Research Summaries Research Summary 25 Intervention Tone and Coach | Page 5

Intervention Tone and Coach-athlete Relations

Consequences of the research
Previous research has shown the self-fulfilling nature of
coach expectation and player performance. Known as
the Pygmalion effect it states that a coach’s beliefs about
the ability or potential of a player can influence the
coach’s behaviour toward that player. Put simply,
expectation dictates outcome.

This appears to have happened in this research, with
coaches’ behaviour and intervention tone changing
among different players. In this case the coaches appear
to become friendlier with the good players, who in line
with the theory get better with positive expectations
placed on them. However, why did the lower skill players
not improve given the attention they received?

There is no doubt this was what the coach was trying to
achieve and there was nothing bad about what they
were doing. So why did it not happen?

It appears players may be interpreting what coaches do,
say, and how they say it, in their own idiosyncratic ways.
As a result positive coaching behaviour may not always
be interpreted in positive ways and have the desired
outcome.

Shedding more light on these counter-intuitive results,
the researchers suggest looking at the notion of relationinferred self-efficacy (RISE). According to this theory an
individual will be significantly influenced by how they
think others view their ability. So more attention may
have only served to reinforce in a player’s mind that they
are not as good as others. And personal expectation will
influence outcome.