Sports psychology is the study of how your behaviors and beliefs relate to your ability to excel at sports and exercise. Athletes rely on sports psychologists to give them an extra edge and to keep their mind on track. Developing a keen understanding of sports psychology is something that takes years of study. You need to learn the methods for gathering information about sports psychology, its longstanding theories and how to see the sports world through the eyes of a psychologist.
Understand Research Methods
Step 1
Learn the fundamentals of research design and analysis in psychology. Everything that modern sports psychologists know comes from carefully planned and conducted research into psychological variables that affect people's performance at sports.
Step 2
Learn how sports psychologists use statistics to figure out how people's personality attributes affect their sports performance. This means understanding the use of information such as averages and variations in data to show whether their theories are correct.
Step 3
Study the design of correlational studies. Correlational studies compare two or more personality attributes to see if they increase or decrease together. For example, a correlational study might examine an athlete's stress level and how many points he scores in basketball. If the athlete's stress level reliably increases or decreases as the number of points he scores increases or decreases, then stress levels and points scored can be said to be correlated.
Step 4
Familiarize yourself with the procedures for conducting experiments in sports psychology. In experimental studies, a sports psychologist changes something to see the effect that it has on something else. For example, a sports psychologist may want to learn the effect that high-energy music has on running speed. She would conduct an experiment in which one group of people listens to high-energy music while running, and another group listens to spoken voice or calm music. The psychologist would then compare how quickly people in the two groups ran.
Learn the Theory
Step 1
Learn the basic theory behind sports psychology. Sports psychologists have established key concepts that help them understand and explain what drives athletes.
Step 2
Understand concepts like group cohesion, attention focus and internal monologue. Group cohesion refers to how well a team works together toward its common goal. Attention focus is the ability to block out distractions and focus on your goals. Your internal monologue is the sorts of thoughts that run through your head while you play a sport.
Step 3
Determine how athletes make use of things like group cohesion, attention focus and internal monologue. For example, a sports team may express its group cohesion by how often the team talks and jokes with one another. Knowing how to recognize the common variables in sports psychology is necessary to being able to measure them.
Apply Your Knowledge
Step 1
Apply what you learn about sport psychology to new situations that you encounter. If you want to get better at a sport you play, think of your playing style with respect to things that sports psychology has shown can affect your performance. For example, you may find that your internal monologue tends to be negative when playing a sport, which may hold you back.
Step 2
Observe how others overcome obstacles in their sports. You may see many differences between different athletes. However, you will also see many similarities. For example, you may notice that confident athletes tend to play better.
Step 3
Think of new ways of looking at what drives people to excel at sports. While the theory of sports psychology is based on previous research findings, the field constantly changes as old theories get honed and adapted to newer situations.
Member Comments