Sports Psychology

What Is Sports Psychology?

Sports psychology is a specialized branch of psychology that applies psychological knowledge to athletic tasks and situations. There are essentially two branches of sports psychology: experimental and applied. Experimental sports psychology is the area of those who want to learn about human psychology by studying athletes. They run laboratory experiments on athletes, observe games being played, and develop theories about how the mind works in sports situations, and what sorts of mental skills are needed in order to make people better at the sports they play. Current theory in sports psychology suggests that there are four main elements of a highly competitive athlete’s psyche: concentration, confidence, control, and commitment.

Applied sports psychology, as its name suggests is the field that applies the findings of such experiments in real-world settings. People who specialize in this field often become coaches or athletes, and their knowledge of psychology gives them an advantage on the field.

Who Should Study Sports Psychology?

Obviously, if you are interested in sports and want to use your knowledge of that area to study or coach athletes, then there is no better area of specialization than sports psychology. MA degrees are available that focus directly on the application of psychology to athletics, and they are popular among psychologically-inclined coaches and athletic officials. In addition, sports psychology is of significant interest to social psychologists, who want to understand how people behave on teams or how human competition works at the psychological level.

Since sports and exercise are such an important part of human wellbeing, a growing number of sports psychologists are turning their knowledge into a therapeutic method. These people study the benefits of exercise and light competition for mental health, and argue that people who feel depressed, anxious, or lacking in personal confidence can benefit from participation in sports. So, if you are interested in sports and athletics and you want to have the fulfillment that comes from being a counselor or therapist, applied sports psychology is a great option. People who make their careers in this area generally find it to be a highly challenging, fast-paced, yet rewarding line of work, and one especially well-suited to those with a strong desire to help others.

The History of Sports Psychology

Sports psychology is a relatively young discipline within psychology, having gotten its start in the early 1920s. Since its inception, however, this field of study has had a steady and dedicated group of followers and practitioners. Many psychologists in the 1920s, especially in Germany and the United States, dedicated their whole careers to studying sports – this was unusual for the time, since psychologists in the early 20^th century usually did not specialize so narrowly.

The growth of sports psychology in the late 1960s was driven by physical education instructors and school coaches who believed strongly in the importance of physical exercise during the school day. These activists drew on emerging studies to show that many psychological benefits could be gained from regular P.E. classes. They were among the first to organize sports psychology associations at the national and international level, and the organizations they founded in turn helped to professionalize the discipline and set standards for its practitioners.

In recent years, as the popularity of sports psychology has rapidly increased, a new debate has emerged regarding what academic category sports psychology should be placed in. Some argue that it is a psychological branch of kinesiology (sports science), while others argue that it is a kinesiological branch of psychology. Of course, sports psychology is a highly interdisciplinary field, and the truth is that both camps are correct. It seems likely that, as sports psychology becomes more and more prominent in academic and professional circles, it will develop into an independent field of study that no longer needs the institutional support of more established disciplines.