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SPEX- 204 Exams Study Guide 2025- 2026 Guide
- Flow - The state of being fully immersed in the presence
- Can be experienced in adrenaline or everyday activities
- Also the ultimate expression of pure intrinsic motivation
- i.e. surfers are in a flow state when riding inside the wave
- Affect - Component of psychology
- Describes how we feel
- i.e. mood
- Behaviour - Component of psychology
- Describes what we are doing
- Cognition - Component of psychology
- Describes what we are thinking
- Social psychology - The scientific study of human social behaviour and interactions
- looking at how and why we behave why we do
- I.e. what influences our behaviour
- Sport and exercise psy- - The study of human social behaviour in sports & exercise contexts chology
SPEX- 204 Exams Study Guide 2025- 2026 Guide
- Person Type of SPEX questions looking at how psychological factors attect per- formance.
- Mental skills Type of coach that works on psychological preparation with competitive athletes and improves the wellbeing of people in sport contexts. Must be based on evidence and reliable theories.
- What is Sport? - Institutionalised competitive activities involving vigorous exertion or use of relatively complex physical skills
- Psychology - The scientific study of behaviour where behaviour is broadly defined
- What is Competition? - Comparison of an individual's performance is made with a standard of excellence
- In the presence of others who are aware of the criteria for comparison and can evaluate the process.
- What is the popularity of a sport dependent on?
- How much moderate weekly exercise is rec- ommended to reduce likelihood of various health diseases?
- Participation
- Spectators
- Media
- Sports businesses
150 minutes
What are the goals of science?
- Control
- Empirical
- Critical
- Control goal - A goal of science involving managing variables in experiments.
- Empirical goal - A goal of science based on making tangible observations (can be seen or felt).
- Critical goal - A Goal of science that sees examination of information and making sense of experiments.
- TRUE/FALSE: Sport builds character...
- FALSE as sport does not necessarily make people better individuals.
- Arousal "Psychological leads to higher performance" is a myth as it is only a moderate level of it that leads to optimal performance.
- TRUE/FALSE: Extreme athletes have a death wish
- TRUE/FALSE: Aggres- sion is sport is not cathartic
- What are the steps fol- lowed in the Scientific Method?
- FALSE: Research shows there are more diverse motives behind this activity
- e.g. thrill, social bonds, pleasure, control.
- TRUE: People's aggression can increase after participating in it or observing it, in a sports setting.
- Develop research question
- Data collection
- Results
- Discussion
- Mental skills training - Social psychology which is applied to sports psychology
- Helps athletes reach an ideal performance state and reach their peak performance.
- B = f (P) - Equation for a psychoanalytic approach to social psychology
- Behaviour = function (person)
- Homo Valen The striving human as outlined in psychoanalytic theories of social psy- chology.
- Psychoanalytical theo- ry in social psychology
- Founded by Freud.
- Focuses on the striving human (homo valen) and how our inner urges drive our emotions and behaviour.
- E.g. Psychosocial stages of development
- B = f (P)
- B = f (E) - Equation for a behavioural approach to social psychology
- Behaviour = function (environment)
- Homo-mechanicus - The reactive human as outlined in behavioural theories of social psy- chology.
- What is the behaviour- al perspective in social psychology?
- Theoretical perspective in social psychology
- Founded by Pavlov & Skinner.
- Focuses on the reactive human (homo mechanicus) and how people have predetermined responses to stimuli around them.
- E.g. Classical/Operant conditioning.
- B = f(E)
- Homo Sapien - The thinking human as outlined in cognitive theories of social psychol- ogy.
- Cognitive This theoretical perspective in social psychology is founded by Bandura and Lewin. It focuses on the thinking human and how people interpret and perceive the environment leads to certian behaviours.
- Psychological core - First component of Hollander's model of personality
- Defines the real you, where characteristics are internal and consistent
- Typical Responses - Second component of Hollander's model of personality
- Learned methods of dealing with environments
- It is a valid predictor of the psychological core
- Role-related behav- iours
- Third component of Hollander's model of personality
- Defines behaviours that change as a result of the environment
- Invalid predictor of the psychological core
- Social environment - Fourth component of Hollander's model of personality
- Defines how everything that surrounds the other components of Hol- lander's model is attected by the wider environment
- Trait approach - B = f (P)
- An approach to studying personality
- Is our behaviour due to a fundamental unit of personality (trait)?
- Situational approach - B = f(E)
- This approach to studying personality shows how personality and behaviour are determined largely by the social environment.
- Components of modelling and feedback are sourced from Bandura's SLT.
- Interactionist ap- proach
- B = f (PxE)
- This approach to studying personality shows how interactions between situation and personality produce behaviour
What are the four tests which measure trait framework?
- The 5 Big Personality Traits
- California Psychological Inventory
- Cattell 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire
- Eysenck Personality Inventory
- What are the four types - State & Trait measures of measures of interac- - Situation-specific measures tion framework
- State and trait mea- sures
- Situation-specific mea- sures
- Sport-specific mea- sures
- Sport-specific measures
- Psychological measures
- Subtype of the interaction framework of personality measurements
- This type focuses on single traits (e.g. anxiety) and tests for their level in individuals
- Whether an event was caused by an external event or by the personality (traits) of the individual
- I.e. state or trait anxiety
- Subtype of the interaction framework of personality measurements
- Focuses on personality measures specifically in sporting situations
- Trait framework - This framework of personality measures was found to produce incon- sistent results and has limited value for sport personality researchers
- Interactionist frame- work
- Valid tests can only be useful in conjunction with:
- This framework of personality measures was found to be more useful as it included states and traits
Observation and experience.
- What is motivation? - Anything that impels a person to action
- Not suflcient for performance in sport as there are other contributing factors but without it, people cannot train or perform ettectively.
- Dropouts in sport (as- pect of motivation)
- Person-centred (model of motivation)
- Situation-centred (model of motivation)
- Interaction-centred (model of motivation)
- What are the five
- Aspect of motivation
- Focused on what happens when motivation is lost
- Model of motivation
- Sees behaviour as a function of person
- Motivation viewed as an underlying disposition of person's character
- Model of motivation
- Sees behaviour as a function of environment
- i.e. environment causes a behavioural response
- Model of motivation
- Sees behaviour as a function of environment and the person
- People may be naturally motivated but aspects in the environment will interact with this
- People are motivated by traits and the situation. guidelines to build mo- 2) People have multiple motives. Need to understand individual motiva- tivation in the Inter- action-centred motiva- tion model?
- What does motivation require?
- What is achievement motivation?
- TRUE/FALSE: Competi- tion is a form of so- cial achievement moti- vation...
tion to know why they participate.
- Structure of exercise is person-specific.
- Coaches are critical in influencing motivation.
- Behaviour modification can help change motives.
- Competence, autonomy and relatedness
- A subset of motivation that outlines clarity (you're clear) about what you are working towards
- TRUE: it must involve competing against others and it also changes the psychological landscape.
- Social achievement Motivation (competi- tiveness)
- A sub-type of motivation that outlines your clear goal
- It is often more about yourself than winning or losing
- Requires persistence after failure.
- Measurable goal - Being able to track your progress when working on a goal and knowing when you've reached your goal
- What are the three factors which mea- sure achievement mo- tivation?
- Direction - motives, goals & goal orientations
- Intensity - arousal, activation levels
- Persistence - direction and intensity overtime.
- Ms - The motive to approach success
- One motive of the interaction model of Atkinson's need achievement theory (B=f(PxE))
- Maf - It is the motive to avoid failure. This has lots to do with stress and anxiety.
- Motive of the interaction model of Atkinson's need achievement theory (B=f(PxE))
- Ps - Probability of success
- A situational factor of the interaction model of Atkinson's need achieve- ment theory (B=f(PxE)).
- Pf - The probability of failure
- Situational factor of the interaction model of Atkinson's need achieve- ment theory (B=f(PxE))
- Is - Incentive value of success
- Situational factor of the interaction model of Atkinson's need achieve- ment theory (B=f(PxE))
- If
- How we do so contributes to our emotional response and motivation
- Categories of attributions include stability, causality and control
- Stability attribution - Whether an attribution is perceived as stable (unchangeable) or unsta- ble (changeable)
- Causality attribution - Explains how we place blame when something goes wrong
- Control attribution - Are the events controllable by us?
- i.e. did we influence results of game or were they influenced by external factors (out of our control)
- Attributions influences performance expectancies and moti- vation for an activity
Future
- High and low achievers Patterns have different attribu- tional which account for differences in achievement behav- iour
- Achievement Goal The- A theory of achievement motivation that develops on Atkinson's Need ory
- What are the three P's of Achievement Goal Theory?
Achievement Theory by focusing on multidimensional achievement mo- tives
- Process (Task orientation)
- Product (Ego/outcome orientation)
- Praise (Social Approval orientation)
- Process - One of the P's of the Achievement Goal Theory orientations
- Stresses task orientation
- Self-focussed (focus is on your personal skills and the steps to succeed- ing)
- (^) Product - One of the P's of the Achievement Goal Theory orientations
- Ego/outcome orientation
- Other-focussed (i.e. about comparing self to others)
- Can result in giving away success if too heavily focused on
- Praise - One of the P's of the Achievement Goal Theory
- Social approval orientation
- Other-focused (i.e. you work hard to gain positive approval from others)
- (^) Achievement goal ori- entations
- Allows us to understand what success and failure is to ditterent individ- uals
- More specific and accurate than need achievement theory
Contains 3 orientations:
- Task (process)
- Ego/Outcome (product)
- Social approval (praise)
- (^) Goal For every individuals, orientations in sport/exercise have/are:
- Multiple goal orientations
- Dynamic (trait & state)
- Ditterent combos represent individuals' definition of success
- (^) What is arousal? - A level of physiological and psychological activation that runs along a continuum
- Physiological changes occur with arousal
- Can induce positive/negative emotions (i.e. confidence, fear)
- Anxiety
- Perceptions of De- mands
- Second stage of the Stress Process
- Refers to the amount of psychological of physical threat being per- ceived
- These perceptions are biased and subjective.
- Stress Response - Third stage of the Stress Process
- Refers to the physical and psychological response to the situation (i.e. state anxiety, arousal etc)
- Behavioural conse- quences
- Fourth stage of the Stress Process
- Refers to what happens to your performance (i.e. helped or hindered by stress)
- If you know how to cope with stress, it can be channelled to improve performance
- What are implications - The application of knowledge to real-life situations
- i.e. we can make apply knowledge learned in an experiment to coaching an athlete
- Situational stress - Related to the environment and the individual has no control over it
Two sources of this stress are:
- Perceived importance of the outcome
- Uncertainty of the outcome
- Personal stress - Related to the individual (individual controls these factors)
Two sources of this stress are:
- Trait anxiety (predisposed)
- Self-esteem (low = high state cognitive anxiety)
- Drive Theory - Linear relationship between arousal and performance (higher arousal = better performance).
- Predicts that increased arousal will increase the probability of the dominant response
- Predicts that performance will improve if the skill is simple or dominant response is correct.
- Dominant response - The quickest and most easily generated response to a given situation
- Inverted U Theory - Arousal Performance Relationship theory that describes an optimal level of arousal to reach peak performance
- Beyond the optimal level, performance will decrease.
- Sports requiring require low- er levels of arousal in order to remain steady, maintain con- centration or focus on coordination.
Fine motor control
- Optimal arousal level - Changes depending on the sport, athlete & skill requirements
- Catastrophe theory - When increases in physiological arousal occur in the presence of cognitive anxiety, a sudden drop (rather than a gradual decline) in performance occurs.
- Somatic effects - Lead to an inability to decide how to use muscle tension, poorer coordination as muscles fire in the wrong progression, and paralysis by analysis.
- Cognitive Reason why over-arousal influences performance. Type of ettects that lead to over-analysis of situations that can cause deficits in attention concentration.
- Paralysis by analysis
- Objective Competitive Situation
- Subjective competitive situation
- Objective competitive situation
- Subjective competitive situation
- Responses
- Consequences
- First stage of Marten's model of competition
- Looks at factors existing in competition environments that we have no control over, including:
- Social environment (crowd, coach)
- Physical environment (weather)
- Rewards (inability to control availability)
- Task characteristics (diflculty, uncertainty)
- Second stage of Marten's model of competition
- Looks at how the individual perceives the environment & responds to the conditions, including:
- Competitive trait anxiety (disposition to feeling anxious in competition environments)
- Achievement motivation (working towards a goal)
- Attitude to competition (enjoy it, take it to seriously)
- Self-concept (all aspects shaping your perception)
- Responses - Third stage of Marten's model of competition
- Looks at the subconscious and automatic responses to the situation, including:
- Physiological (HR, breathing)
- Psychological (stress, anxiety)
- Behavioural (approach, avoid)
- (^) Consequences - Fourth stage of Marten's model of competition
- Looks at how negative or positive aspects are socially evaluated by the individual and others who understand competition.
- (^) How does perception - It is a factor influencing whether people see competition as good or relate to competition? bad
- Competition has direct Psychological & indirect impacts on issues such as aggression, cheat- ing or fair play.
- (^) Directional Feedback, reinforcement and punishment are related to this component of motivation as it directs them towards behaving a certain way.
- (^) The fundamental as- Consequences sumption is that be- haviour is determined by anticipated/predict- ed. Can look at the environment and think about the possible outcomes.
- (^) What is feedback? - Information about a behaviour or the consequences of behaviour
- e.g. encouragement, criticism, reinforcement, punishment etc
- Why is feedback impor- - Because it enables learning, motivation to perform well-learned skills, tant? and attects psychological variables.
- Provides feedback to individuals on what they should or shouldn't do
