understanding competition Flashcards
why would someone study competition?
underlies almost all areas in sport psychology: competition is a very significant part of the social environment.
has a indirect and direct impact on psychological processess needed for optimal arsousal.
the competitive element of ‘sport’ elicitcs intense psychological responses from participants and spectators.
general definition of competition
striving toward a goal or standard
social definition of competition
Competition is a situation where resources are distributed unequally among participants on the basis of performance.” (Deutsch, 1949)
Social Evaluation Definition of competition
Competition is a situation in which a comparison of an individual’s performance is made with some standard, in the presence of others who are aware of the criteria for comparison, and can evaluate the comparison process.”
(Martens, 1975, 1976)
is competitiveness a personality variable
yes
stage 1 of martens 1979 model of competition
objective / competitive situation. someone is there to evaluate your performance and aware of the criterion.
how can you view competition as a process?
using marten model you can view competition more than just a single view.
does marten believe that running by yourself with a time goal in mind a competition?
no, but he does not disagree he believe we just need to delimit its scope.
stage 2 of martens 1979 model of competition
subjective competitive situation. how a person perceives, accepts and appraises the competitive situation. this is where the persons background and attributions are important.
what is the best personality characteristic that predicts how people appraise the objective situation.
compettitiveness
who tends to seek out competitive situations
Highly competitive people tend to seek out competitive situations and be more motivated
to achieve in them than people with lower levels of competitiveness.
win orientation vs goal orientation
Win orientation is a focus on interpersonal comparison and winning in competition.
Goal orientation is a focus on personal performance standards.
stage 3 of martens competitive process model
response, this is where poeple deicde whather they want to compete or not. like whether you want to compete against someone better then you or worse. and how we respond to competition (anxiety)
stage 4 of martens competitive process model
consequences - seen as either negative or positive, many people pos - winning, neg - losing. or for example if you have a task orientated goal - if you played your best and still lost thats good.
is competition good or bad?
Competition is inherently neither good nor bad. It is neither a productive nor a destructive strategy—it is simply a process.
