In focussing on the relationship between cognition and sports performance, sports psychology is following a trend evident in other areas in psychology. Sports psychology research has borrowed conceptually and methodologically from cognitive-behavioural researchers within clinical psychology. This article reviews five areas of research: imagery; self talk; self efficacy; attentional focus and concentration; and decision making. Of these topics, imagery has attracted the most research interest, and strategies of mental rehearsal are frequently used by athletes.

Attempts to apply the theories of self talk and self efficacy to sports performance appear promising. The self efficacy research has demonstrated that expectations of success influence performance. As yet, little attention has been paid to the second part of Bandura's theory: the effect of outcome expectations on performance.

The sporting environment is often complex with the athlete frequently required to make numerous decisions. Decision making has been studied in a range of settings (e.g., medical decision making, jury decisions etc.) but has been largely ignored by sports psychologists. Issues relating to the decision making of the athlete are discussed.

The maternal experience of stressful events during pregnancy has been associated with a number of adverse consequences for behavioral development in offspring, but the measurement and interpretation of prenatal stress varies among reported studies. The Raine Study recruited 2900 pregnancies and recorded life stress events experienced by 18 and 34 weeks' gestation along with numerous sociodemographic data. The mother's exposure to life stress events was further documented when the children were followed-up in conjunction with behavioral assessments at ages 2, 5, 8, 10, and 14 years using the Child Behavior Checklist. The maternal experience of multiple stressful events during pregnancy was associated with subsequent behavioral problems for offspring. Independent (e.g., death of a relative, job loss) and dependent stress events (e.g., financial problems, marital problems) were both significantly associated with a greater incidence of mental health morbidity between age 2 and 14 years. Exposure to stressful events in the first 18 weeks of pregnancy showed similar associations with subsequent total and externalizing morbidity to events reported at 34 weeks of gestation. These results were independent of postnatal stress exposure. Improved support for women with chronic stress exposure during pregnancy may improve the mental health of their offspring in later life.