Sports and physical activity psychology is a branch of psychology. It studies our psychological processes and our behavior during sports activities. This applied science seeks to understand and optimize the internal conditions of the athlete.
Through the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity, we try to achieve the expression of the physical, technical, and tactical potential acquired in the preparation process. Thus, researchers study the different psychological processes that are influencing the behavior of athletes.
These processes refer to concepts such as motivation, emotional processes, and their influence on the performance of athletes. Different aspects related to the intervention of psychology in performance, initiation, and health sports are also studied.
In this way, the sports psychologist helps the competitor to control stress. Stress produces emotional and behavioral disorganization that can affect performance.
It was in 1995, with the appearance of Goleman’s work Emotional Intelligence, that the study of emotional intelligence began and expanded in different media, both scientific and non-scientific. From then on, there was an increase in social and scientific interest in emotional processes. However, it did not appear in the sports context until 2001, when the first studies began to appear. Thus, it was in 2009 that these studies began more importantly.
What do we mean by emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is another way of understanding intelligence. With it, we go beyond cognitive aspects, such as memory and problem-solving ability.
The concept of emotional intelligence is, above all, our ability to effectively address others and ourselves. But, not only that, it also involves connecting with our emotions, managing them, motivating ourselves, curbing certain impulses, overcoming frustrations… Daniel Goleman, the guru of emotional intelligence, explains that within his approach to it four basic dimensions underpin it:
- The first is self-awareness. It refers to our ability to understand what we feel and to always be connected to our values, to our essence.
- The second aspect is self-motivation and our ability to orient ourselves toward our goals, recover from setbacks, to manage stress.
- The third dimension has to do with social awareness and empathy.
- The fourth link is undoubtedly the philosopher’s stone of Emotional Intelligence: our ability to relate, to communicate, to reach agreements, to connect positively and respectfully with others.
Emotional intelligence in sport
In sports, the demands and requirements of competition are ever greater, and differences are increasingly marked by factors that are not directly derived from physical training itself, such as nutrition or psychology. Thus, sports psychology is responsible for analyzing, studying, and observing the behaviors, reactions, and emotional responses of the individual or team.
To do this, you must positively “control” your emotions or redirect them so that they do not negatively influence your sporting gesture. And why emotional intelligence? Because in sports you have to make quick and appropriate decisions.
Emotional intelligence is of great interest to the sports community. Intrapersonal and interpersonal elements have a direct application. Self-knowledge, self-regulation of emotions, self-motivation, social skills, and empathy are tools that every athlete has to a greater or lesser extent.
Many relaxation, concentration, visualization, etc. techniques are shared. More and more clubs, federations, and coaches are hiring professionals to implement these techniques. In this way, they aim to improve the performance of athletes.
Many of the tools that emotional intelligence and sports share have one main characteristic. This characteristic is that they are extremely practical, especially when applied to daily life.
Emotional intelligence in sport is a very interesting area that produces numerous benefits.
The importance of exercising control over emotions
The importance of an athlete being able to exercise control over his or her emotions about sports practice is evidenced in various studies. Hanin and Sirja (1995) found that emotions about sports success present individual optimal zones.
However, this is not the case at a group level. Each athlete reacts differently to stress, requiring a certain degree of negative or positive emotions to achieve optimal performance in a game situation.
The study of emotional intelligence and sport, however, has been scarce. This is striking if we take into account the importance that this process has in other areas, such as education or at the work level in other professions. However, what the few, but growing, studies on the subject tell us is that emotional intelligence is very important for performance.
Benefits of emotional intelligence in sport
Emotional intelligence in sports can lead to fewer sports withdrawals, increased sporting performance, and fewer dropouts. On the other hand, emotional intelligence is a construct closely related to personality that acts as a determining factor when the athlete finds themselves in pressure situations.
In these pressure situations, athletes have to make decisions in tenths of a second, which generates high levels of stress. Therefore, it is necessary for any athlete, especially elite athletes, to be trained at this level. In addition, the benefits of emotional intelligence in sports can be summarized as follows:
- On an emotional level. It improves goal orientation, competitiveness, identification of sporting and personal values, self-esteem, teamwork, leadership, empathy, and control of negative reactions and emotions, among others.
- Physical level. It helps you to know how to organize yourself, not to become obsessed with sports, to have moments of rest, to manage your time better, and to create adequate eating habits.
- On a social level. It improves the relationship with the team, coaches, trainers, physiotherapists, etc.
- On a national level. It helps you learn how the game works, and the technical and tactical aspects.
As we can see, the benefits of emotional intelligence in sports are extensive, although the body of research supporting them is still not very dense. However, this number is increasing and, as we say, in sports, a world where a second or a few centimeters can separate the winner from the loser, small-big factors, such as emotional intelligence, are of great importance.