Topic > Emotional intelligence and athletic performance

According to Salovey and Mayer (1990), “understanding emotions involves understanding how basic emotions come together to form complex emotions, how emotions are influenced by events surrounding the experiences and whether various emotional reactions are likely in certain social contexts. Emotion regulation includes controlling emotions in oneself and others. An individual's emotional intelligence is an indication of how he or she perceives, understands, and regulates emotions. In summary, emotional intelligence is a form of intelligence that involves “the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate between them, and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions” (Salovery and Mayer, 1990, p. 189). After analyzing two research studies related to emotional intelligence and performance, it is quite clear that emotional intelligence can have some effects on one's performance; therefore, it is important that athletes know how to recognize and regulate their emotions during their performances and that coaches understand the meaning and benefits of EI in a performance. High levels of performance, particularly in team sports, require members of a group to communicate and work together to achieve common goals. To do this it is important to be aware of the feelings of other group members and act accordingly so as not to upset the balance (Abraham, 1999; Mullen & Copper, 1994). Research exploring this relationship should include concurrent measures of performance outcomes to add validity to the hypothesis that psychological abilities play a role in athletic performance (Rogerson & Hrycaiko, 2002; Smith et al., 1995). Athletes must learn to recognize... the center of the card... R.W., Smoll, F. L., & Ptacek, J. T. (1995). Development and validation of a multidimensional measure of sport-specific psychological skills: The Athletic Coping Skills Inventory-28. Journal of Sport & Activity Psychology, 17, 379.398.Thomas, P.R., Murphy, S., & Hardy, L. (1999) Testing performance strategies: development and preliminary validation of a comprehensive measure of athletes' psychological abilities. Journal of Sports Sciences 17, 697-711.TOYOTA, H. (2011). Individual differences in emotional intelligence and incidental word memory. Japanese Psychological Research, 53(3), 213-220. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5884.2011.00467.xZizzi, S. J., Deaner, H. R., & Hirschhorn, D. K. (2003). The relationship between emotional intelligence and performance among college baseball players. Journal of Applied Sports Psychology, 15(3), 262-269. doi:10.1080/10413200305390