Sport and Exercise Psychology: A Critical introduction ... - Routledge

USING IMAGINATION IN SPORT
Critical thinking questions
Sometimes, speculation goes beyond the evidence in sport psychology. To
explain, there is a big difference between speculating about what athletes
could use imagery for and checking on what they actually use it for in sport
situations. For example, few studies have found any evidence that athletes use
imagery to enhance either interpersonal skills or recovery from injury.
Therefore, despite the unqualified enthusiasm which it commonly receives in
applied sport psychology, mental imagery is not a panacea for all ills in sport.
Clearly, it is advisable to adopt a sceptical stance when confronted by claims
about the alleged use of mental imagery by athletes.
How can we test the claims made in Box 5.8? To answer this question, two
main research strategies have been used by sport psychologists: descriptive and
theoretical. Whereas the descriptive approach has tried to establish the incidence of
general imagery use in athletes, the theoretical approach has examined specific
categories of imagery use (e.g., imagery as an aid to motivation and cognition) in
these performers. These two approaches to imagery use can be summarized as
follows.
Using the descriptive approach, special survey instruments have been
designed to assess imagery use in various athletic populations. This approach has
led to some interesting findings. For example, successful athletes appear to use
imagery more frequently than do less successful athletes (Durand-Bush et al., 2001).
We should not be surprised at this discovery because Shane Murphy (1994) reported
that 90 per cent of a sample of athletes at the US Olympic Training Centre claimed to
use imagery regularly. Ungerleider and Golding (1991) found that 85 per cent of
more than 600 prospective Olympic athletes employed imagery techniques while
training for competition. Clearly, imagery is used extensively by expert athletes. By
contrast, Cumming and Hall (2002b) found that recreational sport performers used
imagery less than did more proficient counterparts (namely, provincial and international
athletes) and also rated it as being less valuable than did the latter group. This
trend was apparent even out of season (Cumming and Hall, 2002a). Moreover, as one
might expect, visual and kinaesthetic imagery are more popular than other kinds of
imagery in athletes (C. Hall, 2001).
Although this type of descriptive research provides valuable baseline data on
imagery use among athletes, it does not elucidate the precise tasks or functions for
which athletes employ their visualization skills. To fill this gap, a theoretically
derived conceptual model of imagery use in athletes was required. Craig Hall et al.
(1998) postulated a taxonomy of imagery use in athletes based on Paivio’s (1985)
theory that imagery affects both motivational and cognitive processes. As indicated
in the previous section, this taxonomy of C. Hall et al. (1998) proposed five categories
of imagery use. First, motivational general-mastery involved the imagination of
being mentally tough and focused in a forthcoming competitive situation. Second,
motivational general-arousal involved imagining the feelings of excitement that
accompany an impending competitive performance. Third, motivational specific
was implicated in visualizing the achievement of a goal such as winning a race.
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