prof. dr. N. (Nico) van Yperen

As a Professor of Sport & Performance Psychology, I examine the mental aspects of sport, talent development, and performance across domains, with a particular focus on achievement motivation.

Individuals’ achievement motivation shapes how deeply they engage with performance tasks: why they choose to act and persist, how they think and feel while performing, how they evaluate their efforts, and how they respond to feedback, coaching, and mentoring.

Achievement goal theory posits that achievement motivation is driven by the need for competence, a fundamental psychological need. Perceptions of (in)competence stem from the standards individuals apply when evaluating their performance. Three primary standards are commonly distinguished: the task, the self, and others. Within achievement goal research, these standards are crossed with motivational valence: approach versus avoidance. Approach goals orient individuals toward attaining positive outcomes (e.g., demonstrating competence), whereas avoidance goals focus on preventing negative outcomes (e.g., avoiding incompetence).

Research typically shows that only a minority of athletes primarily endorse other-approach goals – goals centered on winning and doing better than others – as their most salient achievement aims. Yet anecdotal and empirical evidence underscores the profound impact of competitive outcomes: the stark emotional contrast between winners and losers at all levels of sport, elite athletes’ recurrent emphasis on a deep drive to win, and the well-established centrality of social comparison in human motivation.

One of my research aims is to reconcile this apparent discrepancy through three complementary objectives:

• to investigate the disconnect between athletes’ strong emotional reactions to winning and losing and their consistently low endorsement of other-based achievement goals in survey-based research;
• to advance the idea that the multiple achievement goals athletes pursue can be coherently organized within a hierarchical goal system; and
• to examine the self-regulatory demands athletes face as they navigate such hierarchical goal structures.

Ultimately, enhancing athletes’ ability to prioritize among achievement goals, calibrate evaluative standards, sustain task-focused attention, and regulate their emotions, while also managing setbacks, maintaining composure, and upholding ethical standards, can strengthen their capacity to pursue competitive success, cope with the turbulence inherent in sport performance, and support their long-term well-being.