Sport Psych Topic 1: Arousal and Anxiety

Question 1

Fazey and Hardy (Inverted U catastrophe) - 3 main criteria

Answer 1

Criticism 1:
the model uses stress, arousal and anxiety to mean the same thing. Fazey and Hardy states that they should not be treated the same as they have different effects on performance

Criticism 2:
lack of research investigating the effects of stress or different types of anxiety on performance

Criticism 3:
model does not have predictive validity. In real life when athletes level of optimal arousal exceeds, they experience a dramatic drop in performance harder to recover

Question 2

What did Fazey and Hardy propose?

Answer 2

• they proposed a catastrophe model of anxiety and performance. It suggests that in addition to physiological arousal and athletic performance, a 3rd factor should be built in - level of cognitive anxiety
• referring to research by Paritt and Hardy, they proposed that this interacts with other 2 variables in the following way:
  1. when cognitive anxiety is low they will be able to control the negative effects of physiological arousal, able to use the benefits to improve
  2. when moderate or high, it impedes athletes ability to differentiate between helpful and unhelpful physiological effects, causing arousal to increase which will have a negative impact

Question 3

Yerkes-Dodson Law (Inverted U hypothesis)

Answer 3

• the theory tried to explain the relationship between arousal and performance
• it says an arousal increase, performance will steadily increase up to a certain point of optimal arousal but beyond a point will lead to a steady decrease.
• it says that easy tasks best performed when arousal is high, more complex asks when arousal is lower

Question 4

Oxendine

Answer 4

Oxendine updated the inverted u theory to suggests there are individual differences between different athletes.

• high levels of arousal is needed for optimal performance in gross motor tasks, but high levels interfere with more fine skilled tasks

High Arousal = Rugby, weightlifting, sprinting
Medium Arousal = gymnastics, basketball
Low Arousal = golf putting, archery

Question 5

Rituals

Answer 5

Something that an athlete will do before every competition or game to increase arousal or decrease anxiety

the haka can be used to increase arousal to an optimal level for performance

it can be used to reduce levels of anxiety

Question 6

Imagery

Answer 6

Motivation general arousal helps an athlete regulate their emotions and relax or psych up before the match. By imagining themselves during the match.

• athletes who become anxious before comp & may be imaging themselves experiencing symptoms of anxiety
• could also be imagining themselves performing well despite anxious responses

Question 7

how can an athlete manage levels of arousal to improve performance?

Answer 7

rituals = music, routine

imagery = doing well in performance

lots of training so that its second nature meaning less anxiety