Sophia Jowett BSc(Athens) MSc(Loughborough) PGCE(Wolverhampton) PhD(Exeter)
Reader in Psychology
Contact details
Room: ZZ1.11
Phone: +44 (0)1509 226331
Fax: +44 (0)1509 226301
Email: S.Jowett@lboro.ac.uk
Background
Sophia received her PhD from the University of Exeter in
2001. Her main research revolves around the affective, cognitive, and
behavioural aspects of interpersonal relationships in sport including coach-athlete,
parent-athlete and athlete-partner relationships. Interpersonal perception,
empathic understanding/accuracy, relationship quality, rules and roles form
main research areas. Sophia's research has been supported by the Economic and
Social Research Council, the British Academy, the Nuffield Foundation, the
Hellenic Olympic Committee, and the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sport. She
has published in peer-reviewed journals, presented her work at national and
international conferences and has authored chapters in edited books. She has
recently coedited a special issue on interpersonal relationships in Psychology
of Sport and Exercise, a monograph on psychology of sport coaching for the
British Psychological Society, and a textbook entitled Social Psychology in
Sport. Sophia is an accredited sport psychologist of the British Association of
Sport and Exercise Sciences, a chartered sport psychologist of the British
Psychological Society, and served as a psychology consultant of the Greek
Olympic Team.
NEW BOOK - SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY IN SPORT by
S. Jowett & D. Lavallee
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Research Interests
Sophia's research interests revolve around the social and
personal relationships as these unfold in sport settings. A great deal of her
research thus far has aimed to describe/define the content of the coach-athlete
relationship and explore antecedent and consequent variables. This research
also extends to issues such as empathy, social desirability responding,
interpersonal perception, interpersonal conflict as well as rules and roles in
the coach-athlete relationship. Research involving other types of dyadic
relationships in the context of sport such as athlete-partner and
athlete-parent have also been explored. Data collection include qualitative
(interviews) and quantitative (surveys, quasi-experiments) methods. Approaches
used to analyse obtained data include content analysis, narrative analysis,
multiple regression analysis, and structural equation modelling.
Sophia has presented her work at such national and international conferences as
BASES, (British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences), BPS (British
Psychological Society), FEPSAC (European Federation of Sport Psychology), ISSP
(International Society of Sport Psychology), Pre-Olympic Conferences, ECSS
(European College of Sports Sciences), IOC (International Olympic Committee)
and IARR (International Association of Relationship Research) conferences. In
2000, she was the recipient of the student research award in sport psychology
for her presentation entitled "Outgrowing the family coach-athlete
relationship: A case study" at the International Conference "Sport
Psychology in the New Millennium - A dynamic research-practice
perspective" held in Halmstad, Sweden.
Sophia is a module leader for the "Psychological factors of competitive
sport" (BSc) and the "Negotiated studies of professional sport
coaching" (MSc in Coaching). She also contributes to the "Motivation
and Interpersonal Aspects in Sport" (MSc in Sport & Exercise
Psychology). She supervises research students at undergraduate (BSc) and
postgraduate (MSc and PhD) levels.
Selected Publications
Lorimer, R., & Jowett, S. (2010). The Influence of Role and Gender in the Empathic Accuracy of Coaches and Athletes. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 11, 206-211.
Jowett, S., & Cramer, D. (2009). The role of romantic relationships in athletes’ performance and well-being. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 3, 58-72.
Lorimer, R., & Jowett, S. (2009). Empathic accuracy, meta-perspective, and satisfaction in the coach-athlete relationship. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 21, 201-212.
Jowett, S. (2009). Validating coach-athlete relationship measures with the nomological network. Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science, 13, 1-18.
Lafrenière, M.-A., K, Jowett, S., Vallerand, R. J., Donahue, E. G., & Lorimer, R. (2008). Passion in Sport: On the Quality of the Coach-Athlete Relationship.Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 30, 541-560.
Jowett, S., & Frost, T.C. (2007). Race/Ethnicity in the all male coach-athlete relationship: Black footballers' narratives. Journal of International Sport and Exercise Psychology. 3, 255-269
You can view a fuller publications list on the University Publications Database.
External Activities
Member of the Editorial Boards of the International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, International Journal of Coaching Sciences, (2007 to date) and Sport and Exercise Psychology Review (2004 to date).
Member of the Future Conferences Committee, International Association for Relationship Research (IARR), 2006-2007.
Special Interest Group in Coaching, BASES - Founder Member, 2003 to date.
Committee Member of the Sport & Exercise Psychology Section BPS, 2002-2004.
Hellenic Olympic Committee, Member of the "Women and Sport" Sub-committee, 2000-2005.
Member of the Research & Development working group of Sports Coach UK, 2007-present to date.
Selected Invited Conference Keynote and
Speaker Presentations:
Chair of the "Interpersonal and social dynamics in sport
settings" Symposium and Co-chair of the "Social relationships and
well-being in youth sport and physical activity" Symposium for the 12th
European Congress of Sport Psychology, September 2007.
Convenor and Chair of a symposium on "Interpersonal relationships in sport and exercise" for the 2005 Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society, Manchester, UK.
Invited by BASES Special Interest Group of Sports Coaching and UK Sports Coach to present on Coach-Athlete Relationships, Loughborough University, March 2005.
Co-chaired thematic session entitled Psychology: The coach-athlete relationship at the 2004 Pre-Olympic Congress 2004, Thessaloniki, Greece.
Convenor of a British Psychological Society (Sport and Exercise Psychology Section) satellite workshop entitled: The Psychology of Sports Coaching, London, 2004.
Co-chaired symposium on Relationships in Competitive Sports at the 11th World Congress of Sport Psychology, 2003, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Selected Recent Research Projects and
Sources of Funding:JF Costopoulos Foundation (Greece) (2001-2005) PhD bursary (£28,000)
Project Title: Associations between the coach-athlete relationship and
motivational climates.
British Academy (2002-2003) Dyadic Research (£4,500)
Project Title: Accuracy and bias in interpersonal perceptions - UK
coach-athlete relationship.
The Nuffield Foundation (2003-2004) Dyadic Research (£9,890)
Project Title: Coaches and athletes perceptions of rules in the coach-athlete
relationship.
Ministry of Culture & Sport (Greece) (2003) Relationship Rules (£36,000)
Project Title: The impact of coaches' and athletes' perceptions of social and
personal relationships on performance.
Economic and Social Research Council (2004-2007) Post-doc Res (£47,000)
Project working title: Relationship functioning in potentially stressful
romantic and marital contexts.