Motivation and arousal

• motivation: drive, energy and effort to achieve a goal, applied by an individual
• intrinsic: the drive from within a person to perform a task or activity for its own sake. performance is driven by the pursuit of personal satisfaction and challenge
• extrinsic: the drive to perform a task or activity in order to achieve a tangible reward. performance is driven by external factors
• strategies to improve motivation:

  • stationing prizes
  • goal setting
  • having role models present
  • elements of competition
  • punishment for poor effort
• arousal: level of excitement a person feels or the physiological and psychological readiness a person feels
• physiological: somatic arousal which is physical e.g. faster heart rate before competition
• psychological: cognitive anxiety e.g. anxiety or worry felt before the same big event
• Hulls drive theory: as arousal increases quality of performance increases proportionally
• Positives if Hull’s Drive theory:

  • simple and easy to understand
  • better applied to experts in sport
• Negatives if Hull’s Drive theory:

  • monkey considers effect of somatic arousal
  • no optimum shown
• Inverted U theory: as arousal increases the quality of performance increases up to an optimum point, after this point (performance at its best) performance will deteriorate gradually
• Positives if the inverted U theory:

  • can be made relevant to the performer
  • links with cue utilisation
• Negatives if the inverted U theory:

  • only considers somatic effects
  • unlikely to be so smooth and gradual
• peak flow

  optimal performance
• RAS

  reticular activating system
• catastrophe theory:

  1. as arousal increases so does quality of performance
  2. however when anxiety combines with high somatic arousal the performer goes beyond the optimal point causing a sharp decline in performance.
  3. if arousal continues to increase after drop performance further deterioration will occur
  4. if arousal is lowered after drop performance can be recovered
• Positives of catastrophe theory:

  • more realistic
  • considers the effect of both semantic arousal and cognitive
• negatives if the catastrophe theory:

  • does not take task or skill level or personality into account
  • some performers never experience a sudden decline