Abstract

Confidence is vital to athletic performance. But can a basketball player 'choose to believe' that his/her next shot is going in? Doxastic involuntarism is defended in this article; so the answer to this question is 'no'. However, by charting the reasons why a player may lose confidence, we find that there are corresponding strategies that offer hope for rebuilding a player's confidence--even though there can be no guarantee of these strategies' success.