Inaugural Lecture

Stress in Sport:From choking to the yips

Professor Richard Mullen

Division of Sport, Health and Exercise

OverviewOverview

1. Research: Anxiety in sport, implicit and

explicit learning, mental skills training

2. Teaching: Postgraduate students

3. Applied work: Coach education, mental skills

training with teams and athletes

The Sport ExperimentThe Sport Experiment

The technical skills of the contestants, if the experiment has been set up correctly, cancel each other out. The sport experiment is not concerned with the skill that the subject has brought with him (sic)to the contest. His skill is not really at issue . . . The deciding factor is not his skill, but his ability to perform it under stress.

(Patmore, 1986)

“Choking”

The “Yips”“Dartitis”

NeurologicalPsychological

AnxietyAnxiety

• Evolutionary mechanism

–Mental component

–Physical component

• Effects?

Some issuesSome issues

• Relative novices

• Effort?

• Performance measures

The expert paradigmThe expert paradigm

Heart Rate Variability

VLF: 0.00 - 0.07LF: 0.07 - 0.15HF: 0.15 - 0.40

Applied implicationsApplied implications

• Goal setting strategies–Outcome–Performance–Process

• Part process goals• Holistic process goals

Mullen & Hardy (2010)Mullen & Hardy (2010)

Basketball free throwBasketball free throw

Golf puttingGolf putting

TeachingTeaching• Post graduate students

– Andrea Faull (UWIC): Conscious processing

– Eleri Sian Jones (Glamorgan): Conscious

processing. Measuring performance anxiety.

– Claire-Marie Roberts (Glamorgan): Tranistions

out of elite professional sport.

– Giorgios Loizou (Brunel): Circumplex models of

emotion.

– MPhil: Hayley Brown

– Stuart Jarvis

– Dean Parsons

Research at GlamorganResearch at Glamorgan

• Paul Rainer: Fundamental movement skills

• Dave Adams: Reflection and curriculum

development in football

• Morgan Williams and Ryland Morgans:

Fatigue and performance indicators in

football

Applied WorkApplied Work

Inaugural Lecture

Stress in sport:From choking to the yips

Thank you for listening