Topic 5 - arousal and anxiety

• Who developed the Law of Arousal in 1908?

  Yerkes and Dodson
• The Law of Arousal explains the relationship between levels of arousal and performance
• The Law of Arousal suggests that increased arousal always leads to better performance.

  False
• What happens to performance if arousal increases beyond the optimal level?

  It declines
• If arousal is too high or too low, it will have a detrimental effect on performance
• List the criticisms of the inverted 'U' hypothesis.

  1️⃣ Does not account for individual differences

  2️⃣ Neglects factors such as skill and sport type
• Match the researcher with their contribution:

  Martens ↔️ Developed the SCAT scale

  Fazey and Hardy ↔️ Developed the catastrophe model

  Turner and Barker ↔️ Found that CBT reduces anxiety
• Martens proposed the concept of trait anxiety, which can predict performance in threatening situations.
• Fazey and Hardy developed a new catastrophe model in response to criticisms of the inverted 'U'
• What type of arousal does the inverted 'U' graph primarily account for?

  Physiological
• Zemans model of stress/performance suggests that performance will decline sharply after a catastrophe.
• What happens to performance if cognitive anxiety is high and physiological arousal is low?

  Dramatic drop
• Hysteresis in recovery from anxiety refers to the experience of pain
• Order the relationship between cognitive and physiological arousal levels and their impact on performance.

  1️⃣ High cognitive, slow physiological arousal: Bad performance

  2️⃣ Slow cognitive, high physiological arousal: Good performance

  3️⃣ High cognitive, high physiological arousal: Catastrophe
• What is one strategy to help athletes understand their anxiety levels?

  Biofeedback
• Fazey and Hardy suggest that athletes can picture a specific point that contributes to a catastrophic fall
• Identifying personal triggers of anxiety and using relaxation techniques can help avoid catastrophes.
• What type of therapy is used to reduce cognitive anxiety by reframing negative thoughts?

  CBT
• Turner and Barker found that CBT can reduce anxiety in athletes by reframing cognitive anxiety
• Low cognitive anxiety can prevent a catastrophic drop in performance.