However, when you bring in the word “psychology” now suddenly there is a hesitance in the accepting of the topic. In a world where athletes are supposed to be tough, talking about psychology still has a stigma around it of perceived weakness. It was only 38 years ago that the Association for Advancement of Applied Sports Psychology (AASP) established an official Sports Psychology Committee and 34 years ago that the American Psychological Association (APA) created the Division of Sports Psychology (Khandare & Pawar, 2014). Even in a study done in 2008 by Reverter-Masía et. al, they stated that they found an extremely limited number of studies done on the topic of sport psychology.
So, why is this such an important field in sports? We are constantly learning more about how our mental state can impact our physical and psychological state. Confidence, focus, motivation, and other aspects can impact an athlete. A loss of focus can cause for dropped passes in American football. Too many missed plays such as this can make an athlete lose their confidence. This lack of confidence then leads to a loss of motivation and attention which can cause an athlete to easily be caught out of place during a game or not train properly and end up injured. Once injured, the fear of reinjury can cause anything from a slowed recovery time to the athlete becoming more likely to injury another body part to even leaving sports entirely. In future posts, specific topics will be delved into further detail while exploring the realm of sports psychology.
Khandare, R., & Pawar, V. (2014). A Study Of Sports Psychology. International Journal of Health, Physical Education and Computer Science in Sports, 15(1), 85–87. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tara_Thakur/publication/279424015_Design_and_development_of_a_computer_based_data_storage_application_for_Physical_Education_personnel_through_Java/links/57738d9f08ae1b18a7dda285/Design-and-development-of-a-computer-based-data-storage-application-for-Physical-Education-personnel-through-Java.pdf#page=101
Reverter-Masía, J., Legaz-Arrese, A., Munguía-Izquierdo, D., Roig-Pull, M., Gimeno-Marco, F., & Barbany, J. (2008). THE USE OF SPORTS PSYCHOLOGY CONSULTANTS IN ELITE SPORTS TEAMS. Revista de Psicología Del Deporte, 17(1), 143–153. https://repositori.udl.cat/bitstream/handle/10459.1/47676/014387.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
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