Description

Prompt

Martens’s Multidimensional Anxiety Theory as an alternative to the Inverted U Theory. Explain how it is similar to the Inverted U, how it differs from the Inverted U, and what it adds to the Inverted U. Choose one sport skill(volleyball player spike at the net) and analyze it using Mertens’s theory.

Solution

The Multidimensional Anxiety Theory: An alternative to the Inverted U Theory

The effects of anxiety on performing a sporting activity have been the subject of theoretical inquiry in sports research. Among the theories that explain this phenomenon are the inverted-U (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908) and the multidimensional anxiety theory (Martens, Burton & Vealey, 1990). It has been argued that the latter is an expansion of the former (Bridges & Knight, 2005). These theories are related as well as dissimilar in several ways. However, they are equally applicable to sports in general and to specific sporting skills in particular even though the multidimensional anxiety theory offers a more nuanced and practically relevant framework for explaining the impact of anxiety on athletic performance.

The Inverted-U, as the name suggests, posits that a curvilinear relationship exists between arousal and performance. Accordingly, either extremely high or extremely low anxiety levels result in extremely impaired performance. Moderate levels of anxiety are ideal for maximal performance. The multidimensional anxiety depiction is set on the premise that anxiety comprises two distinct components, which are cognitive and somatic, and that it is possible to manipulate each with differing effects on one’s performance.

The similarities between these theories revolve around their objectives, assumptions, methodology, subject, some of their claims and their applicability to sports. The main objective of both theories was to examine the relationship that anxiety shares with performance, with emphasis on showing a strong link between them. A number of studies in recent decades have validated this link (Bridges & Knight, 2005; Keeley et al., 2008; Abenza et al., 2009; Parnabas et al., 2013). The methodologies for these studies involve manipulating anxiety levels while rating their effects on performance. The variables in the studies were anxiety on the x-axis and performance on the y-axis. From their respective findings, the two theories claim that different levels of anxiety present different effects on performance.

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