My name is Matteo Luzzeri, and I am a PhD student in sport psychology. I am a student under Dr. Graig Chow, and my main research interest revolves around validating protocoled interventions to help athletes improve mental attributes that affect performance. This research interest complements my passion for mental performance consultations that I do with athletes as part of my practicum to obtain the Mental Performance Consultant certification from the American Association of Sport Psychology (AASP). In Dr. Chow’s lab, I am involved with two intervention studies. The first one is looking at the effectiveness of performance profiling on increasing self-awareness, intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, and attitudes toward sport psychology services with Division I and club athletes. The second one is looking at the role of a goal-setting and values intervention in increasing persistence to engage in a difficult task. This experimental study, which we are launching in a couple of weeks, will also involve athletes of different levels and abilities.

The focus of my dissertation is the concept of meaningful sport. Drawing from existential and positive psychology findings on the role of presence and search for meaning in life, I am interested in understanding if athletes attribute and search for meaning in their sport. The idea is that there is something that goes beyond motivation, a descriptive account of what their sport means to them, rather than why they do their sport. In my preliminary study, I am investigating if meaning in sport is different from meaning in life for athletes. Further, I am looking at whether the presence of meaning is related to lower levels of burnout, higher levels of sport enjoyment, higher levels of “healthy commitment,” and lower levels of constrained commitment. Upon candidacy, I would like to develop and test an intervention that can help athletes find more presence of meaning in their sport.

I think it would be cool for the FSU community to know that, in the midst of all the academic work, I am still a competitive water skier. I am originally from Italy and still compete both in European and world championships representing my country, as well as in professional events where I ski for my own. Being able to study sport psychology and competing has been a true challenge, yet one in which my two passions inevitably complement each other.