Lecture 3: Self-Talk Assignment

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Kin 381a Assignment 2 Self-Talk Assignment
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PurposeExamined relationship b/w three
dimensions of ST (valence, direction and
frequency) and effort, as well as performance

• Rationale
• Athletes report using ST to help control their
  levels of effort (Hardy, Alexander, Hall, 2001)

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Rationale (cont.)

• Zinsser, Bunker, and Williams (1998) promoted
  the use of ST for this function
• phrases such as go for it, easy, pace,
  pick it up, cool it, hold onto it, push,
  stay, and so forth can be very effective in
  controlling effort (p. 278).

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Hypotheses

• Positive association b/w ST valence effort and
  performance
• Positive association b/w ST direction effort
  and performance
• Positive association b/w ST frequency effort
  and performance

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Methods

• Participants
• Kin undergraduates
• Measures
• Performance of laps completed
• Effort Borgs (1971) 15-grade scale

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Borgs (1971) scale
20
19
very, very hard
17
very hard
15
hard
13
somewhat hard
fairly light
11
9
very light
very, very light
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Measures (cont.)

• ST frequency single item
• How often did you say things to yourself?
• 1 never, 9 all the time
• ST Grid (Hardy et al., 2001)
• Assesses valence and direction of self-talk
• Not the frequency of each but the extente.g.
  how positive?

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Self-Talk Grid
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Self-Talk Grid
Extremely motivational
X
Extremely negative
Extremely positive
Extremely de-motivational
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Strengths of ST Grid

• General sport specific questionnaire
• e.g. not just tennis
• Assess internal as well as external ST
• Easy to admin.
• e.g. not lots of hours of training
• one person to admin.
• rapid completion

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Procedure

• Completed the ST Grid via a vivid recall scenario
• help learn how to use the grid
• Carried out modified 12 min run (Cooper, 1977)
• Completed ST Grid after the task and single item
  measure of ST frequency

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Data Analysis

• Was ST related to performance and effort!
• Re effort
• Correlation of ST valence with effort
• Correlation of ST direction with effort
• Correlation of ST frequency with effort

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Data Analysis cont.

• Re performance
• Correlation of ST valence with performance
• Correlation of ST direction with performance
• Correlation of ST frequency with performance

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Discussion

• Study was correlational in design
• Possible explanation, for example

Hard Work
Negative mood
Negative ST
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Written Report
You are required to submit a written report that
takes the form of a manuscript being submitted
for publication to a sport psychology journal.
The APA Style Manual (5th edition) must be
adhered to when writing this report.