Individual Differences in Association between Activation and Performance in Elite Sport Shooters

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the individual differences in the association between activation and performance in a sport shooting task. Arousal in recent studies has been defined as the energetic state at particular time, reflected in electrodermal activity and measured by skin conductance level; and activation as the change in arousal from a resting baseline to the task situation. This approach to arousal and activation implicates no association between arousal-performance and highlights the association between activation-performance. Nineteen elite sport shooters (10 females, 9 Males, mean age= 29.9) participated in the study. Skin Conductance level was recorded as the indicator of arousal and scores were recorded as performance measure. The results indicated a negative linear relationship between activation and performance. However, at the individual level, the observed relationship wan neither linear nor consistent; several subjects showed a U and several other showed an inverted-U relationship between variables. The results are discussed in relation to the recent hypothesis separating arousal from activation and the hypothesis explaining the association of arousal and performance.