Sources of sport confidence, imagery type and performance among competitive athletes: The mediating role of sports confidence

Aim: This study explored the mediating role of sport confidence upon (1) sources of sport confidence-performance relationship and (2) imagery-performance relationship. Methods: Participants were 157 competitive athletes who completed state measures of confidence level/sources, imagery type and performance within one hour after competition. Results: Among the current sample, confirmatory factor analysis revealed appropriate support for the nine-factor SSCQ and the five-factor SIQ. Mediational analysis revealed that sport confidence had a mediating influence upon the achievement source of confidence-performance relationship. In addition, both cognitive and motivational imagery types were found to be important sources of confidence, as sport confidence mediated imagery type-performance relationship. Conclusion: Findings indicated that athletes who construed confidence from their own achievements and report multiple images on a more frequent basis are likely to benefit from enhanced levels of state sport confidence and subsequent performance

Performance level and sexual harassment prevalence among female athletes in the Czech Republic

The results presented in this article are from a larger research project on issues related to women in sport in the Czech Republic. The article tries to answer research questions related to whether there are any relationships between the experience of sexual harassment among female athletes inside and outside sport, and at different sport performance levels. The sample, totalling 595 women, was divided into three performance groups: elite, competing and exercisers. No significant differences were found between the different performance groups in relation to their experience of sexual harassment. When we their experiences inside and outside sport were examined this picture changed: the chance of being harassed from someone in sport increased with performance level, from 29.7% among the exercisers to 55.2% among the elite level athletes. The group with the highest proportion experiencing sexual harassment, however, was the exercises outside of sport, at 73%. The high prevalence of sexual harassment is discussed in relation to the gender order in the Czech society. The difference between the performance groups’ experiences inside and outside sport offer some confirmation to the proposition that being a competitive athlete, which is associated with physical strength and high self esteem, may offer a degree of protection from harassment outside sport

Sources of sport confidence, imagery type and performance among competitive athletes: The mediating role of sports confidence

Aim: This study explored the mediating role of sport confidence upon (1) sources of sport confidence-performance relationship and (2) imagery-performance relationship. Methods: Participants were 157 competitive athletes who completed state measures of confidence level/sources, imagery type and performance within one hour after competition. Results: Among the current sample, confirmatory factor analysis revealed appropriate support for the nine-factor SSCQ and the five-factor SIQ. Mediational analysis revealed that sport confidence had a mediating influence upon the achievement source of confidence-performance relationship. In addition, both cognitive and motivational imagery types were found to be important sources of confidence, as sport confidence mediated imagery type-performance relationship. Conclusion: Findings indicated that athletes who construed confidence from their own achievements and report multiple images on a more frequent basis are likely to benefit from enhanced levels of state sport confidence and subsequent performance

A department of methodology can coordinate transdisciplinary sport science support

In the current sporting landscape, it is not uncommon for professional sport teams and organizations to employ multidisciplinary sport science support teams. In these teams and organizations, a “head of performance” may manage a number of sub-discipline specialists with the aim of enhancing athlete performance. Despite the best intentions of multidisciplinary sport science support teams, difficulties associated with integrating sub-disciplines to enhance performance preparation have become apparent. It has been suggested that the problem of integration is embedded in the traditional reductionist method of applied sport science, leading to the eagerness of individual specialists to quantify progress in isolated components. This can lead to “silo” working and decontextualized learning environments that can hinder athlete preparation. To address this challenge, we suggest that ecological dynamics is one theoretical framework that can inform common principles and language to guide the integration of sport science sub-disciplines in a Department of Methodology. The aim of a Department of Methodology would be for group members to work within a unified conceptual framework to (1) coordinate activity through shared principles and language, (2) communicate coherent ideas, and (3) collaboratively design practice landscapes rich in information (i.e., visual, acoustic, proprioceptive and haptic) and guide emergence of multi-dimensional behaviors in athlete performance

Sports Performance and Shaping International Image of a China: Towards Beijing 2008 Olympic Games

China is a country that has been using sport in order to reach political goals for many years. Lately such political exploitation of sport is directed at shaping the desirable international image of this country. This is done most of all through hosting sports events, but also through sports victories. The last aspect is the subject of this research. The aim of the article is therefore to investigate the issue of utilization of performance in international sport in order to enhance international image of a China. The research presented in the article is a case study concerning sport as a tool of nation-branding. Its main objective is to analyse motivation of China’s decision-makers to use sports performance in order to enhance the country’s international perception, and to observe how this goals is executed. The main hypothesis to be tested states that China perceives sports performance as an important tool of enhancing its international image.Narodowe Centrum Nauki, projekt nr 2015/19/D/HS5/00513

Examination of a Screening Tool for Athletes’ Mental Health and its Direct Implications to Sport Training and Competition

The Sport Interference Checklist (SIC) is a psychometrically validated instrument designed to assess how often cognitive and behavioral factors interfere with athletes performance during training and/or competition as well as the extent to which athletes are interested in pursuing sport psychology to address these problems. The success of this scale inspired an interest in developing new items that assess the influence of specific mental health concerns on sport performance using the SIC format. The Sport Interference Checklist’s Sport Specific Screen for Mental Health (SIC-SSSMH) was empirically developed using 259 athletes to assist in the identification of mental health problems explicitly reported to influence sport performance in both training (SIC-SSSMH-T) and competitive settings (SIC-SSSMH-C). An additional scale was developed to determine athletes’ desire to pursue services from a sport psychologist for endorsed sport-specific mental health factors (SIC-SSSMH-DSP). Factor analyses of SIC-SSSMH-T and SIC-SSSMH-C items reveal one factor for each scale, accounting for 38% of the total variance on the Training scale and 36% of the total variance on the Competition scale. SIC-SSSMH-DSP items also yielded one factor accounting for 54% of total variance. Factor scores for each of these scales exhibit acceptable internal consistency. In addition, these scales demonstrate high convergent validity when compared to the Symptom Checklist 90-Revised (SCL-90-R), a well-established screen for general mental health factors. Recommendations for future screening sport-specific mental health factors are discussed in light of the results

Purity and Danger – researching child protection and welfare in youth sport

Drawing on Mary Douglas’ classic social analysis in ‘Purity and Danger’ (1966) I argue that youth sport is a purity system and that pollution of it, through child abuse, breaches the belief system that still attaches to sport. I explore research attitudes and practices in conventional sport science and, in particular, examine the politics of researching a topic that has low perceived performance value. I suggest that the notion of ‘pollution’ has potential for understanding not only the denial of child abuse in sport but also its marginal status as a sport science research topic. One solution to this state of affairs is to recast children and young people in sport as ‘human beings’ first and ‘humans doing’ second. Some implications of such an approach for a youth sport research agenda are drawn out

Rumination and Performance in Dynamic, Team Sport

People high in rumination are good at tasks that require persistence whereas people low in rumination is good at tasks that require flexibility. Here we examine real world implications of these differences in dynamic, team sport. In two studies, we found that professional male football (soccer) players from Germany and female field hockey players on the US national team were lower in rumination than were non-athletes. Further, low levels of rumination were associated with a longer career at a higher level in football players. Results indicate that athletes in dynamic, team sport might benefit from the flexibility associated with being low in rumination

Abandoning the performance narrative: Two women's stories of transition from professional sport

Despite its potential to illuminate psychological processes within socio-cultural contexts, examples of narrative research are rare in sport psychology. In this study, we employed an analysis of narrative to explore two women's stories of living in, and withdrawing from, professional tournament golf gathered through life history interviews conducted over 6 years. Our findings suggest that immersion in elite sport culture shaped these women's identities around performance values of single-minded dedication to sport and prioritization of winning above all other areas of life. When the performance narrative ceased to "fit" their changing lives, both women, having no alternative narrative to guide their personal life stories, experienced narrative wreckage and considerable personal trauma. They required asylum-a place of refuge where performance values were no longer paramount-to story their lives around a relational narrative that reinstated a coherent identity while providing meaning and worth to life after golf. © Association for Applied Sport Psychology

Sport psychologists’ experiences of organizational stressors

This study extends stress research by exploring sport psychologists’ experiences of organizational stressors. Twelve accredited sport psychologists (6 academics and 6 practitioners) were interviewed regarding their experiences of organizational stress within their jobs. Content analysis involved categorizing the demands associated primarily and directly with their occupation under one of the following general dimensions: factors intrinsic to sport psychology, roles in the organization, sport relationships and interpersonal demands, career and performance development issues, and organizational structure and climate of the profession. A frequency analysis revealed that academics (ΣAOS = 201) experienced more organizational stressors than practitioners (ΣPOS = 168). These findings indicate that sport psychologists experience a wide variety of organizational stressors across different roles, some of which parallel those found previously in other professions. The practical implications for the management of stress for sport psychologists are discussed