Arousal and Anxiety in Sports

• Arousal, stress, and anxiety are key concepts in understanding performance in sports and exercise.
• It's important to understand these concepts and how they affect performance, as well as methods to regulate them.

Defining Arousal and Anxiety

• It is important to distinguish between arousal, stress, and anxiety to have a common language and diminish confusion.

Arousal

• Arousal is a blend of physiological and psychological activity, representing the intensity of motivation at a specific moment.
• Arousal is on a continuum from not aroused, such as a coma, to completely aroused, such as frenzy.
• When highly aroused, individuals are mentally and physically activated, showing increased heart rate, respiration, and sweating.
• Arousal is not tied to pleasant or unpleasant events.

Anxiety

• Anxiety is a negative emotional state with nervousness, worry, and apprehension, linked to activation or arousal of the body.
• In sports, anxiety is a psychological response to perceived stress about task performance under pressure.
• Cognitive anxiety involves worry and apprehension.
• Somatic anxiety relates to the degree of perceived physical activation.
• It is important to differentiate between state and trait anxiety.

State Anxiety

• State anxiety is a changing mood state, defined as feelings of apprehension and tension, associated with autonomic nervous system arousal.
• State anxiety changes from moment to moment.

Trait Anxiety

• Trait anxiety is an acquired disposition to perceive a wide range of objectively non-dangerous circumstances as threatening and to respond with disproportionate state anxiety levels.
• A direct relationship exists between trait anxiety and state anxiety.
• People that score highly on trait anxiety also have more state anxiety in highly competitive situations.
• Anxiety can fluctuate throughout a competition.
• Somatic anxiety levels decrease rapidly once a competition starts, but cognitive anxiety levels change throughout.

Emotions

• Emotions are short-lived feeling states in response to events, with both physiological and psychological components, unfolding as a process.
• Mood is a more enduring state, less intense than an emotion, where the individual is unaware of the causes of feelings.
• Emotions are reactions to ongoing relationships with the environment, usually involving subjective experiences and physiological changes and can be both positive and negative.

Measuring Arousal and Anxiety

• Psychologists use self-report scales such as the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2) and the Sport Anxiety Scale-2 (SAS-2) to measure trait and state anxiety.
• The CSAI-2 and SAS-2 use global and multidimensional self-reports to measure anxiety by asking people how they typically feel.

Defining Stress and Understanding the Stress Process

• Stress is a substantial imbalance between demand and response capability, where failure to meet that demand has consequences.
• Stress involves four stages: environmental demand, perception of demand, stress response, and behavioral consequences.

Stages of Stress

• Stage 1: Environmental Demand occurs when a demand is placed on an individual, either physical or psychological.
• Stage 2: Perception of Demand refers to the individual's interpretation of the demand. People do not perceive demands the same way.
• Stage 3: Stress Response is the individual's physical and psychological response to their perception of the situation.
• Stage 4: Behavioral Consequences is the individual's actual behavior under stress.
• How a student performs feeds back into stage 1.

Implications for Practice

• The stress process model suggests the need to determine demands, analyze perceptions of stress, study reactions, and focus on subsequent behaviors.

Identifying Sources of Stress and Anxiety

• Stressors for athletes include performance issues, environmental issues, organizational issues, physical danger.
• Core stress sources for athletes include competitive concerns, pressure to perform, lifestyle demands, and negative personal relationships.
• Stress sources for coaches include communicating with athletes, recruiting, the pressure of having many roles, and a lack of control over their athletes' performances.
• Stress arises from controversial calls, confrontations with coaches, difficulties working with a partner official, and physical abuse for officials.
• Parental pressure can also be a traditional source of stress, but can be altered by the climate in which pressure is perceived.
• High pressure in an outcome-focused climate increases anxiety, while high pressure in an improvement-focused climate decreases anxiety.

Situational Sources of Stress

• Two common situational stressors are the importance placed on an event and the uncertainty surrounding its outcome.
• In general, the more important the event, the more stress provoking it is.

Uncertainty

• Uncertainty is a major situational source of stress; the greater the uncertainty, the greater the stress.
• Uncertainty is not limited to the field. Athletes and exercisers can have stress as a result of uncertainty in their lives in general.

Personal Sources of Stress

• The dispositions that consistently relate to heightened state anxiety reactions are high trait anxiety and low self-esteem.

Trait Anxiety

• Trait anxiety is a personality factor that predisposes a person to view competition and social evaluation as more or less threatening.
• High trait anxiety causes individuals to pick out more threat-related information.

Self-Esteem

• Low self-esteem resultes in athletes having less confidence and more state anxiety.

Social Physique Anxiety

• Social physique anxiety is the degree to which people become anxious when others observe their physiques.
• People with high social physique anxiety report more stress during fitness evaluations and experience more negative thoughts about their bodies.
• People with high social physique anxiety are likely to avoid fitness settings or struggle with motivation because they fear how others will evaluate their physiques.
• Females, in particular, are susceptible to social physique anxiety because today's culture places a tremendous emphasis on the body and female attractiveness.
• Physical activity interventions can reduce social physique anxiety in participants.

Connecting Arousal and Anxiety to Performance

• There are many different views that attempt to explain the relationship between arousal, anxiety and performance.

Drive Theory

• Drive theory suggests a direct, linear relationship between arousal and performance.
• As an individual's arousal or state anxiety increases, so too does their performance.
• Little scholarly support exists for this theory.

Social Facilitation Theory

• Zajonc observed that the presence of an audience had a positive effect when people performed tasks that they knew well or that were simple, whereas their performance suffered when they performed less familiar or more complex tasks.
• Social facilitation theory states that an audience creates arousal in the performer, which hurts performance on difficult tasks that are not yet learned but helps performance on well-learned tasks.
• The presence of others increases arousal in the performer and that this increased arousal increases or brings out the performer's dominant response.
• The implications are that you would want to eliminate audiences and evaluation as much as possible in learning situations.

Inverted-U Hypothesis

• Dissatisfied with the drive theory, most sport psychologists turned to the inverted-U hypothesis to explain the relationship between arousal states and performance.
• This view holds that a t low arousal levels, performance will be below par because the exerciser or athlete is not psyched up.
• Increased arousal leads to increased performance, up to an optimal point where best performance results.
• Further increases in arousal cause performance to decline.
• Critics rightly question the shape of the arousal curve, ask whether optimal arousal always occurs at the midpoint of the arousal continuum, and question the nature of the arousal itself.

Individualized Zones of Optimal Functioning

• Hanin found that top athletes have a zone of optimal state anxiety in which their best performance occurs. Outside this zone, poor performance o c c u r s.
• The optimal level of state anxiety varies from individual to individual.
• The optimal level of state anxiety is not a single point but a bandwidth.
• Coaches and teachers should help participants identify and reach their own specific optimal zone of state anxiety.
• It has been criticized for its lack of explanation of why individual levels of anxiety may be optimal or detrimental for performance.
• For best performance to occur, athletes need individualized optimal levels not only of state anxiety but o f a variety of other emotions and other psychobiosocial states as well.

Multidimensional Anxiety Theory

• Multidimensional anxiety theory predicts that cognitive state anxiety is negatively related to performance.
• Somatic state anxiety is related to performance in an inverted U.
• The precise predictions of multidimensional anxiety theory have not been consistently supported.
• This theory has little support with respect to its performance predictions and is of little use in guiding practice.

Catastrophe Phenomenon

• According to this model, performance depends on the complex interaction of arousal and cognitive anxiety.
• Physiological arousal is related to performance in an inverted-U fashion, but only when an athlete is not worried or has low cognitive state anxiety.
• Where there is high cognitive anxiety, when arousal increases, a kind of threshold is reached just past the point of optimal arousal level, after which, a rapid decline in performance, called the catastrophe, occurs.
• Relaxing physically, cognitively restructuring by controlling or eliminating worries and regaining confidence and control, and reactivating or rousing oneself in a controlled manner to again reach the optimal level of functioning is needed to regain previous performance levels.
• The model predicts that one performs better with some worry, provided physiological arousal level does not go too high.
• Scientifically testing this model is very difficult.
• An ideal physiological arousal level isn't enough for optimal performance; it is also necessary to manage or control cognitive state anxiety.

Reversal Theory

• Reversal theory contends that the way in which arousal affects performance depends basically on an individual's interpretation of his arousal level.
• The theory emphasizes that one's interpretation of arousal is significant.
• Performers can shift or reverse their positive or negative interpretations of arousal from moment to moment.
• However, few have tested the theory's predictions, so firm conclusions cannot be made about the scientific predictions.

Anxiety Direction and Intensity

• This shows that an individual's interpretation of anxiety symptoms is important for understanding the anxiety-performance relationship.
• People can view anxiety symptoms as positive and helpful (facilitative), or as negative and harmful (debilitative).
• Viewing anxiety as facilitative leads to superior performance, whereas viewing it as debilitative leads to poor performance.
• Stressor occurs in the environment.
• Whether resulting state anxiety is perceived as facilitative or debilitative depends on how much control the athlete perceives.
• Performers can be trained to effectively use their anxiety symptoms in a productive way and developing a rational appraisal process with psychological skills.
• Athletes should learn a repertoire of psychological skills to help interpret anxiety symptoms as facilitative.
• How often an athlete feels anxiety symptoms is an important component of the anxiety response and its effect on performance.

Significance of Arousal-Performance Views

• Arousal is a multifaceted phenomenon with both physiological activation and an athlete's interpretation of that activation.
• Self-confidence and enhanced perceptions of control are critical to facilitating heightened arousal as positive.
• Excessive arousal likely does not cause slow, gradual declines in performance but rather "catastrophes" that are difficult to reverse.

Why Arousal Influences Performance

• Understanding why arousal affects performance can help regulate arousal,
• Increased arousal influences athletic performance by (a) increased muscle tension, fatigue, and coordination difficulties, and (b) changes in attention, concentration, and visual search patterns.

Muscle Tension, Fatigue, and Coordination Difficulties

• Increases i n arousal and state anxiety cause increases i n muscle tension and c a n interfere with coordination.

Attention, Concentration, and Visual Search Changes

• Increased arousal narrows a performer's attentional field.
• Increased arousal causes a narrowing o f the attentional field, which negatively influences performance on tasks requiring a broad- external focus.
• When arousal is increased, performers also tend to scan the playing environment less often.
• Athletes must learn to shift their attention to appropriate task cues.
• Increased arousal can cause performers to shift to a dominant attention style that may be inappropriate for the skill at hand
• Three types of thoughts are tied to cognitive interference for athletes: performance worries, situation-irrelevant thoughts, and thoughts of escape.
• A shift to the dominant attentional style and to inappropriate cues and a narrowing of the attentional field are caused by Arousal and state anxiety.
• Increased anxiety influences attention via changes in visual search patterns and is associated with alterations in gaze tendencies and eye fixations.
• Anxiety influences performance by disrupting the visual attention of shooters.
• Processing efficiency theory contends that increased anxiety interferes with working memory resources and the anxiety interferes with efficient processing.

Applying Knowledge to Professional Practice

• Apply knowledge of arousal, stress, and anxiety by considering its implications for professional practice.
• Identify the optimal combination of arousal-related emotions needed for best performance.
• Recognize how personal and situational factors influence arousal, anxiety, and performance.
• Recognize the signs of increased arousal and anxiety in participants.
• Tailor coaching and instructional practices to individuals.
• Develop confidence in performers to help them cope with increased stress and anxiety.
• Help people increase their awareness of how arousal-related emotions can lead to peak performances.
• Teaching athletes psychological strategies can help them regulate arousal.
• Like other behaviors, stress and anxiety can best be understood and predicted by considering the interaction of personal and situational factors
• The interaction of personal factors and situational factors is a better predictor of arousal, state anxiety, and performance than either set of these factors alone.