Teeing up for success: The effects of rational and irrational self-talk on the putting performance of amateur golfers

Abstract

The investigation of rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT) in sport settings is growing, but controlled experimental field studies are sparse. In the limited extant literature, researchers have found that irrational (extreme, rigid, and illogical) self-talk leads to disrupted motor skill performance, compared to rational (non-extreme, flexible, and logical) self-talk. However, methodological limitations of past research and the absence of sport-relevant tasks limit the application of findings to athletic settings. Therefore, the current study examined the effects of rational and irrational self-talk on the pressured putting performance of amateur golfers, by adopting a controlled and field-based experimental study design. A two-way repeated-measures ANCOVA, controlling for baseline putting ability, revealed that golfers' putting accuracy was significantly better when using rational self-talk than when using irrational self-talk. In addition, one-samples and paired-samples t-tests showed that golfers reported that rational self-talk was more usable than the irrational self-talk, and perceived the rational self-talk to be more facilitative than the irrational self-talk for their putting performance. The results are discussed with reference to potential explanatory mechanisms, study limitations, and future research needs.

Investigating Irrational Beliefs, Cognitive Appraisals, Challenge and Threat, and Affective States in Golfers Approaching Competitive Situations

“…The current sample also involves higher proportion of male golfers in comparison to females. The sex-imbalance with the sport of golf, with 15% of golf club members being female (England Golf, 2018) makes it difficult to make comparisons, therefore future research should look at recruiting equal numbers of males and females for a detailed comparisons (Turner et al, 2018b). In addition, the substantial time delay from completion of the questionnaires to the next competition for some golfers meant that there is great variability in the time to event data.…”

“…Similarly, another study (Evans et al, 2018) found that soccer athletes who received a rational team talk (promoting rational beliefs) at half-time reported significantly lower threat compared to athletes who received an irrational team talk (promoting irrational beliefs). Research has also examined the effect of irrational and rational beliefs on performance within golf (Turner et al, 2018a, b). One study (Turner et al, 2018b) found that when golfers used rational self-talk they performed more accurately in a putting task than when they used irrational self-talk.…”

“…Research has also examined the effect of irrational and rational beliefs on performance within golf (Turner et al, 2018a, b). One study (Turner et al, 2018b) found that when golfers used rational self-talk they performed more accurately in a putting task than when they used irrational self-talk. Similarly, Turner et al (2018a) used an REBT intervention with amateur golfers and found that as irrational beliefs decreased so to did golf-specific anxiety and in addition, golf performance improved.…”

A Theory of Challenge and Threat States in Athletes: A Revised Conceptualization

“…Findings from challenge and threat research have demonstrated that imagery scripts can differentiate between challenge and threat states (Williams et al, 2010) rather than just focusing on using imagery to manipulate challenge and threat states; this can be built on to strengthen challenge states. Also, based on the emerging evidence that irrational beliefs, as proposed within REBT, are related to greater threat (Dixon et al, 2017;Evans et al, 2018), and that rational self-talk has been shown to increase performance under pressure (Turner et al, 2018), REBT could be applied with athletes in order to promote rational beliefs, and subsequent challenge appraisals. Indeed, the use of REBT in sport is growing (Turner, 2016), with some research finding that systolic blood pressure is reduced in athletes following REBT (Wood et al, 2018a).…”

Nivel de Activación Óptimo y Rendimiento en un jugador de Fútbol no Profesional

“…Los deportistas en ocasiones sufren una alta exigencia cuando compiten, debiendo de rendir al máximo nivel (Núñez y García-Mas, 2017). Esto provoca una presión, a veces perjudicial, para el rendimiento (León-Prados et al, 2011;Ramis et al, 2010;Tobar, 2014;Turner et al, 2018). Por eso es muy importante el entrenamiento, que implica un gran esfuerzo permanente durante largas jornadas, sometiendo al organismo a cargas físicas y psíquicas con el objetivo de incrementar la capacidad de trabajo hasta el punto de realizar grandes esfuerzos, para obtener el máximo rendimiento cuando se compite (Valdés, 1996).…”