Definition and Concept of Psychology in Physical Education and Sports

To understand sports psychology we first need the two words it is built from. The term sport can be described as physical activity carried out for recreation, health, competition and education. The term psychology comes from two Greek words — psyche, meaning soul, and logos, meaning study — so psychology was first understood as the 'study of the soul'.

How the meaning of psychology changed

The idea of psychology did not stay still. Its meaning shifted in clear stages:

• Study of the soul. Greek philosophers treated the soul as the essence of a person that decided how the individual behaved, and studied it as a branch of philosophy.
• Study of the mind. By the late nineteenth century, thinkers began asking how the body is influenced by what is inside it (the mind) and by events outside it (the environment). Psychology came to be explained as the study of the mind.
• Study of behaviour. 'Study of the mind' was eventually rejected, because the mind could not be observed under controlled conditions. J.B. Watson redefined psychology as the study of observable, overt behaviour that can be measured scientifically.
• Study of behaviour and cognitive processes. After the arrival of computers widened research, psychology grew to include memory, reasoning and problem-solving. In the modern sense, psychology is the science of understanding behaviour and cognitive processes.

Three aspects of psychology as a science

Seen as a science, psychology has three important aspects:

1. it is scientific in nature — it follows a reliable, universally accepted approach to acquiring knowledge;
2. it is the study of behaviour — observable actions and reactions;
3. it also studies cognitive processes — mental activities such as memory, reasoning, intelligence and attention.

What sports psychology is

The European Federation of Sports Psychology defines sports psychology as 'the study of the psychological basis, processes and effects of sport'. In other words, sport psychology is an interdisciplinary science that draws on both Kinesiology (the scientific study of movement) and Psychology. It studies how psychological factors affect performance, and how taking part in sport and exercise in turn affects a person's psychological and physical state — and it applies to team games and to individual fitness alike.

It was in 1925 that Coleman Griffith, often called the 'Father of Sports Psychology' in North America, set up the Athletic Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois. Sports psychology thus became a field that uses psychological knowledge and skills to improve the performance and well-being of athletes, to study the developmental and social side of taking part in sport, and to address the wider issues found in sporting settings and organisations.