Anxiety Flashcards
Anxiety definition
Emotional state characterized by feelings of apprehension and tension and associated with activation (arousal) of the organism.
*Anxiety linked with negative effect.
Anxiety (5 factors)
- Elicited following an appraisal (evaluation)
- Universal across people of all cultures
- Has a distinct physiology
- Observed through discrete facial expressions
- Associated with unique set of action tendencies
Arousal
Describes a state of the organism and varies from deep sleep to intense excitement. Synonymous with such words as activate, awaken, alert, or excite.
* Neither pleasant or unpleasant
* Occurs from positive and negative events (state anxiety can be good or bad depending on how person uses arousal levels)
Trait anxiety
A person’s general predisposition to perceive a situation as threatening or non-threatening
*personality characteristic
State anxiety
A response to a specific situation that is perceived as threatening or dangerous. State anxiety varies in intensity and fluctuates over time.
*particular moment reaction
2 types of state anxiety
Cognitive- Mental component of anxiety, referring to worries and concerns and a reduced ability to focus.
Somatic- Physical component of anxiety, referring to perceptions of body states, such as clammy hands, a racing heart, or butterflies in the stomach.
Social anxiety (and 2 subtypes)
Social anxiety= a specific subtype of anxiety that occurs when people believe they will receive a negative evaluation from others.
Social physique anxiety= occurs when people are worried about receiving negative evaluation about their bodies from others
Competitive anxiety= occurs in competitive sport situations and is related to athletes’ worries that they may be evaluated negatively by others (with respect to their body image, performance or skills)
State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI)
Commonly used measure of state or trait anxiety.
Idea:
There is a situation, person’s level of self esteem and trait anxiety contribute to their perception of threat, causes state anxiety reaction.
Drive theory
Positive linear graph, performance on y-axis and drive on the x-axis
Idea is more drive=higher performance, not a very good model, (not true), but is a theory
Inverted-U hypothesis
Inverted U graph, performance on y-axis and arousal on the x-axis
Middle level of arousal= high performance, too low or too high arousal= low performance. Useful model but not necessarily true for everyone
Zone of Optimal Functioning (ZOF)
Different people perform better at different levels of state anxiety (more specific than arousal) .
The key principle of the individual zones of optimal functioning (IZOF) hypothesis is that an athlete who is within his or her optimal competitive state anxiety zone will be more likely to have the best athletic performance.
Catastrophe theory model
-Describes influences of cognitive anxiety and physiological arousal on performance
-Recognizes athletic performance is complex
- Low cognitive anxiety= inverted U
- High cognitive anxiety= inverted U with abrupt drop off in performance near the peak
*graph with performance on y-axis, arousal and cognitive anxiety on 2 x-axes.
*When physiological arousal high and cognitive state anxiety is high, it is predicted dramatic performance drop, called a catastrophe, will occur.
Choking
An acute, significant decrement in performance that occurs in situations of high pressure or anxiety, when typical levels of performance are expected.
Factors that influence choking (4)
-Attentional and self-focus problems
-Leads to consciously controlling movements, even for well-learned tasks, rather than performing them automatically
-Complex tasks more likely to lead to choking than simpler ones
-Environmental factors= the presence of evaluators can lead to increases in choking
