section_path: Society and culture/Athletics
section_name: Athletics
paragraph_text: Athletics
  
  In the world of athletics, fear is often used as a means of motivation to not fail. This situation involves using fear in a way that increases the chances of a positive outcome. In this case, the fear that is being created is initially a cognitive state to the receiver. This initial state is what generates the first response of the athlete, this response generates a possibility of fight or flight reaction by the athlete (receiver), which in turn will increase or decrease the possibility of success or failure in the certain situation for the athlete. The amount of time that the athlete has to determine this decision is small but it is still enough time for the receiver to make a determination through cognition. Even though the decision is made quickly, the decision is determined through past events that have been experienced by the athlete. The results of these past events will determine how the athlete will make his cognitive decision in the split second that he or she has.
  
  Fear of failure as described above has been studied frequently in the field of sport psychology. Many scholars have tried to determine how often fear of failure is triggered within athletes, as well as what personalities of athletes most often choose to use this type of motivation. Studies have also been conducted to determine the success rate of this method of motivation.
  
  Murray's Exploration in Personal (1938) was one of the first studies that actually identified fear of failure as an actual motive to avoid failure or to achieve success. His studies suggested that inavoidance, the need to avoid failure, was found in many college-aged men during the time of his research in 1938. This was a monumental finding in the field of psychology because it allowed other researchers to better clarify how fear of failure can actually be a determinant of creating achievement goals as well as how it could be used in the actual act of achievement.
  
  In the context of sport, a model was created by R.S. Lazarus in 1991 that uses the cognitive-motivational-relational theory of emotion.
  
  It holds that Fear of Failure results when beliefs or cognitive schemas about aversive consequences of failing are activated by situations in which failure is possible. These belief systems predispose the individual to make appraisals of threat and experience the state anxiety that is associated with Fear of Failure in evaluative situations.
  
  Another study was done in 2001 by Conroy, Poczwardowski, and Henschen that created five aversive consequences of failing that have been repeated over time. The five categories include (a) experiencing shame and embarrassment, (b) devaluing one's self-estimate, (c) having an uncertain future, (d) important others losing interest, (e) upsetting important others. These five categories can help one infer the possibility of an individual to associate failure with one of these threat categories, which will lead them to experiencing fear of failure.
  
  In summary, the two studies that were done above created a more precise definition of fear of failure, which is "a dispositional tendency to experience apprehension and anxiety in evaluative situations because individuals have learned that failure is associated with aversive consequences".
  
  The author and internet content creator John Green wrote about “ the yips ”—a common colloquialism for a debilitating, often chronic manifestation of athletic anxiety experienced by some professional athletes—in an essay for his podcast and novel The Anthropocene Reviewed. Green discusses famous examples of when athletic anxiety has ruined careers and juxtaposes it with the nature of general anxiety as a whole. Green settles, however, on a conclusion for the essay evoking resilience and hope in the human condition by describing a circumstance where the baseball player Rick Ankiel reset his career back to the minor leagues as an outfielder after getting the yips as a major league pitcher.