Abstract
Strategies for addressing anxiety-related decrements in performance have been implemented across a variety of domains, including Sex, Sport, and Stage. In this review, we (1) iterate the dominant anxiety-related remediation strategies within each of these domains; (2) identify over-lapping and domain-specific strategies; and (3) attempt to unify the conceptualization of performance-related anxiety across these three areas under the information-processing framework of the Reflective/deliberative—Impulsive/automatic Model (RIM). Despite both diversity and similarity in remediation approaches across domains, we found that many strategies appear to share the common goal of maintaining a dominant automatic style of information processing in high performance demand situations. We then describe how various remediation strategies might hypothetically fit within the RIM framework and its subcomponents, identifying each intervention as falling into one or more broad categories related to achieving and/or maintaining dominance in automatic information processing. We conclude by affirming the benefit of adopting a unifying information-processing framework for the conceptualization of performance-related anxiety, as a way of both guiding future cross- and inter- disciplinary research and elucidating effective remediation models that share common pathways/mechanisms to improved performance.
Highlights
Published: 27 September 2021Anxiety has long been associated with performance problems in a variety of fields and, not surprisingly, remediation often includes anxiety-reduction techniques such as cognitive reframing, relaxation, mindfulness, emotion management, and other coping strategies to address the problem [1,2,3,4,5]
As part of their review, Rowland and van Lankveld [16] established a roadmap for future directions, one of which was a comparison of the commonalities and divergences among intervention strategies, and the purpose of the present paper in which we focus on remediation/treatment strategies for overcoming performance-related anxiety in the fields of Sex, Sport, and Stage
We explore whether the Reflective-Impulsive Model (RIM) might provide an overarching framework for research on and treatment of anxiety-based performance issues across the domains of Sex, Sport, and Stage, with the central premise that a productive psychological model assists in (a) understanding, (b) prediction, and (c) control [116]
Summary
When the performance involves collaborators, the success of the team, group, or partner can be adversely affected [14], with evaluation from partners or teammates having a profound effect [15] Such anxiety undoubtedly occurs in other activities (e.g., academic test taking, work environments); situations involving Sex, Sport, and Stage all represent interpersonal performance domains (unlike test taking or math anxiety). All three have investigated how anxiety, cognitive distortion, loss of attentional focus, and negative framing interfered with performance by shifting focus from automatic processing to a more deliberative/reflective style of processing In response to this shared conceptualization, Rowland and van Lankveld [16] suggested that the understanding of performance-related anxiety might benefit from a unified conceptual model and common language that could enhance research, practice, and remediation across the three fields. This model, as applied to the dynamics of performance anxiety in Sex, Sport, and Stage (Figure 1), postulates that both impulsive/reflexive and deliberative/reflective information processing contribute to performance outcomes, but that the relative contribution of each mode is affected by various situational, task, or dispositional factors (affecting performance anxiety), which in turn can affect/alter performance
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