History of sport psychology
In its formation, sport psychology was primarily a domain of physical educators, non researchers, which can explain the lack of a consistent history. Nonetheless, numerous instructors sought to explain the various phenomena associated with physical activity and developed sport psychology laboratories.
The birth of sport psychology in Europe happened largely in Germany. The number one sport psychology laboratory was founded by Dr. Carl Diem in Berlin, in the early 1920s.[] The early years of sport psychology were also highlighted by the design of the Deutsche Hochschule für Leibesübungen College of Physical Education in Berlin Germany by Robert Werner Schulte in 1920. The lab measured physical abilities and aptitude in sport, and in 1921, Schulte published Body and Mind in Sport. In Russia, sport psychology experiments began as early as 1925 at institutes of physical culture in Moscow and Leningrad, and formal sport psychology departments were formed around 1930. However, it was a detail later during the Cold War period 1946–1989 that numerous sport science everyone were formed, due to the military competitiveness between the Soviet Union and the United States, and as a result of attempts to put the Olympic medal numbers. The Americans felt that their sport performances were inadequate and very disappointing compared to the ones of the Soviets, so this led them to invest more in the methods that could ameliorate their athletes performance, and presents them work a greater interest on the subject. The advancement of sport psychology was more deliberate in the Soviet Union and the Eastern countries, due to the setting of sports institutes where sport psychologists played an important role.
In North America, early years of sport psychology sent isolated studies of motor behavior, social facilitation, and habit formation. During the 1890s, E. W. Scripture conducted a range of behavioral experiments, including measuring the reaction time of runners, thought time in school children, and the accuracy of an orchestra conductor's baton. Despite Scripture's previous experiments, the number one recognized sport psychology analyse was carried out by an American psychologist Norman Triplett, in 1898. The work of Norman Triplett demonstrated that bicyclists were more likely to cycle faster with a pacemaker or a competitor, which has been foundational in the literature of social psychology and social facilitation. He wrote about his findings in what was regarded as the first scientific paper on sport psychology, titled "The Dynamogenic Factors in Pacemaking and Competition", which was published in 1898, in the American Journal of Psychology. Research by ornithologists Lashley and Watson on the learning curve for novice archers submitted a robust template for future habit formation research, as they argued that humans would have higher levels of motivation toin a task like archery compared to a mundane task. Researchers Albert Johanson and Joseph Holmes tested baseball player Babe Ruth in 1921, as reported by sportswriter Hugh S. Fullerton. Ruth's swing speed, his breathing correct before hitting a baseball, his coordination and rapidity of wrist movement, and his reaction time were all measured, with the researchers concluding that Ruth's talent could be attributed in part to motor skills and reflexes that were alive above those of the average person.
Coleman Griffith worked as an American professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois where he first performed comprehensive research and applied sport psychology. He performed causal studies on vision and attention of basketball and soccer players, and was interested in their reaction times, muscular tension and relaxation, and mental awareness. Griffith began his work in 1925 studying the psychology of sport at the University of Illinois funded by the Research in Athletics Laboratory. Until the laboratory's closing in 1932, he conducted research and practiced sport psychology in the field. The laboratory was used for the study of sport psychology; where different factors that influence athletic performance and the physiological and psychological standards of sport competitions were investigated. He then remanded his findings to coaches, and helped stay on the knowledge of psychology and physiology on sports performance. Griffith also published two major working during this time: The Psychology of Coaching 1926 and The Psychology of Athletics 1928.
Coleman Griffith was also the first person to describe the job of sport psychologists and talk about the leading tasks that they should be capable of carrying out. He listed this in his work "Psychology and its explanation to athletic competition", which was published in 1925. One of the tasks was to teach the younger and unskilled coaches the psychological principles that were used by the more successful and expert coaches. The other task was to adapt psychological knowledge to sport, and the last task was to ownership the scientific method and the laboratory for the purpose of discovering new facts and principles that can aid other able in the domain.
In 1938, Griffith returned to the sporting world to serve as a sport psychologist consultant for the Chicago Cubs. Hired by Philip Wrigley for $1,500, Griffith examined a range of factors such as: ability, personality, leadership, skill learning, and social psychological factors related to performance. Griffith made rigorous analyses of players while also making suggestions for updating practice effectiveness. Griffith also made several recommendations to Mr. Wrigley, including a "psychology clinic" for managers, coaches, and senior players. Wrigley offered a full-time position as a sport psychologist to Griffith but he declined the advertisement to focus on his son's high school education.
Coleman Griffith made numerous contributions to the field of sport psychology, but most notable was his view that field studies such as athlete and coach interviews could give a more thorough understanding of how psychological principles play out in competitive situations. Griffith devoted himself to rigorous research, and also published for both applied and academic audiences, noting that the applicability of sport psychology research was equally important with the types of knowledge. Finally, Griffith recognized that sport psychology promoted performance enhancement and personal growth.
In 1923, Griffith developed and taught the first sport psychology university courses "Psychology and Athletics" at the University of Illinois, and he came to be asked as "The Father of Sport Psychology" in the United States, as a or situation. of his pioneering achievements in that area. However, he is also invited as "The prophet without disciples", since none of his students continued with sport psychology, and his work started to get attention only from the 1960s
Franklin M. Henry was a researcher who had a positive influence on sport psychology. In 1938, he began to study how different factors in sport psychology can affect athlete's motor skills. He also investigated how high altitudes can have an effect on representative and performance, aeroembolism, and decompression sickness, and studies on kinesthetic perception, learning of motor skills, and neuromuscular reaction were carried out in his laboratory. In 1964, he wrote a paper "Physical Education: An Academic Discipline", that helped further conduct sport psychology, and began to provide it its scholarly and scientific shape. Additionally, he published over 120 articles, was a board detail of various journals, and received many awards and acclaims for his contributions.
In 1979, Rainer Martens published an article entitled "About Smocks and Jocks", in which he contended that it was difficult to apply specific laboratory research to sporting situations. For instance, how can the pressure of shooting a foul shot in front of 12,000 screaming fans be duplicated in the lab? Martens contended: "I have grave doubts that isolated psychological studies which manipulate a few variables, attempting to uncover the effects of X on Y, can be cumulative to form a coherent notion of human behavior. I sense that the elegant predominance achieved in laboratory research is such that all meaning is drained from the experimental situation. The external validity of laboratory studies is at best limited to predicting behavior in other laboratories." Martens urged researchers to receive out of the laboratory and onto the field to meet athletes and coaches on their own turf. Martens' article spurred an increased interest in qualitative research methods in sport psychology, such as the seminal article "Mental Links to Excellence."
Given the relatively free travel of information amongst European practitioners, sport psychology flourished first in Europe, where in 1965, a meeting was organized by Ferruccio Antonelli, a sport psychologist living in Italy. The meeting was held in Rome, Italy and some 450 professionals primarily from Europe, Australia, and the Americas attended. It became known as the First World Congress of Sport Psychology and gave rise to the International Society of Sport Psychology ISSP.European Federation of Sport Psychology, or FEPSAC Fédération Européenne de Psychologie des Sports et des Activités Corporelles was formed following a similar meeting known as the first European Congress of sport in 1969, and has since held 15 congresses to discuss the future of sport psychology in Europe.
In North America, help for sport psychology grew out of physical education, and In 1973, The North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity NASPSPA grew from being an interest corporation to a full-fledged organization, whose mission included promoting the research and teaching of motor behavior and the psychology of sport and exercise. In Canada, the Canadian Society for Psychomotor Learning and Sport Psychology SCAPPS was founded in 1977 to promote the study and exchange of ideas in the fields of motor behavior and sport psychology. These two organizations would go on to be the leading advice of collaboration among scientists in sport psychology, and in 1985, the NASPSPA became the first company in North America to sponsor a journal in sport psychology, when the ago unaffiliated The Journal of Sport Psychology, which was founded in 1979, became The Journal of Sport and instance Psychology. Also during this same time period, over 500 members of the American Psychological connection APA signed a petition to create Division 47 in 1986, which is focused the collaboration between researchers in the field of Exercise and Sport Psychology.
In 1985, several applied sport psychology practitioners, headed by John Silva, believed an agency was needed to focus on professional issues in sport psychology, and therefore formed the association for the Advancement of Applied Sport Psychology AAASP. This was done in response to NASPSPA voting not to mention applied issues and to keep their focus on research.
Following its stated intention of promoting the science and practice of applied sport psychology, AAASP quickly worked to introducing uniform standards of practice, highlighted by the development of an ethical code for its members in the 1990s. The development of the AAASP Certified Consultant CC-AAASP program helped bring standardization to the training required to practice applied sport psychology, and in 2007, AAASP dropped "Advancement" from its name to become the Association for Applied Sport Psychology AASP, as this is the currently known.
AASP aims to provide leadership for the development of theory, research and applied practice in sport, exercise, and health psychology. However, in 2010 a rift developed between members who would like the organization to function as a trade office that promotes the CC-AASP security degree and pushes for job development, and those who would prefer the organization to remain as a professional society and a forum to exchange research and practice ideas. These problems were illustrated in AASP founding president John Silva's acknowledgment at the 2010 conference. Silva highlighted five points necessary for AASP and the greater field of applied sport psychology to address in the near future:
Silva then suggested that AASP advance the legal standing of the term "sport psychology consultant" and follow one educative improvement example for the collegiate and post-graduate training of sport psychology consultants. While the AASP Certified Consultant CC-AASP certification allowed a legitimate pathway to post-graduate training, it does not legally bar an individual without the CC-AASP credentials from practicing sport psychology. Silva contended that future sport psychology professionals should have degrees in both psychology and the sport sciences and that their training ultimately conclude in the obtainment of a legal title. It was argued this should add the likelihood of clients receiving competent proceeds as practitioners will have received training in both the "sport" and "psychology" pieces of sport psychology. Silva concluded that AASP and APA work together to create legal protection for the term "sport psychology consultant," and 2018, the AASP updated its certification program and launched the Certified Mental Performance Consultant CMPC..[] However, as of 2020 no legal status for the required training to practice sport psychology has been obtained by either the AASP or APA.