Lecture 3 - Stress and Anxiety Flashcards
Define arousal
A general physiological and psychological activation varying on a continuum from deep sleep to intense excitement
Outline the Drive theory
Hull, 1943
Proportional linear relationship
More psyched = better performance
Increased drive leads to the increased likelihood of the dominant response
Performance will be worse for poorer learnt or complex skills
What are the criticisms of the Drive theory?
Dominant response could be incorrect so performance is not high
Limited support
Even highly skilled players choke in sport
What is under arousal?
Athletes under perform
Lack drive and determination
May not be excited or focused enough to perform
What is over arousal?
Feel stressed, anxious / nervous
Could become psyched out by opposition
Physical symptoms - increased heart rate, sweating and nausea
Mistakes are made and performance declines
What is the Inverted U theory?
Yerkes and Dodson 1908
Predicts performance effectiveness will increase as arousal increases
Up to some optimal point
Further increases in arousal will produce a decrease in performance
Behaviour is aroused and directed towards balanced optimum state
What are the criticisms of the Inverted U theory?
Generally accepted
Lower optimum arousal for - fine, introverted, novice, complex
Higher optimum arousal for - gross, extroverted, expert, simple
Criticism by Gould and Udry , 1994
Optimal arousal at mid point?
What is anxiety in general?
A negative emotional state with feelings of nervousness, worry and apprehension associated with activation or arousal of the body - Weinberg and Gould 2011
What is anxiety in sport?
An unpleasant psychological state in reaction to perceived stress concerning the performance of a task under pressure. Cheng et al 2009
What is trait and state anxiety?
Aspect of personality - an individual with trait will experience anxiety regardless of the situation
State anxiety - How you feel right now - split into cognitive (worry) and somatic (perception of physiological changes)
What is the relationship between trait and state anxiety?
Individuals with high trait usually have high state anxiety in competitive situations
Can learn coping skills to reduce state anxiety
Outline cognitive anxiety
Concerned with extent to which one worries or has negative thoughts
Lacks sense of self confidence
Disrupted attention
Sense of worry/ fear
Worrisome expectation of failure
Negative concerns of performance
Impaired ability to concentrate
Outline somatic anxiety
Concerned with the moment to moment changes in one’s perception of physiological activation
Unusual feelings of nausea
Increased respiration rate
Increased blood pressure
Increased muscle tension
Increased perspiration
What are the causes of anxiety?
Pressure - greater fear of failure
Uncertainty - Not knowing whether you will succeed or not
Effect on self esteem - Concern about what others might think if you perform poorly
Fear of harm - fear of injury or pain in dangerous activities
Frustration - Worrying that you might not achieve your targets
What is effect size?
Quantitative measure of the magnitude of the experimental effect. Larger = stronger relationship
What is the relationship between anxiety and performance?
Woodman and Hardy 2003
Mean effect size greater for high standard athletes
More pressure but can cope
Eysenck and Calvo 1992
Anxiety often impairs performance on difficult tasks
What are the criticisms of findings between the relationship of anxiety and performance?
Anxiety is complex
Pre event assessment
Blunt performance measure
In event coping
Task characteristics
Self report measures
But modern tech can help use to measure physiological in game
What is stress?
A substantial imbalance between demand and response capability under conditions where failure to meet the demands has important consequences
McGrath 1970
What happens when you are stressed?
Fight or Flight
Increased HR
Inhibits peristalsis
Shivering
Pupils dilate
Increased perspiration
Glycogen to glucose
Nor adrenaline
What are the 4 stages of the Stress Process?
- Environmental demands (psychological and physiological)
- Individuals perception of this - trait anxiety important here - more likely to perceive as a threat
- Stress response - arousal, state anxiety, muscle tension, attention changes
- Behavioural consequence (performance or outcome)
What are the sources of stress?
Performance issues - e.g. team selection
Environmental issues - e.g. travel
Organisational issues - e.g. communication
Physical danger - e.g. traumatic relationship outside of sport
Supported by McKay et al 2008
Gould et al 1997 - injured athletes had psychological, physical/ medical etc stress sources along with missed opportunities outside the sport
Outline parental pressure as a source of stress?
Climate pressure perceive can alter its effect (O’Rourke et al 2011)
High pressure in high ego climate - increased perceptions of anxiety
High pressure in high mastery climate - decreased perceptions of anxiety
Outline the Individual Zone of Optimal Functioning?
Hanin 1997, 2000
Optimal arousal varies depending on an individuals skill level, personality characteristics and nature of task being performed
Ruiz et al 2017
Optimal level of state anxiety doesn’t always occur at midpoint it varies and more of a bandwidth
Criticism - Lacks explanation why individual levels may be beneficial or detrimental for performance
Outline the Multidimensional Anxiety Theory
Predicts different relationships between different components of anxiety and performance
Cognitive anxiety - negative correlation
Self confidence - positive correlation
Somatic anxiety - inverted U
Criticism - Is cognitive anxiety always negative?
Outline the Catastrophe Theory
3D theory
Focuses on the interactive effects of arousal, cognitive anxiety and performance ( Hardy and Parfitt 1991)
X axis - Arousal
Y axis - Performance
Z axis - Cognitive anxiety
Under conditions of low cog anxiety - arousal is oval shaped - back of the model
Under conditions of high cog anxiety - we have a catastrophe at point A to point B can go to point C or D
What must an athlete do directly after a catastrophe?
Completely physically relax
Cognitively restructure or eliminate worries and regain confidence and control
Reactivate their controlled manner to again reach an optimal level of functioning
What is Hysteresis?
Under conditions of high cognitive anxiety the path that performance takes when physiological arousal is increasing is different to the path that performance takes when physiological arousal is decreasing.
Outline directional anxiety
Limitation of measuring just anxiety intensity
Individual interpretation important
Stressor - Individual differences - control - yes - facilitated no - debilitative
Elite athletes are more facilitative Neil et al 2006
Challenge - resources and coping skills to meet demands
Threat - don’t have resources and coping skills to meet demands
What are the arousal and state anxiety signs?
Cold clammy hands
Need to urinate frequently
Profuse sweating
Negative self talk
Dazed look
Increased muscle tension
Butterflies
Headache
Cotton mouth
