Achievement psychology
The performance psychology (Engl. Performance Psychology) brings together insights from different disciplines of psychology. Its subject is the description and explanation of causes, mechanisms of action and conditions that promote excellent performance in different fields of application. The research interest is to identify, describe and empirically test generalizable factors in order to develop methods and framework conditions that contribute to an optimal expression of excellent performance.
history
Performance psychology has its roots in approaches from psychotechnology, expertise research and sports psychology.
Industrial psychotechnics emerged in the 1930s. Walther Moede , among others, wanted to use this method to define empirically proven terms and models for working capacity, thinking and memory performance of people at work - for example in production companies. To do this, he broken down manual or intellectual work into individual steps in order to be able to assign these to an evaluation system with regard to the performance of groups, the individual and individual development. The attempt was made to work out generally applicable laws that are applicable to all individuals and also enable individual-specific implementations. Other representatives and co-founders of psychotechnology were Karl Mierke , William Stern and Hugo Münsterberg .
Only a few years later (1938–1943) Adriaanus de Groot laid the foundation for today's expert research with his work on the memory performance of chess players. Their findings make a significant contribution to achievement psychology today.
Expertise research examines the cognitive conditions and causes of outstanding human performance. The examination of outstanding memory performance brought to light insights such as a. can be described in the Skilled Memory Theory . It says that even average people can significantly increase the limits of their cognitive working memory with the help of an elaborate knowledge structure.
About a decade later, the initial focus on purely knowledge-psychological mechanisms was expanded to include the investigation of physiological and anatomical components in different domains through the Expert Performance Approach. With the help of this descriptive and inductive framework concept, the investigation of the acquisition and structure of human excellence reached a further milestone. a. the Deliberate Practice approach emerged. This approach confronted many assumptions about high-performance genesis that had been widespread up to that point by showing that human excellence is the result of long-term, highly structured and goal-oriented training and learning processes and is less influenced by dispositions and talent than initially assumed.
From the very beginning, sport played a special role in the investigation of high performance. Due to the different but usually clearly defined requirement profile of the sports and the structured competitive sports system, this offers an ideal field of application for researching top performance.
The origins of sport psychology were already shaped by topics such as aptitude selection, performance assessment and the effects of sport on mental performance. The focus was on maximizing performance and the application focus. RW Schulte - co-founder of sports psychology - already resorted to psychotechnical procedures in the spirit of the efforts to rationalize work in the 1930s to quantify athletic performance using equipment. With the “crisis of psychotechnology” and the accusation of reducing people to a kind of apparatus and, for example, negating cultural aspects of performance, these efforts in sport came to an abrupt end.
An explicit focus on expert or top performance took place in parts of sports science research from around the 1970s. The dominant topics of the first decades were predominantly psychological - cognitive in nature and dealt with the anticipation or visual perception of top athletes compared to novices.
The 1990s were characterized by the expert performance approach. In particular, the Deliberate Practice Model was developed during this time and has not been examined as frequently in any other domain as in sport. Amazingly, there were hardly any studies that analyzed the practical elements of conscious and goal-oriented training more precisely and made them available for the development of top performance. However, the evidence provided that expertise always requires a lot of exercise does not allow the reverse conclusion that a high amount of exercise always leads to the top. For example, the concept neglects the phenomenon of dropouts in sport, i.e. those athletes who, despite intensive practice and good performance, do not reach the top and give up their sport prematurely. Obviously, criteria also play an important role, such as those relating to personal motivation and effort of will or the social environment.
The individual research strands of expertise research, sport and performance psychology have many overlaps in their history. Expertise research was originally more concerned with the acquisition of expertise. For a long time, the focus was on cognitive dimensions as well as the aspects of talent and talent, which also explains the influence of intelligence and gifted research. Achievement psychology supplements these aspects with the conditions for the practical accessibility and applicability of top performance and focuses increasingly on mental will and motivational factors as well as increasingly on influences of the social environment. The methods of mental training developed in sports psychology are examples of this.
Institutionalization and dissemination of achievement psychology
For a number of years there has been an increased institutionalization of performance psychology and various teaching institutes and research facilities have been founded for this purpose worldwide:
- Chair for performance psychology at the German Sport University Cologne
- University of Edinburgh : Performance Psychology
- Center for Performance Psychology San Diego
There are also an increasing number of "peer reviewed" journals that deal in parts or exclusively with performance psychology topics:
- Journal of Performance Psychology
- Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology
- Journal of Applied Sport Psychology
Some companies are also beginning to transfer the findings of performance psychology to other domains, especially with recourse to methods and experiences from top-class sport. In sports psychology, for example, a wealth of specialist articles and scientific studies have been published on this topic that deal with the transfer of knowledge and methods from sport to business:
- Lane 4 Management Consultancy: Graham Jones
- The Winning Mind: Marc-Simon Sagal
- PWS Wollsching-Strobel Management Consulting: Peter Wollsching-Strobel
Definition and fields of work
Achievement psychology is an application-oriented science. Its subject is the description and explanation of causes, mechanisms of action and conditions that promote excellent performance in different professions or fields of activity such as sport, business, the military and the performing arts. The research interest is to identify generalizable factors and to test them empirically in order to develop methods that contribute to an optimal expression of the factors so that people (individuals and groups) can systematically improve their performance and achieve top performance.
Performance psychology is interdisciplinary. Accordingly, it draws on a wide range of scientific approaches and theories. It is based on findings from expert research, sports psychology , work and organizational psychology and coaching .
Individual performance promotion takes place through the optimal use of one's own strengths and resources, the optimization of living conditions and the environment, the orientation towards virtues (e.g. diligence) and solutions as well as the development of coping strategies and positive attributes (e.g. optimism). To do this, performance psychologists identify a person's strengths and examine how these skills can be optimally used against the background of the challenges ahead in order to effectively achieve excellent performance.
The training of mental skills ( mental training ) is an important instrument. Performance psychologists use approaches and methods from motivation and volition psychology , expectations of self-efficacy , goal-setting theory , self-regulation and self-motivation , attention control or imagination.
"Performance psychology is working with the brain to overcome obstacles of performance." Ahern 2008
From the point of view of performance psychologists, performance excellence is not only the result of genetic dispositions, cognitive skills and goal-oriented practice, but also depends crucially on mental self-control skills, self-management skills and the associated learning processes. A large part of personal high-performance competence therefore consists of developing and optimizing self-control skills in order to continuously improve one's own competencies in systematic learning processes.
Achievement psychology supports people in every profession in which high performance is expected. These people already have excellent skills in their skills and they are measured by their excellence. This means that their talents and skills must be used optimally at a certain point in time (“peak performance just in time”).
The aim of performance psychology is to turn good performance into excellent performance. In other words, in an already exhausted range of performance options, methods are used that enable the performance spectrum to be expanded upwards.
It therefore does not deal with aspects that go hand in hand with a deficit-oriented or healing perspective, such as clinical psychology or psychopathology do.
"I see the role of a performance psychologist as helping to move a client from 0 to +5 on a performance scale rather than from -5 to 0. However, performance is in the eyes of the client and I start by identifying their perspective of performance, which could range from winning the World Cup to getting out of bed in the morning. " Terry 2008
Cross-divisional performance factors
One of the research interests of performance psychology is to identify, describe and empirically test generalizable factors for the development of excellent performance in order to develop methods and framework conditions that contribute to an optimal expression of these factors.
Expertise and talent research has produced a large number of models for this. Although many findings often indicate that the factors are area-specific, there are also superordinate factors that are effective across all areas in the genesis of top performance.
A model of generalizable performance factors is u. a. the Munich gifted model. This differentiates between the four variable areas of talent factors (e.g. social competence), performance areas (e.g. sport, technology), non-cognitive personality traits (e.g. achievement motivation) and environmental characteristics (e.g. family climate) that play a role in the development and encouragement of children . However, this is also criticized for being inadequate in the empirical examination of the performance factors or not sufficiently integrating the performance process.
A current, more application-oriented model is the heuristic factor model of peak performance. As a result of empirical studies that deal with generalizable performance factors from the point of view of top performers from top-class sport and the management of commercial enterprises, the model presents the following factors as decisive for the development of excellent performance: The model focuses on performance-related personal and social factors with a clear reference to influencing by self-regulation. The intrapersonal area, consisting of personal competence and performance, motivational and volitional conditions, and self-management play a major role. In addition, interpersonal relationship constellations are presented as further important and also controllable components. Basic psychophysical requirements, given environmental conditions and factors such as luck or chance are also named. However, due to their reduced ability to be influenced, these are hardly controllable.
Heuristic factor model of peak performance
| Performance factors | description | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Can be influenced by self-control techniques | Intrapersonal | Personal competence and performance: Selection and targeted development of those skills and abilities that enable top performance | |
| talent | Exploring, promoting and maintaining talent and talent at an early stage. Talent alone is not enough. | ||
| Professional home | Personal orientation process, analysis of potential fields of action, matching individual skills with requirements for performance excellence in the field of action | ||
| Learn, practice, train | Performance building with longer-term perspective; high learning competence is a prerequisite, permanent and targeted work on yourself, deliberate practice | ||
| Motivational and volitional conditions: exploration and control of the drive to act, will, goal setting, visionary thoughts, attitudes and sensations | |||
| Will (volition) | Persistence, tenacity, goal orientation, volitional self-control processes | ||
| motivation | Motives, vision, goals, meaning, attitudes, emotions | ||
| Self-management: processes of self-reflection and self-control as a driver of personal development and increased performance | |||
| Self management | Reflection and control of all performance factors, development of internal and external self-management strategies | ||
| Interpersonal | Interpersonal relationship constellations | ||
| social network | Reflect on and control social context conditions at an early stage: build an individual competence team, select the right trainer / coach, use social network for important contacts, find support, acceptance and your own roots in the family of origin | ||
| Little influenceable | Environmental conditions |
|
|
| basic psychophysical requirements | Physical integrity, psychological ability to act | ||
| unforeseeable factors | Luck, chance, fate etc. | ||
literature
- Ahern, A. (2008). Fire or Re-Wire? Leadership Excellence, 25, 16.
- Bandura, A. (1998). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman.
- Chase, WG, & Ericsson, KA (1981). Skilled memory. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. De Groot, AD (1965). Thout and choice in chess. The Hague: Mouton.
- Ericson, KA, Krampe, RT, & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance. Psychological Review, 100, 36-406.
- Ericsson, KA, & Smith, J. (1991). Toward a general theory of expertise: Prospects and limits. New York: Cambridge University Press. Fletcher, D. (2010). Applying Sport Psychology in Business: A Narrative Commentary and Bibliography. 2010, 1.
- Gordon, S. (2007). Sport and business Coaching: Perspective of a sport psychologist. Australian Psychologists, 42.
- Hagemann, N., Tietjens, M., & Strauss, B. (2007). Expertise research in sport. In N. Hagemann, M. Tietjens & B. Strauss (eds.), Psychology of top athletic performance (pp. 7–16). Göttingen: Hogrefe.
- Hansel, F. (2008). Psychological factors of excellent performance in sport and business - expert knowledge and veridicality. In A. Woll, W. Klöckner, M. Reichmann & M. Schlag (eds.), Shaping Sports Game Cultures Successfully (pp. 13–23). Hamburg: Czwalina.
- Hansel, F., Baumgärtner, SD, Kornmann, J., & Ennigkeit, F. (eds.). (2016). Sports psychology. Berlin: Springer.
- Hays, KF (2006). Being fit: The Ethics of Practice Diversification in Performance Psychology. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 37, 223-232.
- Hays, KF, & Brown, CH (2004). You're On: Consulting for Peak Performance. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association (APA).
- Heckhausen, J., & Heckhausen, H. (Eds.). (2006). Motivation and Action (3rd edition). Heidelberg: Springer.
- Hodges, NJ, Starkes, JL, & MacMahon, C. (2006). Expert Performance in Sport: A Cognitive Perspective. In KA Ericsson, N. Charness, PJ Feltovich & RR Hoffman (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (pp. 471-488). Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press.
- Ievleva, L., & Terry, PC (2008). Middle sport psychology to business. International Coaching Psychology Review, 3, 6-16.
- Jones, G., & Spooner, K. (2006). Coaching high achievers. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, Vol. 58.
- Krüger, M. (2009). German sport on the way to the modern age: Carl Diem and his time. Berlin: LIT.
- Kuhl, J., & Heckhausen, H. (eds.). (1996). Motivation, volition and action. Göttingen: Hogrefe.
- Locke, EA, & Latham, GP (1990). A theory of goalsetting and task performance. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
- Loehr, J., & Schwartz, T. (2001). The making of a corporate athlete. Harvard Business Review, 79, 120-128.
- Moede, W. (1927). The guidelines of achievement psychology. Industrial Psychotechnics, 4, 193-209.
- Nideffer, RM, & Sagal, M.-S. (2006). Concentration and Attention Control Training. In JM Williams (ed.), Applied Sport Psychology: Personal Growth to Peak Performance (pp. 382-403). New York: McGraw-Hill.
- Nitsch, J., Gabler, H., & Singer, R. (2000). Sports psychology - an overview. In H. Gabler, J. Nitsch & R. Singer (eds.), Introduction to Sport Psychology: Part 1: Basic Topics (3rd discussed & revised ed., Pp. 11–42). Schorndorf: Hofmann.
- Nitsch, JR, & Udris, I. (1976). Stress in sport. Contributions to the psychological analysis of athletic performance. Bad Homburg: Limpert.
- Platz, J., Raphael, L., & Rosenberger, R. (2002). Application-oriented industrial psychology and aptitude diagnostics: continuities and reorientations (1930 - 1960). In R. vom Bruch & B. Kaderas (eds.), Sciences and Science Policy: Inventories of Formations, Breaks and Continuities in Germany in the 20th Century (pp. 291–309). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
- Terry, PC (2008). Performance psychology: Being the best, the best you can be, or just a little better? InPsych, 30, 8-11.
- Vealey, RS, & Greenleaf, CA (2006). Seeing is Believing: Understanding and Using Imagery in Sport. In JM Williams (ed.), Applied Sport Psychology: Personal Growth to Peak Performance (5th ed., Pp. 306-348). New York: McGraw-Hill.
- Weinberg, R., McDermott, M. (2002). A Comparative Analysis of Sport and Business Organizations: Factors Perceived Critical for Organizational Success. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology.
- Wollsching-Strobel, P. (2009). The performance formula. Shaping and maintaining top performance. Wiesbaden: Gabler Verlag / GWV Fachverlage GmbH.
- Wollsching-Strobel, U. (2014). Self-management and excellent performance. A comparison of athletes and managers. Weinheim: Beltz Juventa.
- Ziegler, A. (2018). Giftedness. Munich: UTB.
- Zimmerman, BJ (1990). Self-regulated learning and academic achievement: An overview. Educational Psychologist, 25, 3-17.
Individual evidence
- ↑ see Moede, 1927 .
- ↑ see Platz, Raphael & Rosenberger, 2002 .
- ↑ see De Groot, 1965 .
- ↑ see Chase & Ericsson, 1981 .
- ↑ see Ericsson & Smith, 1991 .
- ↑ see Ericson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993 .
- ↑ see Hagemann, Tietjens, & Strauss, 2007, p. 7 .
- ↑ Jürgen R. Nitsch: Sport Psychology. Essay. In: Spektrum.de . Retrieved July 11, 2019 .
- ↑ see Hänsel, Baumgärtner, Kornmann, & Ennigkeit, 2016 .
- ↑ see J. Nitsch, Gabler, & Singer, 2000 .
- ↑ see JR Nitsch & Udris, 1976, p. 11 .
- ↑ see Krüger, 2009 .
- ↑ see Hodges, Starkes, & MacMahon, 2006, p. 471 .
- ↑ see Hodges, et al., 2006, p. 472 .
- ↑ see Fletcher, 2010 .
- ↑ see Gordon, 2007 .
- ↑ see Ievleva & Terry, 2008 .
- ↑ see Jones & Spooner, 2006 .
- ^ Loehr & Schwartz, 2001 .
- ↑ see Weinberg, 2002 .
- ^ Graham Jones: Lane 4 Management Consultancy ; Marc-Simon Sagal: The Winning Mind ; PWS Wollsching-Strobel Management Consulting
- ↑ see Ahern, 2008 .
- ↑ see Hays, 2006 .
- ↑ see Terry, 2008 .
- ↑ see Ahern, 2008 .
- ↑ see Heckhausen & Heckhausen, 2006 .
- ↑ see Kuhl & Heckhausen, 1996 .
- ↑ see Bandura, 1998 .
- ↑ see Locke & Latham, 1990 .
- ↑ see Zimmerman, 1990 .
- ↑ see Nideffer & Sagal, 2006 .
- ↑ see Vealey & Greenleaf, 2006 .
- ↑ see U. Wollsching-Strobel, 2014 .
- ↑ see Ziegler, 2018 .
- ↑ see Hays & Brown, 2004, p. 19 .
- ↑ see Ericsson, Charness, Feltovich & Hoffman, 2006 .
- ↑ see Hansel, 2008; P. Wollsching-Strobel, 2009 .