Self Confidence In Sports

Discuss self- confidence and how it influences sport performance? This essay will look the following work of; (Al-Hebaish, 2012) (Goel & Aggarwal, 2012) (Benabou & Tirole, 2002) discussing what self-confidence is and why people may not want to have a self-confidence within themselves, secondly evidence of three different forms of self-confidence and the development of general self-confidence will be covered by (Menaker, 2011) furthermore the work of; (Besharat & Pourbohlool, 2011) (Skinner, 2013) (Feltz, 1998) will look at how self-confidence influences sport performance, finally (Woodman & Hardy, 2003) will discuss the six different forms of self-confidence within sport and the tow different categories they are associated with.

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There are three reasons why people may not want to have self-confidence within themselves and have a negative approach to their lives each day, firstly people may just derive utility from thinking well of themselves, and conversely paint themselves with a poor self-image by running themselves down and worrying the way people may judge them each day, this may link back to how they were brought up by their parents, therefore it is important for parents to be a good role model and develop general self-confidence within their child at a young age, secondly believing rightly or wrongly that one possesses certain qualities or abilities in a certain situation can may make it easier to convince others of it also, finally confidence for an individual own abilities or talents and efficacy can help the individual undertake more ambitious goals and persist in the face of adversity, therefore they will take more risks in life and will not be afraid to participate in certain events, thus the main reason why we emphasize the motivation theory is because it has a broader explanatory power, furthermore it yields an endogenous value of self-confidence that responds to the situations and incentives which the individual faces whether it be a team sport or an individual sport, in a way that can account for both “can-do” optimism

Research carried out has shown that success has affected the level of confidence, that said elite athletes have revealed that confidence affect their performance through things such as their taught, behaviours and feelings (Hays et al.2009). Provided that many athletes are constantly judged on the level of confidence that they have and to perform at, in relation to modern day sport, people view it as ‘sport-confidence’. With this in mind Banduru (1977) established four different sources of efficacy (confidence) which were personal accomplishments, vicarious experience, physiological states and verbal persuasion. Furthermore Kingston, Lane, and Thomas (2010) carried out research and studied how sources of sport-confidence may or may not affect elite athlete’s performance, importantly they found a significant result in time before competition, explaining that the demonstration of an individuals ability, physical/mental preparation, physical self-presentation, and situational favourableness were viewed as factors that may help an athlete to sport-confidence during the pre-competition phase, however Kingston et al. (2010) states that understanding where an athlete’s confidence comes from before an event is vital for the development of the