Sport And Exercise Psychology: A Critical Introduction

to elicit effort and commitment from athletes. Presumably, that is why coaches give “pep
talks” at half-time in football matches (see Chapter 3): to remind players what they are
striving for collectively. Third, goals provide incentives that may foster persistence in
athletes, especially if they can measure their progress towards the targets in question. For
example, a weekly fitness chart could be maintained for all members of a squad in order
to encourage them to adhere to prescribed training regimes. According to Burton et al.
(2001), the preceding theoretical mechanisms may explain why goals tend to have
impressive short-term influences on athletic performance. But how do they enhance the
development of new strategies over a longer period of time? This leads us to the fourth
putative mechanism of goal-setting effects. Specifically, goals may work simply because
they help athletes to break large problems into smaller components and then develop
action plans for dealing with these sub-goals. For example, a golfer who wants to achieve
greater accuracy off the tee may go to the driving range to hit a bucket of balls at a
designated target. In so doing, s/he has begun to practise using a problem-solving
approach to the game. Fifth, goals may influence athletic performance indirectly by
boosting athletes’ self-confidence (e.g., “I’m delighted to have achieved that goal—it
restores my faith in my own ability”) as well as their sense of satisfaction (“That win felt
really great”). This latter possibility that goals may influence performance through the
mediation of cognitive factors reminds us of the achievement goal theory that we
mentioned earlier in this chapter. As you may recall, this theory proposes that athletes’
motivational behaviour is influenced by their goal orientation (whether task- or ego-
related) as well as by their perception of their own athletic ability.

Research on goal-setting in sport and exercise psychology: principles,

findings and issues

Goal-setting is not only one of the most widely used performance-enhancement
techniques in sport and exercise psychology but also one of the most extensively
researched. The typical paradigm for such research involves a comparison between the
performance of people who have been instructed to set goals according to certain criteria
(e.g., specific goals) with that of counterparts who have been told simply to “do your
best”. Often, a third sample of participants is used: a control group of people who are
given no advice on goal-setting. Using this paradigm, researchers have sought to explore
the characteristics of goals that make them most effective in sport settings. This topic is
known as “goal attribute” research (Burton and Naylor, 2002).
Based largely on organisational psychology (see Locke and Latham, 1985), various
theoretical principles have been postulated in an effort to guide research on goal-setting
in sport (Weinberg, 2002). First, the more specific the goal, the more likely it is to be
effective. Second, goals are alleged to work best when they are realistic but challenging.
Third, goals should be written down to ensure maximum compliance. Fourth, separate
goals should be established for practice and competition. Finally, progress towards goal
achievement should be evaluated regularly for optimal benefits to occur. Have these
principles been supported? In testing these ideas, the following general findings have
emerged (see comprehensive reviews by Burton et al., 2001; Burton and Naylor, 2002;
Hall and Kerr, 2001; Weinberg, 2002).

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