Sport Psychology and the Relationship between Arousal and Stress

In this web based blog I am going to explain the different theories of personality, arousal stress and anxiety. I will then compare these theories and give examples of how these theories can be useful when reviewing behaviour of an athlete in match or training situations.

Sports psychology is the study of people and their behaviour in sport and exercise contexts and the practical application of that knowledge (Gill, 2000). This definition suggests that an athlete will be assessed on his behaviour during a match or training and then the knowledge of the sports psychologist will be used to improve that behaviour and therefore improve performance. The difference between sports psychology and normal psychology is that sports psychology concentrates on clients performance and generally ignores everyday life. Health psychology concentrate on the promotion, improvement and maintenance of health (Nezu. A. et al, 2003) this definition shows that health psychology concentrate on the publics everyday health this is in comparison to sports psychology which focuses on psychology during performance and training.       

History of Sports Psychology

Sports psychology is now deemed to be an extremely important part of any sport, most professional teams or athletes employ a sports psychologist to get the best performance out of themselves or their players, but this hasn’t always been the case.             

Sports psychology wasn’t really studied until the early 1900’s, Norman Triplett was the first psychologist that looked at athlete’s performance, he couldn’t understand why cyclists rode faster when with a fellow cyclist than when they were on their own (Triplett, 1898). Although some testing was undertaken it was in an informal manor and little was done to apply these studies. The next major developments were between the years of 1921-1938 when in depth research was made by Coleman Griffith who is regarded as the father of American Sports Psychology (Kroll & Lewis, 1970). He published 25 articles about sports psychology and he was also involved in the University of Illinois opening a research in athletics laboratory. Moving on to the 1939-1965 the groundwork was starting to be introduced by Franklin Henry who helped begin the study of sports psychology, this helped develop the discipline of exercise and sports science.  

The biggest steps forward where in the 1980- 2000, the U.S Olympics employed a sports psychologist for the 1988 Olympic games, from then on nations across the world follows suit, also professional sports teams in every nation. Now sports psychology is studied in universities so those sports psychologists are trained for jobs in that field rather than psychologist adapting their trade, which was the case in the past.

Personality

A definition of Personality is, the sum of the characteristics that make a person unique (Weinberg & Gould, 2014) the study of personality makes it easier when working with athletes and students.
 Within personality there are two main subdivisions, the first being trait and the second being state personality. Personality traits are enduring and stay pretty much the same across a variety of situations (Weinberg & Gould, 2011) the trait approach doesn’t take into account the environment and the responsibility of that person in a certain environment. The situational (state) approach implies that behaviour is determined largely by the environment that one is within (Weinberg & Gould, 2011),psychologists that have used this approach believe that the environment and the situation are more important than actual traits to influence behaviour. From these two theories another theory was developed which combined the two, this is called an Interactional approach. Situations alone are not enough to predict behaviour accurately - an individual's personality traits must also be taken into account (Weinberg & Gould, 2011) this theory is easier to relate to because it is easy to imagine a performer reacting differently in certain situations taking into account their personality.

To explain personality I am going to use the personality structure (Martens, 1975). As you can see below there are three levels, at the bottom is the ‘core you’ this includes your attitudes and values. The next level is the typical response, this is how a person would react typically in the situation he or she was in. Then at the top is Role related behaviour, our reaction to a certain situation, it might be the natural reaction but depending on a person’s role in an environment, that is the response they will give. In sporting terms an example could be Wayne Rooney, his psychological core is aggressive and short tempered, a typical response from him when losing a match or when he lost the ball was to put in a rash tackle and earn a yellow card, but when his role changed in the situation his behaviour did; he became a senior member of his team and so he acted more disciplined.       

In reference to the diagram on the left (Martens,1975), the way Martens explains personality, he uses a interactional theory, as I have mentioned earlier a interactional theory means that he has taken into account an athlete’s traits and the situation they are in, both of these then determine an athlete’s behaviour in a certain environment.   

R.Martens, 1975, social psychology and physical activity (New York: Harper & Row),p146. 

Trait Approach

A researcher that used the trait approach was Eysenck (1958) the theory was called, The Personality Inventory, the diagram to the left shows his theory in a diagram context. As you can see their are four areas a personality can fit into depending on their traits. An introvert would generally be less confident and not very sociable, an extrovert person is the opposite, they are sociable and usually confident, these traits would place an athlete on either the left or right of the scale. Depending on the athletes emotional stability they will either be classed as stable or unstable. A stable athlete would be calm and even tempered whereas a unstable one would be touchy and moody. All these factors would be taken into account and the athlete would be placed into a section.

Eysenck, HJ & Eysenck S.B.J. (1968)Eysenck Personality Inventory Manual. London: University of London Press.

For example a player such as Roy Keane in my opinion would be placed as a unstable extrovert, this is because of his short temper on a football pitch and also his active and restless performance which shows when he is covering every blade of grass. The problem with Eysenck (1958) is that athletes cant fit perfectly into a quadrant, Roy Keane also possesses traits from the sable section such as leadership and talkative which is proven as he was the captain of Manchester United. So this theory is inaccurate because it isn't possible to section off athletes into sections. 

State Approach

From Eysenck's model the development of the state approach was put into place by the Social Learning theory, Bandura (1977) this theory explained behaviour in terms of observational learning, it suggests that a person behaves differently depending on the environment they are in. For example in one situation a player will act more confident whereas in another they might feel intimidated and less confident, this could be linked to a youth player who is dominating matches at the youth level in snooker but when they enter professional championships they might shy away from playing their usual game because of the environment.

Interactional Approach

When trait and situational approaches are combined it forms an interactional approach. It is argued that the interaction between the situation and the person can explain much more about behaviour than just one or the other (Bowers, 1973). For example a footballer player might be very confident and outgoing person but when put into a situation that they don't understand or don't like, their confidence might be taken away and their behaviour might change into shyness and insecurity. A player recently  that could be linked to this could be Mesut Ozil, he was regarded as a world class player with confidence at Real Madrid but when he was involved in a high money transfer to Arsenal his performances have seemed to dip, this could be because of the situation, he might not feel comfortable playing under such pressure.

In my opinion the use of the interactional approach when trying to explain behaviour is much more useful than the trait and state approaches, The main reason being it is easy to relate to. It is also easy to see in the professional game as I have mentioned with Mesut Ozil, the trait and state approach are to simple and a situation is hard to find where an athletes behaviour has changed depending on one or the other it has to take both to change in my opinion.  

Motivation

Motivation can be defined as the direction and the intensity of ones effort (Sage,1977), this definition suggest that the amount of intensity in terms of effort and what direction the individual has chosen Is what determines their motivation to achieve.

As with personality their are Trait and Situational - Centres Views. The trait centred view primarily targets an individuals characteristics to determine their motivation, for example some people have a 'get up and go' type attitude which means they are naturally enthusiastic this could be inherited. This view has been ignored, as external influences have to play some part in motivating an individual (Weinberg & Gould.2011). 

The Situation Centred View is the complete opposite to the trait centred view. This view realises that the situation plays a massive  part in motivation, for example if a footballer plays in midfield but on one occasion the manager has to drop the player into defence their motivation will drop if they don't enjoy playing in that position. The problem with this approach is that motivation isn't affected entirely by the situation, traits have to be considered as well, for example that player who doesn't feel motivated when playing in defence wouldn't play at all if it was down to the situation but his traits are involved because he will still play. This is why the two views were put together to create the Interactional View. 

Interaction - Centred View        

 The graph on the left, taken from (Weinberg & Gould 2011) shows how motivation can be affected by personal traits and also situational factors. As you can see in the personal factors box, their are personality, needs, interests and goals all of these will effect motivation. The situational factors are leader- coach style, facility attractiveness and team win-loss record. 

 Weinberg, Robert S & Gould, Daniel (2011). Foundation of Sport and Exercise Psychology. 5th ed. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. P53

This graph shows what happens when linking some of these factors together, for example a player with a laid back attitude might come into contact with a coach who has an aggressive and passionate personality, these two people might not work well together and therefor the result might be a Low Participant Motivation. The same can be said for goals and team win- loss record when they are combined; for example Gary Cahill left Bolton for Chelsea because his goals weren't being achieved with Bolton's record in the Premier Division that season; now he will be more motivated because his personal factors are being by the clubs record.  

Motivation can be simply split into two sub - divisions, internal and external factors. Many athletes will have a mixture of the two but a majority of athletes will either be one or the other. Internal factors include, enjoyment, socialising, the challenge to improve ones self and the natural competitiveness to win. External factors include, money, trophy's/awards, coach's influence and parents influence. The majority of professional athlete are motivated through internal factors because they love their sport, the few that aren't are the ones motivated by making money. A lot of amateur's are influenced by external factors, the main one being their parent's influence, it's no coincidence that a lot of people that play sport stop competing when they get to 16, this is because their parent's stop pushing them and stop helping them get to matches or competitions. However their are more in depth theories on how motivation works, the first one being Need Achievement Theory.

Need Achievement Theory 

This theory is a combination of Atkinson(1974) and McClelland(1961), they use an interactional approach to discover someones achievement behaviour. They focus on four factors to discover the behaviour of an individual.





McClelland, D. (1961). The Achievement Society. New York: Free Press.  

Personality factors is the first, a person can be categorised into two sections, motive to achieve success or to avoid failure. The motive to achieve success is, the capacity to experience pride in accomplishing a task, whereas the definition for avoiding failure is, the capacity to experience shame in failure (Gill,2000). The second factor in the figure above is situation, this is again split into two sections, probability of success and incentive value of success. The incentive value of success if the value that you place on that success, the probability of success is the chance winning or completing a task. An athlete will be judged on this by the types of challenges they undertake and the pride they get from the victory, for example somebody that is competing against Andy Murray would have a lower chance of success than someone competing against an amateur but the value of success would be a lot greater against Murray that an amateur. 

Resultant tendency is the third factor, an individual could either approach success or avoid failure, for example in the scenario I mentioned before a person who approach success would want to play Andy Murray and try to beat him because of the incentive to win, whereas someone who wants to avoid failure would rather play a novice because they have a better chance of winning. The final factor that influences behaviour  is emotional reactions. A person could focus on either the pride of success or the shame of failure. All of these factors add up to behaviour, as you can see a person who's tendencies match the top row will seek out achievement situations, look for challenges which will result in enhanced performance. On the other hand a person who's tendencies go across the bottom row will avoid achievement situations, avoid risk, which in turn will result in a perform performance. In my opinion professional athletes will be sectioned into the top row whereas amateurs will be positioned on the bottom. 



Attribution Theory      

The Attribution Theory created by Heider (1958) and popularized by Weiner (1985, 1986), was created to explain the success and failures of an athlete. The image on the left shows how the theory works.  The theory is used so that a player or coach can explain their success or failure. The stability of the situation are factors that are able to be controlled, for example in success, a stable factor would be the athletes ability, an unstable factor would be good luck. If the situation is stable and the athlete succeeds their will be an increased expectation of success, the situation is unstable the athlete will have a lower expectation of success.

 Weiner, B. (1986). An attribution theory of motivation and emotion. New York: Springer- Verlag.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN2F6WQk8zk
           
From this link you will see Stan Collymore scored a goal in an unstable situation so therefor he would have decreased expectations of the same result, if the ball would have gone into the top corner straight from his foot the situation would have been stable therefor the player expectations of it happening again would have been increased. Locus of causality a either a internal or external factor us success or failure. This example links to boxing, an internal factor of failure could be the lack of training before a fight, an external factor would be the boxers increased speed, power and skill. In the result of a internal factor the boxer will have increased shame but if is external they might have decreased shame because the opponent boxed very well on the night.
The final attribution to explain success or failure is Locus of Control, this means that a factor is either in or out of control of the athlete. If an athlete is successful in a 1500 m race, a factor in their control could be their race plan which helped them to succeed, a factor that is out of the athletes control is the other athletes lack of conditioning. If the factor can be controlled by the athlete, he or she will have increased motivation but if it out of his or hers control, the athlete might be demotivated because they might not feel it is a worth while victory. 

Goal Setting 

This form of motivation is very simple and is used to increase motivation. The targets that are set are entirely dependant on either the coach or athlete, the only factor that should be followed when setting targets is the acronym S.M.A.R.T. The 'S' stands for, is the target specific to the athletes sport,? The 'M' stands for, can the target be measured? The 'A' stands for attainable, can the athlete actually achieve the target? The 'R' stands for, is the target relevant to the athletes position for example in football? Finally the T stands for, can the target be related to a period of time.

The most important part of the goal setting procedure is setting a goal which can be achieved, if a coach doesn't achieve this then their athlete can lose confidence because they have failed to succeed which links back to Attribution Theory. A common goal that is set by football managers is the amount of goals scored in a season, the manager of that club will probably add other incentives such as goals bonuses, this then covers the intrinsic and extrinsic factors of motivation.

Arousal

Arousal is the combination of physiological and psychological activity within a person (Weinberg & Gould, 2011). How aroused somebody is, can easily be determined on a continuum ranging from deep sleep to the other extreme, high intensity exercise. Their are signs of arousal, mentally and physically, these are, increased heart rate, respiration, sweating and increased awareness. Another definition of arousal is, general physiological and psychological activation of the organism that varies on a continuum from deep sleep to intense excitement (Gould & Krane, 1992) I prefer this definition as it gives reference to the continuum.

The first theory of arousal is understood to be The Drive Theory, as you can see from the graph on your left many psychologist believed their to be a direct and linear relationship to arousal and performance (Spencer & Spencer, 1966), and as there arousal increases so does the quality of the athletes performance. If this was true, it would mean that in a World Cup final when every player would be highly aroused their performance should also match this arousal and they should in theory perform very well, but we all know this isn't true. A lot of psychologist started to ignore this theory as they thought it was to simple and inaccurate, this lead to the theory called 'Inverted U'
    


(2014).Motivation .Available: http://www.teachpe.com/sports psychology/motivation.php. Last accessed 14/03/2014.


As you can see from the graph to the left, the lower arousal is then the quality of performance will be poor, as arousal increase so does the performance, this is until arousal hits a certain intensity and performance gradually declines. This theory argues that performance can decline as arousal gets to intense, this is the complete opposite to the drive theory which supports the theory that, the quality of performance increase with arousal. Most athletes and coaches accepted this model, as all athletes have experience under arousal, optimum arousal and over arousal (Weinberg & Gould 2011). As you can see their is a peak to the inverted U and that represents the optimum arousal level where performance is at it's best. Although this theory had been accepted for a number of years it has come into questioning over the past 20 years. It has been argued that the shape which represents arousal and performance is correct, psychologist's have suggested that, optimum performance might not always be reached in the exact same place (Hardy, 1990). Suggestion such as these from Hardy (1990) lead to the catastrophe theory.

(2010). Motivation. Available: http://www.teachpe.com/sports_psychology/motivation.php . Last accessed 16/03/2014.

The catastrophe theory focuses on the situation that an athlete is in at the time. The graph on the left shows performance increasing steadily up until a certain point and then for whatever reason the performance of the athlete takes a substantial fall as arousal itself increase still. This theory is very easy to relate to and this is why some psychologist still support the theory. It has been suggested, performers can handle a high level of arousal up until a certain point until they hit a certain point and there is a catastrophic dip in performance (Hanton, Neil, & Mellalieu, 2008). This argument can be supported as for example if a football player takes a penalty and misses then there arousal will be increasing because of the situation but because of the catastrophic incident performance will decrease from there. Although this theory has some scientific evidence it is very hard to test and this is why other theory have been used instead to help understand arousal and performance (Hardy, 1996). 

The final theory that I am going to use to explain arousal and it link with performance is the 'Yerkes-Dodson Law' this theory links the inverted U and catastrophe theory. As you can see from the different coloured lines which represent athletes, each athlete reacts differently to different task's that they are given. For example the athlete in blue starts off with low arousal and low efficiency of performance but he quickly picks up the skill and as arousal increases his performance drops. The green line is the complete opposite. Again the athlete starts with low efficiency of performance and arousal, but as arousal increases so does performance until a certain point when a catastrophe occurs, this could be a football player learning to pass a ball, as they start to get better they begin playing more difficult passes but when the player gives the ball away arousal is still high but the efficient has been effected. The purple athlete follows the inverted U theory as mentioned before. 

In my opinion the best way to explain a arousal and performance is by splitting the sports up and deciding which sport requires the right amount of arousal for the optimum performance, for example in the Shot Putt an athlete needs to be as aroused as possible to throw the shot the furthest distance, this is because it is a sport which requires large muscle groups. Snooker is the complete opposite, the optimal performance might be reached at low levels of arousal as acute muscle groups are needed and hardly any large powerful movements. 

Gill, A. (2014) Anxiety/Arousal/ Stress Relationship. Chesterfield College. Lecture Notes

Anxiety

The link between anxiety and stress is defined as, anxiety is a negative emotional state which can cause nervousness, worry and apprehension, all of these are associated with arousal of the body (Weinberg and Gould 2011). In simple terms this means, depending on the individual anxiety can become a side effect the arousal of the body. Their are different types of anxiety that can effect athletes, the first one being Trait anxiety. 

State anxiety is the ever changing mood component, the amount of anxiety an athlete has is  entirely dependant on the situation he or she is in, For example in a football match when a player is one on one with the keeper when their team is 5-0 up they will have a much lower state anxiety than if they were one on one with they keep when their team were drawing 0-0. 

Trait anxiety comes down to the athletes actual personality, some people have naturally high levels of anxiety, they view a number of different circumstances and suffer from different types of anxiety effects. For example basketball players taking free throws with exactly the same level of ability, one has a higher trait anxiety than the other, the one with the lower trait anxiety will be more successful at free throws because they wont suffer the effects of state anxiety. 

Anxiety can take different forms, cognitive anxiety is anxiety that effects the athletes psychologically, the effects can be, lack of confidence, bad thoughts going into a game and lack of concentration. The other form of anxiety is somatic anxiety, this form of anxiety effects an athlete physiologically, these effects can be heavy legs, muscle tension and butterflies in the stomach. Recent research suggest that their is a perceived control of state anxiety to avoid or reduce somatic and cognitive anxiety (Cheng, Hardy & Markland, 2009), depending on the athlete and their belief that they have the ability to meet the challenge they can control their state anxiety to a degree.  

The figure below shows the process of arousal linking to anxiety as state and trait and then from the situational anxiety, the effects anxiety has on the body psychologically and physiologically.   


         
 Weinberg, Robert S & Gould, Daniel (2011). Foundation of Sport and Exercise Psychology. 5th ed. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.


Stress

Stress is defined as a substantial unbalance between the demand and the physical and mental capabilities, the failure to meet that demand has important consequences (McGrath, 1970). Stress is directly linked with anxiety, either the person has trait or anxiety, if that person can't deal with the anxiety they are experiencing they will become stressed. For example, Jonathon Trott who is a batsman for England and who played in the most recent Ash's series was sent home from Australia after their were claims that he was suffering  with stress. The reason for Trott's stress would be the state anxiety the player was suffering at the time, I don't believe Trott suffers for high trait anxiety as it would be difficult for any athlete to compete at the highest level, therefore in my opinion the situation he was in was to intense and his inability to cope lead to the begging of the stress process.
The link between trait anxiety and stress is very strong, for example if a manger of a lower league team was offered the job of the England National team, if he had high trait anxiety then he would turn the job down because all of the negative images and comments he might receive and this is because he has trait anxiety, this would be avoiding stress. However someone with low trait anxiety might take the job because they can only see advantages, such as the money and glory, this could lead to stress but it wouldn't be because of trait anxiety it would be the situation he has been placed in. 





The best way to describe the stress response if my referring to the figure on the left. As you can see stage one is the physical and psychological demand, this could be a certain game or a certain situation in a game, for example the deciding penalty in the world cup final. Stage 2 is the individuals perception of the environment, for example are they threatened or do they feel confident of succeeding. The next stage is the actual stress response, for example the effects of state anxiety which are the somatic and cognitive anxiety's, the body's arousal increase, muscle tension and the change in attention. Research suggests that when arousa and state anxiety increases,concenration is lost and focus is also affected (Janelle 2002), this would mean that the athlete might not have entire focus on the task at hand. The final stge is the actual behaviour of te athlete, in terms of the example I have given, this might mean a successful penaly or a unsuccessful penalty,the behaviour is a result of all of the previous stages. 


Weinberg, Robert S & Gould, Daniel (2011). Foundation of Sport and Exercise Psychology. 5th ed. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.


 When stress does occurs within an athlete, their are coping mechanisms, the first on being association, for example with Jonathon Trott, his stress occured because of the situation he was in due to cricket, so the best thing that was decided by him and his advisors was that he returned home and took a break from cricket, this is called disassociation. It works by reducing the state anxiety that the athlete is feeling because they are simply not thinking about it anymore.

The opposite to disassociation is association, this is when an athlete applies him or her self more to the situation and sport they compete in. An example could be that Mo Farah knows his main rival is  a threat in his next race so he might train even harder to give himself the confidnce to beat his opponent. 

Posotive self-talk is the final coping mechanism I am going to discuss. When stress occurs, the side effects of stress is negative thoughts, this can be resolved by posotive self talk. This means that before an event or match an athlete might be lacking in self confidence, so if an athlete is experiencing this, they can encourage themselves for the upcoming game by telling themselves they are going to perform well and imagain themselves scoring a goal or producing a good performance. 


All of the information that I have provided you with showswho clubs and sports men and women require sports psychologist's to help them to perform at the highes level possible and to also achieve their potential.            

 
Bibliography

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Weinberg, Robert S & Gould, Daniel (2011). Foundation of Sport and Exercise Psychology. 5th ed. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. P31-32

R. Martens, 1975, Social psychology and physical activity. New York: Harper & Row. p146

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Weiner, B. (1986). An attribution theory of motivation and emotion. New York: Springer- Verlag.

Spense,J.T, & Spence, K.W. (1966). The Motivational components of manifest anxiety: Drive and drive stimuli. In C.D Spielberger (ED), Anxiety and Behaviour. New York: Academic Press.   

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Hanton, S., Neil, R & Mellalieu, S.D (2008). Competitive anxiety theory and research. In T. Morris,  & P. Terry (Eds), Sport and psychology: The cutting edge. Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology.

Hardy. L, (1996). Testing the predictions of the cusp catastrophe model of anxiety and performance. The Sport Psychologist.

Cheng, W.K., Hardy, L., & Markland, D. (2009). Toward a three dimensional conceptualization of performance anxiety: Rational and initial measurement development. Psychology of sport and exercise.  

McGraph, J.E., (1970). Major methodological issues. In J.E. McGrath (Ed), Social and psychological factors in stress. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. 

Janelle, C.M. (2002). Anxiety, Arousal and visual attention: A mechanistic account of performance variability. Journalof sports science.