IB Sports, exercise and health science C.4.1.1 Arousal as a Physical and Psychological Activation Affecting Performance Notes

Arousal and Performance: Drive Theory, Inverted-U Theory, and IZOF

Arousal

1. Arousal is the level of physiological and psychological activation experienced by an athlete, sitting on a continuum from deep sleep at one end to a full panic state at the other.
2. The physical side runs through the sympathetic nervous system: heart rate rises, breathing rate climbs, epinephrine is released, blood flow shifts to working muscle, pupils widen, sweat glands open, and digestion slows.
3. The psychological side is what the athlete notices: heightened alertness, sharpened focus, sometimes a flood of nervous thoughts.
4. Arousal itself is not good or bad: a football striker needs a high level of arousal to sprint onto a through-ball, but a golfer needs a much lower level to roll a four-foot putt.
5. The art of competitive sport is matching the level of arousal to the demands of the task.

Drive Theory

1. Drive Theory suggests a direct, linear relationship between arousal and performance.
2. As arousal increases, so does performance.
3. Drive theory is the "get psyched up" view of sport: more arousal, more output.

Unidimensional limitation

Drive theory treats arousal as a single variable with one knob to turn, so it cannot account for athletes who were so wound up they could not breathe properly, lost their feel for the ball, or rushed the technique they had drilled for years.

Inverted-U Theory: Finding the Balance

1. The Inverted-U Theory, proposed by Yerkes and Dodson, offers a more nuanced view.