21.4: Strategies to Develop Adaptive Psychological Climates

The coach has significant influence over an athlete’s motivational outcomes (Cronin & Allen, 2018) and thus it is imperative that they can create adaptive psychological climates for individuals to thrive. This chapter has considered two theories that have underpinned much of our knowledge on psychological climates to date (i.e., AGT and SDT), and in doing so examined the application of three espoused frameworks designed to support the promotion of adaptive psychological environments (i.e., TARGET, MAC, and Empowering Coaching^TM). Although they adopt different approaches, several common themes became evident, and it is these that we will scrutinise. They include: (a) task-involving features of the environment; (b) promoting autonomy for participants; (c) a focus upon effort; (d) coach behaviours; and (e) interpersonal coaching style. Moreover, based upon research to date, it was deemed important for coaches to be aware of the factors that can moderate their ability to foster a desired psychological climate (i.e., coach capabilities, elite level of participation, incongruence of perceptions, intervention approaches, and reflective practice). These considerations, along with the overlapping concepts, will help to inform the strategies presented in Table 21.1, with each being described in further detail to support their application to practice.

Strategies have been organised around three general themes: design; coach-athlete interactions; and monitoring. The strategies and guiding principles are informed by the most salient, and overlapping implications resulting from an interrogation of the literature. Our objective is to provide informed guidance on how to promote psychological climates that are associated with positive motivational outcomes for participants at any level of sport. One key feature of Table 21.1 is the inclusion of associated aversive behaviours (i.e., controlling coach behaviours, need-thwarting behaviours, ego-involving criteria). These characteristics are highlighted to increase awareness and facilitate understanding of the behaviours that may create a disempowering climate, such that coaches can more effectively gauge and recalibrate their psychological climate if required. Within the MAC (Smith & Smoll, 2006) and Empowering Coaching™ (Duda, 2013) programmes, emphasis is placed upon the coaches being self-aware, but also as Bartholomew et al. (2011, p.1469) highlighted, such aversive coach behaviours are not necessarily the “opposite side of the same coin” but rather they can co-occur alongside autonomy-supportive criteria. Further, knowledge of the potentially aversive behaviours alongside the associated strategies to promote autonomy supportive environments may help coaches in more competitive environments (e.g., elite youth sport) manage the psychological climate effectively.

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21.4.1. Design

When designing the psychological climate, coaches need to have a clear destination in mind (i.e., “what I am seeking to achieve for these athletes?”). The coach can start by considering what some of the key features that they believe, over time, will be most effective for development of their athletes and achievement of this goal (e.g., “how is success represented?”, “what key skills are we working on?”). This “curriculum” can consider level of participation, stage of development (see, Wylleman et al., 2004), and type of talent pathway (e.g., early specialisation). In planning individual sessions, coaches can then reflect on where their athletes are, what they currently require, and how the individual session fits into their overall curriculum. These steps may combat an ad-hoc approach to designing psychological climates, with the coach able to provide a structure that consistently promotes patterns of adaptive behaviours (Ames, 1992).

Embedded within the design of individual sessions should be a consideration for the personal goals of participants, and how to provide each athlete with the opportunity to develop towards or achieving their personal goals. While their goals may not be explicit within the session, as part of their development plans, players should be made aware of how they may facilitate goal achievement through session content and aims. Personal goals accompanied by a rationale from the coach (demonstrating greater involvement from the coach), may serve to enhance the relatedness for an athlete and give them a sense of belonging (Gilchrist & Mallett, 2017; Reinboth et al., 2004). It is, therefore, important to consider athlete goals at the design stage, rather than “shoehorning” them in after by only including the players as an afterthought. One final consideration for design relates to the structure of tasks or activities. Given their nuanced motivational impact, it is important that coaches reflect on the tasks they intend to prescribe to their athletes, ensuring activities are as far as practicable, challenging, varied, differentiated, and promote problem solving.

Table 21.1. Strategies to Support the Development of Adaptive Psychological Climates Within Sport

	Autonomy-Supportive Strategies	Guiding Principles	Associated Aversive Coach Behaviours	Literature Informing Espoused strategy
Design	Planning	Consider: the stage of the athletes’ development, personalities, personal goals, and the experiences they require Map the intended psychological environments that athletes will experience over time Decide which features are going to be emphasised to support the intended climate Provision of stable and consistent autonomy supportive climates Plan how athlete’s BPN will be satisfied	Ego-involving structures emphasised A (default) disempowering environment	Delrue et al. (2017); Into et al. (2019); Kingston et al. (2020); Ommundsen & Roberts (1999); Smith & Smoll (2012)
	Goals	Task objectives and rationale (for learning) communicated, notably when tasks promote social comparison. Emphasis on individual skills & roles, with ongoing guidance relative to personal goals. Reflective thinking re: goals and skill development is encouraged and supported through monitoring of goals.	Goals are norm-referenced Focus solely on the outcome No individualised goals	Ames (1992); Kingston et al. (2020); Mageau & Vallerand (2003)
	Structure	Task-focused and cooperative Sessions/tasks should be varied and challenging, promoting problem-solving Instructions – clear, with expectations of learning included. Defined progressions with creativity encouraged where possible.	Monotonous activities with little challenge Coach has dominant presence during activity Learning or progress is not communicated or clear	Ames (1992); Kingston et al. (2020); Mageau & Vallerand (2003)
Coach-athlete Interactions	Relationships	Get to know your athletes Afford time to communicate equitably with all athletes Use of humour Be empathetic	Use of sarcasm without prior knowledge that it will be positively received by athlete Conditional regard Intimidation Making athletes feel isolated	Bartholomew et al. (2010); Becker (2013); Deci & Ryan (2002); Keegan et al. (2014); Morgan (2017); Mageau & Vallerand (2003)
	Feedback	General encouragement and support throughout group situations/practices Recognition given for effort, persistence and effective problem-solving. Focused on task requirements, with links made to individual roles and personal goals. Feedback should be unconditionally positive, and meaningful.	Public and negative, verbal and non-verbal, feedback Players recognised for outperforming others Select few athletes receive praise Draw attention to mistakes with public and punitive consequences	Ames (1992); Bartholomew et al. (2010); Deci & Ryan (2002); Duda (2013); Mageau & Vallerand (2003); Smith & Smoll (1996); Smith & Smoll (2012); Smoll & Smith (2020)
	Empowerment	Rationale provided for tasks, with opportunity for player input. Authentic opportunities for player decision-making, e.g., timing or nature of progressions. Acknowledgment and value attached to player perspectives.	No opportunity for players to self-regulate their learning Inauthentic/contrived opportunities for athlete input Exerting excessive control	Ames (1992); Bartholomew et al. (2010); Deci and Ryan (2002); Duda (2013); Into et al., (2020); Kingston et al. (2020); Mageau & Vallerand (2003)
Monitoring	Reflection-On-action	Reflect upon the climate created against the desired outcomes, and note any changes to make for the next session Use of video footage to analyse climate created Utilise other coaches or sport psychologists to provide feedback Reflect on individual psychological development of athletes		Duda (2013); Knowles et al. (2014); Stodter &Cushion (2019); Partington et al. (2015); Smith & Smoll (2012); Whitehead et al.(2016)
	Reflection-For-action	Consider the design of the curriculum and how knew knowledge can be integrated into that plan Apply what has been learnt from reflecting-on-action
	Reflection-In-action	Interpret the status of the climate and salient features Continually review ways to emphasise autonomy-supportive features of the climate Remain active and aware of evolving ego climate

21.4.2. Coach-Athlete Interactions

Given that motivational outcomes are idiosyncratic (Keegan et al., 2014), knowing your athlete becomes an important part of creating an adaptive psychological climate (Becker, 2013; Morgan, 2017).Coaches are advised to work on building and maintaining high quality relationships, communicating equitably with each individual participant. Specifically, Jowett (2017) has highlighted that high quality relationships are founded on closeness (e.g., depth of emotional attachment); commitment (e.g., dedication to maintaining the relationship over time); complementarity (e.g., cooperative and effective interaction); and co-orientation (e.g., shared principles for goal striving). Where possible, coaches should strive to afford time and space to get to know their athletes and to build relationships. For example, age-appropriate humour could facilitate the building of relationships potentially playing a crucial role in making the more “serious” of sport environments more palatable for performers to commit to (Morgan, 2017; Ronglan & Aggerholm, 2013; Ronglan & Aggerholm, 2014). However, despite good intentions, coaches should be aware that humour at someone (Ronglan & Aggerholm, 2014) may be counterproductive. Indeed, Owusu-Sekyere and Gervis (2016) found that elite youth soccer coaches used banter as the primary method of developing a players’ mental toughness; a behaviour that the authors suggested to be more aligned to a form of emotional abuse. It is important to recognise that such banter or other forms of ridicule may have deleterious effects, undermining the sense of relatedness an athlete may have towards a group or their coach (Ronglan & Aggerholm, 2013).

A more general principle is that coaches should seek to provide opportunities for individual and positive feedback, while understanding that positive feedback also includes instructional guidance (Becker, 2013). Public feedback relating to mastery behaviours (e.g., high effort levels, ability to overcome mistakes, and problem-solving) can help develop an athlete’s perceptions of competence (Reinboth et al., 2004). In contrast, coaches are discouraged from drawing public attention to mistakes or employing punitive measures (e.g., verbal abuse or physical punishments) as a form of feedback; controlling-behaviours such as these have been reported to undermine (thwart) individual’s basic psychological needs with resultant negative psychological outcomes (Bartholomew et al., 2011).

When interacting with their athletes, coaches are encouraged to facilitate a sense of empowerment within every athlete; this translates to the athlete having a feeling ownership over their own development and choice within the specific achievement environment (Morgan, 2017). Empowerment is a characteristic described in both AGT (Nicholls, 1984) and SDT (i.e., BPNT, Deci & Ryan, 1985; 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2020) literature and represented under the authority structure within the TARGET framework. To help empower, coaches can provide space for athletes to share their thoughts while they actively listen, value, and act (authentically) upon the athlete’s opinions (Duda, 2013; Morgan, 2017). Such opportunities may arise during one-to-one interactions with athletes, for example during feedback or general conversations, or during team discussions such as water breaks, performance analysis sessions, or team talks (see Middlemas & Harwood, 2017). Coaches can also adapt their session design to provide opportunities for athlete ownership. This may come in the form of giving time for athletes to work on a skill of their choice, providing options regarding how to progress the practice, giving opportunity for athletes to feedback to the coach during sessions, or overtly employing suggestions made by athletes.

As much as focusing on empowerment, coaches should be aware of the disempowering climates that competition environments can elicit (Gjesdal et al., 2018; Smith et al., 2017). They should readily employ mastery coaching behaviours that can go some way to buffering against the motivational impact of a situation that naturally focuses upon norm-referenced competence (i.e., winning). In these instances, coaches may wish to orchestrate opportunities to interact individually with athletes (e.g., before competition, during breaks, or post competition) to provide positive and instructional information or feedback. If available, assistant coaches can be deployed to maximise interactions with individual athletes. When opportunities for one-to-one communication are minimal, given the public nature of competition, coaches are encouraged to only provide positive and general public feedback during events. Considering the challenges of interacting with athletes during competition, peer-interactions become an important feature of the team sport environment. Coaches may want to work with athletes (in training at first) on how to effectively communicate with one another during competition, asking athletes to recognise adaptive behaviours in one another (e.g., effort and overcoming of mistakes), and to give each other task-focused and positive feedback.

21.4.2. Monitoring

The motivational climate is a dynamic component of an achievement environment and therefore requires constant monitoring, appraising, and actioning (Smith et al., 2015). Coaches should try to be active agents within the achievement environment, acting as a bridge between the physical environment they set up (i.e., the drills) and the perceived motivational climate of athletes (i.e., how success is perceived to be determined).

To further support their management of the climate it is recommended that coaches develop their ability to reflect in-action (Schön, 1984). The employment of the Think Aloud protocol (Whitehead et al., 2016) may be a useful process to undertake to enhance reflective practice and support the management of the psychological climate. In short, Think Aloud requires coaches to concurrently talk through what they are thinking during a practice (for a full overview of the programme we refer readers to Whitehead et al.,2016). Coaches wishing to monitor their psychological climate might narrate to a microphone, or if unavailable, to an assistant coach or to themselves. Narrations might include the key influencers of the psychological climate, for example: “What are athletes being recognised for?”, “How are the players being evaluated?”, “What autonomy do the athletes currently have?”. Coaches can then review their own action plan, and how they may combat any potential disempowering or need-thwarting features that are present. Indeed, the programme itself may help prevent autonomy or need thwarting coach behaviours. Indeed, participants in Whitehead et al.’s (2016) study reported that the explicit commentary made them pause before they delivered harsh feedback to athletes.

Following reflection-in-action it is suggested coaches engage in reflection-on-action, a retrospective type of reflective practice which occurs outside of a situation that can no longer be influenced (Knowles et al., 2014; Whitehead et al., 2016). In relation to the topic of the current chapter,a coach can reflect upon their design, interactions, and monitoring of the psychological climate, considering the extent to which the climate they fostered supported the intended aims (see Gilbourne et al., 2013). The principles outlined in Table 21.1 might serve as a useful starting point, (e.g., “Was my feedback positive throughout that session?”, “Were there any individuals who I gave negative and public feedback to?”). The medium that coaches reflect through is their prerogative, examples include pen and paper notes, journals, social networks, mind-maps, photographs, or recordings (Cropley et al., 2018). Having gone through this reflection-on-action process, coaches can then systematically consider how to action what they have learnt in practice, a process of reflection-for-action. This may require coaches to reflect upon their curriculum (perhaps with peers) and appraise how they may integrate what knowledge they have acquired from reflecting-on-action into future psychological climates. Ultimately, just like planning and implementing strategies to support the psychological climate, the development of the climate itself will therefore become an iterative process, it evolving as the coach develops as a reflective practitioner.