Endorsement and Constructive Criticism of an Innovative Online Reflexive Self-Talk Intervention.

This study prospectively followed the experiences of skilled athletes who were involved in an innovative reflexive self-talk online intervention targeting goal-directed self-talk. Four experienced female athletes between the ages of 20 and 40 years were invited to an initial interview, a 4-week intervention, and two post-intervention interviews. Two applied sport psychologists used an online Socratic questioning approach to encourage their athletes to describe challenging scenarios, think about their use of self-talk and its effectiveness, and explore alternative self-statements that could be used in future situations.

Goal-directed self-talk used to self-regulate in male basketball competitions.

This study examined how goal-directed self-talk may help basketball players to self-regulate in stereotypical competitive situations: seconds before a challenging game, while clearly winning or clearly losing, and at the close of a tight game. Participants were recruited in groups of three to four, until preliminary inspection of the data indicated that data saturation was reached. In the end, 34 basketball players voluntarily took part in individual interviews, writing up to three self-instructions they had used in each of the four competitive situations to self-regulate.