The coleman roberts griffith address: Three myths about applied consultancy work

Abstract

Three recommendations that are commonly made in the applied sport psychology literature are discussed. These three recommendations are : 1) cognitive anxiety is always detrimental to performance and should therefore be reduced whenever possible; 2) outcome goals and ego orientations have a detrimental effect on a number performance-related variables. so that performers should be encouraged to set performance rather than outcome goals; 3) internal visual imagery is more beneficial to performance than external visual imagery. so performers should always be encouraged to use visual imagery from an internal perspective. For each of these recommendations. empirical and experiential evidence is presented which challenges the recommendation. Alternative refinements to the recommendations are discussed.