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Introduction: What is sport psychology?

Mental processes are seen as crucial for athletic success, so psychologist should be able to enhance athletic performance. Mental toughness and ability to concentrate effectively are most important, but confidence is also related to athletic success. Narrative inquiry is a research method concisting of stories athletics tell about their lives can be analyzed. Sport psychologist can thus have a pragmatic and therapeutic role. Sport psychologists can differ in various ways, since not all sport psychologists are professional psychologists. Different steps have to be taken to be a licenced sport psychologist, with some people not completing the entire process and still going into the field. 

The four aspects of athletic performance are:

1. Physical: fitness, strength and stamina, which can be measured objectively 

2. Technical: proficiency/skills 

3. Tactical: strategic aspects such as planning and decision making 

4. Psychological: anxiety, maintaining momentum and concentration (mental toughness)  

Doing research with statements from athletes to do research on the psychological aspect of sports is hard, because biases have to be taken into account and statements are sport-specific. It's better to use a questionnaire for example. 

What is meant by 'confidence' exactly?

Confidence entails the belief that one has the internal resources to achieve success. This correlates positively with athletic success. According to the theory of self-efficacy, confidence is a variable belief and is related to the idea that one has the capacity to achieve a specific goal. To develop and maintain a robust confidence, one should make use of:

• logging evidence
• developing understanding and awareness
• manipulating the coaching environment
• tailoring interventions
• using psychological skills
• developing the athlete's signature strengths
• never stop developing
• keep influencing the environment
• have stable beliefs
• reinforce abilities

What does mental toughness entail?

Mental toughness can be seen as determination, resilience and/or an exceptional immunity to pressure situations. It enables athletes to react well to adversity and persist in the face of setbacks. Research has shown that this is key to athletic success, but it's still not clear what it means exactly. Motivational climate is very important, meaning that the environment for the athlete is challenging yet enjoyable. Four key component of mental toughness or hardiness are (Clough's 4C's): control, challenge, commitment and confidence (2002). Mentally tough athletes are thus seen as individuals who have a high sense of self-belief and believe they can control their own destiny, while remaining unaffected by adversity.

1. Jones (2002) described mental toughness as a combination of motivation, focus, the ability to deal with pressure and anxiety and the ability to cope with physical and emotional pain. Different features of mental toughness are: attitudes/beliefs, training, competition and post-competition (setbacks/failure).
2. Cook (2014) found independence and resourcefulness to be important characteristics for mentally tough athletes.
3. Gucciardi (2009a) researched factors that can influence mental toughness, which are skill-mastery, competitiveness and use of psychological skills.
4. Anthony (in press) researched four key categories of features evident in mentally tough athletes: personal characteristics, interactions within the environment, progressive development and breadth of experience.

Nowadays mental toughness is still far from being a clear construct. 

What does critical thinking consist of?

Critical thinking entails the ability and willingness to evaluate claims in an open-minded and careful manner. It can also be seen as a form of intelligent criticism which helps people to reach independent and justifiable conclusions about their experiences. So, there is a motivational and a cognitive component involved in critical thinking. The first step towards thinking critically is to question what the claim you are expected to believe, consists of. You can then start to analyze and evaluate a source by its evidence and arguments. The third step is to use inference to establish whether there are alternative explanations for the evidence provided. For this, you will need to interpret evidence, evaluate plausibility of alternative explanations and then explain why what you have concluded is correct. The final step consists of self-regulation: consolidate what you know by establishing links. 

What factors influence the mental demands of a given sport? 

Not only do different sports differ in the physical aspects, but they also differ psychologically. Short and intense concentration or sustained alertness for example, ask for different mental capacities. Especially the nature and structure of a sport determine the mental demands. Snooker players are for instance challenged by preventing lapses in concentration in situations where passitivity is likely, while golfers are challenged by the untimed nature of the sport, the full responsibility for their performance and the stop-start nature of the sport. Mindfulness can help both players keep their concentration and reshape their way to thinking. 

What does sport psychology (and its history) look like? 

Sport psychology entails the application of psychological theory and methods to understand the performance, mental processes and well-being of athletes. Social facilitation is the process of competing better when competing with others (around) than competing with oneself, against 'the clock' or alone. It is defined as 'the facilitating effect that the presence of others has on the performance of easy tasks/well-learned skills, while the presence of others can be impairing with a difficult task of a poorly learned skill'. 

Triplett started doing research in the field of sport psychology in 1898, with more research following in the next two decades. Different sport skills were being researched in 1910 and 1915. In the 1920's a sport psychologist was employed as a member of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. In 1925 the first sport psychology research facility was opened. Only in the 1960's did sport psychology develop further, when it was seen as an independent discipline; a subfield of sport science. It was not until 1986 that sport psychology was seen as its own field of science. In 2000 the discipline was still being named, but three characteristics were noteworthy: sport psychology is seen as a science, the discipline studies sport and also exercise and it is seen as a profession, as well as a science. 

Sport psychology is commonly regarded as an applied science and makes use of the following distinct research methods:

• Qualitative: concerned with understanding the meaning of events, situations and behavior. 

• Quantitative: the amount of something is measured and results in data through statistical analysis. 

• Descriptive: recording and analyzing behavioral aspects, including methods like case studies, naturalistic observation, survey research and psychometric testing. 

• Correlational: measuring relationships or degree of association between two or more variables. 

• Experimental: determining cause-and-effect relationships between two or more variables. 

The grounded theory consists of a researcher attempting to develop a theory of a phenomenon from the analysis of a set of qualitative data derived from peoples' experience of that phenomenon. A single-case research design are a group of quasi-experimental methods, which can be used to study the effect, time course and variability of independent variables on dependent variables. (See page 28 for a summary of research methods.) 

What does sport psychology look like as a profession? 

Usually sport psychologists work in three main categories: applied consultancy work, education and research. These categories overlap largely and sport psychologists usually only work part-time in this field. Sport psychologists often have multifaceted professional roles. 

• Applied consultancy work: giving advice on performance enhancement and providing counseling or clinical psychology services. People usually want advice to improve their mental preparation and/or competitive performance. Research shows that enhancement advice appears to have a moderate positive effect on performance, lasting at least a month. Sport psychologists working in the field of providing counseling or clinical psychology services deal with athlete's personal problems and still have to battle the stigma that comes with athlete's dealing with personal problems like alcohol abuse or eating disorders. 

• Education: experts teach others about sport psychology and deal with myths and false assumptions. They usually give practical strategies for forging team spirit and increase the demand for other sport psychologists. 

• Research: asking practical questions and coming up with evidence to answer them. 

Three problems with the traditional medical model of applied sport psychology every sport psychologist has to deal with are: the full responsibility for the health of the client rests on the expert, theory has not yet been validated enough and experts have to deconstruct informal (wrong) theoretical ideas of clients (athletes). Fortunately this can be dealt with by educating the coach about sport psychology instead of the athlete. Nowadays, in spite of its struggle against certain persistent criticisms and misconceptions, sport psychology is developing into a respected discipline.