Theodorakis Y, Chroni S, Laparidis K, Bebetsos V, Douma I
Department of Physical Education & Sport Science, University of Thessaly, Trikala, Greece.
Percept Mot Skills. 2001 Feb;92(1):309-15. doi: 10.2466/pms.2001.92.1.309.
This study examined the effectiveness of two different types of self-talk on the performance of a basketball-shooting task. 60 physical education and sports sciences students were organized into one control and two treatment groups which used self-talk. During the experiment, the control group performed with the general instructions, whereas the self-talk groups used the cue-words "relax" and "fast," respectively, Analysis showed that only the participants of the self-talk group who used the word "relax" improved their performance significantly as compared to the other two groups. It appears that self-talk can positively affect performance if its content is appropriate for the task performed.
