Matt Vaartstra
University of Idaho
Edited from: Damon Burton
MISCONCEPTION 1: STRESS IS
HIGH SITUATIONAL DEMAND
• Situations are not inherently stressful.
• Remember
competitive demands exceed performers’
response capabilities such as shooting a free throw or
taking a penalty kick with the game on the line, playing a
tiebreaker in a tennis match, having a sudden death
playoff in golf, or batting with the game tied in the ninth in
baseball.
• Olympic
Finals, Superbowls, seventh games of NBA, NHL
or Major League Baseball Championship Series, the final
holes of the Masters or a tie breaker at Wimbleton are not
innately stressful.
STRESS IN LIFE RESEARCH
 Individuals who experience changing life events such as
taking a new job, moving, getting married or divorced,
having a baby, losing a loved one, dealing with serious
medical problems report higher stress levels than those
with mundane lives.
 Sport has many competitive experiences that can be
stressful such as playing for a new team, having a new
coach, moving up or down in competitive level, going
through a slump, experiencing lengthy winning or losing
streaks, or getting benched or starting unexpectedly.
STRESS = ACCUMULATION OF
DAILY HASSLES
 Life’s daily hassles include: the alarm not going
off, being late for class, missing an appointment,
breaking a shoestring, fighting with a friend,
forgetting an assignment, or burning dinner.
 Sport hassles include: equipment malfunctions,
weather problems, your coach is in a bad mood,
a teammate repeatedly makes the same mistake,
and you feel tired and a step slow.
MISCONCEPTION 2: STRESS IS
AN EMOTIONAL RESPONSE
 Heightened activation of the autonomic nervous
system due to perceived threat doesn’t always
create stress.
 No matter how great the environmental demand,
you will not be stressed as long as you believe you
have the response capabilities to deal with it.
WHAT IS STRESS?
Stress – is a substantial imbalance between
environmental demand (i.e., what you perceive is being
demanded of you) and response capabilities (i.e., what
you perceive your capabilities are for meeting those
demands), when you perceive success to be important
(McGrath, 1970).
LAZARUS’ MODEL
OF STRESS
• Primary appraisal
• Secondary appraisal
• Coping resources
PRIMARY APPRAISAL
• Performers evaluate the impact of the
upcoming situation on their physical and
psychological well-being.
• They ask the question, “What’s at stake
in this situation for me?”
COMPONENTS OF PRIMARY
APPRAISAL
• Goal importance – the degree to which the situation
will impact attainment of valued personal goals.
• Ego identity – the extent that you identify with or are
committed to attaining your goals.
• Goal uncertainty – the degree to which you are
unsure of whether you can attain your personal
goals.
SECONDARY APPRAISAL
• When primary appraisal confirms that something
meaningful is at stake in the situation, secondary
appraisal assesses how well competitors can manage
the demands of the situation.
• They ask the question, “What can be done?”
• Performers evaluate how much personal control they
have over preventing or overcoming harm and
maximizing their chances for achieving positive
outcomes.
COMPONENTS OF
SECONDARY APPRAISAL
• Perceived control – assesses whether personal coping
efforts can reduce or eliminate the source of uncertainty
in the situation.

“How much control do I have over eliminating my anxiety about
playing poorly in tonight’s big game?”
• Coping potential – If the source of stress is controllable,
coping potential is your evaluation of whether you have
the necessary coping resources to actually reduce or
eliminate the source of uncertainty in this situation.


“Do I have the skills/strategies to manage this?”
“Can I make them work in this situation?”
OVERALL APPRAISAL
• Whether overall appraisal of the situation is viewed
positively as a challenge or benefit or negatively as a
threat or harm/loss depends on one’s responses to
two critical secondary appraisal questions:


“How much control do I have to reduce or eliminate the
source of stress?”
“What is my potential ability to cope with these sources of
stress, both the options available to me and the potential
effectiveness of those options?”
CHALLENGE APPRAISALS
• Challenge appraisals put a “positive spin” on
competition, focusing on the opportunity to overcome
obstacles and achieve success.
• Challenge appraisals normally prompt:
•
•
•
optimistic emotions
constructive coping strategies
effective performance
THREAT APPRAISALS
• Threat appraisals occur when performers appraise
control over sources of stress as low and/or perceive
low coping potential.
• Threat appraisal highlights the negatives of a specific
situation, emphasizing the threat of failure due to the
inability to overcome obstacles.
• Threat appraisals prompt:
•
•
•
pessimistic emotions
ineffective problem-solving strategies
subpar performance
COPING RESOURCES
• Coping strategies are the actual cognitive and behavioral
techniques that athletes employ to deal with problems
and to improve emotional well-being.
• Two major categories of coping strategies have been
identified:
problem-solving
• emotion-management

PROBLEM-SOLVING
• Cognitive and behavioral strategies that focus on
changing the source of stress and encompass a host of
strategies such as:
 self-monitoring
 planning
 reducing competing activities
 increasing effort
 informational social support
 self-talk
 active coping
EMOTION-MANAGEMENT
• Cognitive and behavioral techniques designed to
decrease emotional distress, even if the source of threat
remains unchanged, boosting morale through:
 emotional social support
 relaxation
 reappraisal and positive thinking
 wishful thinking
 self blame and isolation
 mental and behavioral withdrawal
POSITIVE APPRAISAL
EMOTIONS
•Self-confidence – a positive belief or
expectation of success.
•Excitement/readiness – physical activation
of the autonomic nervous system that is
interpreted as effective physical
preparation.
NEGATIVE APPRAISAL
EMOTIONS
• Cognitive anxiety – a negative belief or expectation of
success or worrying about the negative consequences of
failure.
• Somatic anxiety – physiological and affective component
of anxiety that develops directly from activation of the
autonomic nervous system that is interpreted negatively.
Model of Competitive Emotions
Facilitative
• self-confidence
• excitement
• readiness
Physical
Mental
• cognitive anxiety
• somatic anxiety
Debilitative