Subject: Re: visualizing goals From: Donald McBurney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2003 13:12:53 -0400 X-Message-Number: 10
I have been watching this thread, but I can't help noting that sports teams are famous for following pseudoscientific fads. When Sid Thrift was general manager (?) of the Pittsburgh Pirates, he made the underside of the bill of their caps green because that was a calming color, had players do eye movement exercises, etc. I don't recall just when this was, but their record didn't improve.
While I realize that the sports world is rife with superstitions (apparently if you have Rush Limbaugh say stupid things about you, you'll have a great game), sometimes I think we focus on the wrong variables to determine if a treatment was "successful".
In your above example the effect of the color was to calm the players. It would be easy to design a study to see if the players were in fact more calm (resting heart rate, blood test, gsr, self report, etc). Now according to your assessment it had no effect on their team record. There could be lots of reasons for this not the least of which is that in sports a little intensity is generally good. However, I think even Sid did not believe that simply changing the color of the bills would get them a winning season.
While halfway joking about the float tanks it was hard to argue with Septien's personal records during those years he supposedly used one. In fact as I recall (and I'm no Cowboys fan--just a prisoner of their influence) there were several Cowboys during those years that lead the league in their various positions (Everson Walls comes to mind), however it did not necessarily translate into team wins. These (the 80's ) were not the championship years.
This past year in the NFL showed that individual excellent performance doesn't automatically translate into team victories. The teams with the top 10 leading rushers didn't even make the play offs.
So to Annette, you might want to tell the coach to focus on the fundamentals and let the kids have fun but even if you could use visualization to improve individual performance, it might not translate into more team wins.
But that's just my opinion...or is it?
--
Herb Coleman
Instructional Technology Manager
Adjunct Psychology Professor
Austin Community College
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
512-223-3076
*********************************************
* Every action has a connected and directed * * pre-action. *
*********************************************
-Herb Coleman after seeing "Bowling for Columbine"
--- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
