Enhancing Mental Toughness and Performance Under Pressure in Elite Young Cricketers: A 2-Year Longitudinal Intervention

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a mental toughness intervention delivered to a group of elite youth cricketers. The central feature of the intervention was repeated exposure to punishment-conditioned stimuli in the training environment. To avoid the potentially harmful effects of punishment, the intervention was designed and delivered in a multidisciplinary transformational manner, and participants were taught a variety of coping strategies to deal with the threatening environment. A mixed model (group X time) design was used to compare the intervention group against a comparison control group on various markers of mental toughness over time. Generally speaking, the intervention group demonstrated significant improvements in mental toughness in comparison with the control group. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first theoretically derived mental toughness intervention that has shown meaningful effects that can be differentiated from general psychological skills training effects. Theoretical implications are discussed in the context of systematic desensitization training (Wolpe, 1958), and applied recommendations are offered in relation to the intelligent use of punishment in athletic training environments.