Essay
Essay Performance Psychology in Football (FPP611)
- Institution
- Southampton Solent University (SSU)
An intervention case study on a player who is struggling with low confidence.
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PerformancePsychology in
Football
FPP611
Intervention Essay
,Case Orientation
Case study 1 involves a young 17-year-old county level football player who has 11 years of
footballing experience. He was released from the academy set up at 14 and is now trying
to make it through non-league football. His two aims are to be selected for the regional
team and to gain a scholarship to a reputable sports university. His mum is a huge part of
a good support system in place for the player, but he often finds himself annoyed at her
when she tries to help as it doesn’t have any success for him. From reading through the
transcript of his interview, it seems that the players’ confidence is low, this is especially
prominent when under pressure. He says he usually plays well against the weaker teams
but never plays as well against the bigger teams. The player also states that he does not
feel like he is playing naturally and struggles to strike the ball as he would normally, when
he feels people are watching him. This indicates that he is struggling with performance
anxiety leading him to not have his usual fluid movement that he does in training. The
practitioner philosophy involves a practitioner lead intervention with mental skills training
to help the athlete overcome his problem.
Initial Assessment
This case studies data involved performance profiling, an interview with the athlete, and a
Movement Specific Reinvestment questionnaire. Combining all three types of data profiling
allows for better understanding of the problem in more detail and the ability to relate to
relevant theory and techniques to help the athlete overcome their problem. When
comparing the performance profiles, several components were worrying as scores were
hugely difference (see Figure 1.1, 1.2, 1.3). Self-confidence is defined as “the belief that
you can successfully perform a desired behaviour” (Weinberg & Gould, 2007, p.323). When
using Hays et al. (2007) theory of the types of sport confidence, it is easily identified the
athlete fits in with the first type being Confidence in Skill Execution. This can be applied
to the players 3 marks lower on his self-assessment of shots on goal demonstrating low
levels of self-confidence. Bandura’s (1997) theory around self-efficacy where a player’s
beliefs in their own capabilities to perform or execute a skill will lead to the outcome of
their performance. Furthermore, Bandura’s (1977) model of self-efficacy (see figure 1.4)
shows the cycle between performance and self-efficacy. An athlete’s previous
performances leads to their self-efficacy which in turn effects their emotions and then
performance. With the athlete believing “its lucky if they end up going in” when referring
to his shots, clearly demonstrates his insufficient levels of self-efficacy and poor self-talk.
The interview transcript gave real insight into the player’s viewpoint of their problem. The
interviewer used open ended questions to be able to guide the interview and delve into
the athlete’s problem allowing the athlete to answer with more depth to their answers.
The athlete believes that he can compete against the weaker teams but struggles against
the better teams and that even if he does manage to score its all down to luck. He
reiterates how “in training I can hit the target no problem, it’s actually one strength” (see
figure 1.5) which clearly demonstrates he has some self-confidence in his ability, but also
highlights an anxiety towards performance. Using Weinberg & Gould (2003) framework,
the athlete is displaying trait anxiety where his behaviours are dispositioned to perceive
playing in games as threatening leaving him having more state anxiety during competition.
This state anxiety is “a temporary, ever changing emotional state of subjective,
consciously perceived feelings of apprehension and tensions” (Weinberg & Gould, 2003
p.79). But by using the Individual Zones of Optimal Functioning (IZOF) model which
showed that “the optimal level of pre-competition anxiety may be low, moderate or high,
, depending on the individual” (Hanin & Syrjä, 1995 p.264) which would indicate the athlete
needs low level anxiety to reach optimal performance.
Finally, a questionnaire that used a Movement Specific Reinvestment scale (MSRS) was
conducted with the athlete. MSRS is used to explore 2 factors: “Self-consciousness about
one’s movement”; and “conscious monitoring and control of the mechanics of one’s
movement” (Orrell et al, 2009 p.177). Using figure 1.6, there are several answers that
indicate the player is suffering from performance anxiety and a lack of self-confidence.
Question 1, 2 & 10 specifically show the player struggles to forget his failures no matter
how small, over analyse these mistakes and feel self-conscious of his movements when
people are watching him. The multidimensional anxiety theory (Martens et al; 1990)
indicates various components of state anxiety can influence performance differently. Both
Cognitive anxiety and self-confidence have a linear relationship with performance,
whereas somatic anxiety has an inverted-U shape to performance. From these 3 pieces of
data, it can be clearly establish his lacking in self-confidence and feelings of anxiety
involved with performance.
Implementation of Intervention
The aim of this intervention is to help the athlete boost their confidence and reduce
anxiety on performance. To do this, the intervention will involve a 10-week programme
composed of a teaching plan for the benefits of imagery and self-talk, learning the skill of
imagery and putting this skill into practice, and sessions to help improve the athlete’s
self-talk.
Self-talk is the dialogue that an athlete has with themselves where they interpret feelings
and perceptions of the reality (Hackfort & Schwenkezger, 1993). This self-talk is done both
internally through the voice inside of their head, and externally with what an athlete says
out loud (Theodorakis et al; 2000). Hardy (2006) conducted a review of self-talk and found
that the statements must be sport-orientated and that are 6 dimensions to self-talk:
Valence; Overtness; Frequency; How self-determined the talk is; motivational; and the
function it serves to an athlete. Figure 1.7 shows Hardy’s (2009) framework for self-talk
demonstrating motivational and affectual mechanisms to help enhance self-confidence
and decrease anxiety. Hatzigeorgiadis and colleagues (2011) conducted a study around
self-talk and found the group who practised self-talk had better performances than the
control group after a 10-week programme. The type of intervention that will be used is
cognitive restructuring whereby irritational thought patterns are replaced with more
adaptive cognitions (Hanton et al; 2008). This is essentially recognising a negative thought
about performance and changing this into a positive one to help performance, see figure
1.8.
Imagery consists of an athlete consciously controlling images in their brain to generate or
regenerate their actual sporting experience (Munroe-Chandler et al; 2012), this means the
athlete can imagine their next sporting performance or recall a previous performance.
Sackett’s (1934) symbolic learning theory suggests imagery creates a blueprint for skill
execution and then an athlete access that blueprint when performing the skill.
Furthermore, Paivio (1969) found imagery a scientifically useful concept within associative
learning and memory. Paivio (1985) also created the two-dimensional model for imagery
use where he suggests there are 5 specific areas for imagery use which are cross sectioned
by motivation, cognitive, specific, and general (see figure 1.9). For the athlete’s
intervention, the focus will be on Cognitive Specific (CS) to allow him to focus on
executing the skill correctly due to his struggle to execute when in a game situation.
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