The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between preperformance behavior and performance accuracy within the context of a competitive sporting event. Data were collected during varsity and intramural basketball games at a NCAA Division I university. The measures included length of the preshot interval and the number of free throws attempted and made by each player. From these data, the mean and within-subject standard deviation of preshot interval scores and free throw percentages were derived, and pairwise correlations among the measures were calculated. One-way MANOVA tests were performed to determine whether selected individual-difference and situational variables significantly influenced any of the measures. Of primary importance was the finding of a significant negative correlation between standard deviation of preshot interval and free throw percentage, indicating that higher percentage shooters maintained a higher level of temporal consistency in executing their preshot routines than did lower percentage shooters. Implications for the use of preshot interval data in research and intervention by sport psychology consultants are discussed.
Learners (30 men, 15 women in three groups), given an opportunity to control the frequency with which they viewed a model during initial practice of the badminton long serve, acquired and retained a level of movement form that was equivalent to learners who viewed the model 100% of the time and significantly superior to learners who never viewed the model.
In 1988 research under our controlled laboratory conditions suggested that, when subjects are instructed to Eocus on bodily cues while running on a treadmill, females perceive the activity to be more strenuous than do males. It was reasoned that this difference might be due to differences in either self-monitoring style or past exercise experience of males and females. The purpose of the present study was to survey recreational runners to ascertain the types of cueslthoughts to which they attended during exercise. 115 male and 72 female undergraduate and graduate students at a major university completed an attentional focus questionnaire after a routine jogging session. Demographic information was also obtained regarding each subject's experience with running activities (e.g., frequency, intensity, past history, etc.). Analysis suggested that attentional focus during running was related more to running experience than to sex differences in self-monitoring style. Inexperienced subjects focused attention more on bodily stimuli associated with the activity while experienced subjects focused more on cues/thoughts unrelated to running (e.g., music, surrounding scenery, etc.). It was concluded that experienced recreational runners are more adept at diverting attention away from unpleasant bodily cues associated with exercise than are inexperienced runners.
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