THE SCIENCE OF SPORT PSYCHOLOGY

Sport psychology was first defined in 1978 by Singer as "the science of psychology applied to sport" . It provides 2 types of services: performance enhancement strategies, and councelling for athletes.

Psychology is one if the youngest of all scientific disciplines, with its official recognition in 1879. The sub-discipline of sport psychology has only been researched extensively since mid sixties. In 1985, the Division of Exercise and Sport Psychology was recognized by the Americain Psychological Association.

The 21st century will require that both athlete and coach use sport psychology principles to remain competitive. Many sound research findings are already available, but they are still not being communicated to athletes and coaches in a comprehensible format. This site is an attempt to translate these research findings into a practical form.

METHODOLOGY

Methodology:
All coaching methodologies use some sort of sport psychology principles. Traditionally, sport psychology studies motivation, fears, anxieties and social issues. I believe that the main strength in the science of psychology, and hense in sport psychology, is in its continual interest in defining explicit ways to measure behaviour (i.e. What you do). With these methods, learning strategies (learning skills and retrieval cues), performing strategies (priming and attentional strategies), and measuring of performance can be very precisely developed.

Differential Psychology:
Differential psychology is the study of individual differences in behaviour, opposed to normative or average behaviour. Specifically, it identifies and measures individual abilities and traits. Differential psychology has been used in the study of intelligence, which led to the identification of the components of intelligence. This led to tests to quantify an individuals' level of these components. (i.e. general intelligence).

Motor learning follows a similar pattern of studying individual differences such as identification and measurement of motor abilities. This is not an easy task, so there are very few studies following this pattern. It follows, that it is even harder to quantify good neuropsychological applications that aid motor learning and performing. For now, the best an elite athletes can do is use a self-directed process to reach their personal potential. The quantified evidence will come with time.

The fact that most studies focus on normative and average behaviour, explains why elite athletes are misunderstood .

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