Counselling Athletes: Applying Reversal Theory

John Kerr

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• Topic: Psychology
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135801090
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy Counselling
• Index: Psychology

Reversal theory is an innovative psychological theory exploring human motivation, emotion and personality. This is the first book in the field to examine how reversal theory can be used by practitioners in applied sport psychology in their counselling work with athletes. Counselling Athletes explores the key elements of reversal theory, and comprehensively demonstrates how reversal theory can improve understanding in the following key areas:
* athletes' motivational states when performing
* athletes' motivational characteristics
* identifying performance problems
* athletes' experiences of stress
* intervention strategies
* eating disorders
* exercise addiction.
Each chapter includes real-life case study material from elite performers in sport, as well as guides to further reading and questions for discussion.
Counselling Athletes is essential reading for all practising sport psychologists and coaches, and for any student of sport psychology.

Chapter 1

Getting started with reversal theory

THE BASICS

It is quite a challenge to summarise reversal theory, an innovative theory of motivation, emotion and personality, in a single chapter. Michael Apter’s two books outlining the theory (Apter, 1982, 1989) contained 369 and 195 pages of explanatory text, respectively. This chapter will, however, take on this challenge in order to provide readers with a basic knowledge of reversal theory. Applications of the theory to counselling athletes will be developed in later chapters. Figure 1.1 shows the concepts from reversal theory that are most relevant to athlete counselling.

Step 1 in getting started with reversal theory is to note that reversal theory is a general theory of psychology which utilises a structural-phenomenological approach. In addition, the theory considers human behaviour to be inherently inconsistent and argues that reversals between paired metamotivational states form the basis of human personality, emotion and motivation. Step 2 involves examining the basic features of reversal theory, and the technical terms they have been assigned, in more detail.

STRUCTURAL PHENOMENOLOGY

Phenomenology is one of the major approaches in the study of psychology. It concentrates on the individual’s subjective experience of life events. Structural phenomenology is the special form of phenomenology which is utilised by reversal theory. In structural phenomenology, the subjective experience of cognition and emotion, as well as one’s own motivation, is thought to be influenced by certain structures and patterns. Thus, structural phenomenology provides a perspective on how human motivation is organised. Tied in with the individual focus of reversal theory is the notion that there is an inherent inconsistency in the way that people behave. In other words, an athlete who finds him or herself in the same situation on different occasions may behave in totally different ways.

Figure 1.1 The main concepts in reversal theory which are relevant to counselling athletes (adapted from Kerr, 1994).

METAMOTIVATIONAL STATES AND REVERSALS

Metamotivational states are mental states which are concerned with how athletes experience their motives. There are eight different metamotivational states bonded together in four pairs which coexist separately within bistable systems. The concept of bistability has been adopted by reversal theory from cybernetics to explain the rapid changes or psychological reversals that take place backwards and forwards over time between any pair of metamotivational states. In cybernetics, a bistable system is one which tends to maintain a specified variable, despite external disturbance, within one or another of two ranges of values of the variable concerned. The four sets of partner metamotivational states are known as the telic and paratelic, negativistic and conformist, autic and alloic, and mastery and sympathy states. The first four are primarily concerned with the way an athlete experiences his or her own bodily arousal and are therefore known as the somatic states. The latter four states are primarily concerned with interactions with other people or, in some situations, objects (e.g. motorcycles, boats, horses, skis and other sports equipment), and have therefore been labelled the transactional states. In reversal theory, the relative importance of one state over the others at any particular time is known as salience.

An analogy might be useful in illustrating the relationship which exists between partner metamotivational states. For example, consider a viewer who is particularly interested in sport sitting down to watch television. Two sports events (e.g. track–and–field athletics and tennis) are being transmitted on different channels, say channels 1 and 2, at the same time. Although interested in both events, the person concerned can only watch athletics on channel 1 or tennis on channel 2 at any one time, but by using the remote control to switch back and forth between channels, the viewer can see the best action from both events. Here, channel 1 can be thought of as representing one metamotivational state (e.g. the telic sate) and channel 2 its paired partner (e.g. the paratelic state), and the switches between channels can be thought of as the reversals which occur between metamotivational states in everyday life (see Figure 1.3, p. 5).

Characteristics of the somatic states

Telic state

With the telic state operative, an athlete’s behaviour is likely to be serious, goal oriented and future related in the sense that it involves considerable planning ahead. This form of athlete behaviour is typical of many training situations where a high workrate and the completion of training goals are to the fore. Also, when in this state, athletes will generally have a preference for experiencing low levels of felt arousal (see ‘Metamotivational variables and the sixteen primary emotions’, p. 13).

Paratelic state

With the paratelic state operative, an athlete’s behaviour is likely to be spontaneous, impulsive and sensation oriented, and geared to prolonging the immediate enjoyment of ongoing activities. In this state, the athlete prefers high levels of felt arousal and, where goals exist, their purpose is to add to the pleasure in a situation. Scandinavian fartlek distance running training is a good example, where fun is the main objective and distance and time are of lesser importance.

Negativistic state

Athletes in the negativistic state tend to be rebellious, stubborn and defiant, feeling the need to act against something or someone. With this state operative, an athlete might react to the aggressive barracking of rival fans and respond by directing a provocative gesture at them.

Conformist state

Athletes in the conformist state are usually agreeable and cooperative, and have a desire to comply with rules. The written and unwritten rules and conventions of many sports require compliance by the athletes concerned and, as a result, athletes will often be in the conformist state when competing.

Characteristics of the transactional states

Autic state

The focus for athletes in the autic state is themselves and what happens to them personally in any sporting or other interaction. If an athlete perceives him or herself as successful in an interaction, it is a pleasant experience; if unsuccessful, it is experienced as unpleasant. A try-saving tackle in rugby or a diving catch in the cricket outfield executed successfully would engender pleasant feelings for an athlete with the autic state operative.

Alloic state

When the alloic state is operative, the focus for an athlete is what happens to other athletes, coaching staff or even officials in any sporting interaction. Perceiving these other participants as having been successful will induce feelings of pleasure and satisfaction in that particular athlete. For example, for a player in the alloic state, a winning goal scored by a field hockey teammate in injury time at the end of a close, hard-fought game would be experienced in this way.

Mastery state

Athletes may often find themselves in the mastery state when competing against another athlete or team. In the usual competitive situation, they will feel the need to be tough and masterful in order to defeat opponents.

Sympathy state

When the sympathy state is operative, athletes will feel the need to empathise with others, perhaps teammates or supporting spectators. Here feelings of harmony and unity may be important.

Figure 1.2 shows a summary of the major characteristics of the somatic and transactional metamotivational states.

HOW REVERSALS TAKE PLACE

Reversals are thought to be involuntary and sometimes unexpected. In other words, a person cannot suddenly decide that he or she would prefer to be in, say, the telic state and consciously prompt a reversal to that state from the paratelic state. Reversal theory hypothesises that there are three ways in which reversals take place. These have been termed contingency, frustration and satiation (see Figure 1.3).

Figure 1.2 Characteristics of the four pairs of metamotivational states.

Figure 1.3 Television channel switching illustrating how reversals are induced by the three types of inducing agents.

Contingency

A club cricketer plays recreational cricket at the weekend. He is the team’s best fast bowler and takes his bowling very seriously, thinking about and planning the series of balls in each over very carefully. When he is bowling, he is typically in the telic state. However, he has never shown much talent or skill with the bat and he regularly bats near the bottom of the team batting order. As a result, his attitude when batting has been to treat it as a bit of a laugh, getting to the crease and swinging his bat with reckless abandon, hoping to notch up a few lucky runs before he gets bowled out. When he is batting he is typically in the paratelic state.

During one particular match in the latter stages of a cup competition, his more talented teammates at the top and middle of the batting order fail to come to terms with a very skilful spin bowler and they are skittled out for a very low score. He finds himself going out to bat with nine wickets down. He and his partner are the last batsmen. Usually when he bats he is in the paratelic state, but now, owing to the sudden collapse of his team’s normally dependable batting and the fact that he has to bat slowly and cautiously to try to achieve a good score and get his team out of trouble, he undergoes a reversal and finds himself in the telic state. In this example, the batting collapse is an environmental event which has induced a reversal from the paratelic to the telic state (e.g. Svebak et al., 1982).

Frustration

A rugby league match involves two teams from a premier division, but with players of very different abilities and playing styles. One team has extremely skilful players who are intent on playing the game to the best of their ability and using team strategy and tactics which involve a flowing, entertaining game. The other team’s players are not as skilful and have developed a style of play which is dependent on ‘mixing it’ with the opposing players and trying to upset their playing style. This often means using physically violent, unlawful tactics which they have employed with some success in previous matches.

Towards the end of the first half of the game, a forward from the skilful team receives the ball and runs at speed, trying to break through the opposition defence. He is tackled by two defenders. One of the defenders has tackled low and taken the attacking forward around the legs. The second defender has tackled around the upper body and, just as the players hit the ground, he elbows the attacker hard in the face. The foul play was unseen by referee and touch judges. In addition, the opposition have been using very dubious tactics since the start of the game, preventing the attacking team from playing their usual open style of play. This is the third or fourth time that the attacking forward has been subjected to foul play. Following the instructions of the team coach, he has not reacted to the previous incidents, remaining in the conformist state and adhering to the coach’s instructions and the rules of the game. With the latest incident, however, a reversal from the conformist to the negativistic state takes place, prompted by the repeated acts of foul play. The attacking forward angrily retaliates and a punch-up between the two players develops. This time, however, the touch judge has observed the retaliation and, after consulting with the referee, the attacking forward (feeling even more aggrieved and negativistic) is sent off the pitch to the ‘sinbin’. This example illustrates the second type of reversal induction, where a reversal has occurred owing to conditions of frustration, where an athlete has been unable to obtain satisfaction in an operative state or state combination (see, for example, Barr et al., 1990).

Satiation

A professional volleyball player is a member of a team based in Japan. Prior to the start of the playing season, she participated in pre-season training and attended a special summer training camp. Once the season began, she became a permanent member of the team and played in all the team’s matches. She has a very serious and dedicated approach to volleyball and when she is training and playing she usually has the telic state operative. At the end of a long season, she joined her national team at a four-day international tournament. During her last game, at a stage when the two opposing teams were evenly matched, she suddenly reversed from the telic to the paratelic state. She found herself in a rather playful mood, making unplanned, spontaneous plays. Even so, her team managed to win and returned to the dressing room. After showering and changing, the player, still with the paratelic state operative, left the volleyball facility and went out on the town for an all-night binge of drinking and partying with some of her teammates. This example illustrates the third type of reversal-inducing agent, satiation, which is increasingly likely to induce a reversal if an athlete has been in one metamotivational state for some time (e.g. Lafreniere et al., 1988).

Although reversals are thought to be involuntary, some research evidence does suggest that people may be able to place themselves in particular situations and other contexts, or create environmental conditions which are likely to induce reversals to particular metamotivational states (e.g. Kerr and Tacon, 1999). Some examples of research which examined reversals in sport are: Cox and Kerr (1989, 1990), research on competitive squash; Kerr and Vlaswinkel (1993), a study on long-distance running; and Males and Kerr (1996), research on slalom canoeing. In addition, details of these studies and all the latest reversal theory sport research can be found in Kerr (1997,1999).

METAMOTIVATIONAL DOMINANCE

To return to the television analogy used earlier, if the action is especially thrilling, a viewer may spend more time watching one channel than t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Appendix
• References