title: Perceived effects of emotion intensity on athletic performance: a contingency-based individualized approach.
abstract: This study, based on the Individual Zones of Optimal Functioning model, examined the perceived effect of idiosyncratic emotions and bodily symptoms on athletic performance along the entire emotion-intensity range. The participants were 35 elite Italian athletes, 16 women and 19 men, competing in either figure skating or gymnastics. Idiosyncratic emotional descriptors were rated on Borg's CR-10 scale to estimate the perceived impact on performance and hedonic tone for each level of emotion-intensity range. The findings revealed a large interindividual variability in the content of emotions as well as in the shape of the curves representing the intensity-impact contingencies. At the group level, the emotion-performance link was positive linear for optimal-pleasant emotions, bell-shaped for optimal-unpleasant emotions, and negative linear for both dysfunctional-unpleasant and dysfunctional-pleasant emotions. The relationship between emotional and bodily symptom intensities was positive linear. Implications of the findings for estimating total functional effects and individualized interventions are suggested.
authors.affiliation: Department of Motor Sciences, University of Padua, Italy. claudio.robazza@unipd.it
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Robazza
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bortoli
authors.forename: Yuri
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hanin
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006173:Gymnastics / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D012861:Skating / Q000523:psychology*