Cork! The effects of positive and negative self-talk on dart throwing performance.

Van Raalte, Judy L. ; Brewer, Britton W. ; Lewis, Brian P. 等

In the applied sport psychology literature, much attention has been focused on the benefits of positive self-talk arid the deleterious effects of negative self-talk (Gould, Hodge, Peterson, & Giannini, 1989; Mahoney & Avener, 1977). Proponents of positive self-talk have suggested that positive self-talk can reduce anxiety, increase effort, and enhance self-confidence (Finn, 1985; Weinberg, 1988). Concerns about the harmful effects of negative self-talk have led to the implementation of techniques such as cognitive restructuring, thought stopping, and countering to reduce the occurrence of negative self-talk (Bunker, Williams, & Zinsser, 1993; Weinberg, 1988). Psychological skills training packages that include positive self-talk as an important component have been developed (Kendall, Hrycaiko, Martin, & Kendall, 1990; Weinberg, 1988). However, direct experimental evidence for the role of self-talk in performance is limited.

Indirect assessments of positive and negative self-talk in conjunction with other strategies have resulted in equivocal findings in the sport literature. Rotella, Gansneder, Oljala, and Billing (1980) found that more successful elite skiers did not differ from less successful skiers in terms of the content of self-talk; Mahoney and Avener (1977) found that elite gymnasts who qualified for the Olympic team reported that they used self-talk significantly more in training and competition than nonqualifiers. Highlen and Bennett (1983) explored the self-talk of competitive wrestlers and divers and found that wrestlers who qualified for the Pan American Games used critical self-talk during competition more often than athletes who did not qualify. Divers who qualified for the Pan American Games reported that they used more content based self-instructions during competition and less positive self-talk than did nonqualifiers. Surprisingly, these results suggest that negative self-talk is associated with better, or at least no worse, performance than positive self-talk.

Most sport researchers conducting experimental research on the effects of self-talk on sport performance have compared positive self-talk to other cognitive strategies. For example, Weinberg, Smith, Jackson, and Gould (1984) compared the effects of positive self-talk, associative, and dissociative strategies on two endurance activities, a 30-minute endurance run and a novel leg lift task. Results indicated no significant performance differences between groups on the endurance run. On the leg lift task, however, subjects in the positive self-talk and dissociation conditions held their legs out significantly longer than the subjects in the association condition. Weinberg (1985) used the same leg lift task to examine the relationship between self-efficacy and various cognitive strategies. As in the Weinberg et al. (1984) study, Weinberg (1985) found no significant performance differences between positive self-talk and dissociation conditions.

In the only published study to examine experimentally the effects of both positive and negative self-talk on sport performance, Dagrou, Gauvin, and Halliwell (1992) had undergraduate students complete baseline dart throws, randomly assigned them to self-talk conditions, then had them complete another group of dart throws. Results indicated that subjects who were asked to verbalize positive self-talk performed significantly better on the next group of dart throws than control condition subjects, who performed significantly better than subjects who were asked to verbalize negative self-talk. Dagrou et al. (1992) concluded that self-talk influences sport performance such that positive self-talk is associated with better performance than negative self-talk. Replication of these results is warranted particularly because the results of this experimental research differ from the results of self-report studies.

Outside the sport literature the effects of positive and negative self-talk on task performance have been examined in several studies. Goodhart (1986) found that negative self-talk led to better performance than positive self-talk on an anagram task. She suggested that the effects of self-talk, in this case, may be primarily motivational. Subjects who used negative self-talk were stimulated to avoid a negative outcome and so tried harder than subjects who were using positive self-talk. Schillf, Monroe, Evanst and Ramanaiah (1978) randomly assigned male subjects to positive, negative or control self-talk conditions. Subjects using positive self-talk made significantly fewer errors on a mirror tracing task and completed the task significantly faster than subjects in the control and negative self-talk conditions.

Sport research on the effects of self-talk has suggested that positive self-talk leads to better performances than negative self-talk (Dagrou et al., 1992). We attempted to replicate and extend the findings of Dagrou et al. (1992) and therefore hypothesized that positive self-talk condition subjects would perform significantly better on a dart throwing task than negative self-talk condition subjects. Due to the potential motivating effect of negative self-talk (Goodhart, 1986), it was also hypothesized that negative self-talk condition subjects would expect to do better on a future dart throwing task than positive self-talk condition subjects.

Method

Subjects

Male undergraduates (N = 60) ranging in age from 18 to 22 years volunteered to participate in this research. Male subjects were used to allow comparisons with previous research that used primarily male subjects (Dagrou et al., 1992).

Materials

Darts were thrown at a regulation board (35.5 cm diameter) located seven feet from the target line at a height of six feet. The dad board was covered with newspaper, with a round hole indicating the center of the target. Following completion of each subject's throws, the newspaper was removed and the distance of each dart throw hole from the bull's-eye was measured. Throws that missed the dart board completely were counted as 17.75 cm, the maximum distance from the bull's-eye to the edge of the dart board.

The Post Dart Questionnaire (PDQ) consisted of a manipulation check item, "What were you thinking about (or saying to yourself) while you were throwing darts?", and an item designed to assess subjects' expectations of future performance on a similar task, "If you were to try this dart throwing task again, how would you expect to do?" (1 = much worse, 11 = much better).

Procedure

Upon their arrival in the laboratory, subjects were randomly assigned to control, positive, or negative self-talk conditions with the constraint that an equal number of subjects was assigned to each condition (Aronson, Ellsworth, Carlsmith, & Gonzalez, 1990). Subjects were instructed to try to hit the bull's-eye in 15 practice and 15 experimental dart throws (pilot testing indicated that 15 practice throws allowed subjects to gain experience without becoming bored with the task). Prior to the dart throws, control condition subjects were given no particular self-talk instructions, positive self-talk condition subjects were asked to say, "you can do it" before each throw, and negative self-talk condition subjects were asked to say, "you cannot do it" before each throw. These phrases were chosen because the former phrase was the one used most frequently by pilot subjects and the latter phrase represented its negation. After the dart throwing was completed, subjects completed the PDQ and were thoroughly debriefed as to the nature of the experiment

Results

Manipulation Check

Subjects' responses to the question "What were you thinking about (or saying to yourself) while you were throwing darts?" were coded by three independent raters on a scale of 1 to 3 (1 = negative self-talk, 2 = neutral self-talk, 3 = positive self-talk). The three raters agreed on 94% of subjects' responses. For the remaining 6% of the responses, the majority opinion (two out of three raters agreed) was used to code the data. ANOVA indicated that there were significant differences among conditions in terms of self-reported thoughts, F(2,58) = 28.64, p [less than] .001. Planned contrasts indicated that the positive self-talk condition subjects (M = 2.79) reported significantly more positive self-talk than the control condition subjects (M = 2.10), t(56) = 3.38, p [less than] .01, and negative self-talk condition subjects (M = 1.25), t(56) = 7.55, p [less than] .01. Control condition subjects reported significantly more positive self-talk than the negative self-talk condition subjects, t(56) = 4.22, p [less than] .01.

Dart Throwing Accuracy

ANOVA indicated differences in dart throwing accuracy (cm from the bull's-eye) among conditions, F(2,59) = 4.73, p [less than] .02. Planned contrasts (means and standard deviations of dart throwing performance are presented in Table 1) showed that the positive self-talk condition subjects performed significantly better on the dad throwing task than did negative self-talk condition subjects, t(57) = 3.03, p [less than] .005, and control condition subjects, t(57) = -1.98, p = .05. Control condition subjects and negative self-talk condition subjects did not differ in terms of dart throwing accuracy, t(57) = 1.05 p[greater than].29.

Expectations for Future Dart Throwing Performance

In terms of expectations for future dart throwing performance, group differences were found using ANOVA, F(2,58) = 3.35, p [less than] .05. Means and standard deviations for expectations for future performance are presented in Table 1. As revealed by planned contrasts, the negative self-talk group reported that they expected to improve significantly more on a future dart throwing task than did control condition subjects, t(56) = 2.33, p [less than] .03, and positive self-talk condition subjects, t(56) = 2.13, p [less than] .04.

Table 1

Means and Standard Deviation of Performance and Expectations for
Future Dart Throwing Performance

Condition Dart Future
 Performance Expectations

Positive Self-Talk
 M 69.75 6.68
 SD (22.58) (1.16)

ControI
 M 84.75 6.60
 SD (24.48) (1.54)

Negative Self-Talk
 M 92.75 7.75
 SD (25.88) (1.89)

Note: Lower performance scores indicate greater throwing accuracy
(shorter distance in cm from the bull's-eye).

Discussion

The results of this research replicate those of Dagrou et al. (1992) and suggest that self-talk is an important variable in sport performance. Subjects who used positive self-talk performed significantly better on the dart-throwing task than did subjects who used negative self-talk. The results for future performance expectation indicate that negative self-talk can serve as a motivating factor in performance. Nevertheless, further research in this area is needed before conclusions can be drawn. For example, it would be important to determine if subjects who use negative self-talk actually work harder on a task in the long run or if they just report that they are motivated to perform much better on a similar task in the future.

There are threats to the generalizability of these results to actual sport tasks. The subjects in this investigation may have had some experience throwing darts, but were performing a specific task with novel requirements. Responses may be different on more familiar tasks. It is possible that self-talk has less of an impact on performance of a task when the parameters of the task are well known. It should also be noted that the subjects in this investigation were all male. Dagrou et al. (1992) used predominantly male subjects, and they did not make gender comparisons. Spink (1990) found no gender differences in the self-reported use of self-talk. Further research exploring the effects of both naturally occurring and randomly assigned self-talk for male and female subjects is needed.

It would also be interesting to determine the prevalence of overt positive and negative self-talk in actual sporting events. Through behavioral observation, it would be possible to assess how much overt positive and negative self-talk actually occurs. During a tennis tournament, for example, one could assess the relationship between self-talk and tennis performance.

The findings of this study and those of Dagrou et al. (1992) support the utility of positive self-talk interventions. Given the responses of subjects to the future performance item, further attention to the potential motivating effects of negative self-talk is warranted.

References

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These data were presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, August 1992, Washington DC. We would like to thank Amanda Daley and Jill Philips for their assistance in data coding, LeThuy Hoang for her abstract translation, and Jennifer Rojohn for her inspiration.