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Sport and Exercise Psychology research has gradually gained attention in the public eyes in Taiwan and has become an indispensable professional field to promote athlete achievement or mass sports quality. This study aims to review 121 data on sports psychology-related topics which were contained 115 academic papers in the Taiwan Social Science Citation Index (TSSCI), and 6 doctoral dissertations, exploring the relationship between the focus of past research topics and discussing trends and changes in research themes across generations through rigorous social network analysis methods. The study found that: (1)“Sportsmanship/Moral Development” and “Modeling/Observational Learning” are the research topics that are less discussed in Taiwan. The other nine research themes can be divided into three categories: a) “Competition/Achievement Orientation” and “Multidisciplinary Approaches to Psychological Issues”; “Self-Perceptions”, “Emotion/Arousal/Anxiety”, “Physical Activity Adoption, Maintenance, and Adherence”; b) “Gender Role”, “Attitude/Motivation”, “Social Development/Significant Others”, “Measurement Development and Validation”. Among which “self-cognition” is the key role of the most developmental potential context, and the frequency of integration with other research topics is also the highest. (2) In the decade after 2006, the development of Taiwan’s sports psychology is the most diverse, and after 2016, it becomes an in-depth study of several research topics. In the time interval 1(1993-2000), the most critical research topic is “Attitude/Motivation”. In time interval 2(2001- 2005), the most critical research topic are “Self-Perceptions”, “Attitude/Motivation”. In time interval 3(2006-2010), the most critical research topics are “Self-Perceptions”,” Multidisciplinary Approaches to Psychological Issues”, “Emotion/ Arousal/Anxiety”, “Social Development/Significant Others”, “Gender Role”, “Attitude/Motivation”. In time interval 4(2011- 2015), the most critical research topics are “Self-perceptions”, “Attitude/Motivation”, “Multidisciplinary Approaches to Psychological Issues”, “Emotion/Arousal/Anxiety”, “Social Development/Significant Others”. At last, “Self-Perceptions” is the most critical research topic in time interval 5(2016-2018). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Athletic performance is closely related to brain mechanisms. Sport cognitive neuroscience, an area of research utilizing brain imaging tools for the understanding of potential in human motor performance with roots in psychophysiology, has incorporated sport psychology theories and neuroscience techniques to evolve as a distinct research field. Research topics in this field mainly focus on the relationship between neurocognitive processing and athletic performance by recording the neural activity with brain imaging tools, particularly with electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This paper reviews relevant research on sport cognitive neuroscience with an emphasis on work conducted by local researchers. An overview of the evolution and theories of sport cognitive neuroscience is provided, as well as exploration of studies categorized by the cross-sectional and longitudinal design in sport cognitive neuroscience using EEG and fMRI. Lastly, the unresolved issues in the previous studies are discussed, with suggestions for future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To provide a general overview of Taiwanese scholars’ publication history in sport and exercise psychology in international journals in the past 10 years. The aim was to encourage more young scholars to develop careers in this area. Method: Following the methodological suggestions by Cooper (2016) in research synthesis with some small modifications, we adopted a “quasi-systematic review” approach to collect, sort and analyze Taiwanese scholars’ publications in the field of the social psychology of sport and exercise in the past decade. We only considered papers published in international journals and TSSCI journals. Results: The results of this review can be summarized in five points: (a) most Taiwanese scholars conducted their research in sport contexts; (b) most of the studies used undergraduates and adolescents as participants; (c) most scholars adopted quantitative methods to conduct their research, and the studies published in international journals had a higher proportion of longitudinal designs than those published in TSSCI journals; (d) 34 (17.71%) studies examined the issue of “interpersonal relationship in sport”; 51 (26.56%) studies investigated “leadership and group dynamics”; 74 (38.54%) investigated “motivation”; 107 (55.73%) investigated “social cognition in sport”; and 67 (34.90%) investigated the “influence of the environment”; and (e) among the studies published in international journals, 24 (28.57%) were ranked as Q1, 17 (20.24%) as Q2, 30 (35.71%) as Q3; and 13 (15.48%) as Q4. Discussion and suggestion: Future research may examine how social facilitation influences athletes and exercisers’ behavior. Issues such as audience effect or home-court advantage are worth investigating. We also suggest that future studies may adopt cross-cultural or cross-ethnic designs. In addition, we suggest that future studies adopt multi-samples, multi-measures, and multi-timing data collection. Other research designs such as longitudinal interventions and qualitative-quantitative mixed design are recommended. Finally, we suggest that future studies use more diverse populations as research participants, especially older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Sport and Exercise Psychology” is a relatively newborn sub-discipline in the field of Psychology. However, after several years’ development, Sport and Exercise Psychology has spawned its own unique themes in many related research areas. Being first funded in 2001, the Society for Sport and Exercise Psychology of Taiwan (SSEPT) has energetically advanced the Sport and Exercise Psychology academic discipline and its research in Taiwan. The SSEPT has established a firm research foundation for Sport and Exercise Psychology in Taiwan, reflected in three broad dimensions, which are advancing research topics, engaging in related international professional affairs, thereby promoting global attention, and suggesting practical research applications. This special issue includes eight research papers, not only introducing and analyzing certain specific international research topics, but also annotating and emphasizing the roles which the Taiwanese academic community plays in furthering those research topic areas. In conclusion, this special issue not only reflects the diverse developments of Sport and Exercise Psychology in Taiwan, but also demonstrates the contributions of the Taiwanese academic community to the international Sport and Exercise Psychology community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]