Self-Talk and Female Youth Soccer Performance

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of teaching skilled athletes to use self-talk (ST) and gain insight on the athlete’s perceptions of the ST intervention and how it influenced their performance. The participants were four female players from an “elite” under fourteen female regional soccer team. A single-subject design, the multiple baseline across individuals, was used to examine the effects of the ST strategy on performance. The results of the study demonstrated that the ST strategy improved soccer shooting performance for two of the three experimental participants. The social validity assessment found that both the coach and the participants were very satisfied with the results and believed the ST strategy to be an important component in improving their performance.

The Influence of Self-Talk on Learning Achievement and Self Confidence

“…Therefore, in practice, teachers and coaches should teach their athletes how to use self talk in order to help increase self confidence and movement performance. In order to achieve optimal success, teachers and coaches, should choose and select the most suitable self talk strategy by taking into consideration the following: (1) must be related to type of performance (Landin, 1994), ability and motivation (Hardy, Gammage & Hall, 2001), (2) suits the sequence of movement (Landin, 1994) and elements of movement pattern (Landin & Herbert, 1999), (3) positive instructional self-talk ), (4) use simple, short, two syllable phares (Landin, 1994;Hardy et al, 2001a), (5) addresses self in the first person (Landin, 1994;Hardy et al, 2001a), (6) as often as possible in every training session (Landin, 1994;Johnson et al, 2004), (7) do a manipulation check after every training session. The limitation of this study is related to the research design which is post test-only control group design with more than one experimental group.…”

“…As for motivational self-talk, the strategies used were: (1) related to ability and motivation (Hardy et al, 2001a), (2) positive motivational self talk (Hardy, et al 2001b), (3) short, simple two syllable phrases (Landin, 1994;Hardy et al, 2001b), (4) addresses singular first person (Landin, 1994;Hardy et al, 2001b) (6) as often as possible especially before executing the movement (Landin, 1994;Johnson, et al 2004), (7) training session ends with manipulation check. Coaches also were asked to remind the athletes to use the self-talk talk technique that has been taught to them.…”

“…Each training session lasts for 2 hours which is dicided into three phases; warming up, training proper and cooling down. Instructional self-talk strategy used were: (1) related to basic performance learned (Landin, 1994), (2) complements sequence of movement (Landin, 1994) and elements in movement (Landin & Herbert, 1999), (3) positive instructional self-talk , (4) short, simple two syllable phrases (Landin 1994;, (5) addresses singular first person (Landin, 1994;), (6) as often as possible especially before executing the movement (Landin, 1994;Johnson et al, 2004), (7) training session ends with manipulation check.…”

“…Meanwhile, evidence on the relationship between self-talk and self confidence is relatively limited. However, early evidence regarding this relationship can be deduced from researches by Landin and Herbert (1999) on five female tennis players, Perkos et al, (2002) on four young basketball players, and, Johnson, Hrycaiko, Johnson and Halas (2004) on four female football players, proves that self talk intervention program can increase self confidence. Motivational self talk is found to help increase ability to execute tennis forehand drive, self confidence, and decrease anxiety (Hatzigeorgiadis et al, 2008), and, increase self efficacy and tennis forehand drive (Hatzigeorgiadis et al, 2009).…”

Professional Philosophy: Inside the Delivery of Sport Psychology Service at Team Denmark

“…Athletes experience automatic thoughts that are subject to classic cognitive distortions such as negative, dichotomised (black and white), personalized and overgeneralized thinking. By identifying, modifying and controlling thoughts, athletes can optimize their athletic performance (Hardy, Gammage, & Hall, 2001;Johnson, Hrycaiko, Johnson, & Halas, 2004). Another central belief in the cognitive behavioural therapy is that we do not respond to reality, rather to our interpretation of reality.…”