Lecture 15 (midterm 2)

Question 1

People who are high in social physique anxiety may:

Answer 1

Bump up the amount of exercise they do to improve their body/ receive positive evaluations
-also avoid exercise because they don’t want to be in a public environment and be seen

Question 2

Multidimensional Anxiety Theory

Answer 2

Cognitive (your thinking) / somatic (feel heart racing) anxiety

Question 3

Somatic Anxiety effects on Performance

Answer 3

Inverted U
-need some anxiety to get better, but too much makes you go down (inverted U)
-high trait anxiety decreases performance when anxiety is high
-helps you UP TO A CERTAIN POINT

Question 4

Cognitive Anxiety effects on Performance

Answer 4

A straight negative relationship
-cognitive anxiety UP= performance DOWN, vice versa
-not your friend at all

Question 5

Zones of Optimal Functioning

Answer 5

Optimal state anxiety zone
-between anxiety and performance, there’s a zone you should be in before a performance -you will do well
-if your outside of the zone before. During a performance, you wont do as good

Question 6

Zones of Optimal Functioning is important for understanding what 2 things:

Answer 6

1. How anxiety/ performance relationship differs between athletes
2. Anxiety is not always detrimental to sport performance, it can aid in some individuals

Question 7

Cusp Catastrophe Theory

Answer 7

-cognitive state anxiety or arousal
-anxiety and performance relationship is very complex

Question 8

Predictions of CUSP: arousal levels are LOW

Answer 8

-cognitive state anxiety is high
-performance is high

Question 9

Predictions of CUSP: arousal levels are HIGH

Answer 9

-cognitive state anxiety is HIGH
-performance is LOW

Question 10

Prediction of CUSP: Cognitive state anxiety is LOW

Answer 10

-physiological arousal affects performance
-INVERTED U

Question 11

Predictions of CUSP: cognitive state anxiety HIGH

Answer 11

-as arousal goes UP, increases performance, but nearing the end it decreases performance

Question 12

Predictions of CUSP: Moderate arousal levels

Answer 12

-cognitive state anxiety is high
=dramatic performance drop = CATASROPHE

Question 13

What are the 2 primary mechanisms of how anxiety affects performance?

Answer 13

Cognitive and Physiological Mechanisms

Question 14

Cognitive Mechanisms

Answer 14

They are about attention (how we process info) -what we will focus on

Question 15

Amount of Anxiety:

Answer 15

-as we get more anxious, the amount of info that we process decreases
-lose attention, focus, selectivity
-decreases performance if it is an important task
(Relevant cues will be missed)
-can increase performance if there’s an unimportant distraction that is blocked by the individual while doing a task
-cognitive

Question 16

Type of Anxiety

Answer 16

-increased anxiety will lead to task irrelevant information
-when people get anxious, they start to focus on info that is more subjective (their interpretation of what their seeing)
-attention is more influenced by subjective important of cues (a threat) than location in visual field
-cognitive

Question 17

Control of Anxiety

Answer 17

-anxiety causes shifts to conscious processing
-paralysis by analysis -JUST DO IT -don’t think
-cognitive

Question 18

What is Choking in sport

Answer 18

Plan, decision making, no execution

Question 19

Why do people Choke?

Answer 19

-there may be a change in focus
-their focus starts to go to the more subjective cues -the non important things that wont hel make the right decision
-control (self focus)

Question 20

Physiological Mechanisms

Answer 20

-neuromuscular control systems
-increased anxiety= muscle tightening, which decreases fine motor skills
-when anxious, it increases movement coordination difficulties