This will begin a series of posts all related to ideas of sport psychology applied to our lives. I’m pretty darn excited to get this series rolling!

      Lets begin by defining Sport Psychology:

The scientific study of people an their behavior in sport and exercise. This study serves two primary objectives: to learn how psychological factors influence physical performance, and to learn how participation in sport and exercise influence our psychological well-being. 

      As we’ll explore in agonizing detail, these psychological understandings and models are functional in terms of understanding performance in general – be it in a swimming pool or on a computer chair.

          Now onto the area of today’s blog – motivational theory. There are a lot of theories on motivation in and out of sport psychology, and each of you reading this likely have your own set of beliefs and assumptions for achievement. Here’s a famous model in sport psychology:

 

    Atkinson’s Model of Achievement Motivation:

Interactional approach:

        B = f(P, E)       

Translation:       

Behavior = a function of Personality Traits and Environment Certainty

 

 

 

Personality Factors:

Ms - Motive to approach success – capacity to experience satisfaction in accomplishment.

Maf - Motive to avoid failure – capacity to experience humiliation as a failure consequence.

      It is important to note that we all have both tendencies within us as people. These aspects of our personality show themselves in different contexts.

P = (Ms – Maf)

      Generally, a “high achiever” is deemed to be someone with high motivation to succeed and low motivation to avoid failure – while the “low achiever” is deemed to be someone with high motivation to avoid failure and low motivation to succeed.

Ms > Maf (This person is more driven by price and achievement than by fear)

      -Tends to seek achievement situations

      -Performs well when being evaluated

      -Focus on pride / satisfaction

      -Seek a reasonable challenge

Ms < Maf (This person is motivated by avoiding humiliation more than eagerness to grow)

      -Avoid achievement situations

      -Perform poorly inevaluative situations

      -Focus on shame / failure

      -Choose very easy or very hard tasks

      You probably know a few people in both the above categories. The person motivated by success looks to test and expand his skills and tends not to dwell upon outcome. The person motivated by avoiding failure likes certainty. If they play and loose against insurmountable odds, then its not their fault. If they play a game that they will easily win, they are still not threatened.

      People motivated by failure avoidance tend to avoid instances where they would have to apply effort to win. If they loose after applying effort, then they might be thought of as worse than their opponent – “failure.”

      Haven’t we seen this dynamic play out countless times in our lives? Think about all that YOU would do if you didn’t consider “failure” as failure. Do you think you would accomplish more, or less? Then think about magnifying and multiplying your aversion to the idea of failure. Would your life experience be more or less enriching?

 

Situational Factors:

Ps – Probability of success – likelihood that one will succeed.

Is – Incentive value of success – the value to place upon success.

      The probability of success in this model ranges from 0 – 1. 0 represents knowing we have nearly no chance of success, 1 represents knowing that we will almost certain succeed.

The incentive value of success is calculated as: 1 – Ps

      So, the more likely we are to succeed, the less value we assign to achieving itself. If how pumped are you when you beat your 7 year-old niece in a game of scrabble? Not very. However, how excited do you think you would feel if you beat the world’s best Chess player? The message: The bigger the dragon, the mightier is the knight who slays it - I think most people feel this intuitively. 

E = (Ps)(Is)

      If E (environmental uncertainty) is low, we feel relatively certain about the future results of our pursuit. If it is high, we feel uncertain about the outcome. Lets see how this dynamic plays out:

      Lets say you’re playing one on one basketball against Kobe Bryant. Your Ps (probability of success) is likely to be pretty low – functionally a 0 – unless my blog readers happen to be other pro basketball players. I’ll assume you’re not . In this case, your Is (incentive value of success) is a 1. If you beat Kobe, you would probably freak out and potentially brag about it forever – maybe even put it on your gravestone:

“Here lies so-and-so, in 2009 he beat Kobe Bryant in a game of hoops.”

      In this case then, your E (environmental uncertainty) = (0)(1) = 0.  We know what’s going to happen here. We’re going to get dunked on a bunch of times and walk away never touching the ball for over 4 seconds. 

      Lets look at another example. Lets say we’re playing basketball against someone at about our own skill level. We estimate our Ps to be .5, in which case our Is is .5 as well (Is = 1 – Ps). 

Now our E (environmental uncertainty) = (.5)(.5) = .25

.5 for Ps is the highest level of uncertainty we can get. This challenge could very easily go either way. 

 

      This model may not be the most popular model today, but it provides some interesting application of a value-expectancy theory. 

      Are there times in your work day where you conquer relatively unimportant but certain tasks before important and uncertain ones? Despite having a massive project due, or a presentation, or a writing project you aren’t so sure about – do you convince yourself that cleaning your desk or organizing your kitchen are the best action for you?

      This might give us insight into our own tendencies and motives, and allow us to more consciously determine our tendencies. 

      These simplified distinctions might bring us to realize that the motives we act on are not motives we want to habitually act on – and are not conducive to the kind of character and life we want for ourselves. 

      Or we might find certain instances in our lives where we seek challenge fully (we express motive to success and yearn for more uncertainty – around a .5 on the possibility of success scale – and for a real challenge), and other instances where we hinder ourselves and our growth (we focus on fear of humiliation and aim for certainty in the results of our task).

      Knowing this might allow us to bring our positive, growth / achievement-oriented tendencies into other situations!

      Even with a few ideas in a simple model, we can come to gain a richer view of our behavior.

 

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Keep an eye out for my ebook on Sport Psychology. In it I’m going to apply the ideas of Sport Psychology to life off the court – where many of the ideas have MORE relevance (IE: managing anxiety, understanding motivation, goal setting, and much more)