The word automaticity has found its way into our everyday vocabulary over recent years and there is absolutely no surprise to hear it in the world of sport. The Burnley manager Sean Dyche mentioned its importance to his own Burnley side during his appearance as a pundit on BBC radio 5 live`s Champions league final coverage. But what exactly does it mean? Why is it relevant and how is it implemented by managers and coaches in their specific sports?
The term would have first entered the academic world in the mid 1990s when it was a phenomenon investigated by the American Social Psychologist John Bargh who was curious to investigate the unconscious, automatic processing involved in social behaviour. Bargh proposed we have an unconscious relationship with our social environment and via its stimuli and cues automatic behaviour develops in individuals who frequently find themselves working, socialising and relaxing in similar situations every day. Such situations may consist of a large number of stimulii, sensations and cues which regularly form part of their environment, whether it be buildings, people, visual images, objects, conversations or smells.
A main reason for its salience to humans is the fact that automatic behaviour and conscious effortful thinking, or decision making require two different processing systems in the brain. Moss and Dyer (2010) refer to this as the dual systems approach to understanding the process of thinking. One of these systems is quick, automatic and energy conserving which would be activated if sportsmen / women were engaging in a well learned and practiced series of actions. The other is significantly slower and, requires more mental effort, and hence more energy An example of this would be to try and divide 452 by 7, answering a spontaneous tricky question from a work colleague or boss or a learning a new, complex skill.
Humans are by their very nature cognitive misers and so are motivated to engage in less demanding, effortful thinking than they have to. Even making a decision about what to have for lunch or resisting a favourite treat depletes mental energy. Some researchers even propose that being mentally tired leads to becoming physically tired as well. This makes sense as any conscious thinking demands the immediate availability of more blood glucose in the brain regions that provide the necessary fuel to aid conscious, effortful thought.
Automaticity in Sport
In order to develop automaticity in sportsmen and sportswomen to give them the best chances of replicating the skills developed during training into competitive performance, it is imperative that coaches manage and control as much of the environment as possible during the build up to the day of competition. This would involve developing set routines and practices related to tactics, diet, times of training and locations as well as ensuring all elements of the environment remain constant. It is common for teams to stay at the same hotels; when travelling to away fixtures, some managers even prefer to keep the team at the same hotel for home matches the evening before a fixture to maintain routine familiarity and a stable, familiar environment.
Individual players may choose their own rituals and preparations, such as putting their kit on in a certain order and sitting in the same place in the dressing room. All this might seem like superstition but it takes away the need for them to make any decision as the need to make a decision can lead to a situation when you slip out of your “auto pilot” status. This could potentially make players vulnerable to intrusive thoughts as well as drain mental energy which can disrupt preparation and hence performance. Intrusive negative thoughts could prove catastrophic for sports people and once the negative thoughts take hold this can develop into feelings and accompanying negative physiological arousal, which could severely hamper their ability to perform at their highest level. Remember we DO NOT want to engage in any effortful thinking. Players have everything planned for them so they are just left to get into, and approach their “zone” to perform when the time arises.
Automaticity means less thinking, which means less decisions to make which reduces the chances of intrusive negative thoughts damaging an athlete`s smooth performance. Having too many conscious decisions to make results in more opportunities for these intrusive thoughts to appear in the thoughts of sportsmen and sportswomen who are performing at the highest level.
Tony Pulis and George Graham, it has been claimed by ex-players, spent hours on defensive drills week in week out, no doubt to the point of extreme boredom. However, this was necessary to ensure the team were well prepared for their competitive games. Their behaviour on match days became automatic and each member of their back four knew where they were supposed to be in a countless number of situations and exactly what to do in each of these situations as they had been through it so many times before. They had no decisions to make as they automatically knew, which meant their mental energy was maintained. Automaticty during performance means concentration is maintained for longer as mental energy energy is not depleted.
This is essential for teams going through a physically and mentally draining series of competitive fixtures at the end of the season, all of which would determine how successful they were in terms of winning trophies. The key factor in developing automaticity is consistency. It is essential to retain familiarity and develop exact routines as often as possible to enable all the senses to develop a strong association between the environment and their own internal brain processing systems.
It is clear that developing automaticity takes time, which managers do not have in today`s ruthless climate. However the coaching staff and / or the sporting directors at football clubs can certainly make it part of their duties to structure a schedule for their players to ensure that they train under the necessary conditions to allow automaticity to develop in their players. This will ensure they are well drilled and fully prepared for high level matches against top opposition who will almost certainly utilising sport science recommendations themselves in their preparation. Sports teams are performing in an age of marginal gains and so the greater the number of smaller gains teams can use the greater their chances of performing to their maximum level.
One word of caution to finish with though, the principles of automaticity apply to the more destructive of human behaviours as well such as smoking, excessive alcohol consumption and gambling
Psychology in Sport 