Stay Positive: Self-Talk in Relation to Motivational Climate, Goal Orientation, and Self-Talk Encouragement in Tennis

Purpose: Motivation among young athletes can be reflected in their self-talk, a behavior that is often encouraged by coaches. Most research on self-talk in sport involves self-report, thus observational studies of the actual self-talk used in sport in relation to athlete motivation and coach support are needed. Methods: We observed young elite tennis athletes (N = 28) talking to themselves on the court and obtained self-reported measures of self-talk use, goal-orientation for sport, perception of coach motivational climate, and coach encouragement of self-talk. Results: Results showed that higher levels of perceived coach mastery climate and personal mastery orientation typically coincided with more reported use of positive self-talk, while higher levels of perceived ego climate coincided with more frequent observed positive and motivational self-talk on the court. Coaches generally encouraged self-talk, but associations between coach encouragement and athlete self-talk use were sparse. Conclusion: Results suggest researchers need to examine how encouragement of self-talk affects both reported (inner) and observed (external) self-talk in youth sport.