Which of the following are irrational thoughts that are common among athletes?

Data availability

Data will be made available on request.

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Rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT) represents a humanistic cognitive behavioural approach to psychological well-being (Ellis, 1957). REBT distinguishes itself from other cognitive-behavioural approaches (e.g., cognitive therapy; Beck, 1976) by placing irrational beliefs at its core. Rational beliefs are flexible, non-extreme, and logical whereas irrational beliefs are rigid, extreme, and illogical. Irrational beliefs are at the heart of REBT and are associated with negative cognitive and behavioural outcomes (Dryden and Branch, 2008, Ellis and Dryden, 1997). The REBT framework predicts a binary model of distress (David, Montgomery, Macavei, & Bovbjerg, 2005) in which healthy negative emotions (associated with adaptive behaviours) stem from rational beliefs, whereas unhealthy negative emotions (associated with maladaptive behaviours) stem from irrational beliefs. Unhealthy negative emotions are associated with unpleasant physical symptoms (chronic and severe) and motivate behaviours that are detrimental to goal attainment. Healthy negative emotions are associated with some unpleasant physical symptoms (acute and mild) and motivate behaviours that facilitate goal attainment.

The practice of sport psychology has been dominated by cognitive-behavioural approaches to behaviour change in which mental imagery, positive self-talk, relaxation, concentration, and goal setting (known as ‘the canon’) have been identified as effective in helping athletes to manage their thoughts, emotions, and behaviours (see Andersen, 2009). REBT offers a very specific intervention where deeply held irrational beliefs are first assessed, then rigorously disputed, and finally replaced using the ABCDE framework (see Ellis, 1994). This involves recognising that irrational beliefs cause emotional and behavioural consequences (rather than the event itself) and then encouraging disputation of the irrational thought and promoting and reinforcing rational thoughts. In sport settings, irrational beliefs have been identified as important for the experience of anxiety (Turner & Barker, 2013), self-acceptance (Cunningham & Turner, 2016), burnout (Turner & Moore, 2016), resilience (Deen, Turner, & Wong, 2017), psychological distress (Turner, Carrington, & Miller, 2017), and task performance (Wood, Turner, Barker, & Higgins, 2017). Research in non-sport settings also reveals that irrational beliefs are associated with an array of emotional and behavioural malfunctioning (Visla, Fluckiger, Grosse Holtforth, & David, 2015) that could also afflict athletes (Turner, 2016). To advance research on irrational beliefs in athletic settings, it is important for researchers to develop valid and reliable measures.

In the REBT framework (Dryden & Branch, 2008), irrational beliefs are categorised into four core dimensions: a primary belief (demandingness), and three secondary beliefs derived from the primary belief (awfulising, low frustration tolerance, and self/other depreciation). To investigate irrational beliefs in achievement contexts, a measure of irrational beliefs was developed that assesses these four core dimensions: the irrational Performance Beliefs Inventory (iPBI; Turner et al., 2016). The investigation provided initial evidence of construct and concurrent validity for a 28-item self-report measure of irrational beliefs in an organisational context. The measure was developed to be generalisable to all achievement contexts (e.g., occupational, athletic, military, and academic), and has been adopted for research in athletic contexts (e.g., Deen et al., 2017, Turner et al., 2017), but so far has not been validated in an athletic sample. This is important as a recent investigation identified item 7 of the iPBI (“I need my manager/coach to act respectfully towards me”) as problematic for educational settings (Allen, El-Cheikh, & Turner, 2017) meaning some changes might be necessary for the questionnaire to be valid across different achievement contexts. This investigation sought to test the construct validity of the iPBI in a sample of amateur and semi-professional athletes.

Participants

In total, 550 sport performers (312 men and 212 women; Mage = 38.04 ± 13.80 years) agreed to participate in the study. The sample included 281 amateur athletes and 178 semi-professional athletes. Semi-professional athletes were defined as those performing at national and international level and receiving some remuneration as part of their sport participation. Amateur athletes were defined as those performing in local competitions and who were not receiving remuneration as part of their sport

Confirmatory factor analysis

Standardized factor loadings, error variances, and coefficient alpha estimates are reported in Table 1. The initial CFA produced a somewhat unacceptable fit to the theoretically expected four-factor structure, n = 550, χ2(344) = 1439.37, p < 0.001, CFI = 0.84, NNFI = 0.82, SRMR = 0.081, RMSEA = 0.076 (90% CI: 0.072, 0.080). Sensitivity analyses, involving the removal of 18 potential multivariate outliers (Mahalanobis Distance values outside of the χ2 distribution [at p < 0.001] with 28 degrees

Discussion

The purpose of this investigation was to test the construct validity of the iPBI in a sample of amateur and semi-professional athletes. Confirmatory factor analyses established potential problem items with the 28-item iPBI and somewhat unacceptable fit indices. Potential problem items were removed and a subsequent CFA on a 20-item version (the iPBI-2) showed stronger fit indices suggesting that the iPBI-2 might be a more suitable measure of irrational beliefs for athletic samples. Criterion

Acknowledgements

The authors sincerely thank Staffordshire University colleagues Gillian Aspin, Helen Davis, Saqib Deen, Joseph Dixon, Mark Green, Lyle Kirkham, Ann McDonnell, and Michael Wong for their role in data collection.

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• Maladaptive schemas as a potential mechanism through which irrational beliefs relate to psychological distress in athletes

  2019, Psychology of Sport and Exercise

  The four subscales were summed and averaged to form a composite irrational beliefs variable (Turner et al., 2018). The iPBI is valid and reliable for use with athletes (Turner & Allen, 2018; Turner et al., 2019), and internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) in the current sample was between 0.75 and 0.88 for the four subscales which shows good internal reliability and 0.93 for the composite score demonstrating excellent internal reliability. Three subscales, defectiveness, failure to achieve, and unrelenting standards, were used from the full Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ; Young, 2005); YSQ-S3 (Welburn, Coristine, Dagg, Pontefract, & Jordan, 2002).

• Teeing up for success: The effects of rational and irrational self-talk on the putting performance of amateur golfers

  2018, Psychology of Sport and Exercise

  This is important for two main reasons. First, research investigating REBT in sport has demonstrated that females report greater irrational beliefs than males (e.g., Turner & Allen, 2018; Turner, Carrington, & Miller, 2018) and therefore the effects of irrational beliefs on irrational and rational self-talk effects may be different in males than in females. Second, there is a sex-imbalance with the sport of golf, with only 15% of golf club members being female (England Golf, 2018).

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