Can Sports Psychology Translate to Athletic Success?

“We’re moving beyond treating mental toughness as a fixed trait,” Ochoa said. “Instead, we’re analyzing how emotional regulation shifts when athletes are exhausted or stressed. The ultimate goal is a validated tool that helps coaches and athletes understand performance patterns before they become problems.”

Ochoa, who’s directing the project through the psychology department’s Athletics Systems Lab together with sports psychologist Lauren Lowe of Align Sports and Performance Psychology, developed an assessment framework that identifies 17 distinct regulatory profiles of athletes. Each profile provides coaches with insight into how their athletes manage pressure and feedback across a variety of sources and situations.

USF students like recent psychology graduate Isabella Leone ‘26 are integral to the project; as research assistants, they collect data that includes each athlete’s heart rate, exercise protocol, and ability to make decisions under stress.

The idea behind their research is that when an athlete knows how to get — and stay — regulated emotionally, he or she will perform better physically. Being able to conduct cognitive reappraisals, like reframing a negative situation (a losing quarter) into an opportunity (being positioned for a comeback), also improves performance results.

But each athlete is different, and simply saying “keep your cool and think positive” doesn’t move the needle. That’s where the Athletics Systems Lab’s framework assessment comes in, according to Lowe, who said “At the lab, we're putting rigorous research behind what coaches and athletes have always sensed to be true: that the ability to regulate emotion under pressure is the foundation of peak performance.”

The research team begins by giving an athlete 18 sports scenarios, with five possible responses to each. Then they put the subject through what’s called a “depletion gauntlet,” where they’re pushed to physical exhaustion through a variety of exercises. After that come cognition tests, then an “impossible test” (in which there’s no right answer), and finally, the initial 18 sports scenarios are presented again. An assessment of both the athlete’s responses to the actual questions and the corresponding biometrics results in the research team developing player profiles to fit each player.

“We’re now the biggest research lab in the psych department, and getting to work on such an innovative project is energizing,” said Leone, who continues to work with the lab after graduation and hopes to return to school to develop a career in industrial-organizational psychology. “I have opportunities to strengthen skills in different areas, from research tools to interpersonal capabilities. Connecting with athletes at USF and seeing the interest in our work has made this a reciprocal process, and we hope our work helps our D1 teams perform at their best.”

Coach Emily Cook said the women’s beach volleyball team reaped multiple benefits from participating in the research. “Working with Professor Ochoa has been transformative for our program. His work in team leadership and mental skills training has equipped both our student-athletes and coaching staff with a shared language and practical tools that strengthen our culture. By aligning how we lead, communicate, and respond to challenges, we've created an environment that promotes emotional regulation, resilience, and peak performance both on and off the sand."

In general, a full team assessment is completed in about 1.5 hours, after which it takes about seven weeks to develop a corresponding performance program. The team is provided with both an overview of its athletes’ individual types, and a recommendation for how those types can work better together.

Ochoa said, “I see us as kind of like the Oakland A’s (and not just because of our team colors), because we’re competing against better-funded WCC schools. I want us to win championships … and I think we can field teams that are successful. I would love for our research to help with that.”