1. Stress, Anxiety & Performance

2. Definitions Arousal Stress Anxiety  State  Trait  Cognitive  Somatic Physiological Arousal Activation What is somatic anxiety, how does it differ from physiological arousal, and does this make sense? (note: William James thought deeply about this in 1890)

3. Side note – James & emotion James on free will (and perhaps emergence) James on emotion Cause and effect might not be as simple as you imagine Just a little contrast with what comes later – see Wenger

4. Anxiety, arousal, & Performance So, there’s lots of kinds of arousal and anxiety. How are they related to performance?  There are several theories  First, how do you think they are related to performance?  Think about it…how do anxiety and arousal regulate performance for you?

5. Anxiety & Performance Making a start:  Drive theory (Hull & Spence, 1943; Zajonc, 1965)

6. Anxiety & Performance Next ( for us, not in the research chronology ):  The “Inverted-U hypothesis” & “Zones of optimal functioning” (ZoF)

7. Anxiety & Performance Multidimensional anxiety theory  based on the distinction between cognitive anxiety and somatic anxiety. The theory predicts:  a negative but linear relationship between cognitive anxiety and performance  an inverted U relationship between somatic anxiety and performance  Somatic anxiety should decline once performance begins but cognitive anxiety may remain high if confidence is low ...hasn’t really got much support...yet

8. Anxiety & Performance Catastrophe Theory (Hardy & Fazey, 1987) One example of the many models posited – the general idea is one of higher order interactions (seems intuitively appealing to me)

9. Anxiety & Performance Catastrophe Theory/Models A model showing hysteresis – a non-linear approach to the arousal performance relationship (this just illustrates one of the predictions of catastrophe theory)

10. Anxiety & Performance Catastrophe Theory/Models  Current evidence - effect of self-confidence As self-confidence increases...

11. Anxiety & Performance Catastrophe Theory/Models  Current evidence - hysteresis effects Effort? “Asymmetry” factor “Bifurcation” factor “Cusp point”

12. Anxiety & Performance Catastrophe Theory/Models  Current evidence - hysteresis effects Effort? Worry Explanations fit a processing efficiency theory approach (see later)

13. Anxiety & Performance Reversal theory This is one of those theories that tend to excite a lot of new age interests – intuitively appealing and popular in business, but short on explanation

14. Anxiety & Performance Interpretation of anxiety states  Gives rise to measuring both intensity and direction of anxiety response  Often, the direction predicts more variance (in performance) than the intensity  Now some look at discrepancies between self-ideals and actual states...  Carver, Lawrence, and Scheier’s (1999) interaction self- discrepancy framework  Higgins’ (1987) self-discrepancy theory

15. Anxiety & Performance Interpretation of anxiety states: self-confidence & anxiety  E.g. Beattie, Hardy, Woodman (2004)

16. Anxiety & Performance E.g. Beattie, Hardy, Woodman (2004) Step 1: identify these “selves” in terms of levels of self-confidence Step 2: identify actual levels of self-confidence and anxiety prior to competition Step 3: calculate discrepancies Step 4: association of discrepancies with performance & anxiety?

17. Anxiety & Performance Anxiety and self-confidence:  Bandura (1986) high self-efficacy implies trying harder  Close to ought/ideal  high S-C  better performance than those who are far from ought/ideal (who will have low S-C)  But...Carver & Scheier (1999): discrepancy between actual and ought level of S-C  extra effort to redress discrepancy  Those with higher actual/ought discrepancy should outperform those with little discrepancy 

18. Anxiety & Performance Self-confidence and performance, another note:

19. Anxiety & Performance Self-confidence and performance, another note: Note decrease in self- confidence, but increase in performance score (no sig. change in the effort measure)

20. Explanations/Theories Processing efficiency theory (Eysenck & Calvo, 1992)  Worry:  drains attentional resources (reduced attention available for the task)  Signals importance of task, assigning more attentional resources if deemed necessary  Thus as worry increases, effort can also increase  Implies that cognitive anxiety can be negative (unpleasant), but motivating  (results in extra effort, and thus improved performance, provided eventual success is still believed possible)

21. Explanations/Theories Conscious processing hypothesis  Reinvestment of declarative knowledge under high anxiety  Tied to ideas of explicit/implicit learning, use of process vs. outcome goals (see KNR 406) and so on

22. Anxiety and Performance Anxiety types, or intensities  Choking vs. panic  Kennedy vs. Novotna (New Yorker, 2000) Panic is blind fear? Choking is considered failure? Choking is the domain of everyone (maybe most spectacularly of the expert?), panic of the inexperienced, perhaps? Stereotype threat (Beilock et at, 2006) » See conscious reinvestment theories (Masters, et al.)

23. Anxiety and Performance...and working memory

24. Anxiety and Performance...and working memory

25. Explanations/Theories Theory of Ironic processing (Wegner, multiple citations)  Cool!  Tricia’s presentation  Ever laid awake in bed and thought: “I mustn't think about that exam, so I can get to sleep”  What happens next?

26. Explanations/Theories Theory of Ironic processing (Wegner, multiple citations)  Similar performance expectations to the conscious processing hypothesis  Based on the notion that “free will” is a lot more complicated than one might first think

27. Explanations/Theories Theory of Ironic processing (Wegner, multiple citations)  Mental control: intentional operations + ironic monitoring  Under increased mental load...monitoring outweighs operating, people focus on that which they are trying to avoid, and disaster ensues  Another area that has taken off, though not in sports psychology as much as mainstream psychology

28. Explanations/Theories Theory of Ironic processing (Wegner, multiple citations)  Operating process: carry out intended actions (conscious/effortful)  Monitoring process: check that all’s well [if not, renew] (unconscious/automatic) Suppression: operating process searches for distractors, while monitor searches for the unwanted thought  mental load lessens operator function but not monitor, so ironic thoughts pop up even more frequently

29. Explanations/Theories Theory of Ironic processing (Wegner, multiple citations)