Aggression in Sports

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Aggression is a feeling of hostility that arouses thoughts of attack, deliberately unfriendly behaviour or a disposition to behave aggressively. There are three types of behaviour:

· Assertive Play

· Instrumental Aggression

· Hostile Aggression

Assertive play is having no intent to harm, a legitimate force within the rules with unusual effort and energy. An example of this could be during a tennis match. A performer could be seen to perform an aggressive shot or serve to win a point. They may have no intent to harm or injure their opponent, but merely try and win the point so they are one step closer to winning the match. It is sometimes called channelled aggression. Instrumental aggression is having no anger but with the intent to harm, their goal is to win and uses the tactic `dirty play'. This is illegal in all sports except boxing. An example of this would be in football game when 2 players have a confrontation and later on one of those players has possession of the ball and the other player may but in an aggressive tackle to retaliate. Hostile Aggression is having the intent and goal to harm but with the arousal and anger involved. These are occasionally seen during a match, but these acts are the ones that are more than likely going to be written about in the following days newspaper headlines. This could happen when a player wants to take out a very influential player of a team, possibly the captain so puts in an in a powerful tackle. There are many reasons why sports players may get aggressive but the main reason are reasons such as home or away embarrassment, losing, pain, unfair umpiring, playing below their best, large score difference, low league standing, tiring near the end of a game, reput...

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...ate from aggression, it is used by breathing very deeply and slowly, focus on a single muscle group, visualise the tension being relieved from that specific muscle group until the player is completely relaxed, eventually visualise the tension flowing out of all muscle groups until completely relaxed.

I feel that the best way to control aggression in sports players is to control their emotions and thought processes. Thinking about previous wins and general thoughts linked to attributions to eliminate negative feelings. This will develop self-confidence, and in due course stop the player from being so aggressive as they will know there is no need to apply aggression to the opposite team because he or she will know they are physically and mentally prepared and skilled that the opposite players. That mental preparation can be done by mental rehearse and goal setting.

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