Confidence

Self-confidence -> a person's belief in their ability to achieve success

• confident athletes expect to do well and have high levels of self-belief - crucial in how far they strive towards their goals
• confident athletes are not afraid of making mistakes/take calculated risks to take charge of a situation
• self-doubters avoid responsibility/become overly consevative and paralysed by the fear of failure

Self-efficacy -> situation specific self-confidence e.g. footballer is confident taking penalties

Performance accomplishments -> previous successes at the task

• achievements in training and competition forms the basis of future expectations of success or failure
• repeated success will lead to positive expectations of further success, higher motivation and enhanced self-belief
• repeated failures can lead to a downward performance spiral and a ‘snowball effect’ -> start to believe that success is not possible
• It is vital for a coach to make sure that early success is achieved

Vicarious experiences -> watching others of similar standard successfully perform a skill

• performers can gain confidence from viewing other people achieving their own successful performances
• it is important that a performer of similar ability to the person observing the achievement achieves the success

Verbal persuasion -> encouragement from significant others

• performers shown that others (i.e. the coach) have confidence in their abilities and believe they can achieve their set goals

Emotional arousal -> perceiving physiological arousal as indicating emotion

• how someone interprets their own emotional arousal can influence performance
• important that physiological symptoms (e.g. heart rate) are perceived positively not negatively
• over-arousal hinders performance by making performer less confident 

• Performance accomplishments/success from previous performances/reminding performer of previous success
• Avoid failure this can hinder self-efficacy
• Organise successful events/gradually increase task difficulty/make task easier
• Vicarious experiences/watching successful performances
• More effective if performers are of similar ability
• Verbal persuasion/encouragement/positive feedback/reinforcement from coach
• Emotional arousal/stress management techniques/mental rehearsal/establish set routines
• Set goals/targets/performance goals rather than outcome goals
• Avoid social comparison with other performers
• Use attributions correctly/attribution retraining/encouraging self-serving bias 

Social facilitation – the influence of the presence of others on performance/presence of others increases arousal

Social inhibition – the negative effect of an audience on performance

-> distractions lead to conflict, increases arousal, decreases performance

• Audience (watching either at event or at home) - passive observers
• Co-actors (performing same task but not in competition) 
• Competitive co-actors (in direct competition with player)
• Social reinforcers (direct influence eg coach)
• Linked to the Drive Theory -> as arousal increases so does likelihood of dominant response/habit occurring
• Experienced players perform better/simple skills
• Novice players perform worse/complex skills

Presence of others produces two types of effects:

• improved performance on simple/well-learnt tasks
• decreased erformance on complex/not well-learnt tasks

Evaluation apprehension

-> a sense of anxiety caused by a performer's thinking that their performance is being watched and judged by somebody 

• suggests others only have influence if performer feels they are being judged
• the more expert/influential the observer, the more likely EA will occur

Baron linked the prescence of an audience to information processing

-> suggesting that an audience takes up much of our attentional capacity

• sufficient attention left to cope with simple tasks
• complex tasks require more attention
• presence of audience creates more demand on our attention -> increases arousal and affects performance

• suggests performers must focus on task and ignore audience

• Home support tends to improve performance/social facilitation effect/boost self-efficacy/lower levels of anxiety
• More matches won at home than away/during early rounds of competitions/Olympic & World medals by host nation
• Home teams tend to play more attacking styles/ tactics/functional aggressive behaviour 
• Proximity effect/closeness of crowd has negative effect on visiting teams
• Larger crowd/hostile crowd has a negative effect on visiting teams
• Away team commit more fouls/can become anxious/over-aroused due to crowd or unfamiliar surroundings

• Increased pressure from the home crowd
• More important the game the greater the pressure/ choke effect/championship choke
• Performers become more self-conscious at home causing over-arousal
• Players place more pressure on themselves at home matches due to expectations
• Social inhibition for the home team
• Evaluation apprehension for the home team

• Mental rehearsal/imagery/visualisation -> 'block out the audience'
• Train in front of others and gradually increase the numbers
• Improve selective attention and cut out the effect of the audience
• Reduce the importance of the event
• Avoid social comparison with others/coach in a non-evaluative environment initially/verbal encouragement
• Encourage team mates to be supportive