Football Psychology

From Theory to Practice

Erkut Konter, Jürgen Beckmann, Todd M. Loughead, Erkut Konter, Jürgen Beckmann, Todd M. Loughead

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351975483
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Psychologie
• Categoría: Geschichte & Theorie in der Psychologie

Presenting an empirically underpinned synthesis of research and theory, while offering guidance for applied practitioners, this is the first book to comprehensively map the psychology of learning, playing, and coaching the world's favourite sport.

The book provides a complete analysis of key topics that capture the broad range of football psychology such as personality, motivation, cognition, and emotion; coaching and team essentials; psychological skills for performance enhancement; and developing players in youth football. Including contributions from a range of international researchers, each chapter provides a review of the relevant literature, key theories, real-world examples, and reflections on how knowledge can be applied in practice. Split into four sections, the book covers a diverse range of topics relevant not only to coaching and performance but also to personality development and health promotion.

Essential reading for any student, researcher, or professional in the area, the book is the most cutting-edge overview of how psychology can explain and improve the way football is both played and understood.

Part I

Personality, motivation, cognition, and emotion

1 Mood states as motivational and emotional determinants of football performance

José Lino O. Bueno and Victor C. Souza

Abstract

This chapter will present the findings of several studies that have investigated the momentary mood states of Brazilian football players in pre-competition situations, emphasizing the role of psychological aspects that have been studied in the literature. The data were obtained by Engelmann’s Present Mood States List, a Brazilian instrument to access subjective states. In these studies, mood states were related to variables such as playing position of the athletes, location of the competition, sequences of games and training sessions during the season, behavioural repertoire, and technical performance in the games. There is a common mood profile of football players in the moments before the game begins (interest, happiness, and hope); however, there are differences especially between defensive and forward players in different competitive contexts. Behavioural repertoire changes were related with pre-competitive mood states, revealing emotional and motivational components of the athletes’ performance. Factors such as Fatigue, Interest, and Serenity varied during the sequences of games and training. Young Brazilian football players feel a high level of pressure for winning, showing relief after victories (more than happiness or pride) and humiliation and shame after defeats. The present chapter focuses on the importance of considering positive aspects of an athlete’s mood and their interaction with emotional, motivational, and social aspects, expanding the understanding of the influence of psychological variables on human performance in sport. Practical implications, especially for coaches and sport psychologists, and future research directions are discussed.

FIFA World Cup 2014. Mineirão Stadium in Belo Horizonte. Semi-finals. Brazil vs Germany, giants of the world of football. Eight World Cup titles between them, five for Brazil and three for Germany.

The Brazilian nation was excited about the game. The Brazilian home team was supported by thousands of anxious yet hopeful fans. The team was missing some of their most important players, Neymar and their captain Thiago Silva. However, central defender David Luiz emerged as a leader during the tournament. The game started the same as any other but within half an hour, Brazil was already facing a substantial beating. Completely unheard of in FIFA history and to the shock of the Brazilian fans, Germany scored five goals within the first 27 minutes. It was a triumph for the German team, which hadn’t won the World Cup since 1990 and had something to prove. From the start of the game to the 27th minute, it can be argued that five elements factored into Germany’s five-goal lead: confidence, hope, and self-esteem of the winners, and anxiety and despair of the losers.

The Brazilian media highlighted several aspects related to performance, especially regarding the tactics of the game, in an attempt to find an explanation for their greatest defeat. On the contrary, very little was noted about the motivational and emotional aspects involved to help explain Germany’s impressive win and the huge disparity in the teams’ performance.

Naturally, the athletes’ performance can be examined not only from a technical and tactical perspective, but also considering motivational factors, emotional responses, and social dynamics manifested over the course of the competition. Psychological dispositions such as humiliation, anger, fatigue, hope, empathy, limerence, disgust, interest, surprise, hunger, disregard, envy, openness, and serenity can all affect an athlete’s performance on the field.

Measures of subjective states, or momentary mood states (Engelmann, 1978), assessed through verbal reports of the athletes, can describe these psychological conditions. The evaluation of momentary moods in the immediate pre-competition situation can reflect emotional, motivational, and social conditions that may be related to an athlete’s behavioural repertories categories during a game.

Overview of the chapter’s objectives

This chapter will present the findings of several studies that have investigated the momentary mood states of Brazilian football players in pre-competition situations, emphasizing the role of psychological aspects that have been studied in the literature. In these studies (e.g. Dias-Silva, 2013; Nogueira, 2009; Picoli, 2016), mood states were related to variables such as playing position of the athletes, location of the competition, sequences of games and training sessions during the season, behavioural repertoire, and technical performance in the games. The present chapter will focus on the importance of considering positive aspects of an athlete’s mood and their interaction with emotional, motivational, and social aspects, expanding the understanding of the influence of psychological variables on human performance in sport.

Subjective states and motivational, emotional, and social conditions

When talking scientifically about motivation and emotion, there has been a great deal of controversy over the last few decades about the definitions of these concepts as well as the possible relationship between the underlying processes (e.g. Bindra, 1976; Cofer, 1972).

Cofer (1972) synthesized the most accepted notion of motivation, emphasizing the irrational components of the motivational concepts of human nature, which give energy to and control the vigour and efficiency of behaviours, as well as guiding behaviour for specific purposes. Emotions, like motivations, have an irrational character, and both are often treated very similarly. Emotions, however, are known for their open manifestations and are expressed by statements of how one feels.

The study of motivational and emotional conditions implies the notion of organization of action and subjective states. Bindra (1976) emphasized that both motivation and emotion have to do with the organization of action, which depends not only on the present conditions of the organism or on the characteristics of the stimuli, but on how these processes are structured in a central motivational state and constitute subjective states in humans. Lazarus (1998) paid attention to the fact that

Whatever the person is momentarily experiencing, be it emotional or not, happens against a background of other psychological conflicts and states, even if these are tentatively pushed into the background. This background of latent emotionality is constantly lurking in the shadows and is undoubtedly the major influence on the immediate figure states, just as is the immediate stimulus.

(p. 24)

Thus, studies that allow the description of momentary mood states through individual verbal reports can identify the variety of subjective states present in the individual that are more directly related to the motivational and emotional processes linked to an action (Engelmann, 2002).

Qualitative methods and descriptions of behavioural repertoire can give important support to the study of motivational, emotional, and social elements involved in an athlete’s performance. For example, ‘studying high-level performers may provide insights for other athletes, but detail and transparency is needed when classifying their competitive level’ (Clancy, Herring, MacIntyre, & Campbell, 2016, p. 242). From a methodological point of view, the authors argued that qualitative methods can provide essential data for the understanding of the motivational phenomenon. Furthermore, they underscored the use of behavioural or physiological data and also proposed longitudinal investigations that would permit the expansion of knowledge on which to base future interventions.

Some theoretical models that take into account motivational and emotional aspects to explain behaviours and sports performance among high-performance athletes involve methods for measuring these states. These will now be discussed.

The use of psychological tests in sport provides relevant information that is useful for psychologists and coaches; however, several issues must be taken into consideration for effective application of the construct being evaluated, how to evaluate it, where to do it, when and why to do it. For a long time, psychology has made use of psychological tools that were not designed exclusively for sport evaluations. Moreover, it is worth noting that in the Brazilian context, it is common to see the use of such tools coming from other countries without validation or transcultural adaptation.

The starting point for the measurement of mood state is the choice of a theoretical model. Prapavessis (2000) carried out a critical review of the concept of mood states from the perspective of the Mental Health Model, which was conceptually based on the Profile of Mood States (POMS) proposed by McNair, Lorr, and Droppleman (1971; 1992). POMS has been applied to many sport studies around the world, generating adaptations of the instrument and validation in different contexts. In his own revision, Prapavessis made a critique of the iceberg profile that served as the graphic representation of optimal mood states for sport performance, in which the vigour mood would be above average, while the other five factors with a negative aspect would be below the population average. The author presented research results that contradicted this model (e.g. Daiss, LeUnes, & Nation, 1986, for football players; Durtschi & Weiss, 1986, for marathoners).

The Inverted-U Theory is another model that proposes that sport performance reaches an optimum baseline when the arousal level is moderate. When this level either increases or decreases, performance tends to decline just the same. In agreement with this theory, moderate anxiety states have been found to be related to good performance in some sports. Hanin (2000) suggested an alternative that relates to the Inverted-U Theory. However, this alternative emphasizes individual differences, with each athlete having an optimal functioning zone (Individual Zone of Optimal Functioning – IZOF). Hanin himself used the model in football and noticed differences in intra- and interindividual analysis, but not in analysis at the group level. The most successful players showed a higher deviation from non-optimal zones than less successful players in pre-competition situations just before an important tournament. According to Hanin (2000), the IZOF Model differs from other systems because its ‘framework is conceptually broad and therefore not limited to specific instruments’ (p. 88). Moreover, the author considered the methodology of IZOF to cover biopsycho-social elements such as cognitive, motivational, performance, and motor-behavioural factors.

The Circumplex Model in sport and exercise psychology developed by Ekkekakis (2000) maps affective response on two axes: activation (or arousal) and valence (pleasantness or hedonic value). Most studies use this model to discuss the benefits of physical activity on the psychological states of the participants, however; the concept can also be applied to any sport. The activation and valence dimensions result in the following four quadrants: pleasant/activated (energy/excitement), pleasant/inactivated (relaxation/calm), unpleasant/inactivated (boredom/fatigue), and unpleasant/activated (anxiety/tension).

The Present Mood State List (PMSL) proposed by Engelmann (1986; 2002) is a conceptual model of subjective states or moods assessed by verbal reports, which follows a research line initiated in North American psychology (e.g. Nowlis, 1970). The conceptualization of mood by Engelmann is similar to what is called the subjective state. Locutions (e.g. ‘feeling conformed’, ‘being impatient’) refer to these moods or subjective states. Verbal reports are written in the first person and refer to locutions of mood states (e.g. ‘I feel a necessity’, ‘I am proud’).

Engelmann (1986; 2002) elaborated the PMSL as an instrument to evaluate mood states, resulting from wide empirical research performed in Brazil. Engelmann’s quantitative studies initially submitted thousands of participants to 370 locutions and asked them to evaluate each locution using 18 scales involving several elements (e.g. hedonic value and activation level). The results permitted the classification of these locutions and showed that these locutions could probabilistically give adequate access to subjective states, both emotional and non-emotional (Engelmann, 1978). Quantitative analysis of these data resulted in the selection of 40 locutions which are representative of the subjective states. The PMSL is the list of 40 verbal reports referring to these locutions. The list is presented to the participant, who must use scales in order to show the intensity of momentary mood or subjective state. This assessment translates possible conscious states at the moment when the instrument is implemented (Engelmann, 1978).

The notion of mood or subjective state employed by Nowlis (1970) and Engelmann (1986; 2002) represents fundamental patterns of functioning and orientation that affect a person’s activity. The identification of mood states with the PMSL involves the direction of social orientation (self-orientation/orientation to others) and positive or negative subjective assessment in the present moment, representing motivational and emotional elements.

Engelmann (1978) also carried out factor analysis of the Brazilian data, obtaining 12 factors that take into account the hedonic value and activation level of each item. In order to facilitate the description and identification of the data, the authors who have used the PMSL in the sporting context (Picoli, 2016; Silva, 2017) have named the following factors from the representative locutions: I – Humiliation/Anger, II – Fatigue, III – Hope, IV – Limerence/Empathy, V – Physiological Response, VI – Repulsion, VII – Interest, VIII – Surprise, IX – Hunger, X – Disregard/Envy, XI – Receptivity, and XII – Serenity.

Different researchers have proposed that mood can best be understood either based on a number of specific dimensions or in broad, generic terms, and that the adequate choice of model or instrument usually depends upon the precise nature of the research question (Lane & Terry, 2000). An advantage of using the PMSL is that it is a larger and more complete list of positive and negative mood states than other instruments used in similar studies with athletes, such as the POMS and BRUMS (Brazilian translation of POMS; Rohlfs, Carvalho, Rotta, & Krebs, 2004, Rohlfs et al., 2008), amplifying the potential relationships of mood states with motivational, emotional, and social processes.

The first study using Engelmann’s PMSL in a sporting context was conducted by Bueno and Di Bonifácio (2007), who evaluated changes in mood states in volleyball players during competitions. A total of 13 female players and 11 male players filled out the PMSL during the semi-final and final matches of their respective tournaments. The results revealed a common profile for both groups based on the high-intensity presence of locutions such as ‘I feel a desire’, ‘I’m hopeful’ (Factor III – Hope), ‘I’m interested’, and ‘I’m reflecting’ (Factor VII – Interest). Comparing the first game of the semi-finals and the last game of the finals, locutions such as ‘I feel a necessity’ and ‘I’m proud’ (Factor XI – Receptivity) as well as ‘I feel calm’ (Factor XII – Serenity) were present at higher intensities in the last game.

Relationships between subjective states, motivational/emotional conditions, an...