Irrational Beliefs Among Competitive High School Student Athletes: Are they General or Context-Driven?

While student-athletes strive for high performance both athletically and academically, understanding the role of beliefs as it relates to objective measures of performance has not been readily studied (Turner and Barker in J Appl Sport Psychol 25:131–147, 2013) and even less so among youth. This research examined if irrational beliefs that are context specific to performance settings (academic vs. athletic) are more predictive of academic and athletic performance than those more general irrational beliefs among 30 high-school student athlete basketball players. While both general and context-specific irrational beliefs were predictive of athletic performance as measured by performance analysis from game video footage and academic performance as measured by Grade Point Average, there were no differences in terms of their predictive ability. Implications for researchers and practitioners are provided to guide the scholarly research and applied implications regarding the role of specific beliefs as it relates to performance with this population.