Andy Lane and Tracey Devonport School of Sport, Performing Arts and Leisure

1. Can anger and tension be helpful? Relationships between mood states and emotional intelligence during optimal performance Andy Lane and Tracey Devonport School of Sport, Performing Arts and Leisure Emotion Regulation in Others and Self (EROS) Research Network

2. Introduction Goal-pursuit activities such as athletic competition is associated with intense emotions (Terry & Lane, 2000)

3. Introduction Relationships between mood and human performance have been examined in a variety of domains Work (Lee & Allen, 2002; Eisenberger et al., 2001), Creative tasks (Grawitch et al., 2003) Education (Haines et al., 1997; Lane, Terry, Beedie, & Stevens, 2004) Sport (Beedie, Terry, & Lane, 2000; Totterdell & Leach, 2001).

4. General trends Pleasant emotion lead to good performance Unpleasant emotion lead to poor performance Switching effect: Unpleasant emotion good performance Pleasant emotion inhibit performance (Beedie et al., 2000; Hanin, 2000; Schwarz & Bless, 1991)

5. Emotions (see Hanin, 2000) Helpful (P+) Energetic Charged Certain Motivated Purposeful Willing Cheerful Enthusiastic Alert Harmful (P-) Easy-doing Tranquil Satisfied Overjoyed Excited Pleasant Comfortable Calm Positive Negative • Harmful: (N-) • Tired • Sluggish • Unwilling • Uncertain • Downhearted • Depressed • Distressed • Afraid Helpful (N+) Tense Dissatisfied Vehement Attacking Intense Angry Irritated Nervous Provoked Restless * Hanin & Lukkarila, 1999

6. Figure 1: Conceptual Model of Mood and Performance Relationships (Lane & Terry, 2000) Increased Anger Increased Tension Debilitative Effects Depressed mood Increased Confusion Increased Fatigue Reduced Facilitative Effects Reduced Vigour Vigour Facilitative Effects Fatigue No Depressive symptoms Debilitative Effects Confusion Anger Curvilinear Effects Tension

7. Depression associated with unpleasant emotions: increased anger, confusion, fatigue, and tension Unpleasant emotions tend to intercorrelate and effect performance deleteriously (see Lane, 2007, Lane, Beedie, Stevens, 2005) Support for Lane and Terry (2000) model Increased Anger Increased Tension Debilitative Effects Depressed mood Increased Confusion Increased Fatigue Reduced Facilitative Effects Reduced Vigour

8. Figure 1: Conceptual Model of Mood and Performance Relationships (Lane & Terry, 2000) • Anger and tension associate with self-confidence and positively influence performance when experienced independently of depression (Lane, 2001, 2007) Vigour Facilitative Effects Fatigue No Depressive symptoms Debilitative Effects Confusion Anger Curvilinear Effects Tension

9. Beliefs on the functionality of emotions Individuals develop beliefs on the influence of emotions through experience (Baumeister et al., 2007) Individuals actively try to generate unpleasant emotion if they believe it is helpful for goal pursuit (Tamir et al., 2009) Regulation skills related to generation of unpleasant emotion important

10. Emotion regulation Emotion regulation expectancy related to pre-competition emotion and predicted performance (Totterdell & Leach, 2001)

11. Emotional Intelligence “The ability to carry out accurate reasoning about emotions and the ability to use emotions and emotional knowledge to enhance thought” (Mayer et al., 2008, p. 111) . Meta-analysis results indicate emotional intelligence is linked with enhanced: Health (Schutte, Malouff, Thorsteinsson, Bhullar, & Rooke, 2007) Performance variables (Van Rooy & Viswesvaran, 2004)

12. Emotional intelligence in sport Validity of the Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS, see Lane et al., 2009). EIS scores related to psychological skills usage (Lane, Lowther, Devonport et al., 2009)

13. Purpose To examine the moderating effect of depressed mood on relationships between anger , tension, calmness, happiness and trait emotional intelligence in relation to optimal performance.

14. Purpose

15. Method Male athletes (N = 221) completed the Brunel Mood Scale (BRUMS: Terry et al., 2003) to retrospectively assess emotional states experienced during an optimal performance. A trait emotional intelligence scale was also completed (Emotional Intelligence Scale; Schutte, et al., 1998).

16. Data analysis To examine the proposed moderating effect of depression, participants were separated into a no-depression group and a depressed mood group. Participants reported mild feelings of depressed mood and it is important to emphasise that no clinical inference is offered. Low scores of depressed mood is the norm profile in goal striving activities including sport (see Lane & Terry, 2000)

17. Results

18. Relationships differed between groups.

19. Discussion

20. Discussion Individuals develop learning rules on the influence of emotion on behaviour (Baumeister et al., 2007; Hanin, 2003) Tamir et al. (2009) indicated that individuals can actively strive to generate unpleasant emotions, if they perceive these generate the appropriate action tendencies.

21. Future research Research should look at efforts made to get athletes in right frame of mind, especially if emotion regulation is effortful (Gaillot et al., 2007). Research should investigate strategies used by athletes to generate emotions associated with optimal performance.

22. Conclusions Findings indicate that athletes report high activation unpleasant emotions (anger and tension) as helpful for performance when coupled with happiness, vigour and high emotional intelligence.

23. ESRC Programme Grant2008-2012 A Collaborative Research Network Emotional Regulation of Others and the Self (EROS) Peter Totterdell Warren Mansell Brian Parkinson David Holman Pasco Fearon Thomas Webb Tom Farrow Andy Lane Paschal Shearan Clinical – Developmental – Neuroscience Work – Social – Health - Sports