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Psychology 2D > Stress anxiety and performance: intro, terminology and measurement > Flashcards

Stress anxiety and performance: intro, terminology and measurement Flashcards

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1
Q

Definition of stress

Who’s definition?

A

A non-specific response of the body to any demand made

Hans Selye

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2
Q

What are the 3 stages of the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)?

A
  1. The alarm reaction
    • Shock; and
    • Countershock
  2. Resistance
  3. Exhaustion
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3
Q

What are the ‘symptoms’ of the shock phase of the alarm reaction in GAS?

A

Immediate temp. and blood pressure drop
HR increase
Muscles slacken

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4
Q

What are the symptoms of the countershock phase of the alarm reaction in GAS?

A

Body rebound - mobilise defences

  • Glucose and hormones (e.g. adrenaline) released to provide quick energy
  • HR, BP, breathing rate incr.
  • Saliva and mucus dry up - provide open air passage to lungs
  • Endorphins (natural pain killers) released
  • Surface blood vessels constrict to reduce bleeding if injured
  • Blood sent to working muscles
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5
Q

Description of the resistance phase of GAS

A

High level of arousal in countershock cannot be maintained for long

Physiological aspects return to normal but body intensifies resistance to specific stressor

Capacity to resist other stressors is limited: results in e.g. irritability, aggression, depression, lack of concentration

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6
Q

Explanation of what happens in exhaustion phase of GAS

A

Some of Alarm reaction symptoms reappear

Hormonal secretion dries up

Disease and death can result

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7
Q

What are criticisms GAS?

A

Evidence of specific illness in specific situations e.g.
air traffic controllers - peptic ulcers
college professors - duodenal ulcers
stockbrokers - circulatory diseases

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8
Q

What is the terminology for negative and positive stress?

A

Negative - distress

Positive - eustress

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9
Q

What is the terminology for diseases arising in the exhaustion phase of GAS?

A

Diseases of adaptation

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10
Q

What are the 4 ends of the axes in the 4 box model of patterns of neuroendocrine stress response?

A

Y axis: low - high effort
X axis: unpleasant - pleasant

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11
Q

What are the key descriptions of individual feelings and endocrine response in the 4 boxes of the pattern of neuroendocrine response?

A

Unpleasant/High effort: Anxiety/Fear - high cortisol/high catecholamine

Pleasant/High effort: Excitement - low cortisol/high catecholamine

Pleasant/Low effort: Relaxation/passive absorption/flow - low cortisol/low catecholamine

Unpleasant/Low effort: Helplessness/loss of control - high cortisol/low catecholamine

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12
Q

What is a definition of (autonomic) arousal?

A

Immediate response to a stressor (fight or flight)

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13
Q

What phase of GAS does arousal correspond to?

A

Alarm reaction

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14
Q

What physiological system is arousal most closely associated with?

A

Sympathetic nervous system

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15
Q

Very broadly how are the systems which the sympathetic nervous system controls divided into 2 categories in the way they are affected by arousal?

A

Non-essential - closed down

Essential - accelerated

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16
Q

What are the typical physiological responses to high arousal and how do they correspond to closing down of non-essential systems/acceleration of essential systems?

A
  1. Muscle tension (incr. muscle strength): essential
  2. Dry throat/mouth: non-essential (nasal secretion/saliva production)
  3. Cold sweat: essential (acceleration - why?)
  4. Butterflies/sick to the stomach: (shut down digestion?)
  5. Trembling: (acceleration of catecholamines?)
  6. Sense of unreality/confusion/unable to remember details immediately after?
  7. Weak/faint
  8. Lungs and pupils dilate
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17
Q

What are 4 bases for measurement of anxiety?

A
  1. Self report
  2. Measurement of physiological changes (absolute or level of reactivity)
  3. Influence on cognition
    Influence on behaviour
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18
Q

What are two key aspects which interact to influence the overall level of anxiety?

A

Trait anxiety - personality disposition
State anxiety - anxiety experienced in a specific situation

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19
Q

Explain the basic state/trait anxiety model:

A
  1. Situational stressor and trait anxiety interact to determine [influence?] state anxiety
  2. State anxiety impacts information processing (e.g. how much we use our memory)
  3. This affects observable behaviour
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20
Q

How does the reaction to shock threat and ego threat differ between low and high trait anxiety?

A

No significant difference in reaction to shock threat

V significant difference in reaction to ego threat

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21
Q

What is an example of a situation with high ego threat?

A

Public evaluation scenarios

22
Q

Who developed the 4 factor theory of trait anxiety and when?

A

Eysenck 1997

23
Q

What are the stages of McGrath’s 4 stage model of stress?

A
  1. Environmental demand (psychological or physical)
  2. Individual’s perception of psychological demand
  3. Stress response (physical and psychological)
  4. Behavioural consequences on performance or outcome (+ve and -ve)
24
Q

McGrath’s definition of stress?

A

A substantial imbalance between demand (physical and/or psychological) and response capability under conditions where failure to meet that demand has important consequences

25
Q

What is the definition of activation?

A

Conscious preparation of a response to the stimuli (involving a level of cognitive control - mobilisation of resources to respond to the stressor)

26
Q

What are the 2 stages of cognitive appraisal per Lazarus and Folkman (1984), what ‘response’ does this relate to and what does this determine?

A

The stress response

  1. What does this mean to me? Am I ok?
  2. What can I do about it?

Determines whether individual becomes anxious or not

27
Q

What is the Lazarus and Folkman (1984) definition of coping?

A

Mobilisation of a set of responses in an effort to manage the situation

(not necessarily effective)

28
Q

What are two aspects of anxiety (note - not state/trait)?

A

Cognitive anxiety - thought
Somatic anxiety - feeling

29
Q

Explain Eysenck’s 4 factor theorem of trait anxiety

A

The emotional experience of anxiety depends on processing of 4 sources of info:

  1. Cognitive appraisal of the situation (the way we appraise the significance of the thing)
  2. Individual’s interpretation of physiological activity
  3. Perceived level of behavioural anxiety
  4. Individuals own cognitions (e.g. worries about the future)

Threatening long-term memory schema result in biases to the above 4 factors

30
Q

What is Morris, Davis and Hutchings (1981) defintion of cognitive anxiety?

A

Negative expectations and concerns about oneself, the situation at hand and potential consequences

31
Q

What is Morris, Davis and Hutchings (1981) definition of somatic anxiety?

A

One’s perception of the physical-affective elements of the anxiety response

32
Q

What is the most widely used scale in reporting state anxiety?

What subscales does this include?

A

CSAI 2 (competitive state anxiety inventory 2) (Martens et al. 1990)

  1. Cognitive anxiety
  2. Somatic anxiety
  3. Self confidence
33
Q

What are the two most widely used test seen in literature for measuring trait anxiety and how do these differ?

A

SCAT (Sport competition anxiety test) (Martens 1997)
SAS (Sport anxiety scale) (Smith et al, 1990)

The latter is multi-dimensional (cognitive, somatic and attention disruption)

34
Q

What are 6 anxiety based models of performance?

A
  1. Zone of optimal functions (Hanin 1980, 1996)
  2. Multidimensional state anxiety theory (Martens et al. 1990)
  3. Catastrophe Theory (Fazey and Hardy 1988, 1992)
  4. Social facilitation theory (see Weinberg and Gould)
  5. Reversal theory (see Weinberg and Gould)
  6. [Inverted U] (see Weinberg and Gould
35
Q

Give examples of internal vs external sources of stess

A

Internal:

  1. Thoughts about upcoming performance
  2. Fear of failure
  3. Self doubt about talent

External:

  1. Bad weather
  2. Bad call by officials
  3. Financial costs
  4. Time demands
  5. Stress from coaches
36
Q

What are the core group of stress/strain sources per McKay et al. 2008?

A
  1. Competitive concerns (internal?)
  2. Pressure to perform (internal and external?)
  3. Lifestyle demands (external?)
  4. Negative aspects of personal relationships (external?)
37
Q

What are examples of performance stressors (Mallalieu et al. 2009)?

A

Physical
Technical
Tactical preparation
Striving to reach goals
Fear of injury

38
Q

What are sources of stress for coaches?

A
  1. Communicating with athletes
  2. Lack of control over athlete performance
  3. Pressure of many roles
39
Q

What are the

  • 2 key aspects relating to an event and
  • context related sources of stress

found to influence performance?

A

The importance placed on and uncertainty surrounding an event by the individual (Gomez et al. 2015)

  1. Presence of an audience
  2. Opponents
  3. Team cohesion
  4. Motivational climate
40
Q

In what situations/levels of anxiety has anxiety been found to (and athletes consider) anxiety debilitative to performance?

A

Only under high pressure/critical performance scenarios

41
Q

What are 3 aspects/buckets which increase personal sources of stress?

A

1, High trait anxiety
2. Low self esteem (relates to perception of threat)
3. Social physique anxiety

42
Q

What are the key conclusions of the Zone of Optimal functioning (Hannin 1996)?

What is one limitation/possible extension of the theory?

A
  1. Individuals differ re where on the scale of low to high anxiety they perform optimally
  2. This is not a single point, rather a range of anxiety states

Note: anxiety is not the only emotion to consider re zone of performance

43
Q

What relationships does the Multidimensional State Anxiety Theory (Martens et al. 1990) predict

What are criticisms of this theory?

A

Intraindividual performance:
1. Decreases with increases in cognitive anxiety
2. Increases with increases in self-confidence
3. Varies in an inverted U with somatic anxiety

Criticisms

  1. The above measures are changing at the same time and are not independent
  2. The affect of cognitive and somatic anxiety on performance appear to be determined by the performer’s interpretation of anxiety and not jus the amount/type of anxiety
44
Q

What are the key principles of Catastrophe Theory?

A
  1. Cognitive anxiety has a greater influence on performance than somatic anxiety (linked to physiological arousal)
  2. Smooth inverted-U for performance when cognitive anxiety is low and physiological arousal is increasing
  3. Performance improves when start to worry if physiological arousal is low (e.g. problem solving when start to worry)
  4. For high cognitive anxiety, performance increases with increase in physiological arousal (and somatic anxiety) until a point of collapse
  5. After collapse need significant reduction in physiological arousal to increase performance. Performance levels lower than pre-collapse
45
Q

What is a key factor determining the whether anxiety creates a positive or negative impact on performance?

A

Perception of control:

Perception that can control - view as a challenge - anxiety viewed as facilitative (produces lower level of cognitive and somatic anxiety and more focussed attention)

Perception that cannot control - view as a threat - anxiety viewed as debilitative

46
Q

Examples of personal and situational factors affecting the interpretation of anxiety as able/not able to control and therefore +ve or -ve

A

Personal
- Trait anxiety (most important predictor)
- Neuroticism
- Extraversion
- Achievement motivation
- Hardiness
- Self-confidence
- Coping strategies
- Psychological skills

Situational
- Competitive experience
- Skill level
- Goal attainment
- Expectations
- Sport type
- Performance

47
Q

2 examples of/ways in which elite athletes differ in their perception and interpretation of anxiety vs non-elite

A

Elite swimmers vs non-elite:

  • reported cognitive and somatic anxiety as facilitative
  • consistently maintain facilitative interpretation through using psychological skills (goal setting, imagery, self-talk)
48
Q

6 key conclusions from performance-arousal reviews

A
  1. Arousal is multifaceted (physiological activation - athletes interpretation of the activation i. state anxiety ii. confidence iii. facilitative anxiety)
  2. Optimal mix of arousal and related emotions is individual and task specific
  3. Arousal and state anxiety can be positive or negative largely depending on how the individual interprets the change
  4. Interaction between levels of physiological activation and arousal related thoughts is more important than absolute levels of each
  5. Excessive arousal causes catastrophes which are difficult to reverse
  6. Should have well practiced self-talk, imagery and goal setting skills for coping with anxiety
49
Q

2 key factors for why arousal affects performance

A
  1. Increased muscle tension, fatigue and coordination difficulties
  2. Change in attention, concentration and visual search patterns
50
Q

How does arousal affect attention, concentration and visual search patterns?

A
  1. Narrows focus
  2. Focus on inappropriate task cues e.g. worrying about worrying [other examples?]
  3. Scan playing environment less often
  4. Causes a shift towards individual’s dominant attention style (broad or narrow) and reduce ability to shift between the two
51
Q

4 applications of arousal-performance interaction for coaching in practice

A
  1. Identify optimal combo of arousal and related emotions for best performance
  2. Recognise how personal and situational factors interact to influence arousal, anxiety and performance
  3. Recognise the signs of increased arousal and anxiety
    Tailor coaching and instructional practices to individuals
52
Q

Give an example of how arousal affects muscle tension and fatigue

A

Rock climber traversing same route at high vs low height - increased muscle fatigue and blood lactate

Psychology 2D (4 decks)

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