Abstract
In this article, the authors describe a new theory, the Evaluative Space Approach to Challenge and Threat (ESACT). Prompted by the Biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat (BPS: Blascovich and Tomaka, 1996) and the development of the Theory of Challenge and Threat States in Athletes (Jones et al., 2009), recent years have witnessed a considerable increase in research examining challenge and threat in sport. This manuscript provides a critical review of the literature examining challenge and threat in sport, tracing its historical development and some of the current empirical ambiguities. To reconcile some of these ambiguities, and utilizing neurobiological evidence associated with approach and avoidance motivation (c.f. Elliot and Covington, 2001), this paper draws upon the Evaluative Space Model (ESM; Cacioppo et al., 1997) and considers the implications for understanding challenge and threat in sport. For example, rather than see challenge and threat as opposite ends of a single bipolar continuum, the ESM implies that individuals could be (1) challenged, (2) threatened, (3) challenged and threatened, or (4) neither challenged or threatened by a particular stimulus. From this perspective, it could be argued that the appraisal of some sport situations as both challenging and threatening could be advantageous, whereas the current literature seems to imply that the appraisal of stress as a threat is maladaptive for performance. The ESACT provides several testable hypotheses for advancing understanding of challenge and threat (in sport) and we describe a number of measures that can be used to examine these hypotheses. In sum, this paper provides a significant theoretical, empirical, and practical contribution to our understanding of challenge and threat (in sport).
Highlights
1992)? The structure of the question implies that evaluative judgments about such disappointing wins (Larsen et al, 2004) fall along a bipolar scale ranging from good to bad and precludes examination of whether the golfer could feel both good and bad (Larsen et al, 2009)
Similar to evaluations of Challenge and Threat, mixed emotions could be assessed in a similar fashion using the Evaluative Space Grid (ESG)
Ambivalence associated with holding mixed evaluations about situations is typically considered discomfiting (Ashforth et al, 2014), and that individuals will seek to resolve this dissonance
Summary
1992)? The structure of the question implies that evaluative judgments about such disappointing wins (Larsen et al, 2004) fall along a bipolar scale ranging from good to bad and precludes examination of whether the golfer could feel both good and bad (Larsen et al, 2009). As individuals move along the continuum from challenge to threat, there is greater sympathetic activity, which is reflected by changes in PEP, which is required in order to overcome the increased afterload (increased total peripheral vascular resistance), which is documented in threat appraisals.
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