THE COLEMAN-ROBERTS-GRIFFITH-ADDRESS - 3 MYTHS ABOUT APPLIED CONSULTANCY WORK

Three recommendations that are commonly made in the applied sport psyc hology literature are discussed. These three recommendations are : 1) cognitive anxiety is always detrimental to performance and should ther efore be reduced whenever possible; 2) outcome goals and ego-orientati ons have a detrimental effect on a number performance-related variable s, so that performers should be encouraged to set performance rather t han outcome goals; 3) internal visual imagery is more beneficial to pe rformance than external visual imagery, so performers should always be encouraged to use visual imagery from an internal perspective. For ea ch of these recommendations, empirical and experiential evidence is pr esented which challenges the recommendation. Alternative refinements t o the recommendations are discussed.