Anthony Tyson Research Paper

Tyson’s success and failure

Tyson became one of the most well-known athletes all over the world, his boxing career was a huge success as long as he could stay out of trouble. 1985 was the year Tyson made his debut in boxing, it was a very successful year but along with the success of Tyson came the tragic loss of D’Amato. He was heartbroken by this loss but was able to channel it into his fights and two weeks later carried on the path D’Amato set for him, winning his thirteenth knock out in Texas in a fight dedicated to D’Amato. In November 1986, Tyson had reached the goal that he and D’Amato had set out to achieve, Tyson became the youngest world heavyweight champion, winning by knock out in the second around against Trevor Berbick (Beyond

the Glory, 2003). Tyson did not stop there, he went on to own all three major belts in the world of boxing, in 1987 he added the World Boxing Association championship and later that year winning the International Boxing Federation title (Biography.com Editors, n/a).
During the late 1980 Tyson began to let his game slip, after marrying actress Robin Givens in 1988 he had several near miss wins and began to rely heavily on his one hit knockout.

The man once known for his well-executed offensive and defence had begun to lose his edge in the ring. He put soul blame on his trainer Rooney who had taken over coaching duties when D’Amato passed away and fired him in 1988. Tyson marriage became abusive and eventually ended in divorce, not long after Tyson had multiple court appearances that were largely women related, accusations of things reaching from inappropriate attentions to rape. On February 11, 1990 Tyson’s five year winning streak came to an end when he was knocked out in the tenth round by Buster Douglas losing his championship belt.

Tyson
Self-efficacy goal orientations
Self-efficacy is a closely linked theory with the achievement goal theory, self-efficacy is how an individual sees their own personal skill level in a particular situation and makes a judgement about the end result based on their perceived ability.

There are a number of factors that influence ones self-efficacy, performance accomplishments (past experiences), vicarious experiences (observing others), physiological state (stamina), emotional states (mood), imaginal experiences (mental imagery) and verbal persuasion (positive self-talk and instruction). The past experiences aspect of self-efficacy is seen as the most valuable to determine whether or not someone will have high or low self-efficacy in a particular situation. This is because if an athlete has had more success than failure in the past at a specific task then they are more likely to feel confident in attempting it again. It can affect the activities that a person choses to participate in, if they are confident in their ability they are more likely to take part (Lavallee et al, 2012), especially if they have a high ego orientation and believe in their ability to outperform their competitors. Tyson again is a prime example to use for performance experiences, his first fight set him up for many future achievements in the world of boxing, along with a 22-0 winning streak, emerged the Mike Tyson we know today. A man with a high ego orientation, also showing signs of ego avoidance when he had his first loss, in 1990 to

Buster Douglas. Tyson said after the match “I didn’t even train for that fight, I didn’t take it seriously” whether or not this is true, the statement alone shows aspects of ego-approach, this is because Tyson was not willing to admit someone had been outperformed him (Beyond the Glory, 2003) and is also an example of goal orientation changing over time. Tyson knew he could fight, during his early years he developed his own style of street fighting, this happened because as a child he used to be a target for bullying (Biography.com Editors, n/a) because of his start to life Tyson had high situational self-efficacy when it came to fighting. This however, never really flooded over into other areas of his life.
Motivational climate
Motivational climate is another aspect of achievement goal theory and motivational theories, it helps give more insight when looking at what an individual believes will be the repercussions of their actions in a competitive situation or setting. Within a mastery climate, the individual will be rewarded for hard work and improvements and one in a competitive climate will tend to think that their coach will punish them for mistakes and only reward those who are the most able. If a person has low perceived ability they are more likely to be effected by motivational climate. In a competitive motivational climate an individual with low perceived ability tends to be less able to cope in that environment because of the decrease in their self-confidence whereas someone with high perceived ability will be more able to cope in either a competitive or motivational climate (Crockett, 2015).
Conclusion
In conclusion, the achievement goal theory in its different forms all experience influencing factors from the environment and socially. Tyson’s major social influence was most likely Constantine D’Amato as he took over the role of father is his life. I believe it is accurate to assume Tyson’s success in boxing was down to D’Amato and his influence on Tyson to commit and become a world champion boxer. I also believe Tyson’s ego orientation developed because of need to prove people who thought poorly of him wrong, that he could be good at something. His failure however, was down to his instinct he developed as a child to defend himself the only way he knew how, to be violent and volatile. The media played strongly on this downfall of Tyson’s because he was an easy target. Because of his lack of self-efficacy at anything other than boxing, he believed what they media wrote about him and battled with depression as a resulting factor. There was huge speculation about Tyson’s mental health, he saw a psychiatrist who deemed him not ‘disturbed’ enough to be a manic-depressant. His former wife Robin said in an interview however, “I used to hold him a lot, he used to cry a lot”. This was in contrast to what the doctors said confused Tyson (Beyond the Glory, 2003).