Chapter 1
Sport Psychology: Past,
Present and Future
Jean Williams & Bill Straub
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Focus of Applied Sport
Psychology
1. Understand psychological factors that influence
participation and
exercise
performance in sport and
2. Understand psychological effects derived from
participation and performance
3. Identify interventions to enhance performance,
participation, and personal growth
.
Sport Psychologists Study
 Motivation
 Personality
 Violence
 Leadership
 Group Dynamics
 Exercise and psychological well-being
 Thoughts and feelings of athletes
 Many other dimensions of participation in sport and exercise
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What Sport Psychologists Do
Teach
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Research
Consulting
Applied Sport Psychologists
 Asks questions such as how to:
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Manage competitive stress
Control concentration
Improve confidence
Increase communication skills and team harmony
Maintain optimal motivation
Deal with burnout and injury
Enhance coaching effectiveness
Increase exercise participation
Broad Goals of Psychological
Skills Training
 To learn to consistently create the ideal mental climate
that unleashes those physical skills that allow athletes to
perform at their best
 To use interventions to enhance physical and mental
health by increasing exercise participation
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History of Sport Psychology in
North America
 Roots lie in Greek antiquity, but scientific foundation comes
primarily from last 40 years
 Coleman Griffith an exception –active 1920’s to 1930’s
– Hired by University of Illinois to help coaches 
performance, first SP laboratory and course
– Wrote Psychology of Coaching (1926) and Psychology of
Athletics (1928) plus 40 articles
 Dorothy Yates an exception –active during 1930s-1950s
- Wrote 2 books describing her mental training interventions
with boxers and aviators
- Taught psychology course at San Jose State for aviators
and athletes
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1965-1979
 Birth of applied sport psychology (e.g., Bruce Ogilvie
and Tom Tutko)
 Clinical Psychologists (San Jose State Univ.)
 Extensive personality testing and team consulting, wrote
Problem Athletes and How to Handle Them (1966)
 Bruce Ogilvie often referred to as the father of applied sport
psychology in North America
 Formation of first sport psychology professional
organizations
 Father of Sport Psychology In Canada – Terry Orlick
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SP Professional Organizations
 International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP, 1965)
 North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and
Physical Activity (NASPSPA, 1967)
 Canadian Society for Psychomotor Learning and Sport
Psychology (SCAPPS, 1969)
 European Federation of Sport Psychology
(FEPSAC, 1969)
 Mental Training Registry (1980)
 Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP,1985) (“the
Advancement of” in title prior to 2006)
 American Psychological Association (APA) Division 47 (1987)
 Canadian Sport Psychology Association (2008?)
 Canadian Sport Psychology Association (Division ?)
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The 1970s
 Primary goal: Advance knowledge base
through experimental research
 Topics diverse and many target populations
 Increased cognitive focus: attention to athletes’ thoughts
and images
 Interactionism paradigm (considers person,
environmental variables, and their interaction)
surfaced and gained credibility
 Performance enhancement consulting
discouraged due to lack of knowledge base
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1980s
 Cognitive focus continued, plus emphasis on field versus
lab research
 Growth in exercise and health psychology issues and
research
 Extensive documentation of the effectiveness of
psychological interventions
advocating performance consulting
– led to
 Recognition and use of sport psychology consultants by the
USOC and its athletes
 Mental Training Registry establish (Canada)
 Growing practice concerns led to addressing professional
issues
 Formation of AAASP (1985, became AASP in 2006) and
APA Division 47 (1987)
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Sport Psychology Journals
 International Journal of Sport Psychology (1970)
 Journal of Sport Psychology (1979) changed to
Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology (1988)
 The Sport Psychologist (1987)
 Journal of Applied Sport Psychology (1989)
 Psychology of Sport and Exercise (2000)
 International Journal of Sport and Exercise
Psychology (2003)
 Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology (2007)
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1990-2009 Summary
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• Extensive growth and diversification in
research and practice
• Increase in journals and applied books
• Considerable progress regarding professional
issues
• Growth in job opportunities
• AASP establishes standards for certifying
consultants (1991) and for an ethical code of
behavior (1994, 1996)
• Mental Training Registry becomes renamed
as Canadian Sport Psychology Association
1990-2009 Research
 Growth documenting effectiveness of interventions
to enhance performance and personal growth
 More emphasis on health and exercise psychology
issues, including interventions to increase physical
activity
 Emerging diversity in methods, paradigms, and
epistemology
 e.g., feminist epistemology, influence of culture, singlesubject designs, qualitative methods
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1990-2014 Job
Opportunities
 Growth in consulting job market
 All ages and skill level, NCAA athletic departments,
fitness industry, sports medicine, performance
enhancement in non-sport populations (e.g., Army
Centers for Enhanced Performance)
 Growth in academic job market
 Most in sport science but some in psychology
 Growth in exercise psychology positions
 Partly driven by greater external research funding
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Some Homework
 Summarize how you become certified mental training
consultant in Canada? In the United States?
 What are the key organizations to belong to as a
consultant? In Canada? In the United States?
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Two Governing Bodies in Canada
- CSPA
Canada Sport Psychology
Association
Canadian Sport Psychology
Association
Training – psychology
Training – educational
emphasis with some kinesiology
/kinesiology emphasis with
some psychology
Title: Sport Psychologist
Title: Mental Performance
Consultant
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AASP Certification Criteria
 Masters or doctoral degree in related field (e.g., sport
science, psychology)
 Coursework
 12 categories (11 require equivalent of one 3-unit course,
SP category requires 3 courses)
 4 can be undergraduate, unless stated otherwise
 Supervised practicum
 700 hrs masters
 400 hrs doctoral
 Once certified, have recertification requirements
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AASP Certification Coursework
Categories
 C1: Professional ethics and standards
 One ethics course or several with ethics content
 C2: Sport psychology
 Three 3-unit courses (1 can be independent study, 2
grad)
 C3: Biomechanical and/or physiological bases of
sport
 e.g., biomechanics, kinesiology, exercise physiology
 C4: Historical, philosophical, social, or motor
behavior bases of sport
 e.g., motor learning/control, motor development, sport
sociology, history or philosophy of sport
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AASP Certification Coursework
Categories (cont.)
 C5: Psychopathology and its assessment
 e.g., abnormal psychology, psychopathology
 C6: Counseling skills (graduate level)
 e.g., interventions or practice in counseling, clinical psychology
 C7: Skills/techniques/analysis within sport/exercise
 e.g., sport skills/technique/coaching courses, clinics, coaching experience,
participation in organized sport
 C8: Research design, statistics, and psychological
assessment (graduate level)
 C9: Biological bases of behavior
 e.g., comparative psych, neuropsychology, physiological psych, sensation,
psychopharmacology, exercise physiology, biomechanics/kinesiology
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AAASP Certification
Coursework Categories (cont.)
 C10: Cognitive-affective bases of behavior
 e.g., cognition, emotion, learning, memory, motivation, motor
learning, motor development, perception, thinking
 C11: Social bases of behavior
 e.g., cultural, ethnic, group processes, gender roles, social
psychology, organizational/systems theory, sport sociology
 C12: Individual behavior
 e.g., developmental psychology, health psychology, individual
differences, personality, exercise behavior
Note: Categories 9-12, only 2 of 4 can be sport based
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AAASP versus CSPA
 What is the difference in training between AAASP and
CSPA
 What Courses need to be taken?
 Masters? Phd? Required?
 How many supervised hours?
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History of Sport Psychology in
Eastern Europe
 Considerable attention given to the applied aspects of
sport psychology
 Specifically, to enhance elite athletes’ performance
through applied research and direct intervention
 Sport psychology was a highly esteemed field of
academic and professional concern within national
sport
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History of Sport Psychology in
Eastern Europe (cont.)
 Self-regulation training
 Voluntarily control such bodily functions as
 Heart rate
 Temperature
 Muscle tension
 Emotional reactions to stressful situations
 Autogenic training, visualization, and
autoconditioning (self-hypnosis) were key
methods used by Eastern European sport
psychologists
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Future Directions in North American
Applied Sport Psychology
 Vealey suggests more inclusive and diverse
research questions and methods
 Need greater specialization in training of future
students due to growth in knowledge base
 Promote more career opportunities for future
sport psychologists
 More emphasis on positive psychology
 Seeks to understand positive emotion and build one’s strength
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