Differences Between High- and Low-Confident Football Players on Imagery Functions: A Consideration of the Athletes' Perceptions

Abstract

Over the years it has been proven that the use of imagery can be a highly effective performance-enhancement technique in sport and that confidence is the most consistent psychological construct in distinguishing highly successful athletes from less successful ones. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between imagery use and confidence by high- and low-confident athletes. Recent research has suggested and shown that different athletes use the same image for different functions. These studies question the usefulness of the Sport Imagery Questionnaire (SIQ) as it consists of 30 images that comprise 5 functions. In this study, an original and a modified version of the SIQ were used. The modified SIQ took into account that different athletes could use the same image for different functions as it computed the SIQ function scores according to the athletes' perceptions. Seventy-nine male collegiate football players participated. It was found that the imagery–confidence relationship differed according to how the SIQ subscale scores were computed.