Abstract
Highlight videos accompanied by inspiring music can help in enhancing an athlete’s motivational state and self-efficacy (SE). The addition of verbal priming techniques could provide a further boost, but this combination of audiovisual stimuli has yet to be examined in a sport context. A repeated-measures, crossover design was used. The study entailed a pretraining intervention administered to American football players ( N = 32). Measures included the Situational Motivation Scale and an SE scale. Participants were exposed to control, music, video, video-music, video-priming, and video-music-priming conditions. Repeated-measures MANOVA indicated that the video-music condition elicited the strongest response in terms of increasing intrinsic forms of motivation ( p = .010) and decreasing amotivation ( p = .019). Three of eight SE components (Perceptions of Effort, Consistency, and Concentration), and an overall global SE score were significantly enhanced by the experimental stimuli, with video-music-priming eliciting the most positive response, followed by video-music. The present findings indicate the utility of audiovisual interventions combined with verbal primes immediately prior to sporting performance. Practitioners working with athletes might consider the preperformance use of motivational music and videos along with embedded subliminal verbal primes.
Highlights
Motivation might be considered one of the keystones of athletic achievement
Ryan and Deci[7,8] theorized that motivation can be categorized into three main motivational constructs. These lie along a continuum from amotivation, through extrinsic motivation, and to intrinsic motivation
The purpose of the present study was to examine the psychological effects of video, subliminal priming, and music when used as a pretraining intervention in a sport context
Summary
Motivation might be considered one of the keystones of athletic achievement. Enhancing motivation can improve an athlete’s sense of wellbeing and even performance levels.[1]. Ryan and Deci[7,8] theorized that motivation can be categorized into three main motivational constructs These lie along a continuum from amotivation, through extrinsic motivation, and to intrinsic motivation. Of these primary forms of motivation, amotivation can be characterized as a lack of motivation to engage in an activity. Introjected regulation entails the internalization of previously external reasons for engaging in a behavior. Integrated regulation refers to when a behavior has become valued, and integrated within and in harmony with other aspects of an individual’s sense of self.[8] As we move toward more intrinsic forms of motivation, Reviewers: Jacqueline Paige Pope (University of Lethbridge, Canada) Geoffrey Schweizer (Heidelberg University, Germany)
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