Sports Psychology - Exam 2 Study Guide

43. Drive Theory

• Drive Theory - a theory proposing that in general higher levels of arousal result in better performance, but that athletes' skill level also influences this association

49. Flow

Flow - a positive state in which a person feels a balance between the challenges of the situation and their skills to cope with these challenges • Athletes who are in a state of flow experience a very positive state, in which they are fully absorbed in their performance, have no sense of time passing, and achieve positive results. Athletes who are mentally and physically prepared, feel self-confident, have the ability to focus on the task at hand, maintain positive attitude, and feel internally motivated to perform are more likely to achieve a state of flow

50. Flow

Flow - a positive state in which a person feels a balance between the challenges of the situation and their skills to cope with these challenges • Athletes who are in a state of flow experience a very positive state, in which they are fully absorbed in their performance, have no sense of time passing, and achieve positive results. Athletes who are mentally and physically prepared, feel self-confident, have the ability to focus on the task at hand, maintain positive attitude, and feel internally motivated to perform are more likely to achieve a state of flow

38. Moderate to High Levels of Arousal Impact on Performance

• According to drive theory, as arousal increases, so does performance. However, athletes who are new to a skill or sport will generally perform better under conditions of low arousal, whereas athletes who are experienced at a given skill or sport will generally perform better under conditions of high arousal. • This interaction between level of arousal and level of ability to predict performance is expressed using an equation: performance = habit X drive (arousal)

7. Radel, Sarrazin, & Pelletier (2009)

• Although most of the research discussed thus far is correlational, meaning it can be difficult to determine whether self-motivation leads to better performance or whether better performance leads to higher levels of self-motivation, experimental research reveals that self-motivation does in fact lead to better performance. • For example, researches in one clever study examined the effects of priming words indication choice on participants' performance on and enjoyment of a novel motor task. Participants were first primed at an unconscious level with either autonomous or controlling words or simply strings of letters. The findings pointed to the importance of autonomous choice - even at an unconscious level - in enhancing intrinsic motivation, effort, and performance.

31. Impact on Youth (study on 12 & 13-year-old gymnasts)

• Although own-set goals are generally seen as better predictors of goal commitment and achievement, athletes themselves may vary on the type of goal setting process they find most effective. • To examine the effectiveness of own-set versus coach-set goals within young athletes, researchers created two distinct types of foal setting procedures for 12- and 13year-old elite female gymnasts • Half of the gymnasts were asked to list three of their own goals regarding their training, such as how frequently they would complete particular exercises on the balance beam. The other half were assigned goals by their coaches; the athletes were not asked for their input into these goals. • The findings indicated that different goal setting procedures were most effective for different athletes. o Gymnasts with an intrinsic locus of control found setting their own goals most effective, whereas for those with an external locus of control, coach-set goals were most effective o This demonstrates that both coach-set and own-set goals may be effective, but particular athletes may benefit more from one goal setting approach than the other

2. Testosterone and Motivation

• Another factor that may contribute to competitiveness is the athlete's level of testosterone. • People with higher levels of testosterone may have higher motivation to compete in sport settings, in part because testosterone increases power motivation • Research suggests that for both male and female athletes, higher levels of testosterone are linked to greater competitiveness • However, it is important to understand that although hormone levels may make some contribution to overall competitiveness, other factors exert even stronger influences

35. Relationship between Arousal and Anxiety

• Anxiety - a feeling of nervousness and worry • Arousal - a blend of physiological and psychological activity

15. Why do you create different types of environments?

• Athletes' goal orientation can change overtime based on the climate they are in • Athletes who are strongly ego focused but in an environment focused on skill development may become more mastery focused, whereas athletes who are mastery focused but in a highly competitive environment may become more focused on performance

48. Catastrophe Model

• Catastrophe Model - a model predicting that at levels of low cognitive anxiety, moderate levels of physiological arousal lead to best performance, whereas at high levels of cognitive anxiety, even moderate levels of physiological arousal can have negative effects on performance

16. Creating Motivating Environment

• Coaches and team leaders play a substantial role in creating the environment in which athletes practice and therefore should deliberately design sport settings to increase motivation • Intrinsic motivation increases when people have some choice over their environment. Letting athletes choose which skills they will focus on at a given practice or the order in which they will do drills is a simple way of letting athletes exercise choice over their environments • This type of individual control helps increase motivation by giving players more of a personal stake in decision making

13. Creating Mastery Focus

• Coaches can create a mastery-focused environment by emphasizing working hard, developing skills, showing improvement over time, and valuing each athlete's role

39. Symptoms of Cognitive Anxiety

• Cognitive Anxiety - a type of anxiety that is caused by thoughts, worries, or concerns • A feeling of restlessness, feeling "keyed up," or "on-edge" • Shortness of breath, or a feeling of choking • Sweaty palms • A racing heart • Chest pain or discomfort • Muscle tension, trembling, feeling shaky • Nausea and/or diarrhea • "Butterflies" in the stomach

32. Goals for Olympic Athlete

• Different people set different goals, and it is important to adapt goals to individual athletes' motives, personality, and type of sport to improve goal effectiveness • Aspiring Olympic athletes describe their three most important sports-related goals as improving overall performance (42%), winning (26%), and having fun-enjoyment (15%)

47. Arousal Performance Link Theory

• Drive Theory - a theory proposing that in general higher levels of arousal result in better performance, but that athletes' skill level also influences this association • Social Facilitation Theory - a theory proposing that people who engage in a task in front of others experience higher levels of arousal than those who are by themselves, which leads to enhance performance on difficult tasks • Textbook pages 156-158

12. Ego Goal Oriented

• Ego (performance) Goal Setting - a goal orientation in which people are motivated by a desire to outperform others • Their focus is on doing better than others, and they feel good when they are able to achieve at a higher level than others with whom they compare themselves.

5. Different Theories (external rewards)

• Extrinsic (or external) Motivation - motivation that comes from an external source, such as awards, trophies, money, praise, or social status • Intrinsic (or internal) Motivation - motivation that comes from an internal source, such as the fun of competing, a desire to learn new skills, and the excitement that comes from performing well

18. Goal Setting

• Goal - something a person is consciously and deliberately trying to accomplish • Goal Setting Theory - a theory proposing that setting specific, but difficult, goals as well as providing feedback about such goals improves performance

27. Level of Difficulty of Goal & Meeting that Goal

• Goal Difficulty - the relative challenge associated with achieving a particular goal, which can be easy, moderately difficult, or very difficult•

33. Goal Setting Theory & Athletes Setting Goals

• Goal Setting Theory - a theory proposing that setting specific, but difficult, goals as well as providing feedback about such goals improves performance • Textbook pages 123 - 137

23. Making Goals More Manageable

• Goal Specificity - the relative precision describing a particular goal, which can be general and vague or precise and distinct (set specific and measurable goals)

28. Combating off Task Behaviors

• In notebook • Making sure that short term goals match with long term goals

37. Fight or Flight

• Many coaches and athletes are familiar with the term fight or flight. The phrase is used to describe an instinctual reaction of fight or flight that occurs when faced with a perceived, real or unreal threat. Common physical/mental reactions in this state include: o Increased breathing (typically shallow) o Increased heart rate o Racing thoughts o Increased muscle tension o Time speeds up • The majority of sporting events that most athletes participant in do not pose a physical threat, and most athletes report low to non-existent signs of stress during work-outs or practices. Yet, frequently an athletes physiological/psychological response leading up to or during a competitive event creates an "as if" reaction. When an athlete enters a state of fight or flight their athletic skills and abilities may derail creating additional frustration around sport participation. In extreme situations athletes may decide they are not able to compete any longer and give up participating in their sport competitively.

14. Benefits of Mastery Focused Environment

• Mastery-focused environments lead to numerous positive effects, including higher levels of perceived competence, self-esteem, enjoyment, intrinsic motivation, and the experience of flow • Mastery-focused environments leads to better performance

1. Motivation

• Motivation - the direction of intensity of one's effort • Achievement Motivation - a motivation to master tasks, achieve at a high level, and persist even when confronted by obstacles • Competence Motivation Theory - a theory stating that positive experiences lead to greater feelings of competence, whereas negative experiences reduce perceived competence • Extrinsic (or external) Motivation - motivation that comes from an external source, such as awards, trophies, money, praise, or social status • Integrated Theory of Motivation in Sport - a model proposing that social factors, coaches' behavior, and whether a situation emphasizes cooperation or competition influence athletes' beliefs about themselves, which in turn influence whether athletes' fundamental psychological needs are met (their need to feel competent, independent, or autonomous and able to relate to other people); these social and psychological factors then lead to the type of motivation an athlete experiences • Intrinsic (or internal) Motivation - motivation that comes from an internal source, such as the fun of competing, a desire to learn new skills, and the excitement that comes from performing well

26. Why set specific goals?

• Objective Goals - goals that are measurable in a specific and precise way • Specific achievements a person wants to accomplish and can be easily measured

29. Recording & Monitoring Goals

• One effective strategy for helping mobilize effort toward achieving a goal is to actually write down the goal. Once goals are set, they should be recorded, ideally in a place in which they can easily be seen • Monitoring progress toward goals promotes goal attainment and also allows for goal revision, if necessary

30. Coach Set Goals vs Player Set Goals

• One strategy for athletes to implement to increase goal commitment is for athletes to set their own goals as opposed to simply accepting goals set by coaches, parents or teammates • Setting their own goals allows athletes to internalize the goals, which helps motivate goal pursuit • Both coach-set and own-set goals may be effective, but particular athletes may benefit more from one goal setting approach than the other

19. Performance, Outcome, & Progress Goals

• Outcome Goals - goals measured in terms of winning, either at an individual or at a team level • Performance Goals - goals measured in terms of achieving a particular level of individual achievement, often in a competition • Process Goals - goals measured in terms of engaging in specific sport behaviors that contribute to performance

20. Performance, Outcome, & Progress Goals

• Outcome Goals - goals measured in terms of winning, either at an individual or at a team level • Performance Goals - goals measured in terms of achieving a particular level of individual achievement, often in a competition • Process Goals - goals measured in terms of engaging in specific sport behaviors that contribute to performance

46. Choking

• the decrease in (athletic) performance because of disruption in the execution of habitual and automated processes (skill execution and perceptual control) under situations of stress or pressure

21. Downside to Outcome Goals

• Outcome goals often provide short-term motivation in the weeks and months prior to an event, but can cause extensive anxiety during an event • For example, worrying during a meet about whether you have the points necessary to beat a competitor can increase anxiety and distract you from your own performance

17. Social Reward

• Praises and gestures from the coach to the athletes to help motivate athlete

41. Primary Appraisal of High Pressure Situations

• Primary Appraisal - the first stage of the transactional model in which people access the situation and what it will mean for them

6. Amorose and Horn (2000)

• Research generally supports the view of motivation as described by cognitive evaluation theory. For example, researchers in one study examined intrinsic motivation in college athletes as a function of whether they were on an athletic scholarship. • Although athletes on scholarship reported higher levels of intrinsic motivation than non-scholarship athletes, those who saw their coach as emphasizing training and instruction, providing frequent positive feedback, and providing infrequent punishment and ignoring behavior showed higher levels of intrinsic motivation than athletes with coaches who used other styles.

34. Elite & Non-elite Boxers (study) & Goal Setting

• Researchers in one study found that a goal setting program was more effective at increasing target behaviors for elite boxers than for non-elite boxers • Elite boxers who received a goal setting intervention showed improvements in targeted behaviors, as well as less disruptive symptoms of anxiety and greater self-confidence, whereas non-elite boxers showed fewer benefits • These findings suggest that goal setting may be more beneficial for athletes at a higher skill level

9. Self-Efficacy and Success

• Self-Efficacy Theory - a theory describing the importance of having a belief in one's own ability to carry out a given task • Self-efficacy influences motivation since only athletes who believe they can successfully act to help their team are likely to exert the effort to achieve this outcome; whose who lack confidence in their ability to act successfully will likely have low motivation to exert effort. • Even imagining successful experiences can lead to greater self-efficacy

25. Appropriately Challenging Goals

• Set challenging but realistic goals (131) • Goal Difficulty - the relative challenge associated with achieving a particular goal, which can be easy, moderately difficult, or very difficult

22. Short Term Goals Help Long Term Goals

• Short-term goals are necessary to provide the continued motivation needed to work towards long-term goals • Successful athletes are able to keep a focus on long-term goals and to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve those goals

44. Social Facilitation Theory

• Social Facilitation Theory - a theory proposing that people who engage in a task in front of others experience higher levels of arousal than those who are by themselves, which leads to enhance performance on difficult tasks

8. Social Loafing

• Social Loafing - individuals tendency to reduce their own individual output when their contributions on a task will be combined with those of other people • When people's own efforts are combined with the efforts of others, they reduce their own effort since they believe their own contributions will not be identified and thus do not really matter • Social loafing is more likely to occur when an individual's own output is not clear or measurable, the other members on a person's team are higher in ability, and the person does not feel his or her output will make a meaningful difference

10. Sports Confidence Model

• Sport-Confidence Model - a model describing people's enduring beliefs about their competence within athletics, in particular their confidence in cognitive efficiency, physical skills/training, and resilience

36. Why athletes feel stress?

• Stress and pressure of coaches, parents, and teammates

11. Task Goal Oriented

• Task (mastery) Goal Orientation - a goal orientation in which people are motivated to pursue by desire to gain mastery over a given task or skill • For example, someone with this type of motivation will feel goof is he learns a new dive or if she cuts time off of her 100-yard backstroke. Their focus is entirely on themselves, and they feel good when they are making progress toward their goal pursuit

24. Goal Performance Link Mechanism

• The link between the goal and the actual outcome

42. Behavioral Indicators of Stress

• This approach involves observing athletes' outward manifestations of anxiety or stress, such as fidgeting, heavy breathing, rapid heart rate, or nausea • Different people show signs of anxiety in different ways, and therefore the signs of anxiety in one person may not be the same as the signs in someone else • Some athletes might show anxiety through nervous fidgeting or pacing, whereas others might develop a headache or feel nauseous

3. Issues with Big Contracts

• To examine the effects of rewards on motivation, researchers in one study examined performance in a unique sample: NBA and MLB players. Specifically, these researchers compared player statistics over a span of 3 years, including the year prior to signing a new contract. As predicted players showed worse performance in the year after signing a new contract compared with the year in which the contract was signed or even with the year prior.

40. Transactional Model of High Stakes Game

• Transactional Model - a model proposing that how people interpret or appraise a particular event is a more important predictor of the experience of a stressful event than the actual event • Because people's cognitive interpretations of stressful events influence their reactions, people vary in how stressful they find different experiences

4. Extrinsic Reward Intrinsic Motivations

• intrinsic motivation leads to higher levels of performance • a type of extrinsic reward may lead athletes to feel they have to play the sport and not that they want to play the sport • particular types of rewards do not decrease intrinsic motivation • external rewards do not decrease intrinsic motivation

45. Choking

• the decrease in (athletic) performance because of disruption in the execution of habitual and automated processes (skill execution and perceptual control) under situations of stress or pressure