Sports Psychology.
Performance psychology with effect sizes attached — and the replication problem named.
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The mental side of sport is the most confidently discussed and least rigorously measured part of performance. We treat it as a research field with real effect sizes and a real replication problem, not as a supply of motivational slogans.
What this field actually measures
- Effect size (Cohen's d)
How large an intervention's effect is, in standard deviations.
ReferencePsychological skills training in sport typically lands in the small-to-moderate range (roughly d = 0.2–0.6).
LimitSmall samples inflate published effect sizes; the first study is usually the biggest.
- Replication rate
Share of published findings that hold up when repeated independently.
ReferenceThe Open Science Collaboration's 2015 replication of 100 psychology studies reproduced roughly 36%.
LimitA failed replication is not proof an effect is absent — it is proof the evidence was thinner than advertised.
- Arousal–performance curve
The relationship between activation level and performance quality.
ReferenceInverted-U (Yerkes–Dodson) patterns appear across tasks, with the optimum lower for complex skills.
LimitThe curve describes a group. Individual optimal zones vary widely.
Evidence & metrics
The published work behind the numbers above, and the public datasets you can open to check us. If a claim can’t be traced here, we don’t print it.
Citations
Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science
Open Science Collaboration — Science · 2015
Of 100 replicated psychology studies, roughly a third reproduced the original significant effect.
The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit-formation
Yerkes & Dodson — Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology · 1908
Performance rises with arousal to a point and then falls, with the optimum lower for harder tasks.
Datasets
Many Labs replication projects
Open Science Framework · free
Multi-site replication data for widely cited psychological effects.
PsycTESTS-indexed sport measures via PubMed
US National Library of Medicine · free
Peer-reviewed literature on psychological skills training in athletes.
Still open
- Which mental-skills interventions survive pre-registration and larger samples?
- How much of 'clutch' is measurable skill retention under load versus selective memory?
- Can team cohesion be measured in a way that predicts, rather than follows, winning?
What we won’t say
We will not credit a win to 'wanting it more.' That explanation is unfalsifiable, which is another way of saying it explains nothing.
- VO-1Evidence before wit
- VO-2Punch at claims, never at people
- VO-3Say the uncertainty out loud
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