Summary of all lectures (with illustrations for more clarity!)
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Course
Sport Psychology (SOWPSB3BE20E)
Institution
Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen (RU)
This is a summary of all the lectures (1-12) of the course Sport Psychology of the psychology bachelor. It is written in English and contains pictures of slides to make it more clear, for example to help understand different theoretical models. This will help you pass your exam!
Lecture 1: Introduction
Sport psychology
effects of psychosocial factors on sport-related behavior, performance and well-being
- performance
- psychological skills
- motivation
- well-being
- relationships: antecedents and consequences
- cognitive, affective and behavioral
Academic origins
Three orientations on studying sport & exercise behavior
Example: you are interested in examining ‘Imaginary effectiveness’
1. Psychophysiological orientation
- examining effect of imagery with use of MRI (brain activity)
2. Social-psychological orientation
- examining relationship of athlete imagery use from team-level perspective to team cohesion
3. Cognitive-behavioral orientation
- examining effects of imagery on performance
Different perspectives on sport psychology
Questions can be studied and answered from different perspectives:
- person → individualistic approach
- environment → situational approach
- person x environment → interactionist approach (= contemporary view)
Psychological skills contributing to sports performance
Aim: help athletes develop mental skills which are necessary to …
1. perform optimally in challenging situations
2. experience personal highlights
3. develop to their full potential
X-Model for Sport Behavior (zie lecture 1 slides vanaf 44)
1. Sport situation
- task demands: handball, football, discus throwing
- task circumstances: grass, ball, referee, opponent
- task conditions: game rules, time regulations, pay / rewards
- task relations: team or solo, relation coach / competitors
2. Person / athlete
- psychophysiological state
- stable (habitual) characteristics: physical, technical, psychological, tactical
- variabele characteristics: current capacity, state anxiety, goal state
- actual characteristics (Ist-situation) vs. required (Soll-situation)
characteristics → aiming for congruence
3. Sport behavior
- effort
- psychological: willingness, motivation
- physiological: capacity
- strategy / tactics
- movement behavior
4. Sport outcomes
- performance
- objective: height, time, distance,
amount of goals
- subjective: execution
- combination
- result
- with same performance, result may differ, eg. depending on performance of others
5. Person / athlete outcomes
- psychophysiological state
- positive: game pleasure, competence, self-efficacy
- negative: fatigue, injury, depression
- changes may be temporary or (more) permanent
Using Action Theory to analyze sport behavior
- sport behavior(s) (Box 3) can be ordered hierarchically-sequentially
Example:
- football = defensive actions, transition, offensive actions
- offensive actions = dribbling, passing, shooting
- shooting = positioning support leg, assess speed of ball, control body posture, kicking
- kicking = …
, Lecture 2: Arousal, Attention, Anxiety and Performance
Stress process
Stage 1: Environmental demand
- physical and psychological
Stage 2: Individual’s perception of environmental demand
- amount of psychological or physical ‘threat’ perceived
Stage 3: Stress response
- physical and psychological
- arousal
- state anxiety (cognitive and somatic)
- muscle tension
- attention changes
Stage 4: Behavioral consequences
- performance or outcome
Performance pressure
anxious desire to perform at high level in given situation
- depends on personally felt importance of situation
Choking under pressure
process in sport whereby individual perceives that their resources are insufficient to meet
demands of situation → concludes with significant drop in performance (a choke)
Underlying mechanisms
- arousal
- anxiety
Arousal
general physiological and psychological activation, varying on continuum from sleep to intense excitement
- intensity dimensions of motivation at particular moment
- needs direction and regulation
Arousal regulation
- fight, flight or freeze response
- whether fight or flight depends on perceived stimuli as challenge or threat
- stress response system secretes (among others) adrenaline and cortisol
Physical reactions
- increased heart rate → increase blood flow to organs and increase movement of
adrenaline around body
- increased breathing rate → increase oxygen intake
- pupil dilation → increase light entry into eye and enhance vision (especially in dark)
- sweat production → regulate temperature
- reduction of non-essential functions (eg. digestive system, urination, salivation) →
increase energy for other essential functions
Challenge or threat?
- when perceived demands are doable → challenge → increase in performance
- challenge: resources > demands
- when perceived demands are too high → threat → drop in performance
- threat: resources < demands
Anxiety
, negative emotional state in which feelings of nervousness, worry and apprehension are
associated with activation or arousal → key points:
- anxiety is related to arousal
- negative emotional state
- feelings of worry (= cognitive anxiety)
- based on perceptions → subjective
Two components:
1. Cognitive anxiety = thought process
- eg. worry and fear
2. Somatic anxiety = physical response to stress
- eg. increased heart rate and sweating
- in early theories of arousal: somatic anxiety = arousal
Theories of arousal & anxiety
Drive theory
when arousal increases, so does performance
- feasible in some cases (eg. gross tasks)
- mostly easy tasks
Inverted-U Hypothesis
too high arousal can become counterproductive
- similar to drive theory until optimal point of arousal
- still to simplistic and fixed
- no distinction between fine motor skills and gross motor skills
Catastrophe Theory
- if experiencing high levels of cognitive anxiety as arousal rises towards athletes threshold →
athlete experiences dramatic drop in performance
- does also rely on need for both arousal and cognitive anxiety to achieve optimal performance
- recognizes cognitive and somatic anxiety are not same → cognitive component is detrimental &
does not necessarily increase gradually
- arousal takes time to get back on original level
Practical implication
- aim: achieve mental state in which functional physiological arousal is achieved and maintained and
cognitive anxiety is controlled
- how: optimal warm-up with behavioral and mental precompetitive routines while avoiding (eliminating)
worry thoughts, eg. by concentrating on personal challenge and excitement
Individualized Zones of Optimal Functioning
- high arousal can hinder fine motor skills
- IZOF can depend on the task
- there is no optimal point, but optimal zone of
performance
- this zone may not always be at midpoint of
arousal
Reversal Theory
- arousal affects performance dependent on how performer perceives this arousal
- perceptions of arousal (hedonic tone) may change and may therefore also change performance
Summary arousal, anxiety & performance
- arousal: physiological and psychological activation → performance
- anxiety: negative emotional state → performance
- optimal level of arousal and anxiety for performance:
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