The “Athlete’s” Selves
Ann Camp
an infographic created as part of Dr. Erchull’s Social Psychology course
(Spring 2021)
Students were asked to “give psychology away” through an infographic designed to educate an audience of their choice about an idea from social psychology that the group would benefit from understanding
TOPIC: the self
AUDIENCE: college athletes

The idea of considering the “self” in relation to athletics is really interesting. Despite playing sports in high school and running as an adult I’ve never considered myself an “athlete” or very athletic. I wonder how that has affected my athletic performance. Some of my methods students did a study on athletic identity that you might be interested in!
This was a really interesting read! My post-doctoral work focused on self-related processing, but in the realm of memory performance (i.e., we remember things better that are associated with ourselves). I know my advisor would be thrilled to read more about the important of the self in every day activities like athletics. I spend a lot of time thinking about athlete personalities when determining if I want to be a fan or not and maybe some of that has to do with how they project their “athletic selves”?
I thought this was really interesting. I never knew that my views about myself would affect things like teamwork. I grew up playing softball, and as a lefty I never considered myself as third basemen or a shortstop because it was out of the norm. I wonder if I tried harder at footwork and my quickness if I would have been able to do it. I also wonder if I had more self-esteem or confidence in my ability if it would have affected the outcome. Overall I thought this was a very interesting topic for a project and it was very thought out.