ABSTRACT
Psychological factors play an integral role in sports and can affect performance at all levels of expertise. Arousal has been shown to increase in competitive settings and present an optimal level for enhanced performance. The aim of this study is to examine how arousal varies in competitive vs individual conditions and the extent of its impact on recreational swimming sprint performance. 12 volunteers (18-21 years) from Qatar University’s swimming team reported their arousal scores prior to an official 50-m freestyle competition (qualifications for the eighth universities Gulf States tournament) and in an individual trial. Performances were collected in seconds. Results showed no significant differences in performance between individual and competitive conditions. Moreover, there was a negative significant correlation between arousal and performance only in the individual condition. Interestingly, when all data were combined, a quadratic (inverted U-shape) relationship was found between arousal and performance indicating an optimal arousal level for recreational swimming as in other elite contexts.
Introduction
Today, swimming is one of the most loved activities throughout the world; people of all ages indulge in the swimming, as it is ideally one of the best ways to exercise all the muscles of the body without any additional pressure. Regular swimming builds muscle strength, endurance and enhances the cardio-vascular fitness of the person. It is widely popular in three aspects of perspectives - as a general activity, sport event and occupational reason port performance is wide field that has been studied from different perspectives. For instance, performance in sports can be affected by many variables such as psychological or physiological ones. A goal of sport science researchers is to access the level of knowledge for the many variables that may affect the athlete’s performance.
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Hence the psychological states may affect the individual performance and affect the overall result as well as the emotions before, during and after important competitions. In the context of psychology, arousal is the state of being physiologically alert, awake, and attentive. Arousal is primarily controlled by the reticular activating system (RAS) in the brain. The RAS is located in the brain stem and projects to many other brain areas, including the cortex (Ellis, 1987). We can think of the RAS as a pacemaker for arousal. When the system slows down, one might feel lethargic, sleepy, or have difficulty concentrating on things. When the system speeds up, one might feel highly active, be alert, and be ready to respond to different things in the environment. The RAS and arousal levels are influenced by a number of different things, such as emotions, the foods you eat, and the neurotransmitters in the brain. However, arousal is difficult to analyze, and it has been commonly measured by self-report techniques. In contrast, some authors claim for a more accurate measurement using also physiological responses.
Many studies have used a Likert-type scale from 1 to 5 to measure arousal with manikins. Specifically, arousal aspect has been not directly examined in the previous years to emphasis, arousal can solve the personal issues by using judgment, processing and memory. On one hand there been numbered questions about what the arousal term is referred to. On the other no study has a convincing evidence that arousal is a single, unitary entity (Neiss, 1988). Consistent with Russell and Barrett (1999), we treat arousal as a psychological concept associated with emotional states that is variously indexed by activation of the sympathetic nervous system, the autonomic nervous system, or the endocrine system. For example, the modulation of memory by arousal can occur with the activation of the peripheral or the central nervous systems or the various endocrine systems (see McGaugh, 2004). Moreover, the sport arousal-performance relationship was primarily grounded on the inverted-U theory (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908). This theory suggested a curvilinear relationship between physiological excitement and performance (Gould & Krane, 1992), where the moderate levels of arousal will give better performance in sports while arousal levels that can be too high or too low could be detrimental/negative to performance level (Gould & Krane, 1992; Spielberger, 1989). In addition, when Zajonc (1965) stated his theory about social facilitation, he argued that the presence of others could bring about facilitated or impaired performance depending on the type of task being performed.
The audience may be divided into two categories, the fans category and the dominant category of the team playing, so the presence of the spectators can make a difference in the outcome of the game. There are two studies that stated the effects of audience on the athlete’s performance. The social facilitation theory can describe the relationship between the arousal of presence of audience and its impact on performance positively or negatively. However, Woodman (2003) stated that relative impact of cognitive anxiety and self-confidence upon sport performance tested the proposed relationships between cognitive anxiety and performance and between self-confidence and performance. Such as, Burton (1988) initiated a negative linear trend between mental anxiety and swimming performance and a positive linear trend between self-confidence and performance. In both of examples studied by Burton, mental anxiety accounted for up to 46% of swimming performance modification and self-confidence accounted for up to 21%. Furthermore, another study stated that anxiety can affect the athlete performance if it has not been used correctly, therefore it is known as an inherit aspect of competitive athletics which is the need for the athlete to meet the demands of the competition and to perform well under pressure, depending on how the athlete perceives the demands in other aspects of competition. (Martens & Burton, 1990). Moreover, on one hand, there was a study stated that playing among team players had a small amount of anxiety. On the other hand, players who play individual sports have a higher level of anxiety than team sport (Beedie, Terry, & Lane, 2000).
Also, another study (Khan, 2017) about the effects of anxiety on athletic Performance found that anxiety negatively affects the overall sports performance of a player. The study also revealed that awareness about anxiety and its negative effects and practices such as medication, meditation, psychotherapy is most important to overcome and face anxiety in sports participation. therefore, another study (Mabweazara, et al. ,2017) found that predicted swimming performance used state anxiety. Study tested 61 males’ swimmers, in high school. Participants are swim 50 m freestyle. The result showed that both cognitive and somatic anxieties independently predicting. And somatic anxiety has the greater impact than cognitive anxiety on sprint performance. The coach and swimmers used strategies that help to avoid somatic anxiety. Also, Sheppard and Sorrentino’s (1978) study tested 44 males’ swimmers and 33 female swimmers, in 3 different universities. In the beginning, they did an anxiety scale test and Interpersonal Opinion Questionnaire for the swimmers, after which they tested the swimmers’ performance individually and then in a relay (group). The results showed that most participants got better performances in the team relay test, except for those who had high anxiety scores that showed negative correlation with performance. However, our study will be specifically done on recreational swimmers and will focus on examining the effects of arousal levels on swimming performances. To vary the arousal level, participants will perform in two different contexts, swimming the 50m freestyle against time alone and against real opponents. The aims of this study to examine the effect of arousal on 50-meter free style in swimming performance in both conditions, individual and competition and to see difference in arousal level between individual and competition. Finally, we hypothesize that Too high arousal and too low arousal will impact negatively in performance, while moderate arousal is better for performance.
Method
Participants
12 students volunteered from Qatar University (QU). Inclusion criteria were: (1) age between 18 to 21 years old, (2) be healthy and have no evidence of past or present disease or impairment, (3) be part of the QU swimming team for at least 3 months, (4) train at least 3 times a week. All participants signed an informed consent.
Protocol
We first did an anthropometric measure for our participants to collect their body height, and weight. After that, each swimmer repeated the 50m freestyle on 2 different occasions (two separate days). The first one was swimming individually against time and the second one was a competition against other in order to select swimmers who will qualify for the Gulf Championship. The competition was as the following: the first 6 participants entered the first round, after that the other 6 participants performed the second round. Both swimming trials were proceeded by filling out of the arousal scale.
Materials
The swimming trials were done in the Olympic swimming pool (i.e., 50 m) of Qatar University. All swimmers used their own goggles, swimming caps, and swimming nose clips if needed. A timer and a whistle were used to time the 50 m swimming trials. Six experimenters were present to time each of the participants on each competition trial. We used the Likert-type scale to measure arousal from 1 (I feel calm, relaxed, or sleepy) to 5 (I feel excited, nervous, or wide-awake).
Data and statistical analyses
Normality of data sets was verified using the Shapiro-Wilks test. Mean and standard deviation were collected for participants’ physical characteristics, using descriptive analysis. Independent t-test were used to compare the performance (in seconds) and arousal scores between the individual and competition conditions. Moreover, Pearson correlation tests were used to determine if arousal and performance were significantly related for each condition. The nature of the relationship between arousal scores (combined from both conditions) and performance was examined using the best fitting curve regressions, where both linear and quadratic equations were tested. The significance of the ANOVA results and the strength of the relationship (r2) were taken into consideration in the choice of the best fit curve for the relationship. All analyses were done using SPSS software version 21 (IBM SPSS Statistics) with a level of significance set at p < 0.05.
Results
t-tests revealed no significant difference in the performance between the individual (34.93 sec ± 4.74) and competition (33.97 sec ± 3.78) conditions (p > 0.05). However, the level of arousal was significantly higher for the competition (4.46 ± 0.58) compared to the individual condition (2.21 ± 0.69) [t (22) = -8.64, p < 0.001] (Figure 3). Moreover, the Pearson correlation test showed that a negative significant correlation exists between arousal and performance (in seconds) only in the individual condition (r = -0.75, p < 0.05), where performance in seconds improved with lower arousal levels. However, results indicated no significant correlation between arousal and performance during the competition condition (p > 0.05). When we combined all data from both conditions, we found that the relationship between arousal and performance was not linear (p = 0.08).
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of arousal on performance under two different conditions, namely individual (against time) and competition (against other). We expected that Too high arousal and too low arousal will impact negatively in performance, while moderate arousal is better for performance. The hypotheses were partially verified, t test showed there was not significant arousal and performance during the competition condition. However, arousal levels were higher in the competition compared to individual conditions. Performance did not vary significantly between both conditions although it was a bit better for competition.
There is a negative significant correlation exists between arousal and performance only in the individual condition, that’s logical because if the swimmers are sleepy because the lack of stimulation and challenge or anxious because of the unrealistic and difficulty of the task, the performance will not improve. Swimming performance is measured by seconds, so a decrease in the timing means that the performance is improving as mentioned earlier in. the quadratic relationship between arousal scores and performance showed that the best condition for the swimmer to reach an optimal level of arousal is 3.5. In fact, there are several studies that revealed a positive relationship between the arousal and performance levels, one of them stated that performance is associated with optimal arousal (Craig & Wrisberg, 1994). The study supported the inverted-U theory that showed a curvilinear relationship between arousal and performance (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908). A high level of arousal (e.g., > 4.5) would be defined as anxiety. According to Gould and Krane (1992). Anxiety affects performance negatively, as supported from what found in the results.
Therefore, coaches help the swimmers to avoid physical -somatic- anxiety because it has negative impacts on the swimmer performance especially in competition. High arousal levels could have negative effects and that is evidence in three of our swimmers as their arousal levels were higher than average and can be described as level 5 arousal which may lead them to be worried and have less performance compared to the other swimmers. Arousal is very important condition that coach must create it among the swimmers in training sessions because when the athletes reach the optimal level of arousal in training sessions, that will enhance performance because if the swimmers was too bored or too anxious during training session, swimmers will not develop their own technique of controlling the arousal and reaching the optimal level during the real competition. Moreover, there is other factor that can affect performance during competition, as it mentioned in introduction earlier which is presence of others which named in psychology, human facilitation theory that developed by Zajonic, (1965). In competition there were an audience watching the swimmers’ performance when they were competing against each other. The audience were cheering and encouraging the swimmers to swim faster and invest more power. This attitude by the spectators will evoke a state of excitement (arousal) among the swimmers, that will result in performing dominant response which will lead to enhance the performance if the swimmers respond to that situation positively. The factor of presence of other may explain the reason behind the increasing of arousal level for swimmers in competition condition compared to individual condition which result a very slightly improvement in performance during competition.
Our result could be further supported by future studies on a larger sample size that would render the equation more accurate for recreational freestyle swimming sprinting events. Moreover, it is important to state some limitations of the study such as the weather condition that was rather cold during the competition condition which might have affected negatively performance. Another aspect to consider is the potential variation in motivation levels of the twelve participants in both conditions.
Conclusion
Arousal does not seem to affect swimming performance in competitive setting as opposed to individual one in recreational university swimmers. In sum, there seem to be an optimal level of arousal that contributes to recreational swimming performance.
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