Physical Education & Human PerformanceJeff Cherubini, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

E-Mail: jeff.cherubini@manhattan.edu

Positive Psychology

Practical Applications to Enhance Sport Opportunities for Females

Objectives

I. Participants will be able to describe positive sport psychology characteristics and applications to enhance

sport opportunities for all girls and women in sport.

II. Participants will be able to apply practical strategies to further guide, facilitate, and motivate quality sport

experiences for themselves and their athletes.

Positive Psychology

Positive psychology is an umbrella term for the study of positive emotions, positive character traits, and enabling institutions (Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005).

About valued experiences, growth, love, education, and play (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000).

Positive psychology and the scientific study of happiness together refer to three paths or pursuits: the pleasant life (positive emotion), the engaged life (engagement), and the meaningful life (social meaning). 

When individuals are aware of, pursue and blend all three lives, authentic happiness or the full life is more likely to be achieved (Seligman, 2002; Seligman et al., 2005).

Sport, as a lifelong physical activity, provides numerous opportunities for these elements to emerge (Cherubini, 2009a).

Given NAGWS focus to develop and deliver equitable and quality sport opportunities for ALL girls and women, positive psychology appears to be a natural match with NAGWS programming goals.

Positive Psychology

The Pleasant Life

Human flourishing characterized by positive emotions – happiness, empowerment, and resiliency.

Human flourishing Inner athletes

Raw Impulse of Interest

In a flourishing environment, the amount of positive affect (joy, interest, hope) is greater than negative affect (sadness, boredom, despair).

• Individually, in a relationship, in a group, and on a team• Greatest influence on the pleasant life and human flourishing

A prerequisite of a healthy mind / body.

Positive correlation between frequent positive affect and greater mental/physical health and performance.

Human Flourishing

(Frederickson & Losada, 2005)

Think of a typical warm-up for a sport practice. With emotions being defined as the public face of feelings (Barnes, 2005), how many smiling faces do you see?

Since “most children do not start out bored and detached” (Hunter & Csikszentmihalyi, 2003, p. 28), how may we, as administrators, educators, coaches, trainers, and volunteers contribute to these future emotions?

Human Flourishing

Inner Athletes

Where is the Love?….or better yet….

Where has the Love gone?

“All of us were inner athletes in our infancy – our mind was free of concern or anxiety, focused in the present moment; our body was relaxed, sensitive, elastic, aligned with gravity; our emotions were free-flowing expression, uninhibited, spontaneous. We begin life with nearly unlimited potential. Most of us, however, lose touch with our childhood aptitudes as we become burdened by limiting beliefs, begin to deny our emotions, and experience a variety of physical tensions.”

(Millman, 1994, p. xii)

Inner Athletes

Inner Athletes

Healthy babies naturally love to move about, toddlers love to dance, and children love to play. Yet as we grow into adults, the zest for movement can become completely eroded. Positive psychology and quality coaching/ sport programming can preserve this zest for movement as children and adults grow older.

(Cherubini, 2009a)

The Experience of Interest is characterized by 3 qualities:

1. Being caught up and fascinated2. Enjoying what one is doing while 3. In a state of arousal or excitement

Since we have a limited capacity to pay attention to multiple emotions at one time, if interested we cannot also be bored.

If the development of interest is the focus of what we are doing, we are more likely to feel empowered to take action.

Raw Impulse of Interest

(Hunter & Csikszentmihalyi, 2003)

Living the Pleasant Life

Establish a flourishing environment

• Positive affect > Negative affect

• Concrete gestures and lived examples.

• Genuine, immediate, consistent, motivational feedback.

Develop the “raw impulse of interest” in our coaching

• Provide opportunities for interests and strengths.

• Infuse creative activities – Parkour – Adventure Runs

• Incorporate motivational strategies – goals w/personal value, task skill balance, self-improvement, modeling, feedback.

(Cherubini, 2009a)

Enhance interactions with our athletes – help create an exciting, engaging, and relevant environment.

Reflect Reflect upon your own passion and authenticity.

ReviewReview personal strengths and challenges.

ReviseRevise, as needed, attitudes/actions.

Living the Pleasant Life

• How much positive affect do I personally experience daily? What

most contributes to this?

• How do my actions portray genuine positivity, enthusiasm, and

interest? How do my athletes perceive my actions?

• How would my athletes describe me? How would other coaches,

staff, and volunteers describe me?

• How authentic are my relationships with my athletes, their

parents, other coaches, staff, and volunteers?

• How interesting are my coaching sessions / practices?

• How am I addressing the interests of my athletes?

Living the Pleasant Life

(Cone, 2007)

The Engaged LifeBeing absorbed in whatever activity one is engaged in at the present moment.

Mindfulness

Flow

Flow

What most leads to a higher ratio of positive affect is the “ability to become absorbed in whatever activity one is engaged in at the present moment, the ability to live in the moment and forget about the past, future, and self…it is the capacity to experience flow.”

(Maddux, 1997, 344)

Flow, being fully engaged, is critical to our happiness and an integral aspect of intrinsic motivation for sport.

If the sole focus of sport/physical activity is a future outcome,

“…then when we finally get there, when we finally arrive, when we finally have the hearts and lungs and bodies we have been working for, we will have no capacity for enjoying it because we will be focused on some new future goals or worried about losing what we have achieved. In fact, we might go so far as to say that the most important thing we are developing while exercising mindfully are not stronger hearts or stronger lungs, but the ability to live in the moment, to be fully engaged in the here and now.”

(Maddux, 1997, p. 342)

Mindfulness

Preoccupation with happiness as something we attain in the future by making sacrifices in the present.

Eastern philosophies teaching that happiness and contentment is not something to be earned in the future… but something to be discovered by becoming immersed in life in the present.

If we are always looking for happiness down the road, then we truly are missing the opportunity for happiness in the experiences we are currently living.

Mindfulness

Are you Happy?

(Maddux, 1997)

Acknowledge sport, and all physical activities, as a mindful process rather than a mindless habit or future outcome.

• Shift in philosophy – the process is our product.

(Cherubini, 2009a, 2009b)

• Put the play back into the playground.

“Play as an attitude, a joyous spirit…Play, in other words, is an end in itself.”

Living the Engaged Life

(Twietmeyer, 2007, p. 202)

Promote engagement in sport based on autonomy, personal control, optimal challenge, and well-being.

• Create opportunities for Organic Play in practice.

Motivate athletes towards self-determined behavior that makes them feel in control, competent, and connected.

(Kilpatrick, Hebert, & Jacobsen, 2002)

Living the Engaged Life

Use process/mastery goals and activities that are perceived as comfortably challenging – a ‘just right’ task/skill balance. (Cherubini, 2009b)

Empower athletes with voluntary, structured, behavior-change programs emphasizing personal choice and opportunities to analyze behavior, plan for change, use resources, execute, evaluate, and reevaluate.

• General Resistance Resources + Sense of Coherence

Living the Engaged Life

Experience Sampling Method – prompts coaches and athletes to recognize level of engagement at given moment in time.

• At the time of the prompt, what were you doing?

• How interested are you in this drill, training, practice?

• How much concentration do you need?

• How much skill is needed? How challenging is this?

• How motivated are you to continue?

Through increased awareness, we can plan for, and participate in

more mindful activities.

Living the Engaged Life

(adapted from Foster & Lloyd, 2007)

Positive sport psychology and the engaged life occur when our athletes are “happy not because of what they do, but because of how they do it.” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1999, p. 826)

• With this type of focus, sport participation and lifelong physical activity is no longer something that girls and women perceive that they need to do, but rather something that they want to do.

Living the Engaged Life

The Meaningful LifePursuit of happiness outside of oneself, with an emphasis on the greater good of society.

Flourishing communities

Constructive goals of human behavior

Social interest

Flourishing Communities

Critical to authentic happiness and quality sport programming is establishing and maintaining flourishing communities that promote pleasant and engaged lives.

Sport and physical activities provide many opportunities for administrators, educators, coaches, trainers, volunteers, and athletes to see –

“the value of human lives beyond our own…[as] play and games are a unique arena of experience that allows us to see both human fraternity and human vulnerability.”

(Twietmeyer, 2007, p. 204)

Natural match with the NAGWS mission to develop/deliver equitable and quality sport opportunities for ALL girls and women in a manner that promotes social justice and change.

• Clear benefit to society.

• Positive relationships formed through shared physical and emotional challenges.

• Development of character strengths of kindness, love, social intelligence, fairness, and teamwork.

Social Interest

Constructive goals of human behavior and human interest are integral to quality sport experiences. With these goals, motivation is both personal and social contributing to the meaningful life.

• Involvement (social interest, equality, and cooperation)

• Encouragement (social support and love)

• Improvement (betterment for self and society)

• Accomplishment (contributing to self and society)

Constructive Goals

(Lemire, 2007)

Living the Meaningful Life

Emphasize and promote supportive relationships, mentoring and modeling and reinforcement of positive behaviors.

Emphasize and promote sport and lifelong physical activity as a positive social influence on the actions of others.

Integrate cooperative activities, character education, and adventure programming into coaching and training sessions.

(Cherubini, 2009a)

Orient programming toward constructive goals by providing...

• A cooperative learning environment.

• Unconditional support and love.

• The knowledge and skills needed to change and improve.

• The ability to take action and achieve success.

Living the Meaningful Life

Within positive sport psychology, sparking initiative and getting excited for sport and physical activities is the key.

In their original introduction to the science of positive psychology, Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi (2000) noted,

“The quality of current experience is the basic building block of a positive psychology” (p. 8).

Positive Psychology

With programming acknowledging these pursuits, NAGWS members are in the unique position to contribute to and promote positive sport psychology and a lifetime of enhanced opportunities for all girls and women in sport.

Authentic happiness through quality sport programming is possible when administrators, educators, coaches, trainers, volunteers, and athletes practice and experience pleasant, engaged, and meaningful lives.

Positive Psychology

(Cherubini, 2009a)

The Meaningful Life The Engaged Life

The Pleasant Life

Positive Sport Psychology

Preserves our natural zest for movement as children and adults grow older.

Provides numerous opportunities for flow to occur – helping make sport participation something we want to do versus something we feel we have to do.

Develops character strengths of kindness, love, social intelligence, fairness, and teamwork.