CURRENT RESEARCH IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Volume 8,
Number 6
Submitted: October 10, 2002
Revised: December 2, 2002
Accepted: December 9, 2002
Publication Date: December 12,2002
EVALUATION
STRATEGIES, SELF ESTEEM, AND ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE
John Gotwals
University
of Alberta
Heidi
A. Wayment
Northern
Arizona University
ABSTRACT
The
relationships between self esteem, self evaluative information use, and athletic
performance were examined among 103
intercollegiate athletes. As
predicted, personal standards were rated as the most useful form of information
with downward social comparisons and feared selves information as the least
useful. Athletes high in self
esteem used more personal standards
and ideal selves information
and fewer feared selves. Higher
self esteem was associated with better athletic performance. Controlling for self esteem, hours practiced,
and social desirability, better athletic performance was associated with using
upward, lateral, and downward social comparisons. Athletes using negative performance information
from the past performed more poorly.
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A
great deal of research has examined self evaluation strategies and their
importance to self regulatory tasks (Higgins, Strauman, & Klein, 1986 for
review). Although dozens of
studies have examined self evaluation processes in the context of achievement
domains, only a few have been conduced in the athletic domain (see Horn &
Amorose, 1998 for review). Self
evaluation processes have been implicated as central to the formation of
competence beliefs, known to affect athletic performance (Weiss & Ebbeck,
1996). Because self evaluation
processes are ubiquitous in the athletic domain, appear to play a central role
in athletes' competency assessments, the present study examines athletes' preferences for self evaluative
information, whether these preferences are associated with self esteem, and the
kinds of self evaluative activity associated with performance.
Self
Evaluative Information
A
variety of information types are useful for self evaluation (see Higgins et
al., 1986 for review). Taylor and
colleagues (Taylor et al., 1995; Wayment & Taylor, 1995) summarized a
diverse literature and described
ten basic information types that have received attention in the
literature. One type of self
evaluative information is termed objective information. In his theory of social comparison,
Festinger (1954) argued that, when available, people prefer objective
information over all other types of information. Another type of self evaluative information is direct
verbal evaluation, such as feedback from friends, acquaintances, or experts
about a particular subject (Taylor et al., 1995). A third type of evaluative information is an individuals
personal standards. For example,
by comparing athletes' performances against the standards and goals they have
set for themselves, they may be able to better see the areas they need in order
to improve (Albert, 1977; Sedikides & Skowronski, 1995). Other types of
self evaluative information consist of temporal comparisons, both positive and
negative (Albert, 1977), as well as either desired or feared visions of one's performance
in the future (Markus & Nurius, 1986). The final types of self evaluative information consist of
social comparison information (Festinger, 1954). In an athletic context, social
comparison information involves comparing one's performance with someone who is
performing better (i.e., an upward comparison), with someone who is performing
at about the same level (i.e., a lateral comparison), or with someone who is
not performing as well (i.e., a downward comparison; Wills, 1981). One
consistent finding to emerge from self evaluation research is that personal
standards are the most used information type for evaluation processes, even
more than social comparison information (Sedikides & Skowronski, 1995;
Taylor et al., 1995; Wayment & Campbell, 2000; Wayment & Taylor, 1995).
Self
Evaluative Information and Athletic Performance
Very
few studies have specifically examined the kinds of self evaluative information
athletes use. Horn and Hasbrook
(1987) examined how young athletes form self perceptions of their physical
ability. Specifically, they tested
Harter's (1981) claim that children who have a strong sense of confidence
and belief in their ability in a specific domain will develop an internal
set of information that is used for self evaluation. Horn and Hasbrook (1987) found that children that do not have
such a belief in their ability developed a dependence on external sources
of information. Athletes with
a high belief in their athletic ability used personal standards information
(such as how they improved over time) to evaluate themselves. The athletes with low belief in their
athletic ability used information such as game outcome (e.g., objective information)
and parental feedback to evaluate themselves. Locke and Latham (1985) examined the relationship
between goal setting and athletic performance and found that setting both
long and short term goals were
correlated with improved performance.
This use of goals is similar to the use of hoped for future selves
and personal standards information.
The importance of personal standards and social comparison information
has also been examined in the context of achievement motivation in sport (Duda, 1993; Gill, 1993).
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Self
Esteem and Self Evaluation
Several
studies have shown that people who participate in athletics have higher levels of self esteem than those who do not (Mahoney, 1989;
Taylor, 1995). Research examining self esteem and self evaluative strategies
among college students in academic and interpersonal domains has found that
individuals high in self esteem tend to use objective and personal standards
information to evaluate themselves, while people low in self esteem rely more
on social comparison information (Taylor et al., 1995; Wayment & Taylor,
1995; Wayment, 1992). Scanlan
and Passer (1981) conducted a study that examined the pre and post game expectancies of young male soccer players.
The post game expectancies were significantly affected by level of
self esteem, especially if the player's team had lost the game.
Losing players with high self esteem had very positive outlooks (e.g.,
hoped for future selves information) concerning a rematch with the team that
had just beaten them. However,
losing players with low self esteem expected to be beaten by the same team
if a rematch occurred (e.g., feared selves information).
The
goal of the present study was to assess athletes' perceptions of the usefulness
of ten types of evaluative
information for evaluating their
athletic performance, to examine if these self evaluative strategies were
associated with self esteem, and
to examine the impact of these strategies on athletic performance. Since previous research on athletic
performance levels in relation to practice behavior suggests that it is
important to control for the amount of practice (Helsen, Starkes, & Hodges,
1998), we also examined whether the total number of hours athletes practiced
per week was positively related to athletic performance.
In
line with previous research, we hypothesized that athletes would say they
used personal standards information most often. Athletes high in self esteem were predicted to be more likely
to use hoped for future selves, personal standards information, and upward
social comparisons to evaluate themselves than those low in self esteem, while
athletes low in self esteem would be more likely to use feared selves information
for self evaluation. Given the
relative lack of empirical evidence regarding the specific types of self evaluative
information use that might predict enhanced athletic performance, we ventured
only a few predictions. We predicted that self esteem would be positively
associated with athletic performance, as would total hours practiced per week.
We also hypothesized that given the central role personal standards,
hoped for future selves information, and upward social comparisons have for
self improvement (cf. Taylor et al., 1995; Taylor & Lobel, 1993), personal
standards, upward social comparisons, and hoped for future selves would be
associated with better athletic performance.
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METHOD
Participants
One
hundred and three intercollegiate male and female athletes who participated on
the varsity cross country (n = 24), track and field (n = 35), volleyball (n =
14), swimming (n = 23), and diving (n = 7) teams at a mid sized southwestern
university volunteered to participate in the present study. Sixty five of the participants were
female (63%) and 38 were male (37%).
The mean age of these athletes was 18.7 years (range: 17 to 23). Thirty one participants were freshmen in
college (31%), 32 were sophomores (32%), 20 were juniors (20%), and 18 were
seniors (18%) (2 did not provide information). Most of the sample was Caucasian (n = 87, 85%), followed by
those who identified themselves as African American (n = 6, 6%), Hispanic (n =
2; 2%), Native American (n = 4, 4%), and Other (n = 2, 2%).
Design
and Procedure
Coaches
of seven college varsity athletic teams were contacted and asked for permission
to recruit their players as possible participants. All coaches agreed and their
athletes were told that the purpose of the study was to determine how athletes
evaluate their performance and would require them to complete a questionnaire
packet. Individual team members
were then allowed to decide if they wished to participate in the study. All of the recruited athletes agreed to
participate in the present study.
Measures
Background
Information
This
questionnaire assessed general demographic information: age, gender, and ethnic
group identification.
Total
Hours Practiced
Participants
were asked to report the amount of time they practiced their sport per week,
both with their team and on their own.
These two numbers were combined for a total hours practiced score. Responses on this variable ranged from
12 to 25 hours a week.
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Self
Evaluative Information Use
Study
participants gave their best estimates of the kinds of information they typically used to
evaluate their athletic performance using the 30 item self evaluation scale
(Wayment, 1992). For the
present study the items were worded in order to be relevant for the evaluation
of one's athletic performance.
This scale has been modified to measure information use in other domains
(e.g., academic performance, romantic relationships) and has been shown to have
good reliability and construct validity (see Wayment & Campbell,
2000). Students read each item
(e.g., "I compare my performance with those that perform better than I
do.") and then indicated the extent to which they agreed using a 7 point
scale (1= not at all true for me;
7 = very true for me). Each
of the 10 information types were assessed with 3 items. Coefficient alphas for the remaining
information scales were as follows: objective (.60), feedback (.84), personal
standards (.68), positive temporal comparisons (.80), negative temporal
comparisons (.65), hoped for future selves (.60), feared selves (.80), upward
comparisons (.70), lateral social comparisons (.78), and downward social
comparisons (.62). (Questionnaire items in appendix)
Self
Esteem
The
Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale (1965) was used to measure self esteem. The original 4 point scale was modified
to be a 5 point scale (5=agree very much; 1=disagree very much). Coefficient alpha for this scale
was .84. A median split was
conducted to create groups of higher and lower self esteem.
Athletic
Performance
To measure athletic performance, each study participant's
performance was rated by the athletes, their teammates, and their coach with
two items [talent level (1 = Way
below talent level, 10 =Way above talent level); relative performance" (1
= Much worse than the rest of the team, 10 = Much better than the rest of the
team)]. Ratings given by an
athlete's teammates were averaged
to form one score. The six
performance ratings correlated very highly with a coefficient alpha of .83.
Social
Desirability
The
degree to which subjects tended to present a socially desirable picture of
themselves was assessed with a 20 item version of the Marlowe Crowne Social
Desirability Scale (MC SDS, Crowne & Marlowe, 1960; Strahan & Gerbasi,
1972). The Kuder Richardson reliability coefficient for this scale was .67.
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RESULTS
Initial
Analyses
Prior
to examining the sample as a whole, a two way MANOVA (gender, type of sport)
for all of the variables (hours practiced per week, self esteem, use of 10
types of self evaluative information, and athletic performance) was
conducted. There were no
significant main effects or interaction, thus, the data were collapsed across
gender and team type for further analyses. All variables were also examined for departures from
normality and found to be normal.
Table 1 Means, Standard Deviations, Skewness, and Kurtosis
for All Variables
|
|
Mean |
SD |
Skewness |
Kurtosis |
|
Hours
Practiced (a) |
20.33 |
5.90 |
1.21 |
1.13 |
|
Information
Types (b): |
|
|
|
|
|
Objective Information |
5.02 |
1.37 |
.36 |
.08 |
|
Feedback Information |
5.34 |
1.16 |
.68 |
.17 |
|
Personal Standards |
5.81 |
.93 |
.63 |
.21 |
|
Negative Temporal |
3.99 |
1.73 |
.04 |
1.06 |
|
Positive Temporal |
5.34 |
1.15 |
.71 |
.35 |
|
Feared Selves Information |
2.89 |
1.44 |
.60 |
.46 |
|
Hoped For Future Selves |
4.33 |
1.57 |
.37 |
.42 |
|
Upwards Social Comparisons |
5.41 |
1.09 |
.76 |
.47 |
|
Lateral Social Comparisons |
4.62 |
1.34 |
.30 |
.48 |
|
Downward Social Comparisons |
3.28 |
1.46 |
.37 |
.72 |
|
Self
Esteem (c) |
4.03 |
.58 |
.37 |
.38 |
|
Athletic
Performance(d) |
6.34 |
1.12 |
.14 |
.07 |
Note:
(a) range: 12 to 25; (b) range:1 to 7; (c) range: 1 to 5; (d) range: 1 to
10.
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Use
of Self Evaluative Information
To
determine which types of self evaluative information were preferred by
athletes, a one way repeated measures MANOVA was conducted with the ten
information types as the repeated measure, self esteem (low, high) as the
independent variable, and usefulness rating as the dependent variable. The main effect for information type
was significant (F(9, 92) = 49.23, p < .0001). As predicted, personal standards were the
preferred form of information, with a mean of 5.82 on a 7 point scale. Post hoc contrasts indicated that
personal standards were reported as used more often than any other type of
information (ps
ranged from .0012 to .0001). As
indicated in Table 1, the other information types that were found to be useful
(e.g., having a mean greater than 3.5) were (in order of usefulness): upward
social comparison information, positive temporal comparisons, feedback
information, objective information, lateral social comparisons, hoped for
future selves information, and negative temporal comparisons. Downward social comparisons and feared
selves information were reported as not being very useful for evaluating one's
athletic performance (e.g., means lower than 3.5), also supporting the
predictions.
The
information type by self esteem interaction was also significant (F(9,92) = 4.72, p < .0001)
indicating that the relative preference for information types varied by levels
of self esteem. Inspection of the
between subjects means revealed that three of the six predictions regarding
self esteem were supported.
Individuals high in self esteem reported using more personal
standards (F(1,100) = 5.59, p
< .02) and hoped for future selves information (F(1,100) = 10.36, p
< .0001) than those low in self esteem. Individuals low in self esteem were more likely to use
feared selves information (F(1,100) = 10.83, p < .001) than those
high in self esteem. Contrary to
prediction, there were no differences on the reported use of upward social
comparisons. Means are reported in
Table 2.
Table
2 Usefulness Ratings of 10 Information Types by Self Esteem
|
|
Low
Self esteem (n
= 52) |
High
Self Esteem (n
= 50) |
F(1,
102) |
|
Objective
Information |
4.46 (1.0) |
4.79 (1.1) |
2.53 |
|
Feedback
Information |
5.35 (1.1) |
5.34 (1.2) |
.00 |
|
Personal
Standards |
5.61 (.91) |
6.02 (.91) |
5.39* |
|
Negative
Temporal |
4.31 (1.2) |
4.53 (1.3) |
.71 |
|
Positive
Temporal |
5.16 (1.2) |
5.52 (1.1) |
2.52 |
|
Feared
Selves |
3.33 (1.5) |
2.43 (1.3) |
10.83*** |
|
Hoped
For Future Selves |
5.78 (.92) |
6.30 (.68) |
10.36*** |
|
Upward
Comparisons |
5.28 (1.1) |
5.55 (1.1) |
1.60 |
|
Lateral
Comparisons |
4.56 (1.1) |
4.70 (1.6) |
.30 |
|
Downward
Comparisons |
3.16 (1.4) |
3.41 (1.5) |
.77 |
Note:
scale ranges from 1 to 7
*
p < .05, ***
p < .001
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In
order to examine the predictions regarding the relationships between hours
practiced, self esteem, self evaluative information use (10 types), and
athletic performance, a regression analysis was
computed where performance (e.g., self , team , and coach ratings of talent and relative
performance) was regressed onto self esteem, social desirability, hours
practiced per week, and the reported use of 10 types of self evaluative
information. Correlations are
presented in Appendix B.
As predicted, better performance was associated with greater self
esteem (beta = .46, t(1) = 2.08, p < .05). The
number of hours practiced per week was also marginally associated with better
performance (beta = .16, t(1) = 1.56, p < .08). We had predicted that, controlling for self esteem, time
practiced, and social desirability, personal
standards, upward social comparisons, and hoped for future selves would be
associated with better athletic performance. There was no support for personal
standards or hoped for selves, but some support for upward social comparison
information (beta = .20, t(1) = 1.54, p
< .08, one-tailed). Although
not predicted, better performing athletes also reported more downward
comparison information (beta = .41, t(1) = 2.70, p < .01).
Other trends in the data suggested that better athletic performance was
associated with using more lateral social comparison information (beta = .27, t (1) = 1.77, p < .05, one-tailed) and less past negative information
(beta = .26, t(1) = 1.86, p < .05, one-tailed). The overall model was significant (F(13,88) = 2.17, p <
.01; r square = .24, adjusted r
square = .13). (see Appendix C)
DISCUSSION
The
present study examined whether previous findings on preferences for self
evaluative information, relationship between self esteem and self evaluative
information use, were similar among college varsity athletes, and whether
specific self evaluation strategies were associated with better athletic
performance.
What
Kinds of Self Evaluative Information Do Athletes Prefer?
Based
on previous literature, it was predicted that athletes would prefer personal
standards over all of the other information types. Results from the present study supports a great deal of research
on self evaluative strategies of college students in other domains, such as
academic, social lives, and romantic relationships (Taylor et al., 1995; Wayment
& Campbell, 2000). Why are
personal standards used so often? Previous researchers (Taylor et al., 1995; Wayment & Taylor,
1995) have suggested that the use of personal standards information allows
one to access only that portion of one's beliefs that is relevant to a particular
self evaluative motive. For example,
when self enhancement needs are paramount, one may access information about
one's self that makes one feel good; when improvement needs are paramount,
one may focus selectively on goals and plans for the future and expectations
for meeting them. Because they
are private, personal standards may also be very flexible. An individual can
assess his or her performance in the privacy of his or her own mind, bending,
shaping, and tweaking these standards to meet a current need.
For example, if a standard is too high and an individual would like
to see improvement, they may slightly adjust their standard downward to demonstrate
improvement. This finessing of personal standards may
explain why individuals high self esteem are able to maintain their self esteem
even in the face of difficulty (Scanlan & Passer, 1981). As noted earlier, athletes with higher
self esteem reported personal standards more useful than those with lower
self esteem. Future research
investigating the flexibility
of standards, especially in the context of individual differences like self
esteem, are needed.
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The
reported use of social comparison information types was mixed. Upward social comparisons were
reportedly used very frequently, and given the importance of this information to self improvement, is
not surprising (Taylor & Lobel, 1993). Interestingly, athletes reported much lower use of lateral
and downward social comparison information, yet both of these types of
information were related to better performance. Previous work on self evaluation has also found that
individuals report that they do not rely on explicit comparisons with worse
performing others (Taylor et al.,
1995; Wayment & Campbell, 2000).
The lower reported use of these two types of social comparison
information was not due to social desirability biases. Festinger's (1954) original
hypothesis was that social comparisons would only be sought out to the extent
that objective information is not available or useful. Although there are certainly instances
when the presence of objective information does not completely eliminate the
need for social comparison information (Klein, 1997), it may be that the low
reported use of social comparison information in the present study is due to
the fact that objective sources of information are so plentiful and useful in
the athletic domain. Inspection of
Table 3 shows that the more objective information is used, the less upward (
.25) and lateral social comparison ( .33) information reportedly used by
athletes in this study. Suls
(1986) questioned the utility of social comparison information and argued that
the existence of personal sources of information may reduce the need to make
social comparisons in certain situations.
Inspection of the correlations (see Table 3) among personal sources of
information and social comparison information are both positive and negative,
suggesting that further research might examine more closely how the usefulness and
availability of personal sources of information might reduce the need for lateral and downward social
comparisons.
Impact
of Self Esteem
As
predicted, individuals higher in self esteem performed better athletically
than athletes lower in self esteem.
This result is consistent with past research which has also found self
esteem to be associated with better athletic performance (Mahoney, 1989). The mechanisms responsible for this relationship
may be that lower evaluation apprehension and greater confidence in self presentation
facilitates athletic performance (Geisler & Leith, 1997).
In terms of self evaluation activity, athletes higher
in self esteem were more likely to rely on their own personal standards
for performance, hoped for possible selves and less likely to rely on feared
selves information. These results
reinforce the idea that high self esteem athletes may be better at positive
forms of mental visualization and that this ability is an important aspect
of athletic performance (Murphy, 1994).
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Self
Evaluations and Athletic Performance
It
was predicted that a greater use of personal standards, hoped for future selves
and upward social comparisons would be associated with better athletic
performance because these information types are associated with self
improvement (Wayment & Taylor, 1995; Taylor & Lobel, 1993). Controlling
for self esteem, hours practiced, and social desirability responding bias,
better performing athletes
reported using more upward,
lateral, and downward social comparisons.
Thus, social comparison information figured prominently in elevated
athletic performance. Because upward social comparisons (e.g., better performing
others) are so useful for self improvement, they may be more salient for
competitive athletes and therefore easier to recall. It is interesting that although athletes reported that they
did not use lateral and downward comparisons very often, these two types of
information were associated with better performance. Although the reported use of these information types were
not associated with a social desirability response bias, it may be that
individuals may be generally unaware of the extent to which they utilize such
social comparisons.
Festinger (1954) argued that comparison information may provide
"normative" and "comparative" information that is
incorporated and eventually becomes self referent. Future research needs to examine the processes by
which social comparison information becomes personalized and incorporated into
self evaluative efforts. Finally,
we also found that athletes who used more negative information from the past to
evaluate themselves performed more poorly. That is, dwelling on past mistakes has an adverse impact on
performance. Frost and Henderson (1991) found that a perfectionism
subscale, "Concern Over Mistakes," was associated with anxiety
related to competition, low self confidence, a failure orientation, and
negative reactions in regard to mistakes in competition. Our findings lend support to the idea
that self evaluation strategies may help or hinder athletic performance. Understanding how athletes utilize the
evaluative information that is available to them may aid those who are
interested in athletic performance.
Limitations
A
number of limitations of the present study should be noted. The first limitation is that this is a
cross sectional study and we cannot make any assumptions about the direction
of causality between self evaluation strategies and athletic performance. It may be that athletic performance influences
the kind of information selected for self evaluation, or that reliance on
some types of self evaluative information leads to better performance. Longitudinal
studies are required to shed light on the direction of causal relationships.
A second important limitation concerns the fact that entire teams were sampled,
with some teammates having the same coach.
This non independence of data may have inflated some of the relationships
between performance due to artificially low variance. However, athletes did complete the questionnaires
independently and did not appear to be overtly influenced by one another in
their performance ratings. While
we cannot be absolutely sure to what extent this problem may have impacted
the data, the fact that coach , peer , and athlete's ratings were correlated
may also reflect the fact that they were measuring the same thing and not
only due to non independence of data. Inspection of the correlations among the six performance ratings
were moderate. For example, the
correlations between coaches', teammates' and athletes' ratings ranged
between .13 to .84, with an average of .45.
The highest correlations were the inter correlations between the two
performance items (coaches: .46, teammates: .84, self: .74). When these correlations are not considered, the average correlation
drops to .39. These moderate
relationships, combined with a high coefficient alpha, can be taken as evidence
of both independence and reliability. A third limitation concerns the assessment of athletic performance.
Although the present study assessed the athlete's, teammates, and coach's
ratings of performance, other objective indices of athletic success
would be a stronger test of the impact of self evaluative strategies on athletic
performance. A fourth limitation concerns the nature
of the sports in which the athletes participated. Past research has indicated that athletes of team and individual
sports differ on a number of personality characteristics (Vallerand, Deshaies,
& Cuerrier, 1997). Although
nearly all of the athletes were from individual sports, future investigations
might benefit from focusing on athletes from a specific sport.
A fifth limitation concerns the method used to assess self evaluative
information use. While self report methodologies are common
in self evaluation research, future research might examine self evaluative
processes utilizing a diary methodology. For example, some of the kinds of information that our respondents
said that they did not think were that important (e.g., lateral or downward
social comparison information) were actually significantly associated with
athletic performance. It may
be that, in retrospect, athletes are not that aware of the extent to which
they use information.
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Conclusion
Athletes,
like other individuals, are often unaware of the kinds of self evaluative
information they use or the impact of such strategies on affect, cognition, and
behavior. Understanding these
issues may help athletes and the individuals that work with them enhance their
performance and understand how they utilize the great amount of information
available to them in the athletic domain. Applying the study of self evaluation processes to the
athletic domain and examining the utilization of self evaluative information in
the context of a specific outcome (e.g., performance) also adds support for the
real world applicability of self evaluation research.
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[97]
AUTHOR
BIOGRAPHIES
John
Gotwals is a Ph.D. student at the Univeristy of Alberta in sport psychology,
whose research interests include perfectionism, self esteem, and measurement
issues in psychological assessment.
Jgotwals@ualberta.ca.
Heidi
A. Wayment, Ph.D. is an associate professor of social psychology at Northern
Arizona University, whose research interests include self evaluation processes,
identity and health, and coping with loss. Heidi.Wayment@nau.edu.
[97]
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[98]
APPENDIX
A. ATHLETIC SELF EVALUATION QUESTIONNAIRE
The
following statements describe various ways in which people evaluate their
athletic selves. For each of the
statements below, indicate the extent to which you generally do each of the
following things to evaluate your athletic self using the following scale 1= Not at all true for me, 7=
Very true for me.
In
order to evaluate my athletic self, I …..
Objective Information
1.
Think about objective indicators of my athletic ability (e.g., speed, agility,
vertical leap).
12.
Evaluate my athletic self by examining statistics that characterize my
performance.
23.
Think about objective information concerning my athletic performance.
Feedback
1.
Think about what coaches have told me about my athletic performance.
16. Think about what my teammates have told
me about my athletic performance.
24/
Remember what others have told me about my athletic strengths and weaknesses.
Personal
Standards
2.
Think about the athletic standards I have set for myself.
14.
Reflect on my own standards about how I should be doing in my sport.
25.
Compare my athletic self with my own personal standards about how I should be
doing in my sport.
Positive
Information from the Past
3.
Reflect on my past athletic accomplishments.
17.
Compare my current athletic performance with examples of when I performed well
in the past.
26.
Think about times in the past when I did well in my sport.
Negative
Information from the Past
4.
Compare my current athletic performance with examples of how I didn't perform
well in the past.
18. Think about times in the past when I
was not doing well in my sport.
27.
Reflect on my past athletic mistakes.
Hoped
For Future Selves
5.
Think about how I would like to be performing athletically in the future.
19.
Envision myself performing at my very best.
28.
Compare my current athletic performance with an image of the kind of
performance that I would really like to give.
Feared
Selves
6.
Compare my current athletic performance with an image of me performing poorly.
20.
Think about performing poorly in the future.
29.
Envision my "worst fears" about the kind of athletic performance I
might give.
Upward
Social Comparisons
7.
Learn from the experiences of people who are doing better athletically than I
am.
13.
Observe athletes who are performing well in my sport
30.
Compare myself with other athletes who seem to be doing very well athletically.
Lateral
Social Comparisons
8.
Observe athletes who are performing about as well as I am.
21.
Observe other athletes who are of comparable athletic standing.
31.
Learn from the experiences of athletes wo are on the same level athletically as
I am.
Downward Social Comparison
9.
Compare myself with athletes who are not doing very well athletically.
22.
Learn from the experiences of athletes who are not doing as well in sports as I
am.
32.
Observe teammates who are not performing athletically as well as I am.
Social
Comparison—General
10 Observe how other athletes perform
athletically.
14.
Compare my self with other athletes.
29.
Observe the behavior and actions of other athletes.
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[99]
APPENDIX
B. CORRELATION MATRIX
Correlations
among all of the study variables (N = 102)
|
|
O |
F |
PS |
PP |
PN |
HPS |
FS |
USC |
LSC |
DSC |
SE |
HPW |
SD |
AP |
|
O |
1.00 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
F |
.37 |
1.00 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
PS |
.38 |
.41 |
1.00 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
PP |
.44 |
.54 |
.48 |
1.00 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
PN |
.47 |
.51 |
.39 |
.47 |
1.00 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
HPS |
.31 |
.44 |
.50 |
.45 |
.34 |
1.00 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FS |
. 26 |
.34 |
.06 |
.22 |
.53 |
.14 |
1.00 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
USC |
.25 |
.53 |
.29 |
.36 |
.33 |
.44 |
.25 |
1.00 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LSC |
.33 |
.45 |
.35 |
.34 |
.43 |
.35 |
.30 |
.59 |
1.00 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
DSC |
.28 |
.46 |
.14 |
.37 |
.52 |
.22 |
.49 |
.47 |
.68 |
1.00 |
|
|
|
|
|
SE |
.21 |
.13 |
.20 |
.17 |
.04 |
.24 |
.34 |
.10 |
.08 |
.10 |
1.00 |
|
|
|
|
HP |
.15 |
.02 |
.02 |
.11 |
.13 |
.11 |
.07 |
.02 |
.01 |
.03 |
.01 |
1.00 |
|
|
|
SD |
.10 |
.05 |
.01 |
.01 |
.07 |
.10 |
.11 |
.05 |
.09 |
.06 |
.18 |
.12 |
1.00 |
|
|
AP |
.10 |
.09 |
.04 |
.02 |
.04 |
.04 |
.08 |
.09 |
.08 |
.12 |
.32 |
.08 |
.17 |
1.00 |
Notes:
O = objective information; F = feedback; PS = personal standards; PP = past
positive; PN = past negative; HPS = hoped for possible selves; FS = feared
selves; USC = upward social comparisons; LSC = lateral social comparisons;
DSC = downward social comparisons; SE = self-esteem; HPW = hours practiced
per week; SD = social desirability; AP = athletic performance; Significant
coefficients are in bold. Coefficients.20 or greater (p < .05) .24 or greater (p < .01), .31 or greater (p < .001)
[99]
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[100]
APPENDIX C. RESULTS OF REGRESSION ANALYSIS OF INFORMATION TYPES,
SELF-ESTEEM, SOCIAL DESIRABILITY, AND HOURS PRACTICED ON ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE.
|
Predictor Variable |
DF |
Parameter Estimate (standardized estimate) |
SE |
T |
p value (two-tailed) |
|
Intercept |
1 |
-1.74 (.00) |
2.97 |
-.58 |
.56 |
|
Objective Information |
1 |
.15 (.14) |
.13 |
1.2 |
.23 |
|
Feedback Information |
1 |
-.63 (-.19) |
.43 |
-.48 |
.15 |
|
Personal Standards |
1 |
-.39 (-.11) |
.45 |
-.88 |
.38 |
|
Past Positive |
1 |
.39 (.12) |
.42 |
.96 |
.34 |
|
Past Negative |
1 |
-.23 (-.26) |
.13 |
-1.86 |
.06 |
|
Hoped-for Selves |
1 |
.01 (.01) |
.16 |
.09 |
.93 |
|
Feared Selves |
1 |
-.01 (-.01) |
.11 |
-.11 |
.92 |
|
Upward Social |
1 |
.68 (.20) |
.44 |
1.54 |
.13 |
|
Lateral Social |
1 |
.91 (.27) |
.46 |
1.77 |
.08 |
|
Downward Social |
1 |
.33 (.41) |
.12 |
2.7 |
.01 |
|
Self-Esteem |
1 |
.46 (.24) |
.22 |
2.1 |
.05 |
|
Social Desirability |
1 |
.04 (.13) |
.03 |
1.3 |
.20 |
|
Hours Practiced |
1 |
2.67 (.16) |
1.69 |
1.58 |
.12 |
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