Cognitive skills training has been linked to greater skills, self-efficacy, and performance. Although research in a variety of organizational settings has demonstrated training efficacy, few studies have assessed cognitive skills training using rigorous, longitudinal, randomized trials with active controls. The present study examined cognitive skills training in a high-risk occupation by randomizing 48 platoons (N = 2,432 soldiers) in basic combat training to either (a) mental skills training or (b) an active comparison condition (military history). Surveys were conducted at baseline and 3 times across the 10-week course. Multilevel mixed-effects models revealed that soldiers in the mental skills training condition reported greater use of a range of cognitive skills and increased confidence relative to those in the control condition. Soldiers in the mental skills training condition also performed better on obstacle course events, rappelling, physical fitness, and initial weapons qualification scores, although effects were generally moderated by gender and previous experience. Overall, effects were small; however, given the rigor of the design, the findings clearly contribute to the broader literature by providing supporting evidence that cognitive training skills can enhance performance in occupational and sports settings. Future research should address gender and experience to determine the need for targeting such training appropriately.

Coaches are searching for contemporary leadership models which resonate with the modern-day athlete. Many elements of the Servant Leadership model, such as trust, inclusion, humility and service, are well suited to enhanced coach behaviors with this cohort. The purpose of this study was to examine how coaches who were perceived by their athletes to possess “servant leader” characteristics were associated with their athletes' use of mental skills, motivation, satisfaction and performance Participants were 195 high-school basketball athletes from the Pacific Northwest in the USA. It was found that athletes who perceived their coach to possess servant leader qualities also displayed higher intrinsic motivation, were more task oriented, were more satisfied, were “mentally tougher,” and performed better than were athletes coached by non-servant leaders. Furthermore, results showed that high-school basketball athletes preferred the servant-leader coaching style to more traditional styles. Results suggest that coaches who use the methods advocated by the servant-leader model produce athletes with a healthier psychological profile for sport who also perform well.

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Competitive engineering (CE) is a structural-based approach to changing the competitive environment of youth sports to provide more nurturing competitive experiences. Thus, in youth sport, CE attempts to enhance a variety of psychosocial outcomes by making systematic changes to the competitive environment in which athletes perform. A working CE model is presented that employs four CE strategies (i.e., modifying structure, rules, facilities and equipment) to promote athlete engagement goals based on athlete-directed sandlot sport principles (i.e., increasing action and scoring, keeping scores close, enhancing personal involvement, and maintaining positive social relationships) in order to attain intrinsic motivation outcomes, particularly competence, autonomy, relatedness and Flow while promoting an autonomy supportive climate. Discussion focuses on how the CE model can best promote research and intervention to enhance competitive climates in order to promote better sport experiences for all youngsters.

This investigation had three primary purposes: (a) investigating whether anxiety has a major debilitating effect on the performance of endurance athletes, (b) assessing whether age or sport-type differences were evident in the precompetitive state anxiety patterns of triathletes and two of their singlesport counterparts, and (c) testing the anxiety–performance hypothesis for endurance athletes using an intraindividual measure of performance. Subjects were 293 endurance athletes recruited from races in the Pacific Northwest. Results revealed that precompetitive anxiety did not impair the performance of endurance athletes. Triathletes were significantly more cognitively and somatically anxious than either runners or cyclists, and older endurance athletes were found to experience significantly less cognitive anxiety than did their younger counterparts. Results did not support the anxiety–performance hypothesis, although a significant negative correlation was found between negative thoughts during the race and performance.