Sport confidence

One of the most consistent findings in the peak performance literature is the significant correlation between high levels of confidence and successful sporting performance (Feltz and Lirgg, 2001). Many great athletes attribute successes to a strong sense of self-belief. This is illustrated in the following quote from a British modern pentathlon Olympic medallist: When you're confident on the piste you get your distances much better . . . When you're not confident in what you're doing you tend to be more timid in your movement and the thing with fencing is, once you go for a move you've just got to go for it . . . as soon as you hesitate it's too late, they've hit you. Although most athletes believe that confidence is critical to performance, even the most successful athletes can be vulnerable to wavering levels of belief. Given such anecdotal importance, it is perhaps unsurprising that the study of confidence has figured prominently in the sport psychology research literature. This chapter will explore Vealey and Chase's (2008) revised model of sport confidence. It will focus on the mechanisms through which confidence is proposed to influence performance and discuss the relative stability of confidence. Additionally, there will be a strong emphasis on the application of recent sport confidence research to applied settings, particularly in relation to the sources and types of sport confidence, and the assessment of sport confidence.