Sports Psychology
# ✅ FLASHCARD SET — Sport Psychology Final Exam
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# ✅ SECTION 1 — Motor Learning & Skill Acquisition
### Flashcard 1
Q: What are the three stages of motor learning (Fitts & Posner)?
A:
1. Cognitive — high errors, high attention, needs instruction
2. Associative — refining movement, fewer errors, more consistent
3. Autonomous — automatic, low attentional demand, high proficiency
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### Flashcard 2
Q: What is the coach’s role in the Cognitive Stage?
A: Provide demonstrations, clear instructions, simple cues, and high feedback.
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### Flashcard 3
Q: What is the coach’s role in the Associative Stage?
A: Provide precise feedback, help refine technique, encourage error correction.
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### Flashcard 4
Q: What is the coach’s role in the Autonomous Stage?
A: Focus on strategy, decision-making, and pressure simulations.
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### Flashcard 5
Q: What is blocked practice?
A: Practicing one skill repeatedly before moving to the next. Good early, poor retention.
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### Flashcard 6
Q: What is random practice?
A: Mixing skills unpredictably. Harder short-term, best long-term learning.
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### Flashcard 7
Q: What is variable practice?
A: Practicing the same skill in different conditions. Best for open skills.
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### Flashcard 8
Q: What is the contextual interference effect?
A: Harder practice (random) → better retention due to deeper processing.
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### Flashcard 9
Q: What is Knowledge of Performance (KP)?
A: Feedback about technique or movement pattern.
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### Flashcard 10
Q: What is Knowledge of Results (KR)?
A: Feedback about the outcome of the movement.
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### Flashcard 11
Q: What is the sandwich approach to feedback?
A: Praise → correction → encouragement.
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### Flashcard 12
Q: What is feedforward?
A: Future-oriented guidance that expands possibilities and prompts improvement.
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### Flashcard 13
Q: What is the Constrained Action Hypothesis?
A: Conscious control disrupts automatic motor processes → choking.
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### Flashcard 14
Q: What is the Explicit Processing Hypothesis?
A: Skilled athletes choke when they revert to step-by-step conscious control.
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### Flashcard 15
Q: What is the Central Governor Model?
A: The brain regulates performance to protect the body from harm.
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### Flashcard 16
Q: What is the Psychobiological Model?
A: Endurance performance is limited by perception of effort, not physiology.
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### Flashcard 17
Q: What is deliberate practice (Ericsson)?
A: Effortful, feedback-rich, goal-directed practice designed to improve performance.
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### Flashcard 18
Q: What is the 10-year rule?
A: It takes ~10 years or 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to reach expertise.
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### Flashcard 19
Q: What are open vs. closed skills?
A:
- Open: unpredictable environment (soccer dribbling)
- Closed: stable environment (free throw)
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### Flashcard 20
Q: What are discrete, serial, and continuous skills?
A:
- Discrete: clear start/end (pitch)
- Serial: sequence of discrete skills (triple jump)
- Continuous: no clear start/end (cycling)
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# ✅ SECTION 2 — Behaviorism & Coaching
### Flashcard 21
Q: What is the Law of Effect (Thorndike)?
A: Behaviors followed by satisfying consequences are strengthened.
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### Flashcard 22
Q: What is positive reinforcement?
A: Adding a reward to increase behavior.
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### Flashcard 23
Q: What is negative reinforcement?
A: Removing an aversive stimulus to increase behavior.
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### Flashcard 24
Q: What is punishment?
A: Adding an aversive stimulus to decrease behavior.
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### Flashcard 25
Q: What is response cost?
A: Removing a positive stimulus to decrease behavior.
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### Flashcard 26
Q: What are side effects of punishment?
A: Fear, anxiety, resentment, avoidance, aggression modeling.
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### Flashcard 27
Q: What is the Ulysses Contract?
A: A pre-commitment strategy to prevent future self-sabotage.
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# ✅ SECTION 3 — Motivation & Goal Setting
### Flashcard 28
Q: What are the three types of goals?
A: Outcome, performance, process.
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### Flashcard 29
Q: What is the SMARTS framework?
A: Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic, Timely, Self-determined.
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### Flashcard 30
Q: What is the paradox of goal setting?
A: Goals improve performance but can increase anxiety, rigidity, and cheating.
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### Flashcard 31
Q: What is Self-Efficacy Theory (Bandura)?
A: Confidence in one’s ability to perform a specific task.
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### Flashcard 32
Q: What are the sources of self-efficacy?
A: Performance accomplishments, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, physiological/emotional states.
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### Flashcard 33
Q: What is Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan)?
A: Motivation depends on autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
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### Flashcard 34
Q: What is harmonious vs. obsessive passion (Vallerand)?
A:
- Harmonious: flexible, healthy
- Obsessive: rigid, guilt-driven, burnout risk
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### Flashcard 35
Q: What is the Thanotic Drive?
A: Freud’s concept of a death instinct driving risky or self-destructive behavior.
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### Flashcard 36
Q: What is a growth mindset (Dweck)?
A: Belief that ability is malleable and can improve with effort.
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### Flashcard 37
Q: What is a fixed mindset?
A: Belief that ability is innate and unchangeable.
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### Flashcard 38
Q: What is Achievement Goal Theory (Nicholls)?
A: Task vs. ego orientation determines how athletes define success.
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### Flashcard 39
Q: What is a mastery climate?
A: Emphasizes effort, learning, improvement.
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### Flashcard 40
Q: What is an ego climate?
A: Emphasizes comparison, winning, outperforming others.
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# ✅ SECTION 4 — Social Psychology & Group Dynamics
### Flashcard 41
Q: What is cohesion?
A: A group’s tendency to stick together for task or social reasons.
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### Flashcard 42
Q: What are the two types of cohesion?
A: Task cohesion and social cohesion.
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### Flashcard 43
Q: What is the Ringelmann Effect?
A: Individual effort decreases as group size increases.
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### Flashcard 44
Q: What is social loafing?
A: Reduced effort when working in groups vs. alone.
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### Flashcard 45
Q: What are roles and norms?
A:
- Roles: expected behaviors
- Norms: shared standards for behavior
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### Flashcard 46
Q: What are Tuckman’s stages of group development?
A: Forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning.
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### Flashcard 47
Q: What is the RAE (Relative Age Effect)?
A: Older athletes in an age cohort are overrepresented due to maturity advantages.
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### Flashcard 48
Q: What is the DMSP (Côté)?
A: Sampling → specializing → investment years.
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# ✅ SECTION 5 — Flow, Peak Performance, Positive Psychology
### Flashcard 49
Q: What is flow (Csikszentmihalyi)?
A: A state of complete absorption where action and awareness merge.
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### Flashcard 50
Q: What conditions create flow?
A: Clear goals, immediate feedback, challenge-skill balance.
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### Flashcard 51
Q: What is the paradox of control?
A: Athletes feel in control despite not consciously controlling actions.
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### Flashcard 52
Q: What is the orthogonal model of flow?
A: Flow depends on both challenge and skill, independently.
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### Flashcard 53
Q: What is PERMA (Seligman)?
A: Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment.
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### Flashcard 54
Q: What is psychological safety?
A: Feeling safe to take risks without fear of embarrassment.
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### Flashcard 55
Q: What is self-actualization (Maslow)?
A: Realizing one’s full potential.
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# ✅ SECTION 6 — Stress, Anxiety, Arousal
### Flashcard 56
Q: What is Selye’s GAS?
A: Alarm → resistance → exhaustion.
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### Flashcard 57
Q: What are the types of anxiety?
A: State, trait, cognitive, somatic.
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### Flashcard 58
Q: What is Drive Theory?
A: Arousal increases dominant response strength.
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### Flashcard 59
Q: What is the Inverted-U Hypothesis?
A: Moderate arousal → best performance.
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### Flashcard 60
Q: What is IZOF (Hanin)?
A: Each athlete has a unique optimal anxiety zone.
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### Flashcard 61
Q: What is Catastrophe Theory?
A: High cognitive anxiety + high arousal → sudden performance collapse.
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### Flashcard 62
Q: What is Cue Utilization Theory (Easterbrook)?
A: High arousal → attentional narrowing.
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### Flashcard 63
Q: What is the matching hypothesis?
A: Match anxiety type to relaxation strategy.
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### Flashcard 64
Q: What are somatic vs. cognitive relaxation methods?
A:
- Somatic: breathing, PMR
- Cognitive: meditation, autogenic training
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# ✅ SECTION 7 — Imagery, Self-Talk, Attention
### Flashcard 65
Q: What is imagery?
A: Using all senses to create or recreate experiences in the mind.
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### Flashcard 66
Q: What are imagery perspectives?
A: Internal (first-person) and external (third-person).
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### Flashcard 67
Q: What is ironic effects phenomenon?
A: Trying not to think about something makes it more likely to occur.
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### Flashcard 68
Q: What is associative vs. dissociative attention?
A:
- Associative: monitoring bodily sensations
- Dissociative: distraction from bodily sensations
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### Flashcard 69
Q: What is inattentional blindness?
A: Missing obvious cues due to focused attention elsewhere.
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### Flashcard 70
Q: What is the cocktail party phenomenon?
A: Ability to detect personally relevant stimuli in noisy environments.
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### Flashcard 71
Q: What is self-talk?
A: Internal dialogue that influences thoughts, emotions, and performance.
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### Flashcard 72
Q: What are types of self-talk?
A: Motivational, instructional, positive, negative.
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# ✅ SECTION 8 — Injury, Pain, Rehabilitation
### Flashcard 73
Q: What is the Stress-Injury Model (Andersen & Williams)?
A: Stress → attentional disruption + muscle tension → increased injury risk.
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### Flashcard 74
Q: What are the types of pain?
A: Acute, chronic, benign, harmful, performance, injury.
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### Flashcard 75
Q: What is athletic identity?
A: Degree to which an athlete identifies with the athlete role.
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### Flashcard 76
Q: What is the Cognitive Appraisal Model?
A: Injury response depends on how the athlete interprets the injury.
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### Flashcard 77
Q: What are the phases of rehabilitation?
A:
1. Injury/illness
2. Rehabilitation & recovery
3. Return to sport
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### Flashcard 78
Q: What is secondary gain?
A: Unconscious prolonging of injury due to benefits (attention, reduced pressure).
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### Flashcard 79
Q: What is malingering?
A: Conscious exaggeration of injury for external gain.
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### Flashcard 80
Q: What are dissociation vs. association pain strategies?
A:
- Dissociation: distraction
- Association: focusing on sensations, acceptance
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# ✅ SECTION 9 — Self-Fulfilling Prophecy & Expectation Effects
### Flashcard 81
Q: What is the Pygmalion Effect?
A: Others’ high expectations → improved performance.
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### Flashcard 82
Q: What is the Galatea Effect?
A: Self-expectations → improved performance.
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### Flashcard 83
Q: What is the Golem Effect?
A: Low expectations → poor performance.
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### Flashcard 84
Q: What is the Expectation-Performance Process?
A: Coach expectations → coach behavior → athlete behavior → performance.
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# ✅ SECTION 10 — Miscellaneous
### Flashcard 85
Q: What is nature vs. nurture?
A: Debate over genetic vs. environmental influences on behavior.
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### Flashcard 86
Q: What is Rickrolling?
A: A humorous internet bait-and-switch using Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
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# ✅ You now have a complete flashcard set covering the entire course.
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