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ROBYN LOUISE VAST1, ROBYN LOUISE YOUNG1, & PATRICK ROBERT THOMAS2
1
School of Psychology, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia and 2School of Education and Professional Studies,
Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Abstract
This study explored attentional patterns associated with positive and negative emotions during sport competition, and
athletes perceptions of the consequences of these attentional changes for concentration and performance. Sixty-nine athletes
completed the Sport Emotion Questionnaire following a national softball competition. They also retrospectively reported
their perceptions of how emotions influenced their attention, concentration, and sport performance. Excitement and
happiness were more closely associated with concentration than anxiety, dejection, and anger. Although excitement
demanded more attention than the negative emotions, the positive emotions were perceived as more likely to lead to a
performance-relevant focus and automatic physical movements, both of which were beneficial for concentration and
performance. Emotional intensity increased these effects.
Key words: Attention and perception, emotion, mood, sport and exercise psychology.
Correspondence: Ms R. L. Vast, School of Psychology, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia. E-mail: robyn.vast@flinders.edu.au
ISSN 0005-0067 print/ISSN 1742-9544 online The Australian Psychological Society Ltd
Published by Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/00050060903261538
133
fostering openness, flexibility and efficient information integration (Derryberry & Tucker, 1994;
Fredrickson, 2001). Positive emotions are also
predicted to free attentional resources to devote to
goal and task achievement (Gardner & Moore,
2006). In doing so, attention is externalised to taskrelevant cues (Carver & Scheier, 1990; Fredrickson,
2001).
The favourable outcome expectancies associated
with positive emotions are also conducive to uninhibited and automatic movement, which does
not draw on attention capacity and correlates with
superior performance on well-learned physical tasks
(Abernethy, Maxwell, Masters, VanDerKamp, &
Jackson, 2007; Krane & Williams, 2006). Despite
the seemingly contradictory influence of positive and
negative emotions on attention, however, research
exploring this relationship directly, and the consequences for sports performance, is lacking and
indeterminate.
The present study addressed these gaps in knowledge by further exploring the relationship between
anxiety and attention, extending previous research
on anxiety to include dejection and anger, and
contributing to the limited literature on the positive
emotions of excitement and happiness. Furthermore,
the attentional patterns associated with these positive
and negative emotions while competing in sport
are explored and compared, and their consequences
for concentration and performance are examined.
Attentional patterns were measured through selfreported perceptions; this has not been done in
existing research on emotions and attention in sport.
Consistent with a large body of literature, it was
predicted that anxiety, dejection and anger would
attract, consume and maintain attention, internalise
and narrow attention, lead to controlled physical
movements, and lead to a focus on performanceirrelevant factors more than excitement and happiness. As a result it was predicted that positive
emotions would be associated with better concentration and performance effects during competition
than negative emotions.
There is increasing emphasis in the literature
on the importance of considering both the valence
(e.g., positive or negative) and intensity of emotion
(Anderson, 2005; Reisenzein, 1994). Emotional
intensity is also a potential confound when exploring
the relationship between emotion and attention
because of the strong relationships found between
arousal, attentional changes and physical functioning
(Easterbrook, 1959; Jones, 2003; Schimmack &
Derryberry, 2005). Therefore, the intensity of emotions was measured. Drawing on research suggesting
that both high-intensity and low-intensity positive
emotions produce comparable effects on attention,
it was, however, predicted that the valence of the
134
R. L. Vast et al.
Method
Participants
Participants were 69 female softballers ranging in age
from 18 to 38 years (M 23.01 years, SD 4.96)
competing at a national level tournament. All but
one participant indicated the highest level at which
they had competed in softball: international, n 43,
and national, n 25.
Materials
Sport Emotion Questionnaire. The Sport Emotion
Questionnaire (SEQ) measures five emotions reported by athletes as being most relevant to their
experiences of competing in sport: excitement,
happiness, anxiety, dejection, and anger (Jones,
Lane, Bray, Uphill, & Catlin, 2005). Participants
indicated the extent to which they felt each of
22 emotions during a specific sporting competition
by responding on a scale from 0 (not at all) to 4
(extremely).
For the purposes of the current study the response
stem was changed from indicating which emotions
participants were feeling right now, at this moment,
in relation to the upcoming competition (Jones
et al., 2005, p. 431), to which emotions participants
felt during the competition today after its completion. Although the SEQ has been validated to assess
only pre-competition emotions, the items for the
questionnaire were developed by asking athletes
to describe the emotions they had experienced at
any time when competing in sport, not specifically
prior to a competition (Jones et al., 2005, p. 412).
Furthermore, the questionnaire items were also
developed by athletes thinking retrospectively about
previous sporting experiences. Therefore, the task
used to develop the scale was identical to the task
used in the current study of identifying what
emotions the athletes felt while competing in sport,
and reporting this after the competition.
Overall concentration and performance. Perceptions
of overall concentration and performance were
measured through two separate self-report items
asking athletes overall, how well do you think you
concentrated/performed in the competition today?
Participants responded on a 7-point scale from 1
(very poorly) to 7 (very well).
Perceived effect of emotions on attention. The remaining items asked how the experience of the five SEQ
Results
Emotion, concentration and performance
On average, the extent to which athletes reported
experiencing emotions was low. As shown in Table 1,
135
excitement was the most prominent emotion experienced by athletes, followed by happiness, anxiety
and very small amounts of anger and dejection.
Concentration was positively correlated with selfrated performance. Happiness and excitement were
positively correlated, as were the negative emotions
anxiety, dejection and anger.
As predicted, happiness and excitement were
positively correlated with concentration, whereas
dejection and anger were negatively correlated with
concentration. Happiness and excitement were also
positively correlated with self-rated performance,
whereas dejection and anxiety were negatively
correlated with self-rated performance.
Emotion and attention
A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) with
repeated measures was performed. Emotion was the
independent variable and its perceived effects on
attention, concentration and performance during the
game were the dependent variables. Multivariate
normality was investigated using Mahalanobis distance. Five multivariate outliers were found to
exceed the critical value suggested by Tabachnick
and Fidell (1996) and were therefore removed from
further analysis. Preliminary assumption testing was
Excitement
Happiness
Anxiety
Dejection
Anger
Concentration
Self-rated performance
SD
2.26
2.04
1.16
0.70
0.80
5.09
4.41
0.77
0.79
0.79
0.77
0.81
1.17
1.33
.69**
.01
7.28*
7.20
.37**
.26*
7.20
7.32**
7.22
.43**
.54**
.46**
.40**
7.12
7.27*
.79**
7.27*
7.34**
7.24*
7.18
.47**
Perceived effects
Attracted and consumed attention
Performance relevant focus
Focus on external factors
Broad focus on multiple factors
Automatic physical movements
Time emotion was focus of attention
Immediate effect on concentration
Immediate effect on performance
Note. *p 5 .006.
Z2
Excitement
n 63
M (SD)
3.71*
27.50*
3.88*
5.52*
20.97*
.97
22.74*
26.15*
.05
.27
.05
.07
.22
.01
.24
.26
5.33
5.84
4.10
4.40
5.49
3.44
5.75
5.68
(1.50)
(1.14)
(1.49)
(1.83)
(1.33)
(1.47)
(1.22)
(1.09)
Happiness
n 64
M (SD)
4.67
5.41
3.95
4.50
5.63
3.12
5.41
5.38
(1.78)
(1.28)
(1.60)
(1.51)
(1.12)
(1.48)
(1.16)
(1.24)
Anxiety
n 65
M (SD)
4.37
4.21
3.25
3.78
4.22
3.31
4.45
4.23
(1.54)
(1.63)
(1.51)
(1.70)
(1.55)
(1.65)
(1.63)
(1.40)
Dejection
n 58
M (SD)
4.41
4.16
3.41
3.47
4.00
3.38
4.02
4.09
(1.77)
(1.69)
(1.59)
(1.76)
(1.49)
(1.69)
(1.54)
(1.35)
Anger
n 57
M (SD)
4.53
3.54
3.70
3.42
4.00
3.47
3.75
3.72
(1.71)
(1.43)
(1.75)
(1.67)
(1.58)
(1.73)
(1.58)
(1.32)
136
R. L. Vast et al.
137
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R. L. Vast et al.
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