Self-talk in a basketball-shooting task

This study examined the effectiveness of two different types of self-talk o n the performance of a basketball-shooting: task. 60 physical education and spurts sciences students were organized into one control and two treatment groups which used self-talk. During the experiment, the control group perf ormed with the general instructions, whereas the self-talk groups used the cue-words "relax" and "fast," respectively. Analysis showed that only the p articipants of the self-talk group who used the word "relax" improved their performance significantly as compared to the other two groups. It appears that self-talk can positively affect performance if its content is appropri ate for the task performed.