Where is Safeguarding in Sport Psychology Research and Practice?

Recent cases of sexual abuse of athletes have drawn significant concern amongst stakeholders in sport and the public at-large. The fact that the perpetrators in many cases of athlete abuse had numerous victims over the span of several years raises questions of who might have known or suspected that athletes were being harmed. Sexual abuse cases should serve as an impetus for all of us in sport psychology to interrogate our roles and responsibilities as consultants and researchers in the protection of athletes. We propose that future research in applied sport psychology and education of consultants address maltreatment and safeguarding.

Lay Summary: In the following article, we propose that more attention in the research and practice of sport psychology should be devoted to understanding maltreatment of athletes and ways to protect athletes from harm.     

Organizational psychology in elite sport: Its emergence,application and future

ObjectivesThe rapid development of elite sport in Europe and across the world has had far-reaching psychosocial ramifications for those operating within its sphere of influence. Whilst sport psychologists in the latter part of the 20th century largely focused on the cognitive determinates of elite performance, the findings of recent research suggest that sport psychologists in the 21st century will need to better understand the organizational influences on world-class athletes. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to discuss the emergence, application and future of organizational psychology knowledge in elite performance sport.MethodNarrative review and commentary.Results and conclusionThe review discusses the findings of six lines of inquiry that point to the salience of organizational issues in elite sport: i) factors affecting Olympic performance; ii) organizational stress in athletes, coaches and parents; iii) perceptions of roles within sports teams; iv) organizational success factors in sport and business; v) performance environments in elite sport; and vi) organizational citizenship behavior in sport. The commentary then focuses on the theoretical underpinnings and practical implementation of organizational service delivery in elite sport, and concludes by reflecting on how developments in this area have the potential to inform future practice and research relating to the psychology of elite sport.     

Organizational Responses for Preventing and Stopping Sexual Harassment: Effective Deterrents or Continued Endurance?

Survey data from a student population of experienced workers was used to examine perceptions of organizational responses to sexual harassment. Results revealed significant differences in the perceived seriousness of gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion. Moreover, women viewed all three types of harassment as being significantly more serious than men. Terminating perpetrators’ employment, providing a verbal/written reprimand, and mandating an apology were rated as being the most common organizational responses to sexual harassment. A significant positive relationship existed between perceived organizational response severity and effectiveness in combating harassment. Results partially supported the notion that more severe responses are associated with greater effectiveness in communicating organizational intolerance of harassment. Contrary to hypotheses, ratings of organizational response effectiveness and appropriateness were not dependent upon harassment type. Further, organizational responses that involved transferring or reassigning victims were not viewed as less severe punishment for perpetrators than were most responses that involved the perpetrator directly.     

Athletes' and coaches' perceptions of sport psychology services offered by graduate students at one NCAA Division I university

In recent years, there have been increasing calls for graduate programs in sport psychology to include supervised practicum experiences. While supervision and applied experience is vital to the professional growth of graduate students, periodic evaluations are also needed to determine students' effectiveness in providing sport psychology services. This study represented an initial attempt to assess athletes' and coaches' perceptions of services provided by graduate students at one NCAA Division I university. Analyses showed 118 participants' ratings of consultants' effectiveness were comparable to those provided by U.S. Olympic athletes for professional consultants in earlier research by Gould, Murphy, Tammen, and May.     

Dyadic coping in coach-athlete relationships: A grounded theory

ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to make an original contribution to sport psychology literature by offering a substantive grounded theory of dyadic coping in coach-athlete relationships. Specifically, this study aimed to capture the development and manifestation of dyadic coping for coaches and athletes operating in individual sports.DesignUsing constructionist grounded theory methodology as a guide, a theory of dyadic coping was constructed by the authors, 13 coaches, 15 athletes, and five sport and exercise psychology practitioners.MethodTheoretical sampling procedures ensured that data collection was directed by the developing theoretical concepts, rather than a set of predefined criteria. We conducted individual interviews (n = 16) with coaches and athletes, and one 90-min workshop with coaches, athletes, and sport and exercise psychology practitioners. Methodological rigor was enhanced by focusing on credibility, originality, resonance, and usefulness.ResultsThe theory proposes that when coaches and athletes appraise a stressor communicated in their dyad as significant and meaningful, they use dyadic coping to protect themselves and their coach-athlete relationships. This process is moderated by a number of personal (e.g., personality), relationship (e.g., length), and organizational (e.g., leadership behaviors) characteristics.ConclusionThe theory presented here represents a notable shift in thinking away from coping as an individual process and toward coping as an important interpersonal phenomenon. This type of coping can have long-term effects on coaches’ and athletes’ relationship functioning, well-being, and performance.     

When Sport psychology consultants and graduate students are impaired: Ethical and legal issues in training and supervision

Abstract

Impaired sport psychology consultants, that is, professionals and graduate students whose behavior, inadequate training, personal situations, or psychopathology are having a negative influence on the delivery of services, have the potential to do harm to athlete-clients, damage their own professional standing, and bring disrepute to the field. The applied sport psychology literature is replete with guidelines and suggestions for referring athletes for counseling or psychotherapy when appropriate (e.g., Heyman & Andersen, 1998), but the ethical, legal, and procedural problems associated with sport psychology consultants whose training or mental conditions suggest the need for remediation, rehabilitation, or psychotherapy, and possible removal from seeing clients, has not been addressed. We describe a variety of situations where student and professional functioning might be impaired, discuss the possible ramifications (legal, ethical) of impairment, and provide suggestions for ways to proceed when sport psychology consultants are in psychological difficulty.     

Delivery of Psychological Skills Training to Youngsters

The aim of the present study was to explore sport psychologists’ experiences of working with children and adolescents to understand how they have adapted both content and delivery of psychological skills training when consulting with young athletes. Interviews with 12 experienced sport psychology consultants from the United Kingdom were inductively content analyzed. Four main higher order themes relating to content and delivery emerged: consultancy skills, relating to youngsters, delivery medium, and maintaining engagement. The findings imply that psychologists experience challenges unique to youth populations but also have developed content and delivery strategies to overcome these.     

Determinants of judgments of and responses to a complaint of sexual harassment

Judgments concerning a complaint of sexual harassment focused on the perpetrator as a cause of the complaint. However, judgments of the role of the victim's characteristics as a cause of the complaint and responses to the perpetrator were influenced by the victim's feminist orientation, when there was competition between the victim and the perpetrator for a promotion, and when decision makers were male. The findings have practical implications in that they point out factors that may affect how organizational decision makers judge and respond to complaints of sexual harassment.     

Attitudes and perceptions of workers to sexual harassment

The authors investigated how individual factors (age, gender, gender role, past experiences of sexual harassment) and organizational factors (gender ratio, sexual harassment policies, the role of employers) related to workers' attitudes toward and perceptions of sexual harassment. In Study 1, participants were 176 workers from a large, white-collar organization. In Study 2, participants were 75 workers from a smaller, blue-collar organization. Individuals from Study 2 experienced more sexual harassment, were more tolerant of sexual harassment, and perceived less behavior as sexual harassment than did individuals from Study 1. For both samples, organizational and individual factors predicted workers' attitudes toward and experiences of sexual harassment. Individual factors-such as age, gender, gender role, past experiences of sexual harassment, and perceptions of management's tolerance of sexual harassment-predicted attitudes toward sexual harassment. Workers' attitudes, the behavioral context, and the gender of the victim and perpetrator predicted perceptions of sexual harassment. The authors discussed the broader implications of these findings and suggested recommendations for future research.     

Hispanic perspectives on sexual harassment and social support

Bridging the social support, sexual victimization, and cultural psychology literatures, this study examines social-support processes in the context of sexual harassment and Hispanic American culture. Surveys were administered to a community sample of Hispanic American working women, 249 of whom described some encounter with sexual harassment at work. Regression results provided mixed backing for hypotheses about support-seeking behavior, which appeared largely dependent on the social power of the harassment perpetrator. Additional findings upheld predictions about support-perception patterns; harassed women perceived more supportive social reactions when they turned to informal networks of friends and family, but responses were less positive when they turned to formal, organizational sources. Finally, as expected, perceived support and acculturation interacted to moderate relations between sexual harassment and job satisfaction. The article concludes with implications for research and interventions related to social support and sexual harassment.     

The Effect of Attention Allocation Instructions on Self-paced Task Performance under Quiet and Distracted Conditions

This study examined the effectiveness of external and internal focusing attention instructions on the performance of three throwing tasks under both quiet and distracted conditions. The main finding was that during acquisition, the external focus of attention led to improved performance when compared to internal focus of attention and control, but only under quiet conditions. It was also found that during auditory and visual distraction conditions, both types of focus attention produced similar levels of performance, and both groups were superior to the control condition. It is suggested that sport psychology consultants provide their athletes with external focusing attention instructions.     

Workplace harassment from the victim's perspective: a theoretical model and meta-analysis

Although workplace harassment affects the lives of many employees, until recently it has been relatively ignored in the organizational psychology literature. First, the authors introduced an attribution- and reciprocity-based model that explains the link between harassment and its potential causes and consequences. The authors then conducted a meta-analysis to examine the potential antecedents and consequences of workplace harassment. As shown by the meta-analysis, both environmental and individual difference factors potentially contributed to harassment and harassment was negatively related to the well-being of both individual employees and their employing organizations. Furthermore, harassment contributed to the variance in many outcomes, even after controlling for 2 of the most commonly studied occupational stressors, role ambiguity and role conflict.     

When the customer is wrong: A review of research on aggression and sexual harassment in service encounters

Early theory and research on workplace aggression and sexual harassment generally focused on workers as both the source and the target of these behaviors. More recently, however, there has been a recognition that such behaviors are also exhibited by customers. This paper reviews research on customer aggression and sexual harassment in service contexts along the following lines: 1) Antecedents of customer misbehavior as reflected in organizational perceptions (e.g., denial of customer misbehavior, structure of service roles), customer motives (e.g., low level of perceived risk) and role-related risk factors (e.g., dependence on customer, working outside the organization, climate of informality); 2) The effect of customer aggression and sexual harassment on service provider well-being, work-related attitudes and behavior; 3) Coping strategies used by service providers in response to customer aggression and sexual harassment (i.e., problem-solving, escape-avoidance, support-seeking); and 4) A comparison between the main characteristics of aggression and sexual harassment by customers and by insiders.     

Sexualized and Athletic: Viewers’ Attitudes toward Sexualized Performance Images of Female Athletes

Using an experimental methodology, the present study investigated college students’ attitudes toward media images of female athletes. We are particularly focused on how viewers perceive media images of female athletes that have both an appearance and athleticism focus, such as those found in ESPN’s The Body Issue. An aim of our study was to assess viewers’ attitudes toward these images that are not purely objectified, thereby contributing to the objectification literature and providing empirical data relevant to theorizing on the social impact of these images. U.S. college students (n?=?563) viewed one of four types of images of the same athletes including: (a) sexualized athletes, (b) sexualized performance athletes (in which both athleticism and sexualization are present), (c) sport performance athletes (in which athletes are depicted playing their sport), or (d) non-sexualized athletes. They then rated the athletes’ competence, esteem, and sexual appeal. Overall, sexualized performance athletes were rated more positively than sexualized athletes, but less positively than sport performance athletes. These results have implications for advocacy efforts calling for more media coverage in which women are depicted as athletes rather than as sexual objects.

     

Male and Female Athletes' and Nonathletes' Expectations about Sport Psychology Consulting

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore expectations of athletes and nonathletes about sport psychology consulting. Tinsley's (1982) Expectations About Coun-seling-Brief form was revised using sport psychology terms. The revised instrument, Expectations About Sport Psychology Consulting (EASPC) questionnaire, was administered to 111 athletes (64 male and 47 female) and 166 nonathletes (72 male and 94 female) attending an NCAA Division I university. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the data fit the hypothesized 3-factor model (i.e., personal commitment, facilitative conditions, and consultant expertise). A 2 (College Sport Participation) 2 (Gender) MANOVA and follow-up discriminant function analyses revealed that females had higher expectancies of personal commitment than did males whereas males believed that consultants were more directive and more capable of solving problems quickly than did females. No significant differences were obtained between athletes and their peers. The results indicate that the EASPC instrument might be a valuable tool for determining expectations about sport psychology consulting.     

Women Working in the Applied Domain: Examining the Gender Bias in Applied Sport Psychology

Abstract

The field of applied sport psychology has witnessed a large increase in the number of sport psychology consultants working with athletes, coaches, and teams (Waite & Pettit, 1993). However, despite this growth, there exists a distinct gender bias within the applied domain. Applied sport psychology consists of primarily white, middle-class males (Gill, 1994; Gould, Tammen, Murphy, & May, 1989; Lee & Rotella, 1991). The current reality is that the most visible, high-level applied sport psychology positions are occupied by men. The purposes of this paper are to examine the gender bias embedded within applied sport psychology, present several explanations for the marginalization of women within the field, critically examine previous suggestions provided, and introduce possible recommendations for increasing gender equity within applied sport psychology.     

The effects of self-compassion on daily emotion regulation and performance rebound among college athletes: Comparisons with confidence,grit, and hope

Self-compassion (SC) facilitates healthy responses to stressful events among athletes. Existing findings are predominantly retrospective, however, and questions remain about the role of SC in college athletes’ daily emotion regulation and sport performance. Sixty-seven college athletes completed daily diaries for 14 consecutive days during their competitive seasons. We tested whether SC predicted 1) emotion regulation strategy use and effectiveness following negative events and 2) sport performance rebound following subjectively poor performances the previous day. We also compared the effects of SC with grit, sport-specific hope, and sport-related self-confidence, each in separate models. Results showed that SC and sport-specific hope predicted greater use of cognitive reappraisal in response to negative events. Interestingly, social support seeking was associated with higher negative emotions on average. However, higher levels of SC, grit, and sport-specific hope (but not sport self-confidence) mitigated this association. When athletes’ subjective performance during practice fell 1 SD below their two-week mean, SC, grit, and sport-specific hope predicted improved subjective performance during the next day’s practice by 7.8–10.9%. Sport confidence had no effect, suggesting that coaches and sport psychology consultants might consider shifting their focus toward cultivating SC instead.