Grace Freiheit
June 8, 2009
Sports Psychology
Learned Helplessness

Learned helplessness is defined by Webster as: “a mental condition in which one becomes unable to help oneself due to previous failed attempts at controlling one's life.” This condition occurs within sports teams fairly often. In the article written by Mary Walling and Thomas Martinek they say:”One of the main causes of learned helplessness is repeated failure in numerous
achievement situations (Walling, M., & Martinek Para. 2).” Therefore, when a team loses consistently, they can start to lose hope for a win. Once they believe they won’t ever win, they will stop trying hard or even stop trying at all. Therefore, going along with Webster’s definition, learned helplessness happens to teams when they continually fail to see the success in their games that they want, and then they give up the ability to change the outcomes of their games. Learned helplessness is a hard thing to overcome, and as a soccer coach, I have myself had to try to lift a team from that state of mind. As a soccer player, I myself had that mindset at one time and had a coach lift my team out of it. The following are a few things that I have experienced, and done myself, to help with learned helplessness.

First and foremost, whether the team is winning or losing, you must always be encouraging. Always point out the good things that a team does. Of course, you can show them what they did wrong and how to fix those things, but don’t focus on the wrong, focus on the right. In the article by Grove and Buckworth they paraphrase from Rainer Marter and say that “he critizes professionals for pushing kids too far too soon, not reinforcing small improvements, using public punishment, and comparing them unfairly to others (Grove, J., & Buckworth, J Pg. 2). Those “professionals” he is talking there are referring to are contributing to learned helplessness in kids. People need to hear positive things about themselves. Acknowledge the hard work they put into games and practices and acknowledge players individual efforts and successes. Players need to know that they are doing well personally and teams need to know that even if they lost that they did better than the time before. In order to keep spirits high you must encourage the team consistently.

Second, a good way to build morale is by taking time for team building. There are lots of different ways you can do this. My coach had us play silly games, which just barely related to soccer, in order to get us all laughing and talking. Games are also a good way to remind players that they love the game of soccer. Also, team activities outside of practice and games give the team a chance to get to know each other more and have fun with each other. Things such as: bowling, movie nights, decorating soccer balls or making team t-shirts, or even sending the team to watch a semi-pro, pro, or high school soccer game can all help build team moral. When a team is happy with each other, it can also help them be happy with themselves individually and therefore perform better as a team.

Third, I would focus on communication; communication between the players, the players and their parents, myself (as coach) and the players, and myself and the parents. The reason I would look into the communication between parents and players is because parents can put too much pressure on their children and as a coach I need to see which players have problems with that from their parents. For my communication with the parents, I need them to know what’s going on with the team and I need them to stay positive with their players, on and off the field and to also remain positive towards the officials. As a coach I need to lead by example and I would expect that from the parents as well. Also, communication between players is important. No player should rag on another or put them down. Such behavior should not be accepted in or out of practice and games. My coach would not let us say words like can’t. No negative talk allowed. Also, we were not allowed to talk disrespectfully to one another and I would not allow that as a coach. The players would not say things like “shut up” or “you suck” and they would not ever be allowed to yell at another player during game or practice because they thought they weren’t performing correctly. Basically, negativity is not accepted from me, the players, or the parents; doing this will help relieve negative pressure and give room for positive encouragement. If the team is hearing negative things, they will think negatively. If the team hears only positive, they will think positive and have better confidence.

The last step is goals. And I don’t mean scoring them, I mean setting them. If all the aforementioned things are accomplished, the team should be in fairly good spirits and up for some goal setting. I would spend time at practice talking to the players individually and giving them personal goals to accomplish in the games to come. Whether the goal is using your head at least three times, or pulling off a specific move against an opponent, or making a pass with your bad foot, if you achieve a set goal it boosts your confidence. That way, at the end of the game, if you’ve lost, you can point out the goals that were met and encourage your team. I would also meet with the team before the game starts and give them a team goal. It could be anything from completing five passes without the other team getting the ball or stopping them from completing more than five passes in a row. With team goals you will be sure to encourage every player and no one will be left out. Another option would be setting goals for the season, which would also be an effective tool. These goals are all performance goals, not outcome goals. I think that performance goals are more effective than outcome goals. In the article “Aiming to Win” the author’s state that “…athletes are taught that setting outcome goals is not an effective means to improve performance (Filby, Maynard, and Graydon).” They continue to talk about the effectiveness of mixing different kinds of goal setting, but when talking about youth sports, I personally believe it is a good idea to use performance goals only.

Learned helplessness comes from losing enough to give up trying. For some people and some teams that could take only two loses. Therefore, learned helplessness can happen to a team or a person rather easily. However, fixing the adverse effects of learned helplessness can be a very difficult challenge; it could take an entire season to change. But it is a challenge worth taking. The lessons learned during the hard times can change a team, and a person, for the better in the long run. Coaching sports is also about teaching life lessons. Pushing through those tough spots teaches character. I learned a lot when my team came through a season of learned helplessness and I can only hope that by accomplishing those things with the team I coached, that they learned some good life lessons as well.

Refferences:
I. Filby, W.C.D., Maynard, I.W., & Graydon, J.K. (1999) The effect of multiple-goal strategies on performance outcomes in tainnig and competition. Journal of Applied Sports Psychology, 11, 230-246. < http://0-web.ebscohost.com.eos.eou.edu/ehost/pdf?vid=7&hid=8&sid=8d8418d5-3bab-4e36-825b-1adf139f3f29%40sessionmgr8>

II. Grove, J., & Buckworth, J. (1997, September). Learning to be helpless in sport. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 19(3), 319. Retrieved June 4, 2009, from Academic Search Premier database.

III. Roth, S. (1980, Spring80). A revised model of learned helplessness in humans. Journal of Personality, 48(1), 103-133. Retrieved June 4, 2009, from Academic Search Premier database.

IV. Walling, M., & Martinek, T. (1995, July). Learned Helplessness: A Case Study of a Middle School Student. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 14(4), 454-466. Retrieved June 6, 2009, from SPORTDiscus database. < http://0-web.ebscohost.com.eos.eou.edu/ehost/pdf?vid=3&hid=102&sid=12182321-9f81-458f-9631-917e5ed77b33%40sessionmgr103>c

V. Why Try?. (2000, September). Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, Retrieved June 4, 2009, from Academic Search Premier database. < http://0-web.ebscohost.com.eos.eou.edu/ehost/pdf?vid=7&hid=8&sid=8d8418d5-3bab-4e36-825b-1adf139f3f29%40sessionmgr8>