41–2, 42–3 Chinese philosophy 37, 39–40, 41 Chirkov, V. 150, 152–3 Christianity 196, 198, 200 Cimino, A. 306–7 CISG (Concussion in Sport Group) 205 clay button method 341–2 Clough, P. 440 cluster solutions 415 CM (coaching model) 75, 487–8, 489–90 CNPq (National Scientific and Technological Development Council) 62 Coach-Athlete Relationship Questionnaires (CART-Q) 473–4, 477 coach controlling behaviors 475 Coaching Association of Canada 71, 73 coaching behaviors 142, 144, 189, 488, 524 coaching model (CM) 75, 487–8, 489–90 cognition: cognitive changes under pressure 566– 7; cognitive imagery 363–4; cognitive maturity 124, 139; cognitive mechanisms 85, 424, 425, 465; cognitive paradigm 85; cognitive rest 211, 212; cognitive sport psychology 40–1, 463; cognitive structures 125, 388, 416; cognitive theory of depression 439 Cognitive Architecture Approach (CAA) 418

cognitive processes: China 40–1, 44; concussion 207; disability sport 298; Israel 85; overtcovert behaviors’ linkage 560, 561, 563; selfregulation 316, 317 cohesion: culture, race, ethnicity 245; group dynamics 572, 573–4, 575–6; hazing in sport 305–6, 309; leadership in sport 488–9; motivation losses 495; relational coaching 473, 475; team resilience 381, 382, 383, 551 Colegio Oficial de Psicologos (COP) 92, 97 Coles, M. G. 559 collective efficacy 382–3, 475, 490, 551–2, 553–5 collective resilience 381, 555, 557 Collins, D. 566 Collins, D. J. 359–60 coming out 219, 239–40, 242 COMPASS model 479–80, 480–2, 481–2 competition days 340 Competitive Performance Parent 395 competitive sport psychology 51, 52 complex movements 414, 416–18, 417 complex scientific groups (KNG) 13, 15 computer-generated partners 499, 501, 502 concept development 441 conceptual explanations for hazing 305, 306 concurrent transitional challenges 112–13, 114 concussion see sport-related concussion (SRC) Concussion in Sport Group (CISG) 205 conflicting cultures 86–7 conjunctive conditions 496–7, 497–9, 500 connectomics methodologies 564 context: contextual descriptions 468–9; contextual factors 140, 141–2, 375, 487–8, 587; contextual parameters, whole-person identities 249–52 controlled motivation 158, 159 controlling coaching behaviors 477 coordination losses 465 COP (Colegio Oficial de Psicologos) 92, 97 coping strategies: career transitions 111–12; disability sport 296, 297; future research 125; injury 168, 170; personality and performance 403; relational approach 120; research 122–3, 124; team resilience 380, 549; transitions 522, 523, 524, 528–9 see also disengagementoriented coping; distraction-oriented coping correlational results: flow 369; goal orientation 347, 348–9, 349–51, 352, 354; mood measurement 336; parental support 392, 395; self-talk 454 Coté, J. 67, 128–35, 487 Coussens, A. 510 CPD (Cuadernos de Psicologia del Deporte) 94–5 Crocker, P. R. E. 67, 73, 74, 76, 124 Crosset, T. 231 Csikszentmihalyi, M. 197, 369, 370–2, 372–3 CSPA (Canadian Sport Psychology Association) 72, 73

599

Index

Cuadernos de Psicologia del Deporte (CPD) 94–5 cultural context 149, 211, 353–4 cultural identity 154, 195, 201, 252 Cultural Revolution 37 cultural sport psychology (CSP) 3–4, 5, 591–2, 592–3; acculturation 152; Canada 75–6; feminism 267–8; Israel 87; self-identity 223; stressors in sport 272–3; studies 277, 279, 280–1; transitions 521, 525–7; whiteness 228, 232, 234, 235 cultural studies 4, 272–83, 592; China 43; definitions 272–3; feminism 260, 266; key concepts 274–5; motherhood 292, 293; Russia 15; self-identity 222; sport media research 281–2; and sport psychology 276–80, 280–1, 282–3; and sport studies 275–6; transitions 521, 525–7, 526, 530–1; whiteness 228, 234 Cumming, S. P. 347, 353, 360, 363, 364 Cutrona, C. E. 506, 509 Dagrou, E. 451 Damon, W. 138, 141 Danish, S. J. 22, 26 Davis, L. 477 De Souza, J. 177 Debois, N. 290 Deci, E. L. 158, 369, 372 decision alteration 565 decision execution 565 Deemer, D. 583 deep flow 371, 374 deliberate practice (DP) 130, 364, 421–3, 423–4, 425–6 deliberate practice (DP) theory 423–4 Denmark 288, 523, 524 depression: burnout 162; concussion 207; culture, race, ethnicity 250; disability sport 296; disordered eating 176; feminism 262; injury 168, 169, 173; mental toughness 439; mood measurement 336, 337, 339–41, 341–2, 343; online mood profiling 325, 326, 328–9; personality and performance 405, 407; relational coaching 477; self-identity 223; transitions 527 developing moral character 138–44; defining character 138–9; individual differences 140–1; interventions 143–4; social-contextual factors 141–2; theoretical approaches 139–40 developmental conflicts 111, 116 Developmental Model of Sport Participation 129–30 Developmental Model of Transitions faced by Athletes 112–13, 115–16 developmental perspectives 112, 520–1, 524–5, 529 developmental sport 387, 537 DFS, DFS-2 (Dispositional Flow Scale) 373, 374 diagnostic criteria 162

digital social technologies 501 dimensions of action 464 disability sport 2, 4, 296–300; feminism 264; future directions 298–300; motherhood 293; race, culture, ethnicity 249, 251–2, 253, 592, 593; research 297–8; sport participation 296–7; United Kingdom 104 disclosure: acculturation 154; athlete maltreatment 191; Brazil 61; disordered eating 178–9, 180; LGBT athletes 242; relational coaching 480 discrimination: developing moral character 141; feminism 260–1; interdisciplinary research (IDR) 583; LGBT athletes 238–40, 241; race, culture, ethnicity 243; whiteness 231 discursive psychology 223, 281, 298–9 disengagement-oriented coping 120, 124 disordered eating 3, 176–82; background and development 176–7; cultural studies 279; emerging themes 592, 593; female susceptibility 177–8; feminism 266; gender and qualitative studies 179–80; gender riskfactors 179–80, 180–1; male athletes 178–9; self-identity 223; Spain 92 Dispositional Flow Scale (DFS, DFS-2) 373, 374 dispositional traits 443–5 distraction-oriented coping 120 Doane, W. 229–30 domain-specific information 465 Dong, J. 144 DP (deliberate practice) 130, 364, 421–3, 423–4, 425–6 DP (deliberate practice) theory 423–4 dual career transitions 521, 524–5, 531 Duda, J. L. 103, 228, 321, 347, 348–9, 351 Dunn, J. 549 dyadic relationships 478, 479, 480 see also twoperson relationships dyadic research designs 477 EAT-26 (Eating Attitudes Test) 178 Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26) 178 eating disorders see disordered eating Ebbeck, V. 141, 143 Eccles, D. W. 463 Eccles, J. S. 387 Ecological Systems Theory (later Bio-Ecological Theory) 132, 248–9 Edgework Consulting 539, 541 EEG-neurofeedback 431–2 effective coaching 132, 471–2, 475, 478 EFPA (European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations) 97 ego orientation: goal orientation 346, 347, 348, 349–51, 352–3, 353–4; moral character development 140; self-talk 455 elite athlete mothers 286–7, 288–9, 290–1, 293 elite student-athletes 112, 115

600

Index

Elliot, A. J. 320–1, 348–9, 476 embodiment 224, 582 emerging scholarship 75–6, 88, 152 Emich, K. J. 500 emotion-mood distinctions 324–5 emotion regulation 101, 405–6, 440 emotional abuse 187, 188, 189, 190, 191 empathic accuracy 478–9 empathy: athlete development 129; developing moral character 140, 142, 144; future practice 542; narcissism 404; overt-covert behaviors’ linkage 565; relational coaching 478–9; spirituality 200 empirical studies 10, 158, 196, 441, 549 enacted support 506, 507, 508, 512 Encyclopedia of Sport Psychology 53–4 end-of-career transition 111 epigenetics 540, 568 Epstein, J. 389 Ericsson, K. A. 422–3, 560, 563 ESM (experience sampling method) 372–3, 374 ethic of care 287–8, 288–9, 290, 291, 292–3 ethical considerations 191, 192, 201 etiology 179, 180 Eurocentric models 249–50 European Federation of Psychologists 97 European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations (EFPA) 97 European Federation of Sport Psychology (FEPSAC) 14, 83, 96 Evans, L. 364 evolutionary psychology approach 306–7, 309, 310 exergaming technologies 568 existential psychology 104, 196–7, 198 existentialism 196, 198, 199, 200 experience sampling method (ESM) 372–3, 374 expert models 468 expertise 421–6; athlete maltreatment 186; Canada 74; culture, race, ethnicity 252; deliberate practice 423–6; disability sport 298; leadership 486; mental practice 426; mental representation 413, 415; overt-covert behaviors’ linkage 560, 562, 563–4; parental support 388; research 582; social support 510; theoretical approaches 421–3 fatherhood 294 Fazio, R. H. 573 Federal and Regional Councils of Psychology (CFP-CRP) 60 Federal Council of Psychology (CFP) 59–60 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) 210 Feerick, M. M. 190 Felton, L. 474 Feltz, D. L. 499, 551 female eating disorders 177–8

feminism 4, 260–8, 592; 1800s to World War I 261–2; 1992 to the present 264–7; cultural studies 272, 275–6, 277–80, 282; definitions 260–1; future 267–8; future practices 536, 542; interdisciplinary work 584; motherhood 291, 292; self-identity 222; whiteness 229; World War II to 1992 262–4 feminist psychology 536 FEPD (Spanish Federation of Sports Psychology) 94 FEPSAC (European Federation of Sport Psychology) 14, 83, 96 Ferrer Hombravella, J. 91, 96 FIAP (American Federation of Psychology Associations) 97 FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) 210 Finnish athletes 196, 198 First World War 10 Fisher, L. A. 262–3, 265, 267, 276–7, 279, 282 Five-Factor Model of Personality (Big 5) 401, 402–3, 403–4, 444, 477 Fletcher, D. 380, 550 Flett, G. L. 159 flow 4, 369–75, 593; athlete burnout 160; background and development 369–70; measurement 372–3; overt-covert behaviors’ linkage 563; research 373–5; spirituality 197; theories and concepts 370–2 flow experience 370–2, 373–5 flow scales 373, 374, 375 Flow State Scale (FSS, FSS-2) 373, 374 fluid sexual identity 538, 543 focusing attention 84, 85, 87 Folkman, S. 120, 121, 507, 549 followership 5, 575–6 forethought 317–18, 553 Forrest, K. 539–40 Forscher, B. K. 519, 530 Forsyth, D. R. 572 Fox, K. R. 29 Frank, C. 416–17 Fransen, K. 553 Fraser-Thomas, J. 75, 129, 133 Fredricks, J. A. 387 Freeman, H. V. 290 Freeman, P. 507–8, 508–9 FRML (Full Range Model of Leadership) 486–7, 489 FSS, FSS-2 (Flow State Scale) 373, 374 Full Range Model of Leadership (FRML) 486–7, 489 future practices 536–8, 539–42, 542–5 Galli, N. 380, 549 Gano-Overway, L. A. 141 Gardner, F. L. 25 Garmezy, N. 379

601

Index

Gaudreau, P. 407 gaze behavior 87 GBC (Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership) 102 gender binary 266, 275, 538, 542–5, 543, 544 gender comparisons 176, 181 gender fluidity 543 gender identity: future practices 538, 543; LGBT athletes 238, 239, 241, 242, 243, 244; whiteness 235 gender ideologies 287–8, 288–9, 290–1, 292, 293 gender variance 251 Gergen, K. 221, 222, 224 Geron, E. 83–4 Gershgoren, L. 466 Gibbons, S. L. 141, 143 Gilbert, W. 131 Gill, D. 260, 262, 265, 278, 581 global field contributions 65, 73–5, 87, 96–7 goal disengagement 319–20 goal orientation 4, 346–55; background 346; context 353–4; correlational results 349–51, 350; feminism 264; future research 354–5; measurement 347; model development 348–9; moral character development 140; motivation gains 502; parental support 388, 389–90; self-regulation 318; studies 352–3; United Kingdom research 103 goal strivings 315, 319–20, 320–1, 322, 495 Goodger, K. 161 Gosling, J. 198 Gould, D. 25, 27, 84, 120, 122, 487 Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership (GBC) 102 graduate programs: Brazil 58, 63; Canada 65–9, 66, 73; Israel 81–3, 88; Russia 11; Spain 95–6, 97; United Kingdom 102, 105; United States 24, 26, 28–9, 200 see also PhD scholarship Great Britain see United Kingdom grounded theory 76, 191, 380 group dynamics 572–8; background and development 572–3; group coordination 469; group norms 148, 330, 552, 576, 577–8; leadership and followership 574–6; membership cohesion 573–4; role integration 576 Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice (journal) 572 groupness 574 Groves, M. 310 Gruzelier, J. H. 431, 432 Gustafsson, H. 160, 161 Gyurcsik, N. C. 456

Hall, R. 260, 262, 265–6, 277 Hamilton, R. A. 451 Hancock, D. J. 128, 133 Hanrahan, S. J. 297–8 HAPA (Health Action Process Approach) 298 Hardy, J. 452, 490 Hardy, L. 357, 506, 507, 509 harmonious passion 160, 445, 476–7 Harter, N. 422, 423 Harwood, C. G. 392, 395 Hatzigeorgiadis, A. 450, 451, 455 Hayes, J. 422, 423 hazing in sport 4, 304–10, 593; background 304–5; conceptual explanations 305–6; feminism 266; future research 309–10; prevention 308–9; theoretical approaches 306–7, 307–8 see also initiation rituals HCPC (Health and Care Professions Council) 102 Health Action Process Approach (HAPA) 298 Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) 102 Hellison, D. 143 Henry, F. M. 20, 22–3, 70–1 heteronormativity 241–2, 266 heterosexism 241–2, 251, 260–1, 262, 267 heuristics 443–4, 445, 564 Hewitt, P. L. 159 hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) 383 hierarchical model of approach and avoidance motivation, 476 Hill, P. C. 196, 198 HLM (hierarchical linear modeling) 383 Hodge, K. 160, 553–4 Hoffman, M. L. 140 Hogan, B. E. 511 holistic perspective 3; acculturation 148, 152, 154; athlete maltreatment 185; burnout 161; career transitions 111, 113, 115–16; China 41, 43; culture, race, ethnicity 248–55; Israel 84; Japan 50; Russia 13, 15; self-identity 222; self-regulation 315; spirituality 200; transitions 521, 522, 523–4, 524–5, 529, 530–1 see also whole-person identities Holman Jones, S. 582 Holmes, P. S. 359–60 Holt, N. L. 123, 549 homonegativism 241, 243–4 homophobia 219, 239, 543 Huffmeier, J. 500 human adaptation to transition model 111, 151 human kinetics 65, 70 human movement 49–50, 233, 537 humanistic psychology 63, 536

Haidt, J. 140 Hale, B. D. 22, 26 Hall, C. 358, 360–1, 364

I-PPRS (Psychological Readiness to Return to Sport Scale) 171 Ibanez, J. R. 92, 96

602

Index

Iberoamerican Society of Sport Psychology (SIPD) 95, 97 ice hockey: acculturation 149; athlete development 133; concussion 204, 209; developing moral character 141–2; goal orientation 352; group dynamics 577; imagery 364; injury 172; leadership in sport 491; team resilience 551, 554–5; transitions 522 identity loss 176 identity politics 228, 232 IDR (interdisciplinary research) 581–3, 581–7, 583–4, 584–6, 587 imagery 357–65; background 357–8; imagery use 360–1, 361–2, 364; recommendations/ practice 364–5; research findings 362–4; theories/models 358–60, 359 see also mental imagery impairment: burnout 162; culture, race, ethnicity 251; disabilty 296, 297–8, 300; sport-related concussion (SRC) 204–5, 207, 208, 212 in-game shared knowledge states 465, 467 see also prior shared knowledge states In The Mood website 326–9, 327, 328, 330, 331 inclusive sport 154, 238–41, 243, 244–5 indigenous athletes 147 indigenous sport psychology, 40, 41–2 indispensability 496–7, 499–500, 501, 502 individual differences: accreditation 102; acculturation 151–2; coaching 473, 488; expertise and mental practice 423, 426; goal orientation 353; imagery 357, 360–1; mental representation and learning 415; and moral character 140–1; personality and performance 401; Russia 13; trauma and attachment experiences 540 individual resilience 381, 383, 384, 548–9 Individualized Zones of Optimal Functioning (IZOF) 325, 336 INEF (National Institute of Physical Education) 92, 93 information processing 559–60, 560–1, 562, 564, 566 initiation rituals 304, 307, 309 see also hazing in sport injury see sport injury instructional self-talk 451–2, 453, 455 Integrated Model of Response to Injury in Sport 205 integrated models 158, 161–2, 169, 205 integration (acculturation) 149, 152, 154 interdependence 264, 472, 495, 499, 500, 551 interdisciplinary connoisseurship 583–4, 584–6, 587, 592 interdisciplinary research (IDR) 581–3, 581–7, 583–4, 584–6, 587 internalization: disordered eating 177; flow

372; future practices 543; hazing 308; mental toughness 444; motherhood 289, 292; team resilience 550 International Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN) 186 International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 4, 76, 87, 277 International Olympic Committee (IOC) 37, 186 International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP): biofeedback (BFB) 431; Brazil 58, 60–1, 63; Canada 75; disability sport 296; Israel 82, 83; Japan 49–50, 51; Russia 14; Spain 91, 92–3, 96, 97 internet 326, 501 interpretation of self-talk 453–5 intersex 251, 543 intervention strategies 309, 434 intervention studies 143, 352–3, 375, 395–6 invisibility of support 509, 511 IOC (International Olympic Committee) 37 ISM (Triple Code) Model 358 Israel 81–9; background and development 81–3; emerging scholarship 88–9; global domain 87; research development 83–4, 84–5, 85–7; team resilience 381 ISSP see International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP) ISSP World Congress: 1965 Rome 57, 91; 1973 Madrid 91; 1993 Lisbon 96; 1997 Israel 82; 2009 Marrakech 96; 2013 Beijing 96; 2017 Seville 96, 97 Jackson, B. 475, 477 Jackson, S. A. 369, 373, 374 James, L. R. 577 James, W. 39, 195, 220, 412, 424 Japan 47–55; 2020 Tokyo Olympics 54–5; background 47–8; certification 53; Encyclopedia of Sport Psychology 53–4; Japanese Society of Sport Psychology (JSSP) 48–9, 50–3, 51–2; specialization 49–50 Japan Institute of Sport Science (JISS) 52, 53 Japan Society of Physical Education, Health and Sport Sciences (JSPEHSS) 48 Japanese Motor Learning Seminar 50 Japanese Society of Sport Psychology (JSSP) 48–9, 50–3, 51–2, 53–4, 55 Jeannerod, M. 424 JISS (Japan Institute of Sport Science) 52, 53 Jones, A. P. 577 Jones, G. 104, 297, 440, 550 Jones, M. V. 121 Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology (JSEP) 105, 421 Jowett, S. 159, 473, 474, 475–7, 478–9, 480 JSEP (Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology) 105, 421

603

Index

JSPEHSS (Japan Society of Physical Education, Health and Sport Sciences) 48 JSSP (Japanese Society of Sport Psychology) 48–9, 50–3, 51–2, 53–4, 55 junior-to-senior transition 113–15, 521, 522–3, 523–4, 529, 531 Kao, S. C. 431–2 Karageorghis, C. I . 335, 337 Kauer, K. J. 240, 241, 244 Kavussanu, M. 353–4, 390 Kawabata, M. 369, 373–5 Keegan, R. J. 392–5, 394, 396 Kerr, G. 177 kinesiology: Canada 65, 70; feminism 265; future practices 538; United States 20; whiteness 231, 233, 235 King, C. R. 230–1 Kitsantas, A. 319 KNG (complex scientific groups) 13, 15 Koehn, S. 375 Köhler motivation gain effect 496–7, 497–9, 499–500, 501, 502 Kolovelonis, A. 455 Kontos, A. P. 150 Krane, V.: cultural studies 276, 278–9; feminism 266; interdisciplinary research (IDR) 584–5, 587; LGBT athletes 240, 241–2, 244 Kremer, J. 101, 103 Kubler-Ross, E. 169 Kubler-Ross stage model, 169 Lafreniere, M.-A. K. 476–7 Lakhani, J. 581 Land, W. 416 Landers, D. M. 21, 23, 30n8, 168, 431–2 Lane, A. M. 336, 337 Lang, P. J. 358 lateralized readiness potential (LRP) 560–1 Lather, P. 275, 582 Lausic, D. 468 Lavallee, D. 103–4, 179, 393, 519 Lazarus, R. S. 119–20, 121, 122, 123, 124, 507 leadership in sport 485–91; athlete research 490–1; coaching model (CM) 487–8; coaching research 488–9, 489–90; conclusions 491; group dynamics 574; models and theories 485–6, 486–7; Russia 13 Learning-Modification-Application Approach (LMA) 430, 433–4 Lehmann, A. C. 422 Leonards, J. T. 430 Lerner, R. M. 129 LES (life-event stress) 167–8 Lesgaft Institute of Physical Culture 10, 12 Lesgaft, P. F. 10, 12 levels of mental representation 412–13 levels of motor action 412–13

Levine, R. M. 511 LGBT athletes 238–45, 592; anti-LGBT attitudes 241–2; exclusive sport 243–4; feminism 266; inclusive sport 238–41, 244–5; LGBTQ 544 LGBTQ 544 Liang, C. M. 40 life-event stress (LES) 167–8 linguistic building blocks 223 Lipton, B. 540–1 Liu, S. H. 41 LMA (Learning-Modification-Application Approach) 430, 433–4 LOC (loss of consciousness) 205, 206, 208 London 2012 Olympic Games 185, 286, 529 long-term memory (LTM): mental representation 414, 415–16; overt-covert behaviors’ linkage 560, 561, 562, 563; team coordination 465; theories of imagery 358 long-term working memory (LTWM) 561, 563–4 longitudinal studies: biofeedback 435; coping 121; flow 375; goal orientation 349, 351, 352–3, 355; mental representation 416; moral character development 144; parental support 391; sport injury 167–8 Lorimer, R. 476, 478–9 loss of consciousness (LOC) 205, 206, 208 Louvet, B. 124 LRP (lateralized readiness potential) 560–1 LTM see long-term memory (LTM) LTWM (long-term working memory) 561, 563–4 Lunde, A. 584, 587 Machado, A. A. 61–2 MacIntyre, T. 426 Madrigal, L. 441 Mahoney, J. 444 Mahoney, M. J. 361 maladaptive behaviors: athlete maltreatment 188; burnout 157, 158, 160–1; goals 351; injury 168, 172; perfectionism 407; selfregulation 322 male eating disorders 178–9 Mallett, C. J. 374–5 mandala drawings 152, 526 Mao, Z. X. 36 MAP (Mastery Approach to Sport Parenting) 395 marginalization: acculturation 149, 154; cultural studies 273, 274–5, 277, 280–1; disordered eating 181; feminism 262, 265, 267; motherhood 293; race, culture, ethnicity 250–1, 354; spirituality 195; whiteness 231, 233 Martens, R. 25, 30nn7&8 Martin, A. J. 354–5

604

Index

Martin, J. J. 297, 298 Martin, K. A. 354–5, 358–9, 362, 365 Masten, A. S. 379 Masters, R. S. W. 566 Mastery Approach to Sport Parenting (MAP) 395 mastery goals 349, 351, 352, 354, 390, 476 Matsuda, I. 48–9 Matsui, M. 47–8 McCann, S. 28, 31n18 McCloy, C. H. 138 McGannon, K. R.: concussion 210; cultural studies 273, 277–8, 279, 281–2; disordered eating 181; feminism 266; interdisciplinary research (IDR) 582; motherhood 291; selfidentity 221, 223, 266; whiteness 234 McGregor, H. A. 348–9 McIntosh, P. 229, 233, 274 Mead, G. H. 220 measuring mental representations 414–15 mediators: group dynamics 573, 574, 575; imagery 361; self-regulation 316; self-talk 450; team coordination 465 memory constructs 563–4 mental construction framework 41 mental control 413, 418 mental imagery 124, 357–65, 418, 424–5, 426 see also imagery mental management 51, 54 mental practice (MP) 421–6 mental representation 4, 412–19; building blocks in motor memory 413–14; in complex movements 416–18, 417; expertise and mental practice 424–5; future training 418–19; levels and action control 412–13; measurement 414–15; overt-covert behaviors’ linkage 560, 561, 562; self-identity 221; studies 415–16; team coordination 465 mental structures 419 mental toughness 4–5, 439–46, 593; conclusions 445–6; development waves 439–40, 440–1, 441–3; motherhood 291; personality and performance 404; team resilience 547–8, 548–50, 554–5, 556; theoretical developments 443–5 mental training: biofeedback (BFB) 433; Canada 67, 72; China 39, 41; disability sport 299; Israel 86; Japan 52, 53, 54; leadership in sport 487; mental representation 415, 418–19; motherhood 290; overt-covert behaviors’ linkage 568 mental training based on mental representations (MTMR) 419 mentoring 490, 491 meta-analyses: expertise 423; goal orientation 349–50; interdisciplinary research (IDR) 581; leadership in sport 491; motivation gains 495, 497; social support 506

metabolic cascade 204, 206 metacognition 316, 321, 380 Meteorological Model of Motivational Atmosphere 394 methodological considerations 191, 196 MI (motor imagery) 359, 418, 424–6 MIAMS (Motivational Imagery Ability Measure for Sport) 360 Michel, N. 475 microflow 371 mindfulness 567 Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) 38, 84 MIQ-R (Movement Imagery QuestionnaireRevised) 360 mixed-culture population 87 mixed methodologies 354–5, 375, 384, 524, 528 MML (Multidimensional Model of Leadership) 485, 488–9, 489 MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) 38, 84 Model of Human Adaptation to Transition 111, 151 moderators: acculturation 142, 149; group dynamics 573, 575, 576, 578; imagery 360; injury 168; mental toughness 445; mood measurement 336, 337; motivational gain 396, 498, 500, 502; personality and performance 403; relational coaching 474; self-talk 450, 455; team resilience 383 Moll, T. 511 Moneta, G. B. 370 mood cards 338–41, 339, 340, 342 mood during competition 337–8 mood measurement 335–43; background and development 335–7; conclusions 343; mood during competition 337–8; regulation strategies 338–41, 339, 340, 341–2 see also mood profiling mood profiling 324, 327–9, 331, 336, 337, 340 see also mood measurement mood regulation 338, 341–2, 343 moral and social character 138–9 moral atmosphere 142, 264 moral character development see developing moral character moral emotions 140 moral identity 141 Moran, A. 101, 103, 426 Morgan, P. B. C. 380, 381–2, 551–2, 553–4, 554–5, 557 Morris, R. L. 390 motherhood 4, 286–94; conclusions 293–4; context 287–8; cultural studies 279–80; emergence 286–7; research approaches 288– 9, 290–1, 292–3; self-identity 223 motivation: antecedents of burnout 158–9; atmosphere 393–4, 396; behaviors 346, 348,

605

Index

353; developmental practice 538; imagery 360, 363; self-talk 450, 451–2, 455, 455–7; theories 393, 396 motivation gains 494–502; future research 501–2; group dynamics 494–5; group gains and losses 495–6, 496–7, 497–9, 499–500; implications 500–1 motivational climate 4; athlete development 131; burnout 162; goal orientation 349, 352, 354; mental toughness 440; parental support 388–9, 389–92, 392–5, 395–6; team resilience 553–4 Motivational Imagery Ability Measure for Sport (MIAMS) 360 motor action 412–13, 415, 418 motor imagery (MI) 359, 418, 424–6 motor performance 20, 412, 418, 424, 561, 564 Movement Imagery Questionnaire-Revised (MIQ-R) 360 MP (mental practice) 421–6 MTMR (mental training based on mental representations) 419 multi-disciplinary research. 581, 585 Multidimensional Model of Leadership (MML) 485, 488–9, 489 multilevel modeling 445 multimodal biofeedback technologies 568 Munroe, K. J. 361 Murphy, S. 453 Murray-Garcia, J. 252 Myers, N. 551

191; cultural studies 275; disabilty 296, 298; disordered eating 179; personality and performance 401; self-identity 223; team resilience 548 Nesti, M. S. 104, 195–201 neural networks 425, 561, 565 neuroscience: Brazil 61, 63; expertise 423, 426; Japan 50; overt-covert behaviors’ linkage 562, 565, 567; self-talk 449 new knowledge: Canada 77; future practices 538, 539–42; interdisciplinary research 581–2, 584, 586, 587, 594 New Zealand 289, 292, 528, 552 Nicholls, A. R. 119, 120–1, 122–3, 124, 125 Nicholls, J. G. 346, 388, 393 Nideffer, R. M. 21, 24, 30n8, 562 Nien, C.-L. 349 non-normative transitions 112, 115, 520, 530–1 see also normative transitions; quasi-normative transitions non-relational maltreatment 185, 186–7 non-verbal communication 341 Nordin, S. M. 425 normative transitions 112–13, 115 see also nonnormative transitions; quasi-normative transitions North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity (NASPSPA) 20–1, 22–3, 23–4, 29, 30nn3&9&10 novice senior athletes 114 Ntoumanis, N. 320–1

narcissism 404–5, 408n1, 575 narrative inquiry 222–3, 281, 298–9, 300 narrative theory see narrative inquiry Nascimento Jr, J. R. 63 NASPSPA (North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity) 20–1, 22–3, 23–4, 29, 30nn3&9&10 Nat Holman School for Coaches 82 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) 23–4, 26, 31n14, 487, 499, 554–5 National Institute of Physical Education (INEF) 92, 93 National Scientific and Technological Development Council (CNPq) 62 National University of Distance Education (UNED) 95, 96 NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) 23–4, 26, 31n14, 487, 499, 554–5 negative affect: goal orientation 346, 350; online mood profiling 324, 325–6; relational coaching 475; self-regulation 317; self-talk 454–5; social support 508 negative mood 168, 325, 335, 337 see also positive mood negative self-talk 450, 451, 455 neglect: athlete maltreatment 187, 188, 190,

observable behaviors 190, 441–3, 527, 539, 565 observational learning 67, 69, 72, 141 obsessive passion 445, 476–7 O’Cathain, A. 583–4, 587 Oglesby, C. 262–3, 265, 268, 278 Oliver, E. J. 454 Olympic psychological services 42–3 Olympic Training Facilities 538 Olympiou, A. 475 online interventions 326–9, 327, 328 online mood profiling 324–31; background 324– 5; measurement of affective responses 325–6; online interventions 326–9, 327, 328; selfregulation of affective responses 329–31, 330 oppression model 260–1, 262, 265–7 optimal experience 372, 373 optimal functioning 325, 336, 369–70 orientation to life 196, 198–9 original instructions 250, 254 Orlick, T. 67, 70, 72, 73, 74 O’Rourke, D. J. 391 Osborn, K. A. 500 O’Shea, H. 426 OTS (overtraining syndrome) 158, 160–1 overt-covert behaviors’ linkage 559–68; frameworks 559–60; future research 567–8;

606

Index

information processing 560–1; knowledge base 561–2, 562–3, 563–4, 565; perceptioncognition-action 565–6, 566–7 overtraining 114, 158, 160–1, 162, 379, 529 overtraining syndrome (OTS) 158, 160–1 Owton, H. 292–3 PA-PYD (physical activity positive youth development) programs 143–4 Paivio, A. 358 PANAS (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule) 324, 325 Papathomas, A. 179 paradigm shifts: Japan 52; Russia 9, 14–15; spirituality 195; transitions 521; United States 29; whiteness 228 Paralympic athletes 297, 299 Paralympic Games 15, 54–5, 297 Parent-Initiated Motivational Climate Questionnaire (PIMCQ, PIMCQ-2) 389 parental climate 389–92, 392–5 parental support 4, 387–96; achievement goal theory (AGT) 387–8; background 387–8; future research 395–6; goal orientation 349; motivational climate 388–9; motivational climate research 389–92, 392–5, 394 Pargament, K. I. 196, 198 Park, J.-K. 122 PASS-Q (Perceived Available Support in Sport Questionnaire) 508 Pates, J. 375 pathophysiology of concussion 205–6 Pedersen, I. K. 288–9 People’s Republic of China (PRC) 36, 37, 43 Perceived Available Support in Sport Questionnaire (PASS-Q) 508 perceived support 506, 507, 508–9 perception-cognition-action linkage 565 Perception of Success Questionnaire (POSQ) 347, 349 perceptual changes under pressure 565–6 perestroika 14–15 perfectionism: burnout 158, 159, 162; coping 74; injury 167; parental support 390–1; personality and performance 404, 406–8, 407 performance control 317–18 performance enhancement 4, 592; acculturation 150; athlete maltreatment 185, 188; biofeedback 430, 431–2, 433; China 36, 39, 40; cultural studies 276; imagery 361; Israel 84; Japan 52; mood measurement 343; Russia 11, 12–13, 15; self-regulation 331; self-talk 452, 453, 455; Spain 92; spirituality 195; sport injury 167; team resilience 379; transitions 528; United Kingdom 103 performance-enhancing drugs 185, 188 performance feedback 317, 553 performance goals: goal orientation 348–9;

mood measurement 336; motherhood 290; motivation gains 496; relational coaching 472; self-regulation 316; team resilience 381, 553 person-environment interactions 119, 404, 408 personal assets 128–9, 134–5, 380, 548 Personal Assets Framework for Sport 128, 134–5 personal engagement 129, 130, 132, 134–5 personal identity 221, 225, 249 personal resilience see individual resilience personality and performance 401–8; background and development 401–2; Big 5 research 402–3; future research 408; research 403–4, 404–5, 405–6, 406–8 personality conceptualization 402 Petrie, T. A. 178–9 Petruzzello, S. J. 430 PETTLEP model of imagery 359–60 PhD scholarship: Canada 65–9, 66, 67–9, 72–3; feminism 263, 266; Israel 83, 88; transitions 519; whiteness 233 phenomenological approach 445 phenomenological reports 432 physical abuse 187, 188, 189–90, 191 physical activity positive youth development (PA-PYD) programs 143–4 Physical and Health Education Canada (formerly CAHPERD) 71 physical performance 47, 359, 494–5, 495–500, 501 physical rest 212 Piedmont, R. L. 402 PIES model 542–4 PIMCQ, PIMCQ-2 (Parent-Initiated Motivational Climate Questionnaire) 389 Polman, R. C. J. 122, 123 POMS (Profile of Mood Scale) 324, 325, 336, 337 positive adaptation 379, 381, 382, 383–4, 548 Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) 324, 325 positive mood 335, 337, 341–2, 451 see also negative mood positive psychology: burnout 159, 160; disabilty 299; flow 375; mental toughness 439; resilience 379; spirituality 197–8; team resilience 555 positive self-talk 122, 170, 297, 450, 451, 455 positive youth development (PYD): athlete development 129, 131–2, 135; Canada 67–9, 72–3, 75; developing moral character 139–40, 143–4; parental support 387 positivist approaches 195, 197, 372, 582, 586 see also post-positivist approaches POSQ (Perception of Success Questionnaire) 347, 349 post-positivist approaches 102, 152, 265–6, 582, 584, 586 see also positivist approaches

607

Index

post-structuralist approach 265–6, 307–8, 310 postgraduate programs see graduate programs praxis: Canada 75; cultural 521, 525, 530–1; cultural studies 272, 274–5, 280–1, 282–3; feminism 267; Russia 16; whiteness 228 see also applied practice PRC (People’s Republic of China) 36, 37, 43 prevention of hazing 304, 308–9 prior shared knowledge states 465–7, 468 see also in-game shared knowledge states process losses 464 Profile of Mood Scale (POMS) 324, 325, 336, 337 promoting moral character 142, 143–4 proprioception 170, 414, 432 PSE (Psychology of Sport and Exercise) 105 PST (psychological skills training) see psychological skills training (PST) psychological characteristics 38–9, 60, 83 psychological climate 13, 577–8 psychological issues and SRC 207–8, 212, 282 psychological performance crisis 85 Psychological Readiness to Return to Sport Scale (I-PPRS) 171 psychological skills training (PST): biofeedback (BFB) 429, 430, 433–4; cultural studies 277; personality and performance 405; Spain 92; United Kingdom 104 psychology of physical education, 48, 49–50 Psychology of Sport and Exercise (PSE) 105 psychophysiology 59, 63, 430–1, 434, 559 psychosocial development 113, 396, 472 psychosocial factors: concussion 208; context 205, 210, 452; interventions 167, 170–1; parental support 392; predictors 173, 179; sport injury 171–2; team resilience 551, 552–4, 555 Puni, A. C. 10, 11, 12, 36, 91 pupillometry 426 putting 416–17, 431–2, 509, 511 PYD (positive youth development) see positive youth development (PYD) Qiu, Y. J. 37, 38 qualitative research: acculturation 154; athlete development 132; athlete maltreatment 189, 191; burnout 162; coping 122–3; cultural studies 280; disordered eating 181; flow 372, 373–5; goal orientation 354; group dynamics 575, 576; imagery 363; interdisciplinary research (IDR) 583–4; leadership in sport 491; mental toughness 440; mood measurement 342; motherhood 287; parental support 392–5, 395; spirituality 195, 197; sport injury 171; team resilience 380, 384, 550; United Kingdom 100, 104–5 Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health 105

quality relationships 130, 131, 132, 134–5, 477, 479 quantitative research: coping 119, 124, 125; flow 372, 373–5; goal orientation 354; interdisciplinary research (IDR) 583–4; mental toughness 440; mood measurement 342; parental support 389–92; relational coaching 472; team resilience 383 quasi-normative transitions 531 queer theory 222, 266, 275, 278 queering 278 race, culture, ethnicity 248–55 racial identity 228–9, 229–30, 232–4, 234–5 Radcliffe, Paula 279–80, 291 radical feminism 262–3 RASPEP (Russian Association of Sport and Physical Education Psychologists) 14 Ravizza, K. H. 200 Razon, S. 563 re-injury anxiety 170, 171–2, 173 Re-Injury Anxiety Inventory (RIAI) 171–2 recovery from sport-related concussion 206, 207, 208–9, 210, 211, 212 recreational athlete mothers. 287, 292–3 reduced perceptions of effort (RPE) 456 Rees, T. 506, 507, 509, 510 REF (Research Excellence Framework) 105 reflexivity: applied practice 543–4; Canada 75; cultural studies 273, 278; interdisciplinary research (IDR) 582, 585; self-identity 223; spirituality 201; transitions 521; whiteness 234 regulation strategies 324, 329–30, 338–41, 339, 340 rehabilitation: adaptation 123; cardiac 326; concussion 205, 211–12; Israeli research 86; mental representation 415; mental toughness 442; mood 337; professional skills 60; selftalk 453; sport injury 169–70, 170–1, 171–2, 173; UK research 101 reinjury anxiety see re-injury anxiety relational approach 119–20 relational coaching 471–82; assessing relationship quality 473–4; nurturing the relationship 479–80; recommendations/ practice 480–2, 481–2; relationship definitions 472–3; research 474–9; twoperson relationships 471–2 relational maltreatment 185, 186–7, 191 relational spirituality 196 Research Excellence Framework (REF) 105 research publications 94–5, 103–5 response alteration 564–5 response approach 119 response-selection 560–1, 564–5, 566–7 return to play (RTP) protocol 208, 209, 210 Revista de Psicologia del Deporte (RPD) 94–5

608

Index

Revista Iberoamericana de Psicologia de la Actividad Fisica y el Deporte (RIPAD) 95 RFSP (Russian Federation of Sport Psychology), earlier USSR Federation of Sport Psychology, later RASPEP 14 Rheinberg, F. 373 Rhind, D. J. A. 380 RIAI (Re-Injury Anxiety Inventory) 171–2 Ribstein Center for Sport Medicine and Research 82–3, 84, 85 Ridderinkhof, K. R. 425 Riera, J. 92–3 Riley, A. 474 Ringelmann, M. 464–5 RIPAD (Revista Iberoamericana de Psicologia de la Actividad Fisica y el Deporte) 95 risk factors: disordered eating 177, 179–80, 181; genetic testing 567; psychological 167; sportrelated concussion (SRC) 204, 208–9, 212 Rodrigues, M. C. 57 rookies 304–5, 305–6, 307–8 Rotella, R. J. 25–6, 169 Roudik, P. A. 10, 11, 14, 36, 91 Royal, C. 567 RPD (Revista de Psicologia del Deporte) 94–5 RPE (reduced perceptions of effort) 456 RTP (return to play) protocol 208, 209, 210 Rubio, K. 56, 57, 59, 61 Rudd, A. 139 running the play 466 Russell, D. W. 506, 509 Russia 3, 9–16; 1890s-1940s 10–11; 1950s-1960s 11–12; 1970s-1980s 12–14, 15; 1990s-present 4–15; China 36, 38; emergence 9; transitions 528 see also Soviet Union Russian Association of Sport and Physical Education Psychologists (RASPEP) 14 Russian Federation of Sport Psychology (RFSP), earlier USSR Federation of Sport Psychology, later RASPEP 14 Rutter, M. 379 Ryan, R. M. 158, 372 Ryba, T. V. 280, 521 Salmela, J. H.: Canada 67, 70, 71–2, 72–3, 74, 75; leadership in sport 487; Spain 91 Sarkar, M. 201, 380–1, 550 SCAPPS (Canadian Society of Psychomotor Learning and Sport Psychology) 71, 74 Scartelli, J. 433 SCBS (Sportsmanship Coaching Behavior Scale) 142 Schinke, R. J.: Canada 68, 75; concussion 210; cultural studies 273–4, 277–8, 279, 282; disordered eating 181; transitions 526, 529; whiteness 234 Schlossberg, N. K. 111, 115, 150–1, 520, 526

Schore, A. 539–40 Schuler, J. 374 SCI (spinal cord injury) 172 SDA-M (Structure Dimensional AnalysisMotorics) 414, 415, 416, 418 SDA (Structure Dimensional Analysis) 414 SDT (self-determination theory) see selfdetermination theory (SDT) Sechenov, I. M. 11 Second World War 10–11, 57, 262 self-concordance model 320 self-control 143, 316, 318, 322, 549, 556 self-determination theory (SDT) 4; athlete development 131; burnout 158, 159, 160; Canada 74; disability sport 299; flow 371; mental toughness 444; motherhood 292; parental support 393; self-identity 224; selftalk 454–5; team resilience 553 self-efficacy 511 self-help interventions 326–7 self-identity 4, 219–25, 593; acculturation 150–1; cultural studies 273–4; emergence 219–20, 220–1; motherhood 292; research approaches 221–2, 222–3, 224 self-reflection 29, 254, 316, 317–19, 318, 439 self-regulated learning model 317–19, 318 self-regulation 315–22, 324–31, 593; cognitive processes 316–17; future directions 321–2; future practices 537, 541; goal strivings 319– 20, 320–1; Israel 86; mental training 418; relevance to sport 315; structure 317–19, 318; transitions 115, 524 self-regulation strategies 324, 329–30, 338–41, 339, 340 self-regulation techniques 86 self-regulatory competences 116 self-report measures: burnout 160; concussion 207; coping 125; disordered eating 181; flow 372–3; group influences 577; imagery 363; mental toughness 442, 445; mood measurement 336; online mood profiling 320, 325, 327; personality and performance 408n1; self-talk 454, 455; team resilience 383; transitions 529 self-schemata 220, 292 Self-Talk and Gestures Rating Scale 451 self-talk grid 454 self-talk in sport 4, 449–57, 593; applied practice beyond sport 455–7; background 449–50; contemporary topics 452–3; current knowledge 450–1, 451–2; disability sport 297; interpretation 453–5 Seligman, M. E. P. 379–80 separation 149, 150, 153 sexual abuse 184–5, 186–7, 188–9, 191 sexual identity: applied practice 538, 544; culture, race, ethnicity 249, 251, 253; LGBT athletes 241, 242; self-identity 222

609

Index

sexual orientation: career transitions 115; cultural studies 277; culture, race, ethnicity 252; future practices 543; LGBT athletes 238, 239–41, 242, 243, 244; whiteness 230, 235 sexual variance 544 SG (software-generated) partners 499 shared knowledge states, 465–8, 469 Short, S. E. 358 signs and symptoms of concussion 205, 206 Silva, A. R. de 57, 58 Silva, J. M. 23, 26, 28, 71–2, 73 simulation theory 424, 425 SIPD (Iberoamerican Society of Sport Psychology) 95, 97 SIQ-C (Sport Imagery Questionnaire for Children) 362 SIQ (Sport Imagery Questionnaire) 360, 362, 363–4, 425–6 situational analysis worksheet 544 situational context 353–4 situational probabilities 465–6 skills development 130, 185, 391, 472, 475, 480 skills learning 39, 40, 424 Smith, A. L. 474 Smith, B. 1, 104, 172, 265, 581–3 Smith, J. 583 Smith, M. D. 141–2 Smoll, F. L. 395 SMS (Sport Motivation Scale) 74 SMT (sport mental training) 53 Snodgrass, S. E. 479 Snow, K. L. 190 SOBRAPE (Brazilian Society of Sports Psychology) 57–9, 58 Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics 15, 16 social approval/disapproval 142, 144, 320, 346, 577 social character 138–9 social-cognitive framework for team coordination 465–8, 469 social cognitive theory 298, 316, 317, 358 social compensation effect 495–6 social constructionism 221, 279, 281 social constructions: cultural studies 279, 281; disabilty 300; disordered eating 178, 180; hazing 310; motherhood 287; race, culture, ethnicity 251; self-identity 221–2; spirituality 201; whiteness 235 social-contextual factors 140, 141–2 social loafing 307, 405, 495 social model 300 social networks 289, 480, 501, 505, 524 social psychology 505, 507 social relational model 300 social support 4, 505–12; acculturation 151; background and development 505–6; concussion 211; disability sport 296, 298; disordered eating 180; effectiveness 508–10;

future practices 511–12; future research 510–11; leadership in sport 488, 490, 574; measurement 507–8; motherhood 293; parental support 392, 395; qualitative research 122–3; research 104; sport injury 168, 169, 170–1; team resilience 380, 549–50, 552; theories and mechanisms 507; transitions 523, 528; types and dimensions 506–7 social support networks 151, 180 social support questionnaires 507–8 social technologies 501 socio-ecological perspective 378, 380, 383 sociocultural contexts: China 42–3; cultural studies 276–8, 280, 281; disordered eating 176, 177, 181, 182; injury 169, 172, 173; LGBT 244; motherhood 293; Russia 9; self-identity 222; team resilience 380, 547, 549 software-generated (SG) partners 499 SOQ (Sport Orientation Questionnaire) 347, 353 Southall, R. M. 243 Soviet era 11, 16 Soviet Union: China 36, 39; development of sport psychology 10, 11, 12, 14–15; Spain 91; United Kingdom 100; United States 21 Spain 3, 91–8; accreditation 95–6; background and development 91–2, 92–3, 93–4; global domain 84, 96–7, 97–8; LGBT athletes 239; publications 94–5; relational coaching 474 Spanish Federation of Sports Psychology (FEPD) 94 Sparkes, A. C. 1, 104, 172, 265, 581–3 Spiller, K. 585–6, 587 spinal cord injury (SCI) 172 spiritual practices 199, 251–2 spirituality 3, 195–201; background and development 195–6; future practices 200–1; in sport psychology 197–8, 198–9, 200; theoretical and methodological approaches 196–7 spontaneous practice 130 sport gender stratification 264 Sport Imagery Questionnaire for Children (SIQ-C) 362 Sport Imagery Questionnaire (SIQ) 360, 362, 363–4, 425–6 sport injury 167–73; athlete maltreatment 188; contemporary topics 172–3; injury risk 337; psychological issues 167–8, 169–70; psychosocial issues 170–1, 171–2 sport management 87, 234, 288–9, 290, 293 sport mental training (SMT) 53 Sport Motivation Scale (SMS) 74 Sport Orientation Questionnaire (SOQ) 347, 353 sport participation 593; athlete development 129; burnout 157, 158; Canada 76; cultural studies 278; disability sport 296–7, 298;

610

Index

feminism 264; moral character development 139; motherhood 289, 292; parental support 387; race, culture, ethnicity 244; relational coaching 480; Russia 10; self-regulation 315; spirituality 200 sport psychology professional (SPP): cultural studies 282; culture, race, ethnicity 250, 252–4, 254–5; feminism 267; future practices 538, 539; sport injury 172; sport-related concussion (SRC) 204–5, 211, 213; United States 26, 28; whiteness 232, 234 sport-related concussion (SRC) 3, 204–13, 592, 593; background and development 204–5, 205–6; Canada 76; cultural studies 282; diagnosis and prognosis 206, 207; memory constructs 564; psychological issues 207–9; psychosocial context 210; sport injury 167, 172, 173; SPP’s role 211; treatment and rehabilitation 211–12 see also Concussion in Sport Group (CISG) sport sociology: acculturation 148; cultural studies 275, 276, 282; feminism 260, 265; Japan 48; motherhood 288–9, 290, 293; spirituality 200; whiteness 230, 234 sports teams 42, 201, 469, 495, 499–500, 501 SportScotland 243, 244 Sportsmanship Coaching Behavior Scale (SCBS) 142 Spowart, L. 292 SPP (sport psychology professional) see sport psychology professional (SPP) SRC (sport-related concussion) see sport-related concussion (SRC) STAI (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) 84 Stambulova, N. B. 14–15, 111–12, 114, 115–16, 173 State Central Institute of Physical Culture 10, 12 State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) 84 Stets, J. 220 stigma 178, 219, 242, 296–7 stimulus approach 119 Stock, P. 581, 582 stories: acculturation 150, 152; athletes’ transitions 528–9; hazing 306; mental toughness 444; moral character development 141; motherhood 286–7, 291; race, culture, ethnicity 253; self-identity 219, 222; whiteness 240 see also narrative inquiry stress buffer effects 507, 508, 509 Stress-Injury Model 167, 205 stress response mechanism 168 stressors in sport: adaptation 119, 120–1, 123, 125; future practices 539; injury 167–8; mental toughness 443–4, 445, 548, 550; social support 505, 507, 509; team resilience 379, 380–1, 551–2; UK research 103–4 Stromberg, J. 261–2

structural-developmental theories 139–40 Structure Dimensional Analysis-Motorics (SDA-M) 414, 415, 416, 418 Structure Dimensional Analysis (SDA) 414 struggle and adversity 198, 199 successful coaching 471–2 Sugihara, T. 49 Summers, J. 561 Swain, A. B. 395 Syme, S. L. 506 symposium themes (Japan) 50–3, 51–2 symptomatology 179, 180 Szabo, A. 105 tactical psychology 39 Taiwan 243 talent identification 37, 38–9, 40, 74, 299 Tao, Z. X. 38 TARGET 389, 396 targeted therapies for SRC 212 Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (TEOSQ) 347, 349, 352 task orientation 346–7, 348, 349–51, 352–3, 353–4, 455 task-oriented coping 120, 124 Tchizh, V. F. 10 Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility (Hellison) 143, 144 team actions 464 team coordination 463–9; definitions 463–4; future research 468–9; requirements 464–5; social-cognitive framework 465–8 team-level issues 463, 465 team-level social-cognitive states 469 team norms 140, 142, 244 team performance: group dynamics 572, 576, 578; motivation gains 500; team coordination 464; team resilience 382, 553 team resilience 4, 378–84, 547–57, 593; background and development 378, 379–80, 547–8; collective resilience 551–2; conclusions 556–7; future research 383–4; individual resilience 548–50; practical applications 554–6; psychosocial factors 552– 4; research studies 380–1, 381–2 technical coaching 471–2 technological innovations, 434, 453 Tenenbaum, G. 561, 563 TEOSQ (Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire) 347, 349, 352 terminology: athlete burnout 160–1; athlete maltreatment 186; injury 171; interdisciplinary research (IDR) 582; mental toughness 440; self-identity 221, 224; team resilience 555 Terry, P. C. 335, 337 Tervalon, R. 252 theoretical approaches: acculturation 149–50;

611

Index

developing moral character 139–40; expertise 422; hazing in sport 304, 306–8, 310; selfidentity 222; whiteness 232 theoretical considerations 42, 190, 196 theories/models of imagery 358–60, 359 theory development 40, 354, 441, 443 theory of flow 370–2 think-aloud protocols 321 Thompson, A. 407 Tod, D. A. 104, 450, 451 Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games 54–5 Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games 54–5 Tolvhed, H. 275 trans-phobia 543 transactional leadership 486–7, 491 see also transformational leadership transcendental experiences 196, 197–8 transformational leadership: athlete development 132; group dynamics 574–5; leadership in sport 486–7, 489, 490–1; relational coaching 476; team resilience 381, 552, 553 transgender athletes 238, 241–2, 244–5, 251 transition processes 5; acculturation 150–1; career transitions 111–12; challenges 111, 113–14, 115–16; concussion 211; disability sport 299; research trends 520, 522–3, 526–7, 527–8, 528–9, 530 transnegativism 241–2, 243–4 transsexuals 543 trauma: affective responses 326, 330; career transitions 112, 116; concussion 205, 209; culture, race, ethnicity 250; disability sport 299–300; future practices 538, 539–40, 541–2; resilience 379, 382; sport injury 172 treatment for concussion 211–12 tripartite model of perfectionism 406–7 Triple Code (ISM) Model 358 Triplett, N. 495 Trull, T. J. 390 Turiel, E. 138 two-factor model of goal orientation 347, 348–9, 349–51 two-person relationships 471–2, 472–3, 473–4, 474–9, 479–80, 480–2 see also dyadic relationships UIB (University of the Balearic Islands) 95 UK see United Kingdom UN (United Nations) 185–6, 536 UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) 186 United Kingdom 3, 100–5; hazing in sport 304; interdisciplinary research (IDR) 585; LGBT athletes 239; professional organizations 100–1, 101–2, 102–3; relational coaching 474, 480; research publications 103–5; spirituality 196, 198, 201 United Nations International Children’s

Emergency Fund (UNICEF) 186 United Nations Post 2015 Development Goal process 536 United Nations (UN) 185–6, 536 United States 20–31; AAASP 23–5, 29; acculturation 147, 149; athletes’ transitions 527, 528; Canada 70; and China 39; concussion 204; cultural studies 277; feminism 262–3; future practices 536, 538; future trends 559, 567; hazing in sport 304, 307, 309–10; leadership in sport 491; LGBT 238–40, 243; motherhood 286, 291; motivation gains 496; origins of sport psychology 20–1; parental support 391; practitioner qualifications 25–7; professional practice 21–2; race, culture, ethnicity 250–2; relational coaching 474; research and practice 22–3, 27–9; and Russia 14–15; self-identity 219; Spain 91; spirituality 200; and United Kingdom 100, 105; whiteness 230–1 United States Olympic Committee (USOC) 21, 30n6 University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) 95 unobservable attributes 440–1, 442, 443 US see United States USA see United States USOC (United States Olympic Committee) 21, 30n6 USSR see Russia USSR Federation of Sport Psychology (later RFSP, then RASPEP) 14 Vallerand, R. J. 476 value and goal orientations 140 van de Pol, P. K. C. 353–4 Van Raalte, J. L. 451 Vealey, R. S. 27, 30n6, 380, 549 Vella, S. A. 476, 489 verbalizations 317, 322 veterans 304, 305–6, 308 Vieira, J. L. 63 Vieira, L. F. 56–7, 63 Vieth, A. Z. 390 virtual partners 497–9, 501, 502 visibility of support 510–11 vision training programmes 101 visual scanning strategies 562 visualization 85, 93, 122, 357 Vividness of Movement Imagery Questionnaire 2 (VMIQ-2) 360 VMIQ-2 (Vividness of Movement Imagery Questionnaire 2) 360 volitional theory 10–11, 12, 131, 318, 413 W5SA (Wingate Five Step Approach) 430 Wagner, J. 567 Waldron, J. J. 266, 278, 308 Walker, R. 264

612

Index

Wallace, H. M. 404 Weinberg, R. S. 25, 84, 122, 361, 364 Weingarten, G. 83–4 Weiss, M. R. 142, 144 Werner, E. E. 379 West, B. J. 381 Whelehan, I. 264 White, A. 357 white privilege 229–30, 231, 233–4, 250–1, 280, 592 White Privilege (McIntosh) 274 White, S. A. 389–90 whiteness 228–35, 592; cultural studies 280; emergence 228–9; future research 234–5; research 229–30, 230–1, 232–3 Whole-Nation System 42–3 whole-person identities 248–55 see also holistic perspective wide-lens approach 538, 540 Williams, J. M. 167, 168, 205 Windle, G. 379, 382 Wingate Five Step Approach (W5SA) 430 Wingate Institute for Physical Education and Sport 81–3, 85–6 Winter Olympics 2006 Turin 290 Winter Olympics 2010 Vancouver 15 Winter Olympics 2014 Sochi 15, 16, 286 women as leaders 262, 491

women in coaching 262, 491 Woodman, T. 403, 405 World Congress on Sports Psychology (Rome, 1965) 57 World War I 10 World War II 10–11, 57, 262 Wright, H. K. 280 Wrosch, C. 319–20 Wylleman, P. 111–16, 519–21, 529 Xu, S. X. 37 youth sport 4; athlete development 128–9, 130, 131–2, 134, 135; athlete maltreatment 185; Canada 72, 75; concussion 204; goal orientation 347; imagery 365; Israel 89; moral character development 141; parental support 387–96 Zanna, M. P. 573 Zen Buddhism 42, 47, 198 Zhang, L. W. 36 Zhang, Q. H. 38 Zhou, Z. H. 37 Zimmerman, B. J. 317–19, 318 Zinman College of Physical Education and Sport Sciences 81–3, 86, 88 Zourbanos, N. 453, 455, 542

613