Monthly Archive for August, 2021

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Albert Bandura has died

Published on August 4, 2021 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: Albert Bandura, Self-efficacy.

Albert “Al” Bandura, the David Starr Jordan Professor of Social Science in Psychology, Emeritus, in the School of Humanities and Sciences (H&S), whose theory of social learning revealed the importance of observing and modeling behaviors, died peacefully in his sleep in his Stanford home on July 26. He was 95.

Albert Bandura (Image credit: Courtesy Albert Bandura)

Bandura is internationally recognized as one of the world’s most influential social psychologists for his groundbreaking research on the importance of learning by observing others. In a 2002 issue of the General Review of Psychology, Bandura was ranked the fourth “most eminent psychologist of the 20th century” behind B. F. Skinner, Jean Piaget and Sigmund Freud.

He is best known for developing social cognitive theory (also known as social learning theory); the concept of self-efficacy – the idea that a person’s belief in their ability to succeed can shape how they think, act and feel; and his Bobo Doll experiments.

“Al Bandura was a giant in the field, whose influence spanned clinical, cognitive, affective and developmental psychology,” said Stanford psychologist Laura Carstensen, the Fairleigh S. Dickinson, Jr. Professor in Public Policy in H&S and the director of the Stanford Center on Longevity.

(Source: https://news.stanford.edu/2021/07/30/psychology-professor-albert-bandura-dead-95/)

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The Olympics of unmanaged emotions

Published on August 3, 2021 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments

These are the Olympics of emotions and not those of mental coaches. Even if it may seem exactly the opposite given that the media and social media used by the athletes themselves broadcast every blink of their eyes on a daily basis. This form of communication also comes from having said for years that to avoid the onset of psychological problems, if not psychopathologies, athletes should share their discomforts, to avoid worse trouble. Of course we were referring to sharing with people who are important to them and not public. However, for everyone comes the day when they touch their limits, not only physical but also psychological, and so many top athletes prove to be more fragile in the most important event for them, the Olympics.

This is not a new story, it can already be found described in an issue of the International Journal of Sport Psychology in 1972 with the contribution of 9 psychologists who participated in the Munich Olympics. Fifty years later, the role of the sports psychologist, now called mental coach, has exploded during these Olympic Games. Unmanaged stress and depression have affected super-winners, such as Djokovic, Osaka, Biley, but also younger athletes at their first Olympic experience, who then won a medal. Athletes perceive with more awareness the expectations of results that the world imposes, they must excel otherwise they are worth zero. For many of them there is no alternative to victory, think of Djokovic who after 22 consecutive victories lost a match that he was dominating and also his self-control. These are stories that become tragic also for the inability of the athletes to live differently.

I remember a comment by Julio Velasco when he observed that he saw in television images that Simon Biley is always attached to his cell phone, a source of stress. I am reminded of an opposite situation, when Rudic at the World Swimming Championships in Rome many years ago, had his cell phones handed to him by water polo players because he did not want them to be distracted. Obviously, everyone is free to choose what they want to do, but the great public exposure of today’s athletes and the awareness that success is really a way to radically change their economic future are very destabilizing factors that have so far been little addressed.

Hence the explosion of the figure of the mental coach or the role of past champions such as Vialli with the national soccer team or Phelps who, on the basis of a critical reflection on their own experiences as a top-level athletes, can play a positive role in the mental education of other young people.

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Guys follow your dreams, do like Jacobs and Tamberi

Published on August 2, 2021 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: Jacobs, sogno, Tamberi.

If Jacobs and Tamberi had not nurtured their dream, they would not have given us this unforgettable day. There is an old saying that those who do not dream are not realists. How many times have we said to ourselves “it would be a dream if I succeeded, but it’s impossible, better to give up, it would be too much disappointment”. So when faced with the fear of failure we freeze and tell ourselves, “Come on, get back on track.”

This was not the case for these two men who, without being world champions or having set records, decided to run the risk of failure in order to work towards the dream of their lives. Tamberi and Jacobs believed in the seemingly impossible and have worked hard over the years to turn what started out as a boy’s dream into a reality. Dreams allow us to explore our limits, and until we know our current ones, we cannot know what we will need to do to go beyond them. We often hear, “I have given it all.” It is certainly true as far as what we know about ourselves at that moment, it is our awareness that leads to formulate this thought but if we improve this condition of knowledge about ourselves we might discover that it is not true, that we have not yet used all our qualities, that perhaps we still do not know everything. If Jacobs hadn’t had the courage to give up the long jump after two null jumps, despite having previously jumped 8.49, at the 2019 indoor Europeans and if Tamberi hadn’t written on his chalk his completely incredible dream “Road to Tokyo 2020″ while still in the hospital, they wouldn’t have won gold in Tokyo.

Only those who overcome these psychological barriers, imposing something unknown on themselves, can concretely aspire to achieve incredible goals. On the other hand, the history of the exploits of human beings tells us many of these stories. “Impossible is nothing” is the motto of a multinational sports company, on the one hand it is false because we can never run as fast as a cheetah, but it is equally true that in sports “records are made to be beaten” and to do so you have to overcome that limit beyond which no one has gone so far.

This was the case for Roger Bannister, who on May 6, 1954 was the first to accomplish a feat considered impossible by science: running the English mile (1609.23 meters) under 4 minutes (3’59″4). His record lasted just 46 days, the Australian John Landy brought it to 3’58″0, this was possible because Bannister had unhinged an insurmountable door beyond which there are all passed and summarized his feat with these few words: “The secret is always that, the ability to bring out what you do not have or do not know you have. It was the same for Reinhold Messner when on August 20, 1980 he was the first man to achieve another feat considered impossible by science, climbing Everest (8848 meters) without the use of oxygen, and then to climb all 14 eight-thousanders with this approach.

The experiences of these athletes and yesterday’s Jacobs and Tamberi confirm the value of cultivating our dreams, they are the light that guides us through the difficulties and performances, relentlessly fueling our conviction to reach our goal.

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