Natalia Stambulova

ISSP Position stand: Career development and transitions of athletes

Abstract The ISSP Position Stand on Career Development and Transitions of Athletes draws attention to viewing athletes from the perspective of their career development and their broader historical and socio‐cultural contexts. The particular focus of this paper is on career transitions as turning phases in career development. Successfully coping with transitions both within and outside of sport allows greater opportunity for an athlete to live a long and successful life in sport as well as being able to adjust effectively to the post‐career. Alternatively, failure in coping with a transition is often followed by negative consequences (e.g., premature dropout from sport, neuroses, alcohol/drug abuse, etc.). Therefore, helping athletes prepare for and/or cope with career transitions should be of primary concern for coaches, managers, athletes’ parents, and sport psychology consultants. In this paper we emphasize the role of contextual factors in career development/transition research and practice. Based on the literature review, we propose six statements and related recommendations for athletes and their significant others, as well as for researchers and consultants

Reactions to sport career termination: a cross-national comparison of German, Lithuanian, and Russian athletes.

Objectives: To assess the cognitive, emotional, and behavioural consequences of sport career termination of national and international level athletes in three nations. Design and methods: Athletes of Germany (n 88), Lithuania (n 65), and Russia (n 101) were asked to describe in retrospect their reactions to career termination. The Athletic Retirement Questionnaire developed by the first two authors and presented in three corresponding languages was used. Planning of retirement and national identity served as independent variables. Dependent variables were reasons and circumstances for career termination, participants’ emotional reactions, coping reactions, athletic identity during and after sport career, and adjustment to life after career termination. Results: Analyses of variance revealed significant main effects of retirement planning and national identity on most dependent variables. Planning of retirement contributed to significantly better cognitive, emotional, and behavioural adaptation. In addition, high athletic identity contributed to less positive reactions to retirement and to more problems in the adaptation process. The emotional reactions of Russian and Lithuanian athletes were similar, but differed from the German athletes who, in general, showed more positive and lesser negative emotions after retirement. Though accepting the reality of retirement was the most often used coping strategy among all participants, Lithuanian athletes showed more denial and Russian athletes more distraction strategies after retirement than the other nations. Discussion: The results are discussed with regard to athletes’ readiness for career transition in different social and cultural environments. Recommendations are given on how to help athletes to prepare for and to cope with career termination.

Successful talent development in track and field: considering the role of environment

Track and field includes a number of high‐intensity disciplines with many demanding practices and represents a motivational challenge for talented athletes aiming to make a successful transition to the senior elite level. Based on a holistic ecological approach, this study presents an analysis of a particular athletic talent development environment, the IFK Växjö track and field club, and examines key factors behind its successful history of creating top‐level athletes. The research takes the form of a case study. Data were collected from multiple perspectives (in‐depth interviews with administrators, coaches and athletes), from multiple situations (observation of training, competitions and meetings) and from the analysis of documents. The environment was characterized by a high degree of cohesion, by the organization of athletes and coaches into groups and teams, and by the important role given to elite athletes. A strong organizational culture, characterized by values of open co‐operation, by a focus on performance process and by a whole‐person approach, provided an important basis for the environments success. The holistic ecological approach encourages practitioners to broaden their focus beyond the individual in their efforts to help talented junior athletes make a successful transition to the elite senior level.

ISSP Position Stand: Culturally competent research and practice in sport and exercise psychology

The multicultural landscape of contemporary sport sets a challenge to rethink sport and exercise psychology research and practice through a culturally reflexive lens. This ISSP Position Stand provides a rigorous synthesis and engagement with existing scholarship to outline a roadmap for future work in the field. The shift to culturally competent sport and exercise psychology implies: (a) recognizing hidden ethnocentric philosophical assumptions permeating much of the current theory, research, and practice; (b) transitioning to professional ethics in which difference is seen as not inherent and fixed but as relational and fluid; and (c) focusing on meaning (instead of cause) in cross-cultural and cultural research projects, and cultural praxis work. In the paper, we first provide an overview of the concepts of cultural competence and ethics of difference. Second, we present a step-by-step approach for developing a culturally competent project rooted either within cross-cultural or cultural research. Third, we focus on cultural praxis as a project that blends theory, research, and lived culture of practice. Finally, we summarize main points in nine postulates and provide recommendations for enhancing cultural competence in the field of sport and exercise psychology.

Physical Self-Perceptions in Adolescence Generalizability of a Hierarchical Multidimensional Model Across Three Cultures

This study examines the generalizability of the form, structural parameters, and latent means of a hierarchical multidimensional model of physical self-perceptions in adolescents from three cultures. A childrens version of the physical self-perception profile (PSPP-C) was administered to samples of British, Hong Kong, and Russian high school students. A structural equation model that hypothesized a hierarchical structure with global self-esteem as a super ordinate construct and physical self-worth as a domain-level construct governing the PSPP-C subdomains fit the data adequately. Tests of the cross-cultural generalizability of the proposed model supported the invariance of the factor pattern and model parameters across the samples. Latent means analysis suggested that the factor means were significantly higher in the British sample, a finding that supports the results of cross-cultural studies of self-esteem in other domains.

Putting culture into context: Cultural and cross ‐cultural perspectives in career development and transition research and practice

Abstract Within this paper, we address the importance of historical and socio‐cultural contexts in research and practice of athletes’ career development and transitions. We stress that not only sport participants, but also sport psychology researchers and consultants, are infused by their historical and socio‐cultural contexts. This is illustrated by evolutions of career development and transition research and practice in two different countries, Russia and Germany, where cardinal historical and social changes during the last decades illuminated the salience of the contextual factors. We use our European Perspectives on Athletic Retirement Project (e.g., Alfermann, Stambulova, & Zemaityte, 2004) to exemplify the contributions of recent crosscultural studies to a better understanding of athletes’ career termination and adjustment to the post‐career and discuss the lessons learned from the Project. In conclusion, we propose how contemporary methodological approaches in cultural and cross‐cultural psychology may help to develop more contextually sensitive career research and assistance to athletes

Counseling athletes in career transitions : the five-step career planning strategy

This article presents the Five-Step Career Planning Strategy (5-SCP) that is a counseling framework for helping athletes with career transitions. The first four steps in this strategy deal with mapping out the clients past experiences, current situation, and perceived future. The last step involves integrating their past, present, and projected future into a career and life strategy. Starting out with basic ideas about career transitions, the author proceeds to describe how the 5-SCP framework was developed and tested, provides a detailed step-by-step description of the 5-SCP, and finishes with reviewing consultants’ and clients’ reflections on the 5-SCP application.

The work of cultural transition : an emerging model

In today’s uncertain, fluid job market, transnational mobility has intensified. Though the concept of cultural transition is increasingly used in sport and career research, insight into the processes of how individuals produce their own development through work and relationships in shifting cultural patterns of meaning remains limited. The transnational industry of sports, in which athletes’ psychological adjustment to cultural transitions has implications for both performance and meaningful life, serves as a backdrop for this article. This study applied the life story method to interviews with 15 professional and semi-professional athletes, focusing particularly on the cultural transition aspect of their transnational athletic careers. The aims of the study were to identify the developmental tasks of cultural transitions and strategies/mechanisms through which cultural transitions were enacted. Three underlying mechanisms of the transition process that assisted athletic career adaptability were social repositioning, negotiation of cultural practices, and meaning reconstruction. Based on the data analyses, a temporal model of cultural transition is proposed. The results of this research provide professionals working in the fields of career counseling and migrant support with a content framework for enhancing migrant workers’ adaptabilities and psychological wellbeing.

The Russian Origins of Sport Psychology : A Translation of an Early Work of A. C.Puni

Sport psychology today is a vibrant and thriving field with well-developed theory and increased opportunities for applied consulting. However, when the field is historicized, it is often done so wi ...

Sport Psychology, Overview

Sport psychology is a subdiscipline of psychology applied to a competitive sport as a specific context of organized physical (motor) activity. Competitive sport is focused on high achievement and consistent excellence, in contrast to other settings in which exercise is used for physical education, leisure, or rehabilitation. The major emphasis in sport psychology is on the study and application of psychological factors enhancing athletic performance and on the impact of sport participation on a person’s (or team’s) development.