Background/Purpose Seligman (2011) addressed the topic of flourishing in various areas of life through positive psychology techniques. These positive psychology techniques could be applied to the management of team cultures on high school campuses. These approaches encompass well-being of the individuals involved in the team with both athletes and coaches (Robbins, Powers, & Burgess, 2010). Four of the techniques involve positive emotions (Frederickson, 2009), full engagement or flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 2008), meaningful accomplishment (Seligman, 2009), and strong relationships (Dutton & Ragins, 2006). The purpose of this study was to examine coaches' perceptions regarding the relationship between these four positive psychology techniques and flourishing as a team.
Method Participants were high school coaches from the United States (n = 112; 74 males and 38 females). The participants completed an online survey with a mixed methodology. An open-ended narrative on the key factors associated with the quantitative responses was requested from participants, as well as the critical factors that lead to their decisions.
Analysis/Results The analysis involved both statistical approaches and grounded theory approaches. Results revealed that coaches perceive a connection between the positive psychology techniques and team flourishing. All four areas of positive emotions, full engagement, meaningful accomplishment, and strong relationships were perceived as highly important to team and player goal accomplishment and satisfaction.
Conclusions Coaches could benefit from learning various positive psychology techniques that relate to a team culture of flourishing. In addition, continued conceptual and empirical research is needed to more clearly establish the most helpful approaches applied to sports.