Understanding Mental Toughness

1. Understanding Mental
Toughness
By Israel Byrd
Lindenwood University
6/15/2014

2. Introduction
• As a former professional athlete
and football coach, I use the term
mental toughness often to teach,
motivate, and inspire athletes to
give their all and succeed on and
off of the field.
• I explored the concept of mental
toughness and how it is used in
sports psychology.
• Is it a personality trait, state of
mind, or both?

3. What is Mental Toughness?
Prior studies of mental toughness have defined it as:
 “the ability to cope with or handle pressure, stress, and
adversity; an ability to overcome or rebound from failures;
an ability to persist or a refusal to quit; insensitivity or
resilience; and the possession of superior mental skills.”
 “Mentally tough athletes respond in varying ways which
enable them to remain feeling relaxed, calm, and
energized because they have learned to develop two
skills:
1. The ability to increase their flow of positive energy in crisis and
adversity
2. To think in specific ways so that they have the right attitudes
regarding problems, pressures, mistakes and competition.”
Jones, Hanton, & Connaughton. (2002), p. 205

4. What is Mental Toughness?
Jones, Hanton, and Connaughton published their
work defining mental toughness in 2002 and later
developed a framework with four dimensions
that was published in 2007.
Their formal definition of mental toughness is:
– “having the natural or developed psychological edge
that enables you to : generally, cope better than your
opponents with many demands (competition,
training, lifestyle) that sport places on a performer;
specifically, be more consistent and better than your
opponents in remaining determined, focused,
confident, and in control under pressure”
Jones, Hanton, & Connaughton. (2002). p. 209

5. Mental Toughness Framework
Jones, Hanton, & Connaughton’s Four
Dimensions of Mental Toughness:
Attitude/Mindset
Training
Competition
Post Competition
Jones, Hanton, & Connaughton. (2007). p. 249

6. Four Dimensions & Attributes
1. Attitude/Mindset
• Belief
• Focus
2. Training
• Using long-term goals as
the source of motivation
• Controlling the
environment
• Pushing yourself to the
limit
3. Competition
• Belief
• Staying focused
• Regulating performance
• Handling pressure
• Awareness and control of
thoughts & feelings
• Controlling the
environment
4. Post-Competition
• Handling failure
• Handling success
Jones, Hanton, & Connaughton. (2007). p. 249

7. What is Mental Toughness?
• The Clough Model of mental toughness used a
sample of athletes to show a link between
toughness, coping, emotional reactivity,
psychological skills and performance.
• Clough and his colleagues viewed mental
toughness like a personality trait with four
components referred to as the 4 C’s:
– Confidence - Challenge
– Control - Commitment
Clough, Earle, & Sewell. (2002).

8. Mental Toughness Framework
• Clough and his colleagues developed the
MTQ48 (Mental Toughness Questionnaire–48)
– Contains 48 items that are scored on a 5-point
Likert scale ranging from 1-strongly agree to 5-
strongly disagree.
• The Clough Model has led to further research
and development of other questionnaires to
measure mental toughness.
Clough, Earle, & Sewell. (2002).

9. What is Mental Toughness?
Vince Lombardi has even been quoted on the
topic of mental toughness saying:
“Mental toughness is many things and rather
difficult to explain. Its qualities are sacrifice
and self-denial. Also, most importantly, it is
combined with a perfectly disciplined will that
refuses to give in. It’s a state of mind – you
could call it ‘character in action’.”
Lombardi. (2010)

10. Conclusions
• Psychologists and researchers have defined
mental toughness very broadly.
• There are a wide range of characteristics and
traits associated with success that have been
associated with mental toughness.
• As an elite athlete, I can say that mental
toughness is a required skill for success both
on and off any playing field and it will
continue to evolve.

12. References
• Clough, P., Earle, K., & Sewell, D. (2002). Mental toughness: The
concept and its measurement. In I. Cockerill (Ed.), Solutions in
Sports Psychology, 32-43.
• Jones, G., Hanton, S., & Connaughton, D. (2002). What is this thing
called mental toughness? an investigation of elite sport performers.
Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 14(3), 205-218.
• Jones, G., Hanton, S., & Connaughton, D. (2007). A framework of
mental toughness in the world’s best performers. Sport
Psychologist, 21(2), 243-264. Retrieved from
http://www.cabdirect.org/abstracts/20073152280.html
• Lombardi, V. (2010). Famous Quotes. Retrieved from
http://www.vincelombardi.com/quotes.html.