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ESS3808Sport Psychology
Martin I. JonesBSc MSc Phd PGCHE CPsychol CSci AFBPsS SFHEA
Mental Toughness
What is the most important psychological variable that
differentiates the great from
the good?
Mental toughness
One of the most used by least understood concepts in the domain of sport
Why?
Those personality characteristics that are most important in peoples' lives will
eventually become a part of their language
More important personality characteristics are more likely to be encoded into language as
a single word
Mental toughness
One of the most used by least understood concepts in the domain of sport
Still?
What is mental toughness and where did it come from ?
Cattell (1957)Viewed tough-minded individuals as
self-reliant realistic
responsible contrasted this with emotional sensitivity.
What kind of construct is mental toughness?Is it a trait, a type, a state of mind, an attitude, or a dynamic socially learned skill?
The ability to consistently perform toward the upper range of ones talent and skill, regardless of competitive circumstances
Terry Orlick et al.Characteristics of elite athletes
1. the ability to cope with and control anxiety2. confidence 3. mental toughness/resiliency 4. sport intelligence 5. the ability to focus and block out distractions; 6. competitiveness 7. a hard-work ethic 8. the ability to set and achieve goals 9. coachability 10.high levels of dispositional hope 11.Optimism12.adaptive perfectionism
Proliferation of researchHardiness + confidencevs.Cluster/constellation of characteristics
Jones et al. (2002)“HAVING THE NATURAL OR DEVELOPED PSYCHOLOGICAL EDGE THAT ENABLES YOU TO: 1) GENERALLY, COPE BETTER THAN YOUR OPPONENTS WITH THE MANY DEMANDS (COMPETITION, TRAINING, LIFESTYLE) THAT SPORT PLACES ON A PERFORMER; AND 2) SPECIFICALLY, BE MORE CONSISTENT AND BETTER THANYOUR OPPONENTS IN REMAINING DETERMINED, FOCUSED, CONFIDENT AND IN CONTROL UNDER PRESSURE”
(P.209)
Jones et al. (2002)GENERALLY COPE BETTER THAN YOUR OPPONENTS WITH THE MANY DEMANDS THAT SPORT PLACES ON A PERFORMER
SPECIFICALLY, BE MORE CONSISTENT AND BETTER THAN YOUR OPPONENTS IN REMAINING DETERMINED, FOCUSED, CONFIDENT AND IN CONTROL UNDER PRESSURE
Mental toughness to be a trait-like quality that determines, in some part, how individuals perform when exposed to stressors, pressure and challenge
Clough et al., 2002
Mentally tough individuals tend to be sociable and outgoing; as they are able to remain calm and relaxed, they are competitive in many situations and have lower anxiety levels than others. With a high sense of self-belief and an unshakeable faith that they can control their own destiny, these individuals remain relatively unaffected by competition oradversity”
(Clough et al., 2002,p. 38)
The Four C’s – a summaryTogether these give rise to Mental Toughness (apparently)
Control - I really believe I can do it - I can keep my emotions in check when doing itCommitment - I promise to do it and will set goals - I will do what it takes to keep those promisesChallenge - I can see the opportunity - I am motivated to do it Confidence - I believe I have the ability to do it - I can argue my corner if I need to
TaskRank Jones et al.’s mental toughness attributes
Which attribute is the most important?
Rank-order the attributes in terms of their importance to the ideal mentally tough performer (with 1 being the most important and 12 being the least important).
ProblemsDoes not represent what mental toughness is, but rather what mental toughness can allow athletes to do
OpportunityDoes not represent what mental toughness is, but rather what mental toughness can allow athletes to do
ProblemsMental toughness may have variousidiosyncratic meanings to different athletes in different sports
Bull et al. (2005) Suggested different forms of mental toughness,
Final putt or pressure mental toughness
endurance mental toughness
Mental toughness in relation to heavy training schedules;
Mental toughness in circumstances of extreme physical danger
Jones et al. (2002)Socially constructed cultural ideals
Aka. Fantasy researchsee Andersen 2011
Ladies and gentlemen, I present the mentally tough athlete
AGREED UPON DEFINITION (BY JONES ET AL., 2002) BUT
CHANGED THE WORD
GENERALLY COPE BETTER TO
ALWAYS COPE BETTERThelwell, Weston, Greenless (2005)
Never ever use absolute language; It is always false
Mental toughness represents a higher-order concept that accounts for the shared variance among a group of personal resources or assets
Specifically, the common conceptually identifiable element among these personal resources or assets is a process driving consistently high levels of performance.
An inherent feature of this conceptualization is that mental
toughness resides within an individual and – although providing a foundation for
performance consistency – is imperfectly translated into behaviour or
action
Is imperfectly translated into behaviour or
action
So, what's mental weakness?Provide a definition of the contrast pole
A definition of everything?A collection of experientially developed and inherent sport-general and sport specific values, attitudes, cognitions, and emotions that influence the way in which an individual approaches, responds to, and appraises both negatively and positively construed pressures, challenges, and adversities to consistently achieve his or her goals.
MT Attribute Description Example
Being confident Having faith in your ability to achieve goals
In the lead and no thought of looking back
Galvanizing motivation and desire Possessing a determined work ethic
Training hard irrespective of the conditions
Effectively dealing with adversity and failure
Fortitude in the face of adversity and setbacks
A slow start is not linked to cause and a effect outcomes
Overcoming physical /emotional pain & hardship
Pushing the envelope beyond previous sessions
The experience of exhaustion is interpreted as a challenge and sought out not avoided
Optimal management of aversive levels of anxiety and emotions
Accepting competitive anxiety as part of the competitive situation
Thoughts/feelings/behaviours of nervousness are deemed to be illustrative of excitement and not detrimental to performance
Staying focused Present moment thinking and connected with task specific stimuli
Thoughts about what can and can not be controlled are correctly appraised
A balanced perspective Being able to switch on and off to ensure emotional and psychological well-being is maintained
Taking time away fro the sport and reconnecting with other aspects of your life
A belief in your abilities to achieve success
The ability to continue on during adversity
Focus on what is relevant
Desire to achieve and act on such thoughts
Awareness and understanding of performance
An awareness of and ability to use emotions
Tendency to expect positive events
To thrive when challenged
Self-belief
Resilience
Attention control
Success mindset
Contextintelligence
Emotional awareness
and regulation
Optimistic thinking
Handle challenge
GMental
toughness
Conceptual overview, adapted from Gucciardi et al. (2011)
Strive
ThriveSurvive
Mental toughness process vs mental toughness orientation?
How do you measure mental
toughness?
Psychological PerformanceInventory
(PPI; Loehr, 1986)
Alternative-Psychological Performance Inventory
(PPI-A; Golby, Sheard & van Wersch, 2007
Mental Toughness Questionnaire
(MTQ48; Clough et al., 2002 )
Sport Mental Toughness Questionnaire
(SMTQ; Sheard, Golby &van Wersch, 2009)
Mental Toughness Index(MTI; Gucciardi et al., 2015)
And more . . .
Construct development (Clough, et al., (2002) Perceptual and behavioural differences
Mental toughness and stress buffering – links with hardiness (Clough, et al., 2002)
Fawcett (2005) transferability an issue. Effective lifestyle management
Development of MT, importance of environmental contexts (Connaughton, et al., (2008)
Genes. No association between serotonin transporter 5-HTT and positive psychological attributes
Bull et al. (2005) relationship between MT and behavioural tendencies in cricketers.
Crust and Clough (2005) found association with levels of MT and pain tolerance
Assessment of complex concepts is almost always prone to measurement error, and failure to correct for this error in data analyses can bias substantive conclusions
(Schmidt & Hunter, 1996).
Construct proliferation? Empirical distinctiveness & logical (conceptual) distinctiveness
Mental toughnessHardinessResilienceMutton
Constructs?
Jingle-jangle fallacies Erroneous assumptions that two different things are the same because they bear the
same name (jingle fallacy) or that two identical or almost identical things are different because they are labelled differently
(jangle fallacy).
Empirically distinct?If constructs are empirically distinct, then they will correlate considerably less than 1.00 after the appropriate corrections for bias due to measurement error.
High correlations might mean that athletes may not see constructs differently in the real world
Var(X) = Var(p) + Var(po) + Var(pi : s) + Var(ps) + Var(e)
(Lee et al., 2009)
Var(X) is observed variance
Var(p) is variance due to the construct of interest
Var(po) is transient error variance
Var(pi:s) is item specific factor error variance
Var(ps) is scale specific factor error variance
Var(e) is random response error varaince
Discriminant validityWhether concepts or measurements that are supposed to be unrelated are, in fact, unrelated
Take home messageThere are multiple sources of variance that we need to consider when establishing relationships between constructs.
Researchers create a problem by ignoring or failing to take into account the effects of all the measurement artefacts in self-report measures in research
Current Research
Self determination theory and mental toughnessDoes BPNT theory provide an explanation for the development of MT?
Mahoney et al., 2014
Mahoney et al., 2014
Reward Sensitivity and mental toughness“neuropsychological” explanation for mental toughness?
Reward sensitivity is underpinned by a neurological network known as the Behavioral activation system (BAS),
By responding to rewarding stimuli in the environment, this system is proposed to be responsible for all goal-focused approach behaviour
Punishment sensitivity is underpinned by acombination of the fight-flight-freeze system (FFFS) and the behavioural inhibition system (BIS)
The BIS is engaged during aversive stimuli (i.e., remove him- or herself from the situation).
Hardy et al., 2014
(Delaney et al., 2015)
Military and mental toughness“neuropsychological” explanation for mental toughness?
Military Training Mental Toughness InventoryMilitary specific MT measurement tool
Arthur et al., 2015
Pain and mental toughnessIs mental toughness associated with pain experiences?
