Psychological Skills Training

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Psychological Skills Training

• Can you learn this stuff?

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The Need
Seconds pour away. Agony. Elvis Grbac screams
to his teammates. They scream back. The crowd
screams louder. Static rushes through Grbacs
helmet. It is fourth down. Two yards to go.
Seconds pour away. (Elvis Grbacs baptism of
fire vs. the Denver Broncos, 1998)
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The Situation

• Kansas City trails Denver by 4 points
• Fourth down and 2 yard to go for a first down
• 34 seconds left in the game
• Ball on Denvers 20 yard line
• No time-outs remaining
• Speaker in helmet not working (cant hear the
  play from the sidelines)

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The Result

• Grbac calls his own play
• Goes for a pass into the endzone
• Receiver is double-covered and the pass is batted
  down
• Kansas City loses

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What Should He Have Done?

• ?

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The Answer is . . .

• Pull out your cell phone and call Dr. Lidstone!!!!

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Psychological Skills Training

• Psychological interventions and programs are
  effective in enhancing athletic performance

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The Evidence

• Almost all professional tennis players say they
  use some form of psychological strategy to
  enhance performance
• Higher ranked players use them more
• Successful members of the 1996 U.S. Olympic team
  trained together more, enjoyed crowd support,
  enjoyed family and friend support, adhered to
  mental preparation plans, and enjoyed high levels
  of attentional focus and commitment

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Skills vs. Methods

• Psychological Skills Learned or innate
  characteristics of the athlete that make it
  possible or even likely that he or she will
  succeed in sport (e.g. intrinsic motivation,
  self-confidence, attentional control, arousal
  control, anxiety control)

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Skills vs. Methods

• Psychological Methods Strategies, techniques or
  practices that lead to the development of
  psychological skills (e.g. goal setting, imagery,
  progressive relaxation, meditation, self-talk,
  hypnosis)

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Measuring Psychological Skills

• Psychological Skills Inventory for Sports
  (PSIS-5) Mahoney et. al (1987)
• Athletic Coping Skills Inventory (ACSI-28)
  Smith et. al (1995)
• Test of Performance Strategies (TOPS) Thomas
  et. al (1999)

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Psychological Skills Inventory for Sports

• 45 item inventory
• Measures anxiety control, concentration,
  confidence, mental preparation, motivation, and
  team orientation
• Has demonstrated the ability to discriminate
  among different levels of skilled performers

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Athletic Coping Skills Inventory

• 28-item inventory
• Coping with adversity, peaking under pressure,
  goal setting/mental preparation, concentration,
  freedom from worry, confidence and achievement
  motivation, coachability
• Modest predictor of hitting and pitching
  performance among professional baseball players

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Test of Performance Stragegies

• 64-item inventory
• Measures a combination of skills and methods in 2
  strategic situations
• Competitive situation Self-talk, emotional
  control, automaticity, goal setting, imagery,
  activation, negative thinking, relaxation
• Practice situation Self-talk, emotional control,
  automaticity, goal setting, imagery, activation,
  attentional control, relaxation

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Format of a Psychological Skills Training Program
(PSTP)

• Phase 1 Who is the client?
• Phase 2 Initial meeting with athlete(s)
• Phase 3 Education of the sport psychologist
  relative to the activity
• Phase 4 Development of a needs assessment plan

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Format of a Psychological Skills Training Program
(PSTP)

• Phase 5 Determine psychological skills methods
  and strategies to be taught
• Phase 6 Actual teaching and learning of selected
  psychological methods
• Phase 7 On-going and end-of-season evaluation of
  PSTP

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Enhancing Athletic Performance through Sport
Psychology A Case Study

• Jim Lidstone, Ed.D
• Georgia College State University
• Simon Earnshaw, M.Ed.
• Armstrong Atlantic State University

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What is Sport Psychology?
Sport psychology is a science in which the
principles of psychology are applied in a sport
setting. These principles are often applied to
enhance performance. However, the true sport
psychologist is interested in much more than
performance enhancement and sees sport as a
vehicle for human enrichment. Cox (1994)
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Performance Enhancement vs. Human Enrichment

• Performance Enhancement
• Attention (concentration)
• Anxiety
• Arousal
• Aggression/assertiveness
• Team cohesion

• Human Enrichment
• Personality
• Anxiety management
• Arousal adjustment
• Self-esteem
• Self-confidence
• Causal attribution
• Leadership

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Sport Psychology Intervention

• Assessment
• Diagnosis
• Prescription
• Intervention
• Evaluation

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The Four Cs

• Consistency
• Confidence
• Concentration
• Composure

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Assessment

• Interviews
• - Coach
• - Player(s)
• Paper Pencil Tests
• - Personality Traits
• - Emotional States
• Observation

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Paper Pencil Instruments - Trait

• Instrument Variable(s) Assessed
• Sport Orientation Questionnaire Competitiveness
• Win Orientation
• Goal Orientation
• Sport Competition Questionnaire Competitive
  Trait Anxiety
• Trait Sport Confidence Inventory Trait Sport
  Confidence
• Test of Attentional Interpersonal Attentional
  Focus (6
• Style subscales)

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Paper Pencil Instruments - State

• Instrument Variable(s) Assessed
• Competitive State Anxiety Cognitive State
  Anxiety
• Inventory - 2 Somatic State Anxiety
• Self-Confidence
• State Sport Confidence Inventory State Sport
  Confidence
• Profile of Mood States Tension, Depression,
• Anger, Vigor, Fatigue,
• Confusion

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Concentration
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Concentration - Individual
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Pre-Competition Mood State
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POMS - Individual Assessment
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Composure
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Confidence
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Sport Orientation
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Conclusions from Assessment

• Higher than normal anxiety
• Lower than normal self-confidence
• Self-handicapping behaviors
• No peer leadership
• Negative attitude of coaches

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Intervention Strategies

• Coaches agreed to be more positive
• Players engaged in goal setting
• Players agreed to adhere to team rules
• Coaches communicated more with players
• Coaches set lineup in advance of meets
• Players accepted lineup and roles within the team
• Players targeted for confidence, concentration
  and/or composure training

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Concluding Comments
The project has helped me to modify my coaching
style somewhat. I tend to be a little
hard-core and expect the players to always show
up ready to run through walls if necessary. This
attitude is not prevalent among the players and
so other coaching techniques are required for
them to achieve their potentials. They require
more motivation, patience, and positive feedback
rather than being challenged or confronted. As a
coach, I need to remain more optimistic,
complimentary and supportive toward the players.
The extra work on their mental games should help
them respond in a more positive manner which has
already begun to show with their pre-season
conditioning program.
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The End

• Sometimes it works