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Research into sport and exercise psychology
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4002SEP Formative Essay – Fundamentals of Sport andExercise Psychology
Compare and evaluate at least two psychological theories that link arousal and anxiety with
sports performance.
Arousal and anxiety are two terms used in sport and exercise psychology. Arousal is defined
as a physiological and psychological activation varying on continuum. Whereas anxiety is a
negative emotion that is associated with high levels of arousal. Anxiety and arousal both
sharing from a physiological origin means that the forms used to measure this include heart
rate, respiration, pupil dilation etc. On the other hand, interviews and less scientific
approaches can also be used. There are two types of arousal; Somatic and physiological.
Somatic relates to a change in state of the body whereas physiological relates to the mind,
thoughts and feelings.
Drive theory proposed by Spence and Spence (1963) stated that arousal and anxiety had a
positive correlation, in other words as an individual’s arousal increases then so does their
performance. Illustrated by this diagram;
Performance
Arousal
The drive theory is said to be applicable to situations where the performer is at the
autonomous stage of learning (where they perform a skill at a consistent and accurate
level). However, in other instances the learnt behaviour may be incorrect, and this will lead
to a decrease in performance. This theory has several real-life examples that back it up, for
example this theory can attempt to explain why beginners at a sport often find it difficult to
perform well under pressure.
Drive theory has several limitations; the theory states that arousal and performance are
positively related, however it does not take into account the fact that the individual’s
dominant response is not always correct, especially for beginners. If this was the case, then
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