COGNITIVE APPROACH TO AROUSAL, EMOTION AND
PERFORMANCE
AROUSAL has quantitative (inverted U hypothesis) and
qualitative components. (emotion)
Basic emotions: happiness; surprise; interest; fear; sadness, disgust
(Vallerand 1984)
Positive emotions are associated with motivation, persistence,
success.
Negative emotions are associated with decreased performance, low
performance expectancies and termination of participation
Trait arousal: personality, baseline level, temperament
State arousal: specific situation
Hardy, Parfitt (1990) deployed three dimensional Catastrophe
model
Dimensions: physiological arousal, cognitive anxiety and
performance
Crocker and Graham:
Positive emotion follows from personal appraisal of the successful
attainment of a goal and Negative emotion from appraised failure
in goal attainment
The strength of the emotion depends on the value placed on the
goal.
Subjective appraisal of performance has stronger influence on
emotions than the objective outcome.
COGNITIVE TREATMENTS FOR AROUSAL CONTROL
1. Cognitive restructuring: " I will never recover from ….
before the play-offs.."
- investigate alternative perspectives
- mental practice
- document individual or vicarious progress
2. Thought control
- thought stopping
- self talk
- imagery: relaxation and self confidence
COGNITIVE APPROACH TO MENTAL PRACTICE AND
MENTAL REHEARSAL
Generate cognitive content using still and moving imagery
Mental rehearsal - improvement of performance
1. recall of motor programs or neural patterns needed for
performance.
2. repetition advances movement patterns from conscious
processing to more automatic processing.
3. manipulation of outcome and environment
Mental practice - skill acquisition
1. performance and mental imagery
2. model observation and mental imagery
3. integration of parts in the Whole-Part acquisition
4. injuries
Imagery efficacy.
Hinshaw (1991), meta-analysis - 21 studies - mental rehearsal led
to significant increases in performance ( effect size = 0.68)
External and Internal Imagery
1. improvement is greater using internal imagery
2. 10 -15 min sessions and less than 1 min sessions had more
benefit than 3 to 5 min sessions.
3. elite athletes benefit more
4. negative outcome leads to decreased performance
5. ability to use imagery varies and improves with practice
COGNITIVE APPROACH AND ATTENTION
Niderffer (1976) conceptualized attention in two dimensions:
BROAD----NARROW
and
INTERNAL ----EXTERNAL
Example: Narrow -external is beneficial in striking skills.
ATTENTIONAL ISSUES IN SPORT:
Attentional overload - # of stimuli
Anxiety and attention - involuntary narrowing
State - trait phenomena of attention
Enduring dispositions
COGNITIVE APPROACH AND MOTIVATION
Expectancy Theory: behaviour is organized by the expectation of
desirable outcomes.
Self-efficacy- person believes that she has resources to attain a
specific goal
Self- confidence: believe in success across may realms
Competence: reflection of one's skills and achievements proficiency base on prior accomplishments.
METHODS to improve self -efficacy
1. Modeling
2. Self-talk
3. imagery
4. environmental manipulation to create successful experiences.
5. verbal persuasion
6. support of significant others
ATTRIBUTION:
Athlete's believes regarding causes of success and failure.
CAUSAL ELEMENTS: proposed reasons such as effort ( I always
give 100%) task difficulty ( this is easy) ability, luck,
environment…
CAUSAL DIMENSIONS:
Internal - External
Stable - Unstable
Controllable- Uncontrollable
Attributing winning to hard practice
Attribution are cognitive mediators of behaviour influencing
motivation.
Method:
Encourage stable, internal and controllable attributions
Avoid uncontrollable , stable dimensions such as lack of talent,
field…
High achievers:
- take personal responsibility
- take credit and attribute success to their ability
Low achievers:
- deny personal responsibility
- attribute success to uncontrollable, external sourses
METHODS:
RETRAINING PROGRAM
1. select a task the athlete can accomplish with plenty of effort
2. emphasize the relationship between success and effort
3. debrief the athlete: ask why he succeeded? Encourage self
persuasion.
4. as success becomes more consistent, encourage athlete to
verbalize it, celebrate it.
5. repeat the process with different task - retraining is a long
process.