Cognitive and affective components of challenge and threat states.

We explored the cognitive and affective components of the Theory of Challenge and Threat States in Athletes (TCTSA) using a cross-sectional design. One hundred and seventy-seven collegiate athletes indicated how they typically approached an important competition on measures of self-efficacy, perceived control, achievement goals, emotional states and interpretation of emotional states. Participants also indicated to what extent they typically perceived the important competition as a challenge and/or a threat. The results suggest that a perception of challenge was not predicted by any of the cognitive components. A perception of threat was positively predicted by avoidance goals and negatively predicted by self-efficacy and approach goals. Both challenge and threat had a positive relationship with anxiety. Practical implications of this study are that an avoidance orientation appeared to be related to potentially negative constructs such as anxiety, threat and dejection. The findings may suggest that practitioners and researchers should focus on reducing an avoidance orientation, however the results should be treated with caution in applied settings, as this study did not examine how the combination of constructs exactly influences sport performance. The results provided partial support for the TCTSA with stronger support for proposed relationships with threat rather than challenge states.

An exploration of elite Japanese female footballers' acute cultural transition experiences in Europe.

The globalisation of women's football reflects the increasing number of female football players moving abroad for their professional careers. Yet, the cultural transition of Asian female athletes into western culture is merely studied. This study focused on the experiences of nine elite Japanese female football players competing in the professional league in Spain and Portugal in the immediate period after moving from Japan. During the semi-structured interview participants shared their experiences of their sporting and non-sporting lives abroad and the impact of this transition on their athletic and non-athletic self and well-being. By using thematic analysis three themes illustrating their positive acculturation experiences were identified: opening up to people's kindness, redefining family, and learning a new mentality. Based on the concept of two types of happiness (interdependent and independent), and the collectivism versus individualism dichotomy, the influence of culture on the relationship between life satisfaction and athletic performance, personal growth, and expanding the support system were critically discussed. Practical implications include insights for sport professionals on how cultural change can affect transnational athletes' sporting and non-sporting lives and influence their mental health.

Building a transdisciplinary expert consensus on the cognitive drivers of performance under pressure: An international multi-panel Delphi study.

Introduction: The ability to perform optimally under pressure is critical across many occupations, including the military, first responders, and competitive sport. Despite recognition that such performance depends on a range of cognitive factors, how common these factors are across performance domains remains unclear. The current study sought to integrate existing knowledge in the performance field in the form of a transdisciplinary expert consensus on the cognitive mechanisms that underlie performance under pressure. Methods: International experts were recruited from four performance domains [(i) Defense; (ii) Competitive Sport; (iii) Civilian High-stakes; and (iv) Performance Neuroscience]. Experts rated constructs from the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) framework (and several expert-suggested constructs) across successive rounds, until all constructs reached consensus for inclusion or were eliminated. Finally, included constructs were ranked for their relative importance. Results: Sixty-eight experts completed the first Delphi round, with 94% of experts retained by the end of the Delphi process. The following 10 constructs reached consensus across all four panels (in order of overall ranking): (1) Attention; (2) Cognitive Control-Performance Monitoring; (3) Arousal and Regulatory Systems-Arousal; (4) Cognitive Control-Goal Selection, Updating, Representation, and Maintenance; (5) Cognitive Control-Response Selection and Inhibition/Suppression; (6) Working memory-Flexible Updating; (7) Working memory-Active Maintenance; (8) Perception and Understanding of Self-Self-knowledge; (9) Working memory-Interference Control, and (10) Expert-suggested-Shifting. Discussion: Our results identify a set of transdisciplinary neuroscience-informed constructs, validated through expert consensus. This expert consensus is critical to standardizing cognitive assessment and informing mechanism-targeted interventions in the broader field of human performance optimization.

A Theory of Challenge and Threat States in Athletes: A Revised Conceptualization.

The Theory of Challenge and Threat States in Athletes (TCTSA) provides a psychophysiological framework for how athletes anticipate motivated performance situations. The purpose of this review is to discuss how research has addressed the 15 predictions made by the TCTSA, to evaluate the mechanisms underpinning the TCTSA in light of the research that has emerged in the last 10 years, and to inform a revised TCTSA (TCTSA-R). There was support for many of the 15 predictions in the TCTSA, with two main areas for reflection identified: to understand the physiology of challenge and to re-evaluate the concept of resource appraisals. This re-evaluation informs the TCTSA-R, which elucidates the physiological changes, predispositions, and cognitive appraisals that mark challenge and threat states. First, the relative strength of the sympathetic nervous system response is outlined as a determinant of challenge and threat patterns of reactivity and we suggest that oxytocin and neuropeptide Y are also key indicators of an adaptive approach to motivated performance situations and can facilitate a challenge state. Second, although predispositions were acknowledged within the TCTSA, how these may influence challenge and threat states was not specified. In the TCTSA-R, it is proposed that one's propensity to appraise stressors is a challenge that most strongly dictates acute cognitive appraisals. Third, in the TCTSA-R, a more parsimonious integration of Lazarusian ideas of cognitive appraisal and challenge and threat is proposed. Given that an athlete can make both challenge and threat primary appraisals and can have both high or low resources compared to perceived demands, a 2 × 2 bifurcation theory of challenge and threat is proposed. This reflects polychotomy of four states: high challenge, low challenge, low threat, and high threat. For example, in low threat, an athlete can evince a threat state but still perform well so long as they perceive high resources. Consequently, we propose suggestions for research concerning measurement tools and a reconsideration of resources to include social support. Finally, applied recommendations are made based on adjusting demands and enhancing resources.

Psychological Determinants of Whole-Body Endurance Performance.

BACKGROUND: No literature reviews have systematically identified and evaluated research on the psychological determinants of endurance performance, and sport psychology performance enhancement guidelines for endurance sports are not founded on a systematic appraisal of endurance-specific research. OBJECTIVE: A systematic literature review was conducted to identify practical psychological interventions that improve endurance performance and to identify additional psychological factors that affect endurance performance. Additional objectives were to evaluate the research practices of the included studies, to suggest theoretical and applied implications, and to guide future research. METHODS: Electronic databases, forward-citation searches and manual searches of reference lists were used to locate relevant studies. Peer-reviewed studies were included when they chose an experimental or quasi-experimental research design; a psychological manipulation; endurance performance as the dependent variable; and athletes or physically active, healthy adults as participants. RESULTS: Consistent support was found for using imagery, self-talk and goal setting to improve endurance performance, but it is unclear whether learning multiple psychological skills is more beneficial than learning one psychological skill. The results also demonstrated that mental fatigue undermines endurance performance, and verbal encouragement and head-to-head competition can have a beneficial effect. Interventions that influenced perception of effort consistently affected endurance performance. CONCLUSIONS: Psychological skills training could benefit an endurance athlete. Researchers are encouraged to compare different practical psychological interventions, to examine the effects of these interventions for athletes in competition and to include a placebo control condition or an alternative control treatment. Researchers are also encouraged to explore additional psychological factors that could have a negative effect on endurance performance. Future research should include psychological mediating variables and moderating variables. Implications for theoretical explanations for endurance performance and evidence-based practice are described.