Athletes are complex individuals. They are people who have devoted a significant amount of their life to playing a sport at a high level which causes them to suffer many different emotions while in or out of competition. One commonality between many athletes are superstitions. Superstitions “grant players a psychologically important illusion of control over events that often come down to random bounces here and there” (DeLessio, 2015). It is important to be able to understand superstitious behavior and why it is s relevant in sports; from coaches to athletes, superstitious behavior is predominant in the athletic community and it is significant to understand its effects and roles on the athlete’s psychological being. As stated above, an …show more content…
Individuals displaying an optimistic attitude generally are more positive in their outlooks on life whereas individuals displaying pessimism are generally more negative on their views (Burke, 2006). The method to conducting the research into this study was done at a southeastern university where 208 athletes were given a questionnaire that measured superstitious beliefs, behavior, and rituals. The demographics for the athletes were ages ranging from 18-22 across 13 different sports, both individual and team sports, at the said university. The questions were based in different categories such as pregame, game, clothing and appearance, fetish, team ritual, prayer, and superstition of the coach and then based off which, if any, the athlete uses determines the score of the questionnaire (Burke, 2006). Athletes were then given another another sheet with phrases on it that the athlete would have to rate based on their personal views of that statement in order to measure the athlete’s level of optimism or pessimism. According to Burke, the survey had three negative comments, three positive comments, and four non-scored items; all of which the said athletes would choose their answer on a scale ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” (Burke,
Witchcraft started in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Superstition started when women were accused of acting strangely. These superstitions turned into trials, and later lead to mounds of hanged people. Most of the people accused were innocent, but the harsh judge rulings left them with nothing to live for. The only options for the tried, no matter if guilty or not, were to claim guilty, living the rest of their life in prison, or to plead not guilty and hang. Due to both consequences being equally as punishable, many people isolated themselves from society. Unfortunately, some people caused the uprising of the salem witch trials more than others did. In the play The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, Abigail Williams single handedly attributed to the
Athletes in times of difficulty can be important role models.” This shows that sports are in fact helpful because they can grow children into being important role models for the rest of society. Studies have shown time and time again that playing sports can be beneficial to children and we also believe this to be true. Many people still think that sports cause “too many injuries”, or coaches “are not fair enough”, but adolescents will experience these things all throughout their lives because injury can happen anywhere and they will not always be the best at what they are doing. Sports are beneficial to the youth because they can teach children and teens important life skills, help them maintain a fit and healthy lifestyle, all while improving their mental health.
Smith, R. E., Smoll, F. L., & Cumming, S. P. (2009). Motivational climate and changes in young athletes’ achievement goal orientations. Motivation and Emotion, 33(2), 173-183.
Soldiers in the Vietnam War had to carry all of their belongings on their bodies with them over great distances of walking, earning Vietnam soldiers the nickname ‘Grunts’. Thus, they tried to limit their already grueling load as much as possible. In Tim O’Brien’s, The Things They Carried, he creates a detailed outline of the items carried by soldiers in the Vietnam War, which were “largely determined by necessity” (2). While most were out of necessity, the soldiers in the text also had many things that were strictly for personal reasons. The soldiers were already weighed down tremendously by their gear and weapons that were necessities, yet they chose to carry around the extra weight of seemingly useless objects. Some people carried objects
For many years the wining averages were used to dictate the achievements on how the two interacted. It was believed that if a team has more wins than loses that the coach and athlete combination was superb. The win – loss record has been established as a longstanding instrument measuring the success of athletic players and coaches. However, this is not really a direct correlation to the coach’s effectiveness in a particular sport, being that there are many other factors in coaching a team other than game records. The coach’s job is to enhance to the athlete physically, socially, and psychologically, winning is only considered a by-product of that job (Gillham, Burton, & Gillham, 2013). Gillham, Burton, and Gillham (2013) focused on developing a Coaching Success Questionnaire-2 to allow a means of evaluating other aspects of a coach’s interaction with their athletes as both a research and coach devel...
High school sports are approached with clashing opinions. Some of these opinions are positive, and supportive of athletics. “Athleticism, among many activities, offers teens a physical outlet to exert their troubles, anger, emotions, and other feelings” (Chen 1). This can be observed in nearly all of the football players in Friday Night Lights. This can also be noticed in the world today. “Athletics help high school students understand their own abilities and talents” (Chen 1). This piece of evidence is very accurate when describing high school athletes. Sports can make a high school student humble. As can be seen by the preceding information, high school athletics can have a positive impact on a student’s life.
Athletes train for weeks, months, or even years for one single event in their sport. They are relentless in their workouts and strength training. They go out and show what they can do for everyone to see. But is there more to it than what the eye can see? Mindfulness is a word used to describe one’s mental strength and concentration. Mindfulness is defined as “state of active, open attention on the present. When you're mindful, you carefully observe your thoughts and feelings without judging them good or bad. Instead of letting your life pass you by, mindfulness means living in the moment and awakening to your current experience, rather than dwelling on the past or anticipating the future.” (Mindfulness). This is becoming a highly discussed practice used by many successful athletes. Lebron James has sworn by meditation before games or high pressure situations, along with Derek Jeter, and Olympic beach volleyball partners Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings. They are only a few of
Superstition Mountain has been the source of tales and stories about the lost gold for a very long time. The origin of the name Superstition Mountain emanates from the early farmers, who lived in Salt River valley. These farmers cultivated and cut hay for the military throughout the late eras of 1860’s at Fort McDowell. They constantly paid attention to stories about the Pima Indians and how they dreaded the “superstitious” mountain. As a result, the farmers thought the Pimas were superstitious about the mountain, thus the name Superstition Mountain.
Each and every person that plays or has played a sport has probably come across some type of superstitious ritual, or SR. This article shows that: “80.3% of recruited professional athletes mentioned one or more SR they performed before a game, with an average of 2.6 rituals per person” (Brevers, Bernard, Xavier, and Frederic). These rituals range from always eating out before a performance, to never washing your socks, and to replaying the whole day of the last time your team won. When these actions are carried out the person thinks that if these things keep happening, then
Sports are an important aspect in society. They help people to strive to reach certain goals and join people together, but they also can divide people and turn a fun game into the main purpose of someone’s life. Taking sports games too seriously can be harmful for both the athlete and the spectator. The attitude of always winning at any cost in sports and has managed to distract us from other important parts of our lives, such as health and education. This importance of the value of sports can heavily influence the way that we see ourselves as both the spectator and the athlete by creating a positive self image and distilling confidence and discipline within the player, or by embedding self doubt and invertedness.
Sports psychology continues to evolve in order to ensure that comprehensive and evidence-based psychological services are available for athletes and teams. Giving athletes an understanding of their psychological functioning, and building the ability to implement a range of psychological strategies in competition enables athletes to both execute their skills and thrive under pressure as they strive to reach their performance potential.
“Sports are for fun, but they also offer benefits and lessons that carry over into all aspects of life”. This well-known anonymous quotation conveys the message that sport is the game which has some rules and custom. It is not only for fun and entertainment, but there are also some benefits of playing sports and which gives some important lessons for life. Every kind of physical sports is healthy because it involves running, jumping, stretching, mind skills and much more. There are so many sports available in the world nowadays, but we can categorize them by the numbers of players, the three main categories are individual sport, dual sport and team sport.
Jeff Kemp, a retired professional NFL quarterback, once stated, “Sports teach positive lessons that enrich America even while revealing its flaws” (Kemp). Athletics offer so much more than the joy of game day and the thrill of a win. Being involved in sports holds the key to a world filled with passion, excitement, and once in a lifetime opportunities. There is nothing better than seeing the student section arrive in full force or hearing the school fight song chanted before kickoff. However, when life moves on and leaves sports behind, the lessons it has instilled in athletes never disappears. The play calls may be foggy and the jersey will be too tight, but what was innocently learned in the jersey shines out at an older age. Although life lessons can be learned through everyday activities, lessons such as teamwork, self-confidence, and dealing with failure are only truly learned through sports by young athletes.
Ever wonder why people’s skin crawl when they cross a black cat? Or what about the reason people are so afraid of walking under a ladder? It is because some people are superstitious. In this paper we will define what “superstition” means. This paper will explain how some of the superstitions are developed and how people are affected by these beliefs. There are quite a few superstitions in America and they are very interesting.
Success goes hand in hand with failure. “You win some, you lose some” is a famous quote which epitomises one of the main core’s of life as these two components are apart of every human being’s daily life. In the same way, they are a part of every sporting event. In life everyone strives for success, yet not always do we attain success instantly, often it requires many failures before success can be achieved. Humphrey asserts that sport ‘brings out the worst in people’, and yes, it is within failure where the worst is brought out of people as many people hate the feeling of failure. However, no matter what one fails at, they will always express their bad side, for example: when one fails at their job, when one fails their license and so on. Sports is the best opportunity for people to learn the benefits and necessity of failure, thus allowing their outlook on failure to be change which in turn corrects the behaviour that comes with failure. Sports also allows one to feel the sense of accomplishment that emanates with success. It therefore teaches the sportsmen how to cope better wit...