Sport And Exercise Psychology: A Critical Introduction

apprehension (e.g., requesting an alleged golfing expert to judge their putting
performance) and financial inducement. Results suggested that the implicit learning
group showed no deterioration in performance under stress in contrast to the golfers in
the explicit learning condition. Masters (1992) interpreted this to mean that the skills of
athletes with a small pool of explicit knowledge were less likely to fail than were those of
performers with relatively larger amounts of explicit knowledge. In other words, the
prediction of the conscious processing theory was corroborated. Anxiety appears to have
different effects on performance depending on how the skill was acquired in the first
place (i.e., through explicit or implicit learning). To summarise, the conscious processing
hypothesis predicts that athletes whose cognitive anxiety increases will tend to revert to
conscious control of normally automatic skills. This theory has received some empirical
support (see review in Woodman and Hardy, 2001).

Figure 3.3 Over-analysis can unravel

people’s sport skills

Conclusions about arousal/anxiety-performance relationship

At least three general conclusions have emerged from the preceding theories and research
(Weinberg and Gould, 1999). First, anxiety and arousal are multi-dimensional constructs
which do not have simple linear relationships with athletic performance. Second,

Sport and exercise psychology: A critical introduction 84