Sports Medicine Workbook Activity: Operational Definitions (modified from Crawford & Christensen, 1995)
1. Anxiety is a particular mental state of the human which is characterized by the increased concern of particular threat, opportunity, or entity regardless whether the object is real or not. The anxiety is caused by real issue if it cannot be resolved immediately, or positive outcomes of resolution are not guaranteed.
2. According to The Oxford Dictionary of Sports Science & Medicine by M. Kent (2006), anxiety is a subjective feeling of apprehension and heightened physiological tension (n.p.).
3. a. Anxiety level may be estimated by measuring the sweat secretion level. As the person is nervous, that is likely to result in a high temperature of the body, and the higher temperature is, the more sweat is produced. Another technique is blood pressure measurement. The psychological and physiological stress increases heartbeat rate and contracts vessels, hence the blood pressure increases. The examination of the skin for reddening and pulse measurement is the third way to examine the person for anxiety.
b. First of all, the person should produce many sudden movements as he or she is concerned about something but cannot influence the cause of the stress or remove the tension. The second measurement indicator is explicit
aggressiveness. Depending on temperament, the person is likely to react to a stressful stance in any of these ways. The third anxiety diagnosing technique is a lack of attention and concentration. As far as emotional concerns cause psychological and physiological influence on the mind, the person may have difficulties focusing on something beyond the cause of anxiety.
c. The anxiety may be measured by asking whether the thoughts of the examined person revolve around the particular object. If the individual answers positively, it may indicate anxiety. However, emotional or irritable negative answer reveals the anxiety too.
Another examination question is whether the person may feel him- or herself miserable suddenly without the direct cause. Such episode of depression may signalize the suppressed stress, so the positive answer indicates anxiety. The third question is whether the person has felt that surrounding items and individuals are unreal. As the constant pressure is likely to stimulate the person to hide within the mind, the perception ability may be affected.
4. Anxiety is the stance in which the person is very focused on particular object or matter, has sudden episodes of depression, and sometimes feel surrounding unreal. On the behavioral level, anxiety is characterized by sudden uncontrolled movements, aggressiveness and lack of attention. On the …
