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Arousal - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Hull 1943 (developed by Spence and Spence 1968)
      - increase in arousal is proportional (linear relationship) to an increase in the quality of performance. as arousal increased so does the quality of performance.
      - The quality of performance will depend on how well the skills have been learned.
      - The dominant response is the learned behavior that is most likely to be given by the performer. older more deep-seated skills will tend to be produced when a person is very aroused rather than a newer less well-learnt skills practiced more recently.
      - As arousal increased a performer is more likely to exhibit their dominant response.
      - highly aroused performer will need to focus very hard and direct attention very strongly towards a desired response, particularly if recently learned elements.
      - weight lifting
      - a sportsperson who tries too hard, state of high arousal, fails to reproduce his / her best performance).
  - - - arousal increases so does the quality of performance. Up to a mid-way point, otherwise referred to as an optimal point.
      - Lower levels of arousal leads to poor performance, as the performer will be finding it hard to concentrate and focus as the attentional field is too wide.
      - Best performance occurs at moderate levels of arousal as the attentional field adjusts to ideal width. The performer attends to relevant cues and ignores irrelevant cues, therefore, selective attention is occurring. performer concentrates and places them in the optimal state for learning.
      - At high levels of arousal, performance starts to decline. The performer misses relevant cues, therefore, they don’t make good decisions. Performers experience excessive degree of activation, therefore, might panic and show hypervigilance = limited ability to concentrate.
      - Optimal arousal will depend on:
        
        the type of activity e.g. gross skills require higher levels of arousal, whereas, fine skills require lower levels of arousal.
      - the skill level of the performer – the more skilful the performance the higher the optimal arousal.
      - the personality of the performer – if the performer is an extrovert they will seek high levels of arousal to perform at their optimal level.
  - - - as somatic arousal increases the quality of performance improves
      - But optimal performance will only be achieved if cognitive arousal (anxiety) is kept low.
      - if over arousal occurs this can lead to a sudden and dramatic drop in performance, hence at ‘catastrophe’ will occur.
      - If high cognitive arousal and high somatic arousal occurs then the performer will go beyond optimal level of arousal and a ‘catastrophe’ will occur as the performer will be deemed to have ‘gone over the edge’.
      - Performers may be able to regain a higher level of performance after the catastrophe if arousal is reduced / controlled, but not back to it’s originally optimal level.
      - The theory takes into account both somatic and cognitive anxiety and how they interact with each other