As emotions are a major influence on skiers’ behavior, this chapter complements what was developed in the neuroscience section.
Understanding emotional responses is of central interest in psychology in recent decades. Emotions encompass multiple facets that involve cognitive, behavioral, and social factors, therefore, it is not a simple task to conceptualize them. They are manifestations that cannot be controlled voluntarily, are immediate and difficult to verbalize, communicate, and understand. They are individual psychophysiological and behavioral phenomena that have a rapid onset and a short duration.
Some definitions of emotions are: “Bodily changes that directly follow the perception of an event and the feeling of those changes that are occurring is the emotion” (James). “Emotions are the subjective experience of affectively charged states of consciousness” (Le Doux). “They are responses triggered by parts of the brain to the body and from some parts to others” (Damasio). “They are states triggered by gratifications or by punishments” (Rolls). “Operational behaviors, physiological changes, and evaluative experiences triggered by external or mental events because of the meaning of those events” (Frijda). “Felt tendencies toward something evaluated as good or avoidance of something evaluated as bad” (Arnold). “Emotion arises from the interpretation of the situation itself” (Danzer). “They are impulses in which a tendency to act is implicit” (Goleman).
Emotions are generally defined using two criteria: valence corresponds to the good or bad of the emotion (positive or negative); and intensity refers to the level of sensation, high or low, of the emotion. They are classified as well as asthenic or passive (inhibit or decrease activity), and stenic or active (increase activity and arousal).
With respect to the consequences of the emotion that are related to the psychic, we observe those of exaltation (joy or intense anger), which generate a precipitation of thoughts; and those of inhibition, blocking the mental activity (confusion of the consciousness of the situation, decrease of the will, incapacity to reflect, freezing of the attention towards the present stimulus); and the physiological consequences in terms of increase or decrease of the blood pressure, palpitations, sudden nervous movements, muscular contraction.
Emotions are multidimensional experiences composed of three functional systems: cognitive, behavioral and physiological which generate subjective, expressive, and adaptive reactions of different intensity.
As for the cognitive functions attributed to emotions, the psychologist Johnmarshall Reeve proposes three:
- Adaptive functions prepare our organism to adapt to our actions that, by means of activation or inhibition mechanisms, we must perform according to the environmental conditions of the moment through rapid and automatic processes, generally unconscious.
- Motivational functions stimulate or decrease the stimulation to reach a determined objective. They are directly related to attention, focusing it towards the selective search of action possibilities, but also distracting it. They also play a fundamental role in accelerating our decision-making process; therefore, it is important to know how to recognize one’s own emotions in order to make a subsequent decision. With respect to the cognitive aspect, they collaborate in the storage of events in long-term memory: emotionally charged events are remembered longer and in greater detail than emotionally neutral ones.
- The social functions of emotion contain a predictive component allowing others to minimally intuit how we are going to act.
When the emotion emerges it does so suddenly and is neither voluntary nor reasoned. Because of its rapid onset it is difficult to avoid, so it is said that it can be reduced by anticipation, but it cannot be controlled. The trigger of the emotion is usually a need or the pursuit of a goal of importance to us, i.e. an interest that would be the origin of the emotional experience. This personal interest includes our psychophysical integrity, bodily protection, or self-esteem.
According to the psychologist John Watson, proponent of behaviorism, there are important individual differences of emotional reaction between people in terms of verbal-visceral-motor organization. According to this proposal, some skiers going through an emotional state tend to verbalization, others to react through visceral sensation, and others to motor reaction, but there can also be a combination and predominance among these three types of reactions. As for the verbal expression of particularly intense emotion, some do not speak, others utter a few words, and some others emit more or less long sentences.
According to Wilhelm Wundt, physiologist, physician, psychologist, and philosopher considered the precursor of experimental psychology, the Three-dimensional theory is based on the idea that emotion is a combined experience of three dimensions: pleasure-displeasure, tension-relaxation, and excitement-calmness. Although it is complex to establish a precise classification of all emotions according to their dimensions, it seems that the pleasant-unpleasantness or pleasure-displeasure dimension would be a common characteristic of all emotional reactions.
The double pleasure-displeasure principle is part of the set of psychic activity by which we tend to seek pleasure and avoid displeasure. We use our emotional structure to know whether the situation we are facing is favorable or not, which collaborates with our adaptation to the environment and survival.
We use this mechanism as a compass to orient ourselves by seeking favorable situations, which generate positive emotions (satisfaction, joy) and avoiding unfavorable ones which generate negative emotions (disappointment, sorrow, anguish). For example, before descending an unfamiliar slope we first identify its salient features and, almost simultaneously, emotions linked to the new situation are generated. If they are pleasant, it means that we value it positively and promote the approach. If, on the other hand, we feel nervous or forced, it indicates that our emotional mechanism manifests that the situation may harm us, so we promote avoidance.
In other words, by means of emotions we recognize whether the situation is favorable or detrimental, but this functioning may not be effective in estimating it since it is subject to errors due to internal and external circumstances of the environment.
According to psychologist Richard Lazarus, we constantly evaluate our relationship with the environment in terms of the implications for our personal well-being, and the emotions we experience modify the way we perceive the situation. These emotions are based on interpretations and play a decisive role in skiing. They can act as a reinforcement for what we decide to undertake by promoting confidence, but they can also operate as an obstacle causing limitations.
When skiing we tend to constantly evaluate our relationship with the environment according to the consequences it could have on our own well-being. When faced with a new situation, or one that we consider beyond our possibilities, we experience an emotional reaction that depends directly on the evaluation of that situation and what we are capable of doing about it. We quickly and constantly make emotional appraisals of contexts, but we are not aware of this process. This emotional procedure is essential for rational decision making since without it we would be engaged in a continuous analysis of the pros and cons of each decision to be made.
We establish a personal perception of skiing and the emotions we feel emanate from that propensity. Fear impels coping, towards immobilization, or to face the threatening context; while anger, interest, and curiosity generally motivate executory behaviors. Both the ski instructor and the ski coach should not assign too much importance to emotions, but neither should they avoid them. They should be treated as positive psychological mechanisms, avoiding becoming negative instruments that interfere with appropriate behaviors, or that foster disorganized conducts in learners and athletes when facing challenging, motivating, or threatening realities.
The emotional mechanism cannot be controlled but it can be regulated. Faced with a threatening circumstance, it is useless that someone tells us not to be afraid under an altered emotional state. This is reflected when we are a victim of our own emotions, preventing us from reasoning and making intelligent decisions.
One way to decrease the activity of the emotional system is to direct our mind toward what actually needs to be done in the present situation. Paying attention to the ski technique or where is best to make the next turn instead of the threat will activate the cognitive area, allowing us to feel less nervous and thus the fear will tend to diminish.
In conclusion, emotions are inherent to our condition as skiers in situation given that they are present in every moment. We are happy when we ski well; we get angry when the skiing does not turn out as intended; we are afraid of descending a challenging slope; we get anxious when observing a serious accident; and we experience anxiety before starting a race. Emotions are not simply reactions; they are also key components of motivated behavior as we react emotionally to the situation we face.
