As mentioned earlier in this chapter, motivation is a primary psychological factor in learning and performing motor skills effectively. Motivation can be defined as the intensity and direction of effort.
Motivation can be positively influenced through various methods, such as goal setting, reinforcement, and arousal regulation.
Motivation matters for every athlete. Deci defined this construct as a desire to be competent and self-determining. With intrinsic motivation, athletes are driven by their love of the game and the inherent reward they get from participating.
This motivation comes from within the athlete and is present even when there is no material reward or threat of punishment. Intrinsically motivated athletes focus on the enjoyment or fun they experience in the activity and typically want to learn and improve because they value the behavior itself.
In contrast, extrinsic motivation comes from an external source rather than an internal one. Common examples of extrinsic motivation include:
It’s important to note that athletes are rarely purely intrinsically or extrinsically motivated. Instead, they fall at different points along a motivation continuum.
Within the broader concept of motivation is a more specific type called achievement motivation. This refers to a person’s efforts to master a task, achieve excellence, overcome obstacles, and engage in competition or social comparison.
If two athletes are equal in other respects, the athlete higher in achievement motivation will tend to perform better because they have a stronger appetite for competition.
McClelland and colleagues theorized that all people have two opposing personality traits:
The MAS relates to the capacity to experience pride in accomplishments. It’s characterized by a desire to challenge yourself and evaluate your abilities. In contrast, the MAF relates to the desire to protect your ego and self-esteem.
Coaches benefit from understanding positive and negative reinforcement and how these concepts relate to athlete motivation.
In contrast, punishment is intended to decrease undesirable behaviors, such as mistakes or lack of effort.
Knowing when and how to apply reinforcement and punishment can help coaches improve performance while maintaining motivation and confidence.
Nideffer introduced an important concept in sport psychology by proposing that people shift among different attentional styles during performance. These styles are described using two dimensions:
The direction dimension describes whether attention is focused inward (introspective) or outward (externally oriented). The width dimension describes whether attention is broad and integrative (expansive) or narrow and highly selective. Because these dimensions overlap on continuums, they combine to form four quadrants of attentional focus:
Understanding attentional styles can improve coaching effectiveness. For example, an athlete who becomes overloaded by external stimuli may benefit from focusing on one key cue, such as an opponent’s footwork. Athletes who get overly absorbed in their own thoughts may benefit from describing out loud what they’re feeling during a play. Without this kind of guidance, athletes may attend to the wrong cues and respond too slowly.
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