Chapter 1

Sport Psychology: Past,

Present and Future
en mohd roslizan bin hj saad

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 Focus of Applied Sport Psychology

1. Understand psychological factors

that influence participation and
performance in sport and exercise
2. Understand psychological effects
derived from participation and
performance
3. Identify interventions to enhance
performance, participation, and
personal growth
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 Sport Psychologists Study
• Motivation
• Personality
• Violence
• Leadership
• Group Dynamics
• Exercise and psychological well-being
• Thoughts and feelings of athletes
• Many other dimensions of participation in
sport and exercise
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 What Sport Psychologists Do

Teach Research Consulting

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 Applied Sport Psychologists
• Asks questions such as how to:
– Manage competitive stress
– Control concentration
– Improve confidence
– Increase communication skills and team
harmony
– Maintain optimal motivation
– Deal with burnout and injury
– Enhance coaching effectiveness
– Increase exercise participation
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 Broad Goals of Psychological
Skills Training
• To learn to consistently create the ideal
mental climate that unleashes those
physical skills that allow athletes to
perform at their best

• To use interventions to enhance physical

and mental health by increasing exercise
participation

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 History of Sport Psychology in
North America
• Roots lie in Greek antiquity, but scientific foundation comes
primarily from last 40 years
• Coleman Griffith an exception –active 1920’s to 1930’s
– Hired by University of Illinois to help coaches 
performance, first SP laboratory and course
– Wrote Psychology of Coaching (1926) and Psychology of
Athletics (1928) plus 40 articles
• Dorothy Yates an exception –active during 1930s-1950s
- Wrote 2 books describing her mental training
interventions with boxers and aviators
- Taught psychology course at San Jose State for aviators
and athletes
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 1965-1979
• Birth of applied sport psychology (e.g., Bruce
Ogilvie and Tom Tutko)
– Clinical Psychologists (San Jose State Univ.)
– Extensive personality testing and team consulting, wrote
Problem Athletes and How to Handle Them (1966)
– Bruce Ogilvie often referred to as the father of applied
sport psychology in North America
• Formation of first sport psychology professional
organizations

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 SP Professional Organizations
• International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP,
1965)
• North American Society for the Psychology of Sport
and Physical Activity (NASPSPA, 1967)
• Canadian Society for Psychomotor Learning and
Sport Psychology (SCAPPS, 1969)
• European Federation of Sport Psychology (FEPSAC,
1969)
• American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) adds
sport psychology (1970s)
• AAHPERD Sport Psychology Academy (SPA, 1975)
• Association for Applied Sport Psychology
(AASP,1985) (“the Advancement of” in title prior to
2006)
• American Psychological Association (APA) Division
47 (1987)
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 The 1970s
• Primary goal: Advance knowledge base
through experimental research
– Topics diverse and many target populations
– Increased cognitive focus: attention to
athletes’ thoughts and images
• Interactionism paradigm (considers person,
environmental variables, and their interaction)
surfaced and gained credibility
• Performance enhancement consulting
discouraged due to lack of knowledge base

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 1980s
• Cognitive focus continued, plus emphasis on
field versus lab research
• Growth in exercise and health psychology
issues and research
• Extensive documentation of the effectiveness
of psychological interventions
– led to advocating performance consulting
• Recognition and use of sport psychology
consultants by the USOC and its athletes
• Growing practice concerns led to addressing
professional issues
• Formation of AAASP (1985, became AASP in
2006) and APA Division 47 (1987)
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 Sport Psychology Journals
• International Journal of Sport Psychology (1970)
• Journal of Sport Psychology (1979) changed to
Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology
(1988)
• The Sport Psychologist (1987)
• Journal of Applied Sport Psychology (1989)
• Psychology of Sport and Exercise (2000)
• International Journal of Sport and Exercise
Psychology (2003)
• Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology (2007)
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 SP Applied Books

– 1991: 48 books
– 1998: 187 books
– 2004: 282 books
– 2008: 391 books

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 1990-2009 Summary
• Extensive growth and diversification in
research and practice
• Increase in journals and applied books
• Considerable progress regarding professional
issues
• Growth in job opportunities
• AASP establishes standards for certifying
consultants (1991) and for an ethical code of
behavior (1994, 1996)
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 1990-2009 Research
• Growth documenting effectiveness of
interventions to enhance performance and
personal growth
• More emphasis on health and exercise
psychology issues, including interventions to
increase physical activity
• Emerging diversity in methods, paradigms, and
epistemology
– e.g., feminist epistemology, influence of culture,
single-subject designs, qualitative methods

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 1990-2009 Job Opportunities
• Growth in consulting job market
– All ages and skill level, NCAA athletic departments,
fitness industry, sports medicine, performance
enhancement in non-sport populations (e.g., Army
Centers for Enhanced Performance)
• Growth in academic job market
– Most in sport science but some in psychology
• Growth in exercise psychology positions
– Partly driven by greater external research funding

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 AASP Certification Criteria
• Masters or doctoral degree in related field (e.g.,
sport science, psychology)
• Coursework
– 12 categories (11 require equivalent of one 3-unit
course, SP category requires 3 courses)
– 4 can be undergraduate, unless stated otherwise
• Supervised practicum
– 700 hrs masters
– 400 hrs doctoral
• Once certified, have recertification requirements

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 AASP Certification Coursework
Categories
• C1: Professional ethics and standards
– One ethics course or several with ethics content
• C2: Sport psychology
– Three 3-unit courses (1 can be independent study, 2
grad)
• C3: Biomechanical and/or physiological bases of
sport
– e.g., biomechanics, kinesiology, exercise physiology
• C4: Historical, philosophical, social, or motor
behavior bases of sport
– e.g., motor learning/control, motor development, sport
sociology, history or philosophy of sport
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 AASP Certification Coursework
Categories (cont.)
• C5: Psychopathology and its assessment
– e.g., abnormal psychology, psychopathology
• C6: Counseling skills (graduate level)
– e.g., interventions or practice in counseling, clinical psychology
• C7: Skills/techniques/analysis within sport/exercise
– e.g., sport skills/technique/coaching courses, clinics, coaching
experience, participation in organized sport
• C8: Research design, statistics, and psychological
assessment (graduate level)
• C9: Biological bases of behavior
– e.g., comparative psych, neuropsychology, physiological psych,
sensation, psychopharmacology, exercise physiology,
biomechanics/kinesiology
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 AAASP Certification Coursework
Categories (cont.)
• C10: Cognitive-affective bases of behavior
– e.g., cognition, emotion, learning, memory, motivation,
motor learning, motor development, perception, thinking
• C11: Social bases of behavior
– e.g., cultural, ethnic, group processes, gender roles, social
psychology, organizational/systems theory, sport sociology
• C12: Individual behavior
– e.g., developmental psychology, health psychology,
individual differences, personality, exercise behavior
Note: Categories 9-12, only 2 of 4 can be sport based

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 History of Sport Psychology in
Eastern Europe
• Considerable attention given to the applied
aspects of sport psychology
– Specifically, to enhance elite athletes’
performance through applied research and
direct intervention
• Sport psychology was a highly esteemed
field of academic and professional concern
within national sport

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 History of Sport Psychology in
Eastern Europe (cont.)
• Self-regulation training
– Voluntarily control such bodily functions as
• Heart rate
• Temperature
• Muscle tension
• Emotional reactions to stressful situations
• Autogenic training, visualization, and
autoconditioning (self-hypnosis) were key
methods used by Eastern European sport
psychologists
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 Future Directions in North American
Applied Sport Psychology
• Vealey suggests more inclusive and diverse
research questions and methods
• Need greater specialization in training of
future students due to growth in knowledge
base
• Promote more career opportunities for future
sport psychologists
• More emphasis on positive psychology
– Seeks to understand positive emotion and
build one’s strength
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