Sports are profoundly affected by the sportsman’s emotional self. A sportsman’s decisions in sport reflect his psychological and physical stability if he performs better than others or achieves expertise in less time. For an athlete to reach the expert level, he has to be both physically competent and emotionally stable to perform better than others. The idea of functional constraints is described by the factors that affect the performance of an individual in any task. The people who have the positive edge in these constraints outperform than those who do not have these constraints, or they lack in quantity of them. For this paper, we take the example of boxing sport to describe the involvement of these constraints.
Knowledge plays an important role in the performance of a sportsman. A person having a better knowledge about a sport can reach the expert level factor than a person who does not have strong knowledge of the sport. For example, a boy whose father is a trainer in the boxing gym will achieve his basic knowledge of the sport in his younger age. This boy will have both declarative pieces of knowledge, i.e., practice with father, use of equipment, and understanding of boxing terminology, and the procedural knowledge, i.e., quick response, decision making power in a real scenario (Functional Constraints of Thinking, Knowing, & Processing). This boy ever enters a ring will have an advantage of the knowledge and may become expert in this sport.
Similarly, the psychological and psychosocial self of a person will make a difference in achievement level of a person. The same boy if has a stronger psychological self will outperform the other boys who are not too psychologically stable. The boy if gets appreciation from his father, friends, and siblings will develop high confidence in himself. This confidence will improve his judgment about his efficacy for boxing and his self-worth increases (Harter, S., 2015). This boy will have a confidence boost in the ring, and he will perform better than the other boys as his psychological self is stable.
In short, having a better knowledge of a sport and a better psychosocial and psychological self-leads to the achievement of an expert level of performance in every field.
References
Functional Constraints of Psychosocial-Affective Development, KHS-436, Slides 1-44
Functional Constraints of Thinking, Knowing, & Processing, KHS 436, Slides 1-38
Harter, S. (2015). The construction of the self: Developmental and sociocultural foundations. Guilford Publications.
