Lesson video

Hello and welcome to this lesson on Inverted-U Theory from the Sports Psychology: Mental preparation for performance unit.

My name is Mr. Brim.

I'm gonna guide you through this lesson.

I wonder if you've come across this theory before inverted-U.

If not, you're going to learn a lot about how excited and how alert we are has an impact on our performance, and it's something you can apply to your own performance.

Let's begin, shall we? Okay then, so by the end of today's lesson, you should be able to explain and interpret the inverted-U theory of arousal and its impact on performance.

And that should include you being able to draw and label the inverted-U theory graph, which you'll become very familiar with by the end of today's lesson.

These are our keywords for today, arousal, optimal arousal, and inverted-U theory.

Pause the video here if you want to take a look at the definitions a little bit closer.

But as always, these keywords are going to be repeated numerous times during the lesson.

Today's lesson will be delivered in three sections, and our first section, as you can see there, is called understanding and drawing the inverted-U.

Let's begin with a little bit of context on what the word arousal means.

It's important that you can define the word arousal, and it means a physical and mental, so physiological and psychological state of alertness or readiness.

Okay, let's look at that a little bit closer.

We categorise arousal in terms of levels.

So you might have low levels of arousal, you might have high levels of arousal, or you might be somewhere in between.

It's almost like a continuum, if you've ever seen the continuum of skills, it's very, very similar in that we have low at one end, high at the other, but we can fall somewhere in between the two.

At the very lowest end of arousal, we would say that with the absolute lowest level of arousal you can have is being in a deep sleep.

Okay, absolutely no alertness or readiness to do anything when you are in a deep sleep.

At the very opposite end of the scale, we would say an intense excitement or an intense alertness is what you would expect to see from somebody with high levels of arousal.

Now, the inverted-U theory is best understood when it's represented in a graphical form.

You'll almost always see a graph accompanying any discussion about inverted-U theory.

And so to begin with, a little bit of maths here, a little bit of cross curricular.

You're going to need two axes like that.

It's always drawn with two axes.

And the x-axis represents the arousal level, as we've just seen, low to high.

Okay, so ranges from low to high.

The y-axis, the y-axis represents the level of performance in sport or the physical activity.

Okay.

And just like arousal, that ranges from low to high as well.

Just check for understanding, 'cause it's really important that we get these axes the right way around.

So which of these shows the correct labelling of axes X and Y? Is it A, B, or C? Have a close look.

Yes, it was C, wasn't it? Hopefully you recognise that.

It's performance there on the y-axis.

Arousal there on the x-axis.

Why wasn't it A? Well, they were the right way around in terms of the labelling, but if you look, it goes from high to low, rather than low to high.

On B, the axis were the wrong way around.

Arousal shouldn't be on the y-axis.

Performance shouldn't be on the x-axis, but C was the perfect way of beginning an inverted-U graph.

So we're beginning to draw the line along the graph now.

Let's plot the line.

And Alex asks, "What do you think this part of the line suggests?" Okay.

So what it's stating there is that low levels of arousal will lead to low performance levels.

Okay.

The line has been plotted there with low arousal equaling low performance level, hasn't it? And as Alex rightly says, you can't perform well in a deep sleep at the absolute low level of arousal.

We're in a deep sleep.

And so, can you imagine performing sport in a deep sleep? Perhaps only in your dreams. Now, the line has begun to change shape a little, hasn't it? And Aisha's asking you, "What is this showing us?" What can you interpret from the way the line is starting to take shape? So with low levels of arousal, performance is remaining low to medium.

However, as we're moving from low to towards high, I mean we're still in low levels, aren't we? But it is increasing, so is the performance.

The graph has moved up, which means that performance is getting better.

Now, the highest level of performance is represented by the peak on the curve as we can see here.

This is the highest level of performance that's going to be achieved on this graph.

And we say that we are now in the optimal level of arousal.

Okay.

And in this graph, it's somewhere in the middle between low and high, isn't it? Lucas says, we haven't seen what happens with high levels of arousal yet.

We haven't finished drawing this line graph.

And so what is your prediction for high levels of arousal? What's going to happen to the line? Have a little think.

Maybe even pause a video while you have a think.

Should we have a look and give Lucas an answer? Okay, so after reaching the optimal level of arousal, this is your very, very best performance, then a further increase in arousal has made the performance level drop, hasn't it? We've gone back down to a low level performance when we're at our highest level of arousal in that really extremely excited or alert state.

Laura says, "Can you now see why it's called the inverted-U?" Well, inverted means that it's been put the other way around.

So it is a U-shape, isn't it? But it's a U shape that's being tipped upside down.

And so we call it the inverted-U theory because, essentially, it is a U shape but in reverse.

Let's check for your understanding based on what we've talked about already about inverted-U.

A properly drawn inverted-U will demonstrate that, A, low arousal levels mean low performance levels, B, that high performance levels come from high arousal levels, C, that high arousal leads to low performance, or D, optimal arousal is at the peak of the inverted-U.

Some of those statements are demonstrated when the inverted-U has been properly drawn.

Which ones? Okay, actually, there were three correct answers.

So really well done if you spotted that there were three correct answers.

Yes, A, low arousal levels means low performance levels.

At the very lowest in that deep sleep, your performance is going to be the worst it possibly could be.

C, high arousal leads to low performance.

So both low and high levels lead to low performance, which is something that was demonstrated by that U shape, isn't it? And D, optimal arousal is at the peak of the inverted-U.

So that point at the very highest part of the U, or inverted-U, where you are performing at your very best is what we call optimal arousal.

Hopefully you ruled out B, that high performance comes from high arousal levels, 'cause that isn't the case, is it? High arousal levels when, we see the dip in performance, is not associated with high performance.

In fact, it's associated with low performance.

So well done if you've got those three correct, so for your practise task here, we're going to have a go at drawing the inverted-U graph.

It's important that you're able to draw one of these yourself.

And so on the graph paper that you've been provided, you need to do the following.

Just like I did earlier, draw and label the X and y-axis to begin with.

Make sure you label the extreme ends of each axis.

Then once you've got that in place, draw the inverted-U on your graph with the clear relationship between arousal and performance levels.

And finally, on your inverted-U, just note the point of optimal arousal.

Pause the video here while you attempt that task, and I'll be back in a moment just to check that your graph looks as well as it should.

Okay, so let's have a look at what your graph should look like on your graph paper there.

So we said that you need to draw and label the x and y-axis.

So you should have an axis along the bottom, the x with arousal and a y-axis with performance.

Then you needed to label the extreme ends of each axis and remember which way round we do that, from low to high in both cases.

Then your task was to draw the inverted-U on your graph with the clear relationship between arousal and performance level.

So that should look something like this, an inverted-U of course.

The final part of the task was to note the point of optimal arousal, which hopefully you recognised, is that point at the very peak of the graph.

Okay, something like that.

Hopefully your graph looks very similar to mine.

Okay, so in our second part of the lesson, we're going to understand the inverted-U theory and the relationship with performance in greater detail.

Here we have a man looking rather bored, and here we have an image showing the inverted-U with a section highlighted there on the left-hand side.

Hopefully you can remember that that would represent low arousal levels, wouldn't it there, on the left of the x-axis? What would we expect to see there? A real lack of alertness as demonstrated by the man in the picture, a lack of readiness, a lack of excitement, and all those things are going to lead to a low performance level.

He doesn't look like he's particularly ready to perform at his best, does he? A quick check for understanding.

A rugby player needs to make a tackle, but they are currently at low arousal level, a little bit like the man in the picture we just saw.

Which of these is most likely to happen with that person at low arousal levels? A, the player will make the tackle with the perfect amount of force and technique.

B, the player will fail to use enough force and the tackle will be unsuccessful.

Or C, the player will use too much force and poor technique leading to an injury to the opposition player.

Which of those is most likely to happen? Okay, it was B, wasn't it? Hopefully you recognise that.

At low arousal level, with a lack of energy and a lack of readiness, the player will fail to use enough force, and the tackle will be unsuccessful.

That's the most likely scenario there, isn't it? Having the perfect amount of force, as in option A, would suggests that the person is performing optimally, and having too much force would suggest that there's a lot of energy, perhaps too much energy, or too much alertness and readiness in the performer, and that's not something we would associate with low arousal levels either.

So well done if you said B.

How about the other end of our scale? Okay, so we might call this high arousal levels, or extremely high arousal levels at the very extreme right hand side of the graph.

So we will have high levels of alertness at this high arousal state.

We might be overexcited, and that's going to lead to a low performance level.

Just like with low arousal, it leads to a low performance level, but for different reasons, in this case, the high levels of alertness and the over excitement.

Being in this state of high arousal often means that the performer struggles to focus and perhaps to process the information that they need to to perform well.

In addition to low performance level, over aroused performers may also act inappropriately and sportingly.

I wonder if you've seen anybody who's really overexcited in the activity that they're doing, really over aroused, and it's led to them acting inappropriately and unsportingly, perhaps arguing with a referee, arguing with a teammate, perhaps doing something they shouldn't and that they normally wouldn't, but the over arousal levels have almost tipped them over the edge, and their behaviour is unusual.

What else? Sometimes players may become aggressive.

Here we see a guy breaking his club on the golf course.

Perhaps he's become so frustrated that it's made the arousal levels creep up to be so high that it's led to a lot of frustration and a lot of aggression, which has been taken out on his golf club there.

Over aroused state, you may also experience anxiety or other negative emotions.

Okay.

And so as you can see, these are undesirable emotions that you would prefer not to have and are going to lead to the low performance level.

Check for understanding.

Is this true or false? An over aroused performer in judo is more likely to use an illegal move than an optimally aroused performer.

What do you think? That's true, isn't it? And why did you think that that was true? Well, we're talking about somebody using a poor decision.

An over arousal can lead to performances deteriorating.

That means it's getting worse, and poor decision-making and aggressiveness can be part of that.

So let's imagine the judo players getting frustrated, begins to get over aggressive, and starts making bad decisions, which might include using an illegal move maybe with the intention of hurting the opposition that they are frustrated with.

With somebody at optimal arousal, you'd expect them to make the perfect decision, and using an illegal move certainly is not a perfect decision.

So well done if you recognised that that would be a true statement.

And we move on to look at our graph yet again, but this time the shaded area is in the middle.

What did that mean again? Can you remember? It means optimal arousal, doesn't it? And at optimal arousal levels, we perform at our best.

Okay? Optimal arousal levels leads to our best performances.

What does that mean for our performance? Well, we make all the right decisions, we process information accurately.

We have just the right level of focus, and sometimes when you're at the absolute peak of performance, it can feel like you can do absolutely nothing wrong.

Some people might refer to this as being in the zone.

It's just being in that perfect level of focus and performance.

You're noticing everything that you need to notice.

You're ignoring everything that is irrelevant to your performance.

You're just performing everything right.

Izzy says, "I remember feeling like that once when performing at my dance exhibition.

Have you ever experienced being at Optimal arousal? How did it feel?" If there's somebody nearby, maybe this is a chance to pause the video and talk to somebody else about whether you have ever been in the zone at optimal arousal levels and discuss how it felt to be in that place.

Here's the practise test for you on this section.

Here we have a batter in cricket, and they're about to hit the ball that's being bowled at him.

Let's think about how this performance might be affected at different levels of arousal.

So first part of this task is to describe two outcomes we might expect if the batter is in low levels of arousal.

Secondly, describe two outcomes we might expect if he is at optimal arousal.

And thirdly, describe two outcomes we might expect if he is at high arousal levels.

And so how might the arousal level that that young man is experiencing at this moment impact on how well he plays that ball? Pause a video here and write down your answers, and I'll be back in a moment with some suggested answers of my own.

Okay, let's begin with low levels of arousal.

How will that impact the way this batter hits the ball? Well, here's some things you might have said.

You might not say exactly what I have, but some things similar.

So he will perform poorly because his arousal level is low.

Well done.

You might recognise that he's at low arousal level that's going to lead to a poor performance.

That's an interpretation of the inverted-U.

Absolutely fine.

Or, you might have said he won't be alert enough and will probably miss the ball, recognising that low arousal means low levels of alertness.

Or, you might have said he might lack readiness and mistime his shot or gets out.

He might not be.

He might be daydreaming in his low arousal level state and not be ready to hit the ball.

He might mistime his shot or he might not even hit the ball at all.

Or, you might say that his lack of energy means that he doesn't hit the ball very hard or far when he does.

So if he does connect with the ball, this lack of energy might mean that he doesn't hit it hard enough or it doesn't go far enough and he doesn't score any runs.

All of those indicate that the low level arousal will lead to a low level of performance, exactly as the inverted graph demonstrates to us, doesn't it? How about the optimal levels of arousal? Well, what would we expect here? So things you might have said.

Well, optimal levels of a arousal is gonna be his peak performance, aren't they? So he will play the shot very well.

or he'll make good decisions about how and where to hit the ball.

Okay, he might spot that there's a small space between fielders that he can hit the ball into.

Or, he will process the flight of the ball perfectly and strike it well, or, he'll score lots of runs, which is the outcome that he'll be hoping for.

But at optimal arousal levels, hopefully you recognise in your statements that his performance will be at its peak.

Finally, the third part of the task, high levels of arousal.

You might have said, well, he's not going to perform well with high arousal levels.

You've made that link between high arousal and low performance.

You might have said that he'll be overexcited and may miss the ball.

Okay, might be just too pumped up and he's just not making great decisions.

He may also be anxious and this will mean he might get out.

You might have recognised that he might be really nervous and anxious from this high level of arousal, and it might mean that he sort of stiffens up or he doesn't play the shot properly and it might lead to him getting out.

And the final option that I chose was that he might get out and then react aggressively or unsportingly.

Okay, this high level of arousal can lead to people to behave in ways they normally wouldn't, such as being aggressive or arguing with the umpire for example.

Well done if your responses to the task recognised that relationship between the level of arousal and the performance that you would expect.

So we are doing really well now understanding how the inverted-U theory relates to performance.

We're going to go into a little bit more detail now where we link certain arousal levels with certain skills on the gross/fine continuum.

So let's remember what that gross/fine continuum looks like and how it categorises skills.

So we have fine skills at one end, and they're small precise movements showing high levels of accuracy and coordination, and they involve generally the use of small groups of muscles, archery for example.

Gross skills at the other end of the continua, use large muscle groups.

They are big, strong, powerful movements.

And an example there is a rugby tackle.

Sofia asks you to imagine yourself performing both of these skills at the best possible performance level.

Maybe you have actually had a go at archery and rugby, but if not, try to imagine what it must feel like to perform both of those skills.

"Would the optimal level of arousal you need to perform those skills at your best possible level be the same for both?" asks Sofia.

Have a think about that.

Maybe even pause the video while you think about what the optimal levels of arousal would look like for both of those skills.

Here we have something that should be very familiar to you now.

We have the axes all labelled and ready for an inverted-U, and here we have our inverted.

In the case of archery, what we can see there is that the optimal level of arousal is actually towards the left hand side, isn't it? Now, because it's such a fine skill and it needs a steady hand, the best possible level of arousal for archery is over towards the left on low arousal.

So the optimal level is actually quite low.

But in the case of rugby, hopefully you saw the shift there in where the inverted-U appears on the graph.

So the optimal level of arousal for rugby tackling will be relatively high because it's a gross skill which requires forceful action.

Does that tie in with what you thought when Sofia posed the question to you a few moments ago? Here we see them both side by side.

So what we can see here is the optimal level of arousal for archery is much lower than it is for rugby tackling.

The optimal arousal level for the fine skill is much lower than it is for the gross skill.

What we can see now is that the optimal level of arousal is not fixed.

Your inverted-U will not always look the same in exactly the same part of the graph.

It can move and it varies according to how gross or fine the skill is.

For your check for understanding, let's have a look at three graphical representations of what we've just been looking at.

So here we have A, B, and C, and each of them is demonstrating different optimal arousal levels for different types of activity.

I want you to look at each in turn and tell me whether you think they accurately represent the optimal arousal levels needed for the different activities that they're showing us.

Okay, so well done if you recognise that actually two of those graphs are accurate representations of optimal arousal levels and one of them is not.

Let's have a look at the correct answers.

They were A and C.

So beginning with A, we have snooker compared to some sort of power lifting or weightlifting.

Snooker Being the fine skill, the power lifting being the gross skill, And so they are accurately representing that snooker would need a much lower level of optimal arousal than would weightlifting.

B demonstrates long jump, which is a gross skill, and darts, which is a fine skill, but they're the wrong way around, aren't they? We would expect long jump to need a higher optimal arousal level than darts would because darts is a much finer skill which needs a steady hand.

But C we know was correct because golf putting is a fine skill.

It's a very small movement requiring precision that won't need a huge amount of arousal to perform it optimally, whereas saving the ball in football is going to need a higher level of optimal arousal.

Well done if you recognised A and C.

Now, almost as a warning here, I really want you to be careful not to confuse skills and sports.

Okay? It's something I see quite often being done incorrectly.

So if we said that rugby requires a high optimal arousal level, that would not be correct, because rugby is not a skill, and this is a common mistake that people make.

Saying that rugby tackling requires high optimal arousal levels would be correct because there you're talking about the skill within the sport and not just the sport.

Andeep says, "How would optimal arousal levels be different if you were talking about kicking for goal in rugby?" as we can see in the image there.

What do you think? Well, this skill, kicking for goal, requires a lower optimal arousal level than tackling.

It's not quite as much of a gross skill, is it? In fact, it relies a lot more on precision and accuracy.

If we were to place it on the continua of gross and fine, it would be still gross but closer to fine than the rugby tackling was.

So we're talking here about the same sport but a different skill, and therefore a different optimal arousal level.

So just be really careful to talk about skills and not sports because, as we've just seen, the same sport, rugby, can have different skills which require different optimal arousal levels.

Just be careful on that one.

And there we see that represented graphically.

Okay, the kick for goal would need a lower level of arousal than the tackle.

Quick check for understanding, which skill will most benefit if the performer is at high arousal? A, the triple jump, B, putting in golf, or C, taking a free throw in basketball.

It was A, wasn't it, a triple jump? A triple jump is a gross skill, isn't it? Particularly compared to the others, putting in golf is a very fine skill and taking a free throw in basketball is sort of in the middle, isn't it? It really relies on precision and being calm while you take it and having a high arousal level wouldn't be particularly beneficial while taking a free throw in basketball.

Here's your practise task for this final section in the lesson, and using the graph paper provided, I'd like you to draw a diagram, and that diagram should show three inverted-Us which demonstrate how optimal arousal might be different for the three skills you can see on the screen.

They are 100-meter hurdles, diving, and golf ping.

Each of those will have a slightly different optimal arousal level.

I want your graph to demonstrate that.

Pause the video here and I'll show you what the graph should look like in a moment.

Okay, so your graph should look something like this with three different inverted-Us and therefore three different optimal arousal levels.

Which way around were the skills though? You had three to place.

So hopefully your graph looks something like this.

Where did you place those different skills? Now, I have placed hurdles at the highest optimal arousal level, because hurdles is a very gross skill.

Okay.

I'm being really pumped up and psyched up is going to lead to the best performance in that.

But the other two skills clearly don't need quite so much arousal to perform at optimal performance.

And so which way around did you put the other two skills? Hopefully you did the same as me, and you put diving in the middle.

Diving is a gross skill, involves lots of big muscles, but it certainly needs a lot more precision in the movements, and so I put that somewhere in the middle of the arousal axis.

Finally, that leaves golf putting.

Golf putting is a fine skill.

It's all about precision and accuracy.

It's a small movement, and therefore it only requires a low level of arousal to be able to perform it at your optimum performance.

Hopefully your graph looks something like that with the three different inverted-Us and correctly placed skills.

That brings us on to the summary for today's list, and let's read this along together.

Arousal means a physical and mental, so physiological and psychological, state of alertness or readiness.

We measure it from low, a deep sleep, to high, an intense excitement or alertness.

The inverted-U theory believes that low and high levels of arousal generally leads to poor performance, okay, so either extreme of the arousal axis.

But the best performances come with optimal arousal.

Optimal arousal levels can differ depending on the skill to be performed.

For example, a rugby tackle will need a higher arousal level to be optimally performed than archery will.

Thank you for joining me for today's lesson.

I've really enjoyed that.

I hope you've got something from that and you understand a little bit more about how arousal levels can affect our performance, and perhaps even work on applying some of this to your own performances.

Hope to see you again in another lesson very soon.

Bye-bye.