The use of mental imagery by aesthetic athletes prior to competition

This study examined the influence of state-confidence on aesthetic athletes’ precompetitive imagery function use. Important individual differences effecting functional imagery use require empirical confirmation. Proposed is state-confidence as a factor influencing the functions of imagery used immediately prior to competition. Also, sport type may also be a moderator of the relationship and thus, is constrained in this study. Female aesthetic athletes from Southern Alberta (N = 180, Mage = 14.64, SD = 1.88) completed measures of state-confidence, imagery ability, and frequency of imagery function use. One-way ANCOVA tests revealed that athletes with high state-confidence used significantly more cognitive specific, cognitive general, motivation general-arousal, and motivational general-mastery functions of imagery than low state-confident athletes. Findings imply that applied sport psychology consultants should be more encouraging of preparation strategies with low state-confident athletes.

Authors

• Link, Courtney Anne
• University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science

• Imagery (Psychology) -- Research
• Visualization -- Research
• Sports -- Psychological aspects
• Sports -- Psychological aspects -- Research
• Athletes
• Achievement motivation -- Research
• Performance -- Research
• Dissertations, Academic

Identifier

hdl:10133/2632

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:opus.uleth.ca:10133/2632