Psychological Considerations in Sports Talent Identification: A Review and Taxonomic Classification

Authors

Changqing XIang¹ , Jie Zhao² , Tengku Fadilah Tengku Kamalden³ , Hua Luo¹

1. Universiti Putra Malaysia
2. Guangdong Technonolgy College
3. National Sports Institute (ISN)

Conference / event

Talent identification and development in sport Talent research into practice, April 2024 (Ghent, Belgium)

Poster summary

Sports talent identification is a complex process that involves the procedure of identifying potential athletes through prediction. However, sports talent identification is influenced by a variety of factors, and in particular, psychological aspects are gradually attracting increasing attention, and much research shreds of evidence have shown that psychological qualities affect the athletic performance and competition results of elite athletes. The purpose of this review is to identify and classify the psychological factors that are critical in influencing the talent identification process, thereby ensuring the scientificity and accuracy of the sports talent identification program. Through literature review, some psychological factors in talent identification emerged (e.g., personality, mental toughness, internal motivation, self-esteem, and general mental ability). Then they are divided into three categories based on their characteristics, namely: psychological traits, motivation, and mental ability.

Keywords

Sports talent, Identification, Psychological factors, Development, Classification

Research areas

Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Education

References

1. Birrer, D., & Morgan, G. (2010). Psychological skills training as a way to enhance an athlete’s performance in high-intensity sports. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 20(s2), 78–87. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0838.2010.01188.x
2. Gledhill, A., Harwood, C., & Forsdyke, D. (2017). Psychosocial factors associated with talent development in football: A systematic review. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 31(31), 93–112.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2017.04.002
3. Stamatis, A., Grandjean, P., Morgan, G., Padgett, R. N., Cowden, R., & Koutakis, P. (2020). Developing and training mental toughness in sport: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies and pre-test and post-test experiments. BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, 6(1), e000747. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2020-000747

Funding

No data provided

Supplemental files

No data provided

Additional information

Competing interests

No competing interests were disclosed.

Data availability statement

The datasets generated during and / or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2024 XIang et al. This is an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.