ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a review of literature investigating expectancies and their consequences within the coach-athlete relationship from the athlete's point of view. It discusses some of the primary practical implications for coaches and athletes alike, while also suggesting directions for future research. Thus, athletes' expectancies of coaches are likely to play a significant role in the development and outcomes of the coach-athlete relationship. The chapter focuses primarily on interpersonal perception within the coach-athlete relationship and provides an overview of how interpersonal expectancies are developed by athletes during initial interactions with coaches. Manley, Greenlees, Smith, Batten, and Birch developed a naturalistic experimental design to explore the behavioural consequences of athletes' expectancies of coaches. By maximising the positive information that athletes receive about a coach, the chances of developing positive coach-athlete relationships may be enhanced as a result of the initial positive expectancies that athletes are more likely to form about the coach in response to such information.
