Abstract
In conjunction with BBC Lab UK, the present study developed 12 brief psychological skill interventions for online delivery. A protocol was designed that captured data via self-report measures, used video recordings to deliver interventions, involved a competitive concentration task against an individually matched computer opponent, and provided feedback on the effects of the interventions. Three psychological skills were used; imagery, self-talk, and if-then planning, with each skill directed to one of four different foci: outcome goal, process goal, instruction, or arousal-control. This resulted in 12 different intervention participant groups (randomly assigned) with a 13th group acting as a control. Participants (n = 44,742) completed a competitive task four times—practice, baseline, following an intervention, and again after repeating the intervention. Results revealed performance improved following practice with incremental effects for imagery-outcome, imagery-process, and self-talk-outcome and self-talk-process over the control group, with the same interventions increasing the intensity of effort invested, arousal and pleasant emotion. Arousal-control interventions associated with pleasant emotions, low arousal, and low effort invested in performance. Instructional interventions were not effective. Results offer support for the utility of online interventions in teaching psychological skills and suggest brief interventions that focus on increasing motivation, increased arousal, effort invested, and pleasant emotions were the most effective.
Highlights
Many tasks are competitive, whether these are job interviews, driving tests, school examinations, business deals, or sport competitions
A preliminary Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) indicated no significant differences between groups for use of appraisal, suppression, psychological skills, emotions associated with best and worst performance, emotion experienced before completing the practice round, and perception of performance [Wilks lambda (21, 44709) = 0.995, p = 0.754, Partial Eta2 = 0.000]
The present study developed and tested the efficacy of brief online interventions on changes in performance, emotions, arousal, and effort during a competitive cognitive task
Summary
Whether these are job interviews, driving tests, school examinations, business deals, or sport competitions. Psychological skills that help people regulate emotions and cope with the demands of competition, delivered through effective interventions, would have large appeal. Recent research has emphasized the potential of online interventions in different areas of application including behavioral change (Webb et al, 2010; Brouwer et al, 2011; Kohl et al, 2013), health (Cugelman et al, 2011), and clinical practice (Gaffney et al, 2013). A recent review of the effectiveness of interventions argued that future research is needed to test the efficacy of such interventions and examine the active parts of training (Webb et al, 2010)
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