Relations between the Experience of the Yips and Athletes’ Psychological Growth

The present study aimed to examine and clarify the relations between the experience of the ‘yips’ or overcoming the yips and athletes’ psychological growth. A questionnaire survey was distributed and responses from 416 members (M = 19.6, SD = 1.1 years) of university regulation baseball clubs were analyzed. The 416 baseball players were divided into three groups: the non-yips group, yips group, and those that overcame the yips. A one-way analysis of variance was performed, setting group as the independent variable and the five subscale scores on the Psychological Maturity as an Athlete Scale as the dependent variables. The group that overcame the yips showed significantly higher subscale scores than did the nonyips group in clear meaning of sports activity, self-understanding, and independent achievement orientation. Contrastively, there were no subscales on which the yips group had significantly higher scores than the non-yips group. The present findings suggest that the psychological development observed in people who have experienced the yips is not merely because of the experience of the yips, as overcoming the yips also plays an important role in this development. Keywords: Posttraumatic growth (PTG); stress-related growth (SRG); negative experiences; crisis; turning poin