Alumni Bulletin - Fall 2007 - (Page 17)

RESEARCH sports psychology COMING THROUGH IN THE CLUTCH There are critical moments in a competition when a superior athlete draws on a yet-untapped reservoir of determination, will, competitive spirit, or extraordinary physical prowess, and so determines the game’s outcome. Those moments of what sports psychologists call “clutch performance” affect not only the final score, but the ultimate success and legacy of the athlete, says Ian Birky, a sports psychologist and head of Lehigh University’s Counseling Center. As part of an 18-month study he conducted with the aid of former undergraduate psychology majors Nathan Wiita ’06 and Peter Classi ’06, ’07G, Birky investigated factors that correlate with or possibly predict performance in these situations, such as self-confidence, anxiety, and coping skills. Counseling psychology doctoral candidate Aimee-Nicole Adams also worked with Birky’s group. Birky presented an overview of the study in San Francisco, at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association in mid-August. The presentation included commentary on the ability of sport-speciﬁc personality type instruments to predict whether an athlete is capable of handling critical moments such as shooting a penalty kick in soccer, pitching with the bases loaded in softball, or winning the ﬁnal, critical relay in a swimming meet. Knowing an athlete possesses these traits allows the sports psychologist to consult with coaches about who to play during a competition’s big moments, or how to pair sports psychologists with athletes when developing strategies to avoid choking, Birky says. Members attending the conference who expressed interest in this research included a number of sports psychologists who have helped train Olympic, pro-, and national-class athletes. Many have used some of the tests employed in the study, such as the “athletic coping skills inventory” (ACSI-28) and the general personality test NEO PI-R—both of which were able to predict ability in sport-speciﬁc critical moments or “clutch performance” traits, Birky says. Tackling the project involved several months of interviews and background research. With the support of Joe Sterrett, dean of “It sort of started when Dr. Birky, who worked with our team on sports psychology techniques, got together with us to discuss this research study. All of the coaches we worked with were very excited about the project, too, because they could see how it could benefit the entire athletic program.” The former psychology major, who is currently working as a research assistant for a medical research director with Pfizer, Inc., earned his master’s degree in health and biopharmaceutical economics at Lehigh—a career path that was shaped, in part, through his interaction with Birky. “And every day,” he says, “I still use something that I learned from him.” For Wiita, this research project not only combined two consuming interests that dom- Birky (center) investigated whether certain personality traits allow athletes to perform well in the clutch. athletics, Birky and the students met with coaches and players from 15 men’s and women’s varsity teams at Lehigh, who completed sportspeciﬁc questionnaires that helped deﬁne the hypothetical sport construct of a critical or clutch moment tendency. The questionnaires were intended to assess self-perceptions regarding critical moment performance. “It was deﬁnitely one of the best things we did as undergrads,” says Classi, who, like Wiita, played soccer at Lehigh for four years. inated his time at Lehigh—sports and psychology—but also inspired him to pursue a career. He recently enrolled in a doctoral program at Georgia Tech in industrial organizational psychology. “I can’t say enough about what a great experience that was,” Wiita says. “It’s not only the kind of thing that looks good on a resume, but it will be really valuable down the road, too. I have a really strong foundation now in research methodology as the result of this work with Dr. Birky.”—Linda Harbrecht fall 2007 17 PHOTOS BY DOUGLAS BENEDICT

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Alumni Bulletin - Fall 2007

Table of Contents From the President's Desk Mailbox On Campus Arts & Culture Sports Research Cover Story - Forward March Little Man Overcomes Huge Odds Lights, Camera...Antiques Linderman Renewed From the Publisher's Desk Alumni News

Alumni Bulletin - Fall 2007

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.