Human Performance Pillars in Elite Sport

This chapter discusses three psychological underpinnings of human behaviour in elite athletic settings – arousal, motivation, and self-confidence. It focuses on these elements because, in sport psychology, they are considered by leading researchers, as well as practitioners, to be basic and crucial individual components of human behaviour in sport – both in individual and team sports. Lionel Messi is considered by many to be the current best soccer player in the world – unless you are a Ronaldo fan, of course. Moreover, in a comparison made with another Argentinian soccer genius, Messi often has the upper hand – Maradona would, of course, never agree. The athlete in professional sports is often regarded as a kind of machine. Performance – as distinguished from behaviour – is intentionally organized and, therefore, has been defined as a “goal-directed behavior”. This “maximization through optimization” principle reflects a so-called “instrumental rationality”, which is associated with Max Weber.