ANXIETY, AROUSAL, AND STRESS RELATIONSHIPS

This lecture is a continuation of lecture eighteen ⏭️. We were looking at anxiety, arousal, and stress relationship 🔄, and had divided this topic into six sections 📑, they were:

Differentiating among the terms anxiety, arousal and stress 🔍
The multidimensional nature of anxiety 🧠📊
Antecedents of anxiety ⏮️😟
Measurement of anxiety 📏
Time-to-event nature of precompetitive anxiety ⏱️🏁
The relationship between anxiety and performance 🤝🏆

We have looked at the first three sections in lecture eighteen 📖 and the remaining will be discussed in this lecture 📘.

Measurement of Anxiety 📏😰

In recent years 🕒, the preferred method of measuring trait and state anxiety has been through the use of pencil-and-paper inventories ✏️📄. Some commonly used inventories utilized or developed by sport psychologists 🏃‍♂️🧠 are listed below ⬇️:

TRAIT – Unidimensional 🧍‍♂️

Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT)
Multidimensional Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS)

STATE – Competitive 🏟️

Unidimensional Competitive State Anxiety Inventory (CSAI)
Multidimensional Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2)

While pencil-and-paper inventories are the most common measures of anxiety 📄✔️, behavioral and psychological assessments 👀🧠 can be very effective. One category of behavioral measurement is direct observation 👁️, where the experimenter looks for objective signs of arousal ⚡ in the subject and records them 📝. Such things as nervous fidgeting 🤲, licking the lips 👅, rubbing palms on pants or shirt 👕, and change in respiration 🌬️ could all be interpreted as behavioral signs of activation 🔔. The list below shows overt behavioral responses that can be used by the athlete 🏃‍♀️ to identify indicators of distress, or state anxiety 😟.

Checklist for Monitoring Distress-Related Behavioral Responses of the Athlete ✅🏃‍♂️

Clammy Hands ✋💧
Diarrhea 🚽
Dry Mouth 👄
Fidgeting 🤲
Increased Respiration 🌬️⬆️
Irritability 😠
Jitters ⚡
Licking of Lips 👅
Mental Confusion 🧠❓
Mental Fatigue 🧠😴
Nausea 🤢
Need to Urinate 🚻
Physical Fatigue 💪😴
Rapid Heart Rate ❤️⬆️
Scattered Attention 🎯❌
Tense Muscles 💪⚠️
Tense Stomach 🤰⚠️
Trembling Legs 🦵😖
Unsettled Stomach 🤢
Voice Distortion 🔊⚠️

Time-To-Event Nature of Precompetitive Anxiety ⏱️🏁

The ability to obtain independent measures of cognitive and somatic state anxiety 🧠💪 has greatly enhanced our knowledge 📈 about the athletic situation 🏟️. One of the factors that is believed to significantly influence the quality of the athletic experience ⭐ is the level of state anxiety during the time leading up to competition ⏳. We have already referred to this as precompetitive anxiety 😟🏁.

Precompetitive cognitive anxiety starts relatively high 📊⬆️ and remains high and stable as the time-to-event approaches ⏰➡️. Conversely, somatic anxiety remains relatively low ⬇️ until approximately twenty-four hours before the event 🕛, and then increases rapidly 🚀 as the event approaches. Once performance begins ▶️, somatic anxiety dissipates rapidly ⬇️⚡, whereas cognitive state anxiety fluctuates 🔄 throughout the contest as the probability of success/failure changes 🎯❌.

The Relationship between Arousal and Athletic Performance ⚡🏆

It is now necessary to use the term arousal ⚡ as somewhat synonymous with state anxiety 😰. This is the case because researchers 🔬 have routinely employed a test of state anxiety as the primary means for determining a subject's arousal level 📊. Consequently, most of the reported research 📚 will relate negative anxiety ❌😟 to sport and motor performance 🏃‍♂️.

The primary focus is to explain the relationship between arousal and athletic performance 🔄🏆: It can be explained by inverted-U theory 🔺 and drive theory ➡️.

Inverted-U theory explains why the relationship between arousal and performance is curvilinear 🔺 as opposed to linear ➖ in nature. Conversely, drive theory proposes a linear relationship ➖ between arousal and performance.

The Inverted-U Theory 🔺

The inverted U theory has been around for as long as the arousal/performance relationship has been studied 📖. It simply states that the relationship between performance and arousal is curvilinear 🔺 as opposed to linear ➖, and takes the form of an inverted-U ⤴️⤵️.

One of the difficulties encountered in testing the inverted U theory with humans 🧍‍♂️ is our inability to precisely measure arousal 📏. For example, if in a particular study researchers fail to demonstrate that heightened arousal causes a decrement in performance ⬇️, it is not particularly damaging to the theory ⚠️. The reason for this is that it can always be argued that for that particular task 🎯, arousal was not high enough ⬆️. If it had been higher, performance would have been declined ⬇️. The problem is that from a human rights standpoint ⚖️, the amount of arousal researchers can induce is limited 🚫. For example, if arousal is induced through electric shock ⚡, how much can the researcher elevate the voltage without violating the subject's rights ❓

Similarly as can be observed 👀, a high level of arousal ⬆️ is necessary for the best performance 🏋️‍♂️ in gross motor activities such as weight lifting 💪. Conversely, a lower level of arousal ⬇️ is best for a fine motor task 🎯 such as putting in golf ⛳. Each sport skill has its theoretical optimal level of arousal ⚖️ for best performance 🏆. Regardless of which type of skill is being performed, they all conform to the inverted-U principle 🔺. Specifically, performance is lowest when arousal is very high ⬆️ or very low ⬇️, and highest when arousal is moderate ⚖️, or optimum ⭐.

Evidence of an inverted-U relationship between athletic performance and arousal 📚 is documented in the literature. Klavora (1978), Sonstroem and Bernardo (1982), were able to demonstrate that basketball performance 🏀 is related to level of arousal ⚡, with best performance occurring at moderate levels ⚖️ of arousal and poorest performance at high or low levels ⬆️⬇️. Similarly Simons, and Vevera (1987) and Burton (1988) reported that best performance in pistol shooting 🔫 and swimming 🏊‍♂️, respectively, were related to somatic anxiety 💪😟 in a way consistent with inverted U predictions 🔺.

While it seems relatively clear that the nature of the relationship between athletic performance and arousal ⚡🏆 takes the form of the inverted U 🔺, it is not clear why this occurs ❓.

Drive Theory ➡️

The great contribution of drive theory ⭐ is that it helps to explain the relationships between learning 📘 and arousal ⚡, and between performance 🏆 and arousal. Many young athletes 👦👧 are just beginning the process of becoming skilled performers 🎓. The effect of arousal upon a beginner 👶 may be different from its effect upon a skilled performer 🏅.

The basic relationship between arousal and an athlete's performance at any skill level 📊 is given in the following formula 🧮:

Performance = Arousal x Skill Level ⚡✖️🎯

The basic tenets of drive theory are as follows 📌:

Increased arousal (drive) ⬆️ will elicit the dominant response 🔔.
The response associated with the strongest potential to respond 💪 is the dominant response.
Early in learning 📘 or for complex tasks 🧠, the dominant response is the incorrect response ❌. Late in learning 📗 or for simple task ✔️, the dominant response is the correct response ✅.

We can make several practical applications 🛠️ of these drive theory tenets. First, heightened levels of arousal ⬆️ should benefit the skilled performer 🏅, but hamper the beginner 🚫. The coach 🧑‍🏫 with a relatively young team 👦👧 should strive to create an atmosphere relatively low in anxiety and arousal 😌. Low levels of arousal ⬇️ should increase the beginner's chances of a successful performance 🎯. In turn, the experience of success ⭐ should strengthen self confidence 💪🧠. Skilled athletes 🏆, on the other hand, will benefit from an increase in arousal ⬆️.

Similar applications can be made to the performance of simple ✔️ and complex tasks 🧠. For example, a complex task, such as throwing a knuckleball in baseball ⚾, will always require a low level of arousal ⬇️. Conversely, a very simple task, such as doing a high number of push-ups 🤸‍♂️, would seem to benefit from arousal ⬆️. Utilizing drive theory predictions ➡️, the researchers hypothesized that increased arousal caused by major league baseball pressure situations 🏟️ would cause a decrement in batting (a complex task) ⬇️. Four late-game pressure situations ⏱️ were compared with no pressure situations 😌 relative to batting performance 🏏. Results showed a decrement in batting performance ⬇️ associated with increased arousal ⬆️, as predicted by drive theory ✔️.

Drive theory received tremendous amounts of attention 📚 between 1943 and 1970 🕰️. However, since then, interest in the theory has diminished significantly ⬇️. The theory was extremely difficult to test 🧪, and the tests that were conducted often yielded conflicting results ⚠️.

References 📚

Cox, H. Richard. (2002). Sport Psychology: Concepts and Applications. (Fifth Edition). New York: McGraw-Hill Companies 🏢

Lavallec. D., Kremer, J., Moran, A., & Williams. M. (2004). Sports Psychology: Contemporary Themes. New York: Palgrave Macmillan Publishers 📖