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
Peak performance
- Individual differences
- motivation
- self-efficacy
- Environmental factors
- coach-effectiveness
- peers/team-members
- parents
- opportunities
- Psychological skills
- goal setting
, - attentional focus
- imagery
- relaxation
Practice vs. theory
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:
