Cognitive Therapy and Research, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1977, pp.

135-141

Psychology of the Elite Athlete: An Exploratory Study

Michael J. Mahoney and Marshall Avener
Pennsylvania State University

Thirteen male gymnasts were given a standard questionnaire and inter-

viewed during the final trials for the U.S. Olympic team. Particular atten-
tion was given to psychological factors and cognitive strategies in their
training and competition. Using their final competitive grouping as the
primary dependent variable, correlations were performed to assess the rela-
tionship between these factors and superior athletic performance. Data
from this exploratory study suggested that varying patterns of cognition
may be strongly correlated with successful and superior gymnastic perfor-
mance. Specifically, dream frequency, self-verbalizations, and certain
forms of mental imagery seemed to differentiate the best gymnasts from
those who failed to make the Olympic team. These two groups also ap-
peared to show different anxiety patterns and different methods of coping
with competitive stress. The implications of these results for sport psychol-
ogy are briefly discussed.

Although coaches and physical educators have long been interested in the
relevance of psychology for their professional tasks, psychologists have
been somewhat slower in their recognition of sports as a legitimate area of
research focus. This discrepancy seems to be rapidly diminishing, however,
and there are now several signs that sports psychology is becoming a very
popular subspecialty (cf. Harris, 1973; Landers, Harris, & Christina, 1975;
Martens, 1975; Morgan, 1972; Smith, 1970; Vanek & Cratty, 1970). As has
been noted by other writers, the interface between psychology and athletic
competition could hardly seem more promising. Not only is sport a major
aspect of contemporary society (Michener, 1976), but the athletes them-
selves have been repeatedly emphasizing the significance of psychology to
their endeavors (e.g., Bannister, 1955). To these must be added the incom-
parable research opportunities afforded by competitive athletics. In a dis-
cipline which spends considerable time laboring over the selection and reli-

135
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136 Mahoney and Avener

ability of dependent variables, the allure of straightforward physical mea-

sures is noteworthy. Speed, distance, and height constitute the primary
assessment criteria in sport and offer substantial improvements over the
precision of popular psychometric indices. One wonders why these two dis-
ciplines have not interacted more extensively in the last few decades. The
significant contributions of recent sport psychologists are, we hope, a sign
of things to come.
The present study was an exploratory attempt to examine some of the
psychological aspects of athletic competitors. Specifically, elite male Ameri-
can gymnasts were interviewed in an effort to determine psychological fac-
tors which might be related to their athletic competence.

METHOD

In accordance with the United States Olympic Committee's guide-

lines, selection of the U.S. men's gymnastics team required a series of quali-
fying meets. At the semifinals (Berkeley, California, May 20-21, 1976), the
top 24 U.S. gymnasts vied for advancement to the Olympic finals. Because
of a tie for 12th place, 13 gymnasts advanced to the final Olympic trials held
at Penn State (June 25-26). That competition was designed to select our
Olympic team--six individuals and one alternate. Forty-eight hours prior to
this final qualifying meet, the 13 gymnasts were given a standardized ques-
tionnaire which inquired about various aspects of their personality, self-
concept, and the strategies they employed in training and competition. 1
Representative items on the questionnaire asked subjects to rate their fre-
quency of gymnastics dreams, to estimate the extent to which they used
mental imagery, and to categorize the kinds of private monologues they ex-
perienced during competition. Most questionnaire items employed an
11-point Likert-type scale. In addition to the questionnaire, subjects were
verbally interviewed at various stages of the competition.

RESULTS

One of the thirteen gymnasts submitted a virtually unscorable ques-

tionnaire and had to be eliminated on this basis. Responses of the other 12
were submitted to point biserial correlational analyses, using final competi-
tive grouping as the dichotomous variable (i.e., Olympic team versus non-

~Copiesof the questionnaireare available from the authors. Although the junior author was
one of the Olympic finalists, his collaborationon this project was not proposed or accepted
until after the data had been collected.
Psychology of the Elite Athlete 137

qualifiers). It was hypothesized that psychological differences between these

two elite groups would probably be less pronounced than differences be-
tween elite and less exceptional gymnasts. Because of this consideration and
the small subject sample, an arbitrary critical significance level was not
employed.5
The final competitive grouping--and therefore the selection of the
Olympic team--was accomplished by summing each individual's score
across 24 separate performances (six compulsory and six optional routines
in both the semifinal and final meets). Scoring on each event was done by
four independent judges sanctioned by the United States Gymnastics Feder-
ation. In accordance with USGF rules, an athlete's score for any given per-
formance was determined by discarding the highest and lowest mark
awarded them and then averaging the remainder. This system yielded an
assessment method which sampled broadly across the six gymnastics events
and the two separate competitive meets.
Correlations between specific questionnaire responses and final com-
petitive grouping are summarized in Table I. Given the relatively small
sample size, the magnitude of some of the correlations is striking. The bet-
ter gymnasts also tended to be more self-confident (r = .57) and reported a
higher frequency of gymnastics dreams (r = .45). Within those dreams, the
better athletes tended to see themselves in the dream performing with a
moderate degree of success (r = .55).
Another interesting trend was for the better gymnasts to think more
about gymnastics in everyday situations (r = .78). They reported "talking
to themselves" extensively during training and competition (r = .62). The
Olympic team qualifiers also reported varying reliance on types of mental
imagery. All the finalists said that they used imagery extensively, but the
better athletes reported a higher frequency of "internal" rather than
"external" images (r = -.51). This distinction refers to the perspective of
the imagery. In external imagery, a person views himself from the perspec-
tive of an external observer (much like in home movies). Internal imagery,
on the other hand, requires an approximation of the real-life phenomenol-
ogy such that the person actually imagines being inside his/her body and ex-
periencing those sensations which might be expected in the actual situation?
It is interesting to note that in prior studies of "mental practice" with

2The small sample size, o f course, increases the power of the reported correlations. For a bidi-
rectional null hypothesis, the critical significance levels are as follows ( N = 12, df = 10):
r i> .50, p < . I0; r >i .58, p < .05; r i> .66, p < .01.
3One simple (and probably crude) test o f internal/external imagery is to have a person close
his/her eyes and draw the face o f a clock on his/her forehead. From the perspective o f the ex-
ternal observer, the clock's hands are drawn at 3 o'clock. When asked to report the time, if the
person says "3 o'clock" he/she is probably an external imager. A "9 o ' c l o c k " response might
reflect a more internal orientation.
138 Mahoney and Avener

Table I. Correlations Between Grouping (Olympic Team vs. Nonqualffiers) and

Specific Responses

Item Correlation
1. Self-confidence .57
2. Hours of training per week .27
3. Structuredness of life-style -.15
4. Frequency of gymnastics dreams .45
5. Identity of dream character -.40
6. Dream focus (practice vs. competition) .25
7. Degree of success in dream .55
8. Temporal character of dream (past/future) -.29
9. Change in dream frequency prior to a meet -.58
10. Dream realism (tragic/perfect) -'.16
11. Anxiety 1 week prior to meet -.35
12. Anxiety 1 day prior to meet .00
13. Anxiety 1 hour prior to meet .49
14. Anxiety in dressing room .54
15. Anxiety while warming up ..19
16. Anxiety while chalking up prior to worst event .08
17. Anxiety while chalking up prior to best event -.06
18. Anxiety while performing worst event -.16
19. Anxiety while performing best event -.42
20. Keeping track of personal standing during meet -.24
21. Feeling "behind" just prior to last event -.45
22. Feeling "ahead" just prior to last event -.42
23. Perceived nearness to own potential .15
24. Frequency of gymnastics thoughts .78
25. Attention given to audience .48
26. Attention given to current move -.52
27. Attention given to past move .44
28. Attention given to next move .42
29. Frequency of thinking about mistakes during performance .12
30. Frequency of imagery use in training and competition .03
31. Difficulty in controlling imagery -.34
32. Imagery perspective (internal/external) -.51
33. Imagery clarity .17
34. Frequency of self-talk in training and competition .62
35. Frequency of instructional self-task .29
36. Frequency of critical self-talk .12
37. Frequency of complimentary self-talk -.04
38. Combined reliance on imagery and self-talk .00
39. Ability to concentrate .00
40. Difficulty in recovering from a break -.36
41. Attribution of failures to injuries -.22
42. Attribution of failures to poor judging .59
43. Attribution of failures to nervous tension .17
44. Attribution of failures to poor preparation -.31
45. Setting standards relative to personal past performance -.30
46. Setting standards relative to peers' performance in meet .26
47. Setting standards relative to perfection .06
48. Frequency of self-doubts about gymnastic ability -.08
49. Preperformance psyching strategy (reassurance/challenge) .11
50. Attribution of success to innate ability .16
51. Attribution of success to training .40
52. Attribution of success to mental attitude -.59
53. Attribution of success to coaching -.26
Psychology of the Elite Athlete 139

athletes researchers have reported that the benefits o f this cognitive rehears-
al strategy may be moderated by the controllability of the image (Corbin,
1972). Some basketball players, for example, have reported that the ball re-
fuses to bounce when they try to practice free throws in imagery. In the
present study there did not appear to be any clear relationship between
imagery control and final competitive grouping (r = - . 3 4 ) .
Attributionally, the better athletes tended to underemphasize the role
of poor judging in their past performance failures (r = .59). Interestingly,
they did not rate mental attitude as a significantly influential factor in their
success (r = - . 5 9 ) . Within an actual performance, it is noteworthy that the
less successful gymnasts tended to focus more of their attention on the move
they were currently executing (r = - . 5 2 ) .
One other factor which seemed to differentiate these highly competent
athletes was their anxiety patterns prior to and during athletic competition.
Although the Yerkes-Dodson law would lead one to predict performance de-
terioration under conditions of high anxiety, that law has not fared well in
its empirical trials--particularly with athletes (Martens, 1972). Research
such as that reported by Epstein and Fenz (1962) suggests that absolute
levels o f anxiety may be less informative than patterns of anxiety change
and the methods used by an athlete to cope with anxiety. Congruent with
the findings o f earlier research on sky-divers (cf. Fenz, 1975), the present in-
vestigation found apparent differences in the reported anxiety patterns of
the successful gymnasts (those who went on to the Montreal Olympics) and
the unsuccessful (those who failed to make the team). Information on these
patterns was obtained via the aforementioned questionnaire, which asked
subjects to rate their typical degree of anxiety at various stages of athletic
competition. As shown in Figure 1, the relatively small differences between

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Fig. 1. Anxiety ratings during competitive
preparation and performance. Performance
gradient key: (1) 1 week prior to meet, (2) 1
day prior to meet, (3) 1 hour prior to meet, - - . . . . • . m

(4) dressing at meet, (5) warming up, (6) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

chalking up before best event, (7) chalking up
before worst event, (8) performing best event, PERFORMANCE
(9) performing worst event. GRADIENT
140 Mahoney and Avener

the two groups prior to competition were in the direction of the better
athletes being more anxious. During the crucial moments of actual perfor-
mance, however, this pattern reversed. It is important to note that neither
group was nonanxious during the competition. Supplementing their subjec-
tive reports of anxiety level, verbal interviews suggested that the more
successful athletes tended to "use" their anxiety as a stimulant to better
performance. The less successful gymnasts seemed to arouse themselves
into near-panic states by self-verbalizations and images which belied self-
doubts and impending tragedies.
In addition to the correlations between questionnaire items and final
gymnastics performance, intercorrelations among response items were ex-
amined. Some of these turned out to be less than startling. For example, the
more a gymnast attributed his success to training, the more hours he spent
in the gym (r = .86). More interestingly, perhaps, was the finding that
amount of training correlated with frequency of gymnastics dreams (r =
.65). Gymnasts who tended to talk to themselves in a coaching, self-instruc-
tional format also tended to be more self-confident (r = .93). Doubts about
one's gymnastic abilities correlated with having more tragic dreams (r =
.91), and those individuals whose dreams were unrealistically perfect
reported greater difficulty in controlling their imagery (r = .81). A rela-
tively relaxed and unstructured life-style (as opposed to a regimented one)
was associated with greater performance anxiety (r = .82).

DISCUSSION

This study was a brief and exploratory attempt to delineate psycho-

logical factors which might be important to athletic performance. Due to its
correlational design and restricted subject sample, no causal or general con-
clusions can be made. The purpose of the study, however, was to identify
candidates for further scrutiny and controlled experimental manipulation.
This function was served and a variety of research-worthy paths were sug-
gested. These paths might be briefly summarized as follows.
First, it would appear that sports-related dreams could offer addi-
tional information on the psychological functioning of the competitive
athlete. The content and frequency of those dreams might provide supple-
mentary information and suggestive guidelines for helping the athlete to
focus on specific problem areas (e.g., self-doubts, tragic imagery, etc.). In
addition, the fantasies of the athlete--both verbal and visual--may serve a
dual-purpose role in athletic counseling and coaching. On the one hand,
they may reflect the athlete's current attitudes and perceptions about him-
self and/or a given performance task. As such, they may serve important
assessment functions. When systematically addressed via structured medita-
Psychology of the Elite Athlete 141

tion exercises (Mahoney, 1974), these cognitive phenomena may also be-
come a means to therapeutic improvement. The athlete can learn, for exam-
ple, to monitor and modify specific performance-related images. Would
training and practice in " i n t e r n a l " imagery improve athletic performance?
This is but one o f the questions suggested by the present data. Finally, the
different styles of coping with anxiety prior to and during competition sug-
gest the possibility that athletes could be trained not to " f i g h t " anxiety but
to capitalize on its energizing correlates in a manner which is conducive to
improved performance. The procedures developed by "cognitive behavior
therapists" may prove particularly helpful in this regard (Mahoney, 1974).
It is worth emphasizing that the present study dealt with a very small
and select sample of athletes in one very restricted sphere of competition.
Whether similar results will be obtained with other samples, more refined
instruments, or different athletic specialties remains to be examined. How-
ever, we now seem to be entering an era which will witness greater intimacy
between the disciplines of sport and psychology. Exploratory efforts such as
the present one will, it is hoped, provide directions and means for furthering
such interchange.

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