Affect‐related performance zones: An idiographic method for linking affect to performance

Abstract

A new method for establishing distinct affect‐related performance zones (APZs) using an ordinal logistic regression is presented. The method is illustrated on three female collegiate tennis players observed during the 2001/2002 collegiate tennis season. APZs were determined for arousal and pleasantness dimensions of affect and their perceived functionality for performance. Once APZs were established for each player across the entire season, affect dimensions and their perceived functionality for each game were profiled separately to classify performance quality for each match (i.e., second‐order APZ). After each match the players were administered the positive‐negative affect scale (PNA; Hanin, 2000) and the flow state scale (FSS; Jackson & Marsh, 1996). Results revealed that APZs were found to be distinct and individual. When APZ was “primarily in the optimal zone,” affect was perceived as helpful to performance. However, during “mostly moderate, somewhat poor” APZ, affect was perceived as somewhat helpful and pleasant, but also to some extent unpleasant and harmful. Furthermore, flow was experienced to a greater extent during optimal and near optimal APZs. Autotelic experience and possessing clear goals were the dimensions of strongest intensity during primarily optimal and somewhat moderate/optimal APZs. The article offers both researchers and practitioners a convenient new direction in the study and implementation of affect‐performance linkage through the use of nonintrusive measures. It emphasizes an idiographic approach to the study of affect in sport as a sound alternative to the correlational methods, which were limited in both theoretical and practical aspects.

Keywords:

• affect
• competition
• performance zones
• flow