This article presents a systematic review of the literature examining the relationship between self-talk and performance. "Second-generation questions" regarding potential mediators and moderators of the self-talk-performance relationship were also examined. A total of 47 studies were analyzed. Results indicated beneficial effects of positive, instructional, and motivational self-talk for performance. Somewhat surprisingly, two evidence-based challenges to popular current viewpoints on self-talk emerged. First, negative self-talk did not impede performance. Second, there was inconsistent evidence for the differential effects of instructional and motivational self-talk based on task characteristics. Results from the mediation-based analysis indicate that cognitive and behavioral factors had the most consistent relationships with self-talk. The findings are discussed in the context of recent theoretical advances, and the article includes recommendations for future research (e.g., the use of designs allowing the testing of meditational hypotheses) and for current applied practice (e.g., avoiding the use of thought-stopping techniques).
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 283. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 21 February 2026.
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Outputs from Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology
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Outputs of similar age from Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology
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Altmetric has tracked 34,364,397 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 553 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 15.9. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
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