L4 - Confidence

Question 1

Types of confidence

Answer 1

• Sport confidence: Certainty about ability to be successful in sport
• Self-confidence: Belief can perform successfully in competition
• Self-efficacy: Belief can organise and execute course of action to reach specific goal

Question 2

What characterises self-confident performers

Answer 2

• Set and achieve stretching goals
• Take and learn from criticism
• Establish balanced perspective on strengths and weaknesses
• Take risks
• Make decisions without fear of being wrong
• Bounce back from set backs with renewed focus and effort
• Create a positive future
• Strong foundation for dealing with pressure

Question 3

When is Self-Confidence most fragile

Answer 3

• Appear to have strong self-belief need to verbalise and externalise it. Exposed and vulnerable
• Aware of lack of self-belief and waiting to be found out, lucky. Highly self-conscious, self-critical and have negative perceptions of what others think of them and their ability

Question 4

When is self-confidence most robust

Answer 4

When performers:
- Built on holistic self-esteem, worth and value
- Humble
- No need to inform others of achievements
- Rational and look for evidence
- Take positive from situation
- Dont take things personally
- Negative feedback as a means of moving forward
- Occasional doubts to prevent complacency

Question 5

Bandura Theory of Self-Efficacy

Answer 5

Efficacy expectation predicted by:

• Performance accomplishments
• Vicarious experience
• Verbal persuasion
• Physiological states
• Emotional states
• Imaginal experiences

Question 6

Performance accomplishments (BToSE)

Answer 6

• Most powerful predictor
• Personal mastery
• Positive linear relationship, affected by perceived difficulty, effort, amount of physical guidance and temporal patterning of success and failure
• Compliancy can be a problem if success is just because obeying orders rather than mastering task on their own

Question 7

Vicarious experience (BToSE)

Answer 7

• Info from observing and comparing self with others
• Modelling can provide instructional and efficacy information
• Important when lacking personal experiences or have perceived similarities to model
• Model those with relevant or slightly higher ability

Question 8

Verbal Persuasion (BToSE)

Answer 8

• Persuasive techniques to manipulate behaviour
• Mediating factors: prestige, credibility, expertise and trustworthiness of persuader

Question 9

Physiological States

Answer 9

• Appraisal of physiological state
• Positive or negative
• Perception of physical adeptness and fitness especially important

Question 10

Emotional States

Answer 10

• Appraisal of emotional experiences and cognitive processes
• Positive or negative
• Mediate by selective recall of success and failures

Question 11

Imaginal Experiences

Answer 11

• Imagine self or others being successful
• Mediated by efficacy in imagery ability

Question 12

Distal (past) and Proximal Beliefs (current or immediate) (Bandura 1997, Maddux, 1995)

Answer 12

• Determinants of current SE beliefs may be distal or proximal
• SE for specific task in specific situation result of confidence of distal and proximal info from the 6 sources

Question 13

Sport Confidence models

Answer 13

• Original model: athletes posses dispositional (trait) confidence that interacts with situational factors to develop state confidence
• Model revised to take account of Social Cognitive Theory and be consistent with self-efficacy theory: self-confidence is dynamic property not a static trait

Question 14

Vealey’s Revised Model of Sport Confidence (Vealey et al., 1998)

Answer 14

• Organisational culture and athletes characteristics influences sources of sport confidence
• Predicts sport confidence levels which in turn predicts Affect, Behaviour + Cognitions
• Sources of sport confidence: demonstration of ability, mastery, social support, vicarious experience and coach’s leadership all linked
• SoSC: Physical/mental prep and physical self-presentation linked
• SoSC: Environmental comfort + situational favourableness linked
• Types of sport confidence: Cognitive efficiency is degree of certainty they can mentally focus, maintain concentration and make decisions to perform successfully
• ToSC: Physical skills and training is degree of certainty about abilities to execute skills
• ToSC: Resilience is degree of certainty they can regain focus after performance errors, bounce back from performing poor and overcome doubt/problems/setbacks
• Sport confidence effects behaviour (effect, performance), cognitions (choice, attributions) and affect (emotion, mood)
• Uncontrollable external factors and physical skills/characteristics also impact performance

Question 15

Protecting Self-confidence: Self-serving bias

Answer 15

• Positive outcomes due to own abilities, negative outcomes due to external factors (Campbell and Sedikides, 1999)
• Observed where: self-esteem threatened by negative outcome of effort, strong desire to improve/maintain self-esteem
• Can lead to dishonest behaviour when no external benefits to being dishonest if blaming everything is allowed or performers attribute any failures to external, uncontrollable factors
• Performers must reflect and accept the internal and controllable

Question 16

Protecting self-confidence: Self-handicapping

Answer 16

• Thoughts, statements and behaviours in advance of performance.
• Maintain personal perceptions of control, self-worth and self-esteem
• Protect or enhance public image
• Increase likelihood of situational factors blamed for poor performance and personal factors credited for good performance

Question 17

Delusional self-confidence

Answer 17

• Placebo affect
• Positive illusions: Unrealistically favourable atttiudes/beliefs
• Religiosity: belief despite lack of evidence

Question 18

Self confident and Anxious at the same time

Answer 18

• Doublethink (Orwell, 1949)
• Acceptance of contrary opinions or beliefs at the same time
• Can have strong belief in ability whilst uncertain if they’ll achieve their goals

Question 19

Developing Self-confidence

Answer 19

• Focus on recent accomplishments
• Draw on own and others experience
• Manage self-talk
• Interpreted readiness to perform in positive way

Question 20

Negative Self-talk

Answer 20

• The worrier, the critic and the victim
• Avoid negatives, use present tense and use personally credible statements

Question 21

Positive interpretation of Readiness to Perform

Answer 21

• Interpret pre-performance mental and physical repines as facilitative to performance
• Results in physical mobilisation and mental importance and effort

Question 22

Measuring Confidence (Vealey, 1986)

Answer 22

• Trait Sport Confidence inventory:

Measures dispositional belief about sport ability. 13 items 1-9.

• State Sport Confidence Inventory:

Measures belief about sporting ability in particular situation, same scoring

Question 23

Confidence profiling

Answer 23

Step 1: Introduce idea:

• Introductory comments about sport confidence and performance.
• Informing why they’re doing the assessment
• No right or wrong answers

Step 2: Eliciting Constructs

• Identify what constructs the person thinks a confident athlete possess
• Then focus on their own types of confidence and sources

Step 3: Assessment

• Once profile produced, get athlete to assess their sport confidence levels on different statements

Strengths:
- Alternative assessment method
- Developed for use in applied context
- More in-depth account of sources and confident types

Question 24

Hays et al., (2010). The development of confidence profiling in
sport

Answer 24

• Confidence profiling = ideographic assessment of sport confidence from the athlete’s own perspective (not generic measures).
• Athletes report sources, types, and debilitative factors of their confidence.
• Sport psychologists found it helps athletes recall confidence experiences accurately and gain in-depth self-assessment.
• Can be used as a foundation for athlete-centred interventions.

Question 25

Beattie, S., Fakehy, M., & Woodman, T. (2014). Examining the moderating effects of time on task and task complexity on the within person self-efficacy and performance relationship.

Answer 25

- Early learning (first 10 trials): slight negative effect of self-efficacy on performance. - Across 40 trials: self-efficacy positively affects performance. - Task condition matters: Stable/easy tasks → small, non-significant positive effect. Dynamic/complex tasks → significant positive effect. Conclusion: Extended practice and varied task complexity enhance the positive impact of self-efficacy on performance

Question 26

Beattie, S., Lief, D., Adamoulas, M., & Oliver, E. (2011). Investigating the possible negative effects of self-efficacy upon golf putting performance.

Answer 26

- Performance → self-efficacy: strong, positive relationship; performance predicted up to 49% of efficacy variance. - Self-efficacy → performance: weak, non-significant negative relationship; predicted at most 2.7% of performance variance. - Conclusion: The reciprocal effect of self-efficacy on performance is much weaker than previously believed

Question 27

Hays, K., Thomas, O, Maynard, I., & Butt, J. (2010). The role of confidence profiling in cognitive-behavioral interventions in sport.

Answer 27

- Used confidence profiling in a case study with a female swimmer to guide an athlete-driven intervention based on Murphy & Murphy’s 8-step cognitive-behavioural model. - Confidence profiling: Assesses sport confidence from the athlete’s perspective. Identifies individual confidence needs for targeted intervention. Provides feedback on intervention effectiveness. - Post-intervention results: Athlete became more aware of factors affecting her confidence. Reported increased confidence and satisfaction with mental skills training. Perceived performance improvements