The origins of mental toughness

Some of the earliest work related to mental toughness was that of Francis Galton and William James at the beginning of the 20th century; both, albeit independently were interested in understanding why some people could accomplish more than the average person.

Another contributor was Julian Rotter with the research he carried out in the mid-fifties on “Locus of control” (a person’s belief that their decisions and life are controlled by environmental factors which they cannot influence or by chance or fate).

Salvatore Maddi’s work on meaninglessness & alienation and David McClelland’s work on Need for achievement (both in the sixties) were precursors to the work of Suzanne C. Kobasa in the late seventies looking into “hardiness” and the personality characteristics that distinguished managers and executives who remained healthy under life stress, as compared to those who developed health problems; she identified the elements of challenge, commitment and control as major contributing factors.

David Yulkeson in his work identified self-belief, motivation, focus and composure as key psychological characteristics associated with mentally tough elite athletes.

S. Fourie & J.R. Potgieter writing on the nature of mental toughness in sport in the South African Journal for Research in Sport, Physical Education and Recreation identified 12 components of mental toughness; these included (amongst others) coping skills, confidence maintenance, goal-directedness, competitiveness and psychological hardiness.

Peter Clough’s work, when he was at the University of Hull, identified confidence as a contributing factor to mental toughness.

Some writers include resilience within mental toughness while others see mental toughness as resilience + or even resilience ++! Resilience and mental toughness are obviously not the same thing but they are at the same time not completely different.

More recently Angela Duckworth’s work on Grit corresponds to certain aspects of Mental Toughness

In my third post I will look briefly at the components of Mental Toughness

If you have enjoyed reading this you may like to take a look at some other articles & posts that I have written here: www.boblarcher.com/category/mental-toughness/

Do not hesitate to contact me at boblarcher@boblarcher.com if you are interested in exploring Mental Toughness in more depth.