Ironic Effect of Negation-formed Self-talk on Self-control and Golf Putt Task Performance

Objective: As one of the most popular psychological skill used in athletes' self-control, self-talk (ST) has significant effect on athletes' performance. However, the reasonable use of ST remains confusion and disagreement in practice. Based on the perspective of self-control, 2 field-studies were carried out to examine the influence of negation formed instructional ST and emotional ST on the performance of golf putt task in college student athletes. Methods: Sixty college student athletes participated in Study 1 (n=20) and Study 2 (n=40) separately. All of the participants were randomly arranged into different trials which were classified according to various kind of ST forms and emotion states. Results: As observed in study 1 and study 2, the golf-putting performance was significantly lower in negative ST group by comparing with affirmative ST group. Conclusion: The negation formed ST expressed significant ironic effect on athletes' self-control which have a negative impact on golf-putt task. Possible mechanisms of the ironic effect is necessary to be discussed in further studies.