Contents:

• Social Taxonomy Attitude and Expectations
• Attitude: Meaning and Boundaries
• Attitude and Symbolic Power in the Coaching Process
• Conclusions
• List of References

"Attitude is what will get a player 200 league games"

(Cited in Cushion, 2001, p.214)

What are you looking for in a player?

"Attitude, attitude, attitude"

(Cited in Cushion, 2001, p.214)

Attitude can be characterised as "a learnt and enduring tendency to perceive or act towards persons or situations in a particular way" (Jary & Jary, 2000, p.30), and has been highlighted by Doganis and Theodorakis (1995) as an important variable providing insight into the complex interplay between people their behaviour and socio-cultural conditions. While there remains no single definition of attitude, common features can be identified, namely that it is dynamic in character, evaluative, is a pre-disposition and that it is learned from direct experience or other people. Psychology and social psychology research considering attitude has tended to be concerned with its formation, and the relationship between attitudes and behaviour. More specifically in sport, investigations have explored attitudes to a range of topics such as, physical activity and participation.

If we conceive of the coaching process as a dynamic relationship between coach, performer and context, and given that attitude is a mediating variable between behaviour and the environment its utility in examining relationships within the coaching process seems worthy of consideration. Indeed, attitude could be usefully seen as a concept with the potential to demonstrate some of the complexity behind interaction in the coaching process (Cushion, 2001; Cushion, 2004). Moreover, existing research of the coaching process in sport such as in professional soccer, explored the factors constructing discourse between club, player, and social context, revealing that attitude played a significant part in shaping that discourse (Cushion, 2001; Parker, 1996).

Clearly, the factors that revolve around coach and performer's communication, behaviour, and disposition are dynamic in nature. An objective of this paper therefore, is to describe and explain the role of attitude in coaching and demonstrate how it can contribute to discourse within the coaching process. Indeed, despite the wide range of literature investigating coach behaviour, knowledge such as this in coaching remains sparse. Importantly, as has been argued elsewhere (Cushion, Armour & Jones, 2006) much of the existing coaching research is undertaken from a process-product perspective that views coaching as an individual enterprise therefore assuming for example, that the coach's behaviour is derived individually. Yet coaching is both an individual and social process, that is, meaning and understanding are actively constructed in the minds of athletes and coaches but are also influenced by the social context. Arguably much coaching research fails to recognise the role and power of wider social structures in shaping coach and performer behaviour, an important consideration for the construction of attitude. Thus, broader social structure plays a part, and continues to play a part in each individual coach and player's behaviour (Jones, 1999).

Within any given coaching scenario through an examination of the nature of coach-performer relationships and subsequent discourse it is often possible to identify, sub-groups of players, distinct from the official hierarchical social or year groups (Cushion, 2001; Wilson, Cushion, & Stephens, 2006). These sub-groups, often themselves hierarchically organised generally tend to fall into three groups; the 'favourites', then the 'peripherals' and lastly the 'rejects' (Cushion & Jones, 2006; Wilson, et al., 2006) . The ups and downs of team and/or player performance along with injury status during the course of a season means that the status of the ‘peripherals' and ‘favourites' remains reasonably fluid, however, the ‘rejects' group is often less susceptible to change. Membership of each group means a differing relationship with the coach, and a different experience from the coaching context.

To be a ‘favourite' brings favourable conditions and rewards. These can manifest themselves through for example, repeated selection for the team, virtually irrespective of personal performance as long as the goals of the group are being met, or in other words the team is winning. The favourites also tend to experience a positive bias from the coaches because they are "conforming, co-operative, orderly and high achieving" (Martinek, 1981, p.65). Indeed, by displaying the ideal features of a performer in this group the ‘favourites' personify the epitome of the coaches desire as regard the fulfilment of 'sporting values'. Thus, by living out everything that the coach advocates and stands for they necessarily increase the levels of relational intimacy between the coach and themselves (Parker, 1996).

For the 'reject', their relationships with the coach can be very different to the ‘favourites' and ‘peripherals', as is their experience in the coaching process. The ‘rejects' engender a negative coach outlook, which at times in some coaching contexts can border on hostility (see for example Cushion & Jones, 2006). The coaches perceive the rejects to be limited in sporting ability, and crucially in attitude. This can often result in ‘reject' performer's being pulled up for making minor mistakes, and receiving public chastisement.

Throughout this ‘selection process' coaches use initial impressions of athletes in practice situations informed by, for example; observation of the player's motivation, enthusiasm, pleasantness, response to criticism, interaction with staff and team mates (Horn & Lox, 1993). For coaches this would fall under the broad umbrella of attitude:

"The first thing I look at is attitude of the player, not only on the field, off the field, in training, that's the first thing I look for. Then skill and athletic ability." (Cited in Cushion, 2001, p.206)

Coaches references to attitude are often framed in terms of what a 'good' attitude would mean to the performer and frequently involve a link to future sporting progression. Indeed, next to overall ability, having the 'correct' attitude is seen as a requirement for sporting progression (Wilson, et al., 2006, Roderick, 2006). All coaches have views regarding the influence and relative importance of attitude. It is regarded as an important benchmark, used by sports and the coaches against which progression can be measured, and future prospects assessed. The consequences of having a ‘poor' attitude can be far reaching, from a poor experience within the sport to limited sporting progression and even denial of entry into professional sport.

The attitude of performers (perceived or actual) undoubtedly influences the behaviour of coaches toward them. A perceived poor attitude affects the coaches' behaviour, their coaching practice, and ultimately the coaching process. Indeed, Ajzen (1991) asserts that attitude influences behaviour, and it seems to the coaches that a certain type of performer attitude has a corresponding behaviour, interestingly the 'better' performers also seem to have a 'good attitude'. In addition, coaches seem to feel that a poor performer attitude is infectious and could influence performers, while a good attitude offers immunity to some negative aspects such as peer pressure (Cushion, 2001).

Both coaches and sport see successful youth performers as those, who in their eyes, demonstrate continued improvement in terms of performance ability, the development of physical and mental 'character' and perhaps most importantly, the nurturing of appropriate attitudes (Parker, 1996; Roderick, 2006). The message, seems to be quite clear: the right effort, the right attitude, and some performance improvement is not only the desired outcome, but will also influence coach behaviour.