Sports Psychology - Anxiety Flashcards
(21 cards)
What is the definition of competitive anxiety?
Attendance to perceive competitive situations as threatening and to respond to these situations with feelings of apprehension.
What are the four key factors related to competitive anxiety?
- Individual differences.
- Different types of anxiety.
- General/specific anxiety.
- The competition process.
How does individual differences relate to competitive anxiety?
In the way that people interact with the situation, e.g. crucial games generate more anxiety than friendly games.
What is trait anxiety?
A trait that is enduring in an individual. A performer with hydrate anxiety has the potential to react to situations with apprehension.
How does different types of anxiety relate to competitive trait anxiety?
Trait and state anxiety.
High trait anxiety = more likely to experience high state anxiety in stressful situations and other situational factors can cause high state anxiety too.
What is state anxiety?
An emotional response to a specific situation that is temporary and ever-changing.
How does general/specific anxiety relate to competitive anxiety?
High A trait performers are likely to be anxious in highly stressful situations: anxiety levels may vary.
Some performance may be very anxious in training, but in a match with a large crowd, they are not as anxious - this is competitive trait anxiety.
How does the competition process relate to competitive anxiety?
The interaction between personality factors, competitive trait, anxiety, and the situation. The interaction will affect behaviour and may cause state anxiety.
What is the SCAT test?
The sport competition anxiety test:
Involves giving competitors a self-report questionnaire to assess the anxiety about during the competition it measures competitive anxiety.
What has been found using the SCAT?
Cognitive state anxiety increases as the competition approaches, although it doesn’t increase immediately before the competition.
Somatic state anxiety is low leading up to the competition but increases a few hours before.
The effect of both of these types of anxiety and performance can be catastrophic unless controlled.
What happens if somatic can come to anxiety or high?
Performance can be negatively affected, one of them can lead to the other and the control of them is important to ensure optimal performance.
What is somatic anxiety?
The physiological symptoms of anxiety such as increased heart rate sweating or muscle tension.
What is cognitive anxiety?
The mental symptoms of anxiety such as worry self doubt or negative thoughts.
What is the zone of optimal functioning?
The range or zone of an arousal levels within which an individual performs at their best.
What is peak flow experience?
A mental state of complete focus control and immersion in an activity often leading to optimal performance.
What are the seven ways in which to achieve the zone of optimal functioning?
- be relaxed: balance between being the best and being relaxed.
- Be confident: belief in great ability, no fear but pride and confidence expecting success.
- Be completely focused: don’t dwell on previous or future.
- Activity is effortless: accomplished complex tasks with little effort the body and mind work perfectly together.
- Movements are automatic: no real thought is needed more instinctively conscious thought.
- Fun: experience satisfaction and fulfilment enjoyment is immense.
- In control: you have command over your body and emotions you are in charge and dictate your own destiny.
What is cue utilisation?
Attention is more effective if the performer concentrates on cues that are relevant at the time keeping the focus and not being distracted is a feature over the top performer.
What will happen if cues in the environment aren’t used effectively?
Sports person fails together relevant information from the field of play affect the next move.
What is cue utilisation theory?
- as the arousal level of the athlete increases their attention narrows.
- Requires an optimum level of arousal which tends to be moderate
- If Ross loves her too low, both irrelevant and relevant cues attended to
- Arousal levels are too high irrelevant and relevant cues are ignored and in performance.
An Olympic gymnast is just about to go on the floor to perform his routine.
Explain why he may experience some anxiety, even though he is not normally an anxious person [2marks]
- He may be experiencing state anxiety in response to the situation.
- Situation may seem threatening due to level of competition.
- Worried about failure letting the country down and the pressure to win.
- May experience evaluation apprehension.
What is a evaluation apprehension?
The anxiety or concern an individual feels when they believe they are being judged or evaluated by others.
