The Psychology of Performance in Sports - Term Paper Example

PERFORMANCE PSYCHOLOGY INTRODUCTION It has long been recognized that physical components are not enough to make athletes excel in their fields. One of the latest concepts being applied to enhance the performances in sports is called cognitive psychology – the study of brain mechanisms or human mental processes in relation to the way we perceive things, feel about things, solve problems, and the probable root cause of our behavior. This paper will discuss the relationship of cognitive psychology to athletes’ over-all performance focusing mainly on the information processing model of Whiting, Welford, and Schmidt. The contribution of cognitive psychology to enhancing the players’ understanding and performance levels, the application of different theoretical approaches to a variety of sporting situations and the use of theory to enhance individual and team performance, specifically in football, will be explored. COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY & PERFORMANCE LEVEL Imagine a quarterback who spent most of his non-playing hours doing only his physical exercises and routines, believing that his strength and agility would be more than enough to win the match. Come play time, he found himself in a situation where he needed to decide within seconds and his decision would make or break the team. He could either run for it or pass it to another. Because of his physical training and knowing that he is in excellent shape, he could have opted for the former. And in the event that his opponent is better-conditioned than himself, then his decision could have led his team to lose. This is not to say that the athlete did not exercise his cognitive function. But since he focused on honing his physical attributes, his capacity to make better decisions based on the uniqueness of the actual situation is limited. Physical conditioning is not enough to deal with varied situations that call for excellent situation appraisal and decision-making. A good athlete should be able to quickly assess the situation, appraise his opponents’ strengths and weaknesses, make sound judgment and carry out necessary actions while under a lot of competitive stress. He should be confident enough, should be able to apply appropriate techniques that a particular situation calls for, and should be able to cope under a lot of pressure which is an intrinsic part of sports. These are the marks of a good athlete and much relies on the quality of training provided. This is where the application of cognitive psychology comes in. Most of the professional coaches and those involved in sports psychology nowadays use theories from cognitive science to elicit powerful performances from the athletes by providing rigorous mental and physical training, staging simulated plays in preparation for the real thing. The effectiveness of this application, however, is not without scientific basis. For example, Silva, Shultz, Haslam, Martin, and Murray found that psychological variables discriminated Olympic wrestling team qualifiers from non-qualifiers better than physiological variables. Psychology, especially the cognitive branch, plays a major role in determining the levels of performance achieved in competitive settings. This includes perception, memory, acquisition of knowledge and expertise, comprehension, problem solving, creativity, decision making and reasoning (Rushall, 2000). APPLICATION OF DIFFERENT THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO SPORTS. There exists an array of sub-concepts under cognitive psychology which includes information processing. This elucidates the process in which our brain takes in information from the outside world through our senses, select and utilize the information which results to a decision, bringing about an output exhibited through behavior or actions, which is subjected to feedback from the environment. The succeeding diagrams are copied from AS/A-Level PE/Sports Studies website to explain the information processing model of cognition. This is the simplest model which was described above. The decision to pass the ball or to run for the goal is determined by the availability of a player in a more advantageous spot and the number of players guarding him (input). The success or failure of his moves (output) based on his decision is affirmed with a touchdown or a pass respectively (feedback). Now, the decision-making process involved during this split-second scenario is a product of simulated plays in which the player was trained and not born with. Through constant exposure to similar situation in the course of training, the learned skill has become intrinsic to a player’s mind which he was able to apply naturally in the actual game despite the pressured atmosphere. Welford and Whiting (labeled figure 9 and 10 respectively) provide a more detailed diagram on how information processing works as shown below. The display refers to the players’ environment during an actual game which is being perceived by the senses such as the roaring crowd, the shouted instruction, and the players’ movements during a football match. The information sent by the sensory organs is filtered by the translatory mechanisms before decision-making on how to respond to a pass or a foiled strategy is made through the perceptual mechanisms. Upon reaching a decision, the mind sends the signal to the muscles through effector mechanisms, and this regulates the speed needed to run or the strength needed to pass or kick the ball. Instant feedback occurs when a pass is made, a goal is reached, or both were not accomplished. Schmidt’s Schema Theory, on the other hand, correlates movement or motor skill learning to cognition. Its two central components are generalized motor program and parameters and it states that every time a movement is performed, the individual briefly stores four things in memory and these are the initial conditions, the response specifications, the sensory consequences and the response outcome. For example, the decision to deploy the kicker in the field will depend on the distance from the goal (parameter) and the team kicker’s capacity to execute the desired result (motor program). A more specific situation is when a player is faced with a chance to score for himself but with greater risks or pass the ball to a player on a more convenient spot. The player could have run for it but his opponents are closing in too quickly for him to outrun them, whereas passing the ball to a much less guarded team mate nearer the goal presents itself as the most viable option (initial conditions). The player has gauged the strength required to run against the strength required to pass, and although his strength is more on the former skill, the distance of his team mate is such that his passing skill would be adequate (response specifications). He did the pass, using average strength as his perceived actual distance requirement and managed to throw the ball in the manner which he intended (sensory consequence). The player was pinned to the ground after the pass and the other player caught it (response outcome) and managed to score a goal. It is emphasized that these entire input-processing-response scenario occur in brief seconds but the theories mentioned above try to clarify the origin of an athlete’s performance during a game. Cognitive psychology covers factors such as self-confidence, retained memory and technical knowledge, mind-tuning towards overcoming stress and anxiety, and the athlete’s capacity to focus on the task at hand, with the exclusion of everything else. And it is without doubt that all of these are crucial factors in determining an athlete’s performance level in any sports competition. USE THEORY TO ENHANCE INDIVIDUAL AND TEAM PERFORMANCE Given the job of enhancing a county football team, the following activities during training sessions will be undertaken: SWOT Analysis Before any strategy or intervention is applied, it is important for a coach to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the individual members and the team as a whole. This will serve as a guide as to how to approach them and the kind of professional relationship that should be developed, which area to focus on, and how to teach the required game skills to enhance their performance. The SWOT Analysis also includes the evaluation of opportunities and threats that comes along with the unique dynamics of the team. Goal-Setting The SWOT evaluation result will then be presented to the team followed by goal-setting. Team goals should be very specific, clear, and understandable because this is the end result of future endeavors, be it on training or actual situations. The individual and team goals provide a common guide for everybody and it also serves as a unifying force to begin with. Goals should be re-evaluated all throughout the season as a form of reinforcement as to why things are being done the way it is. Techniques and Strategies With the individual and team goals set, the actual training begins. Physical training is not to be undermined but the important cognitive skills to be emphasized include relaxation techniques and task concentration. Handing down specific relaxation techniques such as breathing exercises and progressive muscle relaxation is more effective than just telling them to relax. Equipping them with applicable means to follow your instructions instead of just expecting them to comply on every command is more effective. Relaxation technique is crucial to performance because stress and anxiety is inevitable in every competition so the individual members should learn to handle this. Many distractions also arise in actual games so the members should learn how to block out unnecessary factors including negative feelings from inside and just stay focused on the actual task. They have to learn not to try controlling the uncontrollable factors during the game and not to put too much emphasis on winning or losing as this is the root cause of most of the players’ stress. These require paramount mental effort and so, an adaptation of appropriate mind set is necessary. Staying positive about one’s abilities and having faith in his teammates is one. Teaching the “here and now” rule is another which basically means anything that is not part of the task should be set aside. Learning the connection between stress and level of performance would probably be helpful too. The higher your stress is, the lower your performance goes. A good coach should also be able to help the players understand that there is nothing to lose by trying instead of opting to be paralyzed with anxiety. And last but not the least, conditioning the athlete’s minds to view adversity in a positive way, however difficult, will ease the transition from being a novice player to a more professional and successful athlete. Game simulation Physical training and learning new strategies will be in vain if not experienced in an actual game. There is no need to wait for the real match, though, because the players can be subjected to simulated games, making sure that everything is as close to the real thing as possible. The crowd, the palpable tension, real opponents and game plays. A coach can subject his team to informal matches, deliberately setting the stage to ensure that the situation will call for the athletes’ gained knowledge and techniques during and as part of the training. “The purpose of varied practice activities and drills should be to allow the athlete to adapt to all conditions and performance variations which could arise in a competitive experience. The more specific the practice or training drills can be to the sport, the more effective they will be in enhancing competitive performances. If transfer of learning from the practice session to the game or competitive situations is to be maximized, the demands of the practice session should mimic as closely as possible the demands of the sport itself not only in terms of the movement execution requirements but also in terms of the perceptual and decision-making aspects of the performance.” (Abernathy, 1991). Proper use of feedback Using feedback as a way to enhance players’ performances may have been delegated at the back seat but coaches are now realizing how important it is both for the individual player’s self-esteem and improvement but for the whole team as well. Individual and team efforts should be appraised regularly especially when new techniques are being taught. This helps in honing the athletes’ skill to perfection. By giving feedbacks, a player gets affirmation on whether he is doing a good job or not, whether his techniques need polishing. By getting positive affirmations, a player’s self-confidence increases and this in turn helps him handle stress and anxiety without buckling under pressure. After all things have been said and done, a coach’s personal and professional relationship with the team will help a long way in influencing their desire to continue learning and be enthusiastic about the whole process. By using humor and empathy, learning to challenge instead of to threaten, by treating the players with respect and avoiding comparison in general, then all these, when applied properly, will definitely boost the team’s performance and their individual abilities as well. (Guide to Winning the Motivation Game). REFERENCES Abernethy, B. (1991). Acquisition of motor skills. In F. S. Pyke (Ed.), Better Coaching (pp. 69-98), Canberra, Australia: Australian Coaching Council. A Coaches’ Guide to Developing Self-Esteem. 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