| The general purpose of this dissertation was to describe athletes' sport related self-talk. To this end, one qualitative and three quantitative studies were conducted.; In Study 1, the four Ws (i.e., where, when, what, and why) of the use of self-talk were examined. Varsity athletes (78 male, 72 female), with a mean age of 20.68 years (SD = 1.90) read a self-statement oriented definition of self-talk, and then answered the four questions in an open-ended format. Inductive data analysis revealed that athletes reported using self-talk most frequently whilst partaking in their sports (when), at sports related venues (where). The "what" or content of self-talk use was categorized into the major themes of nature, structure, person, and task instructions. With regards to why athletes use self-talk, two main themes emerged from the data; cognitive (instructional) and motivational. It was possible to further classify the two themes into seemingly specific and general levels, similar to Paivio's (1985) classification of athletes' use of mental imagery. Results of the present study provided descriptive data for the development of a conceptual framework for the use of self-talk.; Study 2 was comprised of two parts. Part 1's purposes were (a) to generate quantitative data on the content of athletes' self-talk and (b) to examine differences in the use of self-talk in general, as well as the functions of self-talk in practice and competition settings. Self-talk differences between sexes, sport type and skill levels were also assessed.; The general purpose of Study 3 was to examine how athletes use self-talk. To this end, two more specific purposes were advanced: (a) to assess whether the use of self-talk was stable throughout the season, and (b) whether athletes of different sex, sport type, and skill level differed in how they utilized self-talk. Overall, individual sport and skilled athletes used self-talk more frequently than their team sport and less skilled counterparts. Possible explanations and limitations to the study were presented and discussed.; Study 4 had two major purposes: (a) to examine the Self-talk Use Questionnaire's (STUQ; Hardy et al., 2004) test-retest stability and (b) to examine the instrument's general internal consistency. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
