The current collection elucidates the complex and dualistic intersection of sport psychology, physical activity, and advanced technology (including wearables, exergames, and artificial intelligence). While performance is recognized as an emergent, context-sensitive phenomenon, its assessment and introspective experience are critically recalibrated by ubiquitous digital instrumentation. Initial contributions delineate technology's role as a precision training instrument, demonstrating its efficacy in perceptual skill enhancement (stroboscopic training) and the objective quantification of attentional demands (electroencephalography). Subsequent research transitions to examining technology as an omnipresent psychological regulator of motivation, contrasting optimal affective states in simulated versus analogous sporting environments and establishing predictive models for smart-watch adherence. The final cluster provides a critical analysis of technological ubiquity, exposing psychological vulnerabilities such as disrupted sleep patterns, identity dependence on external metrics, and the influence of algorithmic appreciation on social judgment. Collectively, these studies trace a comprehensive trajectory, underscoring the necessity for integrated inquiry into the ethical and existential implications for the modern athlete.

The rise of wearable technology, especially smart sport watches (SSWs), has revolutionized how individuals track and improve their health and fitness. These devices provide not only real-time biometric data but also enhance the motivation for physical activity by integrating social and personal health goals. This review examines the work of Tenenbaum et al. (2025) on the psychological factors influencing SSW use, particularly focusing on technology readiness, motivation, and sensation-seeking. It incorporates findings from recent studies by Moye et al. (2022), Jamieson et al. (2024), Dong (2024), De Vries et al. (2025), Xu et al. (2025), D & uuml;king et al. (2024), and Siddika and Ellithorpe (2025). These studies, conducted on healthy (non-athlete) populations, collectively emphasize the significant role of psychological traits, perceptions of technology performance, emotional regulation, and ergonomic design in shaping SSW usage patterns. This article synthesizes their findings within the broader contexts of wearable electronics, health psychology, and user experience design, while proposing future directions for interdisciplinary research to optimize SSW adoption and long-term health benefits.

PurposeThis study explored how Israeli Olympic athletes constructed meaning en route to the Paris 2024 Olympics amid the Gaza-Israel war following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack. War is conceptualized as a longitudinal, unpredictable, and negative career change event that coincided with the Olympic Games transition.MethodologyThematic analysis of 318 Instagram posts by 12 athletes (6 medallists, 6 non-medallists) was performed across three phases: pre-Games, during, and post-Games.FindingsSeven themes were identified. Initially, athletes aimed to raise global awareness, counter misinformation, and express solidarity and empathy for victims. As the Games approached, themes of patriotism and national pride emerged, with athletes framing their participation as symbolic of Israeli resilience. During and after the Games, they dedicated achievements to Israel and expressed gratitude to supporters.Practical ImplicationsThe research emphasizes the need to understand athletes' meaning-making in extreme circumstances, suggesting that sports organizations develop support systems for athletes in crisis.ContributionThis study offers valuable insights into how elite athletes navigate psychological challenges during national conflict, underscoring the role of sports in fostering national resilience. It also contributes to the literature on athletes' social media use.OriginalityThis study is among the few to explore Olympic athletes' construction of meaning during a war conflict.

In football, referees are expected to deliver consistent and unbiased judgments, grounded in professional knowledge and expertise. However, much of the research on referees' decision-making has traditionally focused on the concept of "bias" in their judgments. This review shifts attention to referees' decision-making noise – defined as "undesirable variability in judgments of the same problem" (Kahneman, D., Sibony, O., & Sunstein, C. R. [2021]. Noise: A flaw in human judgment (p. 40). Little, Brown Spark). Noise reflects the inconsistency in referees' responses to similar match situations, resulting in diverse decisions for comparable infringements. The article is structured into five key sections. First, we introduce the concept of noise in human judgment. Second, we explore the issue of noise in the context of football refereeing, offering examples and relevant data. Particular emphasis is placed on noise in foul decisions, incorporating both raw data and findings from existing literature. A detailed framework is presented, outlining the components, sources, detection methods, and strategies for reducing judgment noise in refereeing. In the third section, we compare bias and noise in football officiating, examining potential mechanisms underlying each. The fourth section considers strategies for reducing errors in refereeing and discusses the potential costs associated with implementing such measures. Finally, we argue why stakeholders in football officiating should expand their focus beyond bias to address the implications of noise in refereeing decisions.

VAR (video assistant referee) presents a human-technology interface that was designed to improve referees' ability to make accurate decisions in key match incidents. VAR interventions are pivotal moments in football matches, challenging referees' critical decisions and potentially affecting their perceived ability to manage the game. This study aimed to investigate how referees handle VAR interventions in terms of game management and control. Through statistical analyses, we examined 120 real-match VAR interventions in penalty incidents from the Israeli Premier League, focusing on the number of fouls and yellow cards before and after the VAR interventions. Our findings revealed a significant impact (d = 0.40) on yellow cards but not on fouls. Remarkably, referees issued twice the number of yellow cards (normalized per playing minute) following a VAR intervention, irrespective of the time it occurred during the match (i.e., first or second half). These results are discussed within the framework of current research and theories concerning self-control and game management in football refereeing. The increased issuance of yellow cards following VAR interventions suggests that teams may be at a higher risk of receiving disciplinary actions, which can potentially impact their performance and increase the likelihood of losing matches. Consequently, we provide practical recommendations for referee training and match preparation as well as for teams.

Participation in the Olympic Games (OGs) represents the pinnacle of an elite athlete’s career, often accompanied by a spectrum of emotions – including euphoria, flow, pride, and a sense of meaning – as well as negative experiences such as disappointment, frustration, anxiety, and a lack of purpose. Over the past decade, research on athletic careers has increasingly recognized the OGs as a longitudinal career transition encompassing multiple phases and meta-transitions, including qualification/selection, preparation, participation, and the post-Games period. However, no review has yet addressed the full scope of the OGs transition, and no conceptual model has been developed to account for this complex experience. This article addresses this gap by pursuing two objectives: (a) to provide a narrative review of the OGs transition, and (b) to introduce a new framework – the Olympic Games Transition Model (OGT model) – which captures the change events, career pathways, and associated adaptation processes within the OGs transition. Our research questions were: (a) What are the transitional experiences of elite athletes throughout their Olympic journeys? (b) Can specific transitions and phases be identified as career pathways? (c) How do athletes perceive these transitions? (d) How do elite athletes emotionally respond to the transition’s demands and barriers? (e) How do athletes adapt to these demands and barriers? The findings underscore the scarcity of quantitative, comparative, predictive, and longitudinal research in this area. The review highlights the complex and dynamic emotional nature of the OGs experience and its potential impact on athletes’ well-being. The OGT model offers researchers and practitioners a comprehensive framework for understanding athletes’ change events, career pathways, and adaptation processes.

This case study describes the adaptation process of a female sailor experiencing several career-change events and transitions. Qualitative data were collected longitudinally as part of a sport psychology consultation process. Data analysis was guided by the meta-model of adaption in sport. Along two Olympic cycles (i.e., Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024), the athlete experienced multiple changes. These included two transitions between sailing classes, teaming up with a partner, long training camps, an injury, the coronavirus pandemic, and competing in major championships. Transition demands included building team cohesion and developing self-efficacy and mental strength. The athlete exhibited successful and poor adaptation. The applied work facilitating her successful adaptation is presented. Her adaptation ability developed as she progressed in her career, en route to becoming a world champion. These findings provided initial applied-practice support for the meta-model of adaption in sport.

LeBron James made NBA history on February 7, 2023, when he surpassed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 39-year-old record to become the all-time leading scorer. Abdul-Jabbar responded to James’ achievement with grace and explained why he was not intimidated by it. In this article, we review several examples of athletes who accorded with or feuded against their records getting broken by other athletes. We relate such emotional and public responses to achievement motivation theory in sports as well as to athletes’ adaptation to retirement. We further discuss social concepts and factors, such as personal rivalries, political collisions, generation differences, and technology. We believe that while actual responses from athletes might be unpredictable, there are several ideas that can be conceived concerning this phenomenon. We conclude by suggesting avenues for exploration in this under-researched area in sports.

The war experience (WE) presents a highly troublesome period for sport performers, with severe effects on their lives and career trajectories. In this article, we initially conceptualize the WE through the scheme of change for sport psychology practice (Samuel & Tenenbaum, 2011a). The WE is considered a longitudinal, multifaceted, unpredicted, noncontrolled, negative change-event, developed over four distinct stages with specific demands and responses: (a) a pre-war stage, (b) War stage-A accompanied by instability and confusion, (c) War stage-B characterized by active coping or regression, and (d) War stage-C; return to sport activity, modification of activity, or retirement. The development of this change process in sport performers’ careers is discussed within the context of the 2023 Israel-Hamas war. Thereafter, we discuss applied practice efforts to support sport performers through the WE. The conclusions offer future avenues for researchers and practitioners when attempting to evaluate and cope with this unique change-event.

Football referees at the elite level are required to meet high-performance standards, physically, behaviourally, and mentally. These may pose considerable cognitive load which necessitates expert ability of gaze behaviour, perception, and attention allocation. In this article we aim to model the array of professional and psychological factors that impact referees' performance, leading to optimal and non-optimal performance states. We initially discuss the cognitive demands of football refereeing. The structure of this article is as follows: (a) defining the demands of refereeing task; (b) providing the conceptual basis for understanding the attentional process within the football refereeing context; (c) reviewing empirical data concerning several potential factors influencing attention in football refereeing (i.e. gaze behaviour, inattentional blindness, external distractors, pressure, exertion, self-control, and VAR); (d) modelling attention allocation in football refereeing under normal and highly demanding match conditions; (e) providing practical recommendations for improving refereeing attentional performance, and (f) offering specific suggestions for future research in this area.

The aim of this paper is twofold: (1) to integrate several theoretical perspectives into a novel Meta-model of Adaption in Sport (MAS model) and (2) to support the MAS model with a narrative literature review on change-provoking events and related adaptation processes, factors involved, and outcomes. The MAS model is designed to account for two potential tracks of adaptation - fast and prolonged - that are situated along the continuum of adaptation experiences in sport. In each track, sport performers experience various types of sport-related events (i.e., acute events or change events) that are associated with specific sets of demands and perceptions related to self-efficacy beliefs and challenge-threat appraisal. Accordingly, the performer responds to these events by using the mechanisms which determine his/her adaptation process and outcomes. We present a narrative review of the literature related to both adaptation tracks that provide empirical support to the MAS model and conclude by offering reflections on the MAS model and its potential applications in sport psychology research and practice.

Our special issue comprises a diverse collection of ten research and review articles, each offering unique insights into the psychological dimensions of athletic performance. From studies examining the role of resilience in overcoming extreme score shifts to explorations of the mental toll caused by external crises like the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical conflict, these papers provide a broad spectrum of perspectives. The issue digs into critical topics such as the influence of crowd dynamics, athlete-coach relationships, and the psychological challenges of breaking long-standing records, all while highlighting innovative methodologies like ecological approaches and creative non-fiction. Together, these ten papers underscore the complexity of the psychological factors that impact athletes’ success and well-being, offering both theoretical advances and practical applications for the sporting world.

Football referees are required to make numerous decisions per match under physiological and emotional strain. Within this context, VAR (video assistant referee) interventions represent a key match event in which referees' critical decisions are challenged and thus their perceived ability to control the match might also be obscured. In this study, we investigated the effects of a VAR intervention on referees' self-rated mental fatigue (MF) and performance. Nine elite referees completed over 2-6 real matches each (total of 44 matches) a single item of MF before the match, at half-time, and immediately after the match. Situational and performance indices were also collected. The referees' level of MF significantly increased from pre-match to half-time to post-match, yet the referees were not completely mentally fatigued at the end of the matches. Post-match MF was higher (a medium effect) for matches with a VAR intervention (n = 9) compared with matches without an intervention (n = 35). Post-match MF correlated negatively with self-rated performance, r(44) = .35, p = .019. These findings are discussed in relation to current theory and research in the area of self-control and MF in sports. We also provide recommendations for referee training and match preparation.

Upon the emergence of the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic (CP), football referees were forced to cope with the interruption of leagues and experience quarantines, with a potential threat to their physical and psychological well-being. This study examined referees' perceptions of the CP change-event, particularly the effects on refereeing engagement and performance, in part to facilitate more effective support. For this study, an online inventory was circulated during January-February 2021 to 198 referees and assistants from Israel and Portugal, asking them to reflect on the CP in the context of their careers, and the potential effects on their refereeing engagement and performance. The results indicated that the CP was perceived as a moderate change-event in terms of significance, severity, and coping, although many participants did consider it as significant. The participants indicated just a minor reduction in their refereeing quality between the 2019-2020 and the 2020-2021 seasons. The main areas affected were training on a grass field, decision-making training, and financial status. Still, refereeing instruction (conducted mainly online) improved. The behavioural effects were more forceful among the nonprofessional referees, suggesting that Referee Associations must pay closer attention to support these populations. The participants' motivation, refereeing identity, and self-efficacy were actually improved. Finally, the absence of the crowd in matches allowed the referees to be more aware of their actions and better communicate with players and coaches, which related to better performance. These findings further emphasize the social aspect of football refereeing and the importance of having upright management and communication skills.

Abstract In recent years, applied sport psychologists have become more open to “third wave therapies” that focus on the holistic promotion of human well-being. In this article, the potential application of body psychotherapy, Somatic Experiencing® (SE™), is presented within the sport context. SE™ focuses on resolving the symptoms of chronic stress and post-traumatic stress, among other things by directing the client’s attention to internal sensations, both visceral (interoception) and musculoskeletal (proprioception and kinesthesis) to resolve a dysfunctional state of the autonomic nervous system. The basic tenets of the SE™ framework are initially described with a short account of its effectiveness. Then, SE™ intervention context and ethical considerations are discussed, followed by a hypothetical example of its application with a judoka who experienced stress following an unexpected loss in a competition. Reflections and recommendations for practitioners are provided.

Sports have always been a source of attraction and interest and has frequently been laden with social and cultural meanings. Although sports presume to be fair and free of external interests, they are usually greatly influenced by local and international politics. The commercialization and professionalization of sports in the second half of the 20th century and the increased significance of the media and technological advancements have made sports and sports viewing the most common modern leisure activity. This has resulted in a change in the characteristics of elite athletes. They are admired, sometimes independently from the club for which they play, and have direct communication channels with their fans, primarily through social media. There is also a public expectation from elite athletes to express their views and represent their communities. The interplay of these two factors, social media and the popularization of sports, have made elite athletes, or those who desire it, public personas with the power to encourage social change. Thus, the chapter sheds light on three main components: the significance of athletes in the age of social media and Covid-19 pandemic; the recognition of the role of the athletes and the establishment of their power; and the desire or need of famous elite athletes to make use of this power.

Decision-making (DM) is a critical aspect of soccer refereeing. Referees make numerous repetitive decisions, many of which are dependent on appropriate field location and effective interaction with their assistants. Considering the complexity of the sequential DM process, it is not surprising that referees exhibit high decision error rates. Most extant research has focused on the underlying mechanism of the DM process as well as on various influential factors. Less attention has been given to models that consider the range of influential factors which affect the DM process. This article, therefore, presents a new conceptual framework of sequential DM for soccer referees that relies on Tenenbaum's (2003. Expert athletes: An integrated approach to decision making. In J. Starkes & A. Ericsson (Eds.),Expert performance in sports: Advances in research on sport expertise(pp. 191-218). Human Kinetics) conceptual framework and the existing literature. We start by reviewing research on DM in soccer refereeing and then discuss conceptual considerations. We then present the new conceptual framework. This model incorporates a range of factors, including physical fitness and fatigue, field positioning, visual attention, contextual factors, game management, expertise, psychological factors, and team factors. Data obtained from a sample of 20 elite referees and assistants demonstrated the face validity of the new model. Finally, we introduce implications for training referees' DM skills and highlight avenues for future research and conceptual developments.