Personality profiling of South African rugby union players

This study aimed to investigate whether differences exist in the personality profiles of professional and semi-professional rugby union players. Participants were 73 male rugby players, 52 professional players and 21 semi-professional players. All participants completed the NEO Five-Factor Personality Inventory (NEO-FFI) as part of the WebNeuro Sport online assessment. An independent sample t-test showed a statistically significant difference in neuroticism between the professional and semi-professional players. The magnitude-based inference method confirmed the results of the independent sample t-test with a moderate effect. The potential practical value of these findings is that the Neuroticism scale of the Big Five personality dimensions can be used as a screening tool for indicating which players a team would want to recruit and invest time and money in since these players will most likely be capable of progressing to the top level in their sport.     

Neurobehavioural profile following cumulative mild traumatic brain injury in adolescent rugby players in South Africa

The study investigated the neurobehavioural components of executive dysfunction following sport-related Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (MTBI) in Grade 12 adolescent rugby players over a rugby season. In a non-equivalent quasi-experimental design, a rugby group (n?=?90) were compared with demographically equivalent noncontact sport controls (n?=?59). The Behaviour Rating Inventory of Executive Functions – Self Report (BRIEF-SR) was employed to assess the neurobehavioural component of executive functions. Independent and dependent t-test analyses were conducted to compare the groups at baseline and end-of-season intervals. The overall findings suggest more pronounced deleterious effects on executive functioning from exposure to the concussive and sub-concussive events among the rugby group. High school rugby players experience adverse neurobehavioural effects in executive dysfunction from contact rugby sport injuries.     

Intensity and direction of competitive state anxiety as interpreted by rugby players and rifle shooters

This study reports the findings of part of an ongoing research program examining sports performers' interpretations of competitive anxiety prior to competition. The notion of 'directional perceptions' has questioned the limited utility of examining only the intensity of competitive anxiety responses as has Jones. The purpose of this study was to examine intensity and direction, i.e., interpretation of intensity as facilitative or debilitative, of anxiety symptoms as a function of two types of sport. The types of sport were explosive (rugby league) versus fine motor skills (target rifle shooting). The sample comprised 50 male rugby league participants and 50 target rifle shooters who completed a modified version of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 prior to competition. Contingency analysis yielded a significant difference in the number of rugby players who reported somatic anxiety as facilitative and the number of rifle shooters who reported somatic states as debilitative. No such differences were evident for cognitive anxiety. Analysis of variance indicated no differences between the two groups on the intensity of cognitive and somatic anxiety, but the performers competing in rugby league interpreted both states as being more facilitative to performance; the rugby league players also had higher scores on self-confidence than the shooters. These findings provide continuing support for the measurement of directional perceptions of competitive anxiety and highlight the importance of examining individual sports.     

Retention of Quiet Eye in Older Skilled Basketball Players

There is mounting research to suggest that cognitive and motor expertise is more resistant to age-related decline than more general capacities. The authors investigated the retention of skills in medium-aged skilled (n = 14) and older-aged skilled (n = 7) athletes by comparing them with medium-aged less skilled (n = 15) and older-aged less skilled (n = 15) participants. Participants performed basketball free throws and dart throws as a transfer task under standardized conditions. Motor performance (accuracy) and perceptual performance (quiet eye) were examined across the four groups. There were significant differences between skill groups and age groups in throwing accuracy on both throwing tasks. Skilled players outperformed less skilled and medium-aged players outperformed older-aged players in basketball and dart throws. There were no significant differences in quiet eye duration across the skill or age groups in either task. These results indicate expertise in a perceptual motor task such as the basketball free throw can be retained in older athletes and that present models of skill maintenance should be re-evaluated to consider the issue of transfer.     

A cognitive-behavioural analysis of mental toughness in national rugby league football teams

This study examined the relations between demographic characteristics of rugby players and selected aspects of psychological performance in rugby league football. Mental toughness was assessed using Psychological Performance Inventory and Hardiness on the Personal Views Survey III-R. Participants (N=70) were international rugby league footballers representing four teams (Wales, France, Ireland, England) in the 2000 Rugby League World Cup. Participants completed the questionnaires in training camp. Welsh-nationality players had a significantly higher mean score on two of the hardiness subscales. Hardiness measures displayed the greatest and most frequently statistically significant differences. The findings concur with previous work indicating superior hardiness is related to improved performance in sports.     

Cumulative mild head injury (CMHI) among college rugby players: A replication and extension study

We investigated the prevalence of cumulative mild head injury (CMHI) symptoms among college student rugby players pre- and post-season. The players completed a number of neuropsychological tests known to be sensitive to CMHI effects: vocabulary, working memory, motor coordination, and a self-report Post Concussive Symptomology (PCS) checklist. A total of 18 rugby players registered at a South African university were participants (age range 18 to 24 years, SD?=?2.02 years). Data were analysed utilising Fishers Exact Test comparisons of pre- and post-season mean scores. There was significant variability on mean scores between the rugby forwards and backline players in terms of verbal memory and concept formation, cognitive flexibility, working memory, and visual motor-processing speed. Poorer overall scores from the rugby forwards may also be indicative of depression as they reported more insomnia and anger on the PCS than the backline players.     

Perceived impact of anger and anxiety on sporting performance in rugby players

Objective: The main purpose of the study was to extend the notion of directional perceptions beyond anxiety to anger in order to assess rugby players’ perception of the facilitative or debilitative effects of trait anger symptoms.Design: A cross-sectional study design was employed using normative measures of anger and anxiety.Method: The frequency and direction of symptoms of competitive trait anger were assessed in 197 Italian rugby players together with the intensity and direction of multidimensional trait anxiety.Results: Findings revealed a general tendency of rugby players to experience a moderate frequency of anger symptoms and to interpret their symptoms as facilitative rather than debilitative. Regarding the direction of symptoms, cognitive anxiety was a significant predictor of anger, while self-confidence was a significant predictor of control of anger.Conclusions: Support was provided for assessment of individual's interpretation of anger symptoms.     

Aging and time-sharing aspects of executive control

A particularly important aspect of executive functioning involves the ability to coordinate two simultaneous activities. The role of this aspect of executive functioning in adult-age differences in cognitive performance was examined in a study involving 150 adults between 20 and 91 years of age who performed the same visual-motor tracking task with three different primary tasks. The participants also performed several additional cognitive tasks that allowed examination of the relation of time-sharing efficiency to other types of cognitive functioning The results were consistent with the existence of a distinct time-sharing ability because the time-sharing costs in the three dual-task combinations were significantly correlated with one another but only weakly correlated with other cognitive variables. Increased age was associated with reductions in time-sharing ability, and greater efficiency in performing two tasks at once was associated with better performance on tasks assessing spatial, reasoning, and memory abilities. Although this pattern is what one would expect if executive processes contribute to age differences in cognitive functioning, the effects were smaller than those associated with a perceptual speed construct.     

The role of athletes' pain-related anxiety in pain-related attentional processes

Numerous researchers have highlighted the social determinants of athletes' attitude toward pain, yet little is known about the role of cognitive processes and emotions that are related to pain in sport endeavors. There is evidence, in a dot probe paradigm, that individuals with chronic pain selectively orient their attention toward pain-related stimuli, but no studies have differentiated between the two attentional processes of hypervigilance that are evident in athletes: facilitated detection of threat and difficulty in disengaging attention from threatening stimuli. In the present study using a dot probe paradigm, we examined whether professional rugby players (N=58) with high pain-related anxiety (HPA) would show an attentional bias for pain-related threat, and whether this hypervigilance would reflect difficulty disengaging from threat or facilitated detection of threat. Rugby players with HPA oriented their attention toward pain-related threat with a concomitant difficulty disengaging from threat. Difficulty disengaging from painful stimuli may increase anxiety, and thus be maladaptive in sport. This is the first study to identify pain-related anxiety as a vulnerability marker in athletes' attentional biases.     

How does the manipulation of time pressure during soccer tasks influence physical load and mental fatigue?

This study aimed to analyze whether having more or less time to solve soccer tasks influences physical load and mental fatigue. 48 semi-professional soccer players, from teams in national leagues participated (M_age = 22.4, SD_age = 2.25). They carried out 2 sessions with 4 tasks in each session. In one session, there was more time available; in the other, there was less time available. GPS technology was used to measure physical load, and an adaptation of NASA and Visual Analog Scale to measure mental load and mental fatigue. A related-samples T-test and magnitude based on inference were used to determine the possible effect. Soccer players reported that tasks with less available time were more mentally demanding. Moreover, less available time to solve the tasks significantly increased players’ RPE and decreased their Heart Rate and external physical load. Therefore, the available time significantly affects mental and physical load and mental fatigue.     

Investigating the effects of ego depletion on physical exercise routines of athletes

Objectives

Persisting at a task can temporarily reduce one’s ability to persist at subsequent tasks. This phenomenon is known as “ego depletion”. Although ego depletion has been linked to many cognitive tasks less is known about its effect on physical tasks. Even less is known about its effect on practiced physical performance associated with athletes. In modern sport science, the question as to whether or not ego depletion can reduce athletes’ persistence at practiced behaviour should be particularly important. Two experimental studies investigated if ego depletion can reduce athletes’ persistence at a routine physical exercise.

Design

In both experiments, a repeated measures design was employed.

Method

Competitive rowers (Experiment 1) and competitive hockey and rugby players (Experiment 2) attempted to complete as many press-ups (Experiment 1) or sit-ups (Experiment 2) as possible over two separate phases. In one phase, the participants attempted the physical exercise after completing an easy cognitive task. In the other phase, they attempted the physical exercise after completing a difficult cognitive task.

Results

Experiment 1 demonstrated that the competitive rowers completed fewer press-ups after completing a difficult cognitive task than they did after completing an easy task. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the competitive hockey and rugby players completed fewer sit-ups after completing a difficult cognitive task than they did after completing an easy cognitive task.

Conclusions

These findings indicate that athletes’ exercise routines are susceptible to ego depletion and that the strength model of self-regulation is applicable to athletic performance.     

The influence of perceived parental responsiveness on athletes’ goal accomplishment,trait cognitive sport anxiety,and thriving: A semi-longitudinal study

The purpose of this study was to examine temporally distal influence at a three-month interval of perceived parental responsiveness on athletes’ goal accomplishment, trait cognitive sport anxiety, and thriving. Young players (154 males, 51 females, M = 12.50 years, SD = 0.65) involved in rugby, basketball, and handball participated in the study. Initially, participants set three goals to accomplish over the next three months and completed questionnaires assessing their perceptions of their parents’ responsiveness, perceived self-efficacy, and self-esteem. Three months later, participants completed questionnaires assessing their goal accomplishment, worry about sport performance, and thriving. The results showed that athletes’ perceptions of their mother’s/father’s responsiveness, mediated by perceived athletes’ self-efficacy to accomplish their goals, influenced their goal accomplishment and trait cognitive sport anxiety three months later. The results also showed that athletes’ perceptions of their mother’s/father’s responsiveness, mediated by athletes’ self-esteem, influenced athletes’ thriving and trait cognitive sport anxiety three months later. Overall, the present study uniquely contributes to the understanding of parent-athlete relationships by showing that athletes’ perceptions of their mother’s and father’s responsiveness influence certain distal outcomes three months later (i.e., goal accomplishment, sports anxiety, and thriving) while mediated by self-efficacy and self-esteem.     

Expert performance in SCRABBLE: implications for the study of the structure and acquisition of complex skills

Applied psychologists have long been interested in examining expert performance in complex cognitive domains. In the present article, we report the results from a study of expert cognitive skill in which elements from two historically distinct research paradigms are incorporated -- the individual differences tradition and the expert-performance approach. Forty tournament-rated SCRABBLE players (20 elite, 20 average) and 40 unrated novice players completed a battery of domain-representative laboratory tasks and standardized verbal ability tests. The analyses revealed that elite- and average-level rated players only significantly differed from each other on tasks representative of SCRABBLE performance. Furthermore, domain-relevant practice mediated the effects of SCRABBLE tournament ratings on representative task performance, suggesting that SCRABBLE players can acquire some of the knowledge necessary for success at the highest levels of competition by engaging in activities deliberately designed to maximize adaptation to SCRABBLE-specific task constraints. We discuss the potential importance of our results in the context of continuing efforts to capture and explain superior performance across intellectual domains.     

Entry and exit as embodied career choice in professional sport

The concept of an embodied career draws attention to the individual, corporally, socially, culturally and institutionally located in relationship with work. Career theories have tended to focus on psychological and social variables and measurements that narrow understanding of contexts and agency. It is thus timely to consider a more holistic approach to understanding contemporary careers as embodied processes. The paper works on three levels; first as an empirical illustration of professional sports careers as short-term careers, second as an application of Bourdieu's habitus to understand the relationship between social fields and accounts of career choice and, third in order to draw parallels with the embodied nature of work in a more general sense. Utilising empirical material from a study of elite UK professional rugby players, it is argued that understanding an embodied-career resonates with present concerns regarding career patterns of short-term contracts, which require the individual to be committed, flexible and adaptable, be prepared for exit, and yet remain immersed and dedicated to the current sphere of employment. It is proposed that this kind of immersion requires alternatives to be, temporarily at least, silenced and in this context renders the accrual of bodily capital as fit, but only temporarily fit for purpose.     

Cognition and mood in relation to the performance of squash tasks

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the role of cognition and mood in the performance of squash tasks, with particular reference to attention and self-reported arousal and stress. Volunteer male subjects (n = 40), divided into three ability groups, 'skilled', 'average' and 'novice', were required to perform two squash tasks with different degrees of difficulty. Order of presentation of the tasks was controlled. Results indicated that subjects completing the easier squash task first performed better on the subsequent difficult task than those subjects who completed the more difficult task first. No differences in scores across tasks were found for subjects completing the tasks in reverse order. Performance was related to level of skill. Furthermore, significant differences in attentional style were revealed when average subjects were compared with skilled and novice players. Skilled players were also found to exhibit significantly different personality characteristics from novice players. Specifically, skilled players exhibited higher levels of extraversion and appeared less neurotic. For the average and novice groups, reports of high levels of stress accompanied those of high levels of arousal and these remained constant throughout the experiment. By contrast, for the skilled group low levels of stress accompanied high levels of arousal. The results are discussed in terms of the effects of these cognitive and mood factors on performance and a suggested direction for future research is offered.     

The rise and fall of executive functions in high-level football players

IntroductionExecutive functions are higher-level cognitive functions. Despite being relevant to many aspects of everyday life, it is contentious whether executive functions are important for high performing athletes. Executive functions increase throughout the career of an athlete, yet it remains unknown what are the main contributors. Therefore, this study examined the effect of age and experience on executive functions in a cohort of high performing football players.MethodsData were collected over three seasons, resulting in a mixed longitudinal sample of 1018 observations in 343 male players (1–5 observations/player, age: 10.34–34.72 years; playing experience: 5–22 years) from the U12-Senior age groups of a professional German football club. Players participated in four cognitive tasks aimed at measuring higher-level cognitive functioning: a precued choice reaction-time task, a stop-signal reaction-time task, a sustained attention task, and a multiple-object tracking task, from which a total of eight dependent variables related to response time and/or accuracy were derived.ResultsLinear and non-linear mixed effects regressions were used to investigate the relationship between age, experience and executive functions. A second order polynomial revealed that, generally, a negatively accelerated curve best described the relationship between age, experience and executive functions. An increasingly smaller difference in executive functioning was generally observed between subsequent age groups, with a performance plateau evident around adulthood (~21 years old). Age and experience only explained a very low to moderate proportion of the variance in executive functions (marginal explained variance ranged between 2 and 57%). A significant age by field position interaction effect was only observed for the sustained attention task’s accuracy and response time components (p < 0.001).ConclusionsBoth age and experience showed a negatively accelerated relationship with executive functions in youth football players, and this relationship was generally field position-independent. These negatively accelerated curves seem to reflect those observed in general populations, where a plateau phase in the development of higher-level cognitive functioning is also observed around 21 years, reflecting the maturation of the central nervous system in normally developing individuals. Therefore, this study challenges the assumption surrounding the use and validity of executive functions as a measure of football performance potential in high performing athletes.     

The cognitive functioning of older adult instrumental musicians and non-musicians

This study examined similarities and differences in the cognitive profiles of older adult instrumental musicians and non-musicians. We compared neuropsychological test scores among older adult non-musicians, low-activity musicians (<10 years of lessons), and high-activity musicians (≥10 years of lessons), controlling for self-reported physical and social activity, years of education, and overall health. Significant differences among groups were found on tasks of visual spatial ability, naming, and executive functioning. No significant differences were found on tests of attention/processing speed, or episodic memory. The current study supports late life cognitive benefits of early musical training, but only in select cognitive domains, including language, executive functioning, and visual spatial ability. The results are discussed in the context of cognitive reserve and aging.     

Cognitive Performance and the Role of Control Beliefs in Midlife

Midlife has been touted as being a time of peak performance in many different areas of functioning. In the present study, we investigated whether this was true for cognitive functioning on tasks assessing speed, reasoning, short-term memory, and vocabulary. We also explored the extent to which levels of cognitive functioning could be attributed to individual differences in general control beliefs. Middle-aged adults showed little or no cognitive declines on speed, reasoning, and short-term memory measures relative to the young and outperformed the young on vocabulary. Relative to the elderly, middle-aged adults scored higher on all tasks except vocabulary, for which there were no differences. Adults in midlife, on the other hand, had lower scores on measures of general control beliefs compared to younger adults. Thus, although midlife is a time of high cognitive functioning, it is also a time of lower beliefs about control. To investigate the relationship between control beliefs and cognitive performance, we used structural equation modeling. The models showed that for adults in midlife, control beliefs were predictive of performance but only for the reasoning task after background variables were considered. Specifically, high levels of control beliefs were associated with better cognitive performance. More work is needed to identify mediational processes linking control beliefs and cognitive performance for various age groups and to determine whether some cognitive processes are more controllable than others.     

Neuropsychological impairment as a consequence of football (soccer) play and football heading: A preliminary analysis and report on school students (13–16 years)

Footballers run the risk of incurring mild head injury from a variety of sources, including the intentional use of the head to play the ball, known as heading. This paper presents a preliminary exploratory analysis of data collected to examine whether cumulative incidence of mild head injury, or cumulative heading frequency, are related to neuropsychological functioning in male adolescent footballers. In a quasi-experimental cross-sectional design, neuropsychological test scores of school team footballers were compared with those of similarly aged rugby players and noncontact sport players. Cumulative mild head injury incidence was estimated using self-reports, and cumulative heading was estimated using a combination of observation and self-reports. No participants had sustained a head injury within 3 months of testing. There was no relationship between head injury and neuropsychological performance, and there were no decrements in either the footballers or the rugby players in comparison with the noncontact sport players. Within the footballers, cumulative heading did not predict any of the neuropsychological test scores. These findings indicate the absence of neuropsychological impairment arising due to cumulative mild head injury incidence, or cumulative heading. Although these null findings may be reassuring to players, parents, and football organizers, we stress that they are preliminary. Further data is being collected from the same populations to provide more reliable effect estimates.     

Neuropsychological impairment as a consequence of football (soccer) play and football heading: a preliminary analysis and report on school students (13-16 years).

Footballers run the risk of incurring mild head injury from a variety of sources, including the intentional use of the head to play the ball, known as heading. This paper presents a preliminary exploratory analysis of data collected to examine whether cumulative incidence of mild head injury, or cumulative heading frequency, are related to neuropsychological functioning in male adolescent footballers. In a quasi-experimental cross-sectional design, neuropsychological test scores of school team footballers were compared with those of similarly aged rugby players and noncontact sport players. Cumulative mild head injury incidence was estimated using self-reports, and cumulative heading was estimated using a combination of observation and self-reports. No participants had sustained a head injury within 3 months of testing. There was no relationship between head injury and neuropsychological performance, and there were no decrements in either the footballers or the rugby players in comparison with the noncontact sport players. Within the footballers, cumulative heading did not predict any of the neuropsychological test scores. These findings indicate the absence of neuropsychological impairment arising due to cumulative mild head injury incidence, or cumulative heading. Although these null findings may be reassuring to players, parents, and football organizers, we stress that they are preliminary. Further data is being collected from the same populations to provide more reliable effect estimates.