Anxiety Interpretation (Anxiety Direction) vs Reversal Theory in Sport Psychology

I received my copy of The Sport and Exercise Scientist* in the post today, and gave the cover the usual cursory glance (it is actually good, but I just don't have much time to read it). My scan picked up an interesting question: "Is studying anxiety interpretations useful for sport and exercise psychologists?". So I thumbed through and found a rather interesting debate between two sport psychologists, staged by email and reprinted for the benefit of others. The debate gave me heart and caused me frustration, because while it opened up an important avenue for research and practice, they both missed the fact that a theory has been in place for over 25 years that adequately addresses all of the issues raised. That theory is Reversal Theory (Apter).

So you have my conclusion. Let's rewind so that those of you that don't have access to The Sport and Exercise Scientist can get a flavour of the debate.

The protagonist was Dr. Steve Mellalieu, and the respondent Professor Andy Lane.

Mellalieu asserted that the study of anxiety interpretation represented a significant improvement in the ability of sport psychology to turn theory into effective practice. Anxiety interpretation or 'direction' refers to whether an athlete perceives anxiety to be 'facilitative' or 'debilitative' to performance.

He focused on the implicit tendency for non-directional approaches to anxiety to lead to interventions that work at a symptomatic level (which I believe to be true), stating "anxiety symptoms viewed as "faciliative" or "debilitative" has not only changed the way researchers approach how elite athletes successfully manage competition stress, but has also fundamentally altered the way in which practitioners work with performers experience compeititve anxiety" and that "traditional interventions aimed at symptom reduction have been found to be inappropriate for sports requiring high activation states and subsequent mental and physical readiness for competition".

OK. Let's put aside stress for a moment. I don't know why it has slipped into the discussion, as it is a separate construct which may or may not be caused by anxiety.

I almost completely agree with this. Just because someone experiences anxiety does not mean that arousal reduction is the appropriate path to take.

Indeed, Reversal Theory describes 16 primary emotions. 8 of those are influenced by physiological arousal (has arousal fallen out of favour as a label, because Mallalieu used several other terms to refer to it?).

So what? Well, Anxiety is experienced in the Serious (Telic, to use the academic terminology) & Conformist motivational states with high arousal (below).



What this means is that the options open for intervention are:
a) Lower physiological arousal, thus bringing the athlete 'down the curve' towards relaxation
b) Facilitate a 'reversal' from the serious (telic) to the playful (paratelic) state, perhaps through a cognitive intervention such as reframing, thus changing the emotional experience to excitement. Another reversal might be from the conformist to the rebellious (negativistic) states, which will be experienced as anger. This might seem counter-intuitive but it may be what John McEnroe used to do - get angry to break out of another emotional state
c) Change 'focus' to another pair of states - I don't show these states, but the focusing on the controllables (using process goals) for example can bring the mastery state into focus, and while there may still be a level of anxiety, it goes into the 'background' (I'll talk about protective frames later - but this might also increase confidence and facilitate the experience of arousal as excitement).

OK. So the point here is that this theoretical approach has been accessible to sport psychologists for at least 2 decades and more.

Both Mellalieu and Lane agreed that facilitative anxiety is a contradiction in terms. Anxiety is a negative emotional experience. Simple as that. Mellalieu argued that it could be interpreted in positive ways. I don't doubt that - he mentions as a 'signal' that one is ready to perform, for example.

But I agree with Lane's assertion that "an athlete reporting high scores of facilitative cognitive anxiety cannot be displaying anxiety alone, but a different emotion, and one not assessed by the directional scale". Bingo! Indeed Mellalieu unwittingly agrees:

"athletes who interpret symptoms associated with anxiety as facilitative, also tend to be simultaneously confident and excited".

Hmm. Anxious and excited? There's a lot of research that suggests this is not possible (I'm not an academic and don't have references at my fingertips but there are some starting points at the foot of this post). Not at the same exact point in time, that is. However, in 'reversals' happen instantaneously, and in some cases frequently, so that an athlete who is oscillating between two motivational states might report feeling anxious and excited. But not technically at the same time.

Confidence is important here too. Yet again, Reversal Theory has an explanation for this. There is a concept in Reversal Theory (yes, it is a multifaceted theory and it does take some work, which I'd provocatively hypothesize is why it isn't more widely used in sport psychology) called 'protective frames'. The 'confidence frame' is one of these, and when it is present, an athlete may be aware of the threat that makes them anxious, but in fact experience a pleasant emotion - excitement. This is akin to the skydiver who is terrified as he jumps from the aeroplane, but when the parachute opens loses all sense of fear and instead experiences exhilaration.

Ok. Back to the arguments.

I think that Andy Lane is bang on in principle. He calls for sport psychologists to drop CSAI-2 as a tool, and argues for the need to consider the impact of beliefs and regulatory processes on anxiety as one of a range of emotions.

Again, Reversal Theory fits the bill. The theory revolves not around anxiety or any other emotion, but around motivational states (also referred to as metamotivational states or motivational styles) which are like lenses through which we see the world, placing meaning and motivation at the heart of emotional experience.

Perhaps most of all I agreed with Andy Lane when he wrote "athletes don't understand the notion of anxiety direction". You know what? Neither do I. But athletes, coaches and managers get the basic structure of Reversal Theory and can relate it to their experience, making it and its diagnostic instrument, the Apter Motivational Style Profile, a powerful coaching tool.

So I hope that I've made a case for Reversal Theory. I was introduced to it by Jonathan Males, and started talking to Michael Apter whom I found to be a kind and fascinating man. As an indirect result, I ended up working for Apter International (though I've moved on now). I don't buy Reversal Theory because I worked for Apter though. I worked for Apter because I had used the theory in my work as a sport psychologist and found it to be an the antidote to the problems that stimulated this debate - the lack of transferrability of a lot of sport psychology theory and research to practice. Think of it as my Victor Kayam (the bloke from the Remington ads that liked them so much, he bought the company) moment - only I didn't buy the company.

But the main reason for posting this is my frustration that after years and years, sport psychology still treats Reversal Theory as a footnote in the anxiety literature. It's more than that, but rather than engaging with it, sport psychology tries to reinvent the wheel, and come up with clunky and self-contradicting constructs.

What's more, Reversal Theory has been used successfully in clinical psychology, smoking cessation, psychotherapy, exercise psychology, organisation performance, management development, consumer marketing and political lobbying among many other things (for a full bibliography check out the Reversal Theory Society)

I've shared a case study that you might find useful, and an introduction to Reversal Theory. But please, let's get some debate going on this. I will email this to both Steve Mallelieu and Andy Lane, and perhaps they will join in.

But we've also got a number of 'experts' on Reversal Theory on iStadia who are at least (mostly more) knowledgeable than I am: Michael Apter himself, Jonathan Males, Phil Moore, Gareth Lewis, Marie Shelton, Michelle Pain. Jo Thatcher and Jennifer Tucker (apologies if I've missed anyone!).

* The Sport and Exercise Scientist is the official publication of The British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences

Useful reading:

Kerr, J.H. (2001). Counselling Athletes: Applying Reversal Theory. London: Routledge.

Apter, M.J. (2001). Motivational Styles in Everyday Life: A Guide to Reversal Theory. Washington: APA.

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Rob Robson
Co-founder, iStadia.com