Question 2: What do people seem to mean when they talk about willpower? Is willpower a useful concept? Why or why not?

Transcription

1 Chapter 13: Question 2: What do people seem to mean when they talk about willpower? Is willpower a useful concept? Why or why not? People refer to willpower as a force within us that is responsible for overcoming self-control problems. Willpower is not a useful concept because the person offering such helpful advice (if you had more willpower you could ) neglects to tell us how to obtain more of this so-called willpower. Question 4: Briefly describe two causes of self-control problems that involve behavioral excesses. Illustrate with a sport example that is not in this chapter. The two causes of self-control problems that involve behavioural excesses, is that the immediate reinforcement of the problem behaviour wins out over the negative effects that are only cumulatively significant. For example, a ballerina is struggling with her weight, and finds it difficult to maintain her good form when the food around her is so appealing. She found it difficult to resist eating cake, because first: the good taste is immediately reinforced after taking the first bite, and second: the negative effects are not noticeable overtime, but build up quickly. In this case, the negative effect would be gaining unwanted weight overtime. Question 5: Briefly describe two causes of self-control problems that involve behavioral deficits. Illustrate with a sport example that is not in this chapter. There are two main reasons for behavioural deficits. The first, is that immediate punishers may follow the condition, and second, the positive outcomes of a condition are not immediate enough to be noticed. In the same example of the ballerina, she often does not like practicing her technique because it is dull, and the immediate punisher is feeling tired and stressed. The positive outcome of practicing her technique is that it is starting to improve, but not fast enough for her to notice. It will happen overtime. Question 7: Give an example of a quantity goal for a practice of a sport that is not in this chapter An example of a quantity goal would be a tennis player measuring his aces in serving as a percentage. If the success rate was 80%, that would be his quantity goal. Question 8: Give an example of a quality goal for a practice of a sport that is not in this chapter

2 An example of a quality goal would be, using the same tennis player that the success measured of his aces would only include those that were successful, and his opponent could not return. Question 10: Using an example that is not in this chapter, describe how an athlete might improve practice performance by rearranging the immediate surroundings. If a tennis player were having trouble staying motivated during practice, it would help to have pictures of Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka on the walls as well as wear the tennis outfit she wore when she won the National Championships. She could also bring her trophies to practice and invite her friends to watch her. With these immediate changes in her surrounding she should eventually gain back the motivation in practice. Question 12: Describe three strategies for reinforcing desirable practice behaviors. Give an example of each that is not in this chapter. The first strategy for reinforcing desirable behaviours is applying selfreinforcement for desirable practice behaviour. An example of this is a swimmer who is extremely frustrated with her performances and wants to give up. When she started thinking optimistically about things she enjoyed doing in her life, the self -reinforcement caused her to improve overtime. The second strategy is for the athlete to arrange for others to present reinforcers contingent upon improvement. The swimmer arranged with her coach, for example, to let her have a chocolate bar every time she swam a lap efficiently. The third strategy is to remind them of delayed natural reinforcers for specific practice behaviour, and to do so immediately after the practice behaviour occurs. For example, the swimmer has been focusing on her diet, as she needs to lose some weight to become faster. In the early stages of the diet, the natural reinforcers of swimming better happen eventually, as the effects take time. To help this, it is important to imagine how great it will be when she has reached her weight goal, and how it will benefit her in the long run. Chapter 14: Question 1: What two questions must coaches and athletes constantly address? 1) At practices, will specific skills be learned? 2) At competitions, will the previously learned skills transfer well? Question 2: Define stimulus generalization. Give a sport example that is not in this chapter.

3 Stimulus generalization is when a behavior becomes more likely in the presence of one stimulus or situation as a result of having been strengthened in the presence of similar stimuli. An example is a tennis player who practices his shots with ball shooting machine, instead of always practicing with a partner. This machine generalizes to the opponent in competition, and the skills that he acquired when playing against the machine will help him do well in competition. Question 4: Consider these statements: Practice makes perfect. Practicing under conditions that are similar to playing conditions helps to make one perfect. Explain, in terms of stimulus generalization, why athletes and coaches need to understand the implications of these statements. This is best explained with a golfer as an example. In practice, a golfer will hit several balls in succession with a certain type of club. They will do this with several clubs. However, this is not the same as in a real game of golf, where there is a lot of time between shots and you do not always use the same club in a row. If a golfer wants to maximize the likelihood of playing well on a course, then the golfer should devote a part of driving range practice to course-like conditions, including alternating clubs after every shot like in a typical round of golf. Question 8: Describe an example of how athletes might use imagery at practices to simulate aspects of a competition in order to increase the likelihood that practice performance will transfer to competitions. Simulations are attempts to keep the practice environment as similar as possible to the stimulus in competition. An example of this would be a gymnast setting up her practice area as identical as possible to the competition area, so that she can calmly adapt to the competition. Question 7: Pick a sport, other than football with which you are familiar. For that sport, for each of the seven categories of stimuli described in this chapter, describe an example from a typical competition. Sport: Hockey 1) Cues from the physical environment Example: practicing penalty shots in the arena you normally perform in competition instead of in a local ice skating rink. This would be in a game like setting with other players in uniform as well. 2) Cues from the behaviour of the coach Example: When the team is practicing different plays, the coach would give his instructions from his place on the bench as he would during an actual competition. In a real game, the coach would be on the bench with the rest of the players who aren t on for a shift. 3) Cues from the behaviour of other athletes Example: When practicing for a shootout, you would have the athletes boo really loud like the crowd would be if this were in competition at an away game.

4 4) Cues from the level of autonomic arousal or degree of anxiousness of the athlete Example: Instead of taking the practices lightly, they would treat it like it was a real game, using the real scoreboard and having fans, and parents come out to watch. By doing this it would be like a real game because at a competition the crowds consist of people you want to impress as well. 5) Proprioceptive cues from muscles of athlete Example: Since in real games, the players do not get the opportunity to shoot consistently at a net as much as they want, they want to gain muscle memory. They could do this by getting to practice shooting in a practice game after practice. 6) Athlete s imagery as cues Example: When practicing for a shoot out goal the athlete goes through all of the steps he will take to emit the proper behavior. He would then do this exact same thing in the competition format. 7) Athlete s self-talk as cues: Along with mental rehearsal, keeping calm and deep breathing during practice and games, a hockey player would use self-talk to remind himself, I ve scored over 35 goals so far this year, this is nothing, I got this. Question 11: Describe the generalization strategy referred to as programming a few common stimuli. Illustrate it with a sport example that involves self-talk that is not in this chapter. Programming common stimuli refers to stimulus generalization, where the athlete has a consistent pre-competition routine that can be rehearsed at practices and used at competitions. Using self talk, an example of this is when a swimmer often repeats to themselves, concentrate (very slowly), in practice, and uses it in competition as well. Chapter 15: Question 3: Describe how concentration appears to involve two distinct behavioral processes. Illustrate each process with a sport example that is not in this chapter. The first behavioural process involving concentration is that it includes observational, orienting, attending or focusing types of behaviour. An example of an athlete orienting while concentrating would be a basketball player turning his head around quickly to see who is behind him while he is dribbling the ball. The second behavioural process involving concentration is when particular cues exert stimulus control over skilled performance. An example of this is when a tennis player is ready to return his opponent s serve, and his positioning to return his serve exerts control over his performance. Question 4: List four steps for developing confidence and concentration at practices.

5 4 steps to develop confidence and concentration at practices 1) Develop skills to a high level with practice drills 2) Teach orientation to proper cues 3) Transfer the control of sport skills from rules to natural cues 4) Athletes should perform well in simulations Question 6: List seven steps for maintaining confidence on the day of competition. 7 steps for maintaining confidence on the day of competition are: 1) Athletes should have a restful, stress free day prior to competing 2) Athletes should relive best performances 3) Athletes should focus on what can be controlled and not what cannot be, 4) Athletes should focus on realistic goals rather than the outcome 5) Athletes should focus on their strengths and not their limitations 6) Athletes should use countering and reframing to counteract their negative thoughts 7) Athletes should prepare and follow a competition plan. Question 10: What is reframing? Illustrate with a sports example. Reframing is examining a situation from a different perspective in order to view that situation more positively. Example: A figure skater says that it is possible to put pressure on his other competitors when he is drawn to skate second and fifth. The reason for this discrepancy in his comments was said because there are advantages and disadvantages of all positions to skate from, and that it was important to view a situation in the best possible light. Question 15: List three strategies for maintaining confidence and concentration during a competition 1) Athletes should be energized, but remain calm 2) Athletes should focus on what they want to do, not what they don t want to do 3) Athletes should focus on process, not outcome Question 18: Using an example that is not in this chapter, illustrate a solution to the problem of an athlete being easily distracted during a competition. If a football kicker has trouble making the field goals when he is in a big stadium with thousands of people cheering and booing, he is clearly attending to too many cues or distractions in the environment. A good way to counteract this uncertainty would be to make the practice environment as similar to the competition environment as possible, by allowing fans to come in and watch, allowing the kicker to get used to the distractions that distract him during competition.

6 Question 21: Describe a plausible sport example of how confidence, as a summary label for behavior, might be involved in pseudoexplanation. A major problem with summary labels is that it could easily lead to pseudoexplanations of a behavior. For example: a hockey player has been labeled to be lacking in confidence. Every time he messes up a play or misses the net, his confidence is blamed. It seems that the coach assumes that the hockey player s ability to get pucks in the net during practice and not when in an actual competition is because of this lack of confidence. It could be the real reason is because the crowd boos whenever he gets the puck and is distracted and therefore messes up when he is about to shoot. Chapter 16: Question 2: In a sentence each, list and describe the purpose and the time frame of each of the five components typically included in a complete competition plan 1) Game Day Plan: time of awakening up to approximately an hour before the competition to ensure that the athlete has a restful, stress-free day prior to competing 2) Pre-Competition Plan: the last hour or so prior to the start of competition in order to minimize distractions and maximize an athlete s mental readiness to perform 3) Competition Focus Plan: to ensure that once a competition begins, the athlete will experience the covert and overt behaviors associated with optimal performance (often described as maintain confidence and concentration and being mentally tough). 4) Refocusing Plan: dealing with uncontrollable distractors that might be encountered 5) Post-Competition Evaluation Strategy: reviewing and refining the plans Question 3: What six outcomes should a well-designed pre-competition plan ensure in terms of athletic readiness to perform? A well-designed pre-competition plan should ensure that: 1) The athlete is appropriately warmed up and energized 2) Is reasonably free of excessive nervousness or anxiety 3) Maintains positive self-talk 4) Focuses on realistic goals for execution 5) Mentally rehearses previous successful performances 6) Ready to attend to task-relevant cues at the time that the competition begins.

7 Question 7: Briefly discuss the demands of two different sports to illustrate how the nature of a competition-focusing plan varies from sport to sport. An example of a basketball competition-focusing plan would focus on becoming very energized, tuning in and cooperating with teammates, and reviewing set plays that will be performed during the game. Furthermore, players have shifts on the court when they are playing, and situations when they pause playing during the course of the game (such as a foul shot, or a shift on the bench). An example of a diver s competition focusing plan would focus on mentally rehearsing dives and technique and warming up one s body so they are loose and agile. They are competing alone so they do not have to worry about teammates, rather they must keep fully focus on themselves. Question 8: A useful strategy when helping athletes to develop from competition focusing plans is to encourage them to view extended athletic performances in terms of segment. Describe plausible segments of a particular sport in order to make it easier for an athlete to focus on each segment. Examples of how a game of soccer can be segmented in order to make it easier for an athlete to focus on each segment. 1) Each period can be seen as a segment 2) Or the blocks of time between goals scored can be seen as segments 3) Or each shift they take on the field can be seen as one segment Question 9: Competition-focusing plans are likely to include self-talk to relax, key words for skills and mood words. Pick a sport and give plausible examples for these three different types of self-talk. 3 examples of different types of self talk (for tennis) 1) Using mood words: fast when the player will hit the ball 2) Using key words for skills: say, arms back, so their motor skills tell them to reach back 3) For relaxation: taking a deep breathe before hitting every ball and completing the full swing motion Question 10: Pick a sport and describe a disruption to competitive performance for which an appropriate refocusing strategy would be to relax, regroup and refocus. Also, describe the details of the self-talk that might characterize the regroup and refocus components of the strategy. The relax, regroup, refocus technique is used when an athlete has had a disruption in their performance. For example, if a basketball player has just been given a penalty for hitting another player, he will need to use this technique to continue the game on a positive note. For regrouping, some self-talk would be,

8 that one s gone forever, and for refocusing, some self talk would be, I ll focus only on the ball, not on my emotions. Application Exercise #4: Prepare a Self-Management Practice Checklist As described in Chapter 13, behavior modification procedures can be used by an athlete for self-improvement or self-management of practice performance. A valuable strategy for helping athletes to get the most out of practice is to prepare a self-management practice checklist that identifies a variety of skills and/or simulation arrangements that the athlete should practice consistently in order to progress maximally. Numerous examples of such sheets are illustrated in the chapters in this assignment. Parts 4 and 5 of the audio lecture provides additional discussion of practice checklists that I prepared for a first-year professional hockey player (Part 4) and a first-year professional golfer (Part 5). After reviewing the self-monitoring checklists to improve practice performance in the chapters in this module, and after listening to Parts 4 and 5 of the lecture, then complete the following steps. 1. Pick a sport with which you are familiar. If possible, talk to an athlete in that sport who has a fairly high skill level, but who aspires to improve considerably. 2. Based on your own experiences, or on your discussions with the athlete, prepare a self-monitoring checklist identifying critical behaviors of the athlete to work on across practices. Note: Do not simply copy one of the checklists in this book. Your checklist should list a dozen or so behaviors in the left-hand column, have vertical columns to the right of the behaviors on which the athlete can self-monitor across practices, and should have some discussion of the scoring system. (Are specific behaviors to be repeated a certain number of times? Will some behaviors be rated for their quality? How will the athlete monitor progress?). DATES APPLICATION EXERCISE Self- Monitoring Checklist Sport - Soccer 1) I have done a complete stretching and warm up exercise before practice. 2) I ran around the field three times to keep my heart rate up.

9 3) During scrimmaging, I did not hog the ball the whole time. 4) I was encouraging of other teammates, avoiding criticizing them in a negative fashion. 5) I set a practice goal for quantity 6) I set a practice goal for quality 7) When I took breaks in between practice, I made sure to rest my muscles, and use the time well. 8) Even if I don t make as many goals as I wanted to during practice, I still keep a positive attitude. 9) I made at least one shot on goal. 10) I concentrated on my practice drills without taking necessary breaks that would ruin my concentration 11) I kept my last practice in mind, so I can improve my game even more. 12) When I had difficulty with certain drills, I asked my coach for extra help

10 to improve my game. Coach s Initials DATE Scoring System This checklist is implemented for a soccer player, who has 4 practices a week. For each of the practices that week, the athlete is expected to adhere to the 12 points on this checklist, and obtain their coach s signature at the end of each day. Each point requires only one checkmark a day, and their goal should be to fill out the chart completely by the end of the week. For behaviours on the checklist that must be maintained for a long period of time, such as 3 and 4, the athlete would receive the checkmark only if they kept that behaviour consistent throughout the course of the practice, without taking a break. A break in this behaviour would not qualify as a checkmark. The coach will be monitoring each athlete closely, but they will focus on one athlete each week, to ensure the validity of the checklist in correspondence to the athlete s behaviour. To monitor progress, the total number of checkmarks of each practice will be compared to the progress of the athlete from another checklist, to ensure consistency and improvement.