A lesson learned in time: Advice shared by experienced sport psychologists

Through experience, sport psychologists will learn countless valuable lessons. Some lessons, however, are likely to stand out vividly to a psychologist because they made a valuable difference to how they practise. The present project focuses on these outstanding lessons. In essence, sport psychologists who had been practising for between 11 and 28 years (mean ± SD = 19 ± 5) were asked to share their most valuable advice about any aspect of sport psychology client work with other sport psychologists. This publication presents participants' full responses

Bursting onto the big stage: Presenting at an international conference for the first time

Attending a prestigious international conference and contributing to proceedings by delivering a poster or oral presentation is an excellent opportunity for sport and exercise psychology students to gain valuable experience and meet people from different parts of the world. In this article, we will focus on presenting at an international conference for the first time. An international conference presents different challenges compared to annual national and regional conferences. It will often be held in another country, and may be organised once every four years. There are likely to be a larger number of delegates, a broader variety of topics, and usually an array of established names amongst the list of attendees and presenters. Additionally, for presenters who are not native English speakers, the perceived language barrier may instil feelings of discomfort. In this article, we will discuss our experiences of presenting at the 2007 FEPSAC conference in Halkidiki, Greece, highlighting the lessons we have learned and how others can benefit from our reflections on the event

Reflections on the accreditation process: Advice for in-training practitioners

As professional and public interest in sport and exercise psychology continues to grow, so too the number of students enrolling on sport and exercise psychology courses is on the increase. As a result, the number of graduates looking to embark on a period of supervised experience within this domain is also expected to rise. The importance of practitioner training cannot be understated. It is intended to provide a standardised route to attaining accepted levels of competence in relation to knowledge, skills, and professional conduct. The accreditation process also doubles as a safeguard designed to ensure that the public can identify and are therefore protected from individuals practicing sport and exercise psychology who have not met accepted standards of professional competence. Given the necessity for such a process of training and accreditation, it is imperative that in-training practitioners are offered appropriate levels of information and support to ensure they are able to satisfy the specific criteria outlined by the relevant accreditation guidelines. Following the recent approval of the Society’s Stage 2 qualification in sport and exercise psychology, this article aims to provide current and aspiring in-training practitioners with helpful tips and advice regarding the accreditation process, outlining some of the key considerations that will help individuals successfully navigate the various obstacles they must overcome

Cognitive and affective components of challenge and threat states

We explored the cognitive and affective components of the Theory of Challenge and Threat States in Athletes (TCTSA) using a cross-sectional design. One hundred and seventy-seven collegiate athletes indicated how they typically approached an important competition on measures of self-efficacy, perceived control, achievement goals, emotional states and interpretation of emotional states. Participants also indicated to what extent they typically perceived the important competition as a challenge and/or a threat. The results suggest that a perception of challenge was not predicted by any of the cognitive components. A perception of threat was positively predicted by avoidance goals and negatively predicted by self-efficacy and approach goals. Both challenge and threat had a positive relationship with anxiety. Practical implications of this study are that an avoidance orientation appeared to be related to potentially negative constructs such as anxiety, threat and dejection. The findings may suggest that practitioners and researchers should focus on reducing an avoidance orientation, however the results should be treated with caution in applied settings, as this study did not examine how the combination of constructs exactly influences sport performance. The results provided partial support for the TCTSA with stronger support for proposed relationships with threat rather than challenge states

Walking on Thin Ice: Exploring Demands and Means of Coping During an Extreme Expedition

The present exploratory study was undertaken with two experienced explorers in order to examine daily events, perceived demands, coping strategies, and mood during a unique 636–675 km ‘‘double solo’’ crossing of Lake Baikal, a frozen lake in Siberia. A 59-year-old female explorer and a 49-year-old male explorer completed a daily survey and written diary during the expedition to collect situational data. Two semi-structured interviews were also completed, one within 24 hours and a second within four months of their return. These interviews sought to identify demands and coping efforts perceived as being most pertinent during their expedition. Guided by the work of Skinner et al. (2003), families of coping were organized around three human concerns (autonomy, relatedness, and competence) and two targets of coping (self or context). Findings illustrate two very different expedition experiences as evidenced by demands faced and coping strategies utilized, which influenced perceptions of workload and emotions experienced. Each explorer brought idiosyncrasies, which, when combined with different expedition experiences, bore influence on coping behaviors (focused on the self or context) and outcomes relative to the concerns of autonomy, relatedness, and competency. In discussing the findings, recommendations are offered for those preparing to undertake expeditions in extreme environments

Non-parametric Probabilistic Time Series Forecasting via Innovations Representation

Probabilistic time series forecasting predicts the conditional probability distributions of the time series at a future time given past realizations. Such techniques are critical in risk-based decision-making and planning under uncertainties. Existing approaches are primarily based on parametric or semi-parametric time-series models that are restrictive, difficult to validate, and challenging to adapt to varying conditions. This paper proposes a nonparametric method based on the classic notion of {\em innovations} pioneered by Norbert Wiener and Gopinath Kallianpur that causally transforms a nonparametric random process to an independent and identical uniformly distributed {\em innovations process}. We present a machine-learning architecture and a learning algorithm that circumvent two limitations of the original Wiener-Kallianpur innovations representation: (i) the need for known probability distributions of the time series and (ii) the existence of a causal decoder that reproduces the original time series from the innovations representation. We develop a deep-learning approach and a Monte Carlo sampling technique to obtain a generative model for the predicted conditional probability distribution of the time series based on a weak notion of Wiener-Kallianpur innovations representation. The efficacy of the proposed probabilistic forecasting technique is demonstrated on a variety of electricity price datasets, showing marked improvement over leading benchmarks of probabilistic forecasting techniques

Running a Psyching Team: The introduction of mental support at endurance events in England

Purpose: To share and reflect on setting up and running a ‘Psyching Team’, where mental support is provided to endurance runners, in the United Kingdom. Background: Participating in long-distance running events can be mentally demanding, particularly for first time runners. Psyching teams provide brief psychological support to participants before, during, and after long-distance running events such as marathons. This is a concept that is developed and refined in America over the past 30 years, and in addition to potential benefits to runners, it also provides mental skills training and hands on experience to team members, and helps to demystify sport psychology to those who do not normally have access to this service. Methods: This presentation will focus on the development of a UK-based model of psyching teams. Strategies that have been used, such as mantras and anchoring where participants draw on their positive experiences, will be discussed. There will be a critical reflection of the potential benefits of a psyching team and an evaluation of the effectiveness of using brief, non-traditional interventions. In addition, areas of growth will be identified. Conclusions: Psyching teams are becoming part of more endurance events across America and Europe. Although there are difficulties with evaluating the effectiveness, anecdotal evidence such as self-reported feedback points to psyching teams adding value. When setting up a psyching team, organisers need to carefully consider their philosophy, identify funding sources, ensure that race directors are on board, understand clinical issues, and provide training opportunities for psyching team members

Psychological correlates of challenge and threat states in a sport setting

In sport, athletes can broadly respond to a competitive situation in two ways, as a challenge or as a threat. Challenge and threat states are thought to have distinct cardiovascular patterns, which are indicative of underlying neuroendocrine changes in norepinephrine, epinephrine, and cortisol. The challenge pattern is characterised by increases in cardiac responses (heart rate, cardiac output, ventricular contractility) and a decrease in total peripheral resistance (TPR; widening of the blood vessels). The threat pattern is characterised by increases in cardiac responses and no change or an increase in TPR (e.g. constriction of the blood vessels). In this study, the correlates of challenge and threat states in sport are examined, namely emotional responses, self-efficacy, and the use of psychological strategies in sport. Cardiovascular responses (heart rate, cardiac output, preejection period, and total peripheral resistance) of 64 collegiate athletes will be collected using impedance cardiography during a control condition (friend speech) and an experimental condition (important sport situation speech). Participants displaying a cardiovascular pattern characterising a challenge state are compared with participants displaying a cardiovascular pattern characterising a threat state. It is hypothesized that pleasant emotions and high levels of self-efficacy are associated with a challenge state and unpleasant emotions and low levels of self-efficacy with a threat state. Preliminary findings will be discussed in relation to future research directions in both sport and biopsychology and implications for applied practice

The influence of organisational culture on organisational commitment at a selected local municipality

Since 2000, local municipalities have been through a process of transformation which amalgamated a number of smaller local municipalities into larger municipalities. The amalgamation of a number of municipalities brings together an array of people, and therefore a myriad of organisational cultures are combined. The organisational culture of an organisation has an effect on the organisational commitment of its employees. A fit between the organisational culture and the employees will increase the organisational commitment of those employees and contribute towards improved service delivery. A survey conducted in South Africa indicated that the local municipalities have been delivering poor standards of service to the community; therefore there is a need to increase the service delivery within local municipalities. The importance of looking at the organisational commitment of a local municipality is because if there is commitment within the organisation, then employees will identify with their organisation and its goals, and will deliver the service more effectively and efficiently. Therefore, increasing the service delivery of local municipalities can be achieved through diagnosing the organisational commitment and organisational culture of employees within the selected municipality. The primary objective of this research was therefore to diagnose the relationship between organisational culture and the organisational commitment of employees at the selected municipality. In order to achieve this objective, a survey was conducted to canvas the opinions of respondents (N = 148) from the selected local municipality regarding their perceptions of the existing organisational culture, their preferences regarding the organisational culture within the selected municipality, and finally the organisational commitment. The main findings of this research conducted at a selected municipality can be summarised as follows: The dominant existing organisational culture is the power culture, while the dominant preferred organisational culture is the support culture; There is an organisational culture gap between the existing and preferred organisational cultures at the selected municipality; The dominant organisational commitment within the selected municipality is normative commitment; The findings pertaining to the relationship between organisational culture and organisational commitment of employees within the selected municipality can be stated as follows: The existing organisational cultures have significant effects on the organisational commitment of employees; The preferred organisational cultures do not have significant effects on the organisational commitment of employees; and The organisational culture gap does not have a significant effect on the organisational commitment of employees; The findings pertaining to the relationship between the biographical variables and the existing and preferred organisational culture, organisational commitment and the organisational culture gap can be stated as follows: There is no significant relationship between biographical variables and the existing organisational culture; There are significant relationships between the biographical variables, namely the departments in which respondents work, and the education level of respondents, and the preferred organisational culture; There are significant relationships between the biographical variables and organisational commitment; and The average organisational culture gap scores of the organisational culture scales for the biographical variables are significantly different. It can be concluded that organisational culture has a significant effect on the organisational commitment of employees within the selected municipality and therefore can affect the service delivery of the selected municipality