Shared Interests in Solving Common Problems: How Sport Psychology Might Inform Human Factors and Ergonomics

Abstract

In line with the proposed themes of this conference and cognizant that gains in understanding are often enhanced notably by a consideration of findings from outside of a particular field (Dunbar, 1995), we demonstrate here how the burgeoning field of sport psychology might inform views of the future of the human factors and ergonomics profession. Four areas of sport psychology are discussed is this regard. The first concerns research on the self-regulatory strategies of athletes operating in stressful competitive environments; the second recent developments in risk taking research; the third research on perceptual-cognitive skills training for performance in dynamic, open sports; and the final area the link between emotion and motor behavior. We appeal to human factors and ergonomics professionals to consider how the two fields could be mutually informative in solving problems common to both fields.