In this study, the differential effects of cue word content on players’ thought content were examined. Furthermore, players’ accuracy and satisfaction with performance were assessed to obtain a greater insight into the effects of different self-instructions on performance. Seven male adult tennis players completed 4 baseline trials and 8 intervention trials using 2 types of instructional self talk. The differences between conditions were assessed via repeated measures analysis of variance and paired samples comparisons. From the results, there is indication that instructional self talk can influence players’ thought content and that different self talk contents might influence attention in a different manner. Thus, the differential effect of cue word contents on performance could be partly explained by the differential impact of the cue word contents on players’ thoughts.

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