Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology最新文献

Motocross racing is a seldom-researched popular extreme sport. This field research aimed to investigate feeling states, perceived arousal, anxiety, and negative and positive affect in the anticipatory and recovery race periods and their relationship to expected and perceived performance. Twenty Motocross racers completed psychometric scales before and after a national championship race. Results revealed that objective performance was unrelated to psychological measures. Arousal, anxiety, and positive affect were lower after the race. Expected performance was unrelated to postrace measures. Still, perceived performance correlated significantly with the feeling state, anxiety, and positive affect after the race and the feeling state before the race. Furthermore, racers who performed as expected or better showed improved feeling states after the race compared with those who did worse than expected. The core affect of the latter group declined. This research on psychological states during Motocross races could motivate new initiatives for future studies.

We examine whether adolescents' participating in a variety of physical activities, locations, and/or with a variety of people relates to physical activity 16 months later and whether perceptions of variety mediate these relationships. Adolescents (N = 369) completed measures indicating various physical activities they participated in, where they primarily participated, and with whom they primarily participated, at three time points over a year (averaged for baseline measures). Perceptions of variety was measured 8 months later. Physical activity was measured 16 months after baseline. Mediation analyses tested perceptions of variety as a mediator of variety support and physical activity. Results indicated that variety of activities and variety of locations were indirectly associated with physical activity through perceptions of variety. Participating in a breadth of physical activities in a variety of locations during adolescence is positively associated with perceptions of variety, which relates to physical activity 16 months later.

The current study analyzed the effects of positive versus negative self-talk on physical performance in soccer players from a multiprocess approach. We operationalized the process distinction using the need-for-cognition (NC) construct. Thus, NC was measured and self-talk (i.e., positive vs. negative) was manipulated between participants (i.e., 126 soccer players, age 18 years or older, who were competing in national, regional, or local competitions). Physical performance was assessed by a vertical-jump test. According to hypothesis, regression analyses indicated that positive versus negative self-talk influenced physical performance to a greater extent for high-NC individuals than for low-NC individuals. Specifically, among high-NC soccer players, relative to baseline, positive self-talk produced greater physical performance in the vertical-jump test than negative self-talk. In contrast, among low-NC soccer players, no difference was found between positive and negative self-talk on physical performance. These results supported the moderating role of NC.

In this experimental investigation, male college students (N = 56; Mage = 19.95 years) who did not yet know how to juggle were randomly assigned to a 30-min instructional juggling session with either a caring, task-involving climate or an ego-involving climate. An inflammatory response to psychosocial stress was assessed via salivary interleukin-6 prior to (t = 0) and following (t = +30, +45, +60 min) the session. Surveys were utilized to examine positive and negative affect prior to the session and affect, psychological needs, challenge and threat appraisals, and perceived ability to juggle following the session. This is the first investigation to show that ego-involving climates can trigger inflammation, along with maladaptive psychological responses. Participants in the caring, task-involving climate responded with greater psychological need satisfaction, resource evaluations, positive affect, and perceived juggling ability. This research suggests there may be important physiological consequences to ego-involving climates, in addition to concerning cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses.

Coping with the COVID-19 pandemic had implications for athletes' mental well-being. This mixed-methods study examined the influence of self-compassion on athletes' coping during the pandemic through the mediator of cognitive appraisal. The prospective design involved 90 athletes completing two online surveys 1 week apart measuring self-compassion, cognitive appraisal, and coping strategies. The PROCESS macro was used for the mediation analysis. A qualitative thematic analysis was used to explore athletes' responses to the pandemic during the second survey. Self-compassion had an indirect negative effect on avoidance-focused coping by appraising the pandemic as less of a threat (95% confidence interval [-0.20, -0.001]) and had a total effect on emotion-focused coping (95% confidence interval [0.02, 0.40]). Based on the thematic analysis, athletes described many raw emotions and a variety of coping strategies during the pandemic. Self-compassion demonstrated promising benefits to athletes who dealt with the challenging situation of the pandemic.

Efficacy beliefs targeting personal (self-efficacy), teammates' (other-efficacy), and conjoint (collective efficacy) abilities are each associated with performance of athlete pairs. The purpose of this study was to examine (a) congruence/incongruence of efficacy beliefs between athletes in a pair as a predictor of quality of individual and team performance and (b) quality of performance relative to efficacy congruence at high, moderate, and low levels of efficacy. Eighty-two cheerleading pairs, composed of one base and one flyer, completed questionnaires assessing self-, other, and collective efficacy prior to a national collegiate competition. Individual and team performances were assessed using objective criteria. Polynomial regression analyses indicated that team performance was predicted by congruence of (a) both athletes' collective efficacy beliefs and (b) base self-efficacy and flyer other efficacy. Findings supported that congruence at moderate to high levels of efficacy was associated with better performance relative to incongruent efficacy beliefs across the two athletes.

Perceptual cognitive skills in real game settings, under conditions of fatigue, such as the ability to gather relevant visual information, are key factors in achieving motor goals in sports. The objectives were to evaluate the effects of acute physical fatigue on gaze behavior during a badminton game (Study 1) and in an unfavorable force ratio situation (Study 2). Six international-level badminton players played two sets and unfavorable force ratio situations while wearing eye-tracking glasses before and after a fatiguing task. During the set, fatiguing physical exercise led to fewer fixations per exchange and more fixations on one area of interest. During unfavorable force ratio situations, fatiguing physical exercise led to shorter fixation durations per exchange, shorter fixation durations on two areas of interest, and longer fixation durations on one area of interest. The results showed that gaze behaviors were adapted in acute physical fatigue conditions to maintain performance.