How can psychology affect performance - created from Mind Map

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Motivation: an internal state that activates, directs and sustains behaviour towards achieving a particular goal.

-Positive: occurs when an individual's performance is driven by previous reinforcing behaviours. (My D: working for something beneficial)

-when the athlete has performed because they have received rewards for similar actions in the past, and knows it will happen again if work is sustained.

-Relies on internal or external sources, such as:

-family encouragement

-coaches trying to reward in unique ways + handling mistakes constructively

-self-proving

-challenges

-Is more effective than negative motivation (better working for goal than working against consequence)

-Negative: Characterised by an improvement in performance out of fear of the consequence of not performing to expectations.

- This can be distracting when training and causes people to fail under pressure

-Destroys confidence and belief in one's self.

-Intrinsic: motivation that comes within the individual.

-This comes from rewards that the individual makes for themselves, such as success or accomplishment.

-Self driving forces are much stronger than anything external.

-Being in the 'flow experience' is a balance between boredom and anxiety; being in this zone ensures sustained effort with no distracting thought.

-e.g. wanting to prove to yourself what you are capable of

-Extrinsic: occurs when the individual's internal state is modified by external sources.

-Mainly caused by material rewards of money.

-Does not last long as external rewards vary with age.

-E.g. friends, coaches

Anxiety and arousal:

-Anxiety: predominantly a psychological process characterised by fear or apprehension in anticipation of confronting a situation perceived to be potentially threatening.

-Fight or flight: confront or escape a situation.

-Sporting causes this due to an unknown outcome; self expectation can also bring anxiety on.

-This causes negative stress.

-Trait anxiety: a general level of stress that is characteristic of each individual.

-Varies between individuals

-Is how individuals have conditioned themselves to respond to and manage stress.

-Can be controlled by relaxation techniques

-People that the athlete has support and believes in, impacts the athlete's trait anxiety majorly.

-State anxiety: is characterised by a state of heightened emotions that develop in response to fear and anger.

-May be visible physiologically (such as sweating, fidgeting and nervousness).

-This can be beneficial in some cases, but too much is always bad.

-Sources of stress

-Stress: the non-specific response of the body to a demand placed on it.

-Adrenaline causes stress, which is characterised by the following:

-increased blood supply

-more oxygen

-increased glucose production (extra fuel)

-increased sweat production

-tightened muscles (to prep body for action)

-Stress can be caused by real or imagined situations. Although it depends on predisposition (how each person perceives the stressors as a result of genetic make-up and learned coping mechanisms). This reflects, past experience, routines, expectations, amount of support, frequency of similar occurrences.

-Stressors- factors that produce stress. They can develop from:

-personal pressure

-competition pressure

-social pressure

-physical pressure

-Optimum arousal

Arousal: a specific level of anxiety and can be experienced prior to and during a performance.

-The physiological effects that anxiety has on the body. Such as sweating, increased co2, increased ventilation, nervousness

-Optimum arousal assists in performance but being under or over-aroused affects performance negatively. (Inverted U hypothesis)

-Role of the coach is to help reach optimum arousal; it varies with individuals

-Factors that contribute to various levels of arousal:

-amount of interest

-self-expectancy

-level of motivation

-expectation of others

-financial pressures

-competition

-degree of difficulty

-skill finesse

Psychological strategies to enhance motivation and manage anxiety

-Concentration/ attention skills (focusing):

Concentration D: the ability to link movement and awareness to the extent that the individual can focus on doing.

-More about doing than thinking what is to be done.

-Can be learnt, and then applied to manipulate arousal levels.

-Amount of concentration varies between sports: intense for gymnastics, batting, shooting hoops and less for football, swimming,

-athletes must know that long concentration is needed for long endurance activities

-Mental rehearsal/visualisation/imagery

Mental rehearsal: the technique of picturing the skill before executing it

-improves performance and concentration

-relies heavily on imagery to familiarise the mind with the actions required

-hard for coaches to control athlete's minds

benefits:

-elevates body to desired arousal

-gives clear idea of what has to be done

-heightens concentration

to do this effectively:

-realistic imagery

-more than one rehearsal

-need to establish a sense of experiencing

-success can be visualised

-Relaxation techniques

D: a series of techniques that seek to control the body's response to stress.

-commonly used techniques:

-progressive muscular relaxation (using special exercises to relax muscle groups)

-mental relaxation (controlled breathing, relaxing mind, floating feeling)

-self-hynesis (having the mindset to accept levels of anxiety in certain situations)

-mental rehearsal (concentrating on how the task is to be done rather than how you feel about it)

-meditation (narrowing/simplifying one's thoughts using repetitive images and sounds)

-centred breathing (controlled breathing to reduce tension before performance)

Each technique works for different people.

-Goal-setting

D: targets that we direct our efforts towards, relating to either behaviour or performance

-improves preparation

-makes athletes feel empowerment

-motivates

short term goals serve as 'checkmarks' to regularly assess performance e.g. fortnightly goals for running for the long term goal (marathon)

behavioural goals: improved behavioural expectation. e.g. a goal to stop criticising other players so much

performance goals: an athletes desired level of success e.g. state/national/olympic

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