Emotional Inteligence And Expected Performance In Sport

Introduction

Performance in sport is determined by both cognitive and noncognitive elements, which interact very closely. The cognitive elements aim to develop the anticipatory capabilities, which depend on many variables (long-term-memory, working-memory and the elaboration between them /LT-WM; knowledge base; decision making etc.). The noncognitive elements can be integrated in the emotional intelligence concept (EI), which, after D. Goleman, it combines 5 emotional and social components (self-consciousness, self-regulatory mechanism, motivation, empathy, social skills). Our study intends to evaluate the level of development of the EI of the athletes and to determine the interactions between the optimal procession of information, the emotional state and the expected performance in sport.

Methods

We applied a questionnaire of evaluation of the EI (adapted by Roco M. after R. Bar-On and D. Goleman) on a group of athletes which act in different sport branches (N=100, average age 24 years, males and females). Afterwards we request the subjects to go over 10 scenarios with different sport situations and to decide what to do in each situation by selecting two relevant argument to sustain their decision. We also request the subjects to describe the emotional state related by each scenario and to estimate on a scale (from 1 to 10) the expected personal performance in such situation.

Results

For the investigated athletes the average EI score was 52 (centile expression); the athletes with high level of the EI tend to process in a correct manner the information and to offer pertinent arguments for their decisions (r= 0.71, p£0.01). The procession of the information is the more so correct as the emotional status of the athletes is better (r= 0.58, p£0.01). Between the expected performance and the emotional status exists a moderate correlation (r= 0.48, p£0.01).

Discussion / Conclusion

In comparison with other Romanian studies, realized on other categories of subjects (teachers, students, engineers etc.) it can be observed that the athletes have a medium level of the EI. By applying a probabilistic approach, a level at least medium of the EI allows rather a correct procession of the information, in the context of the utilization of some efficient mechanism of self-regulation. Between emotion and cognition are laying down connections, with consequences in the plain of the expected performance and probably in the one of the real performance too.

References

[1]. Bar-On R.. (1996). The Era of the EQ: Defining and Assessing Emotional Inteligence, 104^th Annual Convention of APA, Toronto. 

[2]. Goleman D.,(1995). Emotional inteligence, New York,  Bantam Books.

[3]. Roco  M.. (2001). Creativitate si inteligenta emotionala, Iasi, Polirom.

[4]. Miclea M. (2000). Psihologie cognitiva, Iasi, Polirom.