Week 2: Personality and Anxiety

Question 1

What is personality

Answer 1

-a systematic variation in the way people think, feel, and behave
-emphasis on individual differences, every person is unique
-also depends on the context of the situation

Question 2

Trait vs. states

Answer 2

-trait: relatively stable characteristic used when describing yourself, used to explain an individuals behaviour across time and situations
-states: momentary feelings and thoughts that change depending on situation and time (calm person will be anxious during championship game)

Question 3

Big 5 model of personality traits

Answer 3

-openness to experience
-conscientiousness
-agreeableness
-extraversion
-neuroticism

Question 4

How does personality develop (humanistic psychology)

Answer 4

-approach that focuses on personal responsibility, human growth, personal striving and individual dignity
-we all have a need to be recognized (grow up with many siblings so you had to learn to speak loud)

Question 5

How does personality develop (cognitive-behavioural approach)

Answer 5

-behaviour is learned through experience
-influenced by rewards and punishment
-if you grew up where every time you speak up someone will yell at you, you probably became more introverted

Question 6

Cognitive behavioural approach (social learning theory)

Answer 6

-focuses how situations and individuals reciprocally influence eachother

Question 7

How does personality develop (biological/evolutionary psychology)

Answer 7

-personality can be moderately heritable
-reflects biological differences
-not very accepted

Question 8

How does personality develop (interactionist approach)

Answer 8

-personal/situational factors impact behaviour predictively
-interplay between person and environment determines behaviours

Question 9

Personality in sport (risk taking, sensation seeking and alexithymia)

Answer 9

-risk taking (such as cave diving), involves narrowing physical and psychological safety margins
-sensation seeking: people look for novel, complex, and intense sensations and experiences
-alexithymia: inability to feel emotion, could do more dangerous activities/sports because they dont feel anything

Question 10

Personality in sport (competitiveness)

Answer 10

-desire to enter and strive for success in sport competition
-win orientation: doesn’t matter how you personally do, only focused on winning (bad mental health outcomes)
-goal orientation: want to get better personally

Question 11

Personality in sport (passion)

Answer 11

-harmonious passion: engaging in an activity as part of ones personal identity and for the pleasure of the activity
-obsessive passion: uncontrolled urge to engage in activities because of external feelings or guilt (training too much even though youre not improving)

Question 12

Personality in sport (mental toughness)

Answer 12

-strong self-confidence and motivation
-ability to manage the stress of competition and training
-ability to maintain or regain focus in the face of distraction

Question 13

Personality in sport (perfectionism)

Answer 13

-perfectionistic striving: high personal performance standards, high self-oriented achievement striving
-perfectionistic concerns: negative social evaluation, expressive self-criticism, concerns over mistakes, and doubts about actions

Question 14

Meta-analysis

Answer 14

-looking at all studies and drawing conclusions on a bigger scale (more valid because it includes more studies)

Question 15

Anxiety

Answer 15

-emotional state characterized by feelings of apprehension and tension associated with arousal
-linked with negative affect

Question 16

Arousal

Answer 16

-the state of a person, varies from a deep sleep to intense excitement
-can be positive or negative

Question 17

Trait anxiety

Answer 17

-persons general predisposition to perceive a situation as threatening or non-threatening
-if u are a more anxious person than others than some situations may make you more or less anxious

Question 18

State anxiety

Answer 18

-induced by a situation
-cognitive anxiety: mental component of anxiety, referring to worries and concerns and a reduced ability to focus
-somatic anxiety: physical component of anxiety, referring to perceptions of body states (physical symptoms)

Question 19

STAI

Answer 19

-state-trait anxiety inventory: used to measure trait and state anxiety

Question 20

Social anxiety

Answer 20

-when people believe that they will receive a negative evaluation from others

Question 21

Social physique anxiety

Answer 21

-when people are worried about receiving a negative evaluation about their bodies from others (what theyre wearing etc)

Question 22

Competitive anxiety

Answer 22

-occurs in competitive sport situations and is related to athletes worries that they may be evaluated negatively by others (coaches, teammates, spectators)

Question 23

State anxiety reaction

Answer 23

-level of self esteem and trait anxiety both play into how you react to a situation
-the objective situation is what happens and the perception of threat then leads to the state anxiety reaction

Question 24

Drive theory

Answer 24

-graph on slide

Question 25

Inverted-U hypothesis

Answer 25

-anxiety can only be so high until there is a decrease in performance
-high anxiety=catastrophe=rapid decline
-there is an optimal level of arousal which leads to peak performance (always at the midpoint of the scale)

Question 26

Catastrophe model

Answer 26

-relationship between anxiety, arousal and performance

Question 27

Too much arousal

Answer 27

-narrowing of attention
-shift to dominant style
-attend to inappropriate cues
(paralysis by analysis)

Question 28

Choking in sport

Answer 28

-an acute, significant decrement in performance that occurs in situations of high pressure or anxiety, when typical levels of performance are expected