Arousal in Sport

This part of the blog will begin to explain anxiety, arousal and stress within sport and its effects on sports performance. According to Psychology Campus (2011)

‘Arousal is general, physical and psychological activity. Anxiety is a negative emotional state with feelings of worry, nervousness and apprehension that is associated with the activation of the body’.

Psychology Campus also explains that:

‘Stress is an imbalance between the demands that someone feels and his/her feelings of capably meeting those demands – when failure of these demands has important consequences.’

Both of these factors can affect performance in many ways, there are several theories that show how stress, anxiety and arousal can all affect performance in their own way.

When talking about anxiety and arousal there are many different subheadings and phrases that can be considered. Anxiety can be divided into two subcategories; which are trait and state anxiety. Livestrong (2015) provides the following definitions in regards to state and trait anxiety.

‘State Anxiety: describes the experiences of unpleasant feelings when confronted with specific situations, demands or a particular object or event. State anxiety arises when the person makes a mental assessment of some type of threat.’

‘Trait Anxiety: like state anxiety, arises in response to a perceived threat but it differs in its intensity, duration and the range of situations in which it occurs. Trait anxiety refers to the differences between people in terms of their tendency to experience state anxiety in response to the anticipation of a threat.’

Within state anxiety there are also 2 types; somatic and cognitive. 'Increased levels in arousal can lead to a narrowing of concentration, focus and attention.' Increased arousal can also lead to increases in state anxiety which therefore increases cognitive and somatic anxiety dependant on the perception of the athlete.

Cognitive state anxiety – the amount you worry, negative thoughts, nervousness, low concentration and bad decision making.

Somatic state anxiety – relates to your perception of a situation; increased heart rate and temperature.

Class notes (2016) shows the Behavioural symptoms of anxiety:'

·         Panicking around others

·         Excessive worrying

·         Avoidance behaviour

·         Obsessions and compulsions

·         Hypochondria

·         Depression'

In terms of extreme levels of anxiety; this is where ‘choking would occur’. This mainly occurs in high pressure situations. Christopher Mesagno, International Journal of Sports Psychology (2015) explains:

‘In sport, choking under pressure is a negative athletic experience that may have psychologically damaging effects. The media recognizes that choking is a dramatic drop in performance, whereas researcher have labelled choking as any decrease in performance under pressure.’

This shows, that when anxiety reaches levels uncontrollable to the athlete, that negative affects appear on the athletes performances, which are visible to the outside world, as well as the athlete themselves, who will suffer psychologically.

Surrounding anxiety and arousal are several theories that have been developed over the years. The main three that surround those fields of psychology are Drive Theory, Inverted U Theory and Catastrophe Theory. 

Drive Theory 

Drive Theory Concept.

This particular theory was created by Hull in 1943. The theory originally was created to prove that there is a linear relationship between arousal and performance. It was thought that when arousal levels increased that it intensifies the dominant response, therefore increasing quality of performance.

In 1968 Spence and Spence made changes to this theory adapting it principles and creating an equation which they explained proved the theory. The equation was 'Performance = Habit strength x Drive (P=HD).'

According to H Chambers (2011)

‘Drive theory is now considered an inadequate explanation of the relationship between arousal and performance as observation proves that even the most talented and experienced performers suffer a deterioration in performance when arousal reaches a very high level.'

Although H Chambers' statement may be true, below is a video that supports the Drive Theory Concept.

Above is a video from England's World Cup success in rugby back in 2003. This is a clip from the final where in the dying seconds of the game, with England trailing, Johnny Wilkinson, was able to successfully dispatch a drop goal in the remaining seconds of the game to win the tournament for England. This supports the drive theory, with his arousal levels higher than ever in the World Cup final, he was able to produce that moment.

So to summarise, if this theory was correct, surely everyone that excited about sport would have the highest performance levels? Wrong. If you take beginners into account, they are always going to be excited about sport as it's something new for them, doesn't mean they are going to be the best at it. On the other hand, professional athletes make a life choice to play their sport daily, so they obviously enjoy their work; doesn't always mean they perform to the best of their abilities. However, there are times where people seem to perform to their best ability when aroused.

Inverted U Theory

Another theory that has been developed was created by Yerkes and Dodson (1908) who explained their theory:

'At low levels of arousal, performance will be below par, the athlete is not psyched up. As arousal increases so does performance, up to an optimal point. After this point, further increases in arousal lead to declines in performance. Each athlete has their own optimal level of arousal.'

Revision World (2007) then states

 'Optimal arousal is higher for more simple tasks and lower for more complex tasks. An increase in arousal causes improvement in performance up to an optimal point (moderate arousal level). After this point, increased arousal leads to deteriorated performance.' 

It is said that this theory, accounts for some of the criticism that is given to the Drive Theory.

An example of the Inverted U Theory being implemented would be as the video below shows:

Above is a video of David Beckham being sent off against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup. England were doing well in the tournament and David Beckham was a huge factor in the tournament for England having broken onto the scene with Manchester United. He was recently married and he was receiving a lot of media attention as well as playing extremely well both for club and country. In this game, he was believed to have been fouled by Diego Simeone, following that Beckham is seen to lash out as Simeone, which ultimately resulted in a red card, which followed with England losing the game and being removed from the tournament.

However again researchers doubt the theory; Jones & Hardy 1989 says

'The inverted U theory has been criticised by researchers who have stated the hypothesis doesn't fully explain the relationship between arousal and performance.'

Catastrophe Theory

The final theory to be mentioned is the catastrophe theory; which links together stress and performance. The theory was generated by Hardy (1987) who suggested that 'Anxiety and stress will implement performance negatively'

Below PE Share (2008) provides a graph that represents the affect that takes place during this theory.

This theory when looking at the graph above would indicate that performance increases linear with arousal, however once optimal arousal is reached, then performance seems to rocket downhill and become as they say with this theory 'catastrophic'. This is considered to be the most famous and most used theory out of the three. This indicates that athletes are able to perform whilst aroused, but once the optimal arousal point is reached, then the athletes will struggle to implement the simple tasks. Below is an example of the Catastrophe Theory in play.

The video above is a video of Rory McIlroy, who is ranked number one in the world at golf missing 3 putts on the green and eventually making the fourth. Realistically 9/10 times he finishes any of those shots off, but this shows that once arousal levels have reached a maximum, performance leels drop; to the point where he didnt make the putt until the fourth shot.

As shown in this post, each of these theories can affect an athletes performance levels, it's down to the athlete's perceptions and their arousal levels and coping strategies how they are affected.