Social Psychology in Sport Essay Sample

Social Psychology in Sport
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Social Psychology in Sport
Introduction
Social psychology is quite an extensive discipline whose application spans multiple spheres of life. Various social psychology theories are applicable across specific areas of practice, including sports, medicine, law, and politics, amongst others! This paper will focus on sports as an area that social psychology theories and concepts can optimize performance. Motivation, the Social Identity approach, and interactional Approach theories, will be the core areas of focus in this article. Coaching, exercise, and competing are core phenomena that often feature in sporting events and act as potential areas where social psychology can profoundly impact when well used. Professional sportsmen and women grapple with the daunting tasking of adhering to regular, recommended, and prescribed physical excises. Understanding physical exercise behavioral patterns and sports require an integrated application of information derived from varied sources, including exercise physiology, sports and exercise physiology, body mechanics, and socio-cultural knowledge-based studies.
Social Identity Approach to Sporting Activities
While drawing social identity theory and self-categorization, Rees et al. (2015) observe that social identity underpins sports groups, behavioral patterns, formation and development, support and stress appraisal, and leadership. Social identity theory was advanced to understand the psychology of intergroup relations.
The social identity approach contains social identity theory and self-categorization theory. Social identity as a concept in social psychology has great potential in influencing sports and physical exercise activity. Stevens, Rees, Coffee, et al. (2017) argued that social identity has the potential to advance understanding and enhancement of physical activity behavior. This concept has been used since the 1970s in various contexts, including politics, business and organizations, sport, and health (Stevens, Rees, Coffee, et al.,2017). One critical postulation about the social identity approach revolves around psychology and behavior, which are structured and defined by the group memberships that individuals internalize as part of their sense of self (Stevens, Rees, Coffee, et al.,2017). Social identity theorizing is not merely about external defining features that embody personal behavior, but it also entails shaping and transforming through internalization of an individual sense of self. Thus, self-conceptualization is a circumstance-sensitive phenomenon where self-definition varies as a function of the existing social environment.
The contexts a person’s sense of self implies personal identity that an individual perceives herself or himself as a distinct person. In many group sports, self-definition and identity are reflected as shared membership identity. Social identity embodies people’s sense that they are part of a specific team, squad, or club. The notion of sociality is highly family to sports, and sporting events are often structured by group memberships. Sportsmen and women show tendencies to favor group-based learning, coaching, and playing. Sportspeople find more meaning in group-based, affiliation, or membership-based sports. For instance, long-distance runners feel a sense of solidarity when racing together, and their branded clothing and other apparel denotes a sense of meaningfulness and positivity in their social identity. Under the classical group literature, persons cohere within a group according to members' attractiveness, whether such group members satisfy their needs, similarity to other group members, and whether benefits derived from the group supersedes the costs (Rees et al.,2015). social identity underpins group behavior, formation and development, and support and stress appraisal in sports. These concepts are also applied in leadership, where coaches, team managers, and team captains utilize them to determine sports outcomes.
The two theories, i.e., social identity and self-categorization theories, provide a framework under which individual psychology is matched onto group life in sports or any other field. This technique starts by allowing individuals to define themselves in terms of personal and group members' identity. The social identity approach allows structural change via depersonalization, where individuals perceive their self-identity and can easily transition to ‘group’ identity, for example, as members of a football team.
Perceiving oneself through social identity is linked to increasing meaning and desire to match individuals’ attitudes, values, and principles with those who share in sport squad or teams. Growing scientific evidence shows that physical exercise and training were more regular and effective when there is congruency in various aspects of individual and group identities (Stevens, Rees, Coffee, et al.,2017). Stevens, Rees, Coffee, et al. (2017) demonstrated that people tend to exercise and train more with group members who share particular similarities than those who depict vast dissimilarities. The social identity approach is considered highly beneficial to sporting activity. Social identity reinforces the effectiveness of sporting activity due to its ability to co-create experiences with liminal, flow, and authenticity at individual and group levels (Lee, Brown, G., King& Shipway,2016).
Motivational Psychology in Sports
Motivation is a critical concept that is inalienable from various areas of performance. Motivation is a fundamental psychological variable and ingredient needed to achieve a high level of competition and performance (Khan et al.,2011). Understanding motivation is a great area of interest in sport and exercise psychology—the interest centers primarily on addressing the role of motivation amongst athletes, including enhancing performance. Motivation embodies an internal energy force that determines behavior and impacts how one thinks, feels, and interacts with others. Motivation is the most studied cognitive...