Exercise Psychology: Psychological Factors and Major Issues that Influence Motivation - Research Paper Example

Running Head: EXERCISE PSYCHOLOGY Exercise Psychology: Psychological Factors and Major Issues that Influence Motivation of College/University Exercise Psychology: Psychological Factors and Major Issues that Influence Motivation John Craftsman was a college professional athlete who played for Anytown, USA. He was a star player and everyone loved him. He knew how to win games, how to throw the other team off his plays and he scored many touch downs. Although John is a fictitious character, he is one of many students around the world who become professional athletes and learn how to play the game well. There are many players who are less motivated and become followers of someone else, but the Johns of the world are motivated enough to make sure they take their team to the top. There are many questions when we think about these athletes: What makes them succeed? Why are they so motivated? How do they keep their motivation? This research paper will discuss motivation as it applies to professional athletes. It will primarily deal with exercise psychology and how professional athletes keep going even when they do not feel like working out. The paper will also discuss the factors that are involved that create the great athletes that we have today. The Basics of Motivation Many scholars have examined motivation and created theories about it. To better understand how motivation works with athletes, it is important to talk briefly about the theories of motivation. People are motivated by different things. As an example, some people are motivated by those things outside themselves such as money, a sense of achievement, or praise from a boss. Other people are motivated internally, which means they receive satisfaction from understanding that they have done a good job or they take pride in their work. These two methods of motivation have been termed intrinsic (inside ones self) and extrinsic (outside ones self). According to Lauricella (2010) applies these concepts to athletes and shows that extrinsic motivation may be the money they will earn or the fact that if they do not do well, they can lose their college scholarship. When talking about intrinsic motivation, an athlete may play well because they have pride in their work and love what they are doing, and they play more for fun than because they have to do it (Lauricella, 2010). Haralambie and Mihailescu (2010) studied athletes to understand what motivated them to continue in sports. What they found was that athletes had both intrinsic and extrinsic factors that kept them motivated. They found that 53% of the athletes they studied had the following intrinsic factors that kept them motivated: the difficulty of the objectives they set up, the intensity of the needs, the chance that they could improve over what they had done in the past, the contents of the sport activity and whether what they did was equal to their expectations. The intrinsic factors that most athletes in the study suggested as motivators were material advantages (money, endorsements), the facilities, the social prestige, and the management style of the trainers. The results of these studies show that professional athletes are thinking more about the intrinsic value of their work than the material gains. In other words, it seems that athletes for the most part are internally motivated rather than externally motivated, and that these intrinsic motivators are the factors that keep them going. Coaching also has an effect on athletes and whether they continue to perform at their peak performance. Barić, and Bucik (2009) studied the motivational and leadership profiles of coaches to see what effect they had on the athletes they coached. The study observed 577 athletes and 51 coaches in Croatia. The athletes were from basketball, football and handball and came from 17 clubs around Croatia. The study was conducted over one year and questionnaires were used for both the athletes and the coaches; all coaches in this study were male. The coaches saw themselves as very task-oriented and "moderately" ego-oriented. The questionnaires revealed that the coaches were also intrinsically motivated to do their jobs: they liked what they were doing, they enjoyed it, were invested in the success of their teams and they felt competent in what they were doing. These coaches were also the ones who gave positive feedback to their teams, and were more instructive when it came to what they were to do. There was a second group of coaches who were more ego-oriented and were less likely to give positive feedback to their team and were less instructive. What they found was that athletes were more responsive to the first group of coaches who were more instructive and who were more task oriented. This study shows that coaches succeed more when they are more positive with their athletes and provide good, positive feedback. When they do this, athletes respond more positively and they develop their intrinsic motivation. Jeffreys (2007) presents seven factors that he has used to motivate athletes in high school. He suggests that athletes must know how and why their performance will meet their own goals. They must understand that they are valued members of the team, it should be fun, the athletes need to know that they are showing progress, the coach must act as a role model to his athletes and they must create a motivational environment for athletes to work within. Sports Psychology and Athletes Sports psychology is important to the study of motivation because it gives some explanation of why athletes perform the way they do. Sports psychology also contributes to the psychological factors that are in play when athletes perform well or do not perform well. Le Roux (2010) took Jeffreys study a little further by researching the learning styles of athletes based on the type so leadership styles that Jeffreys applied to coaches. In this study it was found that athletes who were more task oriented perceived their success based on their personal effort, how much they put into a task, and whether their effort helped them improve their skills. Those students who were more ego-oriented saw their success as it related to other athletes and they tend to self-evaluate more than others. Another point is that when an athlete is uncertain about whether they can meet their demands, or the demands of their teachers and parents, which puts more pressure on them to perform. In this study Le Roux also found that coaches and students felt that when coaches talked to students individually and gave positive feedback, the athletes motivation continued to be high. In the literature, it seems that athletes have a variety of ways that they stay motivated and it seems that this is based more on personality than it is on other factors such as money they receive or incentives that they receive for doing the job. Another area of interest for this researcher was whether or not athletes could still be motivated after they received an injury. In a study by Podlog, Lochbaum, and Stevens (2010) this subject was researched and it was found that athletes could keep their motivation if they had an overall sense of well-being during and after the injury. In some instances, the individual had a renewed perspective on the sport they had undertaken because of the injury. In some cases, motivation can do more damage than good. As an example, a study by Lemyre, Roberts, and Stray-Gundersen (2007) showed that athletes can over train and experience burnout as a result of this overtraining. The researchers found that this could be predicted early on, especially when the athletes were overtraining at the beginning of the season. Conclusion There are many factors that help a professional athlete stay connected to his sport on a motivational level. Some of the motivation comes from the attitude and understanding of the coach who is responsible for the sport. Other factors are both intrinsic and extrinsic in nature. The intrinsic factors point to the athletes knowledge of themselves and their own inner feelings of their performance. If they love the sport they are playing, they are more apt to get enjoyment out of it specifically for their own satisfaction. They like making their own goals and seeing how they individual improve. The extrinsic factors may have to do with the incentives they receive, the money they receive or the endorsements that may come their way. Athletes who are motivated will perform better automatically because they have the inner will to make their performance be the best it can be in the scheme of things. Both athletes and coaches must be motivated and love what they do in order for players to play at their best. References Barić, R. and Bucik, V. (2009). Motivational differences in athletes trained by coaches of different motivational and leadership profiles. Kinesiology, 41 (2). 181-194, Retrieved from SPORTDiscus database. Haralambie, A., and Mihailescu, L. (2010). Research concerning the motivations quantification for performance. Journal of Physical Education & Sport, 27, (2), 79-86. Retrieved from SPORTDiscus database. Jeffreys, I. (2007). Enhancing motivation in high school programs. Strength and Conditioning Journal, 29 (6), 21-22. Retrieved from http://www.hscoaches.org/docs/Enhancing_motivation.pdf Lauricella, A. (13 May 2010). The theories of motivation in sports. EHOW Health. Retrieved from http://www.ehow.com/about_6512587_theories- motivation-sports.html Lemyre, P-N., Roberts, G.C., and Stray-Gundersen, J. (2007). Motivation, overtraining, and burnout: Can self-determined motivation predict overtraining and burnout in elite athletes? European Journal of Sport Science, 7 (2), 115 - 126. Retrieved from SPORTDiscus database. Le Roux, K. (2010). The importance of sport psychology in school. African Journal for Physical, Health Education, Recreation & Dance, 16 (3). 446- 459. Retrieved from SPORTDiscus database. Podlog, L., Lochbaum, M., and Stevens, T. (2010). Need satisfaction, well- being, and perceived return-to-sport outcomes among injured athletes. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 22, (2). 167-182. doi: 10.1080/10413201003664665 Read More