4 Ways to Understand Behavior and Improve Your Coaching Approach
Over the course of a coaching career, these types of questions will inevitably come up:
- Why do athletes and coaches behave the way they do?
- Why do some players consistently play hard and others do not?
- Why do some coaches yell and scream at their players, and others remain calm?
- Why do some players adhere to, or exceed, the programs expectations and others fall short and disappoint?
These are all valid questions. And at times, very difficult to answer. Thankfully the field of Applied Behavior Analysis has researched these types of questions for the past 60 years. From the empirical findings, 4 Functions have been identified to describe behavior:
#1. Escape/Avoidance
An individual will engage in certain behaviors to avoid or escape non-desirable situations.
Why do coaches (or players) argue with umpires to the point of ejection? It could possibly be to get themselves away from a game that has gotten out of control. Maybe the coach is disgruntled with his teams play and wishes to not be a part of the environment. The escape/avoidance function may be the way to side step perceived embarrassment. This may be the embarrassment of losing a game, losing control of a player, or losing the entire team.
From the players perspective, he/she may be having a poor stretch of games and would rather NOT be playing.
Off the field, athletes on a team may not attend scheduled gym sessions, classes, or other team functions. Staff members may avoid certain recruiting events, not make certain phone calls, or not follow up on emails.
Although common , Escape and Avoidance may be the most overlooked function of player behavior. This is often caused by coaches assuming player’s motivations are similar to their own. Coaches love to believe that all their players want to play at the next, or highest, level. High school coaches believe the varsity level is desired. College coaches hope their players want to start on the weekend. Professional coaches envision all their players wanting to play in Major Leagues.
As coaches, we want to believe our athletes WANT, and WILL, do anything possible to play, help the team win, and move on to the next level.
However, this may not always be the case.
#2. Attention Seeking-
An individual behaves in a manner to get focused attention from the staff, teammates, fans, etc.
This is probably the most common function attributed to unwanted behavior. Coaches, scouts, and players alike will point to attention seeking when describing outlandish actions. The helmet thrower, the arguer, tardy player, the joker, and the lazy player. All this in effort to gain some sort of recognition.
Attention seeking can come in form of desired behaviors as well. The player who always hustles, is the first one to arrive and last to leave, demonstrates great teammate behavior may be doing so to gain attention.
Of note, attending to a behavior can come in a variety of ways. Verbal communication may be the most common and familiar. Words of encouragement and praise clearly feed the attention seekers function. Acknowledging a players hustle or effort with, “Way to go,” or “Nice hustle,” are some examples.
However, yelling or using demeaning words is also giving a behavior attention. If a coach screams at a player for not running hard or showing up late to practice, the player has gained attention for the behavior. Although it may seem odd that someone would WANT to be yelled at, we need to understand that each individual is different. Being yelled at may be the only attention he/she gets. Unfortunately, that may be satisfying.
With that said, there are other forms of communication. Non verbal cues can also be attention feeders. Eye contact, throwing hands up in disgust, arm crossing, etc., are all forms of displaying acknowledgment, thus reinforcing the function of attention seeking.
#3. Access-
An individual acts a certain way to gain access to something he wants (an item/activity) or something enjoyable.
Under these conditions, a player does everything possible to gain access to something he/she wants. This may be to make a roster, be recruited by a particular school, or get drafted by a professional team. This may come in the form of running hard down the baseline, making a point to say “hello” when he/she sees a person of influence, and a variety of other behaviors.
The Access function can be tricky. Perhaps a player behaves a certain way in effort to gain a scholarship. But once that scholarship has been obtained, the motivations stop, thus prompting new behaviors (possibly non-desired) to emerge. It is something coaches need to be aware of.
How authentic is the behavior?
#4. Sensory Stimulation-
An individual behaves in a certain way because it feels good.
Although a little more complex than the previous three functions, Sensory Stimulation plays a role in behavior. Sometimes we do things simply because of the way it feels. The behavior may not be influenced by who is around us. If a player enjoys the feelings of working out (the pump, sweating, muscle increase) he/she will continue to behave in a manner that reinforces the feeling. A player may slam his helmet in a frustrating situation because it feels good to release that tension. The continued use of chewing tobacco is also an example.
Understanding the WHY behind our players behavior is crucial if we want to use the appropriate consequences. If a player is looking to Escape/Avoid a game, practice, or team function and the coach sends them home for being late, the behavior has been reinforced and will most likely happen again! However, if the coach understands the function (in the case Escape/Avoidance) he/she may decide to utilize a more appropriate consequence that is less desired by the player. Adding additional field jobs, early morning conditioning or taking away the players locker are possible examples.
The most powerful consequence, however, would be to accurately reinforce the player when he/she DOES arrive on time. This concept is covered more in depth on our piece regarding reinforcement.
Here is another point to keep in mind: A behavior can fall into multiple categories. For example:
Playing hard could be used to gain Attention from others and/or gain Access to the team or group.
Acting out (throwing equipment, arguing with umpires, etc.) could be to Escape/Avoid the situation and/or get Attention from others.
Remember, we ALL behave certain ways, in certain contexts, for a reason. Before we write off a player (or staff member) and place labels on them, understanding their WHY is important. The functions of behavior are a great place to start when looking to increase/maintain or reduce/eliminate the actions of our players, team, coaching staff, and more importantly; OURSELVES. It may even gain us an extra player that others have given up on!
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