A history of Division 47 (Exercise and Sport Psychology).

Author(s):  
Robert A. Swoap
Keyword(s):  
1995 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 376-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Brett King ◽  
Brittany L. Raymond ◽  
Jennifer A. Simon-Thomas

The 19th century can be characterized as a time of avid public interest in team and spectator sports. As diverse and challenging new sports were developed and gained popularity, many articles on a rudimentary sport psychology began to appear in cultural magazines in the United States and Great Britain. Athletes, physicians, educators, journalists, and members of the public wrote on topics such as profiles and psychological studies of elite athletes, the importance of physical training, exercise and health, and the detrimental effects of professional sports to the role of age, gender, and culture in sports. Although a scientific foundation for such observations was largely absent, some of the ideas expressed in early cultural magazines anticipate contemporary interests in sport psychology.


Author(s):  
Jeffrey Bond ◽  
Tony Morris

Australian sport psychology was effectively “launched” in conjunction with the establishment of the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in 1981. Prior to this date, sport psychology sat within the realm of a small number of research academics in tertiary institutions and many more unqualified practitioners with backgrounds in sport, hypnotherapy, medicine, and marketing and sales. The commencement of the legitimacy of the profession in the early 1980s correlated with the co-location of the AIS Sport Psychology Department with other sports medicine and sports science disciplines. From this rather humble but significant beginning, Australian sport psychology quickly became integrated into the training and competition plans of the vast majority of Australian Olympic sports and the developing professional football, tennis, golf, and cricket codes. The rapid growth of the AIS and its team of qualified and experienced sport psychology practitioners, combined with international competition exposure, international conference presentations, reciprocal visits to international sports institutes, and Olympic training centers culminated in the inclusion of sport psychology within the auspices of the Australian Psychological Society (APS) and the accreditation of undergraduate and postgraduate tertiary programs in Australian universities. Applied sport psychology services are now a regular inclusion in most, if not all, Australian sports programs. An increasing emphasis on athlete and coach mental health in conjunction with the performance enhancement capability associated with sport psychology support has firmly entrenched the profession within the Australian sporting milieu.


Sport psychology in Switzerland looks back on a history of over 50 years. Founded in 1969 as a loose working group, the Swiss Association for Sport Psychology SASP became an association in 1987. The focus was on supporting athletes in their performance, but also on questions of rehabilitation and health sport. Reports about dubious practices of self-proclaimed mental coaches brought the question of high-quality psychological counselling into focus. An adaptation of Donabedian’s quality management model (1966) and the analysis of the required competences led to the development of a curriculum and in 2005 to the creation of the specialist title for sport psychology by the FSP. Continuing education courses are offered by the Universities of Bern and Lausanne. Graduates are qualified to work independently and competently in sport psychology with individuals and groups in the field of sport and physical activity. Today, sport psychologists perform numerous tasks in the support system of Swiss sport. With its broad range of services in a wide variety of sport areas, sport psychology will continue to be able to generate added value for practitioners and make an important contr


Author(s):  
Stiliani "Ani" Chroni ◽  
Frank Abrahamsen

The evolution in sport, exercise, and performance psychology in Europe goes back to the 1800s and spread from the east (Germany and Russia) to the west of the continent (France). Modern European sport psychology theorizing started with Wilhelm Wundt, who studied reaction times and mental processes in 1879, and Philippe Tissié, who wrote about psychological changes during cycling in 1894. However, Pierre de Coubertin was the one to put forward the first definition and promotion of sport psychology as a field of science. From there on, and despite obstacles and delays due to two world wars in Europe, sport psychology accelerated and caught up with North America. Looking back to the history of our disciplines, while sport, exercise, and performance psychology evolved and developed as distinct disciplines in Europe, sport and exercise psychology research appear to be stronger than performance psychology. The research advancements in sport and exercise psychology led to the establishment of the European sport psychology organization (FEPSAC) in the 1960s, as researchers needed an umbrella establishment that would accept the cultural and linguistic borders within the continent. From there on, education programs developed throughout Europe, and a cross-continent program of study with the collaboration of 12 academic institutions and the support of the European Commission was launched in the late 1990s. Applied sport psychology was practiced in the Soviet Union aiming to enhance the performance of their teams in the 1952 Olympics. Unfortunately, in many countries across Europe, research and practice are not comprehensively integrated to enhance sports and sportspersons, and while applied practice has room to grow, it also has challenges to tackle.


Author(s):  
Jeffrey J. Martin

Personality is typically thought to be stable and possess consistency over time and across situations. Personality is also referred to as individual differences or distinctiveness. The study of personality has a long history in psychology, and after a lull in sport psychology research on personality, it has become more prevalent in research with able-bodied athletes and athletes with disabilities. This chapter discusses the history of personality research in sport psychology. The most common personality model, the Big Five factors, used in research today is explained and the five factors defined. Researchers have also examined personality-trait-like individual differences (PTLID) such as grit, hardiness, resilience, sensation seeking, and perfectionism. The chapter addresses how an acquired disability has the potential to change certain facets of personality while other personality factors can help athletes cope with an acquired disability and maintain their mental health.


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