Chapter 5: Anxiety Flashcards
1
Q
anxiety
A
- a common experience
- common language includes nervous, upset, stressed, panicked, self-conscious, excited, pumped up
- an emotion
- a negative emotion that is experienced when faced with a real or imagined threat, whether a thought is actually there.
-multidimensional - part of our personality and fluctuates from situation to situation
2
Q
arousal
A
- blend of physiological and psychological activation of an individuals’ autonomic nervous system that varies on a continuum from deep sleep to peak activation
- anxiety is NOT arousal
- neither pleasant/unpleasant
- variety in levels for task –> no ideal level of arousal to make performance better
3
Q
cognitive anxiety
A
- referring to the athletes concerns or worries and the reduced ability to focus or concentrate
4
Q
somatic anxiety
A
- referring to perceptions of body states
- clammy hands, racing hearts, etc.
- physical = arousal
5
Q
types of anxiety
A
anxiety is context specific
social
competitive
social physique
6
Q
social anxiety
A
- a specific type of anxiety that often occurs during social situations, when people believe they will receive a negative social evaluation from others (coaches, peers, groups, strangers )
7
Q
competitive anxiety
A
_ specific type of social anxiety that occurs in competitive sport situations and is related to athletes worries that they may be evaluated negatively by others
ex. body, performance, fitness level, coaches, peers, family, etc
8
Q
social physique anxiety
A
- the anxiety a person experiences as a result of perceived or actual judgements from others
- specifically about the body
9
Q
state anxiety
A
- anxiety that is experienced at a particular moment in time and can change from moment to moment
10
Q
trait anxiety
A
- a general predisposition to perceive a variety of situations as threatening
11
Q
what is an ongoing process ?
A
- anxiety
- is influenced by the demands of the environment and the evaluation by the individual of their available resources
12
Q
being more anxious can refer to …
A
- intensity of symptoms
- frequency of anxiety related thoughts and symptoms ( amount of times these thoughts occupy )
- directional interpretation of symptoms –> positive or negative thoughts being positive or negative to sport performance (facilitative or debilitative )
13
Q
personal sources of anxiety
A
- gender
- experience and skill level
- trait anxiety
- self-confidence and self-presentational beliefs
- self-regulation strategies
14
Q
experience and skill level
A
- more skilled athletes view anxiety symptoms as facilitative
- less skilled = debilitative
15
Q
trait anxiety
A
- low trait and high state = view state in the same way, the difference is intensity of symptoms viewed
16
Q
self-confidence and self-presentational beliefs
A
- individuals beliefs about capability to achieve sport success as well as presenting their body in a favorable manor.
- more confident = less anxiety, state as facilitation
- self-presentational beliefs is how you monitor how people see you and how impressions other people hold of them effect them
17
Q
self-regulation strategies
A
- coping skills that influence anxiety symptoms
ex. relaxation, self-talk, cognitive restructuring, imagery
ex. self-sabotage increases trait and state anxiety , surprisingly view as facilitators
18
Q
environmental sources
A
- temporal period within competitive events
- timing in relation to event coming up can influence anxiety
- includes physical and other people in environment
19
Q
physical environment (exercise)
A
- things in the environment around someone to increase anxiety
ex. mirrors might increase state and trait anxiety
ex. type of clothing, revealing can increase anxiety
20
Q
other people in the environment (exercise)
A
- exercising in the presence of others can increase anxiety, characteristics of instructors,
- anxiety can influence people
21
Q
exercisers who experience excessive levels of anxiety…
A
- likely to feel uncomfortable in the exercise environment
- experience less enjoyment
- may avoid exercise in the future
22
Q
athletes who consistently experience high levels of cognitive anxiety…
A
- tend to have lower levels of enjoyment with sport
- increased susceptibility to athletic injury
- enhanced feelings of burnout
- increased drop out rates
23
Q
anxiety-sport performance relationship models
A
- drive theory (arousal)
- inverted-U hypothesis (arousal)
- zones of optimal functioning
- cusp catastrophe theory
24
Q
drive theory
A
- performance is a function of habit strength and arousal/drive
- the more well learned a task is, the greater the arousal level = greater performance
- as competitive sport gets more complex, this theory is less applied
25
inverted-U hypothesis
- performance improves as arousal increases, but only up to a certain point, after which increased arousal leads to poorer performance
- optimal levels of arousal will differ from skill --> skill and person --> person
- could be different places on the graph or different U shaped
26
individual zones of optimal functioning theory
- an athlete who is within their optimal competitive state anxiety zone will be more likely to have their best performance
- some people perform better with higher anxiety, moderate, or lower anxiety
27
cusp catastrophe theory (CC)
- 3 dimensional model that includes interaction between physiological arousal , cognitive anxiety , and performance
- 5 different stages
28
u-shape cusp catastrophe
- when cognitive state anxiety is low, the relationship between physiological arousal and performance is uniform or an inverted-u shape
29
baseline CC
- when physiological arousal is low, elevations in cognitive state anxiety are associated with enhanced performance relative to baseline
30
declines CC
when physiological arousal is high, elevations in cognitive state anxiety are associated with declines in performance
31
certain point CC
-when cognitive state anxiety is high, increases in physiological arousal can be positive for performance but only up to a certain point
32
slide drop CC
- when cognitive state anxiety is high and physiological arousal is moderately high, it is predicted that a dynamic performance drop, called catastrophe, will occur
33
mechanisms of anxiety-performance relationship
- attentional processes
- physiological processes
34
optimal performance
- requires cognitive processing of appropriate amounts and relative types of information from the environment
- also requires appropriate levels of coordination and muscle activation
35
attentional mechanisms
- affects the amount and the type of information that is attended and the type of cognitive processing that occurs
- includes:
- narrowing of attentional focus
- attend to task-irrelevant information
- shift to conscious, controlled processing systems
36
narrowing of attentional focus
- when increases of comp state anxiety, reduces ability to pay attention and to process large amounts of information
- tunnel vision
- could have 2 effects:
- if blocking out distractions, performance increases
- if task relevant clues are missed because zoning in on certain things, performance decreases
37
attend to task-irrelevant information
- highly anxious athlete pays more attention to cues based on subjective performance
- can hurt performance since they miss task relevant cues and focus on task irrelevant cues
38
shift to conscious to controlled processing systems
- increased anxiety causes athletes to become more self-aware, more conscious = more disruptive to performance
ex. if you are doing a well learned skill, actively thinking about the task can cause you to forget that you know how to do the task = decrease in performance
39
psychological mechanisms
- changes to the patterns of muscle activations
- increased arousal disrupts performance of motor skills like fine motor control or manual dexterity
- increased arousal = increased anerobic power, = increase performance of simple tasks (jumping
- increase in anxiety = decrease in movement patterns (less fluid) = decrease in performance which could predispose an athlete to injury
40
choking
- an acute , significant decrement in performance that occurs in situations of high pressure or anxiety, when typical levels of performance are expected
41
factors that make choking more likely
- athletes who reinvest more: consciously controlling movements = increased choking
- high levels of trait anxiety
- low self-confidence
- complex tasks
- presence of an evaluated audience
- skill level , less skilled = attentional and narrow focus , more skilled = self-focus
42
the yips
- motor phenomenon of involuntary movements
- exists on a continuum between a neurological disorder of dystonia to the psychological disorder of choking
- could be more consistent than choking
