Most people might find it difficult to believe how an athlete’s feeling of nervousness can

be instrumental in winning a marathon. I, on the other hand, believe that a bit of tension
can motivate a person to act towards obtaining a goal.

There are a lot research studies that show the correlation between arousal and
performance. Merriam Webster defines arousal as to rouse or stimulate to action and
performance as the manner of reacting to stimuli or simply defined as behavior. Good
performance is one of the essential things we must have. Performance plays an
important role especially for those people who make greater use of their psychological
skills for physical development. Physically our body is capable of a lot more than what
we can imagine. Common conception is that good performance can be obtained by
seeking or striving for motivation to affect their performance and influence the level of
their interest and effort given to tasks. Although this can be true, there’s another reason
that can affect the performance of an individual. It can depend on the level of
psychological arousal as stated earlier.

Robert Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson’s Yerksen-Dodson (1908) law proposes
that psychological arousal sustains one attitude and performance. Therefore, they came
up with the idea about the relationship between arousal and performance. It was proven
by having an experiment on rats using mild electrical shock for them motivate and
complete a maze, but when too much electrical shock was used, the rats scampered
around and find its way to escape. Through this experiment, they concluded that
maintaining an optimum level of arousal is needed to improve one’s performance,
because too much can negatively affect the performance.

Psychologists, Dr. Michael Japter and Dr. Ken Smith conducted Reversal theory that
also explains the relationship between arousal and performance. It stated that it
depends on an individual's interpretation of their arousal on how it will affect the
performance. Therefore, for the performance to affect positively, arousal should  also
illustrate as a positive . And if the arousal thought as negatively, the same goes with its
performance. Moreover, It usually focuses on the dynamic qualities of human
experience reflecting their motivational style and the meaning they attach to a given
situation at a given time.

In CannonBard theory conducted by Walter Bradford Cannon, a psychologist and Philip

Bard, doctoral student of Cannon’s. They hypothesized that an individual reacts to a
stimulus and experience the associated emotion at the same time. More specifically, it
is suggested that resulting in a physiological reaction happens when emotion results
after the thalamus sends a message to the brain in response to a stimulus.

Given those theories above, the relationship between arousal and performance is
deeply explained by different studies. Consequently, understanding their correlation can
be defined accordingly to its different situation and level. Moreover, it gives us
knowledge to know different reasons, especially when it comes about improving
ourselves, not only physically but also emotionally.
Bibliography:

Robert Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson (1908) Yerkes-Dodson theory. Retrieved
from: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-yerkes-dodson-law-2796027

Kendra Cherry (2017) The Arousal theory of Motivation Retrieved from:

https://www.verywellmind.com/the-arousal-theory-of-motivation-2795380

Dr. Michael Japter and Dr. Ken Smith (1982) Reversal theory. Retrieved from:
http://www.dankalia.com/mind/dt/_pschlg/ReversalTheory/RT_TheoryIntro.htm

Nugent, Pam M.S.(2013) Reversal Theory. Retrieved from:

https://psychologydictionary.org/reversal-theory/

Walter Bradford Cannon and Philip Bard (1920) Cannon-Bard theory. Retrieved from:
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-cannon-bard-theory-2794965

Cannon–Bard Theory of Emotion (2013). Retrieved from:

https://www.psychologynoteshq.com/cannon-bard-theory-of-emotion/