Sports Psychology and Sociology
What the domain covers
This domain covers motivation, arousal, anxiety, goal setting, team cohesion and leadership, plus social issues such as fair play, media, gender and doping. Questions often ask you to apply a theory to a sporting situation.
Core content
- Motivation: intrinsic (enjoyment, mastery) and extrinsic (medals, money, praise).
- Arousal theories: drive theory predicts a linear rise in performance with arousal; the inverted-U theory predicts an optimal middle level; the catastrophe theory predicts a sharp drop after over-arousal.
- Anxiety: state anxiety is situational; trait anxiety is a stable tendency. Cognitive anxiety is worry; somatic anxiety is physical symptoms such as increased heart rate.
- Goal setting should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound (SMART).
- Team cohesion has task and social dimensions. Leadership styles include autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire.
- Sociology examines socialisation, gender, media, commercialisation, doping and fair play.
Worked example
A basketball player shoots poorly when highly aroused before a free throw. Free-throw shooting is a fine motor task, so the optimal arousal level is relatively low. The player should use breathing control, a pre-shot routine and imagery to reduce arousal. The reasoning links task complexity to the inverted-U theory rather than assuming that maximum arousal always helps.
Traps that cost marks
Saying high arousal always improves performance; confusing state and trait anxiety; treating intrinsic and extrinsic motivation as mutually exclusive; and giving a goal such as "do better" that is not measurable.