Sports Psychology - Research Paper Example

Considerably, it is crucial to establish the historical issues, contemporary theories and changes that arise from the establishment of the issues and theories, which relate to the future development of sports psychology. History of sport psychology In most cases, sport psychology involves theory and research on training coaches, athletes, parents, fitness professionals and athletic trainers on psychological issues experienced in varied sporting activity. The study of sport psychology is often associated with coaches understanding the psychomotor and motor skills of athletes while focusing on the performance of individuals in relation to the set up goals (Rizzolatti, Fogassi & Gallese, 2001).

As a measure, aimed at understanding the performance of individuals participating to sporting activities, the issues surrounding sport psychology aims at explaining athletes’ performances and pinpoint the root cause of them, as it also seeks to explain an in-depth search for these causes on future emotions, expectations and performance as an integral part of athletes’ holistic training process. As a result, the coaches’ involvement of sport psychology skills can explain both positive and negative outcomes in attributions for failure and success.

Theories Considerably, the theories of sport psychology assist in understanding and determining of behavior change and maintenance of individuals performance levels against set goals based on both predicting behavior and monitoring the outcomes of athletes’ performance (Ockene 1998). More so, sport psychologists use the theories of correspondent inference theory and attribution theory in analyzing athletes’ performances both in the psychological, physical, mental and emotional perspectives.

Noticeably, correspondent inference theory focuses on the psychological processes that involve different individuals judgments based on the dispositions and intentions of others by observing athletes actions (Prochaska & DiClemente, 1982). As a result, the level of high correspondence remains as a certain action that indicates the underlying disposition of the athletes. More significantly, it is essential for an athlete to be successful during training and performance besides sustenance of conducive mental and physically state.

Nonetheless, the sports psychologists face challenges in maximizing individuals’ ability to predict the action outcomes of other performances as a way of motivating athletes. The theory of attribution is associated with self-efficacy that is used by sport psychologists in establishing individuals’ confidence in their actions as a way of motivating athletes based on their outcome during practice and completion (Gable et al., 2004). This is because as coaches understand the perception of athletes on their ability to perform well as it motivates them to achieve the set targets, as long as they are provided with accorded and consistent information.

As such, self efficacy is aimed at developing the cognitive, emotional, social and behavioral skills in order to enhance the different athletes’