CMPC EXAMINERS 2027 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
SET A+
✔✔Mindfulness based therapy - ✔✔"The awareness that emerges through paying
attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally, to the unfolding
experience moment to moment" (Think JKZ). All mindfulness training programs are
relatively new and research is still sparse in the area.
✔✔Acceptance and Commitment Therapy - ✔✔ACT cultivates mindfulness,
acceptance, cognitive defusion, and other strategies to increase psychological flexibility
and promote behavior change consistent with personal values. 6 core processes:
Acceptance, contact with the present moment, defusion, values, commited action, self-
as context,.
✔✔Compassion Focused Therapy - ✔✔CFT helps individuals develop more affiliative
feelings toward themselves, along with a more compassionate inner voice. (Think Neff)
✔✔Dialectical Behavioural Therapy - ✔✔is a specialized cognitive behavior therapy that
was developed by Linehan (1993) to treat people with emotion-regulation problems,
suicidality, and borderline personality disorder. DBT has 4 stages. Can be useful for
athletes who struggle with emotional dysregulation.
✔✔Systems Theory - ✔✔Within systems theory, individuals and groups are viewed as
their own ecosystem with many moving parts that affect each other. Systems theory is
relevant to sports given the multiple systems (e.g., local team, national team, national
sport organization) involved in this context. This therapy can provide a holistic and
comprehensive way of examining and facilitating change at both an individual and group
level.
✔✔Achievement Motivation Theory - ✔✔At the core of Nicholls' theoretical approach
was the concept that, at any point in time, individuals can be either task-involved or ego-
involved.When task-involved, athletes are focused on their personal effort and
improvement in the tasks that they perform. In contrast, athletes can be ego-involved, or
,focused on how their ability and performance compares to others. Based on 3 factors:
Cognitive development level, goal orientations and motivational climate.
✔✔Self Determination Theory - ✔✔This broad theory was developed to describe why
some individuals thrive in life, find activities interesting, seek challenge, and experience
joy, while others do not. Based on three sub theories:Organismic theory,
Basic psychological needs,
Cognitive evaluation theory. SDT is based upon the importance of intrinsic motivation or
extrinsic motivation.
✔✔Organismic integration (SDT) - ✔✔4 level of extrinsic motivation are at the core of
organismic integration. External regulation, introjected regulation, identified regulation,
integrated regulation.
✔✔Basic Psychological Needs (SDT) - ✔✔Ryan and Deci (2000) identified three basic
psychological needs that they contend must be met for any human being to thrive in life:
competence, autonomy, and relatedness.
✔✔Cognitive Evaluation Theory (SDT) - ✔✔Based on the basic psychological needs
theory, the researchers suggest that social and environmental factors play a significant
role in either undermining intrinsic motivation or helping it flourish. Internal locus of
control (autonomy). Finally, when coaches are intentional about displaying interest in
athletes' lives outside of sport, interact with athletes on a frequent basis, and encourage
teammates to care about each other, a sense of relatedness will emerge within a team
and will contribute to athletes' feeling self-determined in their sport.
✔✔Attribution Theory - ✔✔Three general categories of outcome attributions, including
locus of causality (internal or external), stability of the outcome (the likelihood it will
happen again), and locus of control (whether athletes feel they will have control over the
outcome in similar situations). The attribution pattern expected to optimize motivation is
one that leads the athlete to believe that success is likely to occur in the future
✔✔Learned Helplessness - ✔✔Learned helplessness is a phenomenon that occurs
when individuals either fail to exert effort or withdraw effort in situations because they
perceive their effort cannot positively affect the situation. individuals experiencing
learned helplessness perceive that failure is due to their personal limitations or lack of
ability (i.e., internal), they expect similar outcomes in the future (i.e., stable), and their
inability to experience success is perceived to reach widely across other life domains
and activities (i.e., global).
✔✔Self Efficacy - ✔✔
✔✔State Anxiety - ✔✔State anxiety is "the intensity at a particular time of subjective
feelings of tension, apprehension, nervousness, and worry, with associated activation
(arousal) of the autonomic nervous system". State anxiety is believed to be a result of
,the interplay between individuals' trait anxiety, self-confidence, and perceptions of
control in a particular setting
✔✔Trait anxiety - ✔✔Trait anxiety is "relatively stable individual differences in anxiety-
proneness as reflected in the frequency that anxiety states have been manifested in the
past and the probability that feelings of state anxiety will be experienced in the future".
Trait anxiety is believed to be determined, in large part, by disposition and learned
behaviors.
✔✔Inverted U Hypothesis: - ✔✔Depics the relationship between anxiety and
performance. A moderate level of anxiety is hypothesized to facilitate performance,
whereas excessively low or high levels of anxiety are predicted to hinder performance.
✔✔Individual Zones of Optimal Functioning - ✔✔The theory that different people, in
different types of performances, perform best with very different levels of arousal.
✔✔Multidimensional anxiety theory - ✔✔the MAT predict that cognitive anxiety and
somatic anxiety differentially affect performance; they argue that self-confidence also
plays a key role in how one is likely to respond to performance stress. (Think physical
vs. psychological symptoms of stress & anxiety). Somatic anxiety occurs in a U-
shape....however cognitive anxiety has a negative linear relationship with anxiety.
✔✔Cusp Catastrophe Model - ✔✔The cusp catastrophe model, depicting the proposed
impact of various combinations of physiological arousal and cognitive anxiety on
performance. The asterisk indicates the critical point of anxiety-arousal where
performance dramatically decreases. Cognitive anxiety is the splitting factor because it
determines whether performance is on the continuous or the discontinuous portion of
the performance surface. Physiological arousal, in contrast, is considered the
"asymmetry factor" in the model, because it determines how close the performance
surface is to the critical level (of catastrophe).
✔✔Control Model of Debilitative and Facilitative Competitive Anxiety - ✔✔The control
model of debilitative and facilitative competitive anxiety proposed a control model of
debilitative and facilitative competitive anxiety, whereby athletes' beliefs about whether
they have control over goal attainment or their ability to cope with performance stress in
a particular setting will determine whether their view of anxiety is one of facilitative
appraisal or debilitative appraisal.
✔✔Reversal Theory - ✔✔How a person interprets their arousal plays a significant role in
how arousal effects performance. When athletes interpret their arousal as pleasant (i.e.,
relaxed or excited), then it is expected to facilitate performance, and when athletes
interpret their arousal as unpleasant (i.e., boredom or anxiety), it is expected to hinder
performance.
, ✔✔Cue Utilization Model - ✔✔The cue utilization model (Easterbrook, 1959) can be a
helpful framework to help practitioners understand changes in attentional focus when
athletes experience arousal in sport settings. Low arousal, athletes experience an influx
of unhelpful information. As arousal increases, attentional focus is placed on relevant
cues. However, over arousal can cause one to not be able to focus on relevant cues
causing maladaptive thoughts and reduced performance.
✔✔Theory of attentional style - ✔✔Attentional focus ranges in width from broad to
narrow and in focus from internal to external, resulting in four attentional styles—broad-
internal, broad-external, narrow-internal, and narrow-external—that help predict
performance in pressure situations. A broad-external focus helps athletes to assess and
react to multiple stimuli. For example, a point guard would benefit from a broad-external
focus when making a fast break, so that she can read the defense and respond
accordingly. When an athlete is shooting a free throw, a more narrow-external focus
would be beneficial, while a narrow-internal focus would help the athlete get in the right
mental and physical state before shooting.
✔✔Theory of planned behaviour - ✔✔The theory of planned behaviour posits that
behavior is best predicted by intentions about the behavior. These intentions, they
argue, are a product of three factors:
attitudes about the behavior,
subjective norms, and
perceived control.
✔✔Transtheoretical model of behavioural change - ✔✔The transtheoretical model of
behavior change was developed by Prochaska and DiClemente (1983) to describe the
decision-making process and readiness of individuals to engage in health behaviors.
Precontemplation:
Individuals in this first stage are not focused on making a behavior change such as
exercising in the near future (e.g., within the next six months). Individuals may not
perceive the need for change, they may lack motivation, and they may have no intention
of changing. Contemplation
Individuals in this stage are beginning to think seriously about seeking to change a
specific behavior. They may recognize the need or the benefits for the change and
perceive that within the next six months (e.g., after a busy period such as their children
beginning to drive), they may be intentional about beginning this behavior change.
Stage 4
Action
The fourth stage of the transtheoretical model occurs when individuals have engaged in
the behavior change for one to six months (e.g., they have initiated a routine of physical
activity) and intend to continue with the behavior. Stage 5
Maintenance
Individuals reach this stage when they have managed to sustain their efforts at behavior
change for half a year and intend to continue the change into the future. At the
maintenance stage, individuals are also preparing for how to overcome future barriers
that might derail their adherence to the behavior. Stage 6
SET A+
✔✔Mindfulness based therapy - ✔✔"The awareness that emerges through paying
attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally, to the unfolding
experience moment to moment" (Think JKZ). All mindfulness training programs are
relatively new and research is still sparse in the area.
✔✔Acceptance and Commitment Therapy - ✔✔ACT cultivates mindfulness,
acceptance, cognitive defusion, and other strategies to increase psychological flexibility
and promote behavior change consistent with personal values. 6 core processes:
Acceptance, contact with the present moment, defusion, values, commited action, self-
as context,.
✔✔Compassion Focused Therapy - ✔✔CFT helps individuals develop more affiliative
feelings toward themselves, along with a more compassionate inner voice. (Think Neff)
✔✔Dialectical Behavioural Therapy - ✔✔is a specialized cognitive behavior therapy that
was developed by Linehan (1993) to treat people with emotion-regulation problems,
suicidality, and borderline personality disorder. DBT has 4 stages. Can be useful for
athletes who struggle with emotional dysregulation.
✔✔Systems Theory - ✔✔Within systems theory, individuals and groups are viewed as
their own ecosystem with many moving parts that affect each other. Systems theory is
relevant to sports given the multiple systems (e.g., local team, national team, national
sport organization) involved in this context. This therapy can provide a holistic and
comprehensive way of examining and facilitating change at both an individual and group
level.
✔✔Achievement Motivation Theory - ✔✔At the core of Nicholls' theoretical approach
was the concept that, at any point in time, individuals can be either task-involved or ego-
involved.When task-involved, athletes are focused on their personal effort and
improvement in the tasks that they perform. In contrast, athletes can be ego-involved, or
,focused on how their ability and performance compares to others. Based on 3 factors:
Cognitive development level, goal orientations and motivational climate.
✔✔Self Determination Theory - ✔✔This broad theory was developed to describe why
some individuals thrive in life, find activities interesting, seek challenge, and experience
joy, while others do not. Based on three sub theories:Organismic theory,
Basic psychological needs,
Cognitive evaluation theory. SDT is based upon the importance of intrinsic motivation or
extrinsic motivation.
✔✔Organismic integration (SDT) - ✔✔4 level of extrinsic motivation are at the core of
organismic integration. External regulation, introjected regulation, identified regulation,
integrated regulation.
✔✔Basic Psychological Needs (SDT) - ✔✔Ryan and Deci (2000) identified three basic
psychological needs that they contend must be met for any human being to thrive in life:
competence, autonomy, and relatedness.
✔✔Cognitive Evaluation Theory (SDT) - ✔✔Based on the basic psychological needs
theory, the researchers suggest that social and environmental factors play a significant
role in either undermining intrinsic motivation or helping it flourish. Internal locus of
control (autonomy). Finally, when coaches are intentional about displaying interest in
athletes' lives outside of sport, interact with athletes on a frequent basis, and encourage
teammates to care about each other, a sense of relatedness will emerge within a team
and will contribute to athletes' feeling self-determined in their sport.
✔✔Attribution Theory - ✔✔Three general categories of outcome attributions, including
locus of causality (internal or external), stability of the outcome (the likelihood it will
happen again), and locus of control (whether athletes feel they will have control over the
outcome in similar situations). The attribution pattern expected to optimize motivation is
one that leads the athlete to believe that success is likely to occur in the future
✔✔Learned Helplessness - ✔✔Learned helplessness is a phenomenon that occurs
when individuals either fail to exert effort or withdraw effort in situations because they
perceive their effort cannot positively affect the situation. individuals experiencing
learned helplessness perceive that failure is due to their personal limitations or lack of
ability (i.e., internal), they expect similar outcomes in the future (i.e., stable), and their
inability to experience success is perceived to reach widely across other life domains
and activities (i.e., global).
✔✔Self Efficacy - ✔✔
✔✔State Anxiety - ✔✔State anxiety is "the intensity at a particular time of subjective
feelings of tension, apprehension, nervousness, and worry, with associated activation
(arousal) of the autonomic nervous system". State anxiety is believed to be a result of
,the interplay between individuals' trait anxiety, self-confidence, and perceptions of
control in a particular setting
✔✔Trait anxiety - ✔✔Trait anxiety is "relatively stable individual differences in anxiety-
proneness as reflected in the frequency that anxiety states have been manifested in the
past and the probability that feelings of state anxiety will be experienced in the future".
Trait anxiety is believed to be determined, in large part, by disposition and learned
behaviors.
✔✔Inverted U Hypothesis: - ✔✔Depics the relationship between anxiety and
performance. A moderate level of anxiety is hypothesized to facilitate performance,
whereas excessively low or high levels of anxiety are predicted to hinder performance.
✔✔Individual Zones of Optimal Functioning - ✔✔The theory that different people, in
different types of performances, perform best with very different levels of arousal.
✔✔Multidimensional anxiety theory - ✔✔the MAT predict that cognitive anxiety and
somatic anxiety differentially affect performance; they argue that self-confidence also
plays a key role in how one is likely to respond to performance stress. (Think physical
vs. psychological symptoms of stress & anxiety). Somatic anxiety occurs in a U-
shape....however cognitive anxiety has a negative linear relationship with anxiety.
✔✔Cusp Catastrophe Model - ✔✔The cusp catastrophe model, depicting the proposed
impact of various combinations of physiological arousal and cognitive anxiety on
performance. The asterisk indicates the critical point of anxiety-arousal where
performance dramatically decreases. Cognitive anxiety is the splitting factor because it
determines whether performance is on the continuous or the discontinuous portion of
the performance surface. Physiological arousal, in contrast, is considered the
"asymmetry factor" in the model, because it determines how close the performance
surface is to the critical level (of catastrophe).
✔✔Control Model of Debilitative and Facilitative Competitive Anxiety - ✔✔The control
model of debilitative and facilitative competitive anxiety proposed a control model of
debilitative and facilitative competitive anxiety, whereby athletes' beliefs about whether
they have control over goal attainment or their ability to cope with performance stress in
a particular setting will determine whether their view of anxiety is one of facilitative
appraisal or debilitative appraisal.
✔✔Reversal Theory - ✔✔How a person interprets their arousal plays a significant role in
how arousal effects performance. When athletes interpret their arousal as pleasant (i.e.,
relaxed or excited), then it is expected to facilitate performance, and when athletes
interpret their arousal as unpleasant (i.e., boredom or anxiety), it is expected to hinder
performance.
, ✔✔Cue Utilization Model - ✔✔The cue utilization model (Easterbrook, 1959) can be a
helpful framework to help practitioners understand changes in attentional focus when
athletes experience arousal in sport settings. Low arousal, athletes experience an influx
of unhelpful information. As arousal increases, attentional focus is placed on relevant
cues. However, over arousal can cause one to not be able to focus on relevant cues
causing maladaptive thoughts and reduced performance.
✔✔Theory of attentional style - ✔✔Attentional focus ranges in width from broad to
narrow and in focus from internal to external, resulting in four attentional styles—broad-
internal, broad-external, narrow-internal, and narrow-external—that help predict
performance in pressure situations. A broad-external focus helps athletes to assess and
react to multiple stimuli. For example, a point guard would benefit from a broad-external
focus when making a fast break, so that she can read the defense and respond
accordingly. When an athlete is shooting a free throw, a more narrow-external focus
would be beneficial, while a narrow-internal focus would help the athlete get in the right
mental and physical state before shooting.
✔✔Theory of planned behaviour - ✔✔The theory of planned behaviour posits that
behavior is best predicted by intentions about the behavior. These intentions, they
argue, are a product of three factors:
attitudes about the behavior,
subjective norms, and
perceived control.
✔✔Transtheoretical model of behavioural change - ✔✔The transtheoretical model of
behavior change was developed by Prochaska and DiClemente (1983) to describe the
decision-making process and readiness of individuals to engage in health behaviors.
Precontemplation:
Individuals in this first stage are not focused on making a behavior change such as
exercising in the near future (e.g., within the next six months). Individuals may not
perceive the need for change, they may lack motivation, and they may have no intention
of changing. Contemplation
Individuals in this stage are beginning to think seriously about seeking to change a
specific behavior. They may recognize the need or the benefits for the change and
perceive that within the next six months (e.g., after a busy period such as their children
beginning to drive), they may be intentional about beginning this behavior change.
Stage 4
Action
The fourth stage of the transtheoretical model occurs when individuals have engaged in
the behavior change for one to six months (e.g., they have initiated a routine of physical
activity) and intend to continue with the behavior. Stage 5
Maintenance
Individuals reach this stage when they have managed to sustain their efforts at behavior
change for half a year and intend to continue the change into the future. At the
maintenance stage, individuals are also preparing for how to overcome future barriers
that might derail their adherence to the behavior. Stage 6
