A History of Sport Psychology

By Jessica Maes

While the field of sport psychology is relatively young, it’s older than one may think. All the way back in 1897, Norman Triplett was studying cyclists. He wanted to see how an audience impacted performance. What he observed is that most cyclists performed worse when there was competition. Only the most elite performers performed better in the presence of an audience.

Moving along on the sport psychology historical timeline, Coleman Griffith is often referred to as “the father of sport psychology in North America”. He established the first sport psychology lab at the University of Illinois in 1925. His lab focused on psychological and physiological issues pertaining to performance in sport. Griffith was also the first psychologist hired by a professional sports team – the Chicago Cubs in 1938.

There are several women who played a huge role in the creation and advancement of sport psychology as a field. Dorothy “Dot” Harris is one of the most commonly known women in the history of sport psychology because she is not only known as one of the “mothers of sport psychology” but also as the “mother of applied sport psychology”.

There is some history in Europe worth noting as well. Pierre de Coubertin of France is considered the first person to coin the term sport psychology sometime between his active years with the International Olympic Committee which was between 1896 and 1925. Also Dr. Puni of Russia is also sometimes considered the “father of sport psychology” and he established the first Department of Sport Psychology at the Lesgaft Institute of Physical Culture in Leningrad where he was an alum and faculty member. Puni’s colleague Dr. Roudik established the first sport psychology lab in the Soviet Union in Moscow in 1925.

Generally speaking, 1950 – 1980 are considered the formative years for the field of sport psychology. During this time, sport psychology began to separate itself as a field from exercise psychology. The same is true for the emergence of applied sport psychology.

In addition to the applied and ideological work that was being done in the field, there were some organizations emerging. The first was the International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP), established in 1965 in Rome with the intent to promote the field of sport psychology worldwide. The most recent, and the organization that is seen as the premier organization for the field worldwide at this time is Association of Applied Sport Psychology (AASP). The organization was originally formed in 1985 and called Association for the Advancement of Applied Sport Psychology (AAASP) and in 2006 was renamed AASP.

Jessica is a first-year master’s student in the Sport, Exercise, & Performance Psychology program at the University of Wisconsin – Green Bay. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Wisconsin – Parkside and is currently a Writing Tutor at The Learning Center at UWGB. She is also certified as a grant writer from the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire and from Learn Grant Writing. Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn.