The Effects of REBT, and the Use of Credos, on Irrational Beliefs and Resilience Qualities in Athletes

Abstract

The use of rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) in sport psychology has received little attention in research to date, but is steadily growing. Therefore, to further add to the building body of research, this study examines the efficacy of REBT (comprising five counseling sessions, and four homework assignments) in decreasing self-reported irrational beliefs, and increasing self-reported resilient qualities in five elite squash players from Malaysia. The study uses a single-case multiple-baseline across-participants design. Visual and graphical analyses revealed that REBT reduced self-reported irrational beliefs significantly in all athletes, and raised self-reported resilient qualities significantly in some athletes. Athlete’s feedback, reflections on the usage of REBT, Athlete Rational Resilience Credos, and the practice of sport psychology across cultures are discussed, along with guidance for the future use of REBT in relevant settings.

Confirmatory factor analysis of the irrational Performance Beliefs Inventory (iPBI) in a sample of amateur and semi-professional athletes

“…The iPBI has demonstrated construct and concurrent validity in organisational settings with strong fit indices (CFI = 0.93, NNFI = 0.92, SRMR = 0.06, RMSEA = 0.07) and positive correlations between similar subscales of a corresponding measure of irrational beliefs -the shortened general attitude and belief scale (Lindner, Kirkby, Wertheim, & Birch, 1999). The questionnaire was developed for achievement contexts in general and has been used to measure irrational beliefs in athletic samples (Deen et al, 2017;Turner et al, 2017).…”

“…This involves recognising that irrational beliefs cause emotional and behavioural consequences (rather than the event itself) and then encouraging dispute of the irrational thought and promoting and reinforcing rational thoughts. In sport settings, irrational beliefs have been identified as important for the experience of anxiety (Turner & Barker, 2013), self-acceptance (Cunningham & Turner, 2016), burnout (Turner & Moore, 2016), resilience (Deen, Turner, & Wong, 2017), psychological distress (Turner, Carrington, & Miller, 2017), and task performance (Wood, Turner, Barker, & Higgins, 2017). Research in nonsport settings also reveals that irrational beliefs are associated with an array of emotional and behavioural malfunctioning (Visla, Fluckiger, Holtforth, & David, 2016) that could also afflict athletes (Turner, 2016).…”

“…The investigation provided initial evidence of construct and concurrent validity for a 28-item self-report measure of irrational beliefs in an organisational context. The measure was developed to be generalisable to all achievement contexts (e.g., occupational, athletic, military, and academic), and has been adopted for research in athletic contexts (e.g., Deen et al, 2017;Turner et al, 2017), but so far has not been validated in an athletic sample. This is important as a recent investigation identified item 7 of the iPBI ("I need my manager/coach to act respectfully towards me") as problematic for educational settings (Allen, El-Cheikh, & Turner, 2017) meaning some changes might be necessary for the questionnaire to be valid across different achievement contexts.…”

The Development and Validation of the Thai-Translated Irrational Performance Beliefs Inventory (T-iPBI)

“…The majority of research examining the use of REBT in performance settings has been conducted using Western, mainly European, participant samples. There are two exceptions that have applied REBT with athletes in a Malaysian (Deen, Turner, & Wong, 2017) and a Chinese (Si & Lee, 2008) sample. Deen et al (2017) found that REBT was able to reduce irrational beliefs and increase self-reported resilience in Malaysian squash players, and Si and Lee (2008) found a reduction in behaviors related to LFT, and performance enhancement in competition, in an Olympic table tennis athlete.…”

“…There are two exceptions that have applied REBT with athletes in a Malaysian (Deen, Turner, & Wong, 2017) and a Chinese (Si & Lee, 2008) sample. Deen et al (2017) found that REBT was able to reduce irrational beliefs and increase self-reported resilience in Malaysian squash players, and Si and Lee (2008) found a reduction in behaviors related to LFT, and performance enhancement in competition, in an Olympic table tennis athlete. However, whether and to what extent REBT can be applied in Eastern samples is not fully understood, and research findings using Western samples cannot be automatically generalised to Eastern samples.…”