Chapter #3: Motivating Athletes (Do’s and Don’ts)

1. Chapter #3: Motivating Athletes (Do’s and Don’ts) From Mark H Anshell’s book Sport Psychology

2. Typical Examples of motivation in sport: • Intimidation • Threats • Criticism • Guilt • Physical Abuse

3. Purpose of this chapter: • It is to offer a scientific basis for motivation and to recommend strategies that will favorably influence the athlete’s feelings and actions.

4. What is Motivation? • Motivation is defined as the tendency for the direction and selectivity of behavior to be controlled by its connections to consequences, and the tendency of this behavior to persist until a goal is achieved. • Direction of Motivation: refers to the purpose and the desired actions of the activity. • Selectivity of Behavior: Deciding which tasks to perform • Purpose of Motivation is to prolong desirable feelings and actions of athletes.

5. What is Motivation? • Use coaching Strategies that make physical fitness fun and enjoyable • For athlete’s to feel motivated, they should be involved in an activity in which they can achieve short term and long term goals. • Purpose of Goals: provide direction for effort and the incentive to persist and achieve.

6. What is Motivation? • Motive: is the individual’s anticipation of meeting some goal. • It is the function of how important the athlete considers the consequences of certain actions and how strongly the performer desires (approach motive) or resist (avoidance motive) these ramifications. • Most Challenging Motivational Task: Is for coaches to motivate every team member, and athletes to motivate themselves, by feeling that the performer’s efforts will lead to meeting desirable goals (expectancy).

7. What is Motivation? • Coach can foster incentive in an athlete by pointing out the specific ways in which certain behaviors can lead to goals and outcomes that the performer finds meaningful. • Athletes can improve incentive by engaging in activities they find pleasant and have realistic expectations. • Make Goals Realistic

8. Sources of Motivation: • Motivation is not simply a matter of personality type. Rather, there are likely a set of personal characteristics and situational factors that foster motivation, separately and jointly.

9. Sources of Motivation: • Participant Centered View: or trait centered view • Holds that if individuals do not have what it takes to reach goals and perform at their best, there is nothing anyone can do to “make” this happen. • Individual desire is the first and foremost characteristic of motivation.

10. Sources of Motivation: • Participant Centered View: or trait centered view • Personal attributes that separate more motivated Ind. from less motivated Ind. • High level of need achievement • Goal orientation • Self confidence • Competence • Optimism • Positive expectancies • Competitiveness (particularly in skilled athletes)

11. Sources of Motivation: • Situational View: • This View holds that personal attributes are insufficient predictors of motivation. • Individuals with high propensity to be motivated will not exhibit this characteristic unless the situation of environment fosters it. • Main Limitation of the situational view: situations DO NOT always influence a competitor’s motivation. Some situations are quite unpleasant yet some athletes remain motivated despite negative experiences or negative environments.

12. Sources of Motivation: • Interaction View: • This View Holds: Motivation results from the combination of personal and situational factors • Motivation is more likely if individual possesses certain characteristics and if they are in a situation that is supportive of and nurtures their desires. • Negative reinforcement does not usually have motivational effect, but is some times required to motivate athletes.

13. Sources of Motivation: • Interaction View: • Two short Comings to negative reinforcement: • It only has short term effects and is there only as long as the threat remains. • Threat creates extrinsic, not intrinsic, incentive (the reason for the activity is based on achieving some external reward).

14. Summary: Motivation in sport is dependent upon meeting the athlete’s personal needs and objectives while pursuing a certain predetermined course of action, responding to the coach’s leadership, and possessing necessary feelings and attitudes associated with performance success.

15. Theories of Motivation: • Need Achievement: • One Characteristic of successful athletes: is their high need to achieve referred to as achievement motivation • Success is in the mind of the beholder • Individual is responsible for determining their own achievement behavior • Low achievement competitors will not interpret losing as failure because they did not even try. • It is optimal level of effort that should determine success and not always the outcome.

16. Theories of Motivation: • High need achievers: • Usually experience more pleasure in success • Have fewer and weaker physiological symptoms of arousal • Feel responsible for the outcomes of their own actions • Prefer to know about their success or failure almost immediately after performance • Prefer situations that contain some risk about result.

17. Theories of Motivation: • Approach Motives: Individual acts to bring about pleasurable experiences. • Avoidance Motives: actions serve to prevent something unpleasant from happening. • A person can have a high need to achieve but, due to past history of failure, have low motive to achieve. In fact their expectancy for success would probably be quite low. • Unless the high need achiever with low motive finds a sport in which he/she is successful, the person will tend to stop participating in sport altogether. (The fear of failure - avoidance Motive phenomenon)

18. Theories of Motivation: • Separating the High and Low Need Achiever: • Looks at the areas of: • Motivational orientation • Attributional tendencies • Type of preferred goals • Task choice • Performance outcomes in evaluative conditions.

19. Theories of Motivation: • Found differences between high and low need achievers, using the symbol for need achievement Nach.

20. Theories of Motivation: • Motivational Orientation: • High Nach: • Have high motivation to achieve, low motivation to experience failure, and possess great pride in their success. • They explain success due to high ability, and failure due to bad luck or high task difficulty (casual attributions) • Task Preferred goals: relate to the level of task mastery and seek out challenges, and do well in evaluative conditions.

21. Theories of Motivation: • Motivational Orientation: • Low Nach: • Have low motivation for success, comfortable with or desire failure, and focus on shame and worry what may result from failure. • Attribute success to an easy task or good luck and failure to poor ability (causal attributions) • Outcome Preferred goals: prefer to avoid challenges or perform very difficult tasks to avoid responsibility for performance failure, and do not do well under evaluation.

22. Theories of Motivation: • Reinforcing Achievement Motivation: • Need to achieve should be reinforced by: • Creating challenging goals • Teaching skills that lead to performance improvement and success • Giving positive feedback on performance and avoid negative remarks • Allowing for risk taking behaviors and learning from the outcomes good or bad. • Creating situations in which the athlete feels successful ensuring that at the end of a practice or an event the person fells a sense of competence.

23. Theories of Motivation: • Competence Motivation: • White (1959) The theories purpose is that behavior is directed, selective, and persistent owing to “an intrinsic need to deal with the environment”. • Harter (1981)Theory claims that individuals are motivated by, and attempt to exhibit, skill mastery in achievement situations such as sport. • Individuals high in perceptions of competence and degree of self control in the sport environment will exert more effort, persist longer, and experience more positive feelings than individuals lower in perceived competence and self control.

24. Theories of Motivation: • Goal Orientation: • Refers to the extent to which an athlete is motivated by setting and then meeting goals • Reflects two thought processes: • The athlete’s achievement goals • His/her perceived ability

25. Theories of Motivation: • High Goal Orientation: • Set a challenging realistic goal • Feel a moderate to high degree of certainty about meeting goal based on perceived ability • Will select a task • Persist at that task with optimal effort until goal is achieved.

26. Theories of Motivation: • Goal orientation can become stronger or weaker at any given time, specific task, or within a given context. • Ego Involvement: the thought process that drives the athlete’s goal orientation. • Perception is influenced by improving ones abilities in one of two ways: • Improvement over time (task involvement) rather than current ability • Demonstrating competence based on proving current ability by outperforming others. (ego involvement)

27. Cognitive Evaluation Theory: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Is about understanding the connection b/t a person’s thoughts and how these thoughts influence his or her actions.

28. Cognitive Evaluation Theory: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation • Deci’s Theory: • It is predicted on two primary drives that provide the person with the energy for goal directed behavior and they are: • To Feel competent and to be self determining in coping and interacting with one’s environment • Two processes by which extrinsic rewards can affect IM: • Controlling function and informational function

29. Cognitive Evaluation Theory: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation • Intrinsic Motivation • Extrinsic Motivation • Fig 3.2 pg 85 Reasons for participation

30. Cognitive Evaluation Theory: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation • Sport Motivation Scale (SMS): • Persons who persist are intrinsically motivated • Imagery and mental rehearsal can increase persistence and self confidence • Imagery may produce self evaluations that are higher and more realistic.

31. Cognitive Evaluation Theory: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation • Controlling Function: • Intrinsic motivation • Extrinsic motivators can shift the person’s reasons for participation from internal to external. • Recipient should feel rewarded for accomplishing a task, meeting a goal, or demonstrating competence. • Recognition and approval can successfully replace rewards if used often and consistently over time.

32. Cognitive Evaluation Theory: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation • Information Function: • Contends that people are attracted to activities in which they feel successful • Rewards can have the same favorable effect on IM if they increase the persons feelings of competence and self worth • Rewards can foster IM if they provide all participants with some recognition for demonstrating success in improvement, effort, or proper skill execution.

33. Cognitive Evaluation Theory: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation • Information Function: • Self Determination: • Is concerned with the extent to which the individual perceives that he/she controls the reasons for engaging in the activity. • High self determination accompanies high IM • Central to promoting self determination and IM is encouraging “full engagement” by athletes and preventing feelings of alienation. • Third component: Functional Significance of the Event or external reason for participating

34. Cognitive Evaluation Theory: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation • Application of Deci’s Theory: • Factors that may facilitate IM: • Reason for participation: (Task vs Ego orientation) • Controlling Function: (Task vs Ego Orientation)

35. Cognitive Evaluation Theory: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation • Factors that may facilitate IM Continued: • Information Function: (Perceived ability and encouraging remarks) • Keep the message positive: • Give token rewards to everyone, but avoid making the reward the reason for participation and instead a recognition of success • Offer verbal recognition

36. Cognitive Evaluation Theory: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation • Four Primary Points about the concept of motivation: • Humans are motivationally complex • There are several types of motivation that vary in types and levels of generality. • 3 levels of generality (global, contextual, situational)

37. Cognitive Evaluation Theory: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation 2. Motivation is both intrapersonal – reflecting a person’s disposition to feel motivated - and social – determined by the context, or setting, within which the person is motivated.

38. Cognitive Evaluation Theory: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation 3. Vallerdand’s Model: is that motivation leads to important consequences, each of which may occur at the three levels of generality: • Global: athlete may feel an inherent need to be physically active or to be competitive • Contextual: athlete may feel intrinsically motivated in certain types of sports but not others

39. Cognitive Evaluation Theory: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation 4. Instances of Situational Intrinsic motivation will facilitate contextual intrinsic motivation • If an athlete gets a hit with the bases loaded to win the game, the high competence shown will transfer into higher contextual intrinsic motivation in another sport.

40. Cognitive Evaluation Theory: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Amotivated: athlete fails to see the connection b/t outcomes and actions, the athlete is neither intrinsic or extrinsically motivated. They feel it is out of their control. According to the Hierarchical model building IM takes: Autonomy: the youngster decides on the area of participation (self determination) Competence: by receiving uplifting messages Social Factor: positive interactions with team mates

41. The Science of Goal Setting: • Goal setting is an aspect of motivation aimed at focusing the performer’s effort and providing a means to monitor progress or success • Most quality competitors tend to set goals but they also use correct guidelines for doing so • Elite athletes correctly set higher and more realistic goals then less skilled counterparts.

42. The Science of Goal Setting: • Kyllo and Landers (1995): • Concluded that setting even moderate goals led to significant performance improvements • Performance was optimal when goals were: • Set in absolute terms • Short term as well as long term • Set with the participation of the subject • Made public

43. The Science of Goal Setting: • Burton (1992): • Every goal includes two basic components: • Direction and the amount or quality indicates a minimal standard of performance that is anticipated and desired. • Goal Orientation: dispositions for participating in an activity based on an underlying motive for what the person wants to obtain. • Burton links the dispositions of need achievement with goal orientation in his concept of goal setting styles (GSS)

44. The Science of Goal Setting: • The foundation of GSS is: • Perceived competence: is responsible for motivational behaviors • A persons goal orientations are thought to influence how perceived ability develops and how it affects achievement behavior. • Individuals possess one of two goal orientations (performance/outcome)

45. The Science of Goal Setting: • Goal Setting Strategies: • Use performance not outcome: • Be realistic • Negotiate (the goal based on past performances) • Make goals Challenging • Make goals specific to the type and demands of the task • Ensure goal “Ownership” • Make Goals short term and long term • Teach goal setting techniques to coaches and athletes

46. The Science of Goal Setting: • Team Goals: • Coaches and athletes do not tend to establish team goals that are specific and measurable. • Individual and team goals may be compatible and mutually beneficial • Team goals are effective under practice conditions as well as competition • Player satisfaction with team goals was higher with improved clarity of the goals, and when the players believed that the goal is achievable. • Player participation in team goal setting was related to improved task and social team cohesion.

47. The Science of Goal Setting: • How Not to Motivate Athletes: • Myth #1: Exercise for punishment • Myth #2: The Pre Game Pep Talk • Myth #3: Cut’em Down and Build Them Up • Myth #4: Our Goal is to Win • Myth #5: Treating Team Players Differently

48. The Science of Goal Setting: • Myth #6: If they don’t Complain, They are Happy • Myth #7: What Do Athletes Know Anyway • Myth #8: the Post Game Rampage • Myth #9: The Napoleon Complex • Myth #10: Fear

49. Strategies for Motivating Athletes and Teams • Important Ingredients to a Coach Athlete relationship: • Communicating effectively • Teaching Skills • Rewarding Players with praise • Dwelling on Strengths not weaknesses • Appearing Organized and in control

50. Strategies for Motivating Athletes and Teams • Important Ingredients to a Coach Athlete relationship: • Inserting occasional times for fun and humor • Developing mutual respect b/t coach and athlete • Knowing when to take a break and when to give the athletes a day off