A Case Study of Junior Elite Tennis Players' and their Parent’s Self-Talk

Abstract

Automatic self-talk of elite athletes provides valuable insight into their emotional experience and self-regulation strategies in competition. To date, there is a shortage of research examining elite junior athletes’ automatic self-talk in competition through a qualitative lens. Despite parents’ key role in the well-being and performance of their child, there is no study about junior elite athletes’ and their parents’ self-talk during a competition. Hence, the aim of this study is to examine the content of elite junior tennis players’ automatic self-talk as well as the content of their parents’ self-talk regarding their emotions during important matches. In each of the two cases under investigation, individual in-depth interviews were conducted with a tennis player and his or her most dedicated parent. The results were analyzed using Yin’s (2014) multiple-case study strategy and Polkinghorne’s (1995) narration inquiry strategy. An analysis of automatic self-talk content was conducted individually for each case, followed by an intra-case and cross-case analysis. The results reveal that each player’s and parent’s automatic self-talk is related to their own subjective emotional experience during the matches. The findings highlight similarities in athletes’ and parents’ self-talk patterns, reflecting the potential influence of parents in athletes’ performance pressure and their goal-directed self-talk strategies. The differences observed between the self-talk of players and their parents demonstrate the relevance of examining their profiles to better understand the origin of individual differences in self-talk.

Self-Talk: An Interdisciplinary Review and Transdisciplinary Model

“…However, spontaneous self-talk can also directly influence other psychological processes, for example, by acting as a self-fulfilling prophecy (De Muynck et al, 2017). In addition, a lack of control over particularly negative spontaneous self-talk was associated with dysfunctional indicators of psychological well-being such as worries or ruminations (Boudreault et al, 2018).…”

“…Self-talk in this category was seen as strategic behaviour and referred to as assigned self-talk (Son et al, 2011) or trained self-talk (Edwards et al, 2008). In previous categories, self-talk was seen as a natural phenomenon and most commonly termed automatic self-talk (Boudreault et al, 2018). Although self-talk was still referred to as positive self-talk (Table 1) in this category, more precise terms have often been used to identify the two most apparent subtypes of strategic self-talk interventions: instructional self-talk (Lane et al, 2016) and motivational self-talk (Ferreira et al, 2016) interventions.…”

“…We view this goal-directed self-talk as a psychological skill that, over time, develops into an intentional self-regulation mechanism – for example, self-talk that serves as ‘self-monitoring' or ‘internal rehearsal' of an anticipated conversation. Overall, researchers have demonstrated that the dynamic interplay between spontaneous and goal-directed self-talk is a fundamental part of self-regulation (Boudreault et al, 2018; Fritsch et al, 2020). Goal-directed self-talk is not part of the task, it is part of the person who completes a task.…”

“…To be more accurate, the difference between uncontrolled and controlled cognitive processes is better understood as gradual difference (Melnikoff & Bargh, 2018; Petracca, 2020). Nonetheless, the studies that have directly compared spontaneous and goal-directed self-talk report differences in grammar, content, and frequency (Boudreault et al, 2019; Fritsch et al, 2020; 2022; Latinjak et al, 2014; 2017; Latinjak, Torregrossa et al, 2019). The results suggest that the distinction between spontaneous and goal-directed self-talk, although simplistic, could prove helpful to organise the self-talk literature and guide future research.…”