Robert Weinberg

Miami University | MU · Department of Kinesiology and Health

The purpose of the present investigation was to explore the mediating role of self-compassion on the relation between goal orientation and sport-confidence, as well as exploring whether these factors differed between male and female student-athletes. To that end, a total of 418 National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I student-athletes (M...

The purpose of the present investigation was to investigate what being a mentally tough coach means to NCAA Division I collegiate coaches who see themselves as, or becoming, mentally tough coaches. Twelve coaches were recruited who met the criteria concerning years coaching, winning percentage, and years with the same team. Qualitative interviews w...

Hinz M, Stein A, Neff R,Weinberg R, Uncini T. Neuropsych Dis Treat. 2011;7:31–38. The Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment wish to issue an Expression of Concern for the published article. Concerns have been raised regarding the alleged undisclosed competing interests of some of the authors, and the level of infor...

Although antecedents of choking under pressure have been studied, prevention efforts have been somewhat inconsistent. Current choking-susceptibility criteria include trait anxiety (TA), self-consciousness (SC), and coping style. In the present case study, a college track-and-field athlete was self-identified as choking susceptible (CS), and a sport...

Goal setting is an effective and frequently used tool for performance enhancement in sports. However, in the previous studies, the focus has been on goal effectiveness among individual male athletes and at one point in time. Therefore, the purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine goal setting practices in women’s sport teams across a compe...

The purpose of the current investigation was to determine the effectiveness of writing down goals, as well as displaying them, on performance. Sixty-two college student participants were randomly assigned to one of the following conditions: no goals, unwritten goals, written goals, or written and displayed goals. Participants performed a free-throw...

I am honored to have the opportunity to comment on the eight articles that make up the first Special Issue of an international journal focusing on self-talk in sport. The introductory article does an excellent job of tracing some of the important historical developments (theoretically, empirically, and practically) in the self-talk literature so I...

Weight-conscious drinking is the use of disordered eating behaviors in anticipation of or as compensation for calories consumed during alcohol use. The aim of the current study is to assess the relationship between weight-conscious drinking, athletic status, and sport type. Participants were 295 college students (82 male and 213 female; Mage = 20.1...

The present study adopted a social-cognitive perspective to explore the stability of mental toughness. Specifically, the purpose of this study was two-fold: (a) to explore possible fluctuations in mental toughness across situations; and (b) to identify the cognitions, affect, and behaviors associated with perceived mental toughness and mental weakn...

Much has been written about athlete mental toughness in the past 15 years. Most of this literature is based on interviews with coaches, athletes, and to a lesser degree, parents. The present article presents views of sport psychologists who had applied and research experience in mental toughness and thus more integrated views of how coaches should...

Most of the data obtained in studying mental toughness has come from athletes, coaches, and sometimes parents. The purpose of the present investigation was to explore sport psychologists' experiences of building mental toughness and their perceptions of how coaches can build mental toughness in their athletes. A phenomenological approach to qualita...

Using a sample of college athletes, we investigated the relationship between personality and self-determined motivation. Participants (N = 183) completed assessments of the Big Five model, using the Neuroticism Extraversion Openness Five Factor Inventory-3 (NEO-FFI), and self-determined motivation to participate in sports, using the Behavioral Regu...

Using a sample of college athletes, we investigated the relationship between personality and self-determined motivation. Participants (N = 183) completed assessments of the Big Five model, using the Neuroticism Extraversion Openness- Five Factor Inventory-3 (NEO-FFI)} and self-determined motivation to participate in sports, using the Behavioral Reg...

The purpose of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the Burnout Inventory for Referees (BIR) in Portuguese in a sample of professional soccer referees and to explore the nomological validity of the inventory through concurrent validation. The analysis showed a factorial structure of burnout for the referees with one second order...

Although elite sport has provided an ideal context for exploring mental toughness (MT), currently, there is scant research examining how this construct might be equally applicable in exercise settings, where high rates of attrition have been reported. The present research, therefore, aimed to address this gap, and to understand and conceptualise ex...

When coaches and athletes lose competitions, they often attribute their loses to mental factors such as a loss in concentration, failure to cope with anxiety, or a lack of confidence. Although there is much written about specific techniques to build mental skills such as imagery, relaxation, goal-setting and self talk, less is known about how to ex...

Resumo By definition, a goal is that which an individual is trying to accomplish; it is the object or aim of an action. For example, in most goal setting studies, the term goal refers to attaining a specific level of proficiency on a task, usually within a specified time limit (Locke, Shaw, Saari, & Latham, l981). From a practical point of view, g...

The purpose of this paper was to briefly review the major theoretical and empirical research in goal setting related to sport and develop applications for best practice. Different types of goals were discussed and Locke's theory of goal setting provided the foundation for future research. After briefly reviewing the goal setting literature in sport...

Resumo Coaches have been teaching physical skills and techniques for years but it is only relatively recently that they have started to focus on, and teach mental skills. The lack of focus is unfortunate, in that over 20 years ago Gould, Hodge, Peterson and Petlichkoff (1987) found that 82% of coaches rated mental toughness as the most important p...

Mental toughness is a term that has been long talked about but often misunderstood. Fortunately, in the past 12 years, researchers have begun to study this phenomenon. Although there are differences among researchers, mental toughness appears to contain four critical attributes including motivation, coping with pressure, concentration, and confiden...

The purpose of the present investigation was to assess the influence of gender and athletic identity on recreational basketball players' attitudes and behaviors with regard to playing through pain and injury. Participants included 130 male and female intramural basketball players who completed the Athletic Identity Measurement Scale (AIMS), the Ris...

Mental training for athletic performance has expanded in recent years but expense and access has limited its application. Although there is much information on the Internet, no programs offered individualized, automated training that could be easily accessed by the masses. This article describes the creation of an online platform that addresses the...

The purpose of the present investigation was to determine the effectiveness of different types of self-talk (e.g., instructional, motivational, combined) and the self-determined nature of the self-talk (assigned vs. freely chosen) on one-mile run performance. Eighty-one collegiate cross-country runners were assigned to one of six intervention group...

Physical activity (PA) declines as adolescents get older, and the motivational determinants of PA warrant further investigation. The purposes of this study were to investigate the amount of physical and sedentary activity that adolescents participated in across age, gender, and race, and to investigate adolescents' attraction to PA and their percei...

The purpose of the present study was to explore coaches' perceptions of mental toughness attributes as well as the strategies used to build mental toughness. Participants were 10 National Collegiate Athletic Association head coaches from a variety of sports. In-depth interviews were conducted using standard qualitative methodology and content analy...

The purpose of the current study was to explore National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division 1 athletes’ perceptions of mental toughness. Specifically, three areas of mental toughness were explored including attributes, the role of significant others, and strategies used to build mental toughness. In-depth interviews were conducted with...

The major purposes of the present investigation were (a) to enhance the Sport Imagery Questionnaire (SIQ) by adding an effectiveness component to the already existing frequency component;(b) to assess when, and under what conditions, imagery is being employed by athletes; and (c) to conduct an exploratory analysis of the impact of gender and type o...

The purpose of this paper is to present coaches with guidelines for setting up a goal-setting program. Research in sport and organizational psychology is briefly reviewed to provide a background of empirical support for the positive effects of goal setting on performance along with specifying different types of goals. Goal principles reviewed inclu...

The experience and skill of prospective Olympic athletes make them a potentially valuable resource to better understand goal effectiveness. Therefore, the purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the nature of perceived goal effectiveness within an elite athlete sample. Participants were 338 athletes (M age = 24.6 years; SD = 6.9 years) fro...

IntroductionDefining motivationInteractional approachStrategies to enhance motivationGoal settingGoal orientationReinforcement/feedbackIntrinsic motivationEnhancing intrinsic motivationSummary and conclusionsReferencesFurther reading

ObjectivesTo examine several psychological mechanisms mediating the efficacy of goal setting in endurance sports.DesignThe athletes were randomly assigned to four experimental conditions in a 2×2×3 mixed design.MethodsParticipants were 35 male endurance athletes ranging in age from 15 to 34 years who competed at different athletic clubs of the Cata...

Since psychology professionals have a moral and ethical responsibility to evaluate the effectiveness of different products and services aimed at improving psy-chological/physical well-being, development, and/or performance, the purpose of the present investigation was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Winners for Life book (and accompanying Pare...

IntroductionWhy is Tennis Difficult from a Mental Perspective?Physical and Mental TrainingMental States of Successful Tennis PlayersTeaching Mental SkillsImplementing a Mental Skills Training ProgramSummaryReferences

On demanda à 123 étudiants de cours de perfectionnement, désignés au hasard, de réaliser “de leur mieux” une tâche très difficile, au but presqu‘ impossible à atteindre, après cinq semaines d'entraînement à effectuer une tâche spécifique en trois minutes. Une période-test de quatre semaines suivit au cours de laquelle les buts des táches que devaie...

This paper provides a review of the literature on the relationship between imagery and sport performance as well as between imagery and the development of mental skills. First, the many anecdotal reports of imagery effectiveness are noted and a definition is provided focusing on the multidimensional nature of imagery. The evidence of the enhancing...

The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether combining two mental preparation strategies would be more effective in enhancing performances than a single strategy. Subjects (n = 40) practiced on a basketball free throw task (20 shots) using one of the following mental preparation strategies: (a) imagery, (b) relaxation, (c) relaxation...

The purpose of the present investigation was to examine athletic identity, coping skills, and social support as moderators of mood disturbance and physical self-esteem with the occurrence of injury in recreational participants. Thirty participants, who sustained an injury that prohibited physical activity for at least 6 weeks, completed a battery o...

There has been a large growth of sport psychology stress/coping research in the last decade. However, skilled and moderately skilled golfers have not received much research attention. Therefore, the purposes of this qualitative, descriptive study were to assess the sources of stress and coping responses of skilled and moderately skilled golfers wit...

The purposes of the present investigation were twofold: (a) to investigate the fluctuations of anxiety and self-confidence throughout competition by measuring these variables retrospectively before, during, and after competition and (b) to investigate the relationship between the intensity and directional interpretation of anxiety and perceived per...

The purpose of the present investigation was to compare and contrast sport and business leaders' perceptions regarding what makes for a successful organization. Twenty sport ( N = 10) and business ( N = 10) leaders were interviewed and asked about their perceptions of organizational effectiveness in the area of group dynamics including (a) leadersh...

The purpose of the present investigation was to assess the perceptions of coaches regarding the process of goal setting using a qualitative methodology. Participants were 14 NCAA collegiate coaches from the American Midwest representing both team and individual sports. All participants were head coaches and were asked to respond to the interview qu...

Assessed the perceptions of coaches regarding the process of goal setting using qualitative data through in-depth interviews. Participants were 14 high school coaches from Midwest US representing both team and individual sports. The results reveal that coaches employed goal setting extensively for both individual and team goals in practice and comp...

The purpose of this investigation was to explore Olympic athletes' perceptions concerning the frequency and effectiveness of goal setting strategies as well as goal preferences and barriers to achieving these goals. Participants were 185 male and 143 female Olympic athletes from a variety sports. Each athlete completed a questionnaire detailing the...

The purpose of the present investigation was to compare participation motives of youth in competitive sport versus physical activity using culture, self-reported physical activity levels, and gender as independent variables. Participants were 1,472 boys (n=822) and girls (n=650) from the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Three self-report...

This study identified and described the 4 Ws of athletes' imagery use: where, when, why, and what. Due to the in-depth nature of the questions being asked, a qualitative approach was employed. The participants were 14 elite athletes (mean age 19.5 yrs old), representing 7 different sports. A constant comparative method of analysis was conducted by...

The purposes of the present investigation were to examine the coping responses of different subgroups of athletes (e.g., high and low trait anxious athletes), and to assess the consistency of athlete's coping behaviors across situations. Two-hundred and seventy-three athletes completed the Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS) by Smith, Smoll, & Schutz (1990)...

The purpose of this exploratory study was to identify how frequently and effectively collegiate athletes set goals and goal strategies and assess differences in goal practices across effectiveness groups. Participants were 321 male and 249 female college athletes participating in 18 sports at four universities, who completed the Collegiate Goal Set...

Previous research (e.g., Barr & Hall, 1992) suggests that imagery is used differentially throughout an athlete's competitive season. The influence of time of season (early vs. late) and type of sport (team vs. individual) on athletes' use of imagery was examined. Male and female varsity athletes representing 10 sports completed the Sport Imagery Qu...

This study examined the various aspects of goal setting of youth tennis players and their coaches. To examine this multifaceted technique, an extensive goal-setting questionnaire was administered to 224 youth tennis players and 35 youth tennis coaches. Results indicated that improving overall performance, fun/enjoyment, and winning were the three m...

The purpose of the present investigation was to empirically examine Hanin's (1980) Zone of Optimal Functioning (ZOF) hypothesis using a multidimensional anxiety approach. Female collegiate softball players (N = 13) had optimal cognitive, somatic, and combined cognitive/somatic anxiety zones created using three different methods (retrospective-best,...

The purpose of the present exploratory study was to determine subjects' degree of agreement (or disagreement) in reporting their perceptions concerning the start and end of momentum while watching an athletic competition. To achieve this goal two experiments were conducted using an individual sport (tennis) and team sport (basketball). After writin...

The present investigation reports on the reliability and validity of several scales derived from the Health Belief Model (HBM). Both their internal consistency and their ability to predict self-reported sport and physical activity participation among younger and older adults are examined. As an exploratory endeavor, new, internally consistent scale...

The use of psychological interventions in competitive sport to enhance performance has become increasingly popular. However, the effectiveness of these interventions has been questioned by some sports psychologists. In general, educationally-based psychological interventions have produced significant increases in performance. Specifically, it was f...

Determined the effects of a specific goal-setting program on physical performance over the course of a competitive athletic season. Ss were 24 members of an NCAA Division III men's lacrosse team who were matched on ability and playing position and then were randomly assigned to either a goal-setting group or a do-your-best control group. The experi...

Although goal setting research in industrial and organizational settings has been proliferating rapidly over the past 20 yr, it is only recently that sport psychologists begun to systematically test its effects in sport and exercise settings. However, the recent empirical literature in sport and exercise examining the relationship between goals and...

Explored athletes' responses regarding the frequency, effectiveness, and importance of different types of goals to enhance their performance. 357 male and 321 female collegiate athletes (aged 17–25 yrs) from 3 NCAA Division I universities completed a questionnaire regarding effectiveness of a number of different goal-setting strategies. Virtually a...

Attempts to demonstrate that the inconsistent results found concerning the goal setting (GS)–performance relationship cannot be attributed totally to methodological flaws as E. A. Locke (see record 1992-07375-001) concludes. When one includes all of the evidence bearing on the GS–performance relationship, it becomes evident that the equivocal find...

Compared 60 Australian tennis coaches' frequency of use, and perceived effectiveness, of 13 self-efficacy building strategies to those of American tennis coaches in a study reported by R. S. Weinberg and A. Jackson (1990). Australian coaches used all 13 strategies designed to enhance self-efficacy to a moderate degree. The most often-used and most...

The purpose of the present investigation was to explore the psychological factors associated with drug use in a group of college athletes and to compare athlete drug users to nonusers. A questionnaire was given to male ( N =377) and female ( N =167) Division I college athletes asking them about their use or nonuse of drugs. Frequency, intensity, an...

The present investigation examined perceptions of psychological momentum, situation criticality, and skill level and then determined the relationships between these variables and performance outcome in volleyball using archival data. Division I and beginning volleyball students completed questionnaires to determine perceptions of momentum. Differen...

Examined whether setting unrealistic goals would produce any significant decreases in motivation and performance. Two experiments used an endurance task with 249 3rd–5th graders, and a 3rd study used a basketball-shooting task in which 100 undergraduates were assigned to one of several goal-setting conditions. A do-your-best control condition was e...

The purpose of the present investigation was to assess the degree to which high school and age group tennis coaches use 13 strategies for influencing self-efficacy and their evaluation of the effectiveness of those strategies. Self-efficacy rating differences between categories of coaches (e.g., male versus female, successful versus less successful...

Conducted 2 experiments in laboratory and field settings with 207 undergraduates. In Exp 1, Ss were assigned to a realistic or an unrealistic goal condition and either received or did not receive positive reinforcement while performing a 3-min sit-up test over the course of 5 wks. Two control conditions were utilized including a do-your-best group...

Examined whether individuals who are assigned specific, difficult goals perform better than those assigned "do your best" goals and examined the importance of goal proximity (long-term vs short-term) on bowling performance. Ss were 72 students (aged 18–22 yrs) enrolled in a novice or intermediate bowling course. Ss were matched according to baselin...

The purpose of this paper was to briefly review the traditional existing theories attempting to explain the relationship between anxiety and motor performance and then suggest some future directions for research. Specifically, a review of drive theory and the inverted-U hypothesis led to the conclusion that due to methodological, conceptual and int...

Replicated H. K. Hall and A. T. Byrne's (see record 1989-13986-001) attempt to control for competition effects by randomly assigning classes to goal-setting conditions, but kept the teacher constant for all groups. 41 male and 35 female university students in 3 fitness classes were assigned to 1 of 3 conditions: (1) moderately hard goals, (2) very...

Literature on burnout has typically focused on individuals in occupations denoted by the terms of human services or helping professions. However, recently, studies and conceptual models have appeared investigating burnout in the athletic environment. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on burnout in sport. First, the need for a st...

As I stand before you this evening it seems like just yesterday that John Silva was talking to me about the formation of an association that would focus on applied sport psychology. There were many of us who felt that the time had come to deal with the professional issues that were and still are facing our fledgling field. With more and more sport...

232 male and 69 female high school and college coaches completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), Leader Behavior Description questionnaire, Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, and a demographic data sheet. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) indicated a significant relationship between burnout and leadership style in 4 of the 6...

Investigated the effects of different goal and feedback conditions on performance of a basketball shooting task and a more complex one-on-one offensive basketball task. 100 university male recreational basketball players were matched, based on pretest performance, into 1 of 5 conditions: competitive goal, cooperative goal, mastery goal, "do your be...

Examined the relationship between exercise, massage, and positive mood enhancement in 183 university students in physical education classes including swimming, jogging, tennis, and racquetball. Ss from other classes made up a control rest condition and a massage treatment condition resulting in a 1-way design. Data from pre- and postexercise measur...

120 boys and 115 girls from the 4th, 5th, and 6th grades were matched on baseline performance of the 2-min sit-up test and then randomly assigned to 1 of the following: (a) short-term goal improvement of 4% each test trial, (b) long-term goal of 20% improvement over the course of the 10-wk study, (c) short-term plus long-term goal, and (d) "do your...

Examined the effect of unrealistically high goals on performance in a physical education activity setting. In Exp I, 30 undergraduates performed sit-ups under an easy, moderate, or extremely hard goal condition over 5 wks. In Exp II, 123 undergraduates were randomly assigned to an extremely hard, highly improbable, or a "do your best" goal conditio...

Examined the relationship between goal difficulty, goal specificity, and endurance in a physical activity setting and determined the relationship between different types of information feedback, goals, and performance. 94 male university students performed on a hand dynamometer endurance task. Ss were randomly assigned to 1 of the following goal-se...

Examined the interaction of self-efficacy and the cognitive strategies of dissociation and positive self-talk during performance of a muscular endurance task. 120 undergraduates were assigned to high- or low-efficacy groups and told to employ either dissociation or positive self-talk during competition (leg lift task). Self-efficacy was manipulated...

Tested the proposition that a specific mental preparation strategy (e.g., imagery, preparatory arousal) produces significantly better performance than a nonspecific strategy (i.e., psych-up). 24 18–28 yr old males from college weight training classes performed under the 3 mental preparation conditions (imagery, preparatory arousal, and psych-up) or...

Examined whether Ss who set specific difficult goals perform significantly better than those who set "do your best" goals, and investigated the importance of goal proximity on performance of the 3-min sit-up test. 96 undergraduates in 2 experiments were matched on ability and then randomly assigned to one of the following goal-setting conditions: s...

37 intercollegiate wrestlers completed a sources of stress or worry inventory. Descriptive statistics revealed that "not wrestling well," "improving on my last performance," "what my coach will think or say," "losing," and "performing up to my level of ability" were the most frequently cited sources of worry. To determine if successful, as compared...

The purpose of the present investigation was to determine the effectiveness of different types of mental intervention procedures on karate performance. Subjects were 43 male volunteer students enrolled in self-defense classes at a university. They were randomly assigned to one of five conditions: individualized, nonindividualized, package, placebo...

This investigation was done to gather some exploratory data concerning the attitudes and feelings of male and female college, high school, and junior high school varsity basketball players toward having a female coach versus a male coach. Subjects (N = 85) indicated their attitudes for playing for a hypothetical male or female coach (randomly assig...