Arousal

Question 1

Define arousal

Answer 1

The degree of physiological and psychological readiness
-the intensity of the drive to succeed

Question 2

What are the two types of arousal? Describe them

Answer 2

Cognative arousal:
* Psychological arousal
* e.g. Increased awareness, selective attention changes, nervousness, worrying may occur

Somatic arousal:
* Physiological arousal
* e.g. Increased HR, temperature, adrenaline, breathing rate and vascular shunt

Question 3

Describe drive theory

Answer 3

• As arousal increases so does performance - when related to gross and simple skills and in autonomous performers
• Positive linear relationship
• As somatic arousal increases so does performance
• Increased arousal increases the chance of the performer using their dominant response - DR is the best learnt/grooved response, it is more likely to be correct in autonomous learners

Question 4

Evaluate Drive theory

Answer 4

Strengths:
* Simple to understand
* Applicable to some skills/performers

Weaknesses:
* Too simplistic view of the relationship between arousal and performance
* Increased arousal doesn’t always improve performance
* Does not account for individaul differences/personality/skill type
* Does not consider somatic and cognative arousal

Question 5

Describe Inverted U theory

Answer 5

• As arousal increases, so does performance, up to an optimum level. Beyond this performance decreases
• The point of optimal arousal depends on the; type of skill, stage of learning, personality
  1. At low levels of arousal performance is poor, the performers attentional field is to wide, all cues are considered, however selective attention doesn’t pick up on all relevent cues. The performer is physiologically unprepared
  2. As Arousal increases so does somatic and cognative and performance improves
  3. Performance peaks at the optimum point of arousal - focus is high, selective attention now occurs and relevent cues are now considered, somatic arousal has been optimised
  4. Further increases to arousal cause performance to deteriorate - attentional field narrows, relevent cues missed, performer becomes hypervigilent

Look in notes or text book for diagram

Hypervigilence - performer foccusies on a single cue to much

Question 6

Evaluate Inverted U theory

Answer 6

Strengths:
* Is considered more realistic than drive theory
* Shows that the arousal-performace relationship is not linear
* Acknowledges that performers have an optimal level of arousal
* Explains the negative effect of over-arousal
* Considers the personality, experiance and skill type

Weaknesses:
* It is still a too simple a model
* Does not consider the different effects of somatic and cognative arousal
* Over-arousal rarely causes a smooth gradual drop in performance

Question 7

Describe Catastrophe Theory

Answer 7

1. As somatic (physiological) arousal increases, peformance improves.
2. Peak performance will only occur if cognative arousal is kept low
3. High cognative arousal will cause a sudden/ catastrophic drop in performance
4. If (cognative) arousal continues to rise, performance will continue to decline
5. If (cognative) arousal can be controlled/ reduced, performance will recover/ start to improve

Question 8

Evaluate Catastrophe Theory

Answer 8

Strengths:
* Explains how performance can suddenly drop/ performer can “go to pieces” - e.g. high tackle in the first few minutes in a big game
* Explains how performance can recover once (cognative) arousal levels reduce
* More realistic than drive theory - arousal does not always increase performance
* More realistic than Inverted U theory - performance decline is not always smooth/gradual
* Considers both types or arousal (somatic and cognative)
* Shows recovery is possible

Weaknesses:
* Performance decline is not always catastrophic