Identifying basic psychological skills is a challenging task that only a few researchers have undertaken (see table). It is evident that research findings on this topic are scarce and that there is no complete agreement on what constitutes basic psychological skills.
Based on this analysis, I decided to establish an a priori criterion to facilitate their identification. The criterion adopted allows us to assert that the fundamental skills to be developed are those that:
- Have the broadest field of application in sports activities, regardless of the sport practiced and the athlete’s level of expertise.
- Can be learned and improved during the developmental phase known as “learning to train” (Balyi, 2001).
The four psychological skills I have selected are relaxation, mental imagery, self-talk, and learning from experience. These can be considered fundamental skills as they enable young athletes to experience training consciously and positively.
Authors and Basic Psychological Skills
| Authors | Basic Psychological Skills |
|---|---|
| Vealey (1988) | Willpower, self-awareness, self-esteem, and confidence |
| Hardy, Graham & Gould (1996) | Goal setting, relaxation, mental imagery, and self-talk |
| Durand-Bush, Salmela & Green-Deemers (2001) | Goal setting, commitment, and confidence |
| Ricvald & Peterson (2003) | Commitment and dedication |
| Weinberg & Gould (2007) | Arousal regulation, mental imagery, goal setting, and concentration |
Basic Psychological Skills
Learning these skills is similar, for example, to acquiring a foreign language, which can also be considered a fundamental competence that expands communication and understanding opportunities, regardless of the context in which it is applied.
The decision to identify these four psychological skills as fundamental factors largely aligns with the proposal of Hardy, Graham, and Gould (1996), differing in that it does not consider goal setting but instead prioritizes the ability to learn from experience.
The choice to introduce an additional competence is based on the fact that these skills are meant to be acquired at an age corresponding to late childhood and early adolescence, a period when understanding the value of experience is essential for awareness of one’s effort quality and learning process.
Further supporting this decision are numerous studies showing that the belief in one’s ability to handle sports situations is primarily based on the evaluation of past experiences in relation to the task at hand (Bandura, 1986).
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